Five Classic Spenser Mysteries (17 page)

“What kind, sir?”

I smiled harder. “Two more martinis,” I said. “On the rocks, with a twist. Actually with two twists, one in each martini.”

“Yes, sir.”

She raced off toward the bar.

“Probably hurrying so she won’t forget ’fore she get there,” Hawk said.

“No wasted motion,” I said.

The waitress came hurrying back, carrying a tray. She put steak and french fries down in front of us. She put out two small dishes of canned carrots, and a basket of rolls. There were squares of foil-wrapped butter in the basket with the rolls.

“I’ll get your drinks right away,” she said.

Hawk looked at his plate and then at me. The steaks were wide and flat, covering nearly the whole plate, and about a half-inch thick at best. There was a large bone in each steak.

“Better wait and drink the second martini,” I said.

“What kind of steak you figure this is,” Hawk said.

“Camel.”

Hawk nodded. “Well, we didn’t actually say
beef
steak, did we.”

The waitress brought the second martinis. Hawk and I each drank some.

“Gin,” we said simultaneously.

“We could send them back,” Hawk said.

“Yeah, but the next one might be made with Kool-Aid,” I said.

“You right,” Hawk said and drank some more.

The steak looked better than it tasted. The french fries were not edible. The carrots had been cooked for maybe an hour and a half. The rolls tasted like sugarless marshmallows.

“Wow, you boys must have been hungry,” the waitress said when she cleared the plates.

The place was filling up, some diners and a lot of drinkers. I paid the check and we moved to the bar. We each ordered beer.

“What do people do for a living around here,” I said to the bartender.

“Transpan mostly,” he said. “Half the people in here tonight work out at the facility.”

“What’s Transpan,” Hawk said.

“They make guns,” the bartender said. He had on a white shirt and a black string tie. His gray hair was short. “They got a big factory about five miles from here. There’s a range and a test course. Big facility.”

“They hiring?” I said.

“Hard to get hired,” the bartender said. “Need specialist skills, you know? Gunsmith, heavy-weapons specialist, that kind of stuff. I never heard of them hiring anyone local.”

“We know a little about weapons,” I said. “And we’re not local. Who do we talk to?”

The bartender shrugged. “Got me,” he said. “Guys at the big round table work there. Maybe
they can help. Was me I’d go down to the state employment office in Hartford.”

He moved away.

I turned away and leaned my elbows on the bar and sipped the draft beer and looked at the big round table. They were drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer from long-necked bottles and a number of them had collected on the table. They had placed a ring of lit cigarettes on the table and were arm wrestling inside the ring, the loser getting his knuckles burned. The winner of the first two matches was a fat guy with crew-cut red hair and a full beard. He had on a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off and his arms were bright pink and thick as country hams.

I said to Hawk, “Let’s get in on this?”

“Which of us?”

“Whichever one sees the chance,” I said.

“Should we win or lose?”

“See how it goes,” I said.

We went with our beers in hand and stood near the group watching the contests. The fat man won another, slowly overpowering a lean black man and pressing his knuckles briefly against the cigarette. The rest of the table whooped.

The fat man looked around the table. There was another black, a squat man with long arms, wearing a baseball cap backward.

“You want to hold up the honor of the spooks, Chico?”

The black man shrugged and moved over beside the fat man. He set his elbow on the table and they locked hands.

“Anytime,” the fat man said. Chico turned his wrist sharply, trying to catch the fat man unready, and he almost made it. The fat man’s arm went maybe forty-five degrees down before he began to hunch his shoulder and steadily press Chico’s arm back and down toward the cigarettes. Chico held for a moment six inches from the tabletop, then his arm gave way and the back of his hand pressed against the burning cigarettes. The fat man held it there.

“Got to yell, Chico. Got to say ow.”

Chico said, “Ow.”

The fat man grinned. “Goddamned near got me, Cheeks. Goddamned near made it. Be a son of a bitch if I lost my first time to a goddamned spook.”

Chico grinned and put the back of his hand to his mouth.

Hawk said, “How about me?”

The fat man looked up. “Hell yes,” he said. “How about a little money on it. With friends I do it for fun. But strangers …” Hawk took a twenty out and tossed it on the table.

He said to Chico, “ ’Scuse me, bro,” and sat in the chair.

“Name’s Red,” the fat man said. He was looking at Hawk carefully.

Hawk nodded.

“You got a name,” Red said.

“Black,” Hawk said.

“Well, you’re hot shit, ain’t you,” Red said.

Hawk sat opposite Red and placed his elbow on the table. He and Red locked hands. Next to Red, Hawk looked nearly slender.

“Anytime,” Red said.

Hawk nodded and said, “You say.”

Red said, “Now,” and lunged his forearm against Hawk’s. Slowly Hawk’s forearm bent backward toward the tabletop. Red’s teeth showed through his beard. Hawk had no expression. He looked at me. Four inches from the tabletop Hawk’s arm stopped moving down. Red grunted with effort. Hawk kept looking at me. I nodded and mouthed the word
win
. With no change in expression Hawk began to lift Red’s arm back up the way it had come. It was a steady, apparently effortless movement, except that the muscles in Hawk’s arm swelled so that the hem on the sleeve of his polo shirt split. He pressed Red’s hand firmly against the lit cigarette.

Red said, “Ow,” and Hawk released his hand, picked up the two twenties and folded them
neatly lengthwise in half, running his thumb and forefinger along the crease to smooth it. Red stared at him with the back of his right hand pressed against his mouth. No one spoke.

Hawk gestured at the waitress. “Bring us a round,” he said, and handed her one of the folded twenties.

“You got me when I was tired,” Red said. “My right arm was tired.”

Hawk nodded pleasantly.

“Double or nothing, left-handed,” Red said.

Hawk nodded toward me. “Try him,” Hawk said.

Red looked at me. “You left-handed?” he said.

“No.”

“Double or nothing?” Red said to Hawk.

Hawk nodded. He stood and I took his seat. Red and I locked left hands.

“I’ll call it,” Red said.

“Sure.”

Red said, “Go,” and I slammed his hand down onto the lit cigarette. The force scattered the cigarettes.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “Wait a minute. I wasn’t ready.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it again. You call.”

We locked hands again. Red took in a couple of deep breaths.

“All right,” Red said. “When I say go.”

“Sure.”

“Go.”

Red’s grip tightened and he tried to turn my wrist.

“You ready?” I said.

Red nodded, straining against my wrist.

“You sure?”

“Ya.”

“Okay,” I said and slammed his hand against the table.

The waitress arrived with a tray of beer bottles and there was silence while she distributed them and picked up the empties. She went away.

“Where the fuck did you guys come from,” Red said. “You guys got to be from another fucking planet.”

“It’s because our hearts are pure,” I said.

“I ain’t got the forty,” Red said. “I gotta owe it to you.”

“When do I get it,” I said.

“Tomorrow, you gonna be around. I get paid tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll be around tomorrow.”

“I’m good for it,” Red said. “Ask any of these guys. I pay what I owe.”

“I believe you,” Hawk said. “But where you work, case we have to come find you, case you forget.”

“Transpan,” Red said, “but I won’t forget. Man,
ask anyone. I owe you money, it’s like you got it in the bank. Tell him, Chico. He’s a brother, he’ll believe you.”

Chico nodded.

I ordered another round. “Winner buys,” I said Red licked the back of his right hand where the cigarette burn was reddening.

“Another goddamned planet,” Red said. Hawk snagged a chair from another table and sat at the round one.

“You guys all work at Transpan?” I said.

“Yeah,” Chico said. “Sort of.”

The waitress brought the beer.

“What do you mean, sort of?” I said.

“Contract work,” Red said. “We signed on to do training and weapons testing. Working on a two year contract. After two years we can sign on again or get out.”

“Like the army,” I said.

Red looked at me for a moment.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s like that.”

The next night Red showed up as promised. Hawk and I had hung around Pequod all day, topping off the excitement with a five-mile run along the highway, and we were just sipping the first beer of the day when Red came in.

“Who gets the forty,” he said.

I put out a hand and Red put two tens and a twenty in it.

“Winner buys,” I said. “What will you drink?”

“Beer.”

I gestured at the bartender. He gave Red a beer, and a glass. Red ignored the glass and drank half the bottle from the neck.

“We’re looking for a place to live,” I said. “Got any ideas?”

Red shrugged. “Not much around,” he said. “I live out at the facility.”

He finished the beer. I ordered him another. “Want a shot with that,” I said. “Get a good foundation for the evening.”

“Sure,” Red said. “CC,” he said to the bartender. “Straight up.”

“Everyone live there?”

“Yeah, all of us.” He popped the shot and
washed it with a swallow of beer. Hawk gestured at the bartender to bring another. “Us guys, the workers, security people. Nice facility.”

“How ’bout the bosses,” Hawk said.

“Sure, them too. Got an executive house. Fucking mansion.” Red drank half of his second Canadian Club. “Nice lawn, right on the river. Can’t see it from the road, it’s in the trees.”

“Outside the complex?”

“Un uh. Everything’s inside the complex, except the training range.”

We had another round of beers. Red turned and leaned his elbows on the bar and surveyed the room.

“Thing about this job is you’re stuck out here in the fucking sticks, you know,” he said. “Pussy is scarcer than balls on a heifer.”

“No broads at the complex?” I said.

“Couple old ugly fat-assed secretaries,” Red said. “Some executive quiff over at the mansion. But nothing for the blue-collar stiffs like you and me, you know.”

“No wives?”

“Naw, they don’t hire married guys.”

“Except the executives.”

Red finished his Canadian Club. Hawk got him another.

“Not even them. Except for the kid.”

Red drank a little of the Canadian Club, sipping it carefully as if it were a fine cognac.

“There a kid there?” Hawk said.

Red laughed. “Naw, the kid. Guy owns the whole Transpan thing is a guy named Costigan. I never seen him but his kid comes around once in a while, like to inspect, you know. Kid’s about thirty, thirty-five. Comes in like the regimental commander—you guys been in the service?” We both nodded. “Kid comes in, lives at the mansion, comes around watches us train, shit like that. Sometimes he brings a broad.” Red grinned. “Usually ain’t the same one.”

“Must be a pain in the ass,” I said, “having him around.”

“Naw, not really. Most of the time him and the broad are just at the mansion. They got a pool over there and a game room, place is like a fucking resort, you know. Shit, they been here about two weeks, now. We ain’t seen him for ten minutes.”

“Big bucks, huh?”

“Biggest. You ever hear of the old man? Jerry Costigan? He’s worth more than Saudi Arabia, for crissake. Kid goes everywhere with about eight bodyguards.” Red continued to survey the room. “Damn,” he said, “sure would be nice to see a little pussy.”

“How long you been here,” I said.

“Eight months. If it wasn’t for that skinny waitress
we’d all be dating Mary Palm and her five daughters. Like fucking a bundle of kindling, but it’s better than nothing.”

The blond waitress in question hurried intently past us carrying a plate of gray pork chops toward a table in the front.

“Queen of the Transpan Forces,” Red said. “Any of us get the clap, we all get the clap.” He laughed and drank the rest of his whiskey. “Just pass it back and forth through Doreen.”

We got another round.

“Where’d you work before?” Hawk said.

“Angola, Zambia. Put in some time in Rhodesia.”

“The old country,” Hawk murmured.

“Construction?” I said.

“Shit, no, man. Soldiering.”

“Mercenary?” Hawk said.

Red drank some whiskey. “Bet your ass, mercenary. Soldier of fucking Fortune, Jim. All of us are.”

“Done a little of that,” Hawk said.

“Yeah? Where’d you soldier?”

“Did a little Foreign Legion,” Hawk said.

“No shit? The Frenchies?” Red laughed with pleasure. “C’est la fucking guerre, monsieur. Huh?” He put his hand out palm up and Hawk slapped it.

“Oui,” Hawk said.

“You in Indochina?” Red said.

“Un huh.”

“Missed that,” Red said. “But I done some shit in Malaya. God damn, I love it. A fire fight. Jesus. A fire fight’s better than fucking, you know. That’s got to be the most fun in the world. You like that shit?”

“Fucking ain’t bad,” Hawk said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Red said. “How ’bout you, pal. Where’d you soldier?”

“Korea,” I said.

“He got medals,” Hawk said.

“And seventy-eight bucks a month,” I said.

“Mercenary’s better,” Red said. “Get the same fun and a lot more bread.”

We finished the round and had another. “You quit soldiering after Korea?” Red said.

“Yes.”

“Don’t like the life?”

“Don’t like the chain of command.”