Part 3 (1/2)
”What case?”
”Looking for a missing rare ma.n.u.script stolen from a university.”
”What university?”
”If it seems pertinent, I'll tell you.”
”If I want to know, you'll tell me.”
Quirk's voice squeezed out sharp and flat like sheet metal.
”I'll tell you if you need to know it. I don't make a living telling cops everything they want to know about clients.”
”I don't make a living taking c.r.a.p from hole-in-the-wall shysters like you, Spenser.”
A thin, blue-jowled sergeant named Belson drifted in between Quirk and me.
”Come on, Lieutenant, this don't get us far. Both the girl and the victim are university students, and there's a fair bet that it's the same university that hired Spenser.”
Quirk looked at me, then Belson.
”Do you know him?” he asked, nodding at me.
”Yeah, he used to work out of the Suffolk County D.A.'s office about five years ago. I hear he got canned.”
”Okay, get his story.” He turned to me. ”You're not working for the D.A. now, boy, you're working my side of the street, and if you get in my way I'll kick your a.s.s right into the gutter. Got that?”
”Can I feel your muscle?” I said.
Quirk looked at me without saying anything, then turned away and walked over to the girl.
Belson shook his head and pulled out a notebook.
”Start up with the lieutenant, Spenser, and you'll end up looking like you went through a pepper mill.”
”I won't be able to sleep without a night light,” I said.
Belson shrugged. ”Okay. Start from the beginning. You're in the business. l don't have to lead you.”
I told him, omitting, mostly from stubbornness, the name of my client, but including, because it was sure to come out anyway, the incident in the Pub that afternoon, when I had knocked the kid down.
Belson shook his head again.
”How could anyone get mad at a sweetheart like you? I would have thought he'd have been hypnotized with the way you're so agreeable.”
I let that go.
”You're sure you might not have been hustling his chick just a little, Spenser? And maybe you were over here hustling her again and he came home and caught you, and an argument developed?”
”Yeah, and I pulled out my fourteen-dollar Sat.u.r.day night special and let fly at him. Come off it, Belson. You're just talking for the h.e.l.l of it. You know l didn't do it. You know I wouldn't use a piece of cheap tin like that gun. If I had, you know I would have covered it better than this.”
”Okay, maybe I don't like you for it. I've known you a long time, and it's not your style. But it could happen. You got nothing against girls, I can recall. It could be his gun and you had to take it away from him and it went off. Lotta people get killed by people in a way that ain't their style.”
”And I shot him four times in the chest getting it away from him?”
”Could be to cover it up, make It look different.”
”You're fis.h.i.+ng, Frank,” I said.
”Maybe.”
”Have you heard the girl's story yet?”
”Nope, lieutenant's getting that now.”
”He's going to love it,” I said.
”Of course you got it before you called us,” Belson said.
”She was way under from something. I had to bring her out.”
”And then you had to ask her what happened and then she had to tell you. Arid then you had to fix up a story maybe.”
”Wait till you hear the story. You don't think I'm smart enough to work up something like that. You guys are cops, not priests. Calling you isn't a ritual act. I called you as soon as my judgment told me it was both feasible and prudent.”
Belson set fire to a half-smoked cigar before he said anything. Then he said, ”You talk good for a dumb slug; feasible and prudent, my, my.”
From the other side of the room Quirk spoke over his shoulder without turning his head.
”Belson, bring the private license over here.”
Belson nodded me toward Quirk and I walked over. Quirk was straddling the only straight chair in the room, with his forearms crossed on the back. Before him Terry Orchard was on the couch. She had on a denim s.h.i.+rt and Levi's again, but her hair was still wet and tight on her skull. She looked awfully small.
”Spenser,” he said without looking up. ”She says she won't say anything unless you say it's all right. She says you told her not to talk to us without a lawyer.”
”Right enough, Lieutenant. I knew you wouldn't want to take advantage of her when she was perhaps in a state of shock.”
”We're going to take her in.”
”I thought you might.”
”We'd like you to come along, too,” Quirk said.
”I wouldn't miss it,” I said.
Terry looked at me with her eyes very wide and dark. I said to her, ”Haller will be there. Just do as I said.”