Small Vices (10 page)

"Podium magic," I said to Susan and raised my beer glass toward her in salute.

"Did you think I was good?"

"Wouldn't the term `podium magic' imply that?" I said.

She smiled.

"Okay, I'll be more direct. Say more about how wonderful I was."

"You were profound, witty, graceful…"

"And stunning," Susan said.

"Isn't appraising a woman's appearance a sexist indiscretion?" I said.

"Absolutely," Susan said. "Do I look especially stunning in this dress?"

The dress was black and simple with a short skirt. She did look stunning in it, but it wasn't the dress. She still harbored the illusion that what she wore made a large difference in how she looked. I had years ago given up explaining to her that whatever she wore she was beautiful, and clothes generally benefited from being on her.

"Especially," I said.

Susan was having a martini, straight up, with olives. I was drinking Rolling Rock beer.

"If we had a child it wouldn't have to be icky like Erika," Susan said.

"Not to us," I said.

"I mean, she's had an odd and difficult childhood. No father, and Elayna is a dear friend, but she's a little flappy."

"Boy," I said, "sometimes I have trouble following you when you lapse into professional jargon."

"We might be very good parents."

"Because?"

"Because we're pretty good at everything else, why would we be bad at parenting?"

We were sitting on a little sofa with a small table in front of us. There were two chairs on the other side of the table, but four people would have been a squeeze. I ate several nuts from the bowl in front of me. Susan speared one of her olives on a toothpick.

"Well, what I think is this," I said. "You have kids when you're, say, twenty-five and you spend the next eighteen or twenty years doing little else but bringing them up. And finally you get them old enough and they are out on their own, and you let out the breath you've been holding for two decades and you look around and you're, say, forty-five. You still have a lot of time left to obsess about each other or baseball, or your job, or triple espresso-whatever it is that gets your attention."

"But because we've started late, when you and I reach that point…"

"Children are best had early," I said. "So that you can enjoy them in their adulthood and yours."

"Perhaps we wouldn't have to be so totally involved," Susan said.

I looked at her without saying anything. After a moment she smiled and nodded.

"Of course we would," she said.

A tall man in dark clothes slipped into one of the two vacant chairs at our cocktail table. He was wearing a charcoal suit, a dark gray shirt, and a gray silk tie. His charcoal hair was longish and brushed back on the sides. It was gray. His face was sort of gray sallow, as if he spent a lot of time indoors. His eyebrows were gray and peaked in the center over each eye, which made him seem quizzical. He had a small emerald in his right ear. His hands were strong looking, with long fingers. His nails were manicured and freshly so. They gleamed dully in the bar light. His eyes were dark and his stare seemed bottomless. If I had been a dog, the hair would have risen along my backbone. I could feel Susan's thigh tense against mine.

"I have something to tell you," he said.

His voice was soft and hoarse as if there were something wrong with his vocal cords. But it carried and I could hear him clearly. There was a kind of purr to it, like the low sound of a diesel engine.

"I thought you might," I said.

"I heard you were a tough guy," he said. "I heard they sent a local guy and you took him like he was a head of cabbage."

"Actually they sent four cabbages," I said.

He paid no attention. His deep empty eyes held on me. "Don't let it go to your head," he said. "I ain't a local guy."

He paused and looked carefully at Susan and nodded to himself as if he approved. Then he swung his gaze back at me.

"Drop the Ellis Alves case."

There was no point talking to him. I didn't speak. It didn't bother him as far as I could see. I held his look. That didn't bother him either. He worried about me like he worried about interstellar dust.

After a moment he stood, looked at Susan, looked back at me.

"You both been told," he said.

He turned and walked away. Not slow, not fast, just walking as if he had someplace to go and had decided to go there. I was aware of my heartbeat, and of the fact that I was breathing faster than I had reason to. The muscles in my back were tight, and I realized I was flexing my hands on the table top. Susan looked at me and rested her hand on my thigh.

"My God," Susan said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Is he as scary dangerous as he made me feel?"

"I would guess that he is," I said.

"Did you feel it?"

"Yeah."

"I hated him looking at me," she said.

"Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

"I suppose so," I said. "I don't spend much time thinking about it. I been scared before."

"What are you going to do?"

"First I'm going to see to it that you're safe."

"You think he might attack me?"

"You plan for what the enemy can do, not what you think he will do," I said.

Neither of us commented on the look he'd given her. It had been meant for me to see, and I'd seen it. She was too alert not to have seen it, too. And much too smart not to know what it meant. Susan nodded partly to me, partly to herself.

"He frightened me. I won't fight you on the protection."

"We're both safe until I make another move on the Alves case," I said.

"You can be so sure?"

"What makes him deadly is he says what he means, and he means what he says. It would be his trademark. He warned me off the case. If I'm off, he takes his money and goes home. If I'm not, he kills me."

"Do you know who this man is?"

"Not specifically," I said.

"But you know people like him," Susan said.

"Yeah."

Susan thought about that for a few moments.

"He's like Hawk," Susan said.

"Yeah, he is," I said.

We were quiet. Susan stared off through the doorway where the charcoal gray man had exited. She was slowly turning her barely sipped drink in a small circle on the table top. Then quite suddenly she looked back at me.

"And he's like you," she said.

"Maybe some," I said.

Hawk and I were in there. Hawk put his big gym bag on the floor and looked around. There were thick drapes and an oriental rug, and some ornate furniture and several oil paintings of American landscapes. The fireplace had a big brass fender. Hawk took a shaving kit out of the gym bag and took it into the bathroom.

He paused. The bathroom floor was tiled in some sort of thick, rust-colored tile, and the bath fixtures were Victorian, including an old-fashioned shower ring and a claw and ball Victorian tub. The walls had been painted a tone of the tile and glazed with a thin-over coat that had been dragged. There was an oval gilt-framed mirror over the pedestal sink.

"Place is so elegant," Hawk said, "I be ashamed to take out my shabby equipment in here."

"Or anywhere," I said.

Hawk put the shaving kit on the rim of the sink and came back into the study. The door was open and we could see Susan's waiting-room door across the hall. It was ajar. Beyond it, the door to her office was closed. She was with a patient. Late nights did not change that. Foul weather did not change that. Head colds did not change that. Playoff games or the arrival of Michael Jackson or implied death threats did not change that. Five days a week, Susan saw patients.

"You don't know this guy," Hawk said.

"Nope. Never saw him before."

"Funny, you'd think by now we'd know most of the gunnies around here," Hawk said.

"He said he wasn't local," I said.

"I told Vinnie about him. He don't know him. Tony Marcus don't know him."

"Neither does Quirk," I said. "And there's no one looks like him in the mug books."

Hawk took a Smith Wesson.12-gauge pump gun from his bag and stood it behind the door. Four rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. He put a big Ziploc bag of shotgun shells on the floor next to it. On the other side of the door, out of view of anyone in the hall, he laid a holstered Berretta Centurion, an extra magazine, and a box of 9-mm. shells on the mahogany sideboard. Beside it he put a box of.44 Magnum shells for the elephant gun he carried in a shoulder rig. Then he took a couple of changes of clothes out of the bottom of the bag and put them on the floor beside the couch.

"This thing fold out?" he said.

"Yeah. Take the cushions off, and you'll see the handle."

"Is it comfy?" Hawk said.

"I never slept on it. But I've never found a hideaway that was."

"Be sleeping in shifts anyway," he said and sat on the couch.

"What's the setup?" I said.

"Got me and Vinnie for one shift. Got Belson and the gay guy…"

"Lee Farrell," I said.

"Got Belson and Farrell on the second shift. Quirk say he'll come around when he can, give somebody a break."

"Nice parlay," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Two cops, two robbers," he said. "How'd Belson and Farrell get the time?"

"Farrell say he wants to be in on this. He didn't say why. Belson say, after you got his wife out that mess in Proctor, he owes you and he's going to pay off. They don't like it they can fire him. Quirk don't want to fire him so he assigns him and Farrell on special detail."

"Special detail," I said. "Quirk's got no authority to do that."

"Quirk don't give a shit," Hawk said.

"No, he doesn't," I said. "He never has."

"And Vinnie?"

"You know nobody understands Vinnie. He just say he'll be here until it's over."

I nodded.

"Maybe he likes me," I said.

Hawk grinned.

"Maybe he like Susan."

"More likely," I said. "I want two people always with her. This guy isn't rent-a-slug."

"There'll be me and Vinnie, or Belson and Farrell. Henry say he's going to come around with a gun and sit in, and if he does he'll make three. But I not counting him. He's a tough little bastard, but he can't shoot for shit. We know Belson's good. Quirk will be around some. How you feel about the gay guy?"

"Farrell. He's got a black belt in karate, and Quirk says he shoots better than anyone in the department."

"And he ain't going to grab me by the ass?"

"He promised me he'd try not to."

"What you gonna do?"

"I'm going to go about getting Ellis Alves out of jail."

"What you going to do 'bout the man in the gray flannel suit?"

"I'm hoping to kill him," I said.

"Donald Stapleton," I said.

"Your name, sir?"

"Spenser."

The concierge phoned up, told whoever answered that I was down here, waited maybe a minute and said, "Yes, sir," and hung up the phone.

"Take the elevator to the penthouse," he said.

"Is there anyone else up there?" I said.

"No, sir, the Stapletons occupy the entire floor."

"How nice for them," I said.

The elevator opened into a little black and white marble foyer with a skylight. There was a thick white rug on the floor with a peacock woven into it. The Stapletons' door, directly in front of me, had a glossy black finish. In the center of the upper panel was an enormous brass knocker in the shape of a lion holding a ring in its mouth. Below and to the right was a polished brass door knob. There was a small black table next to the door, with curved legs and pawlike feet. A black lacquer vase with a golden dragon on it sat on a gold-colored doily on the table. A fan of peacock feathers plumed out of the vase, and concealed just behind them was a small functional white doorbell. The door knocker looked too heavy for me. I rang the bell.

A stunning black maid in full maid regalia opened the door. She took my leather trench coat. She would have taken my hat if I'd had one, but I didn't. She ushered me into the living room and left with my coat. I checked myself in the mirror over the immaculate fireplace. In honor of the address I had worn a blue suit and black cordovan loafers with an elegant tassel. I had on a white oxford shirt too, with a nice roll in the button-down collar. I hadn't actually buttoned the top button of the collar. My neck being what it was, I tended to choke. But I had concealed the fact by making a slightly wide knot in my maroon silk tie, and running the tie right up over the top button so you couldn't tell it wasn't buttoned. Susan says you can always tell, but what does she know about neckties?

The room was done entirely in tones of cream and ivory and white. There was a solid bank of picture windows overlooking the park. I was as impressed with the view as I was expected to be, but the rest of the room smacked of interior decorator. There was a child's fire engine, painted with an ivory gloss, on the coffee table. There was a white piano with the black keys painted vanilla. Ordinary things used extraordinarily, the designer had probably said. Extraordinary things restated and personalized. On the side board a pair of pearl-handled Gene Autry autograph toy six shooters lay at careful right angles to each other. I was pretty sure no one had ever eaten a green pepper pizza in this room, or made love on one of the off-white damask couches in this room, or sat around in their shorts in this room and read the Sunday paper. Men in dark expensive suits, with red ties and white broadcloth shirts, might, on occasion, have clinked ice in short, thick highball glasses while they tried to think of conversation to make in this room. Women in tight, long, expensive dresses with pearls that matched the decor might have held crystal flutes of Krug champagne while they gazed blankly out the window at the panorama of the park in this room. Waiters dressed in black tie, bearing small silver trays of endive with salmon roe, might have circulated in this room. And a nanny might, possibly, have walked through this room holding the hand of a small child in a zipped-up snowsuit on his way to be walked in the park on a cold Sunday afternoon, when the light was gray and the sun was very low in the southern sky. I would have bet all I had that the fireplace had never been warm.

A tall lean man with a good tan, wearing a fawn-colored double-breasted suit came into the living room with a blond-haired woman on his arm. She too had a good tan. The woman was wearing high-waisted black pants and a fawn-colored silk shirt with a stand-up collar and the top three buttons undone. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and earrings all in gold, and some with diamonds in them.

"Mr. Spenser," the man said. "Don Stapleton. My wife Dina."

We all shook hands. Dina had big blue eyes. Her hair was thoroughly blond and worn long and curly so that it cascaded down to her shoulders. She had a small waist, and a full figure above and below it. She was maybe forty-five and she looked as if life had been easy for her.

"Let's sit over here by the window," Stapleton said. "We can enjoy the view while we chat."

He carefully hiked up his pants so as not to bag the knee and sat in a white wing chair with a heavy brocade upholstery. She sat on the edge of a white satin straight chair, folded her hands on her lap, and gazed at her husband. Her shoes were sling strap spike heels in the same fawn color as her blouse and her husband's suit.

"As I told you on the phone," I said, "I'm sort of reexamining the circumstances of Melissa Henderson's death."

They both smiled politely.

"Did you know her?" I said.

"No," Stapleton said. He had a firm voice.

"But your son did," I said.

"I have no reason to doubt you if you say so," Stapleton said, "but we have no personal knowledge that he did."

"He never mentioned her to you? Brought her home? Showed you a picture?"

Stapleton smiled patiently, I was just doing my job, it couldn't be helped that I was stupid.

"Clint is a very good looking and popular young man," he said. "He had a lot of girls. He didn't bother to introduce us to all of them."

"He gave this one his letter sweater."

"If so, it was merely one of many he's earned. Clint is a very good athlete."

Dina Stapleton gazed at her husband. She nodded occasionally in support of what he said. She didn't speak.

"Clint appears to be of African descent," I said. "Neither of you appears to be."

"Clint is a chosen child," Stapleton said. "We adopted him when he was an infant. Dina couldn't bear a child and we decided that if we were going to adopt, we should save a little black baby from a life of depravity."

"Of course," I said. "Does either of you know Hunt McMartin or Glenda Baker?"

Dina's expression softened a little, the way it does when you recognize a familiar name.

"Who are they?" Stapleton said.

Dina's eyes flickered a moment and then her face resumed its look of blank admiration. Stapleton put a hand on her knee. I didn't blame him. If I were in a position to do so, I'd have put my hand on her knee, too.

"Hunt and Glenda were the witnesses against Ellis Alves," I said. "The man convicted of murdering Melissa Henderson?"

"Now really, Mr. Spenser, how would we know that?"

"Close-knit family," I said.

Stapleton smiled sadly in recognition of the unbreachable gulf between them and me.

"We are not so close knit that we spend time talking about obscure sex crimes in another city."

I nodded, silently, acknowledging my coarseness. I hadn't mentioned anything about a sex crime.

"What is your business, sir?" I said.

"CEO, the Stapleton companies. I have interests in oil, in banks, commercial real estate, agribusiness, that sort of thing."

He leaned back a little and crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands on the knee. His socks were cashmere, I noticed, and his mahogany-colored shoes were almost as stylish as mine.

"By training I am an attorney, a member of the New York State Bar, and I still maintain my law firm of course, Stapleton, Brann, and Roberts. Clint plans to attend law school after he graduates. Someday he'll run the whole thing."

"And Mrs. Stapleton?" I said.

She smiled at me and looked back at her husband.

"Dina takes care of the home front," Stapleton said.

"You don't know Hunt McMartin or Glenda Baker?" I said.

"No," Dina said. "I'm sorry, I don't."

She had a deep voice like Lauren Bacall. Her makeup was artful. Her face was calm and loving. And I knew she was lying. After another hour of conversation that was all I knew.