But that was to come. The face in the expensive portrait showed no hint of that. It looked out at me tranquil and personless, and devoid of meaning.
“What the hell are you looking at?” a voice said, and I looked up, and there were the children.
chapter six
SHE WAS CUTE. Short, trim body, blonde ponytail, big violet eyes, lips that looked slightly swollen. She wore too much makeup, and there was something about her bearing that murmured don’t look at me, at the same time that the makeup and the clothes were shouting see me! She stood slightly behind her brother, her eyes fixed on the coffee table to the right of me.
“My name’s Spenser,” I said. “I’m a detective.”
She was wearing a white tank top and pink short-shorts and thick white socks and white training shoes with pink laces. She had an immaculate tan.
Her brother looked just like her, except he wasn’t cute. And he wasn’t self-effacing. He wasn’t short either, probably 5’ll“, but he had the thick wrestler’s neck and upper body, and it made him look shorter than he was. He had the pouty lips too. His nose was too small for his face. His eyes were set in deep sockets. His blond hair was cut short, except in front where it was longish and combed back. He looked petulant and angry. It might have been me, but I suspected that it was his permanent expression. He wore a rust tank top and white shorts and gray socks and white highcut basketball shoes. Rust-rimmed sunglasses with dark green lenses hung on a rust-and-white braided cord from around his neck. His tan was immaculate too.
The two of them stood very close together as they looked at me. Ken and Barbie. Except Barbie wouldn’t look at me.
“Put the picture down,” he said. “Who the hell let you in here?”
“Your father,” I said. “He hired me to find who killed your mother.”
“Swell,” the brother said, “we don’t have enough half-arsed cretin cops slopping around. Dad has to hire an extra one.”
“You’re Meredith,” I said to the sister. She nodded.
“And you’re Loudon, Junior,” I said. He didn’t say anything.
“Sorry about your mother,” I said.
“Great,” he said. “Now why don’t you just get lost?”
“Why so hostile?” I said.
“Hostile? Me? If I get hostile, brother, you’ll goddamn well know about it.”
“Chi-ip,” Meredith said. Her voice was very soft.
“Your father probably needs to do this,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chip said. “Well, I don’t like you looking at my mother’s picture.”
His stare was full of arrogance. It came with wealth and position. And it came with being a wrestler. He thought he could toss me on my kiester.
If I kept talking to them he was going to try it, and find he had misjudged. It would probably be a good thing for him to learn. But now was probably not the best time for him to learn it.
I put the picture down carefully on the table and stood.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to keep looking into this. I’ll try not to be more annoying than I have to be.”
Meredith said, in a voice I could barely hear, “You might make everything worse.”
“You better keep your hands off my mom’s stuff,” Chip said.
I smiled graciously, and went past them and out the front door. It wasn’t much of a move, but it was better than wrestling with Chip.
chapter seven
I MET LEE Farrell in a place called Packie’s in the South End. He was alone at the bar when I came in. He had a half-drunk draft beer in front of him and an empty shot glass.
I slid onto the bar stool and looked at the shot glass.
“Old Thompson?” I said.
“Four Roses,” he said. “You got a problem with that?”
“Nostalgia,” I said. “When I was a kid it was a Croft Ale and a shot of Old Thompson.”
“Well, now it’s not,” Farrell said.
“Jesus,” I said, “how old were you when you dropped out of charm school?”
The bartender came down and poured another shot into Farrell’s glass. He looked at me. “Draft,” I said. He drew one and put it on a napkin in front of me.
Farrell took in about half his whiskey, washed it down with some draft beer. Then he shifted on the bar stool and leaned back a little and stared at me.
“You got a reputation,” he said. “Tough guy.”
“Richly deserved,” I said.
