Robert Parker - The Professional

“Uh-huh,” I said.

The Celtics were up four on the Wizards late in the first half.

“And I see the pug,” Vinnie said.

I shut off the television.

“Boo?” I said.

“Same guy had the argument with Beth a while back,” Vinnie said. “He’s walking along Arlington same direction I am, like he could have been down at Beth’s place. He’s on the other side of the street. So I slow down and sort of let him get ahead of me and I see what he does. He crosses over in front of me at Boylston and goes into the subway. So I chuck along after him and go down, too.”

“Was it crowded?” I said.

“Naw,” Vinnie said. “Place was empty. So he goes through the turnstile and waits on the outbound platform, and I don’t see any reason to waste two bucks, so I go back upstairs and get my car. On my way home I swung by Beth’s building, but everything looked, you know, copacetic, so I kept going.”

“Thank you, Vinnie,” I said.

We hung up.

I dialed Gary Eisenhower’s number. After four rings the answering machine picked up.

“Hi, it’s Beth. Neither Gary nor I can come to the phone right now, but your call is important to us, so please do leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as quick as we can.”

When the beep sounded I yelled a couple of times that it was Spenser and pick up the phone. But nothing happened, so I hung up and got dressed and took a gun and hoofed it down to the apartment that Beth now shared with Gary, which was only a couple of blocks from my place.

The front door was locked. I rang Gary’s bell; nothing happened. I rang a few other bells. One of the tenants answered. It was a woman.

“Hi,” I said. “It’s Gary from the first floor. I seem to have the wrong front-door key. Could you buzz me in.”

“Call the super,” she said, and broke the connection.

Neighborly.

I found the superintendent’s number and rang the bell. After two rings he answered, sounding foggy.

“Yeah?”

“Police,” I said. “I need you to come open a couple doors for me.”

“Police?” he said.

“You heard me, now run your ass up here.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, officer, gimme a minute.”

It took more than a minute, but it was only two or three before he appeared in the entryway and opened the door.

“You ain’t wearing a uniform,” he said.

“No shit,” I said.

“You got a badge or something?”

I looked at him hard.

I said, “Ain’t I seen a mug shot of you, pal?”

“Me? I never done nothing.”

“That’s your story. Open up apartment one-A pretty goddamned hubba hubba, or I’ll run your ass down to the station for a look-see.”

“One-A, yeah, sure,” he said, and took out his key ring. “No need to get all worked up.”

“Move it,” I said. “Or I’ll work you up, you unnerstand that?”

“Yes, sir, sure thing.”

He went to Gary’s door and unlocked it. I went in. The super came in behind me a step.

“Jesus,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

“Call nine-one-one,” I said. “Cops and an ambulance.”

“But you’re a…”

“Call it,” I said.

BETH WAS DEAD,I knew that the minute I saw her. Her face was bruised, there was dried blood, and her neck was turned at an odd angle. Gary was unconscious but not dead. He had a big purple bruise on the side of his face at the hairline. But he was breathing pretty steadily, and his pulse wasn’t bad.

The super, having called 911, stood in the doorway, as if he didn’t dare enter and he didn’t dare leave. It was maybe three minutes before two uniforms came into the room.

“He says he’s a cop,” he told one of the cops.

“That right?” the cop said to me.

He was a thick-necked guy with a red face, and he was showing signs of sitting down too much. His partner was a younger guy, black, with sort of economical movements. The black cop squatted on the floor beside me and felt the pulse in Gary’s neck. He nodded to himself and moved over to Beth.

“Right,” I said.

“Show me something,” the cop said.

“I’m private,” I said.

“Impersonating an officer?” the red-faced cop said.

“Exactly,” I said.

Squatting by Beth, the cop felt for her pulse and didn’t find it. He stood.

“Charlie,” he said. “We seem to have a murder here. Maybe you could postpone the impersonating-an-officer investigation till we solve this.”

The red-faced cop looked at him a moment, and at me.

“They dead?” he said.

“She is. The guy seems like he’ll make it,” the black cop said.

The red-faced cop walked past me and looked at Beth.

“Shame,” he said.

Two paramedics came in.

“Broad’s dead,” the white cop said. “Work on the other guy?”

One of the paramedics was a stocky blonde woman.

“Lemme check,” she said, and crouched beside Beth. The male paramedic started on Gary.

Charlie walked out into the foyer and began to talk on his radio. The black cop came to me.

“My name’s Harper,” he said. “What’s yours?”

I told him.

“ID?”

I took out my license and my carry permit. The black cop looked at it.

“You carrying a weapon now?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ll hold on to it for a while,” he said.

I opened my coat so he could see the gun.

“You can take it out,” Harper said. “Just go easy.”

I took the gun off my hip and handed it to him. It was a short-barreled.38 revolver. Reliable. Easy to carry.

“You hit anything with this?” Harper said.

“Ten, fifteen feet,” I said.

“All you need,” Harper said, and put the gun in a pocket of his uniform jacket.

Belson came into the apartment with some crime-scene people and two homicide detectives.

“This guy,” Charlie said, and looked at his notebook,

“Spenser. He was impersonating a police officer.”

Belson glanced at him.

“We all thought that,” Belson said, “when he was a cop.”

“Was carrying,” Harper said. “With a permit. I got the piece.”

“Give it back to him,” Belson said.

Harper shrugged and handed me my gun.

Belson looked at the super.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“I’m the superintendent. He told me he was a cop.”

Belson nodded.

“Fucking crime wave in here,” he said.

He nodded at one of the detectives.

“Get a statement from the super,” he said.

Then he looked at the paramedics.

“Woman dead?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” the woman said. “Appears to be blunt-instrument trauma.”

“Guy?”

“He’s way out,” she said. “But vital signs are steady. He should come around.”

“When?”

The woman shrugged.

“When he does,” she said.

“You taking him to City?”

“We call that Boston Medical Center now,” she said.

“You taking him there?” Belson said.

“Yes.”

Belson turned to Harper and his partner.

“You two go with him. Make sure nobody tries to finish the job. When he wakes up, call me.”

“What about her?” the paramedic said.

“Coroner will take her away. Right now she’s evidence.”

The medics put Gary on a stretcher, stabilized him, and took him to the ambulance. Charlie and Harper went with them. Belson turned to me.

“Impersonating a police officer,” Belson said.

He was looking at the room as he talked to me. He always did that at a crime scene, and when he left, I knew he would have seen everything in the room, and he’d remember it.

“Mea culpa,” I said.

“How many times you done that now,” Belson said, “since I knew you?”