Robert Parker - The Widening Gyre

"Who's he?"

"A guy around."

"He connected?"

Sal nodded.

"Who with?"

Sal shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "He's just connected, you know? He's one of those guys that's in touch with the big boys. You know that. Everybody knows that. He asks you to do something, you're glad to do it. Glad to do him a favor, you know?"

"So he told you to lean on these kids?"

"Not them kids especially. Just any Alexander person. Didn't matter who. Whoever was handy."

"Why did he want that done?" I said.

"Said he wanted to send Alexander a message."

"What message?"

Sal shook his head again. "He don't tell guys like me anything he don't have to. Just give us the deuce and said to get it done."

"Where do I find Louis Nolan?"

"You won't tell him you got it from me?"

"You don't tell him I'm coming," I said, "I won't tell him I saw you."

" Wheeler Avenue," Sal said. "Up Sumner past the X." He gestured the direction. "I don't know the number."

I said, "Thanks, Sal, see you around."

He was still sitting on the ground when I turned down Sumner Avenue toward my car.

I drove up Sumner Avenue. When I passed the X-shaped intersection Sal had mentioned I started looking for Wheeler Avenue. I almost missed it. It wasn't much of an avenue. It had been overnamed. It was a short residential street that ran one block between Sumner and Allen Streets. I drove past it a little ways and stopped at a drugstore and looked up Louis Nolan in the phone book. The number was 48. I drove back and turned up Wheeler Avenue.

Forty-eight Wheeler Avenue was a modest white Cape with a one-car garage, at the Allen Street end of the block. I parked on Allen Street in sight of the house and looked at it. Nothing happened. I looked some more. Same result. No clue appeared.

I got out of the car and walked to the house and rang the front doorbell. Inside I could hear a vacuum cleaner. I rang the bell again. The door opened and a man in a suit and vest said, "Yes?"

His white hair was in a crew cut and his white mustache was trimmed close. He was middle-sized and blue-eyed and erect.

I said, "Mr. Nolan?"

He nodded. His face was pink and healthy-looking and his eyes were bright and opaque, like polished metal.

"Vinnie Morris sent me," I said.

He nodded again and gestured with his head into the house. I went in. He closed the door behind me. The living room was to my left, the dining room to my right. A plump woman about Nolan's age was vacuuming the living room. Nolan gestured me toward the dining room.

"Kitchen," he said. "Want some coffee?"

"No, thanks."

We walked through the dining room and into the kitchen. The house looked like it had been built in the thirties. The kitchen counters were still surfaced in black rubber tile. The yellow porcelain gas stove was on long, curved legs.

We sat at the kitchen table. The vacuum continued to hum in the living room. Nolan took a black leather cigar case from his inside coat pocket and offered me a cigar. I shook my head. He took one out and bit off the end, spitting the fragment into the sink without leaving the chair.

"Fruit or anything?" he said.

I shook my head again. Everything in the kitchen shone as if it were on display. Nolan lit his cigar with a fancy lighter, put the lighter into the pocket of his vest, let some cigar smoke out, and said, "Okay."

I said, "Vinnie's a little"-I shrugged and wobbled my hand-"about the two stiffs you hired to rough up Alexander's people."

"Which two stiffs?" Nolan said.

"Come off it, Louis," I snapped. "Pelletier and Ricci. You think you're talking in court?"

"What went wrong?"

"Well, you know, how smart is it to slap around a couple of clean, cute college kids, for crissake. It gets people mad. Was that what Vinnie wanted done?"

Nolan shook his head.

"What'd Vinnie want done?" I said. "He want to make people mad?"

Nolan shook his head again.

"Did he?" I said.

"No."

"What did he want done?"

"Shake 'em up a little," Nolan said. "Let 'em know we mean business."

"And what happens?" I shook my head disgustedly. "The two stiffs get their ass handed to them. The cops come. You gotta bail them out. How does that make us look?"

Nolan said, "I didn't know they'd have some pro from Boston with them."

I leaned forward a little and said it again. "How does that make us look?"

"Bad," Nolan said.

"You goddamned better believe it," I said. "And it don't make Vinnie happy, and you know who else it don't make happy?"

Nolan nodded.

"Who don't it make happy?" I said.

"Mr. Broz."

I stood up. "Keep it in mind," I said. Then I turned and walked back out through the dining room and opened the front door and walked to my car and drove away.

I'd found out what I wanted to know, and, as a bonus, I'd made Nolan sweat. Spenser, master of deceit.

When I got back to my apartment it was quarter to eight in the evening and Paul Giacomin was there. He was lying on the couch reading a New Yorker and drinking a long neck bottle of Rolling Rock Extra Pale.

"You're right," he said when I came in, "this stuff is habit-forming."

"World's best beer," I said. "How are you?"

"Good," he said. "You?"

"Fine," I said. "You eat yet?"

"No."

"I'll make something."

He came out into the kitchen and sat at the counter while I looked into what was available. Rolling Rock Extra Pale was available, and I opened one. Paul had grown since I had acquired him. He was maybe a shade taller than I was now, flexible and centered.

"You're looking in good shape," I said. "You working hard?"

"Yes. I dance about four hours a day at school, and a couple of times a week I go into New York and work at a gym called Pilate's."

"The money coming?"

"Yes, my father sends it every month. Just the money, no letter, nothing. Just a check folded inside a blank piece of paper."

"Ever hear from your mother?"

He nodded. "I get a letter every once in a while. Pink stationery, tells me that now I'm in college I have to be very careful in choosing my friends. Important, she says, not to get in with the wrong crowd."

"How about pasta?" I said. "Supplies are low here." I put the water on to boil and sliced up some red and some green peppers and a lot of mushrooms. Paul got another beer and opened one for me too.

"You happy with Sarah Lawrence?" I said. "Oh, yeah. The dance faculty is very professional. A half hour from New York, you can get people."

I stir-fried the peppers and mushrooms with a little olive oil and a dash of raspberry vinegar, cooked some spinach fettuccine, and tossed in the peppers, mushrooms, and a handful of walnut meats.

Paul and I ate it at the counter with grated Jack cheese and half a loaf of whole wheat bread that was left in the cupboard.

"How about the wrong crowd," I said. "You getting in with them?"

"Not much luck," Paul said. "I'm trying like hell, but the wrong crowd doesn't seem to want me."

"Don't quit," I said. "You want something, you go after it. I was nearly thirty-five before I could get in with the wrong crowd."

We opened two more Rolling Rocks. The last two.

"My fault," I said. "It's what happens when you let your work interfere. How long you home for?"

"Over Thanksgiving," he said. "I go back Sunday."

"Thanksgiving is tomorrow," I said.

"Yes."

"There's nothing to eat."

"I noticed," Paul said. "Maybe we can go down to the rescue mission."

I finished the last Rolling Rock. There was a bottle of Murphy's Irish Whiskey in the cupboard above the refrigerator for emergencies. I got it out and had some on the rocks. "I'm glad to see you," I said.