Widow’s Walk (6 page)

“Ain’t it about time you and me pulled the plug on the followers?” Hawk said.

“Nope.”

“How ‘bout we go out to the Soldiers Field Development Corporation and shake up their boss?”

“Whom you believe to be Felton Shawcross,” I said.

“Whom else?” Hawk said.

“CEO doesn’t always know what his employees are doing,” I said.

“True,” Hawk said. “You and me for instance.”

“My point exactly,” I said.

“We could yank one of the followers out of his car and hit him until he tell us why he’s following you.”

“He may not know,” I said.

“‘Cause he a employee,” Hawk said.

“Yes.”

“We could ask whom employs him.”

“We can always do that. Just like we can always call on Felton Shawcross,” I said. “Right now I figure if they wanted to make a run at me they would have by now.”

“Probably.”

“So they’re just trying to keep tabs on me.”

“Probably why they following you around,” Hawk said.

“Because they want to know if I’m getting closer.”

“Which they’ll decide based on who you see.”

“Whom,” I said.

Hawk turned around and looked at me and smiled.

“So when you see somebody that’s important, maybe they’ll do something.”

“Yep.”

“And then ya’ll gonna know whom is important.”

“You’re doing that whost.whom thing on purpose, aren’t you?” I said.

“Ah is a product of the ghetto,” Hawk said. “Ah’s trying to learn.”

“And failing,” I said.

“So it is your professed intention,” Hawk said, “to continue visiting with principals in the case until you get a discernible reaction from those monitoring your movements?”

“That be my professed intention, bro,” I said. “You be down with that?”

“Jesus Christ,” Hawk said.

“I don’t sound like an authentic ghetto-bred Negro?” I said.

“You sound like an asshole,” Hawk said.

“Well,” I said. “There’s that.”

I found Tyler Financial Services on the lobby directory and took the elegant brass-and-rosewood elevator to the second floor. I could have found stairs, I suppose, but no one of stature would use them in this building. There was a lot of brick, and a lot of pickled oak, and a lot of hanging plants, and in Tyler’s front office one crisp female secretary with a British accent. To her left a half dozen people were working in front of computer screens. To her right was a large office with an etched glass door. A discreet sign on the door said simply BRINK. I gave her my card and smiled her the smile that made me look just like Tom Cruise only bigger. She smiled back, though not very warmly. She seemed to sense that I wasn’t a client. She checked her appointments, saw that I had one, and took me to the office door that said BRINK. She had a surprising amount of hip sway for one so crisp.

Brink Tyler was in full uniform: striped shirt, wide yellow suspenders, polka-dot bow tie. He looked to be maybe fifty, with a fresh haircut and a good tan. His hair was smooth.

“Brink Tyler,” he said and put out his hand.

We shook firmly and I sat down. Behind Tyler was a huge picture window that overlooked the harbor, where the port of Boston activity was close by and frequent.

“You were Nathan Smith’s broker,” I said.

“What a shame. Yes, I was. And a personal friend as well.”

“How was he doing?” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“How was his economic life?”

“Fine,” Tyler said. “Excellent. Nathan was a member of a very old and successful family in this city.”

“That’s great, isn’t it? Did he have a lot of money?”

“For God’s sake, man, he owned a bank.”

“Wow,” I said. “Could I get a look at his monthly statements?”

“Oh, no. I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“I represent his wife,” I said.

“No, we’d really need her permission to show you that. She should have them. They went out only last week.”

“She contends that she knows nothing, and only you, Brink Tyler, can answer my questions.”

“My hands are tied,” Tyler said.

“Call her,” I said.

“Call her?”

“Yes. Ask her permission to give me the statements.”

Brink wasn’t thrilled with that. He sat back and thought about it. I sat back and waited. The blue stripes in his white shirt were wide. Tyler’s cuff links were, or appeared to be, solid gold with a small design that I couldn’t make out. Elegant.

“Well,” he said. “I guess I could do that.”

“Good for you,” I said.

He picked up his phone and punched up a number without looking it up. He waited, talked briefly with Mary Smith, nodded several times, probably for my benefit, and hung up.

“No,” he said.

“She won’t authorize the statements?”

“No.”

“She say why not?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t ask?” I said.

“It’s her right,” Tyler said. “She doesn’t have to explain.”

“How nice for her,” I said. “You have any thoughts on who would want to kill Nathan?”

“I thought Mary did it.”

“Because?”

“Because according to the paper the cops say she did it.”

“And you believe it?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“She seem the type?” I said.

“Oh hell. I didn’t know them like that. It was mostly a business friendship.”

“So you think she murdered her husband, but you still need her permission to give me access to something as innocuous as his monthly statements?”

“I have a fiduciary responsibility here. I can’t betray it. If I did, and word got around, who would trust me?”

“You’re a stockbroker,” I said. “You think people trust you now?”

“I don’t think we have anything else to talk about,” Tyler said.

“We do, Brink,” I said. “But I’m willing to let it wait.”

He didn’t say anything. I got up and let myself out and, encouraged by her hip sway when she’d ushered me in, smiled my killer smile at the secretary. She smiled back at me pleasantly.

I hotfooted it up the stairs and stopped on the fourth-floor landing. I could hear footsteps behind me. I went into the garage and walked toward my car. The fat guy was already there, exiting the elevator. Behind me Curly emerged from the stairwell. There was no one else in sight. The fat guy stepped in front of me.

He said, “Hold it there, pal.”

I stopped. Behind me I could hear Curly’s footsteps.

“You know,” I said, “if you’d use the stairs every time, instead of taking the elevator, you wouldn’t be so fat.”

“Fuck you,” the fat guy said.

“Gee,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

I glanced back. Curly had stopped a few feet behind me. I did a half turn so that I could see both of them.

“We wanna know what you’re doing,” the fat guy said.

“Isn’t it obvious,” I said. “I’m talking with a couple of assholes.”

“You’re a funny guy,” Fatso said. “Ain’t he a funny guy, Bo.”

“Funny guy,” Curly Bo said.

“We ain’t funny guys,” Fatso said.

“I can see that,” I said.

“And we want to know what you was talking to Brink Tyler about.”

“Who?”

“You know who, you was just in his office.”

“Oh,” I said. “The Brinkster. Yeah. We were talking about diversifying my portfolio.”

The fat guy didn’t know what to say. He was used to people being scared of him, and it confused him that I wasn’t. Also, he probably didn’t know what a portfolio was. Bo, aka Curly, decided to step in.

“Okay, pal,” he said. “Let’s not fuck around here. We ask questions. You answer them, and you answer them straight. You understand? Or you get your ass kicked.”

I spread my hands. “Hey,” I said. “No problem. I didn’t know you guys were serious.”

“That’s better,” the fat guy said.

I kicked him in the crotch. While he was sinking to his knees, I swung around and popped Curly Bo with a right hook, and broke his nose. Bo was game. With the blood running down his chin he caught me with an overhand right on the side of the head. I hit him with a left hook and a right hook, and he went down. Fatso, on his knees and in pain, had fumbled a gun out. I kicked it out of his hand and heard it skitter away under one of the cars.

“You guys been roughing up civilians too long,” I said. “Whatever you had to start with, you’ve lost.”

“Fuck you,” Fatso said.

Curly Bo was on his hands and knees, his head lolling, as he tried to clear the buzz from his brain.

“Who is it wants to know what I’m doing?” I said.

“Fuck you,” Fatso said.

“Soldiers Field Development, perhaps?”

“Fuck you,” Fatso said.

“Maybe I could beat it out of you,” I said.

“Maybe you couldn’t,” Fatso said.

I stood for a minute and thought about it.

“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe I couldn’t.”

I went past them and got in my car and drove away. In the rearview mirror I could see them still on the ground as I turned onto the down ramp and headed out.

“As I recall,” I said, “when you were working in Norfolk County, you had an office with one wooden chair.”

“And a view of my file cabinet,” Rita said.

“And a lot of young male ADA’S fresh out of law school hanging around the door with a clear interest in your body.”

Rita smiled, and said, “Those were the days, my friend.”

She took a small bite of her tuna-fish sandwich and chewed it in a ladylike manner, and swallowed gracefully.

“You ever sleep with a redhead?” she said.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Lost count, have we?”

I had a ham and cheese sandwich on light rye. I ate some.

“Come to think of it,” Rita said, “so have I.”

I drank some coffee. “Good for us,” I said.

“Yeah,” Rita said. “Better than being able to remember the only one, in detail.”

“There’s only been one for a while,” I said.

“I’m painfully aware of that,” Rita said.

“Moving on,” I said. “What did you find out about Soldiers Field Development?”

“Not a hell of a lot,” Rita said. “They do real estate development-office buildings, motels, malls, stuff like that. Nathan Smith was on the board of directors.”

“Oh ha!”

“Oh ha? What the hell is Oh ha?”

“Combination of oh ho and ah ha,” I said. “I believe in variety.”

“Me too,” Rita said. “Do you say oh ha when you encounter a clue?”

“Or ah ha! Or oh ho! Depends on how many clues I have to react to.”

“Well, it’s not been much of a problem in this case,” Rita said. “Why are you so interested in Soldiers Field Development?”

“There’s been people following me since I took this case,” I said. “They’re connected to Soldiers Field Development.”

“And now Nathan Smith turns up on the board,” Rita said.

“Yes.”

Rita smiled.

“Oh ha!” she said. “So how does this help my client?”

“If she didn’t kill him, someone else did. I’m looking for the someone else.”

“And how does this do that?” Rita said.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “What I know is that something’s going on with Soldiers Field Development that is connected to this case.”

Rita picked up her coffee and stood and went to the window and looked out, sipping coffee.

“Are you thinking?” I said. “Or showing me your butt?”

“Both,” Rita said. “I think better standing, but I haven’t put in all those hours on the StairMaster to hide my butt under a bushel.”

“The StairMaster has paid off,” I said.

“Thank you. What do you think about the connection between a banker and a real estate developer?”

“It might involve money,” I said.

Rita turned slowly and looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

“Wow,” she said.

“It’s magic, isn’t it, how I can read people?”

“Magic.”

“The bank is a family business,” I said.

“That’s what I’m told,” Rita said.

“Has it always been just Smiths running it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out?” I said.

“Isn’t that what we’re employing you to do?”

“It’s a waste of my talent,” I said. “The premier law firm in Boston must have a dozen people who can research that faster than I can. But I’ll bet none of them can take a punch.”

“I haven’t punched all of them,” Rita said. “But I get your point.”

“So, can you find out how many partners the bank has had?”

“That weren’t family?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to know this why?”

“Because he’s got a partner now, guy named Marvin Conroy.”

“You’re suspicious of him?”

“Not really. But over the years I’ve learned to look for pattern so I can see variation, if any. Marvin Conroy might be a variation. If he is, I want to know why.”

“Makes sense,” Rita said.

“So can you do that?”

“Sure.”