Mortal Stakes (20 page)

”Yeah, I am, but as they say in all the movies, Bucky, I’ll be back.“

”Ah wouldn’t if ah were you. Ah can’t restrain Lester too much more.“

”Well, do what you can,“ I said. ”I don’t want to kill him.“ Maynard opened the door. He’d never taken his hand off the knob.

”Hey, Spenser,“ Lester said, ”I got something you haven’t seen before.“ He put his hands behind his back and brought them back out front. In his right hand was a nickelplated automatic pistol. It looked like a Beretta. ”How’s that look to you, Mr. Pro?“

I said, ”Lester, if you point that thing at me again, I’ll take it away from you and shoot you with it.“ Then I stomped out. The door closed behind me and I headed for the street.

Outside, the wind was hotter and stronger. I drove home in such a funk that I didn’t even check the skirts on the girls, something I did normally as a matter of course, even on still days. Across the street from my apartment was a city car, and in it were Belson and the cop named Billy.

I walked over to the car. ”You guys want something or are you hiding from the watch commander?“

”Lieutenant wants you,“ Billy said.

”Maybe I don’t want him.“

Belson was slumped down in the passenger seat with his hand over his eyes. He said, ”Aw knock off the bullshit, Spenser. Get in the car. Quirk wants you and we both know you’re going to come.“

He was right, of course. The way I felt if someone said up I’d say down. I got in the back seat. In the two minutes it took us to drive to police headquarters no one said anything.

Quirk’s office had moved since last time. He was thirdfloor front now, facing out onto Berkeley Street. With a view of the secretaries from the insurance companies when they broke for lunch. On his door it said COMMANDER, HOMICIDE.

Belson knocked and opened the door. ”Here he is, Marty.“

Quirk sat at a desk that had nothing on it but a phone and a clear plastic cube containing pictures of his family. He was immaculate and impervious, as he had been every other time I ever saw him. I wondered if his bedroom slippers had a spit shine. Probably didn’t own bedroom slippers. Probably didn’t sleep. He said, ”Thanks, Frank. I’ll see him alone.“

Belson nodded and closed the door behind me. There was a straight chair in front of the desk. I sat in it. Quirk looked at me without saying anything. I looked back. There was a traffic cop outside at the Stuart Street intersection and I could hear his whistle as he moved cars around the construction.

Quirk said, ”I think you burned those two studs up in Saugus.“

I said, ”Uh-huh.“

”I think you set them up and burned them.“

”Uh-huh.“

”I went up and took a look early this morning. One of the MDC people asked me to. Informal. Doerr never fired his piece. Wally Hogg did, the magazine’s nearly empty, there’s a lot of brass up above the death scene in the woods, and there’s ricochet marks on one side of the big rock. There’s also six spent twelve-gauge shells on the ground on the other side of the rock. The shrubs are torn up around where the M-sixteen brass was. Like somebody fired off about five rounds of shotgun into the area.“

”Uh-huh.“

”You knew that Doerr was gunning for you. You let him know you’d be there and you figured they’d try to backshoot you and you figured you could beat them. And you were right.“

”That’s really swell, Quirk, you got some swell imagination.“

”It’s more than imagination, Spenser. You’re around buying me a drink, asking about Frank Doerr. Next day I get a tip that Doerr is going to blow you up, and this morning I was looking at Doerr and his gunsel dead up the woods. You got an alibi for yesterday afternoon and evening?“

”Do I need one?“

Quirk picked up the clear plastic cube on his desk and looked at the pictures of his family. In the outer office a phone rang. A typewriter clacked uncertainly. Quirk put the cube down again on the desk and looked at me.

”No,“ he said. ”I don’t think you do.“

”You mean you didn’t share your theories with the Saugus cops?“

”It’s not my territory.“

”Then why the hell am I sitting here nodding my head while you talk?“

”Because this is my territory.“ The hesitant typist in the outer office was still hunting and pecking. ”Look, Spenser, I am not in sorrow’s clutch because Frank Doerr and his animal went down. And I’m not even all that unhappy that you put them down. There’s a lot of guys couldn’t do it, and a lot of guys wouldn’t try. I don’t know why you did it, but I guess probably it wasn’t for dough and maybe it wasn’t even for protection. If I had to guess, I’d guess it might have been to take the squeeze off of someone else. The squeezee, you might say.“

”You might,“ I said. ”I wouldn’t.“

”Yeah. Anyway. I’m saying to you you didn’t burn them in my city. And I’m kind of glad they’re burnt. But…“

Quirk paused and looked at me. His stare was as heavy and solid as his fist. ”Don’t do it ever in my city.“

I said nothing.

”And,“ he said, ”don’t start thinking you’re some kind of goddamned vigilante. If you get away with this, don’t get tempted to do it again. Here or anywhere. You understand what I’m saying to you?“

”Yeah. I do.“

”We’ve known each other awhile, Spenser, and maybe we got a certain amount of respect. But we’re not friends. And I’m not a guy you know. I’m a cop.“

”Nothing else?“

”Yeah,“ Quirk said, ”something else. I’m a husband and a father and a cop. But the last one’s the only thing that makes any difference to you.“

”No, not quite. The husband and father makes a difference too. Nobody should be just a job.“

”Okay, we agree. But believe what I tell you. I won’t bite this bullet again.“

”Got it,“ I said.

”Good.“

I stood up, started for the door and stopped, and turned around and said, ”Marty?“

”Yeah?“

”Shake,“ I said.

He put his hand out across his desk, and we did.

No ONE DROVE me home. It’s a short walk from Berkeley Street to my place, and I liked the walk. It gave me time to think, and I needed time. A lot had happened in a short while, and not all of it was going my way. I hadn’t thought it would, but there’s always hope.

It was afternoon when I got home. I made two lettuce and tomato sandwiches on homemade wheat bread, poured a glass of milk, sat at the counter, and ate and drank the milk and thought about where I was at and where the Rabbs were at and where Bucky Maynard was at. I knew where Doerr and his gunner were at. I had a piece of rhubarb pie for dessert. Put the dishes in the dishwasher, wiped the counter off with a sponge, washed my hands and face, and headed for Church Park.

It was in walking distance and I walked. The wind was still strong, but there was less grit in the air along Marlborough Street, and what little there was rattled harmlessly on my sunglasses. Linda Rabb let me in.

”I heard on the radio that what’s‘isname Doerr and another man were killed,“ she said. She wore a loose sleeveless dress, striped black and white like mattress ticking, and white sandals. Her hair was in two braids, each tied with a small white ribbon, and her face was without makeup.

”Yeah, me too,“ I said. ”Your husband home?“

”No, he’s gone to the park.“

”Your boy?“

”He’s in nursery school.“

”We need to talk,“ I said.

She nodded. ”Would you like coffee or anything?“

”Yeah, coffee would be good.“

”Instant okay?“

”Sure, black.“

I sat in the living room while she made coffee. From the kitchen came the faintly hysterical sounds of daytime television. The set clicked off and Linda Rabb returned, carrying a round black tray with two cups of coffee on it. I took one.

”I’ve talked with Bucky Maynard,“ I said, and sipped the coffee. ”He won’t let go.“

”Even though Doerr is dead?“ Linda Rabb was sitting on an ottoman, her coffee on the floor beside her.

I nodded. ”Now he wants his piece.“

We were quiet. Linda Rabb sipped at her coffee, holding the cup in both hands, letting the steam warm her face. I drank some more of mine. It was too hot still, but I drank it anyway. The sound of my swallow seemed loud to me.

”We both know, don’t we?“ Linda Rabb said.

”I think so,“ I said.

”If I make a public statement about the way I used to be, we’ll be free of Maynard, won’t we?“

”I think so,“ I said. ”He can still allege that Marty threw some games, but that implicates him too and he goes down the tube with you. I don’t think he will. He gets nothing out of it. No money, nothing. And his career is shot as bad as Marty’s.“

She kept her face buried in the coffee cup.

”I can’t think of another way,“ I said.

She lifted her face and looked at me and said, ”Could you kill him?“

I said, ”No.“

She nodded, without expression. ”What would be the best way to confess?“

”I will find you a reporter and you tell the story any way you wish, but leave out the blackmail. That way there’s no press conferences, photographers, whatever. After he publishes the story, you refer all inquiry to me. You got any money in the house?“

”Of course.“

”Okay, give me a dollar,“ I said.

She went to the kitchen and returned with a dollar bill. I took out one of my business cards and acknowledged receipt on the back of it and gave it to her.

”Now you are my client,“ I said. ”I represent you.“

She nodded again.

”How about Marty?“ I said. ”Don’t you want to clear it with him or discuss it? Or something?“

”No,“ she said. ”You get me the reporter. I’ll give him my statement. Then I’ll tell Marty. I never bother him before a game. It’s one of our rules.“

”Okay,“ I said. ”Where’s the phone?“

It was in the kitchen. A red wall phone with a long cord. I dialed a number at the Globe and talked to a police reporter named Jack Washington that I had gotten to know when I worked for the Suffolk County DA.

”You know the broad who writes that Feminine Eye column? The one that had the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard last year?“

”Yeah, she’d love to hear you call her a broad.“

”She won’t. Can you get her to come to an address I’ll give you? If she’ll come, she’ll get a major news story exclusively. My word, but I can’t tell you more than that.“

”I can ask her,“ Washington said. There was silence and the distant sound of genderless voices. Then a woman’s voice said, ”Hello, this is Carol Curtis.“

I repeated what I’d said to Washington.

”Why me, Mr. Spenser?“

”Because I read your column and you are a class person when you write. This is a story that needs more than who, what, when, and where. It involves a woman and a lot of pain, and more to come, and I don’t want some heavy-handed slug with a press pass in his hatband screwing it up.“

”I’ll come. What’s the address?“

I gave it to her and she hung up. So did I.

When I hung up, Linda Rabb asked, ”Would you like more coffee? The water’s hot.“

”Yes, please.“

She put a spoonful of instant coffee in my cup, added hot water, and stirred.

”Would you care for a piece of cake or some cookies or anything?“

I shook my head. ”No, thanks,“ I said. ”This is fine.“

We went back to the living room and sat down as before. Me on the couch, Linda Rabb on the ottoman. We drank our coffee. It was quiet. There was nothing to say. At two fifteen the door buzzer buzzed. Linda Rabb got up and opened the door The woman at the door said, ”Hello, I’m Carol Curtis.“

”Come in, please. I’m Linda Rabb. Would you like coffee?“

”Yes, thank you.“

Carol Curtis was small with brown hair cut short and a lively, innocent-looking face. There was a scatter of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and her light blue eyes were shadowed with long thick lashes. She had on a pink dress with tan figures on it that looked expensive.

Linda Rabb said, ”This is Mr. Spenser,“ and went to the kitchen. I shook hands with Carol Curtis. She had a gold wedding band on her left hand.

”You are the one who called,“ she said.

”Yeah.“

”Jack told me a little about you. It sounded good.“ She sat on the couch beside me.

”He makes things up,“ I said.

Linda Rabb came back with coffee and a plate of cookies, which she placed on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Then she sat back down on the ottoman and began to speak, looking directly at Carol Curtis as she did.

”My husband is Marty Rabb,“ she said. ”The Red Sox pitcher. But my real name is not Linda, it’s Donna, Donna Burlington. Before I married Marty, I was a prostitute in New York and a performer in pornographic films when I met him.“

Carol Curtis was saying, ”Wait a minute, wait a minute,“ and rummaging in her purse for pad and pencil. Linda Rabb paused. Carol Curtis got the pad open and wrote rapidly in some kind of shorthand. ”When did you meet your husband, Mrs. Rabb?“

”In New York, in what might be called the course of my profession,“ and off she went. She told it all, in a quiet, uninflected voice the way you might read a story to a child when you’d read it too often. Carol Curtis was a professional.

She did not bat one of her thick-lashed eyes after the opening sentence. She asked very little. She understood her subject and she let Linda Rabb talk.

When it was over, she said, ”And why are you telling me this?“

Linda Rabb said, ”I’ve lived with it too long. I don’t want a secret that will come along and haunt me, later, maybe when my son is older, maybe…“ She let it hang.

Listening, I had the feeling that she had given a real reason.

Not the only reason, but a real one.

”Does your husband know?“

”He knows everything.“

”Where is he now?“

”At the park.“

”Does he know about this… ah… confession?“

”Yes, he does,“ Linda said without hesitation.

”And he approves?“

”Absolutely,“ Linda said.

”Mrs. Rabb,“ Carol Curtis said. And Linda Rabb shook her head.

”That’s all,“ she said. ”I’m sorry. Mr. Spenser represents me and anything else to be said about this he will say.“