'Yes, sir,' he said. 'We are.'
He swept his arm toward the metal detector, and I went through without incident.
'Elevators are there, sir.'
'Stay alert,' I said. 'If I run into trouble, I'll scream.'
'We'll be here, sir.'
At the fifteenth floor there was a woman with long, silver hair and a severe young face. She was dressed in a black pantsuit and a mannish white shirt with a narrow black tie. Her black shoes had very high heels. We stepped into a long hallway. There were office doors along both sides of it. The hallway floor was carpeted in dark red. There was no identification on any of the office doors, all of which were closed.
'Spenser,' I said,
'Follow me, please,' she said.
There were discreet security cameras at either end of the hall. I smiled at the one I was facing. It's good to be cheery. The severe woman knocked on the last door on the right.
From inside, a voice said, 'Come.'
The woman opened the door and stepped aside, and I went in. Ives was sitting at an empty desk in a blank room with a view of the harbor. He looked at me without expression until the door closed and we were alone.
Then he smiled, sort of, and said, 'Well, well, young Lochinvar.'
'How about maturing Lochinvar,' I said.
'You're as old as you feel,' Ives said, and gestured at the straight chair in front of his desk. 'Sit.'
Ives was sort of tall and leathery with sandy hair. He wore a tan poplin suit with a pink oxford button-down shirt and a pink bow tie with black polka dots. The room was entirely without ornamentation except for Ives's Yale diploma framed on the wall behind his desk.
'You ever hear of an antiestablishment organization in 1974 that called itself the Dread Scott Brigade?'
Ives smiled his dim smile. 'It is my business to hear of things,' he said. 'Why do you ask?'
'They killed a woman in a bank holdup in Boston in September of 1974.'
'And were never caught,' Ives said.
I nodded.
'Which is why you're here,' he said.
'Yes.'
'You're going to catch them.'
'I am.'
'Except you don't know who they are.'
'Not yet,' I said.
'Or if they even exist,' Ives said.
'Somebody killed her,' I said.
'Why do you think it was this group?'
'Cops got a letter from them afterwards, claiming responsibility.'
'Anyone can write a letter,' Ives said.
'It's a place to start,' I said.
'I suppose it is.'
Ives folded his hands over his flat stomach and leaned back in his chair and rested one foot on the edge of his desk. He made a slight gesture with his lips, which I had decided to treat as a smile.
'So, you ever hear of them.'
'They are a domestic group,' Ives said. 'We concern ourselves with international issues. Have you consulted our counterintelligence cousins at the Bureau?'
'There seems to be a missing file.'
Ives smiled again. 'Ahhh!' he said.
'Ahhh?'
Ives began to nod his head slowly as he spoke.
'How do you know it exists?' he said.
'It was mentioned in a police report. Said an FBI intelligence file was coming.'
'And it wasn't there.'
'No.'
'And the FBI can't find it.'
