'Yes, honey, the police.'
'No, can't we get out of here? I'll go home. You won't say anything. My father will pay you. He has money. I know he can give you some… '
'Your boyfriend, dead in your apartment, killed with your gun, you gone? They'd come and get you and bring you back. Do you know a lawyer?'
'A lawyer, how the hell would I know a freaking lawyer?' She looked desperately toward the door. 'I'm splitting, screw this scene.' Her voice had gotten harsh and tough with fright, and I noticed her lapse into the jargon of her peer group as her fright increased. When she'd been clinging to me she talked like a young girl in college. When she wanted to get away from me her voice and language changed. I held her against me with my arm around her shoulder.
'Listen,' I said. 'You are in trouble enough to pull up over your head and tie a knot in. But you're not in it alone. I'll help you. It's my line of work. I'll get you a lawyer in a bit. Then I'll call the cops. Before I do, though?' She started to speak and I squeezed her. 'Listen,' I said, 'When the cops come don't say anything, don't talk to them, don't argue with them, don't be hostile, don't be smart. Do not say anything to anybody till you talk to the lawyer. His name is Vincent Haller. He'll see you soon after you go downtown. Talk only with him present and say only what he says you should. Have you ever been busted?'
'No.'
'Okay. It's not anywhere near as bad as you think it is. No one will hurt you. No one will grab you under a bright light and hit you with a hose. You'll be okay, and you won't be in long. Haller will take care of you.'
She nodded. I went on.
'Before I make my call?do you have any idea why the men did this?'
'No.'
'Do you use drugs?'
'Yes.'
'Do you know what they gave you?'
'No. It tasted like paregoric and smelled like ether. It wasn't anything I'd tried. Whatever it was, was a downer though.'
'Okay. Get dressed. I'm going to call.'
Chapter 4
The first of Boston's finest to arrive were two bulls from a radio car. They came in, told us not to touch anything, got our names, frisked me, took my gun, and looked closely at us till the homicide people came. They came, as they always do, in large numbers: technicians, photographers, someone from the medical examiner's. Two guys in white coats to carry out the corpse and some dicks to investigate the crime and question the suspects. In this case the crew was led by the commander of the homicide bureau, Lieutenant Martin Quirk. I'm six foot one and he was taller than I was, taller and thicker. His hands and fingers were thick and his lips were thick and his nose was broad. His thick black hair was cut close. He was clean-shaven at four A.M. and his shoes gleamed with dark polish. His shirt was freshly ironed and his tie neatly knotted. His suit was immaculate and sharply creased. He wore a Tyrolean hat with a feather in it and a white raincoat, which he never took off. His face was pockmarked and there was a short scar at one corner of his mouth.
He stood now looking at me with his raincoat open and his hands in his hip pockets. 'This is sure a lucky break for us, Spenser, having you on this to help us out. We need slick professionals like yourself to straighten us out and all. Keep us from forgetting to look for fingerprints, missing clues, and stuff.'
'I didn't plan to get into this, Lieutenant. The kid called me for help, and I came over and found her. And him. She was badly drugged. I got her sobered up a little and called you.'
'How did she know you?' Quirk asked.
'I'm on a case that she's involved in.'
'What case?'
'Looking for a missing rare manuscript stolen from a university.'
'What university?'
'If it seems pertinent, I'll tell you.'
'If I want to know, you'll tell me.' Quirk's voice squeezed out sharp and flat like sheet metal.
'I'll tell you if you need to know it. I don't make a living telling cops everything they want to know about clients.'
'I don't make a living taking crap from hole-in-the-wall shysters like you, Spenser.'
A thin, blue-jowled sergeant named Belson drifted in between Quirk and me.
'Come on, Lieutenant, this don't get us far. Both the girl and the victim are university students, and there's a fair bet that it's the same university that hired Spenser.'
Quirk looked at me, then Belson. 'Do you know him?' he asked, nodding at me.
'Yeah, he used to work out of the Suffolk County D.A.'s office about five years ago. I hear he got canned.'
'Okay, get his story.' He turned to me. 'You're not working for the D.A. now, boy, you're working my side of the street, and if you get in my way I'll kick your ass right into the gutter. Got that?'
'Can I feel your muscle?' I said.
Quirk looked at me without saying anything, then turned away and walked over to the girl.
Belson shook his head and pulled out a notebook.
'Start up with the lieutenant, Spenser, and you'll end up looking like you went through a pepper mill.'
'I won't be able to sleep without a night light,' I said.
Belson shrugged. 'Okay. Start from the beginning. You're in the business. I don't have to lead you.'
I told him, omitting, mostly from stubbornness, the name of my client, but including, because it was sure to come out anyway, the incident in the Pub that afternoon, when I had knocked the kid down.
Belson shook his head again. 'How could anyone get mad at a sweetheart like you? I would have thought he'd have been hypnotized with the way you're so agreeable.'
I let that go.
'You're sure you might not have been hustling his chick just a little, Spenser? And maybe you were over here hustling her again and he came home and caught you, and an argument developed?'
'Yeah, and I pulled out my fourteen-dollar Saturday night special and let fly at him. Come off it, Belson. You're just talking for the hell of it. You know I didn't do it. You know I wouldn't use a piece of cheap tin like that gun. If I had, you know I would have covered it better than this.'
'Okay, maybe I don't like you for it. I've known you a long time, and it's not your style. But it could happen. You got nothing against girls, I can recall. It could be his gun and you had to take it away from him and it went off. Lotta people get killed by people in a way that ain't their style.'
'And I shot him four times in the chest getting it away from him?'
'Could be to cover it up, make it look different.'
'You're fishing, Frank,' I said.
'Maybe.'
'Have you heard the girl's story yet?'
'Nope, lieutenant's getting that now.'
'He's going to love it,' I said.
'Of course you got it before you called us,' Belson said.
'She was way under from something. I had to bring her out.'
'And then you had to ask her what happened and then she had to tell you. And then you had to fix up a story maybe.'
'Wait till you hear the story. You don't think I'm smart enough to work up something like that. You guys are cops, not priests. Calling you isn't a ritual act. I called you as soon as my judgment told me it was both feasible and prudent.'
Belson set fire to a half-smoked cigar before he said anything. Then he said, 'You talk good for a dumb slug;
