Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

42

I rang the buzzer.

The bald guy who’d tailed Mattie opened the door. He seemed to remember me from our meeting on Marlborough Street and didn’t seem pleased to see me again.

As he opened his mouth to voice his displeasure, I grabbed him by the throat and marched him into the vestibule. Hawk followed, strolling, removing his sunglasses, and taking in the Blackstone Club. The patterned marble floor, the wood-paneled walls, the oil portraits of distinguished members of yesteryear.

“Always wanted a painting of an old dead white man,” Hawk said.

“So many to choose from.”

I checked the guy for a gun, found the same one I’d taken away before, and slid it into my belt. I tossed him into a nearby coat closet and stuck a chair under the knob. As he began to hammer from the inside, my old friend T. W. Shaw waddled up, nervous and mopping his face with a silk hankie.

“What on earth is going on here?” he said. “I must inform you, Mr. Spenser, you’ve been banned from the club.”

“I don’t want to be part of any club that would accept me as a member.”

“Cute,” Shaw said, making a distasteful face. Shaw had on a black double-breasted suit today, along with a black bow tie. He looked very much like a fat little penguin with his beady eyes and sharp nose.

“How about me?” Hawk said. “I can’t wait to meet all these fine folk. Maybe even bring some of my friends next time. Put on some Z. Z. Hill records and kick back.”

The pounding on the coat closet continued.

Shaw fingered his jet-black mustache. “Have you locked someone in there?”

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“Well,” he said. “Because.”

I turned to Hawk. “Do you hear something?”

“See no evil,” Hawk said. “Hear no evil.”

Shaw’s brain seemed to be stuck in civility mode, open-mouthed about the ruckus in the foyer of such a fine joint as the Blackstone Club. We left him there considering the situation and headed on into the big study, where we found Peter Steiner on a leather couch smoking a big cigar and speaking in low tones with a man hidden by a high-backed chair.

Steiner wore a white oxford cloth shirt open at the neck under the pink seersucker suit jacket. He studied me and Hawk with a lot of amusement before taking another puff on his cigar.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” I said.

“And sometimes it’s a big black ding-dong,” Hawk said. “Right, Petey?”

Steiner smiled wide, crinkles around his brown eyes. He elevated the cigar in his hand, smoke trailing up to the second-floor balcony of leather-bound books. The other man hadn’t made himself known, staying silent and still in the high-backed chair.

“We came to clarify the situation,” I said. “Leave the girls alone. Or else you’ll be seeing a lot more of us.”

Steiner tilted his head and drew again on the cigar.

“In other words,” Hawk said, “keep that crooked old pee-pee to yourself.”

The hidden man stood up from the chair and took a seat with Steiner on the couch. I felt a chill in my blood, tension bunching up in my trapezius muscles. It was Ruger.

He was dressed in gray as always — gray linen suit, gray shirt, and gray tie. Color coordination must never be a problem.

I looked to him. I nodded.

“You two have met,” Steiner said.

No one said a word.

“And you as well, Mister—”

“Tibbs,” Hawk said. “They call me Mr. Tibbs.”

Ruger’s bloodless face twitched in what might have been a smile.

“As I was saying,” I said.

Steiner’s eyes actually twinkled as his extra-large chauffeur rushed into the library, out of breath and his face covered in sweat. Ruger leaned back in the rich leather and pulled a cigar from his jacket. Steiner passed a silver lighter, and Ruger burned the tip with a large flame.

Ruger blew a plume of smoke at me. Steiner nodded toward me and Hawk.

The chauffeur towered above both of us and reached out with his huge hand to grab Hawk by the upper arm.

Hawk landed a series of very fast and very focused blows to the big man’s gut. The big man started to make croaking sounds, gasping for air, until Hawk kicked hard against the man’s right knee and toppled him into a massive heap on the fine Oriental carpets. The sound wasn’t unlike a redwood landing in Muir Woods.

Steiner leaned forward and set the cigar in a very fine china tray. Ruger had yet to move, watching the show, puffing on the cigar again and blowing out another large cloud of smoke.

“I’ve heard you’re a reasonable man,” Steiner said.

“You must’ve spoken with the wrong people,” I said.

“I can pay you for your time,” Steiner said. “Or I can let my friend here deal with you. Again.”

“There have been other times,” I said. “I believed we had an agreement.”

“Amongst gentlemen?” Steiner said. “How old-fashioned.”

Hawk stared hard at Ruger. Ruger met his gaze and never blinked. There was an electric stillness in the air, and I waited for something ugly to happen very quickly.

“Where is Carly Ly?” I said.

Steiner shook his head, reaching for the cigar and ashing it onto the edge of the tray. He took a long pull and then rested his arm against his right knee.

“How ’bout we shake loose an answer,” Hawk said. “You won’t mind, will you, Ruger?”

Steiner’s chauffeur was on his hands and knees and attempted to hold on to the couch to lift up his big frame. Hawk didn’t give him a chance, kicking out his arms and legs from under him.

“I heard you nearly bled out before they found you in the snow,” Steiner said. “A man doesn’t often come back from something like that. And rarely gets a second chance.”

I looked to Ruger. He held his cigar high in two fingers like Sydney Greenstreet often did.

“Ruger knows where to find me,” I said.

Ruger did not move. With the gray suit and sallow complexion, he appeared to be carved from granite.

“Now we have that straight,” Steiner said.

“And the police know where to find you,” I said. “Nothing happens to any of those kids. And Carly Ly comes home. Now.”

Hawk had his cowboy boot on top of the chauffeur’s back, saying in soft tones for the man to be quiet and stay down. Hawk turned to Steiner. “My .44 Magnum got a range of about three hundred yards,” he said. “You whip that thing out to a kid again, and I’ll shoot it clean off.”

Steiner shrugged and blew out a lot of smoke. “I don’t know where Carly is,” he said. “She’s a very hot-tempered young woman. With many friends. She could be anywhere.”

“You better find her, Petey,” Hawk said.

“I’m so glad to be visited by such Puritans,” Steiner said. “I’m a man of means who enjoys the company of young women. So what? If we were in France, no one would say a word or lift an eyebrow. The Greeks were with young boys. The Romans with everyone. All civilized societies have done the same. We put all these hang-ups and taboos on something that all men want and desire. Are you telling me you don’t find young girls pleasing?”

“I prefer the company of women,” I said. “Not children. I heard Poppy has procured twelve-year-olds for you.”

“Really,” Steiner said. “That young? Very interesting.”

I stared at Ruger. Ruger stared back. No one said a word for a good sixty seconds, but I knew we were being watched from the wings.

“Spenser,” Ruger said. He made a motion, cigar in hand, of saluting me.

“Glad to know you’re a man of his word.”

“All is fair in love and war,” Ruger said.

“And you understand who you are protecting and what he does to children?” I said.

Ruger just drew on the cigar, legs crossed, his soft, lazy gray eyes on mine. Something about him had changed. He looked skinnier and even more gray, like a man who’d been locked away for a very long time and had just experienced daylight again.

“Always knew I’d have to kill your ass,” Hawk said.

Ruger’s cheek twitched again. He sat still and quiet.

“If you’re going to threaten me,” Ruger said, “how about you try to speak like a white man.”

“Wow,” I said. “So many reasons to hate this guy.”

“Long list,” Hawk said.

“Two assholes for the price of one.”

“Hot damn.”

We walked out of the Blackstone Club, passing T. W. Shaw and the bald guy I’d locked in the closet. No one offered to hold the door.

Some club.