Stardust

Chapter 29

REALITY again. Outside Quirk’s office, looking down into an alley off Stanhope Street, the temperature was maybe fifteen. The grime-streaked snow was packed like concrete in the rutted areas where the plows couldn’t get because there were always cars. Inside Quirk’s office was Marty Riggs, the big executive- from Zenith Meridien. He had hung up his long scarf. He was holding forth intensely to an audience composed of Quirk; me; Sandy Salzman; Milo Nogarian, the executive producer; Herb Brodkey, a lawyer for Zenith; and Morris Callahan, a lawyer for the network.

“Who the hell was guarding her?” Riggs said. He was every inch the captain of a damaged ship, angry and indomitable in the face of near disaster.

“Spenser assured us the guy was very good,” Salzman said.

I looked at Quirk. His face was expressionless. He was carefully looking at a paper clip, manipulating it in his fingers, apparently trying to straighten it out with only one hand.

“Well, where is he? He’s so good, why isn’t he here?”

Quirk glanced at me and smiled faintly. Riggs saw him.

“Something amusing you, Lieutenant?”

“Whether Hawk’s good enough hasn’t got anything to do with whether Hawk’s here, if you see what I mean. It’s, you might say, ah…” He revolved his hand at me to fill in.

“Non sequitur,” I said.

“Don’t get cute with me, Lieutenant. This is your case and so far you haven’t shown me anything.”

“Actually, Mr. Riggs, it’s not my case. You asked for this meeting, and being a courteous person and a dedicated public servant, I agreed. But my case is who killed your stunt woman. What happened to your star is missing persons-unless she turns up dead.”

“Bureaucracy,” Riggs said. “Herb, I told you we should have arranged a meeting with the commissioner.”

Brodkey looked like Fernando Lamas. He had a rich tan and his nails gleamed. He had probably last been in criminal court when they indicted Fatty Arbucklc. He made a placating gesture at Riggs.

“I understand you’ve interviewed the bodyguard,” Brodkey said.

“Sergeant Belson did,” Quirk said. “He knows Hawk. It’s easier that way.”

“Is this man getting special treatment?” Riggs snapped.

“Not like you are,” Quirk said softly.

“This is a difficult case, Lieutenant. Just tell us what you know.” It was Callahan, the network lawyer. He had white hair and a big nose and the look of a man eager to get the 7:30 shuttle back to New York. Even if it was on time there was still the ride to Greenwich.

“Hawk took Miss Joyce back to the hotel as usual,” Quirk said. “It was about six-fifteen. He sat with her while she had a couple of drinks in the bar, and then he started to turn her over to hotel security. But she insisted that he take her up to her room himself. When he did she went in and left the door ajar. He started to close it when she screamed. Hawk went into the room, and when he did she closed the door and stood in front of it and laughed and said she wanted to see what he’d do if she screamed.”

Quirk looked at me. “It is, I understand, a ploy she’s used in the past.”

No one said anything.

“Miss Joyce then insisted that Hawk make love to her. He declined, courteously he says.” Again Quirk looked at me. I didn’t say anything. “She was starting to disrobe,” Quirk said.

“In front of the goddamned buck nigger?” Riggs said.

“His name’s Hawk,” I said.

“Well, what are we, touchy?”

“Call him Hawk,” I said.

“I’ll call him what I goddamned please,” Riggs said. “I’ve got more to take up with you later.”

“Call him Hawk,” I said, “or I will bounce your ass down two flights of stairs and out onto Berkeley Street.”

“You heard that, Lieutenant? You heard him threaten me.”

“Call him Hawk,” Quirk said. He kept his gaze on Riggs for a moment and no one spoke. Then Quirk continued. “Hawk was apparently sincere in his disinterest. While she was disrobing he moved her forcibly but, ah, graciously, as I understand it, from the door and left. He told hotel security on his way out that they had her for the night, and he went home.”

Quirk looked around the room. Riggs was still angry and struggling to find circumstances in which he could be commanding. The lawyers sat like lawyers, being careful. Salzman was leaning back in his chair, his legs out before him, his arms folded across his chest.

“Sometime that night, she left the hotel. Probably went out the back door, down the steps to University Road, to dodge the Cambridge prowl car out front, cut through JFK Park, walked up to Harvard Square. She got a cab near the Harvard Coop. He took her to Boston, to the Four Seasons Hotel. Said he dropped her off there about I0:00 P.M. She registered, under her own name, gave them an American Express card and went upstairs. She had no luggage. In the morning she had breakfast sent up about quarter to seven, and that’s the last anyone has seen of her.”

“And you have failed totally to find a single clue as to where she might be,” Riggs said.

“Completely,” Quirk said without expression.

“Do you have any idea who Jill Joyce is, Lieutenant? What she means to the American public? The amount of money her absence costs?”

“Save it for missing persons, Mr. Riggs,” Quirk said. “I do murders.”

“Goddamned bureaucrat,” Riggs said only half aloud.

Quirk had been tipped back in his chair. He let it tip slowly forward and put his hands very lightly on the top of his desk.

“You are a very big deal in the TV business,” Quirk said, “and the governor thinks you’re the cat’s ass, and I’ve been trying to help out because there’s been a lot of heavy hitters juicing your case. But you are not a big deal in the Boston Police Department. I am. And I don’t think you’re the cat’s ass. So you either shut your trap or I’ll make you go sit in the corridor until the grown-ups are through.”

Riggs’ mouth opened like a carp. He seemed like he was having trouble getting his breath. He looked at the lawyers. Neither looked at him.

“I’ll speak to your superiors,” Riggs mumbled. But there was no heart in it.

“Good,” Quirk said. “They like that. Gives them something to do.” He looked at me. “You talk with Hawk?”

“No. I just came in from the, ah, coast last night.”

“How nice for us,” Quirk said. “You have anything to offer on this thing?”

“She wouldn’t go alone,” I said.

“No?”

“No. She needed somebody to take care of her, and it needed to be male. She might have scooted out alone, but she’d have had to know that a man was going to be around somewhere.”

“What do you think?” Quirk said to Salzman.

Salzman shrugged. “I make film,” he said. “I’m in so far over my head with the rest of this stuff that, I don’t know which way is up.”

“Who’s got this in missing persons?” I said.

“Lipsky,” Quirk said. “I’m hanging around because it might be connected to the murder investigation.”

I nodded.

“You talked about Jill Joyce with Susan?” Quirk said.

“Sure,” I said.

“This theory about a man, Susan buy that?”

“Haven’t asked her,” I said. “Last night when I came home we barely spoke of Jill Joyce.”

“Hard to imagine,” Quirk said.

“Didn’t even know she was gone,” I said.

“We called L.A., yesterday morning,” Salzman said. “Hotel said you’d checked out.”

“I suppose you’ll be looking for her too,” Quirk said.

I nodded.

“Lipsky will be pleased to know he’s not alone on this,” Quirk said.

“Like you,” I said.

“Just like me,” Quirk said.