Sudden Mischief (2 page)

"I ordered us a mess of pan-fried oysters," Hawk said. "Figured you could use the protein."

Jimmy the bartender looked at me and pointed to the Foster's tap. I nodded.

"Been here before?" Hawk said.

"Susan and I come here."

Jimmy brought the beer.

"Irish," Hawk said.

"His name is James Santo Costagnozzi," I said.

"Bad luck," Hawk said. "To look Irish when you not."

"Unless you're trying to pass," I said.

"Nobody trying to pass for Irish," Hawk said.

"Is that an ethnic slur?" I said.

"Believe so," Hawk said.

The pan-fried oysters arrived and we ate some.

"Feelin' stronger?" Hawk said.

"Potent is my middle name," I said.

"Always wondered," Hawk said. "How you doing with Susan's ex?"

"I met him today," I said.

"Umm," Hawk said.

"Umm?"

"Umm."

"What the hell does `umm' mean?"

"Means how'd you feel talking with Susan's ex-husband."

"He seemed like kind of a goofball to me."

"Umm."

"His name was Silverman," I said. "He changed it to Sterling."

"Cute."

We ate some more oysters.

"He's got that sort of Ivy League old money WASP goofiness that they have," I said.

"Silverman?"

"Sterling," I said.

"So he trying to pass."

"I'd say so."

"And succeeding," Hawk said.

"Yes. He's got it down cold. Bow ties, everything."

"Maybe he just like bow ties."

"Who just likes bow ties?" I said.

"Got a point," Hawk said. "How he measure up?"

"To what?"

"To you."

"No better than anybody else."

Hawk grinned.

"'Cept me," he said. "How you feel about him?"

"Something's wrong," I said. "Susan tells me he's at the verge of dissolution. He says he's doing grand and has the office to prove it."

"So somebody lying," Hawk said.

"Right."

"And it ain't Susan."

"Also right."

"How she know he is in a state of near dissolution?" Hawk said.

"Wow," I said. "You talk like an Ivy Leaguer yourself."

"Ah's been practicin'," Hawk said. "How she know?"

"I assume he told her."

"So he either lying to her, or lying to you."

"And he hasn't got much reason to tell her he's going under if he's not," I said.

"'Less he looking for sympathy."

"He's got no reason to," I said. "He's two, three wives past her."

"So why he go tell her his troubles?"

"Well, she's a good one if you need some help."

"How long since he seen her?"

I shrugged. "Maybe twenty years. She was already divorced when I met her."

"And now he decides she's a good listener?"

"Umm," I said.

"'Tha's right," Hawk said.

We were quiet. Someone was playing The Platters on the jukebox. In the corner of the bar up high a hockey game played silently on television. The perfect compromise.

"Maybe knew about you," Hawk said.

"He wanted me he could walk into my office and tell me his problem," I said.

"And you'd do it free?"

I drank a little beer.

"You sound almost cynical," I said.

"Be the ghet-to experience," Hawk said, rolling the word ghetto into two long syllables. "Ah'm fighting to overcome it."

"So he knows about me and he needs help and he figures he can get it for nothing if he goes to Susan and cries dissolution."

"And it worked," Hawk said.

"If you're right," I said.

"Sure," Hawk said. "How you feel 'bout working for Susan's former husband?"

I shrugged. "Water over the dam," I said.

"Sure it is, and it really was the tooth fairy left all those quarters under your pillow."

"Got nothing to do with me," I said.

"That's true. But I know you, some of you, maybe not even Susan know. The hard part. Part makes you almost as good as me."

"Better," I said automatically.

"It ain't no water over no dam for that part," Hawk said.

I finished my beer. Jimmy brought me another pint. " 'Course it's not," I said.

Hawk smiled. "Umm," he said.

"You got that right," I said.

"So you going to help him?"

"I told Susan I would."

"You think this sexual harassment suit be the problem?"

"Be surprised," I said. "But it's a place to start."

"Should we have some more oysters?" Hawk said.

"We'd be fools not to," I said.

Susan came in wearing her subdued professional wardrobe-dark suit, tailored blouse, understated makeup, little jewelry. When she was off duty she dressed far more flamboyantly. But she generated such intensity that dressing up or down made little difference.

Pearl got up at once, took a silk cushion from the wing chair, and carried it around wagging her tail. When Susan got that attended to, she got a bottle of Merlot out of the kitchen cabinet, poured half a glass, and brought it over to the couch. She plopped down beside me, put her feet up on the coffee table, leaned her head over, and kissed me lightly on the mouth.

"Some days are longer than others," she said.

Pearl eyed us speculatively, the pillow still in her mouth, and lay down by the fire and put her head on the pillow.

"Do you understand why she prances around with that pillow?" Susan said.

"No."

"Me either."

"Why was today so long?" I said.

Susan sighed and sipped her wine. It must have been a hell of a day, she took in nearly an ounce at one sip.

"One of the things a therapist runs into is the person who thinks now that they understand why they behave as they do, they are cured."

"And you think there may be another step?" I said.

"Changing the behavior would seem appropriate," Susan said.

"Appropriate," I said.

The logs settled a little in the fireplace. The front logs slid back in toward the back ones, making the fire more intense. I built a hell of a fire.

"The ability to understand doesn't automatically confer the ability to change."

"So people have another whole thing to go through," I said.

"Yep."

"And they don't like it."

"Nope," Susan said.

"And today you had several such people."

"Several."

We were quiet. She drank another swallow of wine and put her head against my shoulder.

"Been here long?" she said.

"No," I said. "I just got here. I had a couple beers with Hawk before I came."

"Pearl been fed?"

"Yep. Back yarded and fed."

"And a fire built," Susan said.

"I'd have started supper," I said, "but I didn't know whether you wanted your broccoli raw or simmered in Diet Coke."

"Umm," she said.

"Gee," I said, "Hawk often feels that way too."

We sat and looked into the fire and were quiet together. I liked it. It wasn't an absence of conversation; it was the presence of quiet.

"Saw your ex-husband this morning," I said.

Susan lifted her head from my shoulder and shifted slightly on the couch.

"Don't call him that," she said.

"Okay. I went to see the artist formerly known as Silverman today."

"And you don't have to be a smartass about it either," she said.

I nodded. This thing showed even more signs of not working out well for me.

"Shall I call him Brad?" I said.

"I really would rather not talk about him at all," Susan said.

"Even though you have employed me to save him."

"I didn't employ you," she said. "I asked for a favor."

It was something she did when she was angry, or frightened, which made her angry; she focused vigorously on the wrong part of the question.

"That's right," I said, "you did."

In front of the fire Pearl got up quite suddenly and turned around three times and lay back down, this time with her back to the fire and her feet stretched out toward us. I wasn't aware that Susan had moved, exactly, but she was no longer in contact with me, and her shoulders were angular again.

"Want some more wine?" I said.

"No thank you."

We sat silently again. The silence crackled. It wasn't quiet now; it was anger. I got up and walked to the kitchen and looked out of Susan's window at the darkness.

"Suze," I said, "what the hell is going on?"

"Am I required to tell you everything about everybody I've ever known?"

"I don't recall asking you to do that," I said.

"Well, don't keep bringing up my marriage."

"Suze, for crissake, you came to me."

"I asked for your help, I didn't ask for your approval," she said.

She was a little nuts right now. She hadn't been until a moment ago. And she wouldn't be in a while. But right now there was no point talking.

"Okay," I said. "Here's the deal. I'll help Brad Sterling and I won't tell you about it unless you ask."

"Good."

"And now, I think I'll go home."

"Fine."

Pearl followed me with her eyes as I walked from the kitchen, and her tail wagged slowly, but she didn't lift her head. I reached down and patted her and went to the front door.

"Good night," I said.

"Good night."

I stopped on my way home to pick up some Chinese food and when I got to my place the message light on my machine was flashing. I put the food, still in cartons, in the oven on low and went and played the message.

Susan's voice said, "I'm sorry. Please call me tomorrow."

I poured a little Irish whisky in a glass with a couple of ice cubes. Scotch and beer were recreational, and now and then a martini. Irish whisky was therapeutic. I stood at my front window and drank the whisky. The apartment was very silent. Outside there was a wind, which was unusual-normally the wind died down at night-and it blew a couple of Styrofoam cups around on Marlborough Street. The argument made me feel lousy, but I'd get over it and so would she-the connection between us was too strong to break. What bothered me more was that I couldn't figure out what caused us to argue. Below me, a woman in a long coat was walking a yellow Lab toward Arlington Street. The dog, eager on his leash, had his head down into the wind. But his tail was moving happily and he sniffed at everything. I took a little whisky. In Susan's anger there was something else besides anger. Under the brisk annoyance was a soundless harmonic that I hadn't heard in a long time. She wasn't afraid of much. And when she was afraid it made her furious. The dog paused at Arlington Street and then crossed when the light changed without any sign that I could see from the woman holding the leash. Something about Brad Sterling scared her. It wouldn't be Brad as Brad. The only thing Susan was ever really scared of was herself. It would have to be something that Brad stood for. If it were someone else, I could ask her about it. But it was her. The dog was out of sight now, in the dark of the Public Garden, probably off leash at this time of night, rushing about tracking rats along the edges of the swan boat pond, having a hell of a time. I drank some more whisky. This thing showed every sign of not working out well for me.

Jeanette Ronan lived with her husband in an important, old, vast, gray-shingled house on the outer side of Marblehead Neck, with the Atlantic Ocean washing up over the brassy rock outcroppings at the bottom of their backyard. There was a low fieldstone fence across the front of the property with short fieldstone pillars on each side of the entrance. The property was hilly and scattered with old trees, still unleaved in late winter. The driveway, which curved up to the right and out of sight behind the house, was covered with red stone dust, and there were a lot of flower beds, inert in the loveless March sunlight. I parked at the top of the hill in a big turn-around, beside a red Mercedes sport coupe and a silver Lexus sedan. There was enough room left over to park a couple of tour buses and a caviar truck.

The house had a wide veranda that wrapped around three sides. I walked up the low steps from the driveway and rang. Through the double glass doors I could see a central hallway, with Persian scatter rugs on the polished oak floor, and bright brass fixtures on the walls. Didn't look like faculty housing to me. A woman with a lot of blonde hair and a good tan walked down the hallway and opened the door. She was very nice looking. I handed her my card.

"Mrs. Ronan?"

"Yes, you're Mr. Spenser."

I agreed that I was and we went in.

"My husband is in the conservatory," she said.

I had made the appointment with her, but I didn't comment. We walked the length of the hallway, which gave me a chance to examine her hip movement in case I ever had to follow her covertly. I wondered if that were sexual harassment. Is there sexual harassment if the victim doesn't know it? If a tree falls in the forest… We turned right at the end of the hallway and went into a glass room. The room overlooked the Atlantic, thirty feet below, and the spray from some of the waves breaking on the rocks spattered onto the glass. The effect was pretty good.

Francis Ronan was having coffee. He put his cup down on the mahogany coffee table and got up from his brown leather arm chair. A copy of the New York Times lay open on the floor beside the chair.

"Mr. Spenser," Jeanette said, "my husband, Francis Ronan."

Ronan was obviously older than his wife, but not much bigger. I put out my hand. Ronan didn't really shake hands. He simply handed you his and allowed you to squeeze it for a moment. He was a thin guy with a bald head and a deep tan. I was running into a lot of tans lately. I tried not to look pallid.

"Coffee?" Ronan said.

"That would be nice," I said.

"Jeanette," Ronan said, and his wife stepped around to the coffee table and poured some coffee from a silver pitcher into a white bone china cup.

"Cream and sugar?"

I said yes and she put some of each into the cup and handed it to me. Apparently I was expected to drink it myself. Ronan nodded at another brown leather chair across from him, and I sat. Jeanette Ronan took a chair to her husband's left. Unless she had a special deal with God, she obviously worked out a lot. And effectively. Ronan studied me over his coffee cup for a time. He wore glasses and it made his eyes seem bigger than they were, though it would have been hard for them to be smaller.

I think I was supposed to shift uneasily in my chair under Ronan's gaze, but I had been gazed at by a lot of people, and I was able to remain calm. I drank some coffee. It was good coffee. Ronan would have good coffee. Below us I could hear the surf. It sounded just right. Ronan would have quality surf. And fine cigars. And a grand home. And the best brandy. And a slick-looking wife. And some dandy white bone china cups to stare over. Finally he took a sip and put the cup down.

"Well," Ronan said. "Go ahead."

"I was hoping to talk with Mrs. Ronan about her sexual harassment suit against Brad Sterling," I said.

"Go ahead."

"Tell me about the sexual harassment," I said.

She smiled courteously and looked at her husband.

"Mrs. Ronan would prefer not to go over that again," Ronan said.

"Did he touch you?" I said.

"You are impertinent, sir," Ronan said.

"That's widely acknowledged," I said.

"It is not a quality I admire."

"What can you tell me about your relationship with Brad Sterling?" I said to Jeanette.

She shook her head before the question was even finished.

"I had no… "

"I am afraid this interview is over," Ronan said.

"Hard to tell," I said.

"Jeanette, perhaps you can excuse yourself," Ronan said.

She smiled and nodded. She stood. I stood. Ronan remained seated. She put out her hand. I took it. It was much firmer and warmer than her husband's.

"Nice to have met you, Mr. Spenser," she said.

"You're just saying that."

Her smile remained polite as she left the glass room. I looked at Ronan. He had poured himself a little more coffee from his silver coffee carafe into his white bone china cup, and was adding a single cube of sugar with a small pair of silver tongs.

"You had no intention of telling me anything," I said. "Why did you agree to see me?"

Ronan made a thin lip movement that he probably thought was a smile.

"I like to get the measure of people," he said.

"And you think you can do it in this amount of time?"

"I believe I can," he said. "And I want them to get the measure of me."

"Sure," I said. "About five foot six. Right?"

"I have no interest in jokes, Spenser. Nor, frankly, any further interest in you. I have learned what I need to know. Granted, you, are physically imposing. You would probably make a good bouncer. But in any way that matters, you are a lightweight. I can reach into every crevice of this state. Should you become an irritant, I can have you squished like an insect. You are way out of your league here, and it would be in your best interest to recognize that."

"Squished?" I said.

Ronan didn't answer. He seemed entirely satisfied with his assessment of me and had nothing to add.

"You college professors are a tough bunch," I said.

Ronan smiled almost indulgently.

"I am at the moment associated with a university," he said. "But surely you know my career."

"Not as well as I will."

Ronan laughed out loud. "Well, really?" he said. "Was that a threat?"

"I guess so," I said. "You are, after all, an annoying little twerp."

I thought Ronan might have colored a little under his tan, but his voice revealed nothing. He stood.

"As I said, you would make a good bouncer. Let me show you the way out."

Driving back across the causeway toward the rest of Marblehead, I wondered what there was in a simple harassment suit to make Ronan lean on me so hard.