His name was Ives. And he worked, as he liked to say, for a three-letter federal agency. Ten or twelve years ago, when Susan was in trouble, I had done some pretty ugly stuff for him, to get her out of trouble. I hadn’t liked it then, and I didn’t like remembering it now. But Ives didn’t seem to care, and, as far as I could tell, neither did the universe.
Ives had an office in the McCormick Federal Building, in Post Office Square. There was no name on the door when I went in. And no one at the reception desk. The blank door to the inner office was ajar. I went in. Ives was sitting behind a desk wearing a cord suit and a blue and white polka dot bow tie.
“Spenser, isn’t it?” Ives said.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“The beard threw me,” he said. “Your Lieutenant Quirk said you might be coming by.”
“He’s not mine,” I said. “And he’s a captain now.”
Ives had one of those red rubber erasers in his hands and he kept turning it slowly in his thin fingers as he talked.
“Well, good on him,” Ives said. “You look well.”
“I’m looking for a guy,” I said.
Ives smiled. He slowly turned the eraser on its axis.
“Gray-haired man,” I said. “Gray eyes, sallow complexion, forty to sixty, six feet two or three, rangy build, athletic, when I saw him he was dressed all in gray.”
“And what does this gray man do?” Ives said.
“He’s a shooter,” I said.
“And where does he do his shooting?”
“Boston and New York, to my knowledge, but I assume he goes where his vocation takes him.”
“Is he an American national?” Ives said.
“I don’t know. He speaks English without an accent.”
“You know of course that this agency has no domestic mandate.”
“Of course not,” I said.
The eraser revolved slowly. Ives gazed off into the middle distance.
“You wouldn’t, naturally, know the varlet’s name, would you?”
“No.”
“You have solid municipal police connections,” Ives said. “Why come to me?”
“Cops can’t find him. They have no record of him or anyone like him. Not here. Not New York. Not on the national wire.”
“How distressing,” Ives said.
“Yes.”
“And why do you think I’ll help you?”
“I helped you twelve years ago,” I said.
Ives smiled gently and shook his head. The eraser did a complete revolution.
“We helped each other, as I recall. The agency got what it wanted. You got the maiden and a clean record. How is the maiden?”
“Susan is fine.”
“You’re still together?”
“Yes.”
“Glad to hear love has triumphed. But I still don’t see why either of us owes the other one anything.”
“How about old times’ sake.”
“How about that, indeed,” Ives said. “It’s quite a charming idea, isn’t it.”
We were quiet. Except for a desk with a phone on it, and a green metal file cabinet, Ives’s office was entirely empty. The morning sun was shining in through the big window to our right and made a clear stream for dust motes to sail through. Ives got up and looked out his window for a while, down at Post Office Square, and probably, from this height, the ocean, a few blocks east. High shouldered and narrow, he stood with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, still turning the eraser. Where his trouser cuffs didn’t quite touch his pebble-grained oxford shoes, a narrow band of Argyle sock showed. The dust motes drifted. Ives stared down at the square. He probably wasn’t thinking. He was probably being dramatic. He had, after all, gone to Yale. Finally he spoke without turning away from the window.
“There’s a fellow fits that description, an Israeli national, who was a covert operative. He left Israeli service under prejudicial circumstances, worked with us for a little while, and then dropped out of sight. I had heard he was in private practice.”
“Name?”
“Barely matters,” Ives said. “He called himself Rugar when he was with us.”
“How was his English?”
“American accent,” Ives said. “I believe he was born in this country.”
“You know where he is now?”
“No.”
“Any suggestion where I might look for him?”
“None.”
“Anything else?”
“He had gray hair and a sallow complexion. Attempting, presumably, to turn a liability into an asset, he affected a completely gray wardrobe.”
“Funny,” I said. “A guy in his line of work trying to give himself an identity.”
Ives turned from the window.
“How so?”
“It’s in his best interest to have no identity,” I said.
“By God,” he said. “You know, I never thought of it that way.”
“Bureaucracy clogs the imagination,” I said. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this guy?”
Ives pursed his lips faintly. He was turning the eraser at belt level now using both hands. There were liver spots on his hands.
“He is,” Ives said gently, “the most deadly man I have met in forty years.”
“Wait’ll you get a load of me,” I said.
“I’ve gotten a load of you and the black fellow, too.”
“Hawk,” I said.
“Yes. Mister Hawk. He’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
“He’s still your friend?”
“Yes.”
“You are a stable man,” Ives said. “In an unstable profession. But I stand by what I said of our friend Rugar.”
He smiled softly and squeezed his eraser and didn’t say anything else.