Five Classic Spenser Mysteries (81 page)

“I don’t know nothing about that, but we got our orders. Get out and stay out.”

The black cop said, “I don’t know, Jim, but I think maybe you been canceled.” He closed the door and stepped back. I started the car and pulled away. They still stood there as I drove off, the fat one looking balefully after me, still slapping his nightstick against his leg.

It was getting dark, and the commuter traffic was starting to thicken the streets. I drove slowly back to my office, parked my car, and went in.

When I unlocked my office door the first thing I noticed was the smell of cigarette smoke. I hadn’t smoked in ten years. I pushed it open hard and went in low with my gun out. There was someone sitting at my desk, and another man standing against the wall. In the half-light the tip of his cigarette glowed. Neither of them moved. I backed to the wall and felt for the light switch. I found it, and the room brightened.

The man against the wall laughed, a thin sound, without humor.

“Look at that, Phil. Maybe if we give him money he’ll do that again.”

The man at my desk said nothing. He was sitting with his feet up, my chair tipped back, his hat still on, his overcoat still buttoned up, though it must have been ninety in there, wearing rose-colored gold-rimmed glasses. He looked at me without expression, a very tall man, narrow, with high shoulders, six foot four or five, probably. Behind the glasses one eye was blank and white and turned partly up. Along the right line of his jaw was a purple birthmark maybe two inches wide, running the whole length
of the jaw from chin to ear. His hands were folded across his stomach. Big hands, long, square, thick fingers, the backs prominently veined, the knuckles lumpy. I could tell he was impressed with the gun in my hand. The only thing that would have scared him more would have been if I had threatened to flog him with a dandelion.

“Put that away,” he said. “If he was going to push you I wouldn’t have let Sonny smoke.” His voice was a harsh whisper, as if he had an artificial throat.

Sonny gave me a moon-faced smile. He was thick and round, running to fat, with mutton-chop sideburns that came to the corners of his mouth. His coat was off and his collar open, the tie at half-mast. Sweat soaked the big half-moon circles around his armpits, and his face was shiny with it. I put the gun away.

“A man wants to see you,” Phil said. I hadn’t seen him move since I came in. His voice was entirely without inflection.

“Joe Broz?” I said.

Sonny said, “What makes you think so?”

Phil said, “He knows me.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you walk around behind Broz.”

Phil said, “Let’s go,” and stood up. Six-five, at least. When he was standing you could see that his right shoulder was higher than his left.

I said, “What if I don’t want to?”

Phil just looked at me. Sonny snickered, “What if he don’t want to, Phil?”

Phil said, “Let’s go.”

We went. Outside, double-parked, was a Lincoln Continental. Sonny drove; Phil sat in back with me.

It had started to snow again, softly, big flakes, and the windshield wipers made the only sound in the car. I looked
at the back of Sonny’s neck as he drove. The hair was long and stylish and curled out over the collar of his white trench coat. Sonny seemed to be singing soundlessly to himself as he drove. His head bobbed, and he beat gentle time on the wheel with one suede-gloved hand. Phil was a silent and motionless shape in the corner of the back seat.

“Either of you guys seen
The Godfather
?” I asked.

Sonny snorted. Phil ignored me.

“Beat up any good candy store owners lately, Sonny?”

“Don’t ride me, Peep; you’ll find yourself looking up at the snow.”

“I’m heavy work, Sonny. College kids are about your upper limit, I think.”

“Goddammit,” Sonny started, and Phil stopped him.

“Shut up,” Phil said in his gear box voice, and we both knew he meant both of us.

“Just having a little snappy conversation, Phil, to pass the time,” I said.

Phil just looked at me, and the menace was like a physical force. I could feel anxiety pulse up and down the long muscles of my arms and legs. Going to see Joe Broz was not normally a soothing experience anyway. Not many people looked forward to it.

The ride was short. Sonny pulled to a stop in front of a building on the lower end of State Street. Phil and I got out. I stuck my head back in before I closed the back door.

“If a tough meter maid puts the arm on you, Sonny, just scream and I’ll come running.”

Sonny swore at me and burned rubber away from the curb.

I followed Phil into the building. We took the self-service elevator to the eleventh floor. The corridor was silent and empty, with marble wainscoting and frosted
glass doors. At the far end we went through one marked
CONTINENTAL CONSULTING CO
. Inside was an empty stainless-steel and coral-vinyl reception room. There is little that is quieter than an office building after hours, and this one was no exception. The lights were all on, the receptionist’s desk was geometrically neat. On one wall were staggered prints by Maurice Utrillo.

Phil said, “Gimme your gun.”

I hesitated. I didn’t like his manner, I didn’t like his assumption that I’d do what I was told because he’d told me to, and I didn’t like his assumption that if he had to he could make me. On the other hand, I’d come this far because I was curious. Something bothered Broz enough to have him send his top hand to bring me in. And Sonny looked a lot like one of the two hoods that Terry had described. Also, Phil didn’t seem much to care whether I liked his assumptions or not.

I noticed that there was a gun in Phil’s hand, and it was pointing at an area somewhere between my eyes. I’d never seen him move. I took my gun out of my hip holster and handed it to him, butt first. People were taking it away from me a lot lately. I didn’t like that too much either. Phil stowed my gun away in an overcoat pocket, put away his own gun in the other, and stepped to one of the inner doors of the reception room. It was solid, no glass panel. I heard a buzz, and the door clicked open. I looked around and spotted the closed-circuit camera up high in one corner of the reception room. Phil pushed the door open and nodded me through it.

The room was bone white. The first thing I saw was my own reflection in the wide black picture window that stretched the width of the opposite wall. My reflection didn’t look too aggressive. In front of the window was a
broad black desk, neat, with a bank of phones on it. The room was carpeted with something thick and expensive, in a dark blue. There were several black leather chairs about. Along the side wall was an ebony bar with blue leather padding. Leaning against it was Joe Broz.

There was something theatrical about Broz, as if there was always a press photographer downstage left, kneeling to shoot a picture with his big Speed Graphic camera. He was a middle-size man who stood very straight with his chin up, as if squeezing every inch of height out of what God had given him. He had many teeth—a few too many for his mouth—and they were very prominent and white. His hair was slick black, combed straight back from a high forehead and gray at the temples. The sideburns were long and neatly trimmed. His nose was flat and thick with a slight ski-jump quality to the end that hinted at a break somewhere in the past. He wore a white suit, a white vest, a dark blue shirt, and a white tie. There was a gold chain across the vest, and presumably a gold watch tucked in the vest pocket. I would have bet against a Phi Beta key, but little is sure in life. He had one foot hooked on the brass rail of the bar, and a large diamond ring flashed from his little finger as he turned a thick highball glass in his hands.

“Do you always dress in blue and white?” I asked. “Or do you have the office redone to match your clothes every day?”

Broz sipped a little of his drink, put it down on the bar, and swung fully around toward me, both elbows resting on the bar.

“I have been told,” he said in a deep voice that had the phony quality you hear in an announcer’s voice when he’s not on the air, “that you are a wise-ass punk. Apparently
my information was correct. So let’s get some ground rules. You are here because I sent for you. You will leave when I tell you to. You are of no consequence. You have no class. If you annoy me, I will have someone sprinkle roach powder on you. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think so, but you better give me a drink. I feel faint.”

Phil, who had drifted to a couch in the far corner and sprawled awkwardly on it, let out a soft sound that sounded almost like a sigh.

Broz moved to his desk, sat, and nodded at one of the leather chairs. “Sit down. I got things to say. Phil, make him a drink.”

“Bourbon,” I said, “with water, and some bitters.”

Phil made the drink. He moved stiffly, and his hands seemed like distorted work gloves. But they performed the task with a bare economy of motion that was incongruous. I’d have to be sure not to make any mistakes about Phil.

I leaned back in the black chair and took a sip of the bourbon. It was a little more expensive than the private label stuff I bought. There was too much bitters, but I decided not to call Phil on it. We’d probably have other issues. There was a knock on the door. Phil glanced at the monitor set in the wall by the door, opened the door, and let Sonny in. He had his trench coat folded over his arm, and his tie was neatly up. His neck spilled over slightly around his collar. He walked quietly over to a chair near the couch and sat down, holding the trench coat in his lap. Broz paid no attention to him. He stared at me with his yellowish eyes.

“You’re working on a case.” It wasn’t really a question. I wasn’t sure Broz ever asked questions.

I nodded.

“I want to hear about it,” Broz said.

I shook my head.

Broz got a big curved-stem meerschaum pipe out of a rack on his desk and carefully began to pack it from a thick silver humidor.

“Spenser, this can be easy or hard. I’d just as soon it was easy, but the choice is yours.”

“Look,” I said, “one reason people employ me is because they want their business private. If I spill what I know every time anybody asks me, I am not likely to flourish.”

“Your chances of flourishing are not very big right now, Spenser.” Broz had the pipe packed to his satisfaction and spoke through a blue cloud of aromatic smoke. “I know you are looking for the Godwulf Manuscript. I know that you are working for Roland Orchard. What I want to know is what you’ve got. There’s no breach of confidence in that.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Let’s say I’m an interested party.”

“Let’s say more than that. Why be one way? You tell me what your interest is; I’ll think about telling you what I know.”

“Spenser, I’m hanging on to my patience. But it’s slipping. I don’t have to make swaps with you. I get what I ask for.”

I didn’t say anything.

From his place Sonny said, “Let me have him, Mr. Broz.”

“What are you going to do, Sonny,” I said, “sweat all over me till I beg for mercy?”

Phil made his little sighing sounds again. Sonny put his trench coat carefully on the arm of the couch and started toward me. I saw Phil look at Broz and saw Broz nod.

“You been crying for this, you sonova bitch,” Sonny said.

I stood up. Sonny was probably thirty pounds heavier than I was, and a lot of it was muscle. But some of it was fat, and quickness didn’t look to be Sonny’s strong suit. He swung a big right hand at me. I rolled away from it and hit him in the middle of the face twice with left hooks, getting my shoulder nicely behind both of them, feeling the shock all the way up into my back. Sonny was tough. It rocked him, but he didn’t go down. He grabbed at my shirtfront with his left hand and clubbed at me with his right. The punch glanced off my shoulder and caught me under the left eye. I broke his grip by bringing my clenched fists up under his forearm, and then drove my right forearm against the side of his jaw. He stumbled back two steps and sat down. But he got up. He was wary now. His hands up, he began to circle me. I turned as he did. He put his head down and lunged at me. I moved aside and tripped him and he sprawled against Broz’s desk, knocking over the pipe rack. Broz never blinked. Sonny pushed himself up from the desk like a man doing his last pushup. He turned and came at me again. His nose was bleeding freely and his shirtfront was bloody. I feinted with my left hand at his stomach and then brought it up over his hands and jabbed him three times on that bloody nose, then crossed over with a right hand that caught him in the neck below the ear. He went down face first. This time he stayed. He got as far as his hands and knees and stayed, his head hanging, swaying slightly, with the blood dripping on the azure rug.

Broz spoke to Phil. “Get him out of here, he’s messing on the rug.” Phil got up, walked over, pulled Sonny to his feet by the back of his collar, and walked him, weaving and swaying, out through a side door.

Broz said, “Sonny seems to have exaggerated his ability.”

“Maybe he just underestimated mine,” I said.

“Either way,” Broz said.

Phil came back in, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. “Ask him again, Joe,” he rasped, “now that Sonny’s got him softened.” His face twisted in what was, I think, a momentary smile.

Broz looked disgusted. “I want you out of this business, Spenser.”

“Which business?”

“The Godwulf Manuscript. I don’t want you muddying up the water.”

“What’s in it for me if I pull out?”

“Health.”

“You gonna unleash Sonny on me again?”

“I can put ten Sonnys on your back whenever I want to. Or Phil. Phil’s not Sonny.”

“I never thought he was,” I said. “But I hired on to find the manuscript.”

“Maybe the manuscript will turn up.” Broz leaned back in the big leather executive swivel with the high back, and blew a lungful of pipe smoke at the ceiling. His eyes were squeezed down as he squinted through the smoke.

“If it does, I won’t have to look for it anymore.”

“Don’t look for it anymore.” Dramatically, Broz came forward in the swivel chair, his hands flat on the desk. “Stay out of it, or you’ll end up looking at the trunk of your car from the inside. You’ve been warned. Now get the hell out of here.” He swiveled the chair around to face the window, putting the high leather back between me and him. What a trouper, I thought.