“Maybe. Or maybe busting Louis Vincent was the buzzer, and they just got around to following up.”
“Nope,” Hawk said, “this a warning. Too late to warn us off Vincent.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”
“Who that plane belong to?” Hawk said.
“Last Stand Systems, Inc.,” I said. “Out of Beecham, Maine.”
“Beecham, Maine?”
“I never heard of it either,” I said.
The door to my office was open so that Hawk and I could keep an eye on Lila in the design office across the hall. Six men in close formation came through the open door like a drill team. Two moved to the left of the door, two to the right, and two marched straight up to my desk.
“Maybe these guys know,” Hawk said.
“You guys know where Beecham, Maine, is?” I said.
They looked like Secret Service men or IBM executives. They were all in dark suits and white shirts. They all wore ties. They all had short hair. They all were of northern European descent. When everyone was in place the suit closest to the door pushed it shut.
One of the two men in front of my desk said, “Spenser?”
He was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, which made him look smart, probably why he was the designated speaker.
“Yes,” I said. “Is it on the coast?”
“Is what on the coast?”
“Beecham.”
Horn Rims shook his head in dismissive annoyance.
“You’ve been put on notice,” he said. “As of this morning at three thirty-five.”
I looked at Hawk.
“Did you take those library books back like I told you?” I said.
Hawk was leaning against my file cabinet as if he might fall asleep. He smiled softly.
“Can’t be librarians,” Hawk said. “Librarians would know where Beecham is.”
Horn Rims didn’t change expression.
“You are to stay entirely away from Amir Abdullah. Repeat, entirely. If you fail to comply you will be incinerated as was your car.”
“How come,” I said.
“You’ve been informed,” Horn Rims said. “Your Negro friend as well.”
“You guys associated with Last Stand Systems?” I said.
One of the guys in the back opened my door, and four of them marched out. Horn Rims and his partner marched out after them. At the door, Horn Rims’ partner turned and aimed a semiautomatic pistol with a silencer. He squeezed off three rounds; each shot broke one of the three coffee cups that were lined up on the file cabinet about a foot from Hawk. Hawk never moved. The gun disappeared. The door closed. We were left with the silence and the smell of the gunfire.
Hawk looked at the remains of the coffee cups.
“Guy can shoot,” Hawk said.
“Yes, my Negro friend, but is he a nice person?” I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The pictures of Lillian and Robinson arrived in my office by FedEx. I took them with me when I drove up to the Sea Mist Inn and talked with the homey-looking woman at the desk. She remembered them clearly enough, a black man and a white woman. They had registered as Mr. & Mrs. Robinson Nevins on the Friday before last Labor Day, and, yes, that was Mrs. Nevins in the picture.
I drove back to Boston and over to the university and took the information and the pictures with me. I fell in beside Lillian Temple as she came down the steps of the library carrying her briefcase. She appeared to recognize me, but she didn’t appear to take any pleasure in it.
“Hi,” I said.
“I’d prefer that you did not bother me while I’m at work,” she said.
“Don’t blame you,” I said. “You know anything about the Sea Mist Inn?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sea Mist Inn, place up in Rockport where you and Robinson Nevins spent last Labor Day weekend.”
She stopped dead in the middle of the quadrangle.
“Labor Day?”
I took the photographs from my inside pocket.
