The Professional Read online

  There was scar tissue around his eyes, and his nose was flat and thick.

  “You used to be a fighter?” I said to him.

  “Yeah.”

  “You any good?”

  “I look like I was any good?” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Do a lot better outside the ring,” he said.

  The slim, dark guy said, “Shut up, Boo.”

  “ ‘Boo’?” I said.

  The dark, slim guy looked at me.

  “He’s Boo,” the dark, slim guy said. “I’m Zel. Why you interested in Gary Eisenhower?”

  “Why do you ask?” I said.

  “Guy I work for wants to know,” Zel said.

  “Who is he?” I said.

  Zel nodded quietly to himself, as if confirming a suspicion.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it nearly always goes.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Everybody’s a wiseguy,” Zel said. “Everybody’s a tough guy.”

  “Must be disappointing for you,” I said.

  “That’s what Boo’s for,” he said.

  “Glad he’s for something,” I said.

  Zel nodded again in the same sad way.

  “So what’s your interest in Gary Eisenhower?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Zel shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said. “Boo?”

  Boo smiled happily and started around my desk. I took a gun out of my open desk drawer and pointed it at both of them. Boo stopped. He looked disappointed.

  “I got one of those, too,” Zel said.

  “But yours is under your coat,” I said.

  “True,” Zel said. “Back off, Boo.”

  Boo looked more disappointed, but he stepped back in front of the desk.

  “Hard on Boo,” Zel said. “He gets all juiced to smack somebody around and then he can’t.”

  “Loving your work is a good thing,” I said. “Maybe another time.”

  “You think you can handle Boo?” Zel said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Without the piece?” Zel said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I heard you were good,” Zel said.

  Boo stared at me. Apparently, he hadn’t heard that. Or it hadn’t impressed him.

  “Kind of like to watch,” Zel said. “You decide to try it.”

  “Been a while,” I said, “since I had a fight to prove I could.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Zel said. “Seems kind of pointless, don’t it.”

  “Tiring, too,” I said.

  “Boo ain’t to that point yet,” Zel said.

  “Probably won’t get there soon,” I said.

  “’Less he starts losing a few,” Zel said.

  “You want to know my interest in Eisenhower. I want to know who wants to know,” I said.

  “You show me yours, I show you mine?” Zel said.

  “Might work,” I said.

  “And if it don’t?” Zel said.

  “I could shoot you,” I said.

  “But you won’t,” Zel said.

  “Probably not,” I said. “Unless Boo becomes a distraction.”

  Zel nodded. He looked at me for a while. Then he nodded to himself slowly.

  “I work for a guy name of Chester Jackson,” Zel said.

  “What’s his interest?” I said.

  “Don’t know,” Zel said. “Show me yours.”

  “Guy is blackmailing a group of women he had affairs with,” I said. “They want me to make him stop.”

  “Who are the women?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  Zel nodded.

  After a while he said, “I think Mr. Jackson will want to talk with you.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Zel took a business card out of his shirt pocket and put it on my desk. Chester Jackson had offices at International Place. I picked up the card and put it in my shirt pocket.

  “Chester married?” I said.

  Zel shrugged.

  “Maybe to a younger woman?” I said.

  Zel smiled faintly and shrugged again.

  “I’ll stop by,” I said.

  Zel nodded.

  “Adiós,” he said. “Come on, Boo.”

  They walked out. At the door Boo turned and looked at me hard.

  “I ain’t forgetting you,” he said.

  “Few people do,” I said.

  Chapter 8

  THE SECRETARY HAD a British accent. She ushered me in to see Mr. Jackson as though it was an audience. We were high up. There was the usual spectacular view of the harbor. And in front of the view, on a credenza, was a big photograph of Beth. Chet stood up and came around his desk when I came in.

  “Chet Jackson,” he said, and put out his hand.

  He had a big chin and short black hair with a lot of gray showing. The hair was receding from his forehead. His face was unlined. He smelled of very good cologne. His grip was strong. He had on a blue suit with a blue-and-white striped tie against a gleaming white shirt. There was a white handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  I sat. He sat.

  “Coffee?” he said. “Tea? water? Something stronger?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Chet nodded decisively.

  “Okay,” he said. “What can you tell me about Gary Eisenhower?”

  “He’s blackmailing a number of women,” I said. “They asked me to find him and make him stop.”

  “Have you found him?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve been looking for him at Pinnacle Fitness,” Chet said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought I might find him there,” I said.

  “What made you think that?”

  “Probably,” I said, “same thing that made you go there.”

  “What makes you think I went there?”

  “I’m a trained investigator,” I said. “One day I ask about Eisenhower there, next day Zel and Boo come around.”

  “Who are these women who employed you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I am a man of considerable leverage,” Chet said.

  “How nice for you,” I said.

  “And I don’t like flippant,” Chet said.

  “What a shame,” I said.

  Chet swiveled in his chair and with his back to me looked out his window at his view. After a suitable pause he swiveled back and looked hard at me.

  “I want to know who you represent,” he said. “And I want to know what led you to Pinnacle.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “That’s pretty much what I want to learn from you.”

  We sat silently then, looking at each other. Then Chet smiled at me.

  “You’re not scared of me, are you?” he said.

  “I’m trying to be,” I said.

  Chet leaned back in his chair a little and laughed. “Goddamn it,” he said. “I like your style.”

  “That’s grand,” I said.

  We sat again.

  I looked around the office.

  “What do you do for a living?” I said.

  “I make money,” Chet said.

  “How?” I said.

  “Little of this,” Chet said. “Little of that.”

  “Folks that employ people like Zel and Boo,” I said, “and make their money by doing a little of this, a little of that, most of those folks have offices in the back of billiard parlors.”

  “I played football at Harvard,” Chet said.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Chet was rubbing his chin with the palm of his left hand. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to take a chance on you.”

  He nodded at the picture of Beth on the credenza.

  “That’s my wife,” he said. “Beth. I think she’s been involved with Eisenhower.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Can you confirm or deny that?” Chet said.

  “Nope.”

  “Is she
one of your clients?”

  I shook my head.

  “You wouldn’t tell me if she was,” Chet said. “Would you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  “I figured Gary had a plan ahead of time,” I said. “All the women I represent have a common pattern. Young, older husbands of significant wealth. And all of them belonged to Pinnacle Fitness.”

  Chet nodded.

  “Beth belongs,” he said.

  I nodded. He stopped rubbing his chin and massaged his forehead with both hands for a minute. Then he put his hands flat on his desktop and leaned a little toward me.

  “I’m a tough guy,” he said. “I make a lot of money in a lot of different ways, and none of the ways is easy.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t mind that,” he said. “I don’t care too much about too many things. People get in my way, I don’t mind moving them out of the way.”

  I nodded.

  “But this is hard,” he said.

  I was sick of nodding, so I just waited.

  “And the reason it’s hard is that I made a mistake.”

  He paused and looked at the back of his hands on the desktop, and breathed a couple of times.

  “I let myself love Beth,” he said.

  “Opens you up a little,” I said. “Doesn’t it.”

  “Chink in the armor,” he said. “But there it is. I’m fifty-eight. She’s thirty. I’m in good shape and all. But I’m almost twice her age.”

  I went back to nodding.

  “We were fine until I began to get a sense that she might be seeing somebody else. No real evidence, little stuff, mostly sort of a feeling. I guess if your wife is cheating on you, at some level, you know.”

  “If you let yourself,” I said.

  “After a while I let myself,” he said. “I put Zel on her, see what he could find out.”

  “She doesn’t know Zel?” I said.

  “No. She doesn’t know anything to do with my business.”

  “Makes it easier,” I said.

  “Zel’s good at things,” Chet said. “He tailed her and found out that she was seeing somebody and what his name was.” Chet shook his head. “If that’s his real name.”

  “And you started looking into places she might have met him,” I said.

  “Zel did, yeah. Health club, country club, restaurants, couple of stores on Newbury Street.”

  “And he didn’t find Eisenhower,” I said. “But he established an, ah, relationship with various people to report if anything about Eisenhower surfaced. So when I showed up at Pinnacle Fitness, asking about him . . .”

  “We heard about it,” Chet said. “And I asked Zel to check it out with you.”

  “What’s your plan if you find Gary Eisenhower.”

  “I’ll have him in for a talk,” Chet said.

  “How far will you go?” I said.

  “Do you mean will I kill him?” Chet said. “I don’t think that would get me where I want to get.”

  “Which is?”

  “With Beth, and nobody else.”

  “And if you aced him, she’d suspect.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Chet said.

  “You’re not the only aggrieved husband,” I said.

  “But you’d be suspicious, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have you spoken to your wife about any of this?”

  “No.”

  “Might be a good thing,” I said.

  “Might be,” he said.

  “But?”

  “But I can’t,” he said. “I simply goddamn can’t.”

  I nodded.

  “The best moments in my life,” I said, “have come because I loved somebody.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And the worst,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  I SAT IN THE client-membership offices with a young woman named Courtney and signed up for a six-month membership at Pinnacle Fitness. I didn’t see Margi from the client-services office. Though Courtney could have been Margi with a change of makeup. Then the client-training director took me to the client-training office to assess me physically. He took my blood pressure and pulse. He weighed me. And pronounced me fit. He turned me over to a personal trainer, an in-shape young man named Luke, who offered to help me learn the various pieces of equipment. I declined.

  “I’ve worked out a lot,” I said. “I’ll be okay on my own.”

  Luke nodded.

  “I kind of figured that,” he said. “You need anything, give me a shout.”

  I got a locker and a padlock. I didn’t really need one, except for the gun. I hated wearing a gun while working out. So I changed into some sweats and left the gun in the locker. If Margi spotted me from the client-services office and rushed me, I might be able to run for it.

  I was limited in my workouts by the fact that I could use only equipment near the front window, where I could watch for Gary Eisenhower entering the lobby. Who kept not showing up every day.

  Susan came with me for a guest workout one day. Everything she wore to work out in fit her exactly and matched perfectly. Her thick, dark hair was held in place by what must have been a designer headband. And her makeup was impeccable. She’d been doing a lot of power yoga lately, which made her even stronger and more supple than she already was. A lot of people looked at her.

  “My,” Susan said, as she looked around Pinnacle Fitness. “You fit in here like a rhinoceros at a petting zoo.”

  “I’m undercover,” I said, “disguised as a thug.”

  “It’s very convincing,” Susan said. “You’re waiting for Gary Whosis to show up?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long do you plan to wait?”

  “I have a six-month membership,” I said.

  “You are a stubborn boy,” she said.

  “I am.”

  “Maybe I can help,” she said. “Show me the picture again.”

  “It’s still censored,” I said.

  “How too bad,” Susan said.

  We worked out as long as we could stand to and then went to change. When I came dressed from the shower, through the front window of the gym I saw Zel and Boo come into the club lobby. I went out.

  “Looking for somebody?” I said.

  “Same as you,” Zel said.

  Behind him, Boo was giving me the deadeye stare that was supposed to freeze my blood in my veins.

  I said, “How ya doin’, Boo?”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “You looking for Gary Eisenhower?” I said to Zel.

  “Yep.”

  “But you don’t know what he looks like,” I said. “So actually you swung by to see if I’d made any progress.”

  “Yep,” Zel said.

  “I haven’t,” I said.

  “You know what he looks like?” Zel said.

  “No,” I said.

  “The hell you don’t,” Zel said. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know.”

  I shrugged.

  “How about it, Zel,” Boo said. “Lemme go with him a little.”

  Zel ignored him.

  “We’re after the same thing,” Zel said. “Don’t see why we can’t cooperate.”

  “What’s Boo after?” I said.

  “Boo wants what I want,” Zel said.

  “And you want?”

  “What Chet tells me,” Zel said.

  “Too many levels of command for me,” I said. “I think I’ll mosey along on this by myself.”

  “Don’t mind if we mosey on along behind you,” Zel said.

  “Nope.”

  “What if you did mind?” Boo said. “What you gonna do?”

  “Let’s wait until I mind,” I said.

  Boo wanted so badly to prove he was tougher than I was that I felt almost bad for him.

  “Two things, Boo,” Zel said. “One, it ain’t time for you to do you
r thing. And two, I ain’t so sure you can do it with him.”

  “Like hell,” Boo said.

  “Listen to Zel,” I said to Boo.

  “See you around,” Zel said.

  He jerked his head toward the elevator. Boo was still giving me the stare.

  “Boo,” Zel said quietly. “We’re leaving.”

  He walked to the elevator and pushed the button. Boo stared at me. The elevator arrived and the door slid open.

  “Boo,” Zel said. “Now!”

  Boo turned and went to the elevator. Zel followed him in. The door slid shut. I looked back toward the health club. Susan, showered, made up, coiffed, and in street clothes, was standing inside the big window holding a two-and-a-half-pound dumbbell. I went back inside the club.

  “What was your plan?” I said.

  “The ugly guy you were having a stare-off with,” Susan said.

  “If things unraveled, I was going to run out and hit him with the dumbbell.”

  “Appropriate choice of weapon,” I said.

  “For either one of you,” Susan said.

  I crooked my arm for her to take.

  “Buy you a drink, Wonder Woman?” I said.

  She took my arm.

  “Maybe two,” she said.

  Chapter10

  I WENT EVERY DAY to Pinnacle Fitness. I had to be careful. If I improved my body further, the paparazzi would begin following me. So I worked out sparingly and spent a lot of time watching the snugly dressed young women, looking for exercise tips. I was in my second week at Pinnacle when one of the female trainers walked up to me and put her hand out.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Estelle. Can I help you with your training?”

  We shook hands. She had shiny black hair, worn long and straight. There was something faintly Asian-Pacific about her appearance, though it was too faint to tell me what.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t think anyone can.”

  She smiled warmly.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “If you need anything, please let me know.”

  I said, “Okay, Estelle.”

  Since I’d joined no one had spoken to me like that. Why now? I glanced through the front window at the lobby. Across the lobby at the snack bar, a man wearing an ankle-length black overcoat was sipping a smoothie, the healthy devil. He had a short beard and aviator-style sunglasses, and a bright blue silk scarf hanging open around his neck. He didn’t seem to be paying attention. Estelle paid me no more attention, either. When he finished his smoothie, the guy in the overcoat left. Sleuthing makes you suspicious. The guy hadn’t been in the club. Had he really come up to the top floor of the building to drink a smoothie?