Promised Land

Chapter 20

Scraggly hair’s name turned out to be McDermott. He and Jackie Sylvia listened without comment while I laid it out and when I was through Sylvia said, ”Okay, we’ll think about it. Where can I reach you?“

”Dunfey’s in Hyannis. Or my service if I’m not there. I check with the service every day.“ I gave him the number.

”We’ll get back to you.“

On the drive back to Hyannis the grape bubble gum got harder and harder to chew. I gave up in Wareham and spit it out the window in front of the hospital. The muscles at my jaw hinges were sore, and I felt slightly nauseous. When I pulled into the parking lot at Dunfey’s it was suppertime and the nausea had given way to hunger.

Susan was back from her antiquing foray and had a Tiffany style glass lampshade for which she’d paid $125. We went down to the dining room, had two vodka gimlets each, parslied rack of lamb and blackberry cheesecake. After dinner we had some cassis and then went down to the ballroom and danced all the slow numbers until midnight. We brought a bottle of champagne back to the room and drank it and went to bed and didn’t sleep until nearly three.

It was ten-forty when I woke up. Susan was still asleep, her back to me, the covers up tight around her neck. I picked up the phone and ordered breakfast, softly. ”Don’t knock,“ I said. ”Just leave it outside the door. My friend is still asleep.“

I showered and shaved and with a towel around my waist opened the door and brought in the cart. I drank coffee and ate from a basket of assorted muffins while I dressed. Susan woke up as I was slipping my gun into the hip holster. I clipped the holster on to my belt. She lay on her back with her hands behind her head and watched me. I slipped on my summer blazer with the brass buttons and adjusted my shirt collar so it rolled out nicely over the lapels. Seductive.

”You going to see Hawk and what’s’isname?“ Susan said.

”Powers,“ I said. ”Yeah. Me and Harv Shepard.“

She continued to look at me.

”Want some coffee?“ I said.

She shook her head. ”Not yet.“

I ate a corn muffin.

”Are you scared? Susan asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think much about it. I don’t see anything very scary happening today.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it.”

“I mean this particularly. I know you like the work. But do you like this? You are going to frame a very dangerous man. That should scare you, or excite you or something.”

“I’m not going to frame him. I’m going to entrap him, in fact.”

“You know what I mean. If it doesn’t work right he’ll kill you.”

“No, he’ll have it done.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t pick up the less important part of what I’m saying. You know what I’m after. What kind of man does the kinds of things you do? What kind of man gets up in the morning and showers and shaves and checks the cartridges in his gun?”

“Couldn’t we talk over the transports of delight in which we soared last evening?”

“Do you laugh at everything?”

“No, but we’re spending too much time on this kind of talk. The kind of man I am is not a suitable topic, you know. It’s not what one talks about.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not.”

“The code? A man doesn’t succumb to self-analysis? It’s weak? It’s womanish?”

“It’s pointless. What I am is what I do. Finding the right words for it is no improvement. It isn’t important whether I’m scared or excited. It’s important whether or not I do it. It doesn’t matter to Shepard why. It matters to Shepard if.”

“You’re wrong. It matters more than that. It matters why.”

“Maybe it matters mostly how.”

“My, aren’t we epigrammatic. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Repartee.”

“He spells his name differently,” I said.

Susan turned over on her side, her back to me, and was quiet. I had some more coffee. The murmurous rush of the air conditioner seemed quite loud. I’d asked for the New Bedford Standard Times with breakfast, and in the quiet, I picked it up and turned to the classified section. My ad was there under personals. “Sisters, call me at 555-1434, Pam.” I looked at the sports page and finished my coffee. It was ten after twelve. I folded the paper and put it on the room service cart.

“Gotta go, Suze,” I said.

She nodded without turning over.

I got up, put on my sunglasses and opened the door. “Spenser,” she said, “I don’t want us to be mad at each other.”

“Me either,” I said. I still had hold of the doorknob.

“Come back when you can,” she said. “I miss you when you’re gone.”

“Me too,” I said. I left the door open and went back and kissed her on the cheekbone, up near the temple. She rolled over on her back and looked up at me. Her eyes were wet. “Bye-bye,” I said.

“Bye-bye.”

I went out and closed the door and headed for Harv Shepard’s place with my stomach feeling odd.

I don’t know if I was scared or not, but Shepard was so scared his face didn’t fit. The skin was stretched much too tight over the bones and he swallowed a lot, and loudly, as we drove out Main Street to the Holiday Inn.

“You don’t need to know what I’m up to,” I said. “I think you’ll do better if you don’t. Just take it that I’ve got something working that might get you out of this.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because it requires some deception and I don’t think you’re up to it.”

“You’re probably right,” he said.

Hawk had a room on the second floor, overlooking the pool. He answered the door when we knocked, and Shepard and I went in. There was assorted booze on the bureau to the right, and a thin guy with horn-rimmed glasses reading the Wall Street Journal on one of the beds. King Powers was sitting at a round table with an open ledger in front of him, his hands folded on the edge of the table. Stagey bastard.

“What is that you have with you,” Powers said in a flat Rudy Vallee voice.

“We’re friends,” I said. “We go everywhere together.”

Powers was a tall, soft-looking man with pale skin and reddish hair trimmed long like a Dutch boy, and augmented with fuzzy mutton-chop sideburns. His wardrobe looked like Robert Hall Mod. Maroon-checked doubleknit leisure suit, white belt, white shoes, white silk shirt with the collar out over the lapels. A turquoise arrowhead was fastened around his neck on a leather thong and stuck straight out, like a gesture of derision.

“I didn’t tell you to bring no friends,” Powers said to Shepard.

“You’ll be glad he did,” I said. “I got a package for you that will put a lot of change in your purse.”

“I don’t use no goddamned purse,” Powers said.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. I thought that was your mistress on the bed.”

Behind me Hawk murmured. “Hot damn” to himself. The guy on the bed looked up from his Wall Street Journal and frowned.

Powers said, “Hawk, get him the fuck out of here.”

Hawk said. “This is Spenser. I told you about him. He likes to kid around but he don’t mean harm. Leastwise he don’t always mean harm.”

“Hawk, you hear me. I told you move him out.”

“He talking money, King. Maybe you should listen.”

“You working for me, Hawk? You do what you’re told.”

“Naw, I only do what I want. I never do what I’m told. Same with old Spenser here. You yell your ass off at him, if you want, but he ain’t going to do a goddamned thing he don’t want to do. You and Macey listen to him. He talking about money, he probably ain’t bullshitting. You don’t like what you hear. Then I’ll move him out.”

“Aw right, aw right. Let’s hear it, for crissake. Spit it out.” Powers’ pale face was a little red and he was looking at me hard. Macey, on the bed, had sat up, and put his feet on the floor. He still held the Journal in his left hand, his forefinger keeping the place.

“Okay, King. First. Harv can’t pay up, at this time.”

“Then his ass is grass and I’m a fucking lawnmower,” Powers said.

“Trendy,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Trendy as a bastard, that slick maroon and white combo. And to top it off you talk so good. You’re just an altogether with-it guy.”

“You keep fucking around with me, Spenser, and you’re going to wish you never did.”

“Whyn’t you get to the part about the bread, Spenser,” Hawk said. “In the purse. Whyn’t you talk on that.”

“I got a buyer with about a hundred thousand dollars who is looking for some guns. I will trade you the buyer for Shepard.”

“What makes you think I can get guns?”

“King, for a hundred thousand skins you could get a dancing aardvark.” He smiled. His lips were puffy and when he smiled the inside of his upper lip turned out. And his gums showed above his top teeth.

“Yeah, maybe I could,” he said. “But Shepard’s into me for a lot of fucking dough.” He ran his eyes down the ledger page in front of him. “Thirty big ones. I took a lot of risk with that dough, just on a handshake, you know? It ain’t easy to trade that off.”

“Okay,” I said. “See you, we’ll take it elsewhere,” I said. “Come on, Harv.”

Powers said, “You’re choice, but your pal better have the payment on him now, or we’re going to be awful mad.”

“The payment’s in the offer. You turned it down, you got no bitch.” I turned to go. Hawk was between us and the door. His hands resting delicately on his hips.

“Hawk,” Powers said. “Shepard don’t leave.”

“Hundred thousand’s a lotta vegetable matter, King,” Hawk said.

“Hawk’s right, Mr. Powers.” Macey on the bed had dropped his Journal and brought out a neat-looking little.25 automatic with a pearl handle and nickel plating. Probably matched his cuff links.

“What’s in it for you, Spencer?” Powers said.

“Thirty percent,” I said. “You can use it to pay off Shepard’s loan.”

Powers was quiet. We all were. It was like a stop frame in instant replay.

Hawk at ease in front of the door. Shepard with his skin squeezing tight on his body, Macey with his cute gun. Powers sitting at the table, thinking.

The window was behind him and the light coming in framed him like a back-lit photograph. The little tendrils of fuzz in the double-knit were silhouetted and clear along his coat sleeves and the tops of the shoulders. The mutton-chop sideburns where the whiskers individuated at the outer edge were more gold than copper against the light.

“Who’s your customer?” King said. Hawk whistled shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits between his teeth. Softly.

“If I told you that I probably wouldn’t be needed as go-between, would I?”

Powers turned his lip up again and giggled. Then he turned to the thin guy. “Macey,” he said, “I got some golf to play. Set this thing up.” He looked at me. “This better be straight,” he said. “If it ain’t you are going to be pushing up your fucking daisies. You unnerstand? Fucking daisies you’ll be pushing up.” He got up and walked past me toward the door.

“Daisies,” I said.

He went out. Macey put the.25 away and said, “Okay, let’s get to work.”

I said, “Is he going to play golf in his Anderson-Little cutaway?”

“He’s going to change in the clubhouse,” Macey said. “Haven’t you ever played golf?”

“Naw, we were into aggravated assault when I was a kid.”

Macey smiled once, on and off like a blinking light. Hawk went and lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. Shepard went stiffly to the bureau where the booze was and made a big drink. Macey sat down at the round table and I joined him. “Okay,” he said, “give me the deal.”