The Widening Gyre

I was nursing a bottle of Murphy’s Irish Whiskey, drinking it from the neck of the bottle sparingly, and looking down from the window of my office at Berkeley Street where it crosses Boylston.

It was dark and there wasn’t much traffic down there. Across the street there were people working late in the ad agency, but the office where the brunette art director worked was dark. The silence in my office was linear and dwindling, like an art-perspective exercise. The building was pretty much empty for the night and the occasional faraway drone and jolt of the elevator only added energy to the silence.

I sipped a little whiskey.

When you thought about it, silence was rarely silent. Silence was the small noises you heard when the larger noises disappeared.

I sipped another small swallow of whiskey. The whiskey added a little charge to the silence. Irish whiskey was in fact excellent for thinking about things like silence.

A car came slowly down Berkeley Street and parked up on the curb below my office window by a sign that said TOW ZONE NO PARKING ANYTIME. A bulky man with a large red nose got out. I knew who he was.

Across Boylston Street, on the Bonwit’s corner, a man and woman stood arms around each other waiting for the light to change so they could cross Berkeley. She had her left hand in his hip pocket. He had his arm over her shoulders. Was it love or was she lifting his wallet? The light changed. They crossed. Her hand still in his hip pocket. Love.

Behind me I heard the office door open. I turned away from the window and there was the bulky man with the red nose.

He said, “You Spenser?”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “You know who I am?”

“Fix Farrell,” I said.

“F.X.” he said, “I don’t like that nickname.”

I said, “You want a slug of Murphy’s Irish Whiskey?”

“Sure.”

I handed him the bottle. He wiped the neck off automatically with the palm of his hand and took a slug. Then he handed me back the bottle.

“You a lush?” he said.

“No.”

“I can’t do business with no lush.”

“Wouldn’t that depend on the business?” I said.

Farrell shook his head. “Never mind that shit,” he said. “I woulda heard if you was a lush.”

I had a little more whiskey and offered him the bottle. He took it and drank some more. He had on a light gray overcoat with black velvet lapels and he was wearing a homburg. The hair that showed around the hat was gray. The shirt that showed above the lapels of the overcoat was white, with a pin collar and a rep stripe tie tied in a big windsor knot.

“I had you checked out, Spenser. You unnerstand? I bad my people look into you pretty thorough, and you come out clean.”

“Yippee,” I said.

“We’re going to hire you.”

He gave me back the bottle. What made his nose red was a fine network of broken veins.

“The city council?” I said.

He shook his head impatiently. “No, for crissake, the Alexander campaign committee. We want you to handle security for us.”

“Meade Alexander? The congressman?”

“Yeah. They told me you were smart as a whip. Meade’s running for the Senate, or don’t you read the papers?”

“Only the funny stuff,” I said. “Tank MacNamara, and the City Council proceedings.”

I drank a little more whiskey.

“Sure, sure,” Farrell said, “you want the job?”

“Security,” I said.

“Security. We’ve had some death threats and they’re probably some left wing crackpot, but Browne’s connected, so you gotta pay some attention.”

“Browne? Alexander’s opponent?”

“Yeah, Robert Browne.”

“He’s got mob affiliation?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Farrell said. “Been in the bag for years.”

“And you think the mob’s trying to put a hit on Alexander?”

Farrell shook his head. “No. But you can’t be sure, and we gotta have somebody to handle security anyway. Every campaign has to have security. Why not get the best.”

“A gentleman of discerning sensibility,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. You want the job?”

“Who’s doing it now?”

“Couple of Fitchburg cops on temporary duty to the campaign staff. They’ll stay, but you’d be in charge.”

“Alexander’s from Fitchburg?”

“Yeah.”

“What mob has Browne in its pocket?” I said.

Farrell shrugged. “Who knows?”

“If you don’t know who bought him, how do you know he’s bought?” I said.

Farrell took the bottle from me again without asking and drank. Then he passed it back. I drank a much smaller swallow than he had.

“What the fuck are you, the editor of The Boston Globe? It doesn’t matter what I can prove. We’re talking politics, asshole.”

“You don’t know me well enough to call me pet names, Fix.”

Farrell paid no attention. He looked at his watch.

“What d’ya say. You want the job or no? Money’s not a sweat. We can get together on the money.”

I turned away from Farrell briefly and stared out my window at the dark street and the darkened window of the art director and listened to the sounds of my office. Did I have something better to do? I did not. Could I use the money? Yes. Would it kill time for me better than drinking Irish whiskey and looking out the window? Maybe.

“You have any trouble with Alexander’s politics?” Farrell asked my back. I turned. “I have trouble with everybody’s politics,” I said.

“So what’s the problem?” Farrell said. “No problem,” I said. “I’ll take the job.

Meade and Ronni Alexander were holding hands when I met them. He was tall and sort of rural looking with a good tan. His gray-blond hair was combed straight back. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit of miraculous fiber, a maroon tie with tiny figures, and black boots that closed with a zipper up the side.

His wife was smaller, with long blond hair styled the way Farrah Fawcett used to wear hers. She had very large blue eyes, long eyelashes, a wide mouth, and a small straight nose. Around her neck she wore a black velvet ribbon with a cameo brooch in front. Her blouse was white, pleated, and lacy at collar and cuffs. Her skirt was black; her shoes had very high heels. She smelled of good perfume and looked twenty years younger than her husband. She wasn’t. He was fifty-one. She was forty-six.

We were in their suite at the Sheraton-Boston along with Fix Farrell and the two Fitchburg cops and a guy named Abel Westin, who was Alexander’s media consultant. We all sat down, except Ronni, who got coffee from the room service wagon and began to serve it. I was speculating whether when she wrote her name she dotted the i with a little heart. I thought it was likely.

Alexander accepted a cup of coffee from his wife and said to me, ”Are you a religious man, Mr. Spenser?“

”No.“

”Were you raised in a Christian faith?“

”My people are Irish. I was raised Catholic.“

”But you no longer believe.“

”Nope.“

”Do you believe in almighty God?“

”Why, does he want to hire me?“

Alexander sat back so abruptly that he spilled some coffee.

”Or she,“ I said.

Ronni Alexander got a napkin from the room service table and dabbed at her husband’s trouser leg and at the rug, tucking her skirt carefully under her as she crouched. Alexander patted her shoulder.

”Thank you, Ronni,“ he said, still looking at me speculatively. ”Mr. Spenser, whatever stereotype you have of politicians will not suitably characterize me. I am a Christian. It is the most important thing about me. I believe absolutely in a set of very clear imperatives. I will not at this time debate those imperatives with you. But do not take them lightly. It is in the service of Christ that I run for office, in the interest of implementing those imperatives. This country is desolate and needs to be redeemed.“

I looked at Fix Farrell standing by the window with his hat on. His face remained impassive. Alexander continued.

”I do not require that you be a Christian. But I do require that you understand my faith and its power. We will be together often and sometimes continuously for some time. My wife and I are in earnest.“

Farrell said, ”Okay, Meade, cut the shit. We ain’t hiring him to pray for you.“

”Please be careful of your language, Francis, in front of Mrs. Alexander.“

”Yeah, sure,“ Farrell said. ”But Spenser is what we need in this job. My people checked him out real thorough. Yeah, he’s a royal pain in the ass; but he’s got the stuff. So let’s get to it and stop frigging around.“

Alexander smiled and shook his head slightly. He looked at me a moment.

”Do you have the stuff, Mr. Spenser?“

”So far,“ I said.

He smiled again and nodded. Everyone was silent. Westin looked at his watch. The two Fitchburg cops sat stolidly in their chairs. You don’t have to be a cop long to get good at waiting.

Ronni Alexander said, ”Are you married, Mr. Spenser?“ Her smile when she asked me was very bright.

”No, ma’am.“

”Ever?“

”No, ma’am.“

She kept smiling and nodded as if she had confirmed a suspicion. If I’d been married, I’d have had better manners.

”Do you want me to demonstrate anything?“ I said to Alexander. ”Shoot the wings off a fly? Wrestle a bear? I’m really very skillful for an unmarried agnostic.“

”Funny as hell too,“ Westin said.

”That’s free,“ I said. ”A fringe benefit, when you pay for the muscle.“

”Well,“ Alexander said, ”I’m afraid you’ll do. I don’t quite know why, but you’re rather convincing. Think so, Ronni?“

Ronni did her brilliant smile. ”I think inside he’s really very, very nice. I’ll feel much better with him aboard.“

”Well, I guess you’re hired then,“ Alexander said. ”These gentlemen will brief you. Ronni and I will want to rest for an hour or so before we go to work again.“

Alexander stood up. I stood up. We shook hands. Alexander and his wife went through the connecting door into their bedroom and closed the door behind them.

Abel Westin said to me, ”You got some smart mouth, fella. You damned near blew the job.“

”I know,“ I said. ”My pulse is still pounding.“

Farrell said, ”Okay, okay. We gotta be in Lowell in two hours. You two talk with Spenser. Abe and I got things to do.“

”I told you before, Farrell. My name is Abel, not Abe.“

”Oh, yeah, right. Well, let’s go see about getting a news conference organized.“

Farrell shook hands with me. ”These boys’ll fill you in. Don’t worry about Meade. He believes all that shit, but he’s a stand-up guy, you unnerstand? He’s straight ahead. And you better believe he’s a winner. F. X. Farrell doesn’t climb on the boat with a loser. Right?“

I nodded but Farrell didn’t wait to see if I nodded or not. He jerked his head at Westin and they went out of the hotel room. I turned to the two cops.

They were both young. No more than thirty. One wore a houndstooth check jacket, the other a gray suit.

”You’re Fraser,“ I said to the check jacket.

”Dale Fraser,“ he said. He was clean shaven and balding. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and looked like he might have played guard for a small college basketball team.

The other cop said, ”Tom Cambell.“ He was blockier, with close-cut brown hair and a thick neck. His hands were small and very thick from palm to back. I shook hands with both.

”How do you feel about me coming in?“ I said.

”Relief,“ Fraser said. ”There was too much for two of us.“

”How you been working it until now?“

”I been doing most of the coordination with local law enforcement. Tommy’s been doing most of the bodyguard stuff.“

”Most of the security provided by local cops, I assume?“

Fraser nodded. ”I set it up ahead. Crowd control, screening people at receptions, that stuff. The personal safety, you know, carrying a piece and walking beside Mr. Alexander is our responsibility.“

”We need more people?“ I said.

Cambell said, ”Not really. Now that you’re on. We don’t have to stand outside his door or anything. Dale calls ahead, arranges connecting rooms. He and I sleep next door. I mean ten more guys around him might help, but he won’t stay inside a ring like that anyway. He shakes hands and“-Cambell shrugged-”he’s trying to get elected, you know. You can’t do that from hiding.“

I nodded. ”Okay, let’s leave the set-up as it is. Dale, you keep doing the coordination. Tom and I will share the protection. You need anything, tell me. You have any suggestions, make them. I’m in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me.“

Fraser said, ”Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?“

”Hell, no,“ I said. ”Everybody else does.“

In an auditorium at the University of Lowell, Meade Alexander was explaining where the nation had dropped its molasses jug and why. The room was mostly full. Ronni sat behind him on a folding chair on the stage, her knees and ankles neatly together. Her feet firmly on the floor, her white-gloved hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes riveted on her husband, her interests animated and her expression approving, maybe even adoring.