“Are you sure he’s working for Frank What’s‘isname?”
“I’m not sure of anything. I’m guessing. Right after I started looking around the ball club, Doerr came to my office with one of his gunbearers and told me I might become an endangered species if I kept at it. That’s suggestive, but it ain’t definitive.”
“Can you find out?”
“Maybe.”
“Marty makes a lot of money. We could pay you. How much do you charge?”
“My normal retainer is two corn muffins and a black coffee. I bill the rest upon completion.”
“I’m serious. We can pay a lot.”
“Like Jack Webb would say, you already have, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But I don’t want you to start until we get Marty’s approval.”
“Un-unh. Your retainer doesn’t buy that. I’m still also working for Erskine, and I’m still looking into the situation.
I’m now looking with an eye to getting you unhooked, but you can’t call me off.”
“But you won’t say anything about us?” Her eyes were wide and her face was pale and tight again and she was scared.
“No,” I said.
“Not unless Marty says okay.”
“Not until I’ve checked with you and Marty.”
“That’s not quite the same thing,” she said.
“I know.”
“But, Spenser, it’s our life. It’s us you’re frigging around with.”
“I know that too. I’ll be as careful as I can be.”
“Then, damn it, you have got to promise.”
“No. I won’t promise because I may not be able to deliver. Or maybe it will turn out different. Maybe I’ll have to blow the whistle on you for reasons I can’t see yet. But if I do, I’ll tell you first.”
“But you won’t promise.”
“I can’t promise.”
“Why not, goddamn you?”
“I already told you.”
She shook her head once, as if there were a horsefly on it. “That’s bullshit,” she said. “I want a better reason than that for you to ruin us.”
“I can’t give you a better reason. I care about promises, and I don’t want to make one I can’t be sure I’ll keep. It’s important to me.”
“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” She was leaning forward, and her nostrils seemed to flare wider as she did.
“My game has rules too, Mrs. Rabb.”
“You sound like Marty,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
She was looking at the Christian Science dome again.
“Children,” she said to it. “Goddamned adolescent children.’‘ My stomach felt a little funny, and I was uncomfortable as hell.
”Mrs. Rabb,“ I said, ”I will try to help. And I am good at this. I’ll try.“
She kept looking at the dome. ”You and Marty and all the goddamned game-playing children. You’re all good at all the games.“ She turned around and looked at me. ”Screw,“ she said, and jerked her head at the door.
I couldn’t think of much to say to that, so I screwed.
She slammed the door behind me, and I went down in the elevator feeling like a horse’s ass and not sure why.
It was almost three o’clock. There was a public phone outside the drugstore next to the apartment building entrance. I went in and called Martin Quirk.
”Spenser,“ he said. ”Thank God you called. I’ve got this murder took place in a locked room. It’s got us all stumped and the chief said; ’Quirk,‘ he said, ’only one man can solve this.“‘ ”Can I buy you lunch or a drink or something?“
”Lunch? A drink? Christ, you must be in deep trouble.“
I did not feel jolly. ”Yes or no,“ I said. ”If I wanted humor, I’d have called Dial-A-Joke.“
