Early Autumn (8 page)

“Something to do with the sanctity of life. That kind of stuff.”

“Have you ever killed someone?”

Patty said, “Paul!”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“I had to. I don’t if I don’t have to. Nothing’s absolute.”

“What do you mean?” He stepped down to the living room level into the light.

“I mean you make rules for yourself and know that you’ll have to break them because they won’t always work.”

Patty said, “I don’t know what either one of you is talking about but I want you to stop. I don’t want any more talking about killing and I don’t want to talk about either of those men again. I mean it I want it stopped.” She clapped her hands when she said the last sentence. Paul looked at her as if she
were a cockroach and turned and went back up to his room.

“I think I need a drink,” Patty said. “Could you put one together for me?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’ll it be?”

The next time they tried, it was meaner. Patty Giacomin was food shopping when I went to pick up Paul at school. When I came back into the house with Paul, the phone was ringing. Paul answered and then handed it to me.

“It’s for you,” he said.

I took the phone and Paul lingered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room to see who it was. It was a voice I didn’t know.

It said, “Spenser?”

I said, “Yeah.”

It said, “There’s someone here wants to talk with you.”

I said, “Okay.” Repartee is my game.

There was a shuffling at the other end, then Patty Giacomin’s voice came on. It sounded shaky.

“Spenser. That man Buddy and some other men have me. They said if you don’t give Paul to them they won’t let me go.”

I said, “Okay, put Buddy on. We’ll work something out”

She said, “Spenser …” and then Buddy’s voice came on.

“You there?”

I said, “Yeah.”

Buddy said, “Here’s the plan. You bring the kid to the Boston end of the Mass. Ave. Bridge. We’ll bring Momma to the Cambridge end. When we see you start the kid we’ll start Momma the other way. Get the idea?”

“Yeah. Shall we do it now?”

“One hour. We’ll be there in one hour.”

“Okay.”

“Spenser?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck this up. I got people with me that ain’t Harold, you understand?”

“Yeah.”

Buddy hung up.

I broke the connection and dialed information.

“Harbour Health Club in Boston,” I said to the operator. I looked at my watch. Two twenty-five. The operator gave me the number. I punched it out on the push-button phone. It rang. A woman answered.

I said, “Henry Cimoli, please.”

The woman said, “One minute.” She sounded like she was chewing gum.

Henry said, “Hello.”

I said, “Spenser. I need Hawk. You know where he is?”

Henry said, “I’m looking at him.” Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

I said, “Put him on.”

In a moment Hawk said, “Umm,” into the phone.

I said, “You know Buddy Hartman?”

Hawk said, “Umm-hmm.”

I said, “He and several others have a woman. They want to exchange her for a boy that I have. At three twenty-five they are going to be at the Cambridge end of the Mass. Ave. Bridge. I’m going to be at the Boston
end. We’re going to start them together. When they meet, halfway across, I want you to discourage Buddy and his pals while I drive out onto the bridge and pick up both of them, the woman and the kid.”

Hawk said, “It’s five minutes’ work, but I gotta drive there and go home again. Cost you a deuce.”

“Yeah, I haven’t got time to haggle fee with you. I’m on my way.”

“I be there,” Hawk said. We hung up.

Paul was staring at me.

I said, “Come on, we gotta go get your mother.”

“You going to give me to them?”

“No.”

“What if they try to shoot me?”

“They won’t. Come on. We’ll talk in the car.”

In the car I said, “You heard what I said on the phone to Hawk?”

Paul said, “Who’s Hawk?”

“Friend of mine, doesn’t matter. You heard what I said?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I can’t believe we’re talking a lot of danger here. But here’s what I want you to do. When I tell you to go, you start walking along the Mass. Ave. Bridge toward Cambridge.”

“Where’s the Mass. Ave. Bridge?”

“Across the Charles, by MIT. You’ll see. When your mother reaches you, say to her, ‘Lie flat on the ground, Spenser’s coming,’ and then you drop flat down on the pavement. If she doesn’t get down, tell her to. I’ll drive out onto the bridge and I’ll get out of the car. Tell her to get in the driver’s side. You get in the other side.”

“What about that Buddy?”

“Hawk will look after him till I get there.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

I smiled. “You say that because you don’t know Hawk. Hawk will take care of the Cambridge end.” I wrote Susan’s address on a piece of paper. “Have your mother drive you there.”

The kid was nervous. He yawned repeatedly. I could hear him swallow. His face looked tight and without color. “What if she’s not there?” he said.

“No reason she shouldn’t be,” I said.

“What if this doesn’t work?”

“I’ll make it work,” I said. “I’m good at this. Trust me.”

“What would they do if they got me?”

“Take you to your father. You wouldn’t be any worse off than now. Relax. You got nothing to lose here. Your father wouldn’t hurt you.”

“He might,” Paul said. “He doesn’t like me. He just wants to get even with my mother.”

I said, “Look, kid, there’s just so much value to thinking about things you can’t control. It’s time to stop now. You’ve had a tough life and it doesn’t seem to be looking up. It’s time to start growing up. It’s time to stop talking and start being ready. You know?”

“Ready for what?”

“For whatever comes along. Your way out of a lousy family life is to grow up early and you may as well start now.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“What I tell you. And do it with as little whining as you can. That would be a start.”

“But I’m scared,” Paul said. There was outrage in his voice.

“That’s a normal condition,” I said. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

He was silent. We passed Mount Auburn Hospital and crossed the Charles onto Soldier’s Field Road. To the right Harvard Stadium looked like it was supposed to, round and looming with arches and ivy on the walls. The Harvard athletic plant sprawled for acres around it. Soldier’s Field Road became Storrow Drive and I went off Storrow by BU, and made the complicated loop turn till I was heading inbound on Commonwealth. At Mass. Ave. there was an underpass. I stayed to the right of it and turned onto Mass. Ave. and drove past the up ramp from Storrow and parked on the bridge with my emergency lights blinking. It was three twenty. Beside me Paul’s stomach rolled. He belched softly.

“You see them?” he said.

“No.”

A car behind me blew its horn at me, and the driver glared as he went by. Two kids in a Buick pulled around the car. The one in the driver’s seat gave me the finger. The passenger called me an asshole through his rolled-down window. I kept my eyes fixed on the Cambridge side of the bridge.

At three twenty-five I said to Paul, “Okay. It’s time for you to walk. Tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I’m going to walk to the middle and when my mother gets to me I’m going to tell her lie down, that you’re coming, and then I will lie down too.”

“And if she doesn’t hit the sidewalk?” I said.

“I’ll tell her again.”

“And when I show up what happens?”

“I get in one side. She gets in the other. We drive to that address.”

“Good. Okay, walk across the street. They’ll start her on their side.”

He sat for a moment. Belched again. Yawned
Then he opened the door of the MG and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He crossed and began to walk slowly toward the Cambridge side. He went about ten feet and looked back at me. I grinned at him and made a V with my fingers. He kept going. At the far end of the bridge I saw his mother get out of a black Oldsmobile and start toward us.

The Mass. Ave. Bridge is open. It rests on arches that rest on pilings. There’s no superstructure. On a summer evening it is particularly pleasant for strolling across. It is said that some MIT students once measured it by repeatedly placing an undergraduate named Smoot on the ground and marking off his length. Every six feet or so there is still the indication of one smoot, two smoots, painted on the pavement. I could never remember how many smoots long the bridge was.

He was almost to his mother. Then they met. Across the bridge the Oldsmobile began to move, slowly. The boy dropped to the pavement. His mother hesitated and then crouched down beside him, tucking her skirt under her.
Flat
, I muttered,
flat, goddammit
.

I slammed the MG into gear and headed for Paul and his mother. Across the way the Olds began to pick up speed. A Ford station wagon swung around the corner from Memorial Drive, looped out into the wrong lane with a lot of squealing rubber and blaring horns, and rammed the Olds from the side, bouncing it against the high curb and pinning it. Before the cars had stopped, Hawk rolled out of the driver’s side with a handgun the size of a hockey stick and took aim over the hood of the wagon. I cut across the traffic and rolled the MG up beside the sidewalk between the Olds and the two Giacomins.
From down the bridge I heard gunfire. I jerked up the emergency, slapped the car into neutral, and scrambled out of the MG.

“Patty, get in, take Paul and drive to Smithfield, Paul’s got the address. Explain who you are and wait for me there. Move.”

There was another gunshot from five smoots away. I had my gun out and was running toward the Olds when I heard the MG take off with its tires squealing. I was almost at the Olds when I saw Hawk go over the hood of the wagon, reach into the driver’s side of the Olds and pull somebody out through the window with his left hand. With the barrel of his gun he chopped the pistol out of the other man’s hand, shifted his weight slightly, put his right hand, gun and all, into the man’s crotch and pitched him over the railing and into the Charles River.

A big guy with a tweed cap got out of the back seat of the Olds as I came around behind it. I turned sideways on my left foot and kicked him in the small of the back with my right. He sprawled forward and a gun that looked like a Beretta clattered on the pavement ahead of him as he sprawled. It skittered between the risers of the railing and into the river. I looked into the car and saw Buddy crouched down on the passenger’s side of the front floorboards, huddled under the dash. Hawk looked in at the other window, the enormous handgun leveled. We saw Buddy at the same time.

Hawk said, “Shit” stringing out the vowel the way he did. From the Boston side of the bridge I heard a siren. So did Hawk. He put the bazooka away inside his coat.

“Let’s split,” I said.

He nodded. We ran down Mass. Ave. and into one of the MIT buildings.

We moved through a crowded corridor lined with ship models in glass cases.

“Try and look like an upwardly mobile nineteen-year-old scientist,” I said.

“I am, bawse. I got a doctor of scuffle degree.”

Hawk was wearing skintight unfaded jeans tucked into his black boots. He had on a black silk shirt unbuttoned nearly to his waist, and the handgun was hidden under a white leather vest with a high collar that Hawk wore turned up. His head was shaven and gleamed like black porcelain. He was my height, maybe a hair taller, and there was no flesh on his body, only muscle over bone, in hard planes. The black eyes over the high cheekbones were humorous and without mercy.

We went out a side door at the end of the corridor. Behind us there were still sirens. We strolled across the MIT campus away from Mass. Ave.

“Sorry about your car,” I said.

“Ain’t my car, man,” Hawk said.

“You boosted it?” I said.

“’Course. Ain’t gonna fuck up my own wheels, man.”

“’Course not,” I said. “I wonder if they’ve fished that guy out of the Charles yet.”

Hawk grinned. “Damn,” he said. “Wish the fuzz had been a little slower. I was gonna throw ’em all in.”

We wandered in a mazy motion through the MIT complex down to Kendall Square and caught the subway to Park Street We walked up across the Common to Beacon, where Hawk’s car was parked in front of the State House by a sign that said RESERVED FOR MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL COURT. It was a silver-gray Jaguar XJ 12.

Hawk said, “You owe me two bills, babe.”

I said, “Gimme a ride to Susan’s house.”

“Smithfield?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the woods, man. That’s your fucking forest primeval out there.”

“Hawk, it’s thirteen miles north. We could run it in about two hours.”

“Dinner,” Hawk said. “Dinner and some champagne, I buy the champagne. They sell champagne out in the woods, babe?”

“We can stop at the trading post,” I said. “Cost plenty wampum, though.”

We got in and Hawk put the Jag in gear and we purred north over the Mystic Bridge. Hawk put an Olatunji tape on and the car trembled with percussion all the way to Saugus, where Hawk pulled into a Martignetti’s off Route 1 and bought three bottles of
Taittinger Blanc de Blancs. At forty-five bucks a bottle it was cutting a lot of profit off the two hundred I was paying him. He also brought out two six-packs of Beck’s beer.

“No point wasting the champagne on you,” he said. “You born beer, you gonna die beer. There’s a bottle opener in the glove compartment.”

Hawk peeled the foil off the neck of one bottle of Taittinger and twisted the cork out with a pop. I opened a bottle of beer. Hawk drank from the neck of his forty-five-dollar champagne bottle as he tooled the Jaguar up Route 1. I drank some Beck’s.

“Difference between you and me, babe,” Hawk said, “right here.” He drank some more champagne.

“As long as there is one,” I said. “Any difference will do.”

Hawk laughed quietly and turned his Olatunji tape up louder. It was a quarter to six when we pulled into Susan’s driveway. My MG was there beside the car Susan had bought to replace the MG. It was a big red Ford Bronco with a white roof and four-wheel drive and heavy-duty this and that, and big tires with raised white letters.