'And, Terry, if Mr. Spenser succeeds in getting you out of this mess, if he does, perhaps you will begin to rethink your whole approach to life.'
'Why don't you get laid,' she said flatly, without inflection, and without looking at him.
Marion Orchard said 'Terry!' in a horrified voice.
Orchard's glass was empty. He flicked an eye at it, and away.
'Now, you listen to me, young lady,' he said. 'I have put up with your nonsense for as long as I'm going to. If you… '
I interrupted. 'If I want to listen to this kind of crap I can go home and watch daytime television. I want to talk with Terry, and maybe later I'll want to talk with each of you. Separately. Obviously I was wrong; we can't do it in a group. You people want to encounter one another, do it on your own time.'
'By God, Spenser,' Orchard said.
I cut him off again. 'I want to talk with Terry. Do I or don't I?'
I did. He and his wife left, and Terry and I were alone in the library.
'If I told my father to get laid he would have knocked out six of my teeth,' I said.
'Mine won't,' she said. 'He'll drink some more brandy, and tomorrow he'll stay late at the office.'
'You don't like him much,' I said.
'I bet if I said that to you, you'd knock out six of my teeth,' she said.
'Only if you didn't smile,' I answered.
'He's a jerk.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'But he's your jerk, and from his point of view you're no prize package either.'
'I know,' she said.'
'However,' I said, 'let's think about what I'm supposed to do here. Tell me more about the manuscript and the professor and anything else you can remember beyond what you told Quirk last night.'
'That's all there is,' she said. 'I told the police everything I know.'
'Let's run through it again anyway,' I said. 'Have you talked with Quirk again since last night?'
'Yes, I saw him this morning before Daddy's people got me out.'
'Okay, tell me what he asked you and what you said.'
'He started by asking me why I thought two big white men in hats would come to our apartment and kill Dennis and frame me.'
That was Quirk, starting right where he left off, no rephrasing, no new approach, less sleep than I had and there in the morning when the big cheeses passed the word along to let her out, getting all his questions answered before he released her.
'And what did you answer?' I said.
'I said the only thing I could think of was the manuscript. That Dennis was involved somehow in that theft, and he was upset about it.'
'Can you give me more than that? How was he involved? Why was he involved? What makes you think he was involved? Why do you think he was upset? What did he do to show you he was upset? Answer any or all, one at a time.'
'It was a phone call he made from the apartment. The way he was talking I could tell he was upset, and I could tell he wasn't talking to another kid. I mean, you can tell that from the way people talk. The way his voice sounded.'
'What did he say?' I said.
'I couldn't hear most of it. He talked low, and I knew he didn't want me to hear, you know, cupping his hand and everything. So I tried not to hear. But he did say something about hiding it… like 'Don't worry, no one will find it. I was careful.' '
'When was this?' I asked.
'About a week ago. Lemme see, I was up early for my Chaucer course, so it would have been Monday, that's five days ago. Last Monday.'
The manuscript had been stolen Sunday night.
'Okay, so he was upset. About what?'
'I don't know, but I can tell when he's mad. At one point I think he threatened someone.'
'Why do you think so? What did he say that makes you think so?'
'He said, 'If you don't… ' No… No… he said, 'I will, I really will… ' Yeah. That's what it was… 'I really will.' But very threateny, you know.'
'Good. Now why do you think it was a professor? I know the voice tone told you it was someone older, but why a professor? What did he say? What were the words?'
'Well, oh, I don't know, it was just a feeling. I wasn't all that interested; I was running the water for a bath, anyway.'
'No, Terry, I want to know. The words, what were his words?'
She was silent, her eyes squeezed almost shut, as if the sun were shining in them, her upper teeth exposed, her lower lip sucked in.
'Dennis said, 'I don't care'… 'I don't care, if you do.'… He said, 'I don't care if you do. Cut the goddamn thing.' That's it. He was talking to an older person and he said cut the class if the other person had to. That's why I figured it must be a professor.'
'How do you know he wasn't talking about cutting a piece of rope, or a salami?'
'Because he mentioned class or school a little before. And what could they be talking about angrily that had to do with salami?'
'Okay. Good. What else?'
There wasn't anything else. I worked on her for maybe half an hour more and nothing else surfaced. All I got was the name of a SCACE official close to Powell, someone named Mark Tabor, whose title was political counselor.
'If you think of anything else, anything at all, call me. You still have my card?'
'Yes. I… my father will pay you for what you did last night.'
'No, he won't. He'll pay me for what I may do. But last night was a free introductory offer.'
'It was a very nice thing to do,' she said.
'Aw, hell,' I said.
'What you should try to do is this,' I said. 'You should try to keep from starting up with your old man for a while. And you should try to stay around the house, go to class if you think you should, but for the moment let SCACE stave off the apocalypse without you. Okay?'
'Okay. But don't laugh at us. We're perfectly serious and perfectly right.'
'Yeah, so is everyone I know.'
I left her then. Said good-bye to her parents, took a retainer from Roland Orchard, and drove back to town.
Chapter 7
Driving back to Boston, I thought about my two retainers in the same week. Maybe I'd buy a yacht. On the other hand maybe it would be better to get the tear in my convertible roof fixed. The tape leaked. I got off the Mass Pike at Storrow Drive and headed for the university. On my left the Charles River was thick and gray between Boston and Cambridge. A single oarsman was sculling upstream. He had on a hooded orange sweat shirt and dark blue sweat pants and his breath steamed as he rocked back and forth at the oars. Rowing downstream would have been easier.
I turned off Storrow at Charlesgate, went up over Commonwealth, onto Park Drive, past a batch of ducks swimming in the muddy river, through the Fenway to Westland Ave. Number 177 was on the left, halfway to Mass Ave. I parked at a hydrant and went up the stone steps to the glass door at the entry. I tried it. It was open. Inside an ancient panel of doorbells and call boxes covered the left wall. I didn't have to try one to know they didn't work. They didn't need to. The inner door didn't close all the way because the floor was warped in front of the sill and
