Sudden Mischief

chapter two

TWO INSURANCE BUILDINGS tower over the Back Bay. The Hancock building is pretty good-looking if the windows don't fall out. The Prudential is ugly. Brad was in the Prudential. On the thirty-third floor. His receptionist looked like a J. Crew model, blonde Dutch boy haircut and slightly hollow cheeks.

"Do you have an appointment?" she asked.

She thought it unlikely but was being professional about it. The waiting room was empty.

"No," I said. "I don't."

She looked doubtful. Doubtful was a cute look for her.

"Well," she said, "I'm not sure…"

I gave her my card. The one that had my name and address but no reference to me being a sleuth.

"Tell him his ex-wife sent me."

Now she looked slightly embarrassed. Also a cute look. I suspected that she had practiced all of them in a mirror and discarded any that weren't cute.

"I, ah, there have been several…" she said.

"Susan," I said. "Susan Hirsch."

It was simple perversity that made me use her maiden name. The receptionist smiled appreciatively, as if I had told her an important thing. Her hand twitched as if she were going to pick up the phone but she didn't. Instead she said, "Excuse me," and stood and went into the inner office. She was there maybe five minutes and came out.

"Mr. Sterling has made room for you," she said.

"How nice," I said.

She gestured me into Sterling's office. It was a corner office with windows facing north and west so you could see the Charles River and Fenway Park and all the way to the horizon. Sterling stood as I came in and walked around his desk to meet me. He was a tall guy, leaner than I would have thought for a tackle, with a good tan. A good tan, in Boston, in March, means you've been south recently or want people to think so. His hair was longish and steel gray and went nicely with the tan. His gray pinstripe suit fit him well. He was wearing good cologne.

"Spenser, Brad Sterling," he said. "Nice to meet you."

His handshake was firm and genuine. He looked right at me as we shook. Then he motioned me toward one of the black captain's chairs in front. of his desk. It had the Harvard seal on the back. On top of a file cabinet was a Harvard football helmet and framed on the wall was his varsity letter certificate.

"Pull up," Sterling said, "and sit."

I did. He went back around his desk and sat in his high-backed executive swivel and leaned back.

"Patti said something about Susan Hirsch," he said.

"Actually she still uses her married name," I said.

"Really. I'll be damned. I haven't seen Susan in years."

"Actually, you have," I said. "You saw her last week."

Sterling smiled. "Except then," he said.

"And you told her you were in trouble, and you asked her for help."

"She told you that?"

"Uh huh."

He shook his head.

"Susan was always a little dramatic," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "Hysterical. Just because her ex-husband whom she hasn't seen in twenty years shows up asking for help…"

"Well, really, I didn't ask for help."

"Oh," I said. "Susan misunderstood. She thought you needed help and sent me over to provide it."

"What's your relation to Susan."

"Lover," I said.

Sterling widened his eyes and made a humorous snorting sound.

"Well, you are, by God, direct, aren't you?"

"Saves time," I said.

Sterling had his hands tented in front of him, the fingertips brushing his chin. He tapped his fingertips together a few times while he looked at me.

"Lesson there for me," he said. "That would make you the private eye."

"It would."

"I've heard about you. Always sort of amused me Susan would end up with… a private detective."

"Hard to figure," I said. "Want to tell me about your troubles?"

"So you can help me?"

"Yeah."

"Because Susan asked you to?"

"Yeah."

"How do you feel about helping out your girlfriend's ex?"

"She says I'll like you," I said.

He grinned. His teeth were very white and even. "Of course you will," he said. "Everybody likes me."

"Susan says that you're being sued for sexual harassment."

"So, you're saying that somebody doesn't like me?"

"Tell me about it," I said.

He smiled and shrugged and leaned back farther in his chair and put his feet on the desk.

"I was running a thing at the Convention Center. Big charity do. Brought in Sister Sass from New York, had a ton of celebarooties. Message from the President. Lot of press."

"Which charity?"

"Sort of a fund-raiser gang-bang for all the deservings, you know? Care and placement of orphans, shelter for battered women, AIDS research, other intractable diseases, help for the homeless, safe streets programs, everybody in one swell foop."

"And?"

"And it was a blockbuster. I slept about two hours a night pulling it together, but it was a whizbang when we got it airborne."

"I sort of meant `and the harassment'?"

"Oh, sure, of course."

Out the west window I could see the shadow of a cloud drift over Kenmore Square toward Fenway Park.

A little less than a month and baseball would be back. It seemed too early. It always did in March. Too cold to play ball, the ground too soggy. The wind too bold. But April always came and they played. I looked back at Sterling. He was sitting at his desk looking friendly.

"And the harassment?" I said.

"Nothing much, really," he said. "All these charities have a ton of volunteer do-gooders around. Mostly women, the kind who think they're important because their husbands are rich. And a lot of them are goodlooking in that rich wife way, you know. Perfect hairdos, expensive perfume, very silky. So I may have flirted with a couple of them, and they took it wrong."

"How would you define flirting?" I said.

I was almost sure that I opposed sexual harassment. I was less sure that I knew exactly what it was.

"You know, kidding around, telling them how goodlooking they were. Hell I thought- they'd be flattered. Most women are. Cripes, if they weren't married I'd figure them for a bunch of lesbos."

"Which is it, a `couple,' or a `bunch?' "

'There are four women participating in the lawsuit," Sterling said. "One of them is married to Francis Ronan."

"The law professor," I said.

"Him," Sterling said. "Talk about your luck running bad."

"You didn't touch these women?"

"Absolutely not," Sterling said.

"Were you obscene?"

"No, of course not."

"Did they work for you?"

"Not really. They were volunteers. I mean I was at the top of the pyramid, I suppose, and they were down the slope a bit. But they didn't work for me."

"If you lose, can you pay the judgment?"

"That's not the point. I'm…" He grinned. "I'm an innocent man."

"But you could pay it."

"Certainly."

"You're not at the brink of, ah, dissolution?"

"Dissolute, yes, whenever possible," Sterling said. "Dissolution? Not hardly."

Sterling made a gesture that encompassed the office and the view. "This look like dissolution?"

"All it proves is they haven't evicted you," I said.

Sterling laughed out loud.

"A hard man is good to find," he said when he had stopped laughing.

"You want me to look into this a little?" I said. "See if I can fix it?"

"I wish someone would fix Francis Ronan," he said.

"Yes or no?"

"What do you charge?"

"Pro bono," I said.

"Well, the damn price is right, I guess. Sure, why not? You may as well take a whack at it."

"Okay. Who's your lawyer."

He shook his head.

"You don't have a lawyer?"

"Haven't got to it yet," he said. "Thought I'd wait until there was an actual court date. No point in paying some guy to shuffle papers for a month."

"Sometimes if a good lawyer shuffles them right, you don't have to go to court."

"Oh," he said, "a good lawyer."

And he leaned back in his chair and put his head back and laughed again. It was a big laugh and sounded completely genuine.

"I'll need the names of the plaintiffs," I said.

"Sure. I had Patti start a file on this. Ask her for a copy."

I stood. He stood. We shook hands.

"Give Susan a kiss for me," he said.

"No," I said.