Robert Parker: The Professional

“I washed my hair,” Susan said. “Took a bath, put on some night cream, and got in bed with Pearl and watched a movie on HBO.”

“And if they asked what movie, and could you remember the plot?”

“I could tell them that, but the movie has been running all month on my cable system,” Susan said.

“So Pearl is basically your alibi,” I said.

“Hawk?” I said.

“There be a young woman…” Hawk said.

“Of course there was,” I said.

I drank some of my short scotch and soda.

“Last night I had a couple of cocktails,” I said. “Made supper, ate it, and watched the first half of the Celtics game before I fell asleep.”

“So you don’t even have Pearl,” Susan said.

“I don’t,” I said.

“So you’re saying that people often don’t have any way to prove where they were of an evening, and these people have two ironclad alibis.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Most people,” Susan said. She looked at Hawk. “Except maybe for the man with the golden lance, here…”

“Black opal,” Hawk said.

Susan nodded.

“Except for the man with the black-opal lance,” she said.

“Most people could go days at a time with no alibi except for whomever they live with.”

“And,” Hawk said. “If they both under suspicion…”

“The alibi is suspect,” Susan said.

“Sorta,” I said.

“You think they hired a third party?” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“Both of them?” Susan said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Beth surely could not have escaped such a childhood unscathed,” Susan said.

“Nobody do,” Hawk said.

“She had somebody do Jackson,” I said. “She’d get his money.”

“She have somebody do Estelle,” Susan said. “Beth would get Eisenhower.”

“She don’t get Jackson’s money until somebody kills him,” Hawk said. “How’d she pay.”

I looked at him for a moment.

“Oh,” Hawk said. “Yeah.”

“What?” Susan said.

“She started out broke,” I said. “How’d she pay her way this far?”

Susan was silent for a moment.

Then she said, “Oh. The, ah, barter system.”

Our food came, and we ate some. Susan looked at Hawk.

“Well,” she said.

Hawk nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re right.”

“Thank you,” Susan said.

She looked at me.

“So if it were Beth, and if she were hiring somebody to kill her husband, and Estelle, and taking it out in trade, who would she hire? Who does she know that she could hire?”

“Eisenhower’s been in jail,” I said. “Husband was on both sides of legitimate. She might know a lot of people, or she might know one who could broker the deal.”

“She know Zel and Boo,” Hawk said. “She know Tony Marcus.”

“Ty-Bop?” I said.

“He don’t freelance,” Hawk said.

“Not even for love?” Susan said.

Hawk smiled at her.

“Ty-Bop don’t know nothing ’bout love.”

“Junior?” I said.

“Ain’t a shooter,” Hawk said.

“Probably knows how,” I said.

“Maybe. You looking in that direction, I think you got to look at Tony. He tell Ty-Bop to shoot you. Ty-Bop will shoot you. He tell Junior to break your back. Junior will break your back. But gun work is Ty-Bop. And strong-arm is Junior. He don’t ask one to do the other man specialty. And they don’t do anything unless Tony tells them to. It’s a matter of respect.”

“You understand that?” Susan said to me.

“Yes,” I said.

“But if Tony wanted Ty-Bop to shoot someone for love?”

“Ty-Bop do it,” Hawk said.

“Does Tony know about love?” Susan said.

“Loves his daughter,” Hawk said.

“So he’s a possibility,” Susan said.

“Yep,” I said.

“But if you rule him out, you also rule out Ty-Bop and Junior,” Susan said.

“Yep.”

“How about this man Zel?” Susan said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Boo?”

“Hard to imagine Beth seducing any of these people,” I said.

“Remember how far she’s come, and how she got here,” Susan said.

“You’re saying she could?”

“If she needed to,” Susan said.

“Could you?” I said.

“If I needed to,” Susan said.

“Egad,” I said.

TONY MARCUS CAMEinto my office wearing a double-breasted camel-hair coat and a Borsalino hat. Ty Bop jangled in beside him and stood not quite motionless near the door.

“Arnold say you wanted to see me,” Tony said.

He unbuttoned his coat, took his hat off, and put it on my desk, and sat down in front of me.

“I didn’t know you still made house calls,” I said.

“In the neighborhood,” Tony said. “Going to have lunch with my daughter.”

“Give her my best,” I said.

“Sure,” Tony said. “What you want?”

“You know Chet Jackson got whacked,” I said.

Tony nodded.

“Couple days ago a woman named Estelle Gallagher got clipped with the same gun killed Jackson,” I said.

Tony nodded.

“You keep track,” I said.

“I do,” Tony said.

“They’re both connected with Gary Eisenhower,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

Ty-Bop was studying the picture of Pearl that stood on top of a file cabinet just to the left of Susan’s. I would have studied Susan had I been he, but Ty-Bop was mysterious.

“And Beth Jackson,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You had any dealings with them since Jackson’s office?” I said.

“You think one of them done the killings?” Tony said.

“They both have solid alibis,” I said. “For both killings.”

Tony smoothed his mustache with his left hand and nodded.

“Remarkable,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“So you figured one or both contracted it out,” Tony said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“And you figure who they know might do it?”

“Yep.”

“And you thought of me,” Tony said.

“One possibility,” I said.

Tony sat back in his chair and smoothed his mustache again. After a while he smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “We talked.”

“How’d she get hold of you?”

“She called,” Tony said. “Talk with Arnold.”

“How’d she know where to call?” I said.

“Her husband had a number,” he said.

“So the cops must have stopped by,” I said.

“They did,” Tony said. “I’m used to cops. Didn’t tell them nothing. They didn’t know nothing. They went away.”

“What did Beth want?”

“She say she saw me in her husband’s office that day and she thought I was very ‘interesting.’ ” Tony grinned. “Say she want to see me.”

“And?”

“And I say sure,” Tony said.

“So you did,” I said.

“Yep. Fucked her about sixteen times.”

“Nice for you,” I said.

Tony grinned.

“She enthusiastic,” he said.

“But you didn’t elope,” I said.

“Nope, after we been fucking for a week or so, she say she need a favor.”

“I’m shocked,” I said.

“Yeah, I was surprised it took a week,” Tony said. “Said she wanted somebody to ace her old man and could I help.”

“And you said?”

“No.”

“How’d she take that?”

“Not well. She say after all we meant to each other. And I say, ‘I got nothing against your old man.’ And she said, ‘But don’t you love me?’ And I say no. And we go on like that. And finally I have Arnold take her out and drive her home.”

“Give her a referral?”

“Hell, no,” Tony said. “I put some people down, will again. But I did it ’cause it needed to be done. Not ’cause some broad bops me for a week.”