Pale Kings and Princes (18 page)

"Blackmail," I said.

She nodded, still staring into the dining room. "And Bailey must have killed him."

"Had to," Hawk said.

Juanita nodded again. "Eric was young," she said. "He wanted to be a hero. He wanted a Pulitzer."

Hawk didn't say anything. Neither did I. Juanita's shoulders hunched. The murmur of the next-door television was all there was to hear.

"So you pointed at Bailey and hoped I'd catch him without you getting involved."

"Yes," her disembodied voice echoed back from the empty room she faced.

"And I didn't catch him," I said.

Juanita didn't say anything. Her back was motionless. The smoke from her cigarette wavered in the air above her head. We waited. Stillness.

Hawk walked softly across the room and past her into the dining room and turned and said gently into her face, "And?"

She swung slowly away from him, rolling slowly toward me with her back against the arch frame. Her eyes were wide and unfocused and her face seemed almost dreamy, as if she wasn't paying much attention to Hawk or me or the intermittent snowfall.

"And I went to Felipe Esteva," she said. "And I told him."

When we went back to Caroline's, we brought Juanita with us. She wasn't exactly bad. But she sure as hell wasn't a force for good, and I wanted her where I could see her. She had no objection. She seemed emotionally dehydrated. When we went in, she wouldn't look at Caroline. She didn't really look at Susan either when I introduced them. Probably shouldn't have said Dr. Silverman.

We were all seated in a funereal circle in the living room. It had started to snow again, a little harder. I thought about Scotch with soda and ice in a tall glass. I thought about another one.

I said, "Okay, we know, but we probably can't prove it, that Bailey killed Eric Valdez because Valdez tried to blackmail Bailey about his affair with Emmy Esteva, and his ties to the coke business. And we know, and might be able to prove, that Esteva killed Bailey after Juanita told him that he was having an affair with Mrs. Esteva. And then he killed Brett to cover his tracks."

"Because you could connect Brett to the cocaine business," Susan said.

"Yes, and I'll bet somebody in the police lab leaked it to him that we were testing the gun that Brett had gotten from him."

"I don't understand that," Caroline said. "Why would he give Brett the gun that killed his own father?"

"This wasn't a business killing," Hawk said. "Have the kid get rid of the gun killed his old man."

"Implicates the kid, too," I said.

"We'll ask him about it," Hawk said.

"Can you make a case out of what you've got?" Susan said.

"You mean a legal case," I said. "I don't know. If Juanita and Caroline tell the state cops all they know, I think we'll get their attention. Juanita tells Esteva about Bailey and Emmy, and shortly thereafter Bailey is shot. There's probable cause there, I think."

"Will I have to testify," Juanita said.

"Everybody will," I said. "Me too."

"Almost everybody," Hawk said.

"Almost," I said.

"And it will all come out," Caroline said. "Bailey and the woman, Brett, everything." I nodded.

"I will be destroyed in my profession," Juanita said.

I nodded again.

"And Spenser," Susan said to her, "whom the police are going to kill?"

"I can't," Juanita said. "It's all I have." Nobody spoke.

"I'm not attractive. And I'm desperately obsessive about men, and I grew up the only Hispanic in an Anglo school district. Juanita Omelet."

I thought about a pitcher of margaritas and a thick glass with salt on the rim: two thick glasses and me and Susan having nachos in L.A. at Lucy's El Adobe out on Melrose Ave. where it would be sunny.

"And now I have two college degrees. I am a professional. I have an office at the hospital. I can't not be that anymore. I would die."

"I don't want anyone to know about Bailey," Caroline said.

I looked at Susan and then at Hawk. "Swell," I said.

"You are not obligated to respect their wishes," Susan said.

"True," I said.

"We needing a plan," Hawk said.

"I'll say."

"How you feel 'bout whacking them out," Hawk said.

"The idea has merit," I said. "Let us consider it."

There was a pause. Hawk and I both looked at the women.

"Want us to go in the kitchen and boil water?" Susan said.

I grinned at her. "Nope. We'll step out there. Care to join us?"

Susan shook her head. "I don't care to know," she said.

"Wise," I said, "as well as winsome. When this is over will you get drunk with me?" "Yes," Susan said.

We had a plan, but it took a little time. Juanita went home, Caroline stayed home. Susan and Hawk and I went back to Boston, in Hawk's car.

"Shoulda got me a cap," Hawk said. "And practiced up saying yassah and opening the car door."

"Leather puttees," Susan said. "I think you'd be simply scrumptious in leather puttees."

"Yasum," Hawk said.

"Are you worried about Juanita?" Susan said to me.

"No," I said.

"She's unstable as hell," Susan said. "She could go straight to Esteva."

"Doesn't matter. Our plan will work either way."

" 'Less of course old Cesar shoot us both in the head when we show up," Hawk said.

"We should avoid that," I said.

"Felice probably the gunny anyway," Hawk said. "Cesar look more hands-on."

"You care to share your plan," Susan said. "It doesn't sound fail-safe."

"Still needs some polishing," I said. "Do you think you can get Caroline a job in Boston?"

"I'm going to talk to a man I know at Widener Library. It would be good, I think, to get her out of Wheaton."

"Maybe she care to try my famous African beef injection," Hawk said.

"Oh, oink," Susan said.

"Yasum," Hawk said.

The snow had stopped and the night sky was clear and black with no moon but a lot of stars. Hawk dropped Susan and me off in front of my place on Marlborough Street about two hours before dawn.

"Be back at noon," Hawk said. "With the van."

"Rent it," I said. "We got enough problems without driving a hot truck."

Hawk smiled and drove away and Susan and I stumbled up to my apartment and fell on the bed and went to sleep without undressing.

Showered and shaved and smelling like an early lilac, I made two phone calls before I left Susan eating whole wheat biscuits and drinking coffee at my kitchen counter when Hawk showed up in a yellow rental van at noon.

"The sour-cherry jam," I said, "is unusually good with those."

"Take care of yourself," she said. "I'll be back," I said.

"I'll be here," she said.

"There is, you know, also a therapy featuring Irish beef . . ."

"I'm familiar," Susan said, "with the treatment."

"Perhaps when I get back ... "

"Certainly," Susan said.

I got the sour-cherry jam from the refrigerator and put it next to her on the counter. And leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. It was a long kiss and when it broke, Susan put her hand lightly on my cheek and we looked at one another for maybe twenty seconds. I smiled. She smiled and I went to the door. I stopped there for a moment and looked back at her. There was nothing to say. So I turned and went.

Despite all the sputtering and fluttering, the snow had amounted to very little. The sun was hard and clear.

"Blizzard coming," Hawk said.

"You feel it in your old bones," I said.

"No, the weather nitwit told me this morning on the tube. We in some kind of hiatus in the storm," Hawk said. "Gonna be snowing like hell this afternoon."

"Hiatus," I said.

We drove to the Harbor Health Club and Henry Cimoli helped us load the two hundred keys of coke into the van.

"You guys having a big party?" Henry said.

"Business." I said.

"That's good. I was feeling left out, you know. Store the stuff in my gym and then don't invite me to the party?"

"Give you a key for your trouble," Hawk said.

"Not me," Henry said. "Willie Pep fucked up my nose as bad as I want it fucked up."

It was still bright when we left Henry and went onto the Mass. Pike from the tunnel on the Southeast Expressway. Hawk was wearing a fur coat over a black turtleneck sweater, leather jeans, and black cowboy boots. We drove due west on the turnpike. By Worcester the sky had begun to darken.

"Weather nitwit right," Hawk said.

"If only he were brief," I said. Hawk nodded.

"You know Esteva scragged Rogers," he said.

I nodded.

"And you know he dumped the kid too," Hawk said.

"Yep."

"But you can't prove it without making the women testify, and maybe not even then."

"Be tough on Caroline," I said. "Be even worse on Juanita."

"Juanita a twerp," Hawk said.

"Good point," I said.

"So you gonna set them up in a situation where you know they going to try and kill you, so you and me can kill them."

"They don't have to try, in which case we nail them attempting to purchase cocaine."

"If Lundquist goes along."

"He'll be okay," I said.

"You think Esteva going to let you get away with selling him back his own blow?" Hawk said.

"No," I said.

"So you figure he gonna try and we gonna out-quick him."

"Yes."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to drive to his place and out-quick him when he's not looking?"

"Yes, but I can't."

"I know you can't. What I don't know," Hawk said, "is why you can't."

"Remember those guys in Maine got busted because they were shooting bears in cages?" I said.

"Didn't get bit by the bear," Hawk said.

"Would you do it?" I said.

"No," Hawk said.

I didn't say anything.

"The analogy sucks," Hawk said.

Ahead of us the sky was very dark and I could see the line where the snow had started to fall again. We were driving straight into it. "Sure." I said.

On Wheaton Road, a hundred yards from the turnpike exit, was a small gray building with a pitched roof. It sold hot dogs and coffee, according to the sign out front. Hawk pulled the van in and stopped next to an Oldsmobile Cutlass parked in front of the store. Lundquist got out of the Olds wearing a sheepskin jacket and jeans and Frye boots. He carried a shotgun. I opened the door and tipped my seatback forward and Lundquist got into the back of the van and sat on the floor.

"I'm on my own time," Lundquist said. "If this doesn't go right that's all I'll have is my own time."

I introduced Hawk.

"Didn't you do some work once for Cliff Caracks in Worcester?" Lundquist said. Hawk smiled and didn't answer.

"Yeah," Lundquist said. "You did, but we could never prove it."

Hawk opened the door on his side and got out and took off his coat. He wore a big .44 magnum under his arm.

"Hand me that bag," he said to Lundquist. "The small one."

Lundquist handed him an Avia equipmentbag. Hawk took a Red Sox warm-up jacket out and put it on. He sat sideways on the driver's seat and took off the cowboy boots and put on a pair of white Reebok high-cut basketball shoes and laced them up. Then he put on a navy watch cap and took a pair of oversize leather mittens out of the bag and put them on the dashboard. He took out a .25-caliber palm-size automatic pistol and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he carefully put the fur coat on a hanger in the back of the van. He put the cowboy boots in the equipment bag, put the bag in the van and got back in, and closed the door.

"The suit of lights," I said to Lundquist. Hawk put the van in gear and we were back out on Wheaton Road. It started to snow, a few flakes and then many. Almost at once we were in a dense, driving snowfall.

"Hiatus is over," I said.

"Good for cutting down on sniper fire," Hawk said.

We went through town and out Route 9, past the Reservoir Court where my shirts and Susan's face and the rental Mustang were still hostage. In another five minutes I said, "Next right is Quabbin. Half mile in on the right is an overlook, pull in there and park."

"If Esteva checks to see that you've got the coke, he'll spot me," Lundquist said.

"He gonna whack us whether we got the coke or not," Hawk said. "He been fucking around long enough."

"So he won't check," Lundquist said.

"If he does," I said, "it'll mean he's not going to take us out."

"He going to try," Hawk said.

We took the turn into the Quabbin Reservation and drove slowly through the blinding charge of snow until we came to the overlook. Normally you could gaze out over the vast reservoir from here and maybe scarf a leftover Polish Platter sandwich and try to see an eagle. At the moment you could see about six inches.

Hawk shut off the motor and turned off the lights. I took the Python off my hip and stuck it in my belt in front. I left my leather jacket unzipped. Hawk took the .25 out of his coat pocket and ran a shell up into the chamber and, with the piece cocked and held in his left hand, he slipped the oversize mitten on. I helped him with the mitten for his right hand.

"Those mittens look pretty dumb," Lundquist said.

"Everybody knows we gets cold easy," Hawk said. "We needs to bundle up."

"That because of your African heritage?" I said.

"Naw," Hawk said. "'Cause we got much bigger dicks than you honkies. More skin surface to keep warm."

Lundquist was slumped back in the corner of the van behind the driver's seat in the dark. I heard him work the action on the shotgun.

"Lundquist," I said, "I know you're putting your ass on the line."

"Yeah, but if it works I'm a corporal Monday," he said.

Hawk and I got out of the van and leaned against the front of it. We left both windows open an inch or so.

The snow coming at us made us squint. My hair was thick with it in a matter of seconds. It wasn't terribly cold, maybe just below freezing, but the wind was driving the snow and it cut into the strip of my upper body that was exposed by my unzipped jacket.