Blunt Darts

EIGHTH

– ¦ I drove into downtown Boston and parked on the fourth floor of the Government Center Garage. I walked through the new Faneuil Hall Market area. Although the renovated space opened in 1976, I grew up in old Boston, so I'll probably always call it the new market.

I stopped at my camera shop, where Danny promised me he'd have fifty copies of Stephen's photo for me within an hour. I moved down State Street. Sturney and Perkins, Inc., was in an old, tasteful building near the waterfront. I took the elevator to the tenth floor. Sturney and Perkins occupied about half of it, the kind of offices a good medium-sized Boston law firm would have had twenty years ago, before the glass-eyed skyscrapers opened.

"John Francis to see Ms. DeMarco."

The receptionist gave me an uncertain look and dialed two digits. Her telephone had a cover on the mouthpiece, which prevented me from hearing what she said into it. She hung up.

"I'll take you down myself." As we wound down a labyrinthine corridor, I thought it odd that she would leave her post. She showed me into a spacious, leather-done corner office with a harbor view. A tall, graying man who looked like an ex-navy commander stood from behind an expensive desk.

"Mr. Cuddy, this is Nancy DeMarco. I'm Charles Perkins. What can we do for you?" he asked without extending his hand.

Ms. DeMarco stood up. Nancy DeMarco. Medium build, Harpo hair, and late of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Empire had had one of the worst sex-discrimination-in-promotion records in the Northeast, and Ms. DeMarco had been the one who crammed it down our throats. I'd met her once across a crowded conference-room table. Aside from an Empire stenographer, she had been the only woman present. She'd won.

"Mr. Cuddy," she acknowledged. I stopped at a leather chair, and we all sat down together.

"Well," I said, "this doesn't seem to be my day for surprise attacks."

Silence from them.

And from me, too.

Then Perkins: "Why are you here'?"

"You must have discovered that in the process of finding out who I am."

"Amateurish, Mr. Cuddy, amateurish. That phone call, I mean."

"Look, Mr. Perkins," I said, "let's stop the urinating contest. Notice I avoided 'pissing' out of respect for your decor. You're one of the best in Boston at what you do. You've been asked to find Stephen Kinnington. So have I. He appears to have run away, so there is probably no criminal element behind the disappearance, and therefore nobody to tip off Why don't we share information and coordinate those efforts?"

"Our client does not appreciate your involvement, Mr. Cuddy."

"Does the judge appreciate that every hour we don't find Stephen increases the chances that we won't find him'?"

"We will find the boy-and as soon as this conference is over, Ms. DeMarco can resume her efforts in that direction."

I looked over at Ms. DeMarco. She was looking at Perkins without expression.

I rose and sidled toward the door. "Mr. Perkins, I guess I can understand why you don't want to tell me what you know. What I can't understand is why you don't want to find out what I know." I opened the door. "Amateurish, Mr. Perkins, amateurish."