Hush Money (13 page)

After the cops left and the bright young sympathetic DA went with them, Dr. Tripp told KC that a social worker would stop by to talk with her in a while. And that Dr. Tripp felt that KC should stay another night. KC nodded. Her crying had dwindled to sniffling. She patted her unswollen eye with a Kleenex and blew her nose and sat up a little higher in the bed.

“Keep that eye cold,” Dr. Tripp said as she went out.

We were alone. I handed KC one of the compresses from the tray on her bedside table. She held it against her nearly closed eye.

“No one here but you and me,” I said. “I won’t tell, you have my word on it, but I have to be sure. You said it was Vincent.”

She started to cry again. Not boo hoo, more sniff sniff, but still crying. She seemed to be hiding behind the cold compress.

“Dip that in the ice water,” I said. “It was, wasn’t it?”

She cried some more.

“Damn it, KC, yes or no? You don’t have to speak. Just nod. You said it was Vincent.”

Nod.

“Thank you,” I said.

We were quiet. She sniffled a little more and stopped.

“Will you kill him for me?” she said.

“No,” I said. “But I’ll make sure he leaves you alone.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.

“I think he’s a little crazy,” she said. “You know how it’s crazy time when a romance breaks up.”

“Um hmm.”

“I can count on you, can’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I feel as if I’ve known you all my life.”

“You haven’t,” I said, “and you’re a little crazy yourself, right now. But you’ll be better.”

“Of course I’m crazy,” she said. “What I’ve gone through. I have a right to be crazy.”

“Of course you do,” I said. “But only for a while.”

The social worker stuck her head around the partly open door.

“Can I come in?” she said.

“Tell her yes,” KC said to me.

“Come in,” I said.

The social worker was a thin-faced black-haired woman wearing round glasses with green rims.

“I’m Amy Coulter,” she said, “from Social Services. Dr. Tripp asked me to come and see you.”

“Sit down,” I said. “I’m leaving anyway.”

“Where are you going?” KC said.

“Home,” I said. “Sleep.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Like esophageal reflux,” I said.

I always tried to make my similes appropriate to the ambiance. Surprisingly neither Amy Coulter nor KC remarked on it. Too bad Dr. Tripp wasn’t there. She’d appreciate my kind of quality medical humor.

“Good to see you up and about,” Susan said. “When I came up from the office and found you I thought you might be dead.”

I poured club soda over the ice in my tall glass, getting it as close to the top as I could, without it being so full I couldn’t pick it up without spilling.

“Did you have a plan for how to deal with that?” I said.

“If you were still dead when I came back from walking the baby,” Susan said, “I was going to call someone.”

I got a bag of Kibbles ‘N Bits dog food out of the cupboard and put a cup and a half’s worth into Pearl’s bowl. I knew it was Pearl’s bowl because it said Pearl in violet script on the outside.

Susan said, “She likes it with cheese, remember.”

I got some shredded cheese out of the refrigerator and sprinkled some over the food and put it down on the floor. Pearl did like it with cheese. She also liked it without cheese, or with sawdust. Susan went into her bedroom, and I sat at the counter and sipped my scotch and soda. Susan came out in a while barefooted, in a dark blue tank top and white shorts, with her hair combed, and wearing fresh lip gloss.

“Got any snacks?” I said. “I appear to have slept through lunch.”

Susan got an elegant wine goblet sort of the color of sea mist from another cabinet and poured some Merlot into it, and took a small sip.

“I have some rice cakes,” Susan said. “And some broccoli sprouts, and…” She got up and opened her refrigerator door and gazed in. “… half a bagel.”

“Gee, a cornucopia,” I said.

Susan had great glassware and wonderful china and beautiful silverware and no food.

“And some shredded cheese, but that’s for the baby…” She closed the refrigerator and opened the cupboard. “… and some bite-sized shredded wheat.”

She turned and looked at me optimistically, as if I might like shredded wheat and broccoli sprouts with my scotch and soda.

“That’s okay,” I said. “We can order out.”

“Chinese?” Susan said.

“Yes, a bunch of everything, and tell them to hurry. In a little while it will be a medical emergency.”

Susan called and ordered a bunch of everything including some broccoli, sauce on the side, and steamed rice. Then she came back and sat across the counter from me and took a sip of her wine.

“What I don’t get,” I said, “is this creep beats her up and rapes her and she won’t tell the cops.”

“But she admitted it to you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that aside, consider it from her perspective,” Susan said.

She was leaning her elbows on the counter holding her sea mist wine goblet in both hands, looking at me over the top of it. I had a fresh drink.

“Okay,” I said, “she leaves her husband for the man of her dreams and the man of her dreams turns out to be an abusive rapist.”

“Bad mistake,” Susan said. “But to report him to the police is to certify that mistake.”

“So?”

“So maybe it means her husband wins and she loses,” Susan said.

“And she’d rather shield her rapist than lose to her husband?”

“It’s not just that she loses, it’s that he has the triumphant gratification of seeing her be humiliated for her own folly. It might be worse for her than rape.”

“So why does she tell me?”

“Because she has to tell someone. Because she needs you to protect her. Because she somehow has learned already that you won’t judge her. Because you may have replaced, what’s his name?”

“Louis Vincent.”

“You may have replaced Louis Vincent as the man of her new dreams.”

“Well,” I said. “You would certainly know what that’s like.”

Susan paid no attention. When she was thinking she was filled completely by the subject of her thoughts.

“And,” Susan said and smiled slightly, “because you knew anyway. And she’d cozy up to you by making you the only one she’d tell.”

The doorbell rang. Pearl went ballistic as she always does when the doorbell rings. I went downstairs and paid for the Chinese food and brought it back up. The smell of fresh delivered Chinese food almost defines anticipation. Pearl barked once at me when I came into the living room before she realized I wasn’t a bell-ringing intruder, then got a whiff of the food and became very focused. I put it on the counter prepared to eat it from the cartons, but of course Susan had set the counter and put out place mats and silverware and a pair of ivory chopsticks for herself. She liked to eat with chopsticks. I did not. Susan served.

“If she won’t tell the cops, of course, this becomes my problem.”

“Oh really,” Susan said.

“What do you mean ‘oh really’?”

“Given what we know about her, and the letter you showed me,” Susan said, “isn’t that exactly what she would want?”

I thought about it.

“Yes,” I said. “But she couldn’t have contrived the rape.”

“No, I’m sure she didn’t. But she has exploited it, consciously or not, to serve what she thinks is her best interest.”

“Which is me.”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m so debonair?”

“Because KC is a cliche. For whatever reasons, she needs a knight to gallop in and save her, and if it’s a debonair one, so much the better.”

“My strength is as the strength of ten…”

“I know,” Susan said. “What did you promise her.”

“What makes you think I promised her anything?”

“Because I have been with you for a very long time, Sir Percival. What did you promise her.”

“That I’d make sure he left her alone.”

“Perfect,” Susan said. “What are you going to do?”

“I spoke with him once,” I said.

“And it didn’t take,” Susan said. “How vigorous are you prepared to be?”

“I gave my word,” I said.

“Perhaps Hawk,” Susan said.

“No. Hawk didn’t give his word. I gave mine. I can’t ask him to do something because I don’t want to do it.”

“No,” Susan said, “I know you can’t.”

We were silent. Pearl put both front paws on the edge of the counter and gazed at the food. I gave her an egg roll and she dropped down and dashed to the couch to eat it.

“Vincent must be in the grip of his own pathologies,” Susan said. “You are able to frighten most people off.”

“I know.”

“You won’t kill him,” Susan said.

It wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“Perhaps you and Hawk could broach the subject to him together.”

I nodded.

“Many white men are more afraid of black men than they are of other whites,” I said. “If he’s one of them we could exploit his racism.”

“My thought exactly,” Susan said.

“Can you do anything to help KC?”

“You mean professionally?”

“Whatever. She sure as hell needs something.”

“I can’t be her shrink,” Susan said. “I’ve known her too long, and I am not, ah, above the fray.”

“You’re not?”

“You may recall a few phrases from the lovely little mash note she stuck in your mailbox: Such as: ‘when you were with me, you might learn things that Susan can’t teach you.’”

“That means nothing to me,” I said.

“It means something to me,” Susan said.

“Are we feeling a little unprofessional jealousy?” I said.

“We are feeling a little unprofessional desire to kick her fat little ass,” Susan said.

I was drinking scotch and soda and eating chicken with cashews and the girl of my dreams was jealous. I smiled happily.

“Spenser,” Hawk said. “Bobby Nevins.”

I stood and came around and shook hands with Nevins. Hawk went to the Mister Coffee machine on top of my file cabinet and began to make some coffee. I looked in the paper bag. There was a large square loaf-shaped something wrapped in aluminum foil.

“Corn bread,” Bobby Nevins said. “Hawk always like corn bread.”

Bobby Nevins was a legend. He’d trained fighters for more than fifty years. All of his fighters could fight. All of them were in shape. None left the ring broke. None were strolling queer street. In a business riddled with charlatans his word was good. Hawk had the coffee brewing and came back and sat down in the other client chair.

“Bobby in town to see about how we doing with his kid,” Hawk said.

I nodded, thinking about the corn bread.

“And I got some things you don’t know ‘bout yet.”

“Would everybody like me to open the corn bread up while the coffee’s brewing?” I said.

“Sure,” Hawk said. “Okay with you, Bobby?”

‘“Course,” Nevins said.

His voice came from deep in his chest and seemed to resonate in his barrel body before it emerged. I unwrapped the corn bread and set it on the unfolded foil in the middle of my desk. It smelled good. From my desk drawer I got a large switchblade knife, which I had once taken away from an aggressive but clumsy drug dealer, and now used as a letter opener. With it I cut three squares of corn bread. Hawk brought over the coffee. I took some corn bread. And chewed it carefully and swallowed it and drank some coffee.

“My compliments to the chef,” I said.

“Always liked to cook a little,” Nevins said. “Now I gotten older got more time. Hawk says this thing about my boy is turning into a hair ball.”

“Hawk’s right,” I said. “Thing is I still don’t know quite why he was jobbed on the tenure thing. It seems like the only thing I can’t find out. Meanwhile I’ve got a murder and some blackmailing – which, as far as I know, has nothing to do with your kid.”

“Anybody paying you for this?”

“Corn bread will do,” I said.

“Ain’t right, you not getting paid.”

“I owe Hawk a favor.”

Hawk snorted.

“
A
favor?”

“A favor or two,” I said.

Nevins nodded. He ate some more corn bread and drank some more coffee. Hawk got up and took Nevins’ cup and refilled it, pouring in a little milk from the mini-refrigerator, stirring in two spoonfuls of sugar. He brought the cup back and set it in front of Nevins on the corner of my desk. Nevins picked it up and took a sip and held the cup.

“Thank you, Hawk,” he said.

Hawk nodded. Nevins looked at me.

“You think Robinson is queer?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t either. Hard thing for a boy to tell his father, I imagine.”

I nodded.

“He’s forty years old,” Nevins said, “ain’t never been married.”

“Hawk and I have never been married either,” I said.

“How you know about me?” Hawk said.

“Who would marry you?”

“Okay,” Hawk said. “You got a point.”

Nevins paid no attention.

“Thing is it don’t matter much,” he said. “Still my son.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I was forty-two when he was born,” Nevins said. “Coulda been his grandfather. His mother was only twenty-three, schoolteacher, fresh out of college. I coulda been her daddy.”

Hawk and I were silent, drinking coffee, listening to Nevins. There was no age in Nevins’ voice, no weakness in him.

“She left when she was thirty.”

“Another man?” I said.

“Another one and another one,” Nevins said. “Probably still going on.”

There was no resentment in Nevins’ voice either, nor remorse, nor anger, nor self-pity, only the sound of retrospection.

“Always sent her money for Robinson, and, I say this for her, she never kept me from seeing him on the weekend. But I know she didn’t like boxing, and I pretty sure she didn’t like me, and I don’t believe she kept quiet ‘bout it to Robinson. So be hard for Robinson to feel real close to me. He was a real smart little kid. He loved to read. He was kind of scared of the fighters. I used to take him to the museum and the public library and places, never read much myself, but I knew that was where his life was going to go. Too bad I didn’t know more about things like that. We could never talk much. Spent a lot of money getting him through Harvard College and all those other schools he went to so he could be a professor, and I think he knows that. Probably could tell his mother he was queer, but I don’t think he could tell me.”

“You want us to find that out?” Hawk said.

Nevins thought about this for a while, sipping his coffee slowly, looking past the cup at the long corridor of time past.

“No,” he said. “Don’t matter.”

We were quiet.

“Tell me ‘bout the murder and blackmail.”

“I’ll tell you what I know,” I said, “and what I’m guessing.”

Which I did.

Nevins didn’t say a word as I talked. His gaze was steady and somehow both benign and stern. When I was through I looked at Hawk.

“You got something?” I said.

“Un huh.”

“Were you planning to share it?”

“Un huh.”

I cut another small piece of corn bread. I had learned from Susan that cutting off one small piece at a time was better for you even if you ate the whole thing one small piece at a time. Hawk got himself some more coffee. He looked at Nevins.

“Bobby?” he said.

Nevins shook his head. Hawk looked at me. I shook my head. Hawk came back and sat down.

“Been watching Walt and Willie,” Hawk said.

He looked at Nevins.

“They the people inherited
OUTrageous
I told you about.”

Nevins nodded. He was nearly motionless as he sat. Time made no difference to him.

“Might be they knew about the blackmail. Might be they carrying it on. So I’m watching them, see what develops.”

“Sneak up on them in the dark better, too,” I said.

“Like you could in a snowstorm,” Hawk said. “Which one is the little blond queen?”

“Willie.”

“He stepping out on Walt,” Hawk said.

“Walt know this?”

“Don’t know. Don’t seem mad when he around Willie. Want to know who he stepping out with?”

“Yes I do.”

“Your friend and mine, Amir Abdullah.”

“Oh ho,” I said.

“Oh ho?”

“Yes. That’s what you say if you’re a top-level sleuth and a clue falls out of a tree and hits you on the head.”

Hawk looked at Nevins.

“Honkies are strange people, Bobby.”

“What’s the clue?” Nevins said.

“The connection between the
OUTrageous
folks and the tenure folks. Amir’s the one who told the tenure committee that Robinson had an affair with Prentice Lamont.
OUTrageous
had a list of possible people to out with your son’s name on it and the phrase ‘research continues.’”

“So what does that mean?”

“Research continues?”

“No, what is the, ah, significance, of all that?”

“Hell, Mr. Nevins, I don’t know. It’s just more than we knew before. And maybe Abdullah got it from Willie, or maybe Willie got it from Abdullah – which would be my guess.”

“Don’t help my son get tenure.”

“Not yet.”

“Strange system,” Nevins said. “Keep you for life or they fire you.”

“I know.”

“Robinson wants to be a professor at the university,” Nevins said.

“We going to get that for him, Bobby,” Hawk said.

I would have been happier if he hedged it a little, but Hawk wasn’t much for hedging.

“I hope so,” Nevins said.

Me too.