Part 21 (2/2)

The room was quiet. Linda and I looked at each other. While the hospital went about its routine we stayed poised on this silent epicenter. Then Linda stood and bent over the bed and put her cheek against mine.

”G.o.d, you're strong,” she said. ”No wonder they couldn't kill you.”

I stroked her hip with my left hand. ”What will become of us,” she murmured as she rubbed her cheek slowly up and down against mine.

I continued to stroke her hip. ”I don't know,” I said. ”The past is painful, maybe even fraudulent, the future is uncertain, maybe scary. What we have is a continuing present, honey. I think we should do what we can with that.”

She shook her head against me. ”I don't think so,” she said.

CHAPTER 47.

It was a big morning for me. I didn't drink any coffee. A doctor and two nurses came in and removed the drain from my side. And an hour later Rita Fiori came in to visit me. And she wore a green tailored suit with a frilly white collar spilling out at the throat.

”Mind if I smoke,” she said.

”Not at all,” I said. ”Want to hear about how I quit in 1968 and haven't had a puff since and don't miss it?”

”Only if you promise to explain in great and graphic detail to me how bad it is for my health and how my lungs must look. I always enjoy that.”

She took some Tareyton 100's out of her purse and stuck one into her mouth and lit it with a Cricket lighter and took a big drag and blew it out away from me.

”For crissake,” she said, ”I don't even enjoy it.” She sat, crossed her legs, and put her cigarette back into her mouth while she rummaged in her purse. She was wearing white stockings. It was the current look and I hoped it would pa.s.s quickly. Her shoes had three-inch heels.

”We've been trying to figure out what happened with Paultz and Winston and the Spellman kid.”

”Sherry,” I said.

”Yeah.” Rita took another drag and looked down at her notebook. I looked at her legs. ”We had a bunch of questions and no answers so we checked back and we pieced together and sometimes we guessed. But the best we can get looks a little like this. Winston was the brains of the thing. How he and Paultz got together we don't know. There aren't many of them around to tell us.” Rita looked at me directly.

I nodded. ”Maybe there's some truth to the story he told me,” I said.

”Maybe. Anyway, they did get together and it was a natural match. Winston had missions in Turkey, in Southeast Asia, places where they can raise opium poppies. He had missionaries who could mule the raw heroin into here. Paultz had a market and he had a system for cutting and packaging and getting it into retail hands.”

”Was Winston doing this from the beginning?” I said.

”I don't think so,” Rita said. She recrossed her legs and showed me some thigh in the process. I was pleased. ”He probably started it because of religious belief and desire for power and position, and the chance to manipulate people.” She shrugged. ”You know. And then it came along. We don't know how, either. Maybe a local mission head started dealing small and Winston found out and saw the potential. Maybe it was Paultz's idea.” She shook her head and shrugged again.

”Anyway,” she said, ”Winston would sell the heroin to Paultz and then lend money back to Paultz's construction company at a little below market rates. It gave the church a nice clean income--earnings from loans to a large construction firm. It gave Paultz a way to account for his income-loans to his construction company from an established church.”

”A kind of double wash,” I said.

”Yep,” Rita said, ”reciprocal laundering. There's still more to that part and some of it is quite fancy. The accountants will be able to give you some of the more elegant nuances later. But that's the gross outline of it.”

”Gross outlines are about all I can handle,” I said. ”Elegant nuances would be beyond me.”

”Watching you charge around on this one, I'm inclined to believe you,” Rita said.

”I was distracted,” I said.

Rita nodded. Her cigarette was out and she got another from the pack and lit it. ”That's what Quirk told me.” She made a dismissive wiggle with the hand holding the cigarette. ”Be that as it may. You had it backwards when you brought Winston into that meeting. And we bought it. We all thought Paultz was running Winston when in fact Winston was running Paultz.”

”And when I started to find the connection between them,” I said, ”he figured a way to dump Paultz and get out from under and keep the heroin business in exchange for backing away from the church and maybe a short jail term.”

”Yes, as long as he could kill Paultz before Paultz told his side. We figure Paultz went for the trust deal to stall until he found out what Winston was up to.”

”At which point he'd have killed Winston,” I said.

Rita smiled. ”Yes. It was pretty much a two man swindle. Each was the only one that could connect the other one.”

”Which brings us to Sherry,” I said.

”Dear little Sherry,” Rita said. ”Twenty years old, the soul of piety and love. She jerked you clowns around like trout.”

”It's not that simple,” I said.

”Why isn't it,” Rita said.

”Because it isn't. h.e.l.l, nothing is, not really. She killed Paultz. Winston asked her to and she did and by that point it probably didn't bother her. But she wasn't just a girl who'd shoot someone. She loved Winston, I think. And she loved Tommy Banks.”

”Wouldn't it be pretty to think so,” Rita said.

”Christ, a literate prosecutor,” I said.

”Literate and s.e.xy,” she said.

”They're all s.e.xy,” I said. ”It's the literate that makes you special.”

”She did it all for love?” Rita said.

”No, I don't know if she even knew what she did it all for. But she was a kid looking for a place. She tried dancing and religion. She tried loving Tommy and Winston. Paul says she wrote poetry. She wanted to be something that mattered or that was exciting or that wasn't ordinary. Under different circ.u.mstances she'd be taking courses at the Adult Ed Center in Cambridge, and working on a play.”

Rita sucked in the corners of her mouth and shook her head.

”Or she might have gone to law school,” I said. ”And when the money and the power of the dope deal came along it hooked her. She wouldn't give it up and she wouldn't stop being powerful and rich and she would do anything not to go back to writing poetry and trying to dance and thinking about religion and so she shot Paultz and then when Winston wouldn't tell the truth even to save her she turned on him and finally on me. I was all that was left to keep her from her place.”

”Maybe,” Rita said. ”Or maybe she was a conniving little b.i.t.c.h that bamboozled all of you.”

”She'd never have spent as much time with Tommy as she did. She'd have latched on to Winston and stayed. But she didn't, she vacillated. She came back to Tommy, then went back to Winston, why would she try and be with Tommy if she was simply after money and power?”

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