By the time the phone was back in the cradle, Steven was in the room. He had a nice springy step when he walked.
Vigorous. He also had a.38 caliber Ruger Black Hawk.
Patricia Utley said, “I believe he has a gun, Steven.”
Steven said, “Yeah, right hip, I spotted it when he came in. Shall I take it away from him?” Steven was holding the Ruger at his side, the barrel pointing at the floor. As he spoke, he slapped it absentmindedly against his thigh.
“No,” Patricia Utley said, “just show him to the street, please.”
Steven gestured with his head toward the door. “Move it,” he said.
I looked at Patricia Utley. Her color had returned. She was poised, still controlled, handsome. I couldn’t think of anything to say. So I moved it.
Outside, it was a warm summer night. Dark now, the bronze glow gone. And on the East Side, midtown, quiet. I walked over to Fifth Avenue and caught a cab uptown to my motel. The West Side was a little noisier but nowhere near as suave. When I got into my room, I turned up the air conditioner, turned on the television, and took a shower. When I came out, there was a Yankee game on and I lay on the bed and watched it.
Was it Lester? Was it Maynard with Lester as the straw? It had to be something like that. The coincidence would have been too big. The rumor that Rabb is shading games, the wife’s past, Marty knew something about it. He lied about the marriage circumstances, and Lester Floyd showing up asking about the wife and Lester Floyd’s name being on the mailing list. It had to be. Lester or Maynard had spotted Linda Rabb in the film and put the screws on her husband. I couldn’t prove it, but I didn’t have to. I could report back to Erskine that it looked probable Rabb was in somebody’s pocket and he could go to the DA and they could take it from there. I could get a print of the film and show Erskine and we could brace Rabb and talk about the integrity of the game and what he ought to do for the good of baseball and the kids of America. Then I could throw up.
I wasn’t going to do any of those things, and I knew it when I started thinking about it. The Yankee game went into extra innings and was won by John Briggs in the tenth inning, when he singled Don Money in from third. Milwaukee was doing better in New York than I was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IT WAS A CLASSIC summer morning when I dropped Brenda Loring off at her Charles River Park apartment. The river was a vigorous and optimistic blue, and the MDC cop at Leverett Circle was whistling “Buttons and Bows” as he directed traffic. Across the river Cambridge looked clean and bright in sharp relief against the sky. I went around Leverett Circle and headed back westbound on Storrow Drive. The last hurrah of the rush-hour traffic was still to be heard, and it took me twenty minutes to get to Church Park. I parked at a hydrant and took the elevator to the sixth floor. I’d called before I left that morning, so Linda Rabb was expecting me. Marty wasn’t home; he was with the club in Oakland.
“Coffee, Mr. Spenser?” she said when I came in.
“Yeah, I’d love some,” I said. It was already perked and on the coffee table with a plate of assorted muffins: corn, cranberry, and blueberry; all among my favorites. She was wearing pale blue jeans and a blue-and-pink- striped man-tailored shirt, open at the neck with a pink scarf knotted at the throat.
On her feet were cork-soled blue suede slip-on shoes. The engagement ring on her right hand had a heart- shaped diamond in it big enough to make her arm weary. The wedding ring on her left was a wide gold band, unadorned. A small boy who looked like his father hung around the coffee table, eyeing the muffins but hesitant about snatching one from so close to me.
I picked up the plate and offered him one, and he retreated quickly back behind his mother’s leg.
“Marty’s shy, Mr. Spenser,” she said. And to the boy: “Do you want cranberry or blueberry, Marty?” The boy turned his head toward her leg and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. He looked about three. Linda Rabb picked up a blueberry muffin and gave it to him. “Why don’t you get your crayons,” she said, “and bring them in here and draw here on the floor while I talk with Mr. Spenser?” The kid mumbled something again that I couldn’t hear. Linda Rabb took a deep breath and said, “Okay, Marty, come on, I’ll go with you to get them.” And to me: “Excuse me, Mr. Spenser.”
They went out, the kid hanging onto Linda Rabb’s pants leg as they went. No wonder so many housewives ended up drinking Boone’s Farm in the morning. They were back in maybe two minutes with a lined yellow legal- sized pad of paper and a box of crayons. The kid got down on the floor by his mother’s chair and began to draw stick-figured people in various colors, with orange predominant.
“Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Spenser?” she asked.
I hadn’t counted on the kid. “Well, it’s kind of complicated, Mrs. Rabb, maybe I ought to come back when the boy isn’t…” I left it hanging. I didn’t know how much the kid would understand, and I didn’t want him to think I didn’t want him around.
“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Spenser, Marty’s fine. He doesn’t mind what we talk about.”
“Well, I don’t know, this is kind of ticklish.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Spenser, say what’s on your mind. Believe me, it is all right.”
I drank some coffee. “Okay, I’ll tell you two things; then you decide whether we should go on. First, I’m not a writer, I’m a private detective. Second, I’ve seen a film called Suburban Fancy.”
She put her hand down on the boy’s head; otherwise she didn’t move. But her face got white and crowded.
“Who hired you?” she said.
“Erskine, but that doesn’t matter. I won’t hurt you.”
“Why?” she said.
“Why did Erskine hire me? He wanted to find out if your husband was involved in fixing baseball games.”
