Robert Parker - Rough Weather

“What a coincidence,” I said. “Was their attorney going to be present?”

“Yep.”

“Good old Lamar,” I said. “Murder weapon?”

Quirk shrugged.

“Maybe a utility-knife blade,” Quirk said. “We’re looking into it.”

“What do you expect to discover?”

“Zip,” Quirk said.

“Any suspects?”

“Everybody,” Quirk said. “You got yourself into something pretty ugly.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m not making any progress,” I said.

“Assuming it’s all related to Tashtego,” Quirk said, “I count eleven people killed so far. Two of them by you.”

“I know,” I said.

“For what?” Quirk said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Me neither,” Quirk said.

“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “Epstein and Healy don’t know, either.”

Quirk finished his sandwich and carefully wiped his mouth on a paper napkin.

“The funny thing is,” he said, “we know who did the original crime. But we don’t know why, and we can’t find him.”

“Yet,” I said.

“Hawk walking around with you?”

“Most of the time,” I said.

“I was you,” Quirk said, “I’d make it all the time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Nobody in this deal seems to mind killing people.”

“And you are probably a sentimental favorite to be next,” Quirk said.

“Would you miss me?” I said.

“No,” Quirk said.

The guy in the morgue had in fact been killed with a bullet from my gun. So we sort of knew who he was. Of course, we still didn’t have a name for him. Every time we learned something, it wasn’t enough. According to Rule 4 in Spenser’s Detecting for Dummies , if you aren’t getting anywhere and you don’t know what to do, go annoy somebody. So Hawk and I went off to annoy Tony Marcus.

Ty-Bop and Junior were in evidence. Ty-Bop was the shooter, a skinny kid wearing a watch cap pulled way down over his ears. He seemed to be listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear, and moving to its beat. Junior was the muscle, vast and thick and stolid.

Hawk lounged at the bar near Ty-Bop. Ty-Bop would kill anything that Tony pointed him toward. But that aside, he always seemed to admire Hawk. He never said anything, but he watched him all the time, the way a schoolyard player would watch Michael Jordan.

Junior brought me into Tony’s office and patted me down.

“Got a gun, Tony,” Junior said.

“Let him keep it,” Tony said. “I just want to know he’s not wearing a wire.”

“Nope,” Junior said. “No wire.”

Tony gestured him out, and Junior closed the door behind him as he left.

“Gives us a little more room,” I said.

Tony smiled.

“He’s a big one,” Tony said.

“Sorry about Leonard,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“How’s your daughter,” I said.

“No worse,” Tony said.

“Still with…”

“No,” Tony said.

I nodded. Tony waited.

“We’ve known each other for a while,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

Tony was beautifully dressed in a brown tweed jacket with a light-blue windowpane pattern. He had on a blue shirt and a brown silk tie.

“We’ve done each other some favors,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Tony said. “’Specially the time you got me sent to jail.”

“We were much younger,” I said.

“Everyone was,” Tony said. “You helped me out with my kid, couple years ago.”

“I did,” I said.

“You know I’m not wired. Anything we say in here is off the record and doesn’t leave this office,” I said. “I’m not after you.”

Tony smiled faintly.

“Oh, good,” he said.

“You remember Rugar,” I said.

“He was with you in Marshport,” Tony said.

“As was Leonard,” I said.

Tony took out a slim cigar and snipped the end and lit it carefully with a silver desk lighter.

“Rugar was involved in a big-deal kidnapping on Tashtego Island a while back,” I said. “I was there.”

“Heard about that,” Tony said.

“So here’s a theory I’m working on,” I said. “I’ve been pecking away at the Tashtego thing since it went down. Somewhere along the way I got too close; I wish I knew where. And Rugar decides I have to go. But for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to do it himself, so he remembers Leonard from Marshport, and he asks Leonard to take care of it for him. Probably for a good price.”

Tony took the cigar from his mouth and looked at the lit end, seemed satisfied with the way it was burning, and put the cigar back in his mouth.

“But Leonard doesn’t do it himself,” I said. “Instead, he hires these guys from Far Goofystan, and they botch it.”

Tony let out a soft puff of smoke. I always like the smell of a good cigar.

“And Leonard panics,” I said. “He knows he shouldn’t have gone around you and he doesn’t know what else to do, so he tells you. You know that the trail will eventually lead back to you unless you take action. So you send Lamar down to see what these guys are likely to do, and get them out if he can. And you kill Leonard to underscore his fecklessness. Lamar can’t get these guys out, but he explains their language limitations, and that so far he’s the only one can talk with them. So you got a couple days. You use the time to make arrangements, and when Quirk and Epstein schedule an interview with their own interpreter, Lamar gives you the news and you have the two goons killed.”

“Fecklessness,” Tony said.

“It is also my theory that you got nothing to do with Tashtego except that Leonard dragged your name in.”

Tony blew some more cigar smoke around.

“Fecklessness,” he said. “I like it. Fecklessness.”

I waited.

“The theory makes sense,” Tony said after a while.

“Anything I might have missed,” I said.

“Nothing that matters,” Tony said.

“And I shouldn’t anticipate any problems from your, ah, organization,” I said.

“Not if you are discreet,” Tony said.

“Any idea where Leonard got these guys?”

“Might have been a guy he met up in Marshport,” Tony said. “There was some Afghani influence, wasn’t there?”

“Boots Podolak was in business with an Afghani warlord named Haji Haroon,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be feckless,” Tony said, “to think there could be a connection with Leonard.”

“Worth looking into?” I said.

“Dead end,” Tony said. “Somebody aced Leonard’s only contact up there.”

“Could that someone be Ty-Bop?” I said.

“The boy gets restless,” Tony said. “Trust me, there’s no loose ends up there.”

“So,” I said, “you got this buttoned up pretty tight.”

“I didn’t initiate this. I wouldn’t have permitted it. I don’t need any of this. It interferes with business.”

“So you closed it down.”

Tony nodded.

“Except for Lamar,” I said. “That’s how I got to you.”

“Lamar is my attorney,” Tony said.

“And,” I said, “being your attorney, he can invoke privilege whenever he needs to.”

“And will,” Tony said.

It was the way it was supposed to be in Boston in November. Gray and kind of chilly and a steady rain falling. Cars had their headlights on at ten in the morning when Hawk and I drove to Epstein’s office in Government Center.

“I be out here by the elevators,” Hawk said. “I not going in any FBI office.”

“J. Edgar’s ghost will be grateful,” I said.

“You think it wearing a dress?” Hawk said.

I went in. Epstein pushed a folder across the desk at me as I sat down.

“Been working with our forensic accounting folks,” Epstein said.