Small Vices (20 page)

"What do you think?" Paul said as we studied the menu which the head biker had slapped down in front of us before returning to her real job, intimidating tourists.

"Interesting," I said.

"Does that mean it really is interesting, or is it the kind of interesting like when you see a Jackson Pollock painting and you haven't got a clue and somebody says how do you like it?"

"The latter," I said.

Paul grinned.

"But it's very downtown," he said.

"I think maybe I'm more a midtown guy," I said.

"Food's good," Paul said.

And it was. We had a bottle of wine with it. And we talked. It was fascinating to me to see how at home in this environment Paul was.

"You look good," he said. "Susan told me after you got shot you were down to like 170 pounds."

"I was slim," I said, "but I was slow and clumsy."

"You okay now?"

"Good as new," I said.

"Susan says you and Hawk worked like slaves for almost a year."

"If I'm to pursue my chosen profession," I said, "I can't be slim, slow, and clumsy."

"I suppose you wouldn't pursue it for very long," Paul said, "if you were."

"How's your love life?" I said.

"More like a sex life at the moment," Paul said.

"Nothing wrong with a sex life," I said.

Paul grinned at me again.

"Nothing at all," I said. "Though finally it seems to me that a love life is better."

"If you find a Susan," Paul said.

"True," I said.

"And the Susan finds you."

"Meaning?"

"Her first marriage, for instance, didn't work," Paul said.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning Susan is not a simple woman."

"Not hardly," I said.

"Not everyone could be happy with her," Paul said.

"Maybe not," I said.

"But you can."

I nodded.

"You dating anyone regularly?" I said.

"Three people," he said.

"They know about each other?"

"Of course they do," he said. "Who brought me up?"

"Mostly me, I guess."

"All you," Paul said. "And the psychiatrist you got me. My first fifteen years were without upbringing."

"Well," I said. "We did a hell of a job."

"Me too," he said. "You in town on business?"

"Yeah."

He nodded. Paul never asked about business.

"You okay?" I said.

"Me? Yeah."

"Enough money?"

"Yeah. I still get a check every month from my father. I'm getting a lot of bookings for my choreography, and I've started acting a little. Got a part in a thing called Sky Lark about ten off-offs."

I nodded. Paul looked at me carefully.

"Why do you ask? You never ask questions like that."

"Just wondering."

Paul didn't say anything. He drank some wine, poured some into my glass and some more into his.

"You're all right?"

"Absolutely," I said. "Healthy as a horse, and damned near as smart."

Paul chimed in on the damn near as smart so that we spoke it simultaneously. We both laughed.

"Okay," I said, "so maybe you've heard my act."

"And maybe I know it pretty well," Paul said. "You're worried about something."

"Not worried exactly, just alert to all possibilities. If something happened to me, you could count on Hawk to help you in any way you needed."

"I know."

"And Susan."

"I know that, too."

"And if she were alone, you could be very helpful to her."

"And would be. You and she are the closest thing I ever had to real parents."

"Good," I said. "Can we come down and see you in this play?"

"You don't want to talk about all the possibilities you're alert to," Paul said.

"No."

"Okay."

Paul drank some wine and cut a piece off his sushi-quality tuna steak and ate it. Then he looked at me for a minute and nodded silently.

"Whatever it is," he said, "my money is on you."

"Smart bet," I said.

"Mrs. Utley asked me to give you this," he said.

I opened the envelope and found a piece of matching note paper with the name Attorney Morris Gold written on it, and an address in the East Nineties. Under that was written in the same beautiful script, "You will need a place to receive calls. You may use my home. You know the number."

"Tell Mrs. Utley thank you," I said.

"She also instructed me to offer you any help you might need."

"Thank you, Steven, but I think this will be a solo dash."

He nodded.

"If you decide otherwise," he said, and let it hang.

I nodded.

"I'll go see this guy, then I'll come to the house."

"Very good," he said, and left.

I had no plan. All I had was the name and address of a guy who might get me to the Gray Man, and a Smith Wesson.357 Mag, with a four-inch barrel, which I slipped onto my belt and positioned on my right hip. No machine guns, no siege cannon. This would be a simple deal. Either I'd get him or I wouldn't. No more than a couple of shots would be fired. And they'd be at close range. I put some extra bullets in my shirt pocket and went out of the hotel.

I walked through the park to the art museum and then up Fifth to Ninety-seventh Street and across to the East Side. The address was next to a Spanish grocery store. On the second floor. The door had a pebbled glass window and on it was lettered "Morris Gold, Attorney at Law." The lettering was in gold with a black outline. I went in. The room was barely big enough for a big old gray metal desk and a large swivel chair. Behind the desk was a short very fat man. He wore glasses and a powder blue sport coat, and a dark blue shirt that was too tight around his neck to button. His white tie was narrow and loose and hung crookedly as if he hadn't tied it right. The wider part was shorter than the narrow part. His hair was artificially dark and he wore it long in the back and swooped it up over a large bald spot. On the desk was a computer and a telephone. On the left wall was a file cabinet that matched the desk. Behind him was a window with a crack in it. The overhead light was on. He was reading the Daily News, the paper open flat on the desk in front of him. As I came in he licked his thumb, turned a page, looked at it briefly, then looked up at

"Whaddya need," he said.

"Morris Gold?"

"Yeah."

"I have some work for Rugar," I said.

"Don't tell me what it is," Gold said.

I nodded.

"Who are you?" he said.

I shook my head.

"Who sent you to me?"

I shook my head again.

Gold nodded, and turned and picked up the phone and dialed.

"Guy wants to see you," Gold said. He was silent.

Then he said, "Big guy, beard, wears his hair long, over the ears. Black Oakley shades. Wearing a blue blazer, a white tee-shirt, chinos, and white running shoes."

He listened again.

Then he said, "Okay," and hung up.

"You from around here?" he said.

I didn't answer. Gold nodded with approval, as if he admired reticence.

"You got a phone you can be reached at?" he said.

I gave him Patricia Utley's number.

"Ask for Mr. Vance," I said.

"Okay, somebody will call you at this number at"-he looked at his watch-"two P.M. You got that?"

"Yes."

"You got any questions?"

"No."

"Hasta la vista," Gold said and began to read his newspaper again.

I left without saying anything else. I walked the forty-five blocks back to the hotel. I took off the blue blazer, and the tee-shirt, got a black mock turtleneck shirt and a gray silk tweed sport coat out of the closet and put them on. I took off the chinos and put on a pair of jeans. I left the black Oakleys on the bureau and put on a pair of horn-rimmed Ray Bans. I went into the bathroom and got some hair spray that I'd brought for the purpose, and drenched my hair with it. I combed my hair straight back, being careful to tuck it behind my ears. Then I headed back to Patricia Utley's house and got there at a quarter to two. Steven put me in the library next to a phone, and left me alone. At three minutes past two, it rang.

The voice said, "Mr. Vance."

It was the same voice, deep, flat, disinterested with an internal vibration as if a vast and infernal machine were generating something deep below the surface.

"Yeah."

"Wear what you were wearing this morning. Carry a paperback copy of Hamlet, and stand by the entrance to NBC studios at three-fifteen."

"Okay."

He hung up the phone. I took out the.357 and checked it and put it back. Normally I left the chamber under the hammer empty. This time I had all six rounds in the cylinder. I knew it was loaded. I had reloaded it carefully an hour ago in my hotel room. It was just sort of a practice swing before going to bat. Ritual. I put the gun back and left the strap unsnapped. I made sure my coat was unbuttoned and made a couple of practice draws. Everything was just like it always was. The holster was old and broken in. I'd pulled a gun-often in practice and sometimes for real-enough so that it was as automatic as checking my watch. I did it again. A couple of practice swings. Then I left Patricia Utley's library and went to the front door. Steven was there to let me out. On the front step I turned and put out my hand. Steven took it and we shook.

I went down the steps, turned right, walked the block and a half to Fifth Avenue, crossed to the park, and walked down Fifth Avenue on the park side toward Rockefeller Center. I got there at twenty of three, walked past the skating rink and the statue of Atlas and went into Thirty Rock from the Fifth Avenue side. It was eight minutes to three… I waited behind my Ray Bans just inside the door while my pupils dilated in the diminished light. I didn't see the Gray Man, but I would, and I'd see him before he saw me. He'd be looking for a guy wearing a blue blazer with his hair hanging over his ears. When he'd last seen me I was clean shaven with a crew cut. Now I had a beard and a Pat Riley slick back. He'd only seen me two or three times in his life. And the last time was nearly a year ago. He didn't expect to see me. He thought I was dead… I walked slowly along the lobby toward the NBC studios. There was a steady movement of people in both directions through the lobby. I didn't see them. Everything I had was focused on the Gray Man. He was not at the studio entrance in the pass-through in the middle of the lobby. I kept on going along the lobby, circled it slowly, came back past the studio entrance on the other side of the pass-through. It was 3:15. The foot traffic through the lobby was steady, enough to swell a progress, but no more than that. I had time to look at everybody. And I did, without seeing them. He was the only one I'd see. The rest were so peripheral as to be without meaning, blurred by their inconsequentiality. Amorphous. Their footfalls must have made sound in the black marble space, but I heard nothing, the procession of passersby was spectral and the space through which I walked was soundless and narrow… I circled slowly through the inessential lobby, through the ethereal silent crowd, and he was standing by the shop window across from the passthrough appearing to look at nothing. His gray raincoat was unbuttoned over a gray turtleneck shirt and dark gray slacks. His shoes were black suede with thick gray rubber soles. His thick gray hair swept back smoothly from his face as if it had never been otherwise. He was clean shaven. His skin was still sallow. And deep lines ran from the flare of his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. He still had his earring. His hands were strong and thick and long fingered. His nails were manicured and buffed. He hadn't changed since he'd almost killed me. His face was without expression. His bearing without affect. He was completely still as he waited, looking for a guy carrying a book by William Shakespeare… I looked at him for a while, feeling nothing. Things never stirred the feelings that you have invested in them. Rugar was merely a man in a gray coat looking blankly at the people walking past… I walked past him too, and when I was close I turned and hit him in the face with my left hand and then my right. If you've been a fighter, you have learned how to hit. You know about shortening your arm extension and getting mostly body into the punch. The two punches were good ones. They rocked him back against the black marble wall. His head banged against it. His hand went inside his coat. I pressed my body hard against him, trapping his hand between his stomach and mine. I put my gun up under his chin and pressed the muzzle hard into the soft tissue under the point where his jaw hinged on the right side. With my left hand I got a handful of his hair and banged his head back against the marble wall again. My face was an inch from his. I could see his eyes refocus and the intelligence begin to work in them. He knew me. It hadn't taken him ten seconds to understand what was up. I wanted to keep banging his head. I wanted to bang it until it split open and his life seeped out. But I didn't. It wouldn't get Ellis Alves out of jail. I got the genie far enough back into the bottle to do what I had set out to do more than a year ago. I held him against the wall while I got my breathing under enough control to speak. Around me I was vaguely aware of a lot of scuttling and movement.

"It's me," I said to Rugar. "Lazarus… come back to tell you all."

When he got close enough he said, "Put the gun down."

I said, "I'm a private detective. This guy's wanted for attempted murder in Boston."

"Maybe he is," the cop said. "But I want that gun down on the ground, now."

"Guy's too dangerous," I said. "He's got a gun, left side."

"I'll take care of the gun," the young cop said. "You lay yours down and step away."

"Call Manhattan Homicide," I said. "Detective Eugene Corsetti. My name's Spenser."

"First put down the piece," the cop said.

He was in a shooter's stance now, gun held in both hands, steady on my back.

"Don't drag this out," I said. "You aren't going to shoot until you know the deal. Call Corsetti."

Rugar started to speak and I jammed the gun barrel harder up under his jaw hinge. His head was bleeding. Blood smeared the marble wall behind him.

"Not a sound," I said.

Two more cops came hot-footing it in from the Fifth Avenue end and I could hear sirens in the distance.The black cop was silent for a moment. Then as the other two cops arrived he spoke to them.

"Got a hostage deal here. Guy with the gun wants to talk to Corsetti at Manhattan Homicide. Call it in."

The three cops stayed in a circle around me, pointing their guns at me while one of them talked into the radio mike clipped to his lapel. As he talked some of the sirens stopped outside while others called in the distance. Cops, mostly uniformed, came pouring into the building wearing bullet-proof vests. The circle of pointing weapons enlarged. I kept a firm hold on Rugar's hair and a continuing pressure on his underjaw with the barrel of my gun. It was probably uncomfortable for him. I didn't care. And he didn't flinch. And that's how we stayed while more cops arrived and the crowd milled apprehensively trying to see, trying to stay safe in case there was shooting. Some of the cops started working at the crowd.

The crowd got bigger and harder to control. Here and there people yelled, "Shoot him." I didn't know if they were talking to me or the cops. There were more sirens. More cops. More flack jackets. Fewer uniforms. More plainclothes. More crowd. The media arrived. Cameras. Tape recorders. Note pads. Somebody popped a flash bulb and a uniformed cop slapped the camera down and jawed at the camera man. A woman with a television camera was on the shoulders of a big sound guy trying to get a clear shot of the scene. The young black cop had relaxed into his shooter's stance, his gun still steady, his eyes still steady on Rugar and on me. There were five other cops ringing us, in the same stance. A rangy white-haired police captain with a bright red Irish face arrived. He told me to stay calm, and we'd all wait for Corsetti. Then he turned his attention to making sure there was no way for us to run. He ordered some guy in civvies to check the lines of fire so that if the cops had to shoot they wouldn't hit a civilian. He instructed other subordinates to get the crowd the hell out of the way. The subordinates weren't having much luck. The crowd got bigger. There was a lot of horn beeping outside and more sirens and then through the mob walking the way cops walk, a little arrogant, a little careful, a lot of I'm-on top-of-this, came Detective Second Grade Eugene Corsetti. I had met him ten or eleven years ago when I was looking for a kid named April Kyle, and since then when I had time on my hands in New York, I'd go have a beer with him. Corsetti was a short guy, maybe five feet seven or eight, with a body like a bowling ball and an eighteen-inch neck. He had on a dark blue Yankees warm-up jacket and a white dress shirt open at the neck. As far as I knew, all his shirts were worn, of necessity, open at the neck. His natural cop swagger was enhanced by his build so that he almost rolled from side to side as he pushed through the crowd and slid with surprising delicacy through the perimeter of shooting-stance cops. He put his own hand gun into Rugar's ribs and grinned at me.

"Film at eleven, buddy."

"Gun on his belt," I said. "Left side."

Corsetti nodded. I stepped away and handed my gun to the young black cop. Corsetti flipped Rugar's coat open and took out a 9mm Berretta and dropped it in his coat pocket. With his eyes on Rugar he spoke over his shoulder.

"This guy's legit, captain."

He reached with his left hand to the small of his back and got a pair of handcuffs off his belt and handcuffed Rugar.

"We can take them over my place," Corsetti said, "and get statements."

The captain nodded.

"Sergeant, clear us a path," he said.

Then he pointed a finger at the young black cop.

"You come too," he said.

Corsetti and I took Rugar through a corridor of onlookers and press toward the Fifth Avenue end of the building. We were behind a phalanx of cops the captain had designated to clear an egress. Behind me came the young black cop and four guys in plainclothes that had arrived with Corsetti. Behind us a uniformed employee of Rockefeller Center was already cleaning Rugar's blood off the wall with some Windex and a roll of paper towel.

Outside Thirty Rock on the little side street behind the statue of Atlas, where the limos normally let people off for television interviews, there was a mosh of police vehicles and behind them the mobile units of television stations, spilling out onto Forty-ninth and Fiftieth streets, blocking crosstown traffic back beyond the Delaware Water Gap. There was a bank of cameras set up along the far side of the street and Corsetti turned toward them and smiled as we moved toward his car.

"Eugene Corsetti," he yelled, "Detective second grade, NYPD."