told him I’d found not a trace of evidence to suggest that Marty Rabb gambled or threw games or chewed snuff. He was not happy about Linda Rabb, and he was not happy that I didn’t know more about it. Or wouldn’t tell.
“Goddamnit, Spenser. You are not giving it to me straight. There’s more there than you’re saying. I hire a man I expect cooperation. You are holding out on me.”
I told him I wasn’t holding out, and if he thought so, he could refuse to pay my bill. He said he’d think about that too. And we hung up. On my desk were bills and some letters I should get to. I put them in the middle drawer of my desk and closed the drawer. I’d get to them later. Down the street a construction company was tearing down the buildings along the south side of Stuart Street to make room for a medical school. Since early spring they had been moving in on my building. I could hear the big iron wrecking ball thump into the old brick of the garment lofts and palm-reading parlors that used to be there. By next month I’d have to get a new office. What I should do right now is call a real estate broker and get humping on relocation. When you have to move in a hurry, you get screwed. That’s just what I should do. Be smart, move before I had to. I looked at my watch: 4:45. I got up and went out of my office and headed for home. Once I got this cleared up with the Rabbs, I’d look into a new office.
As I walked across the Common, the Hare Krishnas were chanting and hopping around in their ankle-length saffron robes, Hush Puppies and sneakers with white sweat socks poking out beneath the hems. Did you have to look funny to be saved? If Christ were around today, He’d probably be wearing a chambray shirt and flared slacks. There were kids splashing in the wading pool and dogs on leashes and squirrels on the loose and pigeons. In the Public Garden the swan. boats were still making their circuit of the duck pond under the little footbridge.
At home I got out a can of beer, read the morning Globe, warmed up some leftover beef stew for supper, ate it with Syrian bread while I watched the news, and settled down in my living room with my copy of Morison. I’d bought it in three-volume soft-cover and was halfway through the third volume. I stared at it for half an hour and made no progress at all. I looked at my watch: 7:20. Too early to go to bed.
Brenda Loring? No. Susan Silverman? No. Over to the Harbor Health Club and lift a few and talk with Henry Cimoli?
No. Nothing. I didn’t want to talk with anyone. And I didn’t want to read. I looked at the TV listings in the paper. There was nothing I could stand to look at. And I didn’t feel like woodcarving and I didn’t feel like sitting in my apartment. If I had a dog, I could take him for a walk. I could pretend.
I went out and strolled along Arlington to Commonwealth and up the mall on Commonwealth toward Kenmore Square. When I got there, I turned down Brookline Ave and went into a bar called Copperfield’s and drank beer there till it closed. Then I walked back home and went to bed.
I didn’t sleep much, but after a while it was morning and the Globe was delivered. There it was, page one, lower left, with a Carol Curtis by-line. sox WIFE REVEALS OTHER LIFE. I read it, drinking coffee and eating corn bread with strawberry jam, and it was all it should have been. The facts were the way Linda Rabb had given them. The writing was sympathetic and intelligent. Inside on the sports page was a picture of Marty, and one of Linda, obviously taken in the stands on a happier occasion. Balls.
The phone rang. It was Marty Rabb.
“Spenser, the doorman says Maynard and another guy are here to see me. Linda said to call you.”
“She there too?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be over. Don’t let them in until I come.”
“Well, shit, I’m not scared…”
“Be scared. Lester’s got a gun.”
I hung up and ran for my car. In less than ten minutes I was in the lobby at Church Park and Bucky and Lester were glaring at me. The houseman called up and we three went together in the same elevator. No one said anything. But the silence in the elevator had the density of clay.
Marty Rabb opened the door and the three of us went in. Me first and Lester last. Linda Rabb came out of the bedroom with her little boy holding on to her hand. Rabb faced us in the middle of the living room. Legs slightly apart, hands on hips. He had on a short-sleeved white shirt, and his lean, wiry arms were tanned halfway up the forearms and pale thereafter. Must pitch with a sweat shirt on, I thought.
“Okay,” he said. “Get it done, and then get the hell out of here. All three of you.”
Bucky Maynard said, “Ah want to know just what in hell you think you gonna accomplish with that nonsense in the newspapers. You think that’s gonna close the account between you and me? ’Cause if you think so, you better think on it some more, boy.”
“I thought on it all I’m going to think on it, Maynard,” Rabb said. “You and me got nothing else to say to each other.”
“You think ah can’t squeeze you some more, boy? Ah got records of every game you dumped, boy. Every inning you fudged a run for the office pools, and ah can talk just as good as your little girl to the newspapers, don’t you think ah can’t.”
Lester was leaning bonelessly against the wall by the door with his arms across his chest and his jaws working. He was doing Che Guevara today, starched fatigue pants, engineer boots, a fatigue shirt with the sleeves cut off, and black beret. The shirt hung outside the pants. I wondered if he had the nickel-plated Beretta stuck in his belt.
“You can,” I said. “But you won’t.”
Linda and the boy stood beside Marty, Linda’s left hand touching his arm, her right holding the boy’s.
“Ah won’t?”
“Nope. Because you can’t do it without sinking yourself too. You won’t make any money by turning him in and you can’t do it without getting caught yourself. Marty will be out of the league, okay. But so will you, fats.”
Maynard’s face got bright red. “You think so?” he said.
“Yeah. You say one word to anybody and you’ll be calling drag races in Dalrymple, Georgia. And you know it.”
