Pale Kings and Princes s-14 Read online

  Susan closed the trunk. "What about the truck?" she said.

  "We'll leave it, eventually someone will wonder what it's doing here, quite soon if the weather warms."

  We got in the Mustang, Susan on the driver's side.

  "Will they trace it to the owner?" she said.

  "I doubt it," I said. "I suspect they'll find that the registration is a fake."

  Susan slipped the Mustang in gear and drove out of the parking lot and onto Route 128 very quickly.

  "It would not be good to get busted for speeding with a trunkload of coke," I said.

  "I'm only doing sixty-eight," Susan said.

  "Yeah, I know. But I'm worried about when you get out of second."

  I could see her smile as she eased up on the gas and brought the car down to the speed limit. I put my head back against the front seat headrest.

  "Your place or mine," she said.

  "Mine," I said.

  "Tired?" Susan said.

  "And hungry and in the throes of caffeine withdrawal, and sexually unrequited for six days," I said.

  "There are remedies to all those problems," Susan said. "Trust me, I have a Ph.D."

  "From Harvard too," I said.

  "Veritas, " Susan said.

  I closed my eyes and didn't exactly sleep while we drove down Route 1 and over the Mystic Bridge. But I didn't exactly not sleep either and when we pulled up and parked in my parking space in the alley in back of my place on Marlborough Street, Susan had to say, "We're here."

  I fumbled the keys out and we went in the front door and up to the second floor and I unlocked the door to my apartment and we went in. I stopped in the living room and took off my jacket. Susan went into the bedroom. I dropped my jacket on the couch and followed her. She had turned the bed back. I took my gun off of my hip and put it on the bureau. Then I undressed and got into bed.

  "Aren't you going to read me a story," I said.

  "Not tonight," Susan said. "You need to sleep. But God knows what may happen in the morning."

  Chapter 20

  I slept until ten-thirty the next morning, and when I woke up I could smell coffee. I rolled over. I could smell Susan's perfume on the pillow next to mine but I had no memory of her coming to bed. I sat up. The clothes I had dropped on the floor last night were gone. I got out of bed and stretched and looked out the window. The sun was bright on the thin dusting of snow that had accumulated on Marlborough Street. I went out into the living room.

  Susan looked up from behind the counter that separated the kitchen.

  "My God, you shameless animal," she said. "You're naked."

  "I'm on my way to the shower," I said. "You just happen to be in the right place at the right time."

  "If you're not too tired you might shave as well," Susan said. She was mixing something but I couldn't see what.

  "I'll try," I said, and went into the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later I was reeking of cleanliness, smooth-shaven, and smelling of Clubman cologne. I put a towel around my waist and came out of the bathroom.

  "Are you squeaky clean?" Susan said.

  "Yes."

  "Smooth-shaven?"

  "Yes."

  "Teeth brushed?"

  "Un huh."

  "Good," Susan said. "Then I think we should make love and then have breakfast."

  "Excellent plan," I said. "But what about your patients?"

  "It's Sunday," Susan said. "I have no patients."

  "Sunday?"

  Susan nodded. She was wearing a loose heavy white sweater over her jeans. There were two gold chains around her neck. She had on gold earrings in the shape of triangles, and a gold bracelet and a small gold chain and a gold watch on her left wrist and a very large thick white bracelet on her right. "Complacencies of the peignoir," I said, "and late coffee and oranges in a sunny chair."

  "Eliot?" Susan said.

  "Stevens," I said, and put my arms around her. "And the green freedom of a cockatoo upon a rug."

  "I never heard it called that," Susan murmured, and kissed me and leaned away and jerked her head toward the bedroom and smiled the smile she had that would launch a thousand ships.

  It was almost noon when we sat down for breakfast. I was wearing my maroon bathrobe with the satin lapels and Susan had on a yellow silk number with maroon trim that she kept at my place. Susan had made cornbread, and we ate it with honey and drank black coffee, at the counter. The cornbread was still warm.

  I made a toasting gesture at her, with my coffee cup.

  "Mingled to dissipate the holy hush of ancient sacrifice," I said.

  "Are you going to quote all of it?" Susan said.

  "I don't know all of it," I said.

  Susan smiled. "Small mercies," she said. "What are you going to do with the three hundred kilos of cocaine in the trunk of my rental car?"

  "I think we'll leave it there for now," I said. "We'll drive up to Maine and get your car and I'll take the Mustang and drive on back to Wheaton."

  "And do what," Susan said.

  "I don't know, exactly. But I figure it's a bargaining chip that I didn't have before. And so is the kid."

  "The chief's son?"

  "Un huh, at worst I can squeeze him. I've got him for smuggling coke."

  "Have you though?" Susan said. "All he has to do is deny everything. The truck's in Peabody and you've got the coke."

  "And I know that he got it at Penobscot Seafood in Belfast and I know what the guy looks like that he transacted with. If I have to I can shake it loose from that end."

  "Well, why don't you?"

  "Because I was hired to find out who killed Valdez, not to break up coke smuggling. Maybe I can do both, and maybe to do one I'll have to do the other. But Wheaton is where the killing took place and Wheaton is where I should be working if I can."

  Susan leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips.

  "One of the things I like best about you," she said, "is how earnest you are about your work. You pretend to be such a wise guy, and you are so rebellious about rules; but you are so careful to do what you say you'll do."

  "There's not too much else to be careful about," I said.

  "Post Christian ethics," she said.

  "I'm careful about you," I said.

  She cut a wedge of cornbread and transferred it carefully to her plate. A faint wisp of steam eased up from it.

  "Yes," she said, "about me, and about us."

  "You too," I said.

  "We've both learned to be careful of us," she said.

  We looked at each other. The connective force of our gaze was palpable.

  "Forever," I said finally. Susan nodded.

  I drank some coffee, looking at Susan over the rim of the cup. Then I put the cup down and cut another piece of cornbread from the round. I felt the intensity of the silence, like a cup filled too full and keeping its contents through surface tension. I took a breath and let it out.

  Susan smiled.

  "Are you going to confront the cocaine man?" she said.

  "Esteva? Maybe. And the kid probably, and see what happens."

  "What do you think will happen?"

  "I don't know," I said. "It's like sluice mining where they wash tons of earth off a hillside with jets of water. They get all this sludge in motion and see if gold turns up."

  "Do you think Esteva will be angry?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Will you need help?" Susan said.

  "Against a horde of armed killers? Surely you jest."

  "Will you do something for me," she said. "Will you ask Hawk to go with you?"

  "Maybe," I said, "in a while, since you asked so nice."

  She smiled. "Thank you," she said. "But you acquiesce so easily. Perhaps all is not as it appears to be?"

  "Well," I said, "maybe not."

  "You were going to ask him anyway."

  "But not for myself," I said. "It's best for society if Hawk is kept busy."

  Chapter 21

 
; I parked the rented Mustang in Caroline Rogers's driveway before lunch on Monday. The driveway had been plowed and a path had been cut through the plow spill to the front door. The house was a two-story raised ranch with fieldstone facing on the first floor and red cedar siding on the second. The front door was painted green. I rang the bell. Caroline opened the door. She was dressed and her hair was combed and she had on lipstick. There was no particular sign of pain. Grief makes less of a mark on people's appearance than is thought. People torn with sorrow often look just like people who aren't.

  I said, "Hello, Mrs. Rogers, may I come in?" She smiled and nodded and stepped aside. I walked into a living room full of maple furniture upholstered in print fabric. Somewhere in the house a television set was on.

  "Let me take your coat," she said.

  I took off my leather jacket and handed it to her. She paid no attention to the gun in the shoulder rig. She was a cop's wife. She'd seen guns before.

  "Coffee?" she said. "It's all made."

  "Thank you."

  She left the living room and came back in maybe a minute with cream, sugar, and a mug of coffee on a small tole tray. The mug was white and had a big red apple painted on the side. She set the tray down on the coffee table, and gestured toward the couch.

  I sat. She smoothed her plaid skirt down along the backs of her thighs and sat in a wing chair across from me, her knees together. She was wearing cream-colored cable-stitched knee socks and penny loafers. She folded her hands on her lap. I noticed there were no rings on either hand.

  "How are you?" I said.

  "I'm coping," she said.

  I poured a little cream in the coffee, added two sugars, and stirred. If you add the sugar first it doesn't taste right.

  "How's the kid?"

  "Brett seems all right. He and his father were not close."

  I drank some coffee. "No rings," I said.

  "No," she said. "It's a way to start living a new way. I miss him, but I have a long time left without him."

  I nodded.

  "Is your son home?"

  "Yes, he's in the den."

  I squeezed my lips together for a moment. "I need to see him," I said. "I need to talk with you both about something."

  "What is it?"

  "I need to talk with you both," I said.

  Caroline didn't argue. She got up and went out of the living room and returned in a moment with Brett. The first time he looked at me I didn't register. He had a vague apprehensive look, the way a kid might have when his mother says a man wants to talk with you. Then he saw me again and I did register. He stopped short, and stared at me and then took a step back and closer to his mother.

  "Yeah," I said, "it's me. The guy on the Maine Pike."

  He shook his head and opened his mouth and closed it.

  "What about the Maine Pike," Caroline said.

  I looked at Brett. He didn't say anything.

  "Brett?" Caroline said.

  Brett's face was red. He didn't look at me, or his mother. His hands were jammed into the side pockets of his beige and blue warmup suit.

  Caroline looked at me. "Mr. Spenser?"

  I took in a deep breath. "Having nothing better to do a few days back I staked out the Esteva warehouse and when Brett drove out in a big tractor with no trailer I followed him."

  Neither Brett nor his mother moved. Brett's round body seemed to huddle in on itself.

  "He drove up to Belfast, Maine, and hooked up to a refrigerator trailer at a fish wholesaler and headed back home. I hijacked his truck from him on the Maine Turnpike and drove it home and unloaded it and found three hundred kilos of cocaine in it."

  Caroline moved closer to her son. "Brett didn't know," she said.

  I didn't say anything.

  "He was just doing what he was told. He wouldn't know what was in the truck."

  I looked at Brett.

  Caroline's voice rose. "He wouldn't. He's a kid. He was just running errands."

  "I was not," Brett said.

  Caroline's head jerked toward him.

  "Mr. Esteva trusted me. I was the only one he'd trust."

  "Brett . . ." Caroline said.

  "He did," Brett said. "And you stole the blow, and Mr. Esteva is mad at me."

  "How often did you run the stuff for Esteva," I said.

  "You're the one made Mr. Esteva mad," Brett said. "I had a good job and he trusted me. I was the only one he trusted to drive." Brett's face was even redder and his voice had a wheezy quality. Caroline had both hands pressed against her mouth. She had edged over so she was partly in front of her son. Fat as he was she couldn't shield him entirely.

  "I'm not after you, Brett," I said. "I'm after Esteva."

  "No," he said.

  "Yeah," I said. "You can help me."

  "No," Brett said again.

  This wasn't going quite as I'd planned. Someday, when I had time, maybe I'd think of exactly when it was that something had gone as I'd planned.

  "He was simply doing what his boss told him. He had no responsibility, he's seventeen years old."

  "I did." Brett's teeth were clenched and the words hissed out. "I did. I knew."

  "God damn it, Brett." Caroline was hissing too. "You be quiet."

  "And you spoiled it," he hissed. "You got Mr. Esteva mad at me. You going to get me fired and Mr. Esteva mad."

  "Brett," Caroline hissed.

  Brett turned and rushed out of the room. Caroline stood frozen on the spot and looked after him. She said, "Brett," again, but there was no hiss to it. She looked at me.

  "He's only seventeen," she said. "You can't-"

  "I don't want to," I said. "I'm only interested in Esteva."

  "It's the first job he's ever had," she said. "He didn't finish high school. He's . . ." Brett came back in the room with a handgun.

  All of us were quiet.

  It was a big handgun, a long-barreled revolver with a tarnished nickel plating. Brett held it in front of him at chest level in his right hand. He looked awkward, as if he wasn't used to a handgun. Lots of seventeen-year-old kids aren't. His elbow was bent and held close to his side and he had to cock his wrist forward to keep the gun level. He was hunched forward over the weapon, his head extended on his fat neck. From where I sat the gun looked bigger than a .38. Maybe a .44.

  Brett said, "You bastard, you get out of here. You leave me and my mother alone."

  I said, "Brett, unless you've got some experience with handguns there's a pretty good chance that you won't hit me if you shoot from there."

  "Bastard," Brett said.

  Caroline said, "Brett, where did you get that?"

  That didn't seem the most important issue to me.

  "I got it," Brett said. He was still looking at me, red-faced and wheezy, hunched fatly over the old revolver.

  "Put it down, right now," Caroline said.

  I edged my feet under me behind the coffee table.

  "Now, Brett," Caroline said.

  "It's mine," Brett said. But the edge in his voice had dulled.

  "Now," Caroline said.

  Brett looked away from me.

  "Now."

  He lowered the gun. Caroline reached out and took it by the barrel. They stood motionless for a moment, he holding the butt, she the barrel. Then he let go of the gun and Caroline took it, holding it by the barrel.

  I stood and stepped across the living room and took the gun. Brett had his head down, his arms at his sides.

  "Everything's going to be spoiled," he said. I looked at the gun. It was an old Navy Colt with a palm-worn walnut handle. And it wasn't a .44. It was a .41. His mother's question took on more weight.

  "Where'd you get the gun, Brett?" I said. He shook his lowered head.

  "Is it one of your husband's?" I said to Caroline.

  She shook her head. "I've never seen it. I turned all of Bailey's guns in to Henry Macintire after the funeral. I don't want Brett having anything to do with guns."

  I said, "It's a for
ty-one caliber. Same caliber that killed your husband. It's a very uncommon caliber." I opened the cylinder. It held four slugs. "Where'd you get the gun, Brett?"

  "I found it," he said. He was still staring at the floor.

  Caroline's eyes were wide. "What are you saying," she said.

  "I'm saying this might be the gun that killed your husband."

  "That's ridiculous," she said. "There must be thousands of guns like that."

  "There are no forty-one-caliber handguns registered in the state," I said.

  "For God's sakes; what does that prove, Brett wouldn't kill his own father."

  "I'm sure he wouldn't," I said. "And this gun doesn't prove he did, but I sure would like to know where he got it."

  "I found it," Brett said.

  "Where," I said.

  "On the ground."

  "Where on the ground." I had stepped closer to him.

  "Near the library."

  "In the snow?"

  "Yah."

  "So how come there's no rust where the nickel's worn?"

  "I dunno."

  Brett's voice got softer with each response and his gaze stayed unvaryingly on the blue and red braided rug on the living room floor.

  "I think you're lying, Brett," I said.

  "No."

  "Yes, you're lying."

  Brett began to snuffle. "Am not," he said.

  "Enough," Caroline Rogers said. "He's a seventeen-year-old boy. I won't let you bully him. He's done nothing wrong. You're treating him like a criminal."

  "Caroline," I said, "he's running dope, he threatened me with a loaded weapon. He may be in possession of the weapon used in a murder."

  Caroline's eyes began to tear as well. "Oh, Brett," she said.

  "I'm sorry," Brett said. "I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry."

  They were both crying full out now, incoherently.

  I took the four rounds out of the Navy Colt and slipped them into my pants pocket. I stuck the gun into my belt and turned and walked to the front window and stared out at the snow-covered lawn.

  So far so good. I had a recently widowed mother and her orphaned son crying hysterically. Maybe for an encore I could shoot the family dog.

  Behind me I heard Caroline say, "It's all right, honey. It's all right. We'll fix it, nothing we can't fix. It'll be all right."