Five Classic Spenser Mysteries (8 page)

I said, “You rang, sir?”

Costigan looked at Hawk and me standing in his living room and didn’t blink. Instead he picked up a leather bookmark from the table, put it in his book, and put the book on the table and said, “Well?”

I said, “I want to know where Susan Silverman is.”

Costigan picked up a glass of port and sipped it. “So what?” he said.

“She is with your son,” I said. “I want you to tell me where they are.”

Costigan sipped a little more port.

“What will you do if you know where they are?” he said.

“Find her, take her away.”

“If you can,” Costigan said.

“We’ve gotten this far,” I said.

“So I notice. I told my security people that we were vulnerable until we unified the two security systems.”

“Probably installed the perimeter ones first,” I said. “And when you added the house stuff you didn’t think to overlap them.”

“We are in the process,” Costigan said.

“Where’s Susan?” I said.

“Is this the gentleman who hit my son recently and was jailed for it?”

Hawk moved close to Costigan and stuck the muzzle of the big .44 against Costigan’s neck at the base of the skull.

“He stalling,” Hawk said. “He waiting for help.”

I nodded and moved closer to Costigan. “You hit a button some way,” I said.

“It’s under the book, on the table,” Costigan
said. “If anything is placed on that spot the alarm goes off.”

At the far end of the room two men appeared with Uzi submachine guns. They came into the room and stepped to either side of the door. The room was so big I wasn’t sure the Uzis had the range. Four more men came in behind the first two and fanned out along the wall. All had revolvers.

“Drop the weapons,” I said, “or we will blow Costigan’s head off at the neck.”

“No,” Costigan said.

The bodyguards froze, guns leveled.

“You kill me and you’ll lose the girl for sure. You’ll be dead and, believe me, my son will take it out on her.”

“Won’t do nothing for you,” Hawk murmured.

“What would Clausewitz call this,” I said.

“A stalemate,” Costigan said. He held his head steady against the press of Hawk’s gun. “They can’t shoot, because you have me. But you can’t shoot because they have you.”

“Is she here?” I said.

“No,” Costigan said.

“We have to know,” I said.

Costigan shrugged. No one else moved.

“On your feet,” I said. Hawk took hold of Costigan’s collar with his left hand and pulled him up out of the seat, rising behind him as he did with
the muzzle of the .44 pressed up under Costigan’s chin. If it is possible to look contained while you’re being dragged upright with a gun pressed under your chin, Costigan did it.

“Room by room,” I said. “Starting at the top.” Hawk and I stood pressed close to Costigan, Hawk holding him with the gun at his chin. The six bodyguards fanned slowly around us as we moved toward the door. Three in front, the other three in back. I watched the back three. We moved, a kind of traveling ambush, into the front hall and slowly up the vast winding stairway that went two stories to the top floor.

“They shoot
Gone With the Wind
here?” Hawk said as we went up a slow step at a time.

“Probably not,” I said. “Why? You still hot for Butterfly McQueen?”

“It was her, or Aunt Jemima,” Hawk said. “You given any thought to how we get Susan out of here, if she here?”

“One thing at a time,” I said. “First we see if she’s here.”

“Orderly,” Hawk said.

Except for us all was silence. The three bodyguards in front of us backed up the steps a stair at a time, one Uzi and two handguns. Behind us the other three kept the circle closed with the same firepower. I was getting sick of looking at .357 magnums.

On the third floor we began to move in our peculiar minuet from room to room, turning on the lights in each. Several of the rooms were clearly housing for the bodyguards. Others were apparently for show, full of elegant furniture, gleaming with lemon oil and tree wax and devoid of human sign. As we moved slowly from room to room sweat began to form on Costigan’s forehead. I understood it. There was sweat on mine, too. The strain of moving always with infinite care, always in a circle of threat, made the world beyond that circle seem insubstantial. The world within was intensely immediate.

Hawk was humming softly to himself, “Harlem Nocturne,” as we moved from door to door.

“He appears to be enjoying this,” Costigan said, his speech constricted slightly by the pressure of Hawk’s gun.

“Paradigm of the black experience,” I said.

The circle of guards moved in perfect concert to our movement. Hawk had Costigan’s collar and I held on to his belt in front, keeping my back to him, facing out toward the guards. The guy with the Uzi was a thin man with a long neck and a big Adam’s apple. The Adam’s apple kept bobbing up and down as he swallowed. He swallowed a lot. The guard next to him had a thick blond mustache; his blond hair was razor cut and blow-dried and sprayed so firmly into place that he looked like
he was wearing a helmet. He looked like he was thinking of other things. Surfboards, maybe, or his new Neil Diamond album. The third guard was middle-aged and gray-haired and medium-sized. He didn’t look nervous or distracted or eager or anything. He looked like he might hum along with Hawk soon.

Of the three I could see, the blond beachboy was the weak link. The guy with the Uzi and the Adam’s apple was the most likely to shoot when he shouldn’t. Gray Hair was the one who’d be the hardest. The other three were Hawk’s problem. I couldn’t see them without looking away from my three, so I didn’t think about them.

There was no one in any room on the third floor. We moved slowly back down the stairs to the second floor and began the careful, agonizing, complicated business all over again. Nine of us, moving in limited space without ever losing sight of one another. Each door we opened was crucial. Was there a lady in there? Or a tiger? I could feel my shirt getting wetter and clinging to my back. Each door we opened and closed off brought the conclusion closer and none of us had a plan for the conclusion. Even though the conclusion might be eternal. At the bottom of the stairs we had to turn a sharp left. My three guards backed slowly around the corner, I held on to Costigan’s belt and slid around after them.

“Dosey doe,” I said.

Hawk had changed tunes, and mode of presentation. He was whistling softly through his teeth now, “Autumn Serenade.”

“You’re going to go through every room?” Costigan said. His voice sounded strained, as if his throat had narrowed.

“Yes,” I said.

“And when you’re finished, and you haven’t found her,” he said. “What then?”

“We’ll see,” I said.

We went into a suite of rooms. They must have been the son’s quarters. If The Sharper Image catalogue sold fully furnished suites for young men they would look like this.

The furniture was mostly of clear plastic, formed in one-piece curved shapes. A huge globe stood on a black lacquer coffee table. The bed had a canopy. There was a whole wall of stereo, television, tape, radio components in gleaming silver, with enormous speakers. In a living room off the bedroom was a glass and lacquer bar, fully stocked, and a small kitchen. The bathroom included a sauna and steam, there was a Jacuzzi in the tub. All of the appliances and tile were in emerald green with gold accent touches. There were fireplaces in bedroom and living room and over each hung a silver-inlaid shotgun. On the mantel in the bedroom
was a picture of Susan and a man. The picture appeared to have been snapped at a party.

“Russell,” Hawk said.

Susan’s head was back and her mouth was wide open with laughter. Russell’s head was tipped toward her and he seemed to be exhaling cigarette smoke, a wisp of which traced off to the edge of the picture. He was surprisingly ordinary-looking for a man who’d attracted Susan. He looked young, but his hair was already receding, and there was a quality of undefinedness to his face.

Russell had a lot of clothes, three walk-in closets full, hung carelessly. Some had fallen from hangers and were crumpled on the floor. His shoes were in a pile on the floor of the closet.

“Hard to get good help these days,” I said, looking at the jumble of shoes and clothes on the bottom of one of the bedroom closets.

We moved on.

There was nothing else that mattered on the second floor. We’d been looking for nearly an hour. If Hawk felt the strain of holding a .44 gun up under Costigan’s chin for that long he didn’t show it. My left hand felt cramped from holding Costigan’s belt.

The first floor had, besides Costigan’s enormous living room, an enormous dining room, an enormous kitchen, a pantry, and a two-bedroom suite in a wing off the back. One bedroom was Costigan’s.
It was very ordinary. Efficient and comfortable, but no more personal than the best room in a Ramada Renaissance Hotel. Off the bedroom was a sitting room that was obviously used as an office. It too was sparse. There was a phone on an oak table that was used as a desk. A swivel chair, an oak file cabinet, a Xerox machine, and a tape recorder. We went back into the hall.

“My wife is in bed through the door on your right,” Costigan said.

“No help for it,” I said. “Got to look.”

“We three will go in,” Costigan said. “The rest will wait outside. Gary, you watch us through the door.”

Gray Hair nodded. The others moved down the hall a few steps.

We opened the door and went in. Mrs. Costigan was in bed watching television. She had her gray hair up in rollers and some night cream on her face and looked fifteen years older than her husband. Her bulk under the satin spread was considerable.

She said, “Jerry—Jesus, Mary and Joseph …”

Costigan raised one hand like a traffic cop. “Just be still, Grace,” he said. “This isn’t as bad as it looks.”

“You’ll have to join us, Mrs. Costigan,” I said.

“Why you want me to do that?” she said in a little-girl voice. “I’m in my pajamas.”

“Get a robe,” I said.

Mrs. Costigan said, “Don’t look.”

Hawk said, “Hunh,” softly under his breath.

Mrs. Costigan dragged the spread off the bed and held it around her as she went to the closet. She managed somehow to get an aqua velour robe around her fat body before she dropped the spread. No one saw anything. Everyone was relieved.

Mrs. Costigan’s room was pink with gray woodwork and floor-length pink drapes. The carpet was gray and the furniture was white. There were pink satin sheets on the bed. A huge color television with a white cabinet stood at the far wall opposite the bed. Mrs. Costigan was watching
Dallas
. There was a sitting room off her bedroom as well, with French doors that opened onto a patio. The room was gray with pink woodwork and gray drapes and a pink carpet. One wall was all glass, and before it a large makeup table sat with lighting arranged around the mirror wall and adjustable spotlighting on the table.

No one else was in the rooms and they were the last rooms. Costigan, Hawk, and I stood touching closely in the center of the dressing room. Mrs. Costigan hovered uncertainly near, and Gary watched quietly from the doorway.

“What now,” Costigan said.

“Now we talk and you tell us where she is,” I said.

“Where who is?” Mrs. Costigan said.

“Susan Silverman.”

Costigan said, “Grace,” and Mrs. Costigan said, “At the lodge,” and their voices overlapped. Mrs. Costigan heard her husband and looked at him, startled.

“If that’s all they want, let them have her,” she said. “Would you protect her instead of me?”

Costigan said, “Grace, be quiet.” He said it with the kind of force you expect to hear in a man who built a small business into an empire.

“Tell me about the lodge,” I said.

Mrs. Costigan looked uncertain. She shook her head. I raised the .25 and aimed it carefully at her. Gary in the door crouched a little and moved his gun toward me.

“Tell me about the lodge or I’ll shoot you,” I said.

Costigan said, “Gary, bring the rest in. If he shoots kill him even if I die too.”

Gary made a waving gesture with his left hand, behind him, and the other guards moved into the bedroom. The nervous guy with the Uzi moved up beside Gary in the doorway.

“Where’s the lodge,” I said.

Mrs. Costigan said, “Jerry, make him stop.”

“You pull that trigger,” Costigan said, “and
everything stops here. All of us are gone and your girl friend’s on her own.”

I looked at Hawk.

He said, “This is as good as it’s going to get.”

I nodded. And jumped for Mrs. Costigan.

Holding Costigan still by the collar, Hawk dropped his right hand, gun and all, and jammed it from behind into Costigan’s crotch and heaved him at the doorway where Gary and the Uzi stood. I spun Mrs. Costigan toward me and shoved her in the same direction. Gary, Costigan, Mrs. Costigan, and the Uzi all collided and tangled in the doorway. The Uzi bubbled out a cascade of shots that stitched a line across the ceiling. Hawk was out through the French doors with me behind him, bearing left along the patio toward the driveway and the Bronco. One of the perimeter guards came around the corner of the house and Hawk shot him with the big .44. A bullet came from behind us and rang off the flagstone patio and ricocheted off the low stone wall that rimmed the terrace. We were around the corner before another shot came, and below us was the driveway and the black Bronco parked there. Hawk vaulted the low fence and landed softly on his feet beside the Bronco. I landed beside him and felt the impact jolt my stomach and then we were in the car, Hawk driving, and heading down the driveway.

“Gate’s closed,” Hawk said.

“Jam the Bronco up against it, take the keys and well jump the fence,” I said.

Another bubbling cascade of fire from the Uzi sounded behind us and I felt the Bronco lurch and begin to sway.

“Tires,” Hawk said.

We reached the gate and Hawk braked, slamming the Bronco into a skid and jamming it against the gate sideways. With a sharp twist he snapped the key off in the ignition and we were out of the car and up onto the hood. The gate was chest-high from the hood of the car and no razor wire. We went over it without trouble and landed again with a soft thump on the other side. In ten feet we were out of the light and hidden by the darkness, running full out for the Volvo. Behind us the two Uzis sprayed fire through the fence into the dark. We could hear bullets cut the leaves and snap twigs as we rounded the bend of the road, and the Volvo was still there. The heavier crack of the handguns sounded and above it, in the distance, the sound of sirens. We were in the Volvo and driving back along Mill River Boulevard when the first police car passed us going in the other direction.