”Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you at the Red Coach on Stanhope Street.“
I hung up. There was a parking ticket neatly tucked under the wiper blade on the driver’s side. The string looped around the base. A conscientious meter maid. A lot of them just jam it under the wiper without looping the string, and sometimes on the passenger side where you can’t even see it.
It was nice to see samples of professional pride. I put the ticket in a public trash receptacle attached to a lamppost.
I drove down Boylston Street past the Prudential Center and the new public library wing and through Copley Square. The fountain in the square was in full spray, and college kids and construction workers mingled on the wall around it, eating lunch, drinking beer, taking the sun. A lot of them were shirtless. Beyond the fountain was the Copley Plaza with two enormous gilded lions flanking the entrance.
And at the Clarendon Street end of the square, Trinity Church gleamed, recently sandblasted, its brown stones fresh-looking, its spires reflecting brightly in the windows of the Hancock Building. A quart of beer, I thought, and a cutlet sub. Shirt off, catch some rays, maybe strike up a conversation with a coed. Would you believe, my dear, I could be your father? Oh, you would.
I turned right on Clarendon and left onto Stanhope, where I parked in a loading zone. Stanhope Street is barely more than an alley and tucked into it between an electrical supply store and a garage is the Red Coach Grill, looking very old world with red tile roof and leaded windows. It was right back of police headquarters, and a lot of cops hung out there.
Also a lot of insurance types and ad men. Despite that, it wasn’t a bad place. Quiet lighting, oaken beams, and such.
Quirk was at the bar. He looked like I always figured a cop ought to. Bigger than I am and thick. Short, thick black hair, thick hands and fingers, thick neck, thick features, a pockmarked face, and dressed like he’d just come from a summit meeting. Today he had on a light gray three-piece suit with a pale red plaid pattern, a white shirt, and a silk-finish wide red tie. His shoes were patent leather loafers with a gold trim.
I slipped onto a barstool beside him.
”You gotta be on the take,“ I said. ”Fuzz don’t get paid enough to dress like that.“
”They do if they don’t do anything else. I haven’t been on vacation in fifteen years. What are you spending your dough on?“
”Lunch for cops,“ I said. ”Want to sit in a booth?“
Quirk picked up his drink, and we sat down across from the bar in one of the high-backed walnut booths that run parallel to the bar front to back and separate it from the dining room.
I ordered a bourbon on the rocks from the waitress.
”Shot of bitters and a twist,“ I said, ”and another for my date.“ The waitress was young with a short skirt and very short blond hair. Quirk and I watched her lean over the bar to pick up the drinks.
”You are a dirty lecherous old man,“ I said. ”I may speak to the vice squad about you.“
”What were you doing, looking for clues?“
”Just checking for concealed weapons, Lieutenant.“
She brought the drinks. Quirk had Scotch and soda.
We drank. I took a lot of mine in the first swallow.
Quirk said, ”I thought you were a beer drinker.“
”Yeah, but I got a bad taste I want to get rid of and the bourbon is quicker.“
”You must be used to a bad taste in your line of business.“
I finished the drink and nodded at the waitress. She looked at Quirk. He shook his head. ”I’ll nurse this,“ he said.
”I thought you guys weren’t supposed to drink on duty,“ I said.
”That’s right,“ he said. ”What do you want?“
”I just thought maybe we could rap a little about law enforcement theory and prison reform, and swap detective techniques, stuff like that.“
”Spenser, I got eighteen unsolved homicides in my lefthand desk drawer at this moment. You want to knock off the bullshit and get to it.“
”Frank Doerr,“ I said. ”I want to know about him.“
”Why?“
”I think he owns some paper on a guy who is squeezing a client.“
”And the guy is squeezing the client because of the paper?“
”Yes.“
”Doerr’s probably free-lance. Got his own organization, operates around the fringe of the mob’s territory. Gambling, mostly, used to be a gambler. Vegas, Reno, Cuba in the old days. Does loan sharking too. Successful, but I hear he’s a little crazy, things don’t go right, he gets bananas and starts shooting everybody. And he’s too greedy. He’s going to bite off too big a piece of somebody else’s pie and the company will have him dusted. He’s looking flashy now, but he’s not going to last.“
”Where do I find him?“
”If you’re screwing around in this operation, he’ll find you.“
”But say I want to find him before he does, where?“
