face, toweled dry and headed for New Bedford.
At five after two I was illegally parked outside the New Bedford police station on Spring Street. It was three stories, brick, with A dormers on the roof and a kind of cream yellow trim. Flanking the entrance, just like in the Bowery Boys movies, were white globes on black iron columns. On the globes it said NEW BEDFORD POLICE in black letters. A couple of tan police cruisers with blue shields on the door were parked out front. One of them was occupied, and I noticed that the New Bedford cops wore white hats. I wondered if the crooks wore black ones.
At the desk I asked a woman cop who was handling the Bristol Security robbery. She had light hair and blue eyeshadow and shiny lipstick and she looked at me hard for about ten seconds.
”Who wants to know?“ she said.
Not sex nor age nor national origin makes any difference. Cops are cops.
”My name’s Spenser,“ I said. ”I’m a private license from Boston and I have some information that’s going to get someone promoted to sergeant.“
”I’ll bet you do,“ she said. ”Why don’t you lay a little on me and see if I’m impressed.“
”You on the case?“
”I’m on the desk, but impress me anyway.“
I shook my head. ”Detectives,“ I said. ”I only deal with detectives.“
”Everybody only deals with detectives. Every day I sit here with my butt getting wider, and every day guys like you come in and want to talk with a detective.“ She picked up the phone on the desk, dialed a four-digit number and said into the mouthpiece, ”Sylvia there? Margaret on the desk. Yeah. Well, tell him there’s a guy down here says he’s got information on Bristol Security. Okay.“ She hung up. ”Guy in charge is a detective named Jackie Sylvia. Sit over there, he’ll be down in a minute.“
It was more like five before he showed up. A squat bald man with dark skin. He was as dapper as a guy can be who stands five six and weighs two hundred. Pink-flowered shirt, a beige leisure suit, coppery brown patent leather loafers with a couple of bright gold links on the tops. It was hard to tell how old he was. His round face was without lines, but the close-cropped hair that remained below his glistening bald spot was mostly gray. He walked over to me with a light step and I suspected he might not be as fat as he looked.
”My name’s Sylvia,“ he said. ”You looking for me?“
”I am if you’re running the Bristol Security investigation.“
”Yeah.“
”Can we go someplace and talk?“
Sylvia nodded toward the stairs past the desk and I followed him to the second floor. We went through a door marked ROBBERY and into a room that overlooked Second Street. There were six desks butted together in groups of two, each with a push-button phone and a light maple swivel chair. In the far corner an office had been partitioned off. On the door was a sign that read SGT. CRUZ. At one of the desks a skinny cop with scraggly blond hair sat with his feet up talking on the phone. He was wearing a black T-shirt, and on his right forearm he had a tattoo of a thunderbird and the words fighting 45TH. A cigarette burned on the edge of the desk, a long ash forming. Sylvia grabbed a straight chair from beside one of the other desks and dragged it over beside his. ”Sit,“ he said. I sat and he slid into his swivel chair and tilted it back, his small feet resting on the base of the chair. He wasn’t wearing socks. A big floor fan in the far corner moved hot air back and forth across the desk tops as it scanned the room.
On Sylvia’s desk was a paper coffee cup, empty, and part of a peanut butter sandwich on white bread. ”Okay,“ Sylvia said. ”Shoot.“
”You know who King Powers is?“ I said.
”Yeah.“
”I can give you the people who did the Bristol Security and I can give you Powers, but there’s got to be a trade.“
”Powers don’t do banks.“
”I know. I can give him to you for something else, and I can give you the bank people and I can tie them together, but I gotta have something back from you.“
”What do you want?“
”I want two people who are in this, left out of this.“
”One of them you?“
”No, I don’t do banks either.“
”Let me see something that tells me what you do do.“
I showed him my license. He looked at it, handed it back. ”Boston, huh. You know a guy named Abel Markum up there, works out of Robbery?“
”Nope.“
”Who do you know?“
”I know a homicide lieutenant named Quirk. A dick named Frank Belson. Guy in Robbery named Herschel Patton. And I have a friend that’s a school-crossing guard in Billerica named…“
Sylvia cut me off. ”Okay, okay, I done business with Patton.“ He took some grape-flavored sugarless bubble gum from his shirt pocket and put two pieces in his mouth. He didn’t offer any to me. ”You know, if you’re in possession of evidence of the commission of a felony that you have no legal right to withhold that evidence.“
”Can I have a piece of bubble gum?“
Sylvia reached into his pocket, took out the pack and tossed it on the desk in front of me. There were three
