Back Story

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.

"We'll hang on to the gun and the permit," he said. "You can pick them up on the way out."

"You're asking me to risk the federal courthouse unarmed?" I said.

The guard's face stayed serious.

"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."

"No."

"What does that tell you?" he said.

"Two possibilities," I said.

"One being that they are sloppy filers," Ives said.

"And the other that something is being covered up."

Ives rocked in his chair for a moment. "While the terms FBI and Intelligence are oddly disparate," he said, "I have not found them to be sloppy filers."

We were both quiet. Below us the harbor was gray and choppy in the May sunshine. One of the water shuttle boats from Rowe's Wharf was trudging toward the airport.

"You're telling me something," I said.

"I am a member of a highly secretive government agency," Ives said. "We tell no one anything."

"Of course," I said.