Cold Service (13 page)

"The Kodiak Kid?" I said to the Gray Man.

His face moved faintly as if to smile.

"It seems so American," the Gray Man said.

"And now that you're working for us," I said.

"Yes," the Gray Man said. "I wish to be totally American."

"Any progress?" Hawk said.

"I have made contact with the Ukrainian Janissaries. Monday I meet Podolak."

"Quick," I said.

"Strangers in a strange land," the Gray Man said, "like people who speak their language."

Hawk nodded.

"You know," I said, "it's still bothering me that Boots, given the setup he's got now with the Afghanis, would mess around with Tony Marcus's turf. Son-in-law or no."

"It is a very stupid thing to do," the Gray Man said.

"And I can't believe his keeper would approve."

"The Afghan supervisor," the Gray Man said, "could not be so stupid."

I scanned the plaza. At the moment, we were the only living things in sight. When they built the new city hall, some architect had doubtless conceived of this naked brick desert teeming with community. In the center of the desert was the slab-sided monolithic city hall that nestled into what had once been Scolly Square like a rhinoceros at a cotillion.

"Ain't a matter of smart," Hawk said. "Be pride."

"Boots?"

"Boots can't stand being told what to do by some West Asian wog," Hawk said.

"I don't think we call them wogs anymore," I said.

"Too Kiplingesque," Hawk said.

The Gray Man was staring at Hawk.

"Before the Afghani connection kicked in," I said, "he was the boss."

"Now the Afghani supervisor the boss," Hawk said.

"So along came this little deal that makes no sense, and Boots does it anyway."

"To prove that he could," the Gray Man said softly.

Hawk glanced at him.

"So," I said. "You think the supervisor knows?"

"My guess, he don't," Hawk said.

"Because if he did he'd shut down the heroin flow?"

"Yep."

"Which is why Boots doesn't have one of the Ukrainians cap him."

"If the Ukes all actually his," Hawk said.

"But he has his passive-aggressive drama," I said. "I don't have to ask this guy for permission to do everything. This isn't even heroin business. It's mostly making book."

"Passive-aggressive," Hawk said.

"I'm sleeping with a shrink," I said.

"I don't want to hear about it," Hawk said.

"You're quite sure about this," the Gray Man said.

Hawk nodded. The Gray Man looked at me. I nodded.

"All the more reason to find the supervisor," the Gray Man said.

"That sounds like a job for the Kodiak Kid," I said.

The Gray Man's smile was very faint.

"I know you find yourself amusing," he said. "But occasionally I would prefer to amuse myself."

"Hard to imagine," I said. "But your choice."

The Gray Man nodded.

"I will see what I can do," he said, and stood and walked away across the open empty plaza toward Tremont Street.

"Trust him?" Hawk said.

"No."

Hawk nodded.

"Trust Ives?" he said.

"No."

"How about Epstein?"

"He tells you he'll do something, I think he'll do it," I said.

"Would he lie to us?" Hawk said.

"Of course," I said.

"Don't trust Tony," Hawk said.

"And Leonard works for him."

"Obviously can't trust Boots," Hawk said, "or Brock Rimbaud."

"Obviously."

" 'Cept for Vinnie," Hawk said, "it ain't a good assortment of trusty coconspirators."

"Seemed simpler," I said, "right after you got shot."

Hawk nodded.

"Kill a few Ukrainians," he said. "Go back about my business."

"Might have been that way if the guy on Blue Hill Ave had been scared to die," I said.

"Fucked up everything," Hawk said. "Now we're in business, for crissake, with the feds."

"My country right or wrong," I said, "but still my country."

"Yeah, sure," Hawk said. "Why doesn't Ives do some of this himself."

"He's got no domestic operation," I said, "officially."

"And the fucking bureau?" Hawk said.

"They're out pretty straight," I said. "Since nine-eleven. These guys live lives governed by funding. They are limited by statutes and regulations and shit."

"And we ain't," Hawk said.

"That's our charm," I said.

"You think anybody's had a tail on Boots? See if he leads to the supervisor?"

"Sure."

"So there be no point to us doing that," Hawk said.

"How would we even know if we did find him."

"You don't think he be wearing a head cloth and riding a camel?"

"I don't know if Afghan people ride camels," I said.

"We don't know shit," Hawk said.

"Often the case with us," I said.

"And we looking for somebody we may not recognize when we find him."

"Good point," I said.

"We could just kill everybody," Hawk said. "Let God sort 'em out."

"We could."

"And who funds the trust fund for Luther's kid."

"Maybe we could steal everybody's money before we killed them all," I said.

"Plus, you such a goddamned pantywaist," Hawk said, "you probably wouldn't even kill them all."

"I know," I said. "I know. I'm trying to improve."

"And we can't trust anybody we involved with, 'cept Vinnie."

"I know," I said. "I guess it's Let us be true to one another, dear. "

The plaza was always windy. Even on still days, the wind stirred the discard of urban life and blew it around on the bricks.

Hawk grinned.

"Don't call me dear in public," he said.

Showered, dressed, and rapturous with good health, Hawk and I waited in the lounge area for Susan. It took her longer to get rapturous. But when she emerged, she was. Her black hair gleamed. Her makeup was subtle and artistic. Her big eyes shone as they so often did with a sort of challenge. As if she was daring you to keep up with her.

"One of the ladies in the dressing room was complaining that a maintenance man had been caught peeping in."

Hawk glanced around the club at the women working out.

"Present company excluded," he said. "Why he want to do that?"

Susan smiled.

"I assumed it was me," she said.

"Had to be," Hawk said.

Outside, on Atlantic Ave, the dismantling of the elevated Central Artery was in full clamor. We walked a couple of blocks to the Boston Harbor Hotel and sat in the quiet lounge where we could look at the water.

"Brock and Jolene live right over there," Hawk said.

"Is that Tony Marcus's daughter and son-in-law?" Susan said.

"It is," I said. "Caesar and Cleopatra."

"Dumb and dumber," Hawk said.

"That too," I said.

The waitress brought beer for me and for Hawk. Susan had a vodka and tonic with a lime wedge.

"How is all that going?" she said. "Do I dare to ask?"

"Be my impression," Hawk said. "That there ain't much you don't dare."

"So how's it going?" she said.

"You want to tell her?"

"Sure," I said. "Don't hesitate to correct me if I get it wrong."

"Yeah," Hawk said. "You always so grateful, anyone corrects you."

"And gracious," Susan said.

"Shut up," I said, and told her everything I hadn't told her before.

By the time I got through, Hawk and I had each had a second beer, and Susan had already taken a swallow of her vodka and tonic.

"Well my God," Susan said. "You can't trust anyone."

"Vinnie probably okay," Hawk said.

"Except him. I mean, you don't know who is on your side, if anyone, or who is against you, if everyone."

"We noticed that," Hawk said. "We welcome any woman's intuition you want throw at us."

Susan gave Hawk a look.

"Oink," she said.

"Or reasoned analysis," I said.

Susan patted my hand.

"That's my good boy," she said.

Susan stared out the windows for a while at the harborscape.

"Does anyone else in this mess trust anyone?" Susan said.

"No," I said.

"Brock whosis, or Tony, or Boots whatsisname, or Jolene, or the Ukrainians, or the Gray Man-I don't like the Gray Man being involved-anyone?"

"No."

One of the big cruise boats that took people around the harbor while they ate and drank began to ease out of its slip. Several seagulls flew angrily up as it moved.

"Perhaps you could make that work for you," Susan said.

"How," Hawk said.

"I have no idea yet. But there must be a way. There's a way to make everything work."

It was still daylight. But the cruise ship had its inside lights on. They shone through the wide windowed superstructure as the cruise ship moved away toward the mouth of the harbor, its wake spilling astern in smooth curls.

"No one better to figure out how to make use of the situation than you two," Susan said.

"True," Hawk said.

He was watching the boat. His hands rested motionless on the tabletop. I drank some beer and watched the boat, too.

After a while, I said, "We can think of something."

"Yes," Hawk said. "We can."

"We gonna make sure that kid get his money," Hawk said every hour or so.

"We'll do that," I said every hour or so. "We just gotta figure out whose money he is going to get."

"We'll figure it out," Hawk said.

"We will," I said.

We both badly wanted a plan. I wanted one even more badly because Susan had suggested it, and I wanted it to work. In the middle of the afternoon on our second day of deliberations, the Gray Man came silently into the office and closed the door carefully behind him.

"I am in," he said, and sat down on the couch.

"In?" I said.

"The Boots Podolak organization," the Gray Man said. "I am now a member, and have already done them a service which ingratiates me."

"You kill somebody for them?" Hawk said.

The Gray Man nodded.

"They like that," Hawk said. "Nothing like scragging somebody, make people trust you."

"I know," the Gray Man said.

For a moment I felt it. A thing the Gray Man shared with Hawk.

"There's a balcony outside the window of Podolak's office in City Hall," the Gray Man said. "Somebody, some street soldier that's skimming, needs to be punished, Podolak goes out on the balcony. Somebody hands him a.22 target pistol. Podolak sticks it in his belt. Down below, they shove the miscreant out of a cellar door, onto the street, and tell him to run for it. Podolak lets him get halfway up the block and draws, and just before he's going to make it to the corner, shoots him dead center between the shoulder blades at a good hundred yards. Miscreant goes down and Podolak shoots him several more times to be sure. He never misses, I'm told."

"He demonstrated this to you?" I said.

"Yes. It's supposed to impress me," the Gray Man said, "and, of course, to frighten me."

Hawk nodded. He had no expression.

"How far up you think you can get."

"Just below the Ukrainians," the Gray Man said.

"What happen if the Ukrainians go away?" Hawk said.

"I'd be just below Podolak."

"And if he went away," Hawk said.

"I believe I could replace him."

Hawk nodded. He walked to my desk and picked up my yellow pad and stared at the names and notes I had written and crossed out. I'm not sure he saw them.

"Boots doesn't suspect you," I said.

"No. Podolak is not a worldly man. I tell him stories of my adventures in countries he has never been to."

"They true?" I said.

The Gray Man smiled.

"Of course," he said. "Podolak has never traveled. He is very impressed."

"Neither worldly nor smart," I said. "Boots is living testimony to what simple meanness can achieve."

Hawk put the yellow pad down and looked out the window.

"And good aim," the Gray Man said. "But he is more than mean."

"More?"

"He enjoys cruelty and the power that comes from being able to inflict it."

"You know him that well already?" I said.

"I have known him most of my life," the Gray Man said.

Hawk turned back from the window.

"Okay," he said, "we in business."

"You have a plan?" I said.

"I do," Hawk said.

"At least she wasn't in here during," I said to Susan.

"It would not be decorous," Susan said.

"How about postcoital languor with a seventy-five-pound hound on my chest. How decorous is that?"

"We don't wish to exclude her," Susan said.

"We don't?"

"No."

Pearl's head was on my chest, and her nose was perhaps an inch from mine. I gazed into her golden eyes. She gazed back.

"Not a single flicker of intelligence," I said.

"Shhh,"Susan said. "She believes she's smart."

"She's wrong," I said.

"Sometimes illusion is all we have," Susan said.

"Couldn't she settle for being beautiful," I said, "the way I have?"

"Apparently not," Susan said.

We were, all three of us, quiet then. The ceiling in Susan's bedroom was painted green. The walls were burgundy. Her sheets were sort of khaki-colored, and the pillowcases had a small gold trim. I reached around Pearl and held Susan's hand. She turned her head and smiled at me across the dog.

"Shall we have a big Sunday breakfast," she said, "while you tell me what's bothering you?"

"What makes you think something's bothering me?" I said.

Susan tilted her head a little.

She said, "You're dealing with a pro here, pal."

I let go of her hand and patted her belly.

"That's for sure," I said.

"I didn't mean that," Susan said.

I shrugged. Not an easy thing with a dog on your chest.

"What would you like for grub?" I said.

"Could we have apple fritters?"

"If you have the ingredients," I said.

"I have apples."

"Excellent start," I said.

"I don't know what else you need," she said.

"I'll check," I said, and struggled out from under Pearl and on to my feet.

"And put some pants on," Susan said. "I don't want the pity of my neighbors."

"They'd be green with envy," I said.

"Confidence is a good thing," Susan said. "But humor me."

I put on a pair of gym shorts that I kept at Susan's especially for postcoital leisurewear. She had managed to salvage just enough top sheet from Pearl to avoid being nude. I flexed at her.

"Dashing," she said.

I reached over and flipped the sheet off.

"Back at ya," I said.

I think she blushed very slightly, though I'm not sure. I turned and went to the kitchen.

She had apples and bananas and flour, and, amazingly, cornmeal and some oil. I made coffee and started assembling the fritters. I peeled the apples and skinned the bananas and sliced them and tossed each separately in some orange juice to keep them from turning brown. Then I mixed two small bowls of a flour-and-cornmeal batter, put the sliced apples into one and the bananas into the other. If there's plenitude, you may as well exploit it.

Susan came out of the bedroom with some lipgloss on and her hair brushed. She was wearing a short orange silk kimono-looking thing. I was prepared to eat at the counter, or standing up over the stove for that matter, but Susan had other plans. She put a tablecloth on the dining-room table and set it for two, complete with a glass vase of tulips that she brought in from the living room.

"Powdered sugar, honey, or maple syrup?" she said.

"I like syrup," I said.

"I like powdered sugar."

"Put out both," I said.

"God, you're decisive," she said.

I let the oil heat in the pot until it spattered when I sprinkled in water. Then I dropped the fritter batter in carefully, a few at a time, and cooked until I had stockpiled a significant serving of each. Susan drank coffee while I cooked.

When we settled in to eat, Susan said, "So, tell me about it."

"You shrinks are always so cocksure," I said.

"Nice word choice," Susan said. "In the current context."

I shrugged. Susan ate a bite of fritter.

"Wow," she said. "Banana, too?"

"Never a dull moment with Spenser," I said.

"Never," she said.

I had one each fritter with maple syrup and drank some coffee.

"Hawk's got a plan," I said.

Susan nodded and didn't speak.

"It's complicated, and requires people to react as we expect them to, and it will take some doing," I said. "But it's not a bad plan. It might work."

"Can you think of a better plan?" Susan said.

"I can't think of one as good," I said.

"Care to share?" Susan said.

I smiled.

"Sure," I said. "But you have to pay close attention."

"You'll help me with the hard stuff," Susan said.

"Count on me, little lady."

She didn't do anything while I told her but listen. She didn't drink coffee or eat or tap her fingertips together, or frown or smile or move. Susan could listen the ears off a brass monkey. When I got through, she was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, "If it's going to work, a number of people may have to be killed."

"Yes."

"Do you mind if they die?"

"Not too much. These aren't very good people."

"But you mind killing them."

"There are circumstances when I'd be comfortable with it," I said.

Susan nodded.

"But not these circumstances," she said.

"I don't think so," I said.

"You've killed people before," Susan said.

"I always felt I had to."

"But this seems like, what, serial assassination?" she said.

"Something like that."

"And if you walk away?" Susan said.

"I can't walk away."

Susan smiled slightly.

"I know," she said. "The question was rhetorical."

"The problem is not," I said.

I was being churlish and we both knew it, but Susan chose not to comment.

Instead, she smiled and said, "A fine mess you've got us into this time, Ollie."

I nodded.

"This doesn't bother Hawk," Susan said.

"No."

"Or the hideous Gray Man."

"I doubt that either of them has thought about it," I said.

"I wish the Gray Man weren't involved," Susan said.

I shrugged.

"The other day," I said, "I remarked that he was a strange dude, and he said, 'We are all strange dudes. In what we do, there are no rules. We have to make some up for ourselves.' "

"He always said you and he were alike," Susan said.

I nodded.

"Remember in San Francisco? When you and I were separated? And you killed a pimp? Just shot him."

"Yeah."

"Did you have to do that?"

"I had to find you," I said. "I couldn't stay around and protect those two whores from the trouble we got them into. When we left, the pimp would have killed them."

"So you had to kill him."

"Yes."

"To protect the whores from a jeopardy that you caused them."

"I was looking for you."

"So in a sense you did it for me?"

"I guess I thought so," I said.

"You don't lie to yourself," Susan said. "In your world, it had to be done."

I didn't say anything.

"Hawk has to do this," Susan said.

"He does."

"He and you," she said, "for your whole adulthoods, have been a certainty in each other's lives."

Susan ate the rest of her apple fritter, except for the piece she gave Pearl. She drank some coffee and put the cup down.

"In his life," she said, "you may be the only certainty." "May be," I said.

Susan's big, dark eyes seemed intensely alive to me. Pearl rested her long chin on the table, and Susan patted her absently, smoothing Pearl's ears.

"You have to help him," she said.

"I guess I do," I said.