Cold Service (11 page)

"Do you guys have any plan at all?" she said.

Hawk smiled at her.

"Was thinking of getting drunk," he said. "First time since I got shot."

"I've never seen you drunk," Susan said. "Do you get witty and elegant, like my honey does?"

"Never been that drunk," Hawk said.

In honor of the conversation, I took another swallow of my Blue Label and soda.

"Well," Susan said, "before you are, tell me a little more about Marshport."

Hawk's grin widened.

"You gonna help us?"

Susan had returned to drinking white wine. Her favorite was now Riesling. She drank a very small amount of it. We were at one end of the bar, sitting at the turn, with Susan between us.

"You think you have to be some sort of big ugly thug to think about things like this?" Susan said.

Hawk studied his champagne cocktail for a moment.

"Big handsome thug," Hawk said, without looking up.

"That's what I meant," Susan said. "As far as I can tell, you know what you want to do up there. But have no idea how to do it."

Hawk looked at me. I shrugged.

"You know how to do it?" I said.

"No," Hawk said. "You?"

"No."

I looked at Susan.

"Step right up, little lady," I said.

"What if I actually help you?" Susan said.

"Be humiliated," Hawk said. "But we work through it."

"All right," she said. "Bear with me, while I review."

The bar was crowded. There was a small space next to Hawk, but no one crowded into it. An attractive woman stopped to speak to Susan. Susan introduced us. The woman's name was Chris Lannum.

"We do Pilates together," Susan said.

"The rest of us just struggle to keep up with Susan," Chris said.

She smiled and moved on toward her table. As she went she gave Hawk a fast appraisal. On the Cambridge bar scene, Hawk is somewhat atypical.

"You want to kill the Ukrainian men who shot Luther and his family."

"And me," Hawk said.

"And you wish to destroy the entire Ukrainian mob structure in Marshport. Root and branch, so to speak."

"So to speak," Hawk said.

"In addition," Susan said, "you wish to provide a lifetime of financial security for Luther's surviving child."

"Yes."

"Currently," Susan said, "you are in an uneasy alliance with Tony Marcus, who, on behalf of his daughter and son-in-law, is in an uneasy alliance with… what's that man's name?"

"Boots," I said. "Boots Podolak."

She nodded.

"Do you wish to kill Boots?" she said to Hawk.

"Yes."

"If you kill Boots, would you eliminate one candidate to fund the Gillespie boy's trust fund?"

"Yes," Hawk said.

"Is there any other source?" Susan said.

"Tony got jing," Hawk said.

"Would he or Podolak voluntarily invest it in the child?"

"No."

"You'll have to force it."

"Yes."

Susan paused to drink some wine. At her table across the room, Chris Lannum threw her head back and laughed at something. The room was quite amazing, with a vast, high ceiling, a fireplace, and elegantly over-the-top dйcor. Good place to drink. On the other hand, there were few bad places to drink.

"Some of what you want you can accomplish with relative ease, of course. We all know you can kill the Ukrainians and Podolak."

"Anybody can kill anybody," Hawk said.

"But that wouldn't eliminate the Marshport mob, and it wouldn't do anything for the Gillespie child."

"Name's Richard," Hawk said.

"Richard," Susan said.

She looked at me.

"The Gray Man is involved," she said.

I nodded.

"Do you trust him?"

"No."

"Do you think he's up to something?"

"I have no idea," I said. "It would just be foolish to trust him."

"And you have established contact," Susan said, "with the man married to Tony's daughter."

"Brock Rimbaud," I said. "Daughter's name is Jolene."

"Brock Rimbaud is his real name?"

"Don't know," I said. "My guess would be he invented it. He's that kind of guy."

"And how can he help you?" Susan said.

"Don't know," Hawk said. "Just keep poking around, see if something flies out."

"And the police are no use to you," Susan said.

"No," Hawk said.

"This has to be you," Susan said.

"Maybe a few friends," Hawk said.

Susan nodded. She drank more Riesling.

"Of course you know I hate this whole enterprise," she said.

Hawk and I both nodded.

"But you'll do what you're going to do," she said, "so I might as well help as best I can." She paused. "I know far too much about shrinkage and life to try psychotherapy at the bar, drinking white wine."

"Oh, good," Hawk said.

Susan smiled.

"But you need to understand that you are in unfamiliar territory here. You have always in the past known what to do. It may have been a hard, dangerous thing. But you're good at that, and you alone had to accept the consequences of doing it or not doing it."

Hawk nodded at me.

"Ain't so different than him," he said.

"There are similarities," Susan said. "But here you have Cecile to think about, and Richard Gillespie, and Tony Marcus and his daughter are in here somewhere, and one thing you want to do contradicts another thing."

"I hate when it do that," Hawk said.

"And no one," Susan said. "Not even you, can go through being shot and nearly dying and spending days in the ICU and weeks in the hospital without being affected. You're smart enough to know that."

Hawk and I looked at each other. It had happened to both of us and we both knew she was right… about both of us.

"So, how that affect my plans?" Hawk said.

"More than anything, it makes it harder for you to have one. For maybe the first time in your, ah, professional life, you are being pushed by emotion."

"Spenser ain't got no plan, either," Hawk said. "He ain't being pushed by emotion."

"But he won't impose. You know him nearly as well as I do. He will stay with you, let you run it, go where you want to go."

Hawk nodded.

"He do that," Hawk said.

"He do that with me, too," Susan said. "It drives me fucking crazy."

"Gee," I said, "I was liking it better when we were talking about Hawk's problems."

Susan smiled.

"Of course," she said. "And it's very decent to be that way, but sometimes it's not useful. You need to know what you know, what you don't know, and what you have to know. And you need to have it in mind. You need to know what part of what you want to do can be done now, and what needs to wait, and what it needs to wait for. Is there anything you don't understand in this situation? Anything missing?"

I drank some scotch. Susan looked at me. Hawk looked at me. The bartender looked at me. I gestured for another round. No one said anything. I looked at Chris Lannum over at her table, having a nice time. The bartender came with the fresh drinks. I finished my first scotch just in time.

"Okay," I said. "Thing's been bothering me from the moment his name popped up. Boots Podolak. He's nasty. But he's got no stature. And he's dumber than a candlepin."

"You wonder why he's the big boss in Marshport," Susan said.

"Yeah. Boss Tweed he ain't."

"You think maybe somebody proppin' him up?" Hawk said.

"Be something to find out," I said.

"I been so busy thinking 'bout killing him…"

"Be a place to start," I said.

"Would," Hawk said. "Might be nice to find out for sure what happened to that lawyer, Duda, that went to Miami."

"Would," I said. "Might be wise to talk with Rita Fiore, know what arrangement we could actually make for Luther's kid."

Hawk nodded and grinned at Susan.

"See, tole you we could help you," he said, "we put our mind to it."

Susan smiled back at him and put her hand on top of his.

"I'm very grateful," she said.

"Sure," Rita said. "We can set up an escrow account for this kid and it can be funded by anybody that wants to."

"Confidential?" Hawk said.

"Sure."

"Who manages it?" Hawk said.

"I do criminal law," Rita said, and smiled, "so I'm at ease with you guys. But I don't do stocks and bonds. I'll have it managed by one of our stocks-and-bonds people."

"I want you," Hawk said.

"And I want you too, darlin'," Rita said. "But it's not in your best interest to have me manage the thing. I could lose money on insider trading. What I can do, though, is I'll godfather it. It will scare the hell out of the stocks-and-bonds people, and they'll give the account especially good service."

The waiter brought Rita a fresh martini. Up, with olives. The classic. No pink drinks or flavored vodka for Rita. An old-fashioned girl. She took a happy sip.

"This is unlike you, Hawk," Rita said.

"Sometimes I jess let it all go," he said.

"Mr. Soft Heart, here"-Rita nodded toward me-"I'd expect it. But you?"

"Boy's an orphan," Hawk said.

"You have something to do with that?" Rita said.

"I was supposed to protect his father," Hawk said.

"Ah," Rita said. "When you got shot."

"You keepin' track," Hawk said.

"I am a great track keeper," she said. "And you're doubly interesting; great potential as a sex partner, and very likely to need a first-rate criminal lawyer."

"One-stop shopping," Hawk said.

"And top of the line," Rita said.

Hawk grinned.

"Keep it in mind," he said.

"You feel responsible for this little boy?" Rita said.

"Yes."

"What could you have done?"

"Kept his father from getting killed."

"Hell, Hawk," Rita said. She leaned forward slightly, as if, for the moment, she seemed to have forgotten her libido. "They shot you in the back; how can it be your fault?"

"I ain't supposed to get shot in the back."

"For crissake," Rita said. "You're a man, like other men. You can be hurt. You can be killed."

"Ain't supposed to be like other men," Hawk said.

Rita looked at him for a moment.

"Jesus," she said. "It must be hard being you."

Hawk was quiet for a time, then he smiled at her, which was nearly always a startling sight.

"Worth it, though," he said.

His name was Nathan Epstein. He was thin and balding, with round, dark-rimmed glasses and pale skin. He didn't look like an FBI agent. In fact, he didn't look like much of anything. But he was smart, and I had heard that he knew how to shoot.

"Why are you interested in Boots Podolak," he said.

"You don't need to know," I said.

Epstein nodded.

" 'Course I don't," he said. "I don't need to know anything you know. And you don't need to know anything I know."

Epstein took a forkful of limestone lettuce and stuffed it in his mouth and chewed vigorously. I looked at my lobster stew for a moment.

"Do I hear a quid pro quo being asserted?" I said.

Epstein chewed his lettuce and swallowed it.

"You do," he said.

I nodded.

"We want to take him down," I said.

"We?"

"Me and a friend of mine."

"Friend who was almost shot to death last year?"

"Yes."

"Blames Boots?"

"We know Boots had something to do with it," I said. "You been keeping tabs on us?"

Epstein grinned at me.

"We don't like Boots, either," he said.

"You've been keeping tabs on Boots," I said.

Epstein pointed at me in affirmation.

"And up we popped," I said.

"You and Hawk," Epstein said.

"So what can you tell me?"

"You first," he said.

"Off the record," I said.

"You expect to engage in criminal activity in this venture?" Epstein said.

"Just being careful," I said. "It is possible that Hawk might, unknowingly, violate a federal statute."

"I work for the federal government," Epstein said. "I am not unfamiliar with criminal activity."

"Good point," I said. "So, off the record?"

Epstein nodded, and chewed some more lettuce. I told him the part about Hawk and the Ukrainians, and Hawk getting shot, and us dismantling Boots's operation to even things up. I trusted Epstein. I'd worked with him before. I told him about Tony Marcus and Brock Rimbaud, and the adventures we'd had in Marshport. Epstein listened silently while he ate his salad.

"I heard there was a Ukrainian guy got himself popped over on Blue Hill Ave a while ago."

"People are often popped on Blue Hill Ave," I said.

"Most of them aren't Ukrainian."

"Well," I said. "Not all of them, certainly."

"You and Hawk in on that?"

I smiled.

"I'll take that as a yes," Epstein said.

The waiter brought him some broiled scallops. Epstein started on them at once. I continued with my lobster stew.

"You talk to Ives at all?" Epstein said.

"Ives?"

"Yeah. You talk with him?"

"Why would I talk with Ives?" I said.

Epstein shrugged.

"I know you know him," Epstein said. "Got the Ukrainian connection. Ives is on the foreign side of things."

"You been in touch with Ives," I said.

"Yes."

"So you know I talked with him, because he told you."

Epstein stabbed a scallop with his fork and disposed of it.

"Well, since you put it that way," he said. "Yes."

"We needed a tough guy that spoke Ukrainian," I said. "I figured Ives would be a better source than Berlitz."

"He gave you the Gray Man," Epstein said between scallops.

I sat back and put my spoon down.

"Rugar," I said.

"His name changes more often than his appearance," Epstein said. "I always call him the Gray Man."

"He speaks Ukrainian," I said.

"He speaks a lot of things," Epstein said.

I nodded. Epstein finished his scallops.

"They still got Indian pudding here?" he said.

"I think so."

"Love Indian pudding," he said.

"Isn't that nice," I said.

The waiter cleared the table. Epstein ordered Indian pudding with ice cream. I had coffee. Men in suits and women in skirts came in and went out. The huge polished urns behind the service counter gleamed. The window next to us looked out on Winter Place, which was far too small an alley to live up to its name. Cold spring rain made all the surfaces in Winter Place gleam pleasantly. The waiter came back with coffee and Indian pudding. A scoop of vanilla ice cream sat on top of the pudding. Epstein looked at it happily.

"You don't like Indian pudding?" he said to me.

"I do. But not right now."

"Guy your size," Epstein said. "You don't eat enough."

I nodded. Epstein poked the ice cream with a spoon.

"Too hard," he said, and put the spoon down. "Give it a little time."

Epstein sat back a little and sipped some coffee. He was in no hurry. He was never in any hurry. He had all the time he needed. He'd get to where he was going when he needed to. I was getting tired of waiting for him. Which I knew was also a tactic. What would I say to get him talking? When in doubt, go with what you do best. I shut up. Epstein tested his Indian pudding again, nodded to himself, and took a bite.

"Boots Podolak took over the business of running Marshport," he said, "from his father, whose name was Holovka Podolak, who came to Marshport after a long time in the Russian mob and scratched out a living in the Ukrainian neighborhood, known as Strashnyy, which is, by the way, Ukrainian for 'horrible.' Holovka scratched so good and so often that eventually, in the late seventies, he took the city away from the Micks, who had taken it away from the Yankees."

"It's mostly black Hispanic now," I said.

"It's been black Hispanic for forty years," Epstein said. "But not at the top."

"Gee," I said.

"Holovka was mean and smart and had a lot of, ah, Eurasian connections," Epstein said.

He shoveled in some more pudding.

"And when he passed it on to Boots, the whole thing should have fallen apart, because Boots is a poster child for gene-pool dilution, but Holovka had made an alliance with an Afghani warlord."

"In Afghanistan?" I said.

"You think there are Afghani warlords hanging around pool halls in Marshport?" Epstein said. "Yes, an Afghanistan-based Afghani warlord."

He grinned and went back to his Indian pudding. I waited, drinking my coffee, watching him finish it off. I wondered if the name was politically correct. Shouldn't it be Native American pudding?

"Opium," I said.

Epstein nodded his head in a congratulatory way.

"Doesn't take you long," he said. "Podolak is the exclusive East Coast, U.S.A. distributorship for an Afghani warlord named Haji Haroon."

"Where'd the connection with Holovka come from?" I said.

"We don't know. We're guessing his father established it before he came to Marshport. We think he spent time there, maybe in his Russian mob days. The Soviets were there for a long time."

"And didn't it work out good for them," I said.

Epstein smiled.

"Opium's kind of bulky," I said.

"Too bulky for distant export like this," Epstein said.

"So Haji ships heroin."

"Exactly right," Epstein said. "And nicely alliterative."

"Does Haji supply, ah, management expertise?"

"He does."

"Afghani?"

Epstein shrugged.

"We don't know," he said.

"But you know there is somebody keeping an eye on Boots."

"We are convinced. Boots couldn't do this alone. And the Afghans don't trust members of another tribe, let alone some American of Ukrainian descent ten thousand miles away."

"So there's somebody."

"There has to be."

"So the Ukrainians are muscle."

"Yes."

"And there's an Afghani supervisor."

"Has to be," Epstein said.

"But we don't know who or where."

"Exactly," Epstein said.

I was quiet for a minute, watching Epstein enjoy his lunch.

"With that kind of setup," I said, "why is Boots trying to move into other turf?"

"We wondered about that, too," Epstein said. "Now that I know about the Marcus family involvement, I'd say there are two probable reasons. One is: The opportunity presented itself when Tony wanted to help his son-in-law."

"And number two," I said. "Boots is stupider than a ballpeen hammer."

"Indeed," Epstein said.

"So what about the supervisor?"

"Maybe he's not so smart, either?" Epstein said.

"Or maybe," I said, "since the fix was in with Tony, they figured it was free money."

"Everyone likes free money," Epstein said.

"So," I said. "I see your interest. What's up with Ives?"

"We talk to one another more since nine-eleven."

"Wise," I said. "But I was asking what Ives's interest is."

"You'll probably need to ask him," Epstein said.

"I probably will."

Epstein drank the last of his coffee, looked sadly at the empty pudding dish, and pushed his chair back.

"Thanks for lunch," he said.

"I gather I'm paying?"

"How nice of you to offer," he said.

"I'm very patriotic," I said.