Valediction (5 page)

Still no question.

The bald one said, "So this time you're being told, not asked."

I could feel the quick hot spurt of anger. The exterior and objective part of me was surprised.
Well, well, there is anger in there.

I said, "Is that actually your own hair you've got pasted down over your scalp, or does somebody paint it on for you each morning?"

He flushed. Sensitive. His buddy said, "You are very close to getting yourself in some real hot water, pal."

The anger had enlarged and was working its way up from the pit of my stomach, spreading along my back and shoulders and down my arms. I could feel my face getting hot. I was careful with my voice, easing it out so it was steady.

"This is different business," I said, "from pumping iron. It's a business I'm almost sure to be better at than you are. Don't make a mistake." The muscles in my neck and shoulders were starting to bunch on their own. My whole upper body was tense.

The crew-cut deacon said, "You are going to have to be taught a lesson."

He put his left hand out toward me and I hit him with the back of my right hand as I unfolded my arms. I hit Baldy with the front of the same hand. His sunglasses flew off and the genie was out of the bottle. The energy release was immediate and large. It fed itself and intensified as it enlarged so there was only the welter of fists and elbows and knees and feet and forearms. Only butting heads, only gouging and biting, only force expanding in a kind of ecstasy, a frenzy released.

It was over too soon. A shame in a way to waste the energy. The deacons weren't that good. I stood with my chest heaving and the sweat soaking my shirt, staring at them sprawled on the roadway. I had broken at least one arm, and shattered at least one kneecap. When they woke up they'd be in pain.

"My fuse is awful short these days," I said. "Not your fault."

I got into the car and drove up the gravel drive and stopped in front of the church. Bob Owens was standing in the doorway.

"Your deacons will need medical attention," I said. My breath was still coming in short rasps. "And maybe if I don't find Sherry Spellman pretty soon, you will too." I let the clutch pedal out and the car continued around the circular drive and back out onto Route 114. In the rearview mirror I saw people hurrying toward the road.

The Incredible Hulk doesn't have a girlfriend either.

The deacons had landed a few punches. When I woke up in the morning I had some bruises and my left eye was half shut. My hands were sore. I stumbled out into the kitchen and put ice cubes in a bowl and ran some water and put my hands in to soak. Paul wasn't home. He was in Connecticut with his girlfriend for the weekend. I took my hands out of the ice long enough to start the coffee and squeeze some orange juice and drink it. Then I soaked them some more and held some ice against my eye. I got dressed and poured some coffee and thought about breakfast. That seemed too complicated for me. So I had a corn muffin and drank a lot of coffee and read the
Globe
and the
Times
and half watched
Sunday Morning
on CBS. By 11:30 I was through both papers and felt over-coffeed and there was a Mass being broadcast on TV. It was too early to start drinking. I could go and look over one of the branch churches in Salisbury or West Boylston or Lakeville. Nice choice of locations. No trouble parking at any of thern. I thought about that for a while and found it more complicated than what to have for breakfast. I decided to wait until Monday. I looked at the clock, it was 11:33. There was a ball game on television at two and when that was over it would be late enough to start drinking, and then it would be time for bed. The immediate problem was getting through the next two and a half hours. I went into the living room and looked out the window. That wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped it might be. The phone rang. It was Hawk.

"How are you," he said.

"I'm all right," I said.

"You feel like a date?"

"With you?" I said. "For crissake, you're colored."

"Always figured that bothered you," Hawk said. "So I got a girl in mind for you, she just split with her old man."

"She go for middle-aged thugs," I said.

"She go for me," Hawk said.

"Okay, I'll give it a go."

"She'll meet us tonight, six thirty at the Bay Tower Room. I'll bring Laura."

"The Harvard professor."

"Yeah. Your date's a friend of hers. She say something hard, I explain it to you."

We hung up.
A date. Whoopee. Hope my acne doesn't flare up
. I put on my gun and went downstairs. Bullard Winston's registration number had gotten me his address and it seemed a good way to spend a few pre-date hours on a Sunday afternoon. I walked up Arlington to Commonwealth and then west on Commonwealth toward Kenmore Square. Winston's home was in the block between Fairfield and Hereford, a block and a half this side of Mass Ave. It was a graystone town house and it was elegant. The stairs leading up to the front door were broad marble slabs. There were columns rising three stories to the roof on either side of the entry and the big windows above the entry on floors two and three were as tall as a man and paned with violet glass. The front door was black with a very large brass knocker. The glass panels on either side of the door were also violet. I knocked with the knocker. In maybe thirty seconds the door opened and there was Stewart Granger. He wore dark gray slacks and a white broadcloth shirt with the cuffs rolled up and the collar open. White hair showed at the open collar of his shirt and a small crucifix on a gold chain was around his neck. His thick silver hair was brushed back and his face had a healthy outdoor color. He smelled of bay rum, and his smile was open and honest and full of magnetism. Through the open doorway the air was cool. Central air-conditioning.

I said, "My name is Spenser, Mr. Winston, and I've been assaulted by a couple of your church deacons."

He raised his eyebrows. "Reverend," he said.

"Excuse me. Reverend Winston. I've been assaulted by some of your deacons. The press is after me for details. The police are after me to press charges, my lawyer wants me to sue. But I'd rather talk with you and see if we can't avoid trouble."

"That seems sensible, Mr. . . ."

"Spenser," I said again. "With an S, like Edmund Spenser."

"The poet," he said. "Yes," I said.

"Well, come in," Winston said. "Perhaps we can have a cool drink and a chat and work out whatever seems to be the matter."

"Thank you," I said, and he ushered me in. It was a long high hallway paneled in walnut. We turned right and went into a cool greenish room full of plants. One wall was glass that extended the length of the room and arched up to form a curved glass roof eight feet or so out beyond the room. The floor was polished flagstone and the furniture mostly wicker. There was a small fountain in the glass extension and several of the plants were so tall that they shaded us. The glass was tinted green so the sun didn't penetrate and the air-conditioning could do its work.

"Sit down, Mr. Spenser. A glass of white wine perhaps, or a glass of ale?"

"Ale is fine," I said. I sat in a green-cushioned wicker chair. Winston sat on a wicker sofa, green-cushioned as well, and crossed his legs and touched a button on the end table near his right hand. He was wearing soft burgundy-colored Gucci loafers and no socks. His ankles were tan. A maid appeared in one of those maid outfits that you see in the movies.

"Two glasses of ale, please, Peggy," Winston said. The maid departed. Winston took a long-stemmed briar pipe from a rack on the end table and began to fill it from a leathercovered humidor on the coffee table. The house was very quiet. When Winston got the thing packed to his satisfaction he fired it with one of those little jet flare lighters that pipe smokers use and he was getting a good draw going when the maid came back with two open bottles of Old India Pale Ale on a tray, and two tall glasses. She set the tray down on the coffee table between us and poured some ale into each glass, getting a good head on it, then she left. Winston exhaled some smoke, took his pipe from his mouth, picked up a glass of ale, and gestured at me. I picked up my glass. We both drank. Winston put his pipe back into his mouth, made sure it was going good, and said, "Now, what is this business about assault."

"Well, sir," I said, "I was just sitting in my car outside your founding church grounds up in Middleton and these two deacons came out and attacked me."

"And you had to protect yourself," Winston said.

I nodded.

"You did so successfully," Winston said. "Both men are hospitalized."

I made a sympathetic cluck.

"You had been parked outside there for several days. You had followed our courier vehicles when they went out. Previous to that you were making inquiries about a member of the church community from Mr. Owens."

"That's true," I said. I sipped a little more ale. Bitter. Good title for my memoirs--Bitter Ale.

"Mr. Owens informed you that the young woman was quite well and had sought sanctuary with us. You were unsatisfied, and you were asked to leave."

Winston's voice was rich and pleasant. The smell of his pipe tobacco was rich and pleasant. The house was rich and pleasant. So was Winston.

"Also true," I said.

"So the deacons were asked to make you stop what was viewed as harassment. Strategically that was sound. Tactically it was an error. You were more vigorous in your own defense than we had counted on."

"For my age," I said.

Winston smiled. "And now you are here," he said.

"Persistence."

"Better than skill sometimes," I said.

"I believe that's so," Winston said. "But I am afraid that I must support Mr. Owens. The concept of sanctuary is a very old one, and no church can treat it lightly. I believe that your concern is Miss Spellman's well-being. And I realize that a man like you trusts visible evidence and little else. Would my personal assurance of her happiness and safety suffice?"

"No."

Winston took his pipe from his mouth and held it in his right hand and rubbed his chin with his thumb, the pipe stem pointing obliquely away from him. His ale grew headless on the coffee table.

"What would satisfy you?" "See her, talk with her, alone."

"And perhaps to take her by force and, as the phrase has it so elegantly, de-program her?"

"No," I said. "If she's where she wants to be, she can stay."

"Then I'm to trust you?"

"We'll trust each other. We'll work out a setup where I see her alone, but in view. If she wants to leave, I walk out with her and you can see that it's voluntary. If she wants to stay, you bring her back and I can see that it's voluntary."

Winston puffed on his pipe. He did it expertly and the smoke floated gently away on the cool silent air. He nodded his head and smiled gently.

"It has a nice symmetry," he said. "But why should I agree to it? It is not our normal stance to compromise."

"Because I'll drive you whacko if you don't. I will find her. If she wants out, I will take her out. I'm sort of at loose ends these days, I got nothing else to do, and I am in a state of advanced ill humor. You'll be my hobby, take my mind off my troubles. In short, I will be a dreadful pain in the ass, Reverend, until I have this straightened out."

Winston smoked his pipe some more. "Do you have a business card, Mr. Spenser?" He seemed able to keep the terror out of his voice. I didn't seem to scare people as much as I used to.

I gave my card to Winston.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said. "And discuss what we've decided." He stood up. Dismissed.

We walked to the door. He told me he was glad I'd stopped by. Then he opened the door and closed it behind me. On Commonwealth Avenue I looked back at the house. The porch and the marble steps and the three-story façade with its violet windowpanes were rich and pleasant too. I wasn't.

The Bay Tower Room is not in a high crime neighborhood. It is thirty floors above the city and looks out through floor-to-ceiling glass past the Custom House Tower at Boston Harbor. There is a lot of polished brass and gleaming oak, and an orchestra with a swing era sound. Hawk and Laura were there already. My date was not. Probably still home primping, maybe getting advice from her mom on how far to go on the first date.

Hawk wore a white linen summer suit and a blue and white striped shirt and a white silk tie. A blue show handkerchief poked out of his breast pocket. Laura had creamy skin and red hair. She wore a green summer dress with small white figures in it.

Laura said, "Hello, Edmund." She always called me Edmund, just as she always called Hawk Othello. She probably had cats she called Damon and Pythias.

Hawk nodded at me. I sat down. Laura said, "Katie will be a little late."

I looked around at the room. "Elegant," I said. "Last blind date I had we took a six-pack to the drive-in."

"How are you feeling," Laura said.

"Fine," I said.

Laura put a hand on my arm. "Come on. It will not be good if you keep it all in."

Hawk grinned. "Laura been reading Dr. Brothers again," he said.

Laura ignored him. "How are you really, Edmund?"

I felt a little spurt of anger. "Suspended," I said. "As in suspended animation."

"I think you should talk about it. It will help you."

The waitress came and we ordered.

"I do talk about it," I said. "But not with everyone."

She looked a little startled.

"I talk with him about it." I gestured with my chin toward Hawk. Laura looked more startled. "And with a friend of mine named Paul Giacomin. What I could actually use is practice not talking about it."

"Othello talks?" she said.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" I said.

"Oh," Laura said. "Here's Katie."

Hawk stood. So did I. Katie had skin the color of a gingersnap and black hair worn long and a big charming smile. She was wearing a rose-colored jumpsuit tight at the ankles. Laura introduced us.

Katie said she'd heard a lot about me. I said I hoped she didn't believe most of it. We ordered a round of drinks. Katie asked me what my sign was. Hawk made a funny noise, and put his hands over his mouth and coughed.