Cold Service (12 page)

Hawk arrived at my office before anyone else. I had not talked with him yet about my discussion with Epstein. I wanted first to discuss it with Ives. But I had a sense that the Gray Man might be more, or less, than he seemed to be.

"There's not a lot of time before the others get here," I said to Hawk. "But don't say any more than you have to in front of the Gray Man."

"Like I usually say more than I have to in front of anybody?" Hawk said.

"Gray Man's interests may not fully coincide with ours," I said.

"I'm shocked," Hawk said.

Vinnie came in with Leonard.

"You got coffee?" Vinnie said.

"I'm making it," I said.

And began to.

"Sinkers?" Vinnie said.

I reached behind my desk and plonked a box of Dunkin' Donuts on my blotter. Vinnie opened the top and looked in and nodded as if I had vindicated myself again.

"Nice working with you," Vinnie said.

He sat beside Leonard on the couch across the far wall and waited for the coffee to brew. My office door opened again and the Gray Man came in carefully, wearing his showy trademark outfit of gray suit, tie, shirt, hair, and eyes. There was nothing special about my office. I knew the Gray Man entered everywhere carefully. He sat on a straight chair to the left of my desk, turning the chair so that his back was not to Vinnie or Leonard… or the door. The coffee brewed. We all had some. I put the donuts in the middle of my desk, and people helped themselves at will.

"Do you have any scones?" the Gray Man said.

I shook my head. The Gray Man had a moment of disapproval and then had a donut instead.

"So how many buttons we gotta push," Vinnie said, "to put these people out of business."

"Don't know yet," Hawk said. "Tony got any thoughts, Leonard?"

"No," Leonard said pleasantly.

He was wearing a light-blue suit with a lavender shirt and tie. The tie probably cost more than my full attire. His neck was muscular above the Windsor collar.

"Spenser?" Hawk said.

"The town is locked up tight," I said. "There's a newspaper, the Marshport Call. Boots owns it. There's a radio station, WMAR, which is owned by a woman named Lucille Davidoff. Lucille is Boots's sister. Boots has run unopposed in the last four mayoral elections. There is no police union, the cops belong to Boots. Everywhere Boots goes, some Marshport cops go with him. The inner circle is Ukrainian, most of them Ukrainian nationals."

"Which be where Mr. Gray Man be useful," Hawk said.

The Gray Man looked vaguely self-effacing. It was a little hard to tell what he was thinking without close observation. His expression rarely changed.

"We could pop them one at a time," Vinnie said.

"We gonna pull the whole thing down," Hawk said. "We may pop some and we may pop them all, and we may do it one at a time, and we may do it all at once. But we gonna pull it down and they gonna know it was me that done it and they gonna know why and they gonna leave behind a trust fund for Luther Gillespie's kid."

"You have a plan?" I said.

"I just gave you the plan."

"Besides that," I said.

"No."

"Swell," I said. "How about we spray-paint UKRAINIANS SUCK on prominent buildings?"

"If I may," the Gray Man said. "The strategy is sound-take over the city. What we need are"-he glanced at me and smiled faintly-"additional tactics to accomplish the strategy."

The Gray Man's smile was as substantial as a wisp of fog on a windy night.

"I understand that they are short at least two Ukrainians," he said.

"They shot one," Hawk said, "and I shot one."

"Perhaps they would welcome a replacement."

"You?"

"Perhaps I could join them," the Gray Man said.

"You Ukrainian," Hawk said.

"I am a citizen of the world," the Gray Man said. "I am fluent in Ukrainian."

"What do we do for a translator?" I said.

"One does not necessarily preclude the other."

"Why?" I said.

"Why am I willing to help you?"

"Yeah."

"I tried to kill you and almost succeeded. Maybe it puts me in your debt."

"You think that's it?" I said.

"Possibly."

"You are a strange dude."

Again, the wispy, short-lived smile.

"We are all strange dudes," he said. "In what we do, there are no rules. We have to make some up for ourselves."

"Can you get in there?" Hawk said.

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"I have lived a various if desperate life," the Gray Man said. "I know a lot of people… and a lot of tricks."

Hawk nodded. The Gray Man looked carefully at Leonard.

"I commend you on your suit," he said.

Leonard nodded.

"I too like clothes."

Leonard nodded again. He carried a faint scent of sandalwood.

"You work for Tony Marcus."

Leonard nodded.

"You are a neutral observer?" the Gray Man said.

Leonard shook his head.

"Then you are with us?"

"As long as Tony is," Leonard said.

The Gray Man nodded.

"Tony is changeable," I said.

"I have heard that," the Gray Man said.

Leonard remained within himself. For all I could tell, he was thinking about Stagger Lee and trying to remember the song lyrics. Vinnie had earphones in and was listening to his iPod. I drank some coffee. The Gray Man was right. We were all strange dudes.

Hawk looked at me. I shrugged.

"I don't see no reason you shouldn't get inside Boots's operation, if you can," Hawk said to the Gray Man.

"It may take some time," the Gray Man said.

"We got some time," Hawk said.

He looked at Vinnie.

"You the only one these people ain't seen," he said.

"Their loss," Vinnie said.

"Maybe you can hang out in Marshport," Hawk said. "In amongst the criminal element where you be right at home."

"I ain't no criminal," Vinnie said. "I'm a shooter. People hire me are criminals."

"See what you can see," Hawk said.

Vinnie was on his feet, selecting another donut from the box.

"Sure," he said.

"Bro," Hawk said to Leonard, "what you planning on doing."

"Stand by," Leonard said. "You need me, you holler."

"Might make sense if you hung around, kept an eye on Brock Rimbaud," Hawk said.

"He's so annoying," I said. "It's like a matter of moments before somebody can't stand it anymore."

Leonard smiled.

"I can do that," he said.

"You see anything interesting, you can let us know," Hawk said. "Balloon goes up, we let you know."

"Soon as we find a balloon," I said.

"Ah," he said when we reached him, "the Nubian warrior."

"My people from Natal," Hawk said. "Ah is of Zulu extraction."

Ives smiled vaguely.

"Cashew?" he said.

I took a couple; they were still warm. Hawk shook his head.

"Spenser say you might be more interested in Boots Podolak than you letting on," Hawk said.

"Oh?"

"Say maybe you not as helpful as you seem," Hawk said. "Giving us the Gray Man."

"I didn't actually give him to you," Ives said.

His eyes were following a young woman in high heels and a short skirt who was heading down the mall toward Filene's.

"Lochinvar came to me, you'll recall, looking for a translator. The Gray Man seemed suitable."

"He work for you?" Hawk said.

Ives was wearing a tan summer suit with a blue oxford shirt and a green-and-blue striped tie. A snap-brimmed straw hat tilted forward over his narrow forehead. The wide hatband matched his tie. He studied the young woman for a moment as she receded down the mall. He ate a couple more cashews and offered me some. I shook my head.

"Currently?" Ives said. "He does."

"So what's he doing for us?" Hawk said.

"I assume he's helping you translate."

"And what's he doing for you?"

The young woman went into Filene's. Ives shook his head slightly in sorrow.

"Oh, my," Ives said. "Tight young ass."

Hawk didn't say anything.

"All ass is good," Ives said. "But these young housewives with their personal trainers… visions of sugarplums."

I said, "We're after the same thing, Ives."

"Tight young ass?"

"Besides that," I said. "You want something from Boots Podolak, and since officially you are supposed to work on foreign stuff only, you want something that has to do with the Afghan connection."

"Afghan connection?"

"You know he's got an Afghan connection, and I know you know it, and now you know I know it."

"I've always admired your ability, Lochinvar, to construct and speak complicated sentences without confusion."

"Yeah, it's special, isn't it?" I said.

"You know we after Boots," Hawk said.

Ives nodded.

"And you put the Gray Man in with us to see what we up to," Hawk said. "You didn't plan it that way maybe, but when Spenser come to you for translator help, there it was."

"Sometimes you have to let the game come to you," Ives said.

"Whassup," Hawk said. "With the game?"

"You show me yours," Ives said, "I'll show you mine."

Hawk looked at me.

"How much you tell him?"

"Just that I needed a tough guy who could speak Ukrainian. He knows it's about you getting shot."

"Or something," Hawk said.

I nodded.

"We trust him?" Hawk said.

"No," I said.

Ives smiled in self-deprecation and ate the last of his cashews.

"But I think you can tell him about this. He doesn't care who killed who?"

"Whom?" Ives said.

"Okay," Hawk said. "Got hired to protect a bookie named Luther Gillespie…" He told it all, without emotion, without slant, as if he were giving somebody directions to Anaheim. Ives listened without any expression. As he listened, he got a meerschaum pipe out of his coat pocket and filled it from an old-fashioned oilskin fold-over tobacco pouch, and lit it with a Zippo. The pipe tobacco smelled sweet.

When Hawk finished, Ives contemplated his pipe smoke for a time and then said, "So you are going to destroy his entire enterprise to get even."

"Ah'm going to destroy his entire enterprise," Hawk said.

"And Lochinvar?"

"What are friends for," I said.

Ives nodded. He glanced aimlessly around the mall. There were enough shoppers so that it was not discouraging. But it was an upscale mall, and it was rarely jammed on a weekday morning.

"Do you know what the Gray Man is currently calling himself?" Ives said. "Kodi McKean."

"C-O-D-Y?" I said.

Ives shook his head and spelled it.

"His cover name, when he needs to reach me, is the Kodiak Kid."

"The Kodiak Kid," I said.

"He finds it amusing," Ives said.

Ives blew a smoke ring. I waited. Hawk had enough dealings with Ives to know that waiting was part of the dance. He waited, too.

"As you clearly know, Mr. Podolak is the farthest eastern outpost of a criminal enterprise with its roots in Afghanistan, under the entrepreneurial direction of an Afghani named Haji Haroon. Mr. Haroon is what the press would describe as a warlord. I find the phrase a little too Kiplingesque."

"What would be your phrase?" I said.

"Haji Haroon is an independent ruler of a collection of his own tribesmen in Afghanistan," Ives said. "He has no allegiance beyond that. If asked his nationality, he would specify the tribe."

"Which is?"

"Alaza."

"Big tribe?" Hawk said.

"No, but cohesive and very vigorous on its own behalf. The Russians were terrified of them."

"So why do you care?" Hawk said.

"Well, of course, our government is opposed to heroin."

"Good to take a position," Hawk said.

"Yes," Ives said, watching the smoke drift up from his pipe in a small spiral. "We're clear on that. And, further, we believe that some of the profits from the heroin trade are used in support of terrorism."

"By Mr. Haroon."

"We believe so," Ives said.

"Be good to know who the supervisor is," Hawk said.

"He is the key figure. We surmise, though we as yet don't know, that the skag goes to Podolak through him, and the money goes back to Haroon through him. He's the valve, so to speak, in the pipe. It would be satisfyingly disruptive to the system if he could be turned off."

"And why us?" I said.

Ives smiled.

"Because you're here," he said. "You are already involved."

He took the pipe out of his mouth and set it down in a big glass ashtray, with the stem carefully clear of the rim.

"And," he said, "in truth you are not just anybody. Nothing seems to frighten you, or at least frighten you sufficiently to deter you. And you are immensely formidable."

"Formidable," I said to Hawk.

"Immensely," Hawk said.

"I am hopeful that the Kodiak Kid can sufficiently ingratiate himself with Podolak and friends, that, perhaps, he can find the supervisor."

"And?"

Another young woman walked past us, wearing tight lowrider pants and a cropped T-shirt that stopped several inches shy of the pants. She had a small blue-and-red tattoo in the small of her back. Ives studied the tattoo for a while as the woman passed us toward Bloomingdale's. Then he turned back to us and smiled and made a sharp gesture with his hand and wrist as if he was turning off a valve.