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Robert B Parker

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Spenser Novel
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 263

Beschreibung

In 1974, a revolutionary group held up the Old Shawmut Bank in Boston's Audubon Circle. Money was stolen. And a woman named Emily Gordon, a visitor in town cashing traveller's checks, was shot and killed. No one saw who shot her. Despite security-camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, the perpetrators have remained at large for nearly three decades. Enter Paul Giacomin, the closest thing to a son Spenser has. Twice before, Spenser's come to the young man's assistance; and now Paul is thirty-seven, his troubled past behind him. When Paul's friend Daryl Gordon-daughter of the long-gone Emily-decides she needs closure regarding her mother's death, it's Spenser she turns to. The lack of clues and a missing FBI intelligence report force Spenser to reach out in every direction-to Daryl's estranged, hippie father, to Vinnie Morris and the mob, to the mysterious Ives - testing his resourcefulness and his courageousness.

Leseprobe

A SPENSER NOVEL

In 1974, a revolutionary group held up the Old Shawmut Bank in Boston’s Audubon Circle. Money was stolen. And a woman named Emily Gordon, a visitor in town cashing traveller’s checks, was shot and killed. No one saw who shot her. Despite security-camera photos and a letter from the group claiming responsibility, the perpetrators have remained at large for nearly three decades.

Enter Paul Giacomin, the closest thing to a son Spenser has. Twice before, Spenser’s come to the young man’s assistance; and now Paul is thirty-seven, his troubled past behind him. When Paul’s friend Daryl Gordon-daughter of the long-gone Emily-decides she needs closure regarding her mother’s death, it’s Spenser she turns to. The lack of clues and a missing FBI intelligence report force Spenser to reach out in every direction-to Daryl’s estranged, hippie father, to Vinnie Morris and the mob, to the mysterious Ives - testing his resourcefulness and his courageousness.

Robert B. Parker (1932–2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novels featuring the wisecracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis’ comment, ‘We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story’ (The NewYork Times Book Review).

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker’s novels.

Robert B. Parker died in 2010 at the age of 77.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT B. PARKER

‘Parker writes old-time, stripped-to-the-bone, hard-boiled school of Chandler…His novels are funny, smart and highly entertaining…There’s no writer I’d rather take on an aeroplane’ – Sunday Telegraph

‘Parker packs more meaning into a whispered ‘yeah’ than most writers can pack into a page’ – Sunday Times

‘Why Robert Parker’s not better known in Britain is a mystery. His best series featuring Boston-based PI Spenser is a triumph of style and substance’ – Daily Mirror

‘Robert B. Parker is one of the greats of the American hard-boiled genre’ – Guardian

‘Nobody does it better than Parker…’ – Sunday Times

‘Parker’s sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist’ – Newsday

‘If Robert B. Parker doesn’t blow it, in the new series he set up in Night Passage and continues with Trouble in Paradise, he could go places and take the kind of risks that wouldn’t be seemly in his popular Spenser stories’ – Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Sixkill

Double Deuce

Painted Ladies

Pastime

The Professional

Stardust

Rough Weather

Playmates

Now & Then

Crimson Joy

Dream Girl (aka Hundred-Dollar Baby)

Pale Kings and Princes

School Days

Taming a Sea-Horse

Cold Service

A Catskill Eagle

Bad Business

Valediction

Back Story

The Widening Gyre

Widow’s Walk

Ceremony

Potshot

A Savage Place

Hugger Mugger

Early Autumn

Hush Money

Looking for Rachel Wallace

Sudden Mischief

The Judas Goat

Small Vices

Promised Land

Chance

Mortal Stakes

Thin Air

God Save the Child

Walking Shadow

The Godwulf Manuscript

Paper Doll

THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

Split Image

Stone Cold

Night and Day

Death in Paradise

Stranger in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

High Profile

Night Passage

Sea Change

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change

Shrink Rap

Blue Screen

Perish Twice

Melancholy Baby

Family Honor

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

Brimstone

Poodle Springs

Resolution

(and Raymond Chandler)

Appaloosa

Love and Glory

Double Play

Wilderness

Gunman’s Rhapsody

Three Weeks in Spring

All Our Yesterdays

(with Joan Parker)

A Year at the Races

Training with Weights

(with Joan Parker)

(with John R. Marsh)

Perchance to Dream

Available from No Exit Press

Joan:

Every Year Variety More Infinite

1

It was a late May morning in Boston. I had coffee. I was sitting in my swivel chair, with my feet up, looking out my window at the Back Bay. The lights were on in my office. Outside, the temperature was 53. The sky was low and gray. There was no rain yet, but the air was swollen with it, and I knew it would come. Across Boylston, on the other side of Berkeley Street, I saw Paul Giacomin walking with a dark-haired woman. They stopped at the light and, when it changed, came on across toward my office. They both moved well, like people who’d been trained. I’d have to see her close-up to confirm, but from here I thought the woman looked good. I was pleased to see that Paul was carrying a paper bag. I swiveled my chair back around and, by the time they got up to my office, I was standing in the doorway. Paul smiled and handed me the bag.

‘Krispy Kremes?’ I said.

‘Like always,’ he said.

I put the bag on my desk and turned back and hugged Paul.

‘This is Daryl Silver,’ Paul said.

‘My real name is Gordon,’ she said. ‘Silver is my professional name.’

We shook hands. Daryl was, in fact, a knockout. Eagle-eye Spenser. I opened the paper bag and took out a cardboard box of donuts.

‘They haven’t got these yet in Boston,’ Paul told Daryl. ‘So whenever I come home, I bring some.’

‘Will you join me?’ I said to Daryl.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’d love to.’

‘That’s a major compliment,’ Paul said to her. ‘Usually he goes off in a corner and eats them all.’

I poured us some coffee. Paul was looking at the picture on top of the file cabinet of Susan, Pearl, and me.

‘I’m sorry about Pearl,’ Paul said.

‘Thank you.’

‘You okay?’

I shrugged and nodded.

‘Susan?’

I shrugged and held out the box of donuts.

‘Krispy Kreme?’ I said.

The rain arrived and released some of the tension in the atmosphere. It rained first in small, incoherent splatters on the window, then more steadily, then hard. It was very dark out, and the lights in my office seemed warm.

‘How did it go in Chicago?’ I said.

‘The play got good notices,’ Paul said.

‘You read them?’

‘No. But people tell me.’

‘You like directing?’

‘I think so. But it’s my own play. I don’t know if I’d want to direct something written by somebody else.’

‘How’s rehearsal going here?’

‘We’ve done the play too often,’ Paul said. ‘We’re having trouble with our energy.’

‘And you’re in this?’ I said to Daryl.

‘Yes.’

‘She’s gotten really great reviews,’ Paul said. ‘In Chicago, and before that in Louisville.’

‘I have good lines to speak,’ she said.

‘Well, yeah,’ Paul said. ‘There’s that.’

With the rain falling, the air had loosened. Below my window, most of the cars had their lights on, and the wet pavement shimmered pleasantly. The lights at Boylston Street, diffused by the rain, looked like bright flowers.

‘Daryl would like to talk to you about something,’ Paul said.

‘Sure,’ I said.

Paul looked at her and nodded. She took in a deep breath.

‘Twenty-eight years ago my mother was murdered,’ she said.

After twenty-eight years, ‘I’m sorry’ seemed aimless.

‘1974,’ I said.

‘Yes. In September. She was shot down in a bank in Boston, by people robbing it.’

I nodded.

‘For no good reason.’

I nodded again. There was rarely a good reason.

‘I want them found.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘But why now, after twenty-eight years?’

‘I didn’t know how to do it or who to ask. Then I met Paul and he told me about you. He said you saved his life.’

‘He might exaggerate a little,’ I said.

‘He said if they could be found, you could find them.’

‘He might exaggerate a little.’

‘We lived in La Jolla,’ Daryl said. ‘We were visiting my mother’s sister in Boston. My mother just went into the bank to cash some traveler’s checks. And they shot her.’

‘Were you with her?’ I said.

‘No. The police told me. I was with my aunt.’

‘How old were you when your mother died?’

‘Six.’

‘And you still can’t let it go,’ I said.

‘I’ll never let it go.’

I drank some coffee. There were two Krispy Kremes left in the box. I had already eaten one more than either of my guests.

‘Either of you want another donut?’ I said.

They didn’t. I felt the warm pleasure of relief spread through me. I didn’t take a donut. I just sipped a little coffee. I didn’t want to seem too eager.

‘I remember it,’ I said. ‘Old Shawmut Bank branch in Audubon Circle. It’s a restaurant now.’

‘Yes.’

‘Some sort of revolutionary group.’

‘The Dread Scott Brigade.’

‘Ah, yes,’ I said.

‘You know of them?’

‘Those were heady times,’ I said, ‘for groups with funny names.’

I reached over casually, as if I weren’t even thinking about it, and took one of the donuts.

‘I can’t pay you very much,’ she said.

‘She can’t pay you anything,’ Paul said.

‘Solve a thirty-year-old murder for no money,’ I said. ‘How enticing.’

Daryl looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Awhile ago, I did a thing for Rita Fiore,’ I said to Paul, ‘and last week her firm finally got around to paying me.’

‘A lot?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A lot.’

Paul grinned. ‘Timing is everything,’ he said.

‘Does that mean you’ll help me?’ Daryl said.

‘It does,’ I said.

2

I met Martin Quirk for a drink in a bar in South Boston called Arno’s, where a lot of cops had started to hang out since Police Headquarters had been conveniently relocated to South Cove. I got there first and was drinking a draft Budweiser when Quirk arrived. He was a big guy, about my size, and you could tell he was strong. But mostly what you noticed was how implacable he seemed. Several cops greeted him carefully. When he sat beside me, the bartender came quickly down the bar.

‘What’ll it be, Captain?’

‘Ketel One on the rocks, with a twist,’ Quirk said.

‘You got it, Captain.’

‘Sorry about your dog,’ Quirk said to me.

‘Thank you.’

‘You and Susan going to get another one?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want to stop talking about this?’

‘I do.’

‘Okay, whaddya need?’

Quirk’s drink came promptly. He took a sip, swallowed, and smiled to himself.

‘I found myself missing you, Captain.’

‘Sure,’ Quirk said. ‘Happens all the time.’

He took another sip of his vodka. Quirk had hands like a stone mason, but all his movements were quite delicate.

‘In 1974,’ I said. ‘A woman named Emily Gordon was shot by a group called the Dread Scott Brigade who were holding up a bank in Audubon Circle.’

‘Nobody ever saw who shot her. Everyone was lying face-down on the floor.’

‘You remember every case?’ I said.

‘I remember that. It was before I started working Homicide full-time. I was working detectives out of old Station Sixteen, you remember, before we reorganized?’

I nodded.

‘I was one of the guys who responded when the call came in.’

‘Were you on it all the way?’

‘No. Homicide Division took it over. But I always kind of followed the thing.’

The television was on behind the bar, and the early news-casters were in a frenzy over the possibility of showers on the weekend.

‘Homicide get anywhere?’ I said.

‘Couldn’t find them,’ Quirk said. ‘Had pictures from the bank security cameras. Had eyewitnesses. Had a letter from the Dread Scott Brigade saying they did it. Dread, by the way is spelled e-a-d.’

‘Why, those clever punsters,’ I said. ‘Did it mention Emily Gordon?’

‘I think it said something about how no member of the oppressor class is safe.’

‘How 1974 is that?’ I said.

‘They spelled oppression wrong,’ Quirk said.

‘So Homicide think they’ve got a no-brainer,’ I said.

‘Bunch of fucking amateurs,’ Quirk said. ‘Up against a crew of street-smart big-city homicide dicks.’ He drank another sip of his vodka.

‘And?’ I said.

‘Amateurs one,’ Quirk said. ‘Dicks nothing.’

‘So far,’ I said.

‘So far,’ Quirk said. ‘Being amateurs actually helped them.’

‘No MO,’ I said. ‘No arrest record. No mug shots to compare with the bank photos.’

‘Nobody recognized them,’ Quirk said. ‘The FBI never heard of them.’

‘They claim credit for any other jobs?’ I said.

‘Not that I know.’

‘Money ever show up?’

‘Nope. But you know how that works. How many people get cash and check the serial numbers?’

‘Banks do,’ I said.

‘Banks say they do,’ Quirk said.

My beer was gone. I gestured to the bartender for another one. The bartender picked up my glass and looked at Quirk. Quirk shook his head and the bartender went to draw me another Bud. I still preferred Blue Moon Belgian White Ale. But that was not one of the options at Arno’s. In fact, Budweiser was the option.

‘Murder weapon?’ I said.

‘Yep, and the car they used.’

‘Prints on the gun?’

‘Gun was clean,’ Quirk said.

‘Car?’ I said.

‘Most of the prints in the car belonged to the guy they stole it from.’

‘Trace the gun?’

‘Yep. M1 carbine. Fully automatic. Stolen from a National Guard Armory in Akron, Ohio, in 1963.’

‘So who was in the bank?’ I said.

‘A black guy. A white woman. There was probably someone driving the car, but no one saw who it was.’

‘And that’s it?’ I said. ‘That’s all there is?’

‘That’s absolutely fucking it,’ Quirk said.

‘Anyone remember who had the carbine?’

‘Far as I can tell, all of them had long guns. Nobody in there knew one from another,’ Quirk said. ‘Homicide never got a sniff.’

‘And they were on it when it was hot.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’m starting out after it’s been cold for twenty-eight years.’

‘You working for someone?’

‘Emily Gordon’s daughter is a friend of Paul Giacomin’s,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ Quirk said.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘How is the kid?’

‘Paul? He’s not a kid anymore.’

‘I know how that works,’ Quirk said. ‘Two of my kids are older than I am.’

‘Anything else you can tell me, gimme someplace to start?’

‘I told you what I remember,’ Quirk said. ‘You want to come in, you can look at the case files.’

‘I will,’ I said.

‘She paying you top dollar for this?’ Quirk said.

‘She and Paul gave me six donuts this morning.’

Quirk nodded thoughtfully.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That would buy you.’

3

I sat at an empty desk in the Homicide Division outside Quirk’s office. There were a lot of other desks in neat rows under bright lights. The floor was clean. The file cabinets were new. All the desks had computers on them. The old Berkeley Street headquarters was cramped and unattractive and looked like what it was. This place looked like a room for stockbrokers with bright suspenders and cuff links. Cops weren’t supposed to be working under these conditions. I felt like I was in L.A. The file on Emily Gordon’s murder was in a big brown cardboard envelope closed with a thick rubber band. It had never been computerized. I was grateful at least for that.

A detective named DeLong walked past and stopped and came back. He had on a green Lacoste polo shirt hanging over blue jeans. I could see the outline of his gun, in front, under the shirttail.

‘Spenser,’ he said. ‘You re-upping?’

‘Just stopped by to give you guys a hand,’ I said.

‘Don’t steal anything,’ DeLong said.

I looked around the Homicide Division. ‘Place is an embarrassment, DeLong.’

‘Yeah. I know. I’m turning into a sissy.’

‘You remember a bank robbery in Audubon Circle, in 1974? Woman got killed.’

‘1974? For crissake, Spenser, I was fifteen in 1974.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Me too.’

DeLong looked like he was going to say something, then shook his head and walked off. I went back to my case file. Aside from the autopsy report and the crime scene write-up, the case file was mostly reports written by Mario Bennati, detective first grade. I didn’t know him. Quirk said he had been the lead detective on the case and that he’d retired in 1982. I plowed along. Cops aren’t usually graceful writers, and the jargon of investigative procedure didn’t help. For a case that had no clues, no identifiable suspects, and no resolution, there was a lot of stuff, none of it helpful. Bennati had tried. His case log showed he had talked to all the customers in the bank, everyone he could find who’d been in the vicinity of the bank, and all bank employees. He’d talked to Emily Gordon’s sister, Sybil Gold, to six-year-old Daryl Gordon, and to Emily Gordon’s husband, Barry, from whom she had apparently been estranged at the time of the shooting. There had been talk with the FBI. The FBI would send over an intelligence report on the Dread Scott Brigade. There had been talk with the cops in San Diego. Talk with the DEA. Talk with the Army about the stolen carbine. Talk with the bank examiners. All the statements were included. I ploughed on. It was late afternoon. I needed a nap.

I drank a lot of bad coffee. The night watch came on. I was hungry. When I finally finished, it was dark outside. I closed the envelope and put it on the empty desk and leaned my head back against the chair and closed my eyes and took in some long, quiet breaths.

Where was the FBI intelligence report?

4

Quirk was still in his office, his jacket hung on a hanger on the back of his door. His feet were on the desk, his tie was loosened, his shirt cuffs rolled. He was looking at a large bulletin board across the small room, where a number of crime scene photographs were posted.

‘You still here?’ he said.

‘You ever read this case file?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

He kept staring at the photographs.

‘Anything bother you in there?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like the FBI intelligence report.’

‘Ah,’ Quirk said, still scanning the pictures. ‘You spotted that, too.’

‘Any thoughts?’ I said.

‘Nope.’

‘You ever chase it down?’

‘I never saw the case file until I got to be Homicide Commander. By then the case was cold. Command staff don’t much like it when the Homicide Commander, the new Homicide Commander, starts up with the Feds over a cold, cold case we never solved.’

‘Politics affects police work?’ I said.

‘Shocking, isn’t it. How was it when you were a cop?’

‘Politics affected police work,’ I said.

‘How disappointing,’ Quirk said.

‘Lead investigator was a guy named Bennati,’ I said. ‘He still around?’

‘Retired,’ Quirk said. ‘Lives up on the North Shore now.’

I looked at Quirk. He was scanning the crime scene photos again.

‘That’s why you offered me the case files,’ I said.

‘Spirit of cooperation,’ Quirk said.

‘That FBI reference bothered you, too, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to pursue it. But you don’t forget anything. So when I finally came along…’

Quirk continued to study the photos.

‘I’m supposed to be an executive now,’ Quirk said. ‘Manage the division. Let the detectives do most of the hands-on stuff. But I like to stay late, couple nights a week, and look at the crime scene coverage while it’s quiet, and see what I can see.’

I nodded.

‘Woman and two children killed in this one,’ Quirk said, nodding at the pictures. ‘Woman was raped first.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Get Bennati’s address.’

‘Call Belson,’ Quirk said. ‘He’ll get it for you.’

5

Mario Bennati lived in Gloucester in a small, gray-shingled house with a deck where you could sit and drink beer and look at the Annisquam River. He and I were sitting there, doing that, in the late afternoon. With us was a large friendly German shepherd named Grover.

‘Wife died four years ago,’ Bennati said. ‘Daughter comes up from Stoughton usually once or twice a week, vacuums, dusts…’ He shrugged. ‘Mostly it’s me and Grover. I can cook okay and do my laundry.’

We were drinking Miller High Life from the clear glass bottles.

‘I don’t smoke no more,’ he said, looking at the boats moving toward the harbor across the wide water below us. ‘Ain’t got laid since she died.’ He drank some of the Miller High Life with an economy of motion that suggested long practice. ‘We done fine, ’fore she got sick.’ Grover put his head on Bennati’s thigh and looked at him. ‘Watch this,’ Bennati said. He tilted the bottle of beer carefully and Grover drank a little. ‘Right from the bottle,’ Bennati said. ‘Huh?’

‘Cool,’ I said.

‘Don’t let him drink much,’ Bennati said. ‘Gets drunk real easy.’

I patted Grover on the backside. His tail wagged, but he kept his head on Bennati’s lap. ‘I’m looking into an old murder,’ I said. ‘One of yours. September 1974. Woman was killed in a bank holdup in Audubon Circle.’

Bennati drank the rest of his beer and reached down and got another one out of the cooler under the table. He twisted off the cap and drank probably four ounces of the beer in one long pull. He looked at the bottle for a moment and nodded.

‘Yeah, sure, bunch of fucking hippies,’ he said. ‘Stealing money to save America. Killed her for no good reason.’

‘I read the case file yesterday,’ I said.

‘So you know we didn’t clear it.’ He drank some more beer. ‘They’re always a bitch, the fucking cases where shit happens for no good reason.’

I nodded. ‘Anything you remember, might help me?’ I said.

‘You read the case file, you know what I know,’ he said.

‘I used to be a cop,’ I said. ‘Everything didn’t always get included in the case file.’

‘Did in mine,’ Bennati said.

‘What happened to the FBI intelligence report?’ I said.

‘Huh?’

‘In your notes you say the FBI was sending over an intelligence report. It’s not in the file and you never mentioned it again.’

‘FBI?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘For crissake, we’re talking like thirty fucking years ago.’

‘Twenty-eight,’ I said. ‘You remember anything about the FBI intelligence report?’

‘Too long,’ he said. ‘I’m seventy-six years old and live alone except for the dog, and drink too much beer. I can barely remember where my dick is.’

‘So you don’t remember the FBI report?’

‘No,’ he said and looked at me steadily. ‘I don’t remember.’

I took a card out of my shirt pocket and gave it to him.

‘Anything occurs to you,’ I said, ‘give me a buzz.’

‘Sure thing.’

As I walked toward my car, he took another High Life out of the cooler and twisted off the cap.

6

The Boston FBI office was in 1 Center Plaza. The agent in charge was a thin guy with receding hair and round eyeglasses with black rims named Nathan Epstein. It was like finding an Arab running a shul. We shook hands when I came in, and he gestured me to a chair.

‘You’re the SAC,’ I said.

‘I am.’

‘At least tell me you went to BC,’ I said.

‘Nope.’ He had a strong New York accent.

‘Fordham?’

‘NYU,’ Epstein said.

‘This is very disconcerting,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘People usually assume I’m from Accountemps.’

He was wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a powder-blue silk tie.

‘I am looking into a murder during a bank holdup in 1974,’ I said.

‘Tell me about it,’ Epstein said.

I told him about it.

‘Why did she come to you,’ Epstein said when I finished.

‘Mutual friend.’

‘And why did you take it on?’

‘Favor to the friend,’ I said.

‘Favor to a friend?’ Epstein said. ‘The case is twenty-eight years cold. You have some reason to think you can solve it?’

‘Self-regard,’ I said.

Epstein smiled. ‘So they tell me,’ he said.

‘You checked me out?’

‘I called the Commissioner’s Office, they bucked me over to the Homicide Commander.’

‘Martin Quirk,’ I said.

Epstein nodded.

‘You check out everyone you have an appointment with?’ I said.

‘I remembered the name,’ Epstein said. There was something very penetrating about him.

‘You recall the case?’

Epstein smiled and shook his head. ‘Wasn’t with the Bureau then,’ he said.

‘Would it be possible for me to get a copy of the case file?’

He sat and thought about it. He was a guy that was probably never entirely still. As he thought, he turned a ballpoint pen slowly in his hands, periodically tapping a little paradiddle with it on the thumbnail of his left hand. Then he leaned forward and pushed a big khaki envelope toward me, the kind that you close by wrapping a little string around a little button.

‘Here’s the file,’ he said.

‘Quirk?’ I said.

‘He mentioned you might be looking into the Gordon killing.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘The file?’ Epstein said. ‘Yes. I read it this morning. I assume you’ve read the BPD case file.’

‘I have.’

‘You’ll find this pretty much a recycle of that.’

‘Someplace I can sit and read this?’

‘Outside office,’ Epstein said. ‘One of my administrative assistants is on vacation. My chief administrator will show you her desk.’

‘Was there a time when we would have called your chief administrator a secretary?’

Epstein smiled his thin smile and said, ‘Long ago.’

I took the folder and stood.

‘I think I know what you’re looking for,’ Epstein said.

I raised my eyebrows and didn’t say anything.

‘I don’t know where the Bureau intelligence report is either,’ he said.

‘The one that was supposed to be delivered to Bennati?’

‘Yes.’

I sat back down, holding the file envelope. ‘You noticed,’ I said.

‘I did.’

I sat back in my chair. ‘You guys gathered intelligence on dissident groups,’ I said.

‘Some,’ Epstein said.

‘Some? For chrissakes, the Bureau probably had a file on the Beach Boys.’

Epstein smiled again… I think.

‘Things have changed in the Bureau since those days.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘So do you have a file on the Dread Scott Brigade?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘Could there be one you might not know of?’

‘Of course.’

‘If there was one, how would I access it?’

‘You’d get me to request it through channels,’ Epstein said.

‘Will you?’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

Epstein drummed on his thumbnail with his pen. His face was completely without expression.

‘There appears to be no such file,’ he said.

‘So how come Bennati thought one was on its way?’

‘That is bothersome,’ Epstein said. ‘Isn’t it?’

7

I drove up to Toronto on a Monday morning, with the sun shining the way it was supposed to in May, and got an all-chocolate, fifteen-month-old female German shorthaired pointer, whose kennel name was Robin Hood’s Purple Sandpiper. She was crated when I got her, which was a sound idea given that it was a ten-hour drive home. You wouldn’t want her jumping around in a strange car and causing an accident. As I pulled onto 404 north of Toronto, she whimpered. At the first rest area we came to on 401, I discarded the crate next to the Dumpster behind the food court, and Robin Hood’s Purple Sandpiper spent the rest of the trip jumping around in the car. Susan had said that ten hours was too long for her to have to ride on her first day, so Robin Hood’s Purple Sandpiper and I spent Monday night at a motel in Schenectady. Unless you are a lifelong GE fan, there’s not a lot to be said for Schenectady.

Robin Hood’s Purple Sandpiper slept very little and was full awake at 5:10 Tuesday morning. We pulled out of Schenectady before dawn and got to Cambridge around noon. When we pulled into the driveway off Linnaean Street, Susan was sitting on the front steps of the big, five-colored painted-lady Victorian house where she lived and worked. As I got out of the car I said ‘Oh boy’ to myself, which was what I always said, or some variation of that, whenever I saw her. Thick black hair, very big blue eyes, wide mouth, slim, in shape, great thighs, plus an indefinable hint of sensuality. She radiated a kind of excitement, the possibility of infinite promise. It wasn’t just me. Most people seemed to feel that spending time with Susan would be an adventure.

‘Omigod,’ Susan said when Robin Hood’s Purple Sandpiper and I got out of the car.

Susan’s yard was fenced. I opened the front gate and closed it behind us and unhooked the dog from her leash. She was uneasy.

Susan said, ‘Pearl.’

The dog pricked her long ears a little. Then she ran around Susan’s smallish front yard in a random way as if she were trying to find a point of stable reference. Finally she decided that I was her oldest friend outside Canada and came over to me and leaned in against my leg for emotional support.

Susan watched her with the full-focus concentration that made her such a good therapist. If she concentrated on something long enough, it would begin to smolder.

‘Pearl?’ Susan said.

The dog looked at her carefully and wagged her tail tentatively. Susan nodded slowly.

‘She’s back,’ Susan said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She just doesn’t know it yet.’

Susan crouched at the foot of her stairs and opened her arms.

‘Pearl,’ she said again.

The dog walked to Susan and sniffed her. Susan put her cheek against the dog’s muzzle and patted the dog’s head.

‘She’ll know it soon,’ Susan said.

8

I was in the lobby of the New Federal Courthouse on Fan Pier.

‘International Consulting Bureau,’ I said.

I gave my card to the guard and he looked at it, then checked his computer screen.

‘Whom do you wish to speak with there?’

‘Whom?’

The guard looked up at me and grinned. ‘It’s the training program they give us,’ he said.

‘I wish to speak with Mr Ives,’ I said.

He nodded, punched up a number, and spoke into the phone.

‘Mr Spenser to see Mr Ives.’

He nodded and hung up.

‘Over there,’ he said, ‘through the metal detector, take the elevator to the fifteenth floor.’

‘There a room number?’ I said.

‘Someone will meet you at the elevator, sir.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

At the security barrier there were four guards from the Federal Protection Service.

‘I have a gun on my right hip,’ I said to them. ‘I’m going to unclip it and hand it to you, holster and all.’

The guards spread out slightly and two of them rested hands on their holstered guns. The head guard was a black man who looked like retired military.

‘And do you have a permit, sir?’

‘I do.’

‘First the gun, then the permit,’ he said.

I handed him the holstered gun, then I took my permit from my shirt pocket where I had put it in anticipation of this moment. The head guard read it carefully.