God Save the Child

26

It was supper time before we got things cleaned up with the Boston cops and I got back to Smithfield. Boston would hold Harroway on an assault charge until they straightened out with Healy and Trask the kidnapping, murder, extortion, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and procuring charges that seemed likely. Kevin went home with his mother and father, and I went to Susan Silverman’s house to see if there was any cassoulet or champagne or whatever left around and to soak my hands in ice water. She gave me bourbon on the rocks with a dash of bitters in a big glass. We sat on her couch.

“And was it Vic Harroway all along?” she said.

“Nope, not entirely. According to Harroway it was actually Croft that ran things. He got them drugs, set up the prostitution customers, kept things cool with the local fuzz.”

“Chief Trask?”

“Maybe. Harroway says he doesn’t know. He knows only that Croft said the cops wouldn’t bother him.”

“Did he kill Maguire?”

“Yeah. Harroway says it was an accident. He and Kevin were going to get some of Kevin’s things. Harroway was lifting some booze while they were at it, and Maguire caught them. Maguire panicked, grabbed for the poker, and Harroway hit him too hard.”

“And the kidnapping and the sick jokes and everything?”

“That’s not too clear. Harroway seemed to have two reasons. First, practical: he thought that they could finance ‘a new life together’ — that’s what he called it — by putting the arm on the old man for the ransom money. And he says then he thought once they got the dough that they’d have a little sport with the straight world. Kevin says it was his idea, but Harroway says no, it was all his own doing. He also says that Kevin was upstairs in his room when Maguire got killed, but Kevin says he was there. Harroway seems to be protecting him, and Kevin’s not entirely coherent. You can imagine. He’s torn apart. He found out he still had some feelings for his mother and father he didn’t realize he had, and it’s all over for Harroway, and the kid knows it.”

Susan said, “I wonder if it was good or bad for him to see Harroway beaten.”

“I thought it would be good. I hope I was right. Harroway represented something solid and safe and indestructible; you know, a kind of fantasy superhero to insulate Kevin from the world, to be everything his father wasn’t and his mother wouldn’t let him or his father be.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’s a glib generalization that won’t hold. I guess we’ll have to wait awhile and see how therapy works. Psychological truth usually isn’t that neat.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I didn’t have time to wait and see out there in the field.”

She said, “I know. You do what you have to. And besides, he insulted us once, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I said, “there’s that.”

I rattled the empty glass at her, and she got up and refilled it. The bourbon made a spread of warmth in my stomach. I took my left hand out of the ice water and put my right one in. I put my feet up on the coffee table and rested my head on the back of her couch. Susan came back with the second drink.

“You know,” I said, “he was a nasty, brutish, mean sonova bitch. But he loved that kid.”

“They all do,” Susan Silverman said.

“You mean his mother and father?” She nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” I said, “they do. You should have seen that henpecked, browbeaten bastard try to go up against Harroway. You’ve seen what Harroway looks like, and Bartlett tried to take him. And so did she. Amazing.” I took my right hand out of the ice water and switched my glass to it and put my left arm around Susan’s shoulder.

She said, “How did Croft and Harroway get mixed up together?”

“Harroway says that Croft looked him up. Harroway was doing a little bit of small-time pimping, and he says Croft told him he knew all about it and had an idea for them to get a much bigger and more profitable operation. He’d supply the drugs, get the word around, and Harroway would do the on-the-spot managerial duties.”

“And they split?”

“No, that’s the interesting part. Harroway says Croft had a silent partner. Harroway never knew who it was. One third of the take was a lot more dough than Harroway ever dreamed of, and he didn’t complain.”

“Do we know the silent partner?”

I shook my head. “I imagine Healy will get that out of Croft in a while.”

“Oh, speaking of Healy, there’s a message here for you from him. And one from some policeman in Boston.” She went to the kitchen and came back with an envelope which said NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONE in the return address space. She looked at it and said, “A woman called — I didn’t get her name — and said she was from Lieutenant Healy’s office, and the Lieutenant wanted you to know that the package you gave him to keep is being stored at the Smithfield Police Station. You can pick it up when you need it, but it better be soon.”

“That’s Croft,” I said. “They must have gotten nervous riding him around and figured to let Trask bear the brunt of a false arrest suit.”

“And,” she said, “I have a message that you should call either a Sergeant Belson or a Lieutenant Quirk when you came in. They said you knew the number.”

“Do I ever,” he said. “Okay. I’ll do that now.” I hated to get up, and I was beginning to get stiff. Ten years ago I didn’t get stiff this soon. I let my feet down off the coffee table and drank most of the second bourbon and got myself upright. I felt as if I needed a lube job. A few more bourbons and I’d be oiled. Ah, Spenser, your wit’s as keen as ever. I dialed Boston Homicide and got Quirk.

“I got the information on your man,” he said. No salutation, no golly, Spenser, it’s swell to hear your voice. Sometimes I wasn’t sure how fond Quirk was of me.

“Okay,” I said.

“He’s got a record. Wanted in Tacoma, Washington, for performing an illegal abortion. Got himself disbarred or delicensed or whatever the hell they do with doctors that screw up. That was about seven years ago. Now he could probably do it legal in half the country, but then it was still a big unh-unh.”

“And he’s still wanted?”

“Yeah, he skipped bail and disappeared. The AG’s office out there has an outstanding warrant on him, but it’s not international intrigue. I don’t think there are a lot of people working on it these days.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing much. Seems the guy had a good practice before this happened. I met the homicide commander out there once, and I gave him a call. Says this Croft was well thought of. Probably did the abortion as a kindness, not for dough. Didn’t want to be quoted, but said he thought it was kind of a shafting. Girl’s old man made a goddamned crusade of it, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“One thing, though,” Quirk said.

“What’s that?”

“Yours isn’t the first inquiry on him. Chief Trask of the Smithfield Police checked on him six years ago. There’s a Xerox copy of Trask’s request and a Xerox copy of the report the ID Bureau sent him.”

“Six years ago?” I said. Something bad was nudging at me.

“Yeah, what’s going on out there? Nice to see you’re in close touch with the local law enforcement agencies.”

I said, “Jesus Christ.”

Quirk said, “What?”

I said, “I’ll get back to you,” and hung up.

Susan said, “What’s the matter?”

I said, “I’ll be back,” and headed for my car. It was about five minutes from Susan’s house to the Smithfield jail. “Trask,” I said out loud, “that sonova bitch.” I slammed the car into the parking lot in front of the town hall and ran for the police station. Fire, police, and town hall were connected in a brick-faced white-spired town hall complex. The police station was in the middle between the double-doored fire station and the church-fronted town hall. Like a breezeway, I thought as I went in.

Trask was at the desk. I didn’t like that. The chief shouldn’t do desk duty. He looked up as I came in. “Well, Spenser,” he said, “solve everything?”

I said, “Where’s Croft?”

Trask jerked his head toward a door behind the desk. “Down there in a cell, safe and sound.”

“I want to see him.”

Trask was friendly, positively jolly. My stomach felt tight. I didn’t want to go down and see Croft. “Sure,” Trask said. He swiveled his chair around and snapped the bolt back on the door. “Third cell,” he said. And opened the door.

There was a short corridor with three barred cells along the left side and a blank cinder block wall along the right. The first two cells were empty. In the third one Dr. Croft was hanging from the highest bar with his swollen tongue sticking out and his blank eyes popped way out. He was dead. I felt the nausea start up my throat, and it took me about thirty seconds to swallow it back. His red and silver rep striped necktie was knotted around his neck and around the top cross member in the barred door. I knew he was dead even before I reached my hand through to feel his pulse. I also knew I had something to do with it. I went back down the corridor and closed the door behind me. Trask had his feet up on an open desk drawer and was reading a mimeographed sheet of paper. He was wearing glasses. His thick red neck was smoothly shaved where his crew cut ended. He looked up as I closed the door.

“Everything okay down there?” he said. The glasses distorted his small pale eyes when he looked at me.

I said, “How come you’re doing desk duty, Chief?”

“Aw, hell, you know how a small department is. I mean, we only got twelve men. I like to give some of the kids a break. You know. I mean it ain’t like I’m commissioner in Boston or something.” He smiled at me, a big friendly hick smile. He’d never liked me this well before.

There was a table along the wall to the left of the cell block door. It had chrome legs and a maple-colored Formica top. There was a coffee percolator plugged in on it and a half-empty box of paper cups. I took one and poured myself some coffee. Then I sat on the table facing Trask. The silent partner.

“Trask,” I said, “I know you murdered Croft.”

He never blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?” he said.

“No crap now, there’s just the two of us here. You went down that corridor and tied that tie around his neck and hoisted him up there and let him strangle because he was the only link between you and Harroway and with him dead no one would have any way of finding out what you were into.”

Trask looked straight at me and said, “What was I into?”

“You were into prostitution and narcotics and sex shows and probably can be arraigned for abusing a goat.”

“You can’t prove any of that.”

“Not right now, I can’t. But I know some things and I’m going to tell them to Healy and he’s going to prove it.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that you know that Croft is wanted in Tacoma, and that you knew it six years ago. Now that’s not much for starters. But I bet if we start pulling on that little loose end, after a while there may be a whole weave we can ravel out. You learned that little bit of business, and you used it to blackmail Croft. Maybe you got suspicious of the way he just drifted in here; maybe he confided in you; I don’t know. But I’ll bet you had the whole cesspool all worked out in your head and were just waiting for a middleman. And plop, into your lap dropped Croft. So he dealt with Harroway and you dealt with him. And nobody else knew anything about it. Until Harroway got a crush on a goddamned runaway and screwed up the whole thing.”

Trask was still looking straight at me.

“And then you get Croft right in your own jail. Merry Christmas, from me and Healy. And you figured, okay, this is the only way they can get me. If he’s gone, I’m safe. Did it bother you to strangle him like that with the necktie? Did he croak and kick trying to breathe? How you going to explain not taking his tie away from him?”

Trask kept looking without a word.

“I feel mean about it. I think Croft wasn’t that bad a guy and he made a mistake that was motivated by a decent impulse and it destroyed him, and you used it to make him a goddamned pimp and then you killed him. I feel really mean about that part, you cold-blooded sonova bitch. Because I delivered him to you. And Healy will feel mean about it because he did too. And we will nail your ass for it. You can believe that. We only know a little, and we’ll have to guess a lot, but we will have you for it.”

Trask said, “Not if you don’t tell anybody. It’s a sweet setup. Or it was. I could pass on a few of the profits to you. Maybe you could even recruit a new manager for the girls and take Croft’s job yourself. Or maybe we could cut out the middleman; you could combine the jobs. Maybe you don’t have the drug contacts, but the girls are better revenue in this town anyway.”

I leaned forward a little and spit in his face. He flushed red and the pearl-handled General Patton .45 came out. “All right, smart guy. If you don’t want coin, maybe there’s another way.” He wiped my saliva away with the back of his hand. His sun-bleached blond eyebrows looked white against his red face. “You come in here, tried to spring Croft, pulled a gun, I shot you in self-defense, and Croft sees it’s no use hoping anymore and hangs himself.”

I laughed. “Oh, good, even though the state cop who put him here told you to hold Croft for me. Even though I’m here five minutes after a Boston dick named Quirk tells me about your request for info on Croft six years ago. What a mammoth intellect you are, Trask. How the hell did you figure out this hustle by yourself anyway?”

Trask said, “Yeah, you think you’re so goddamned smart; you’ll be dead and I’ll be gone and we’ll see who’s so goddamned smart then.”

I threw the cup of coffee in his face and kicked the gun out of his hand. It went over the counter and skidded along the floor. Trask started to get up, and I was on my feet in front of him. “Go for it,” I said. “Get up and try and get by me and go for the gun, you piece of garbage.” He half rose from the chair and then sat down. “I’m not moving,” he said.

I turned and walked away from him. At the door I picked up his gun. A Colt, single-action, six-inch barrel. I threw it through the glass front window.

“I’ll be in touch with Healy,” I said. “And he’ll be in touch with you. Start running, you sonova bitch.”

I walked out and left the door open behind me.