“You know.”
“No, I don’t, Manfred. Like what?”
“Well, if you needed people for, like, you know, like fighting and getting things done.”
“Like the baboons that pounded on me this morning?”
“I didn’t hire them, Spenser. They’re from the organization. They wanted to make sure I wasn’t bothered.”
“Because you are a Klan mucky-muck?” I said. “Second Assistant Lizard?”
“I’m an official. And they were looking out for me. We stick together.”
Manfred’s voice tried for dignity, but he kept staring at the floor, and dignity is hard, while you’re looking at the floor.
“Ever meet his mother or his sister?”
“No.”
“Know anything about them?”
“No.”
“Manfred, you are not being a help.”
“I’m trying, Spenser. I just don’t know nothing. I never heard of Rachel Whosis.”
“Wallace,” I said. “Rachel Wallace.”
Manfred and I chatted for another hour with no better results. Hardly seemed worth getting beat up for. When I left, Mrs. Roy didn’t come to say goodbye, and Manfred didn’t offer to shake hands. I got even—I didn’t wish them Merry Christmas.
It was a little after three when I got back out onto Commonwealth. The whiskey and aspirin had worn off, and I hurt. A three-block walk and I could be in bed, but that wouldn’t be looking for Rachel Wallace. That would be taking a nap. Instead I walked down to Berkeley and up three blocks to Police Headquarters to talk with Quirk.
He was there and so was Belson. Quirk had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. He was squeezing one of those little red rubber grip strengtheners with indentations for the fingers. He did ten in one hand and switched it to the other and did ten more.
“Trying to keep your weight down, Marty?” I said.
Quirk switched the grip strengthener back to his right hand. “Your face looks good,” he said.
“I bumped into a door,” I said.
“About fifteen times,” Belson said. “You come in to make a complaint?”
I shook my head. It made my face hurt. “I came by to see how you guys are making out looking for Rachel Wallace.”
“We got shit,” Quirk said.
“Anything on those license-tag numbers I gave you?”
Quirk nodded. “The Buick belongs to a guy named Swisher Cody. Used to be a big basketball star at Hyde Park High in the Fifties, where he got the nickname. Dodge belongs to a broad named Mary Stevenson. Says she lets her boyfriend use it all the time. Boyfriend’s name is Michael Mulready. He’s a pal of Swisher’s. They both tell us that they were together the night you say they tried to run you off the road and that they were playing cards with Mulready’s cousin Mingo at his place in Watertown. Mingo says that’s right. Cody’s done time for loansharking. Mingo, too.”
“So you let them go,” I said.
Quirk shrugged. “Even if we didn’t believe them and we believe you, what have we got them for? Careless driving? We let ‘em go and we put a tail on them.”
“And?”
“And nothing. They both go to work in the Sears warehouse in Dorchester. They stop on the way home for a few beers. They go to bed. Sometimes they drive out to Watertown and play cards with Cousin Mingo.”
I nodded. “How about English?”
Quirk nodded at Belson.
Belson said, “Pretty much what you heard. He’s chairman of the Vigilance Committee.”
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” Quirk said, and squeezed his grip exerciser hard so that the muscles in his forearm looked like suspension cables.
Belson said, “Spenser been lending you books again, Marty?”
Quirk shook his head. “Naw, my kid’s taking U.S. History. He’s almost as smart as Spenser.”
“Maybe he’ll straighten out,” I said. “What else you got on English?”
Belson shrugged. “Nothing you don’t know. He’s got money—he thinks it makes him important, and he’s probably right. He’s got the IQ of a fieldmouse. And he’s got an alibi to cover any time Rachel Wallace might have been kidnaped. Did you meet his mother?”
“No. I’ve seen her picture.”
