Next morning I drove over to 1010 Commonwealth.
Healy was in his office, his coat off, the cuffs of his white shirt turned back, but the narrow black knit tie neat and tight around the short, pointed collar. He was medium height, slim, with a gray crew cut and pale blue eyes like Paul Newman.
He looked like a career man in a discount shirt store. Five years ago he had gone into a candy store unarmed and rescued two hostages from a nervous junkie with a shotgun. The only person hurt was the junkie.
He said, “What do you want, Spenser?” I was always one of his favorites.
I said, “I’m selling copies of the Police Gazette and thought you might wish to keep abreast of the professional developments in your field.”
“Knock off the horse crap, Spenser, what do you want?”
I took out the envelope containing my Polaroid picture of Marty Rabb’s coffee table.
“There’s a photograph in here with two sets of prints on it. One set is mine. I want to know who the other one belongs to. Can you run it through the FBI for me?”
“Why?”
“Would you buy, I’m getting married and want to run a credit check on my bride-to-be?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Okay. It’s confidential. I don’t want to tell you if I don’t have to. But I gotta know, and I’ll give you the reasons if you insist.”
“Where do you buy your clothes, Spenser?”
“Aha, bribery. You want the name of my tailor, because I’m your clothing idol.”
“You dress like a goddamned hippie. Don’t you own a tie?”
“One,” I said. “So I can eat in the main dining room at the Ritz.”
“Gimme the photo,” Healy said. “I’ll let you know what comes back.”
I gave him the envelope. “Tell your people to try and not get grape jelly and marshmallow fluff all over the photo, okay?”
Healy ignored me. I left.
Going out, I got a look at myself in the glass doors. I had on a red and black paisley sport coat, a black polo shirt, black slacks, and shiny black loafers with a crinkle finish and gold buckles. Hippie? Healy’s idea of aggressive fashion was French cuffs. I put on my sunglasses, got in my car, and headed down Commonwealth toward Kenmore Square. The top was down and the seat was quite hot. Not a single girl turned to stare at me as I went by.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THIRTEENTH STREET WAS a twenty-five-minute walk downtown and 116 was in the East Village between Second and Third.
There was a group of men outside 116, leaning against the parked cars with their shirts unbuttoned, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer from quart bottles. They were speaking Spanish. One Sixteen was a four-story brick house, which had long ago been painted yellow and from which the paint peeled in myriad patches. Next to it was a six-story four-unit apartment building newly done in light gray paint with the door and window frames and the fire escapes and the railing along the front steps a bright red. The beer drinkers had a portable radio that played Spanish music very loudly.
I went up the four steps to number 116 and rang the bell marked CUSTODIAN. Nothing happened, and I rang it again.
One of the beer drinkers said, ”Don’t work, man. Who you want?“
”I want the manager.“
”Inside, knock on the first door.“
”Thanks.“
In the entry was an empty bottle of Boone’s Farm apple wine and a sneaker without laces. Stairs led up against the left wall ahead of me, and a brief corridor went back into the building to the right of the stairs. I knocked on the first door and a woman answered the first knock.
She was tall and strongly built, olive skin and short black hair. A gray streak ran through her hair from the forehead back. She had on a man’s white shirt and cutoff jeans.
Her feet were bare, and her toenails were painted a dark plum color. She looked about forty-five.
I said, ”My name is Spenser. I’m a private detective from Boston, and I’m looking for a girl who lived here once about eight years ago.“
She smiled and her teeth were very white and even.
”Come in,“ she said. The room was large and square, and a lot of light came in through the high windows that faced out onto the street. The walls and ceiling were white, and there were red drapes at the windows and a red rug on the floor. In the middle of the room stood a big, square, thick-legged wooden table with a red linoleum top, a large bowl of fruit in the center and a high-backed wooden chair at either end. She gestured toward one of the chairs. ”Coffee?“ she said..
”Yes, thank you.“
I sat at the table and looked about the room while she disappeared through a bead-curtained archway to make the coffee. There was a red plush round-back Victorian sofa with mahogany arms in front of the windows and an
