Текст книги "Sudden Mischief"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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chapter thirteen

HAWK'S CURRENT GIRLFRIEND had a town house in the South End, off Clarendon Street close to the Ballet. Susan and Hawk and I were there with her, and maybe fifty of her closest friends, milling about in too little space. The talk was mostly medical, because Andrea was a cardiologist and most of her friends were doctors.

"It's a natural fit," I said to Hawk. "They need patients, you supply them."

"She love me 'cause ah is sensitive," Hawk said.

"Of course she does," Susan said. "Plus your wonderful Amos and Andy accent."

"You'd prefer me to sound like an upward mobile WASP," Hawk said, sounding remarkably like an upward mobile WASP

"I love you just the way you are," Susan said.

"Anyone would," Hawk said.

Andrea came over in a little red satin dress, carrying a glass of white wine.

"You wear that outfit to work," I said, "you may cause more heart attacks than you prevent."

"Is that a sexist remark?" Andrea said.

"Probably," I said.

"And God bless it," she said. "Hawk, will you please come over here and meet my department head?"

"Impress him," I said to Hawk. "Go with the upward mobile WASP accent."

Andrea stuck her tongue out at me and took Hawk's arm as they walked into the next room.

Susan and I hunkered down in our corner of the party and watched.

"Speaking," Susan said, "of sexism. You haven't told me how things are going with Brad."

"I didn't know that you wanted me to," I said.

"I'm interested, of course."

"Okay. It's kind of a hard one to get hold of. I mean, the charge has been made, apparently the lawsuit is moving forward, but I can't get anybody to tell me what happened, exactly."

"What did you think of Brad?"

"Well, you were right, I kind of like him, but he's either deliberately evasive, or so unfocused that he can't track an idea."

"Like how?"

"I can't get a real sense of whether he harassed these women or not. He's so out of touch with the current standards of male-female propriety that he could have sinned without realizing it."

"What does his lawyer say."

"He hasn't got one."

"Isn't that a mistake, to be faced with a lawsuit and have no lawyer?"

"Certainly. But he says he doesn't want to waste money on a lawyer for a case that isn't going anywhere."

"But how can he be sure?"

"I don't know. He seems entirely unfazed by the whole deal, which seems at odds with the way he presented his situation to you."

"Are you saying I misunderstood?"

"No."

"Because I didn't," she said. "He came to me and said he was desperate. That he had no money. That even if he won, the case would destitute him."

"He says that is not the situation. He says he's doing fine."

"What does he say when you tell him what I told you?"

"He says you were always a little dramatic."

Susan was silent. She swirled her glass of wine and looked at it as if something might be floating in it.

"And how did you respond to that?" Susan said.

"I disagreed."

She looked at her wine some more.

"I hate the image," she said. "Two men sitting around discussing whether I am dramatic."

I nodded. The cocktail party mingled loudly around us. I could see Hawk, taller than most of the room, listening impassively to some guy wearing round gold rimmed glasses, who was making a chopping gesture with his right hand. Probably talking about HMO fee structures.

"Did you get to discuss sleeping with me?" Susan said.

"No."

"I hate this."

"Would you like me to drop it?" I said.

"No."

"Sort of narrows the options," I said.

"Oh don't be so goddamned male," Susan said. "This is very painful. My ex-husband, my current, ah, lover, sitting there talking about me."

"Why?" I said.

"Why? Why wouldn't it be?"

I had a sense that asking why it would be, while symmetrical, wasn't going to get us anywhere.

"Susan," I said. "He doesn't mind that you're with me now. And I don't mind that you were with him then. He appears to like you. I love you. We both speak well of you."

"I don't like it that you speak of me at all."

"I never expected that I would be the only man you had ever been with," I said. "Hell, even after we were together there was Russell."

"Don't speak of him," she said.

"Suze…"

"I would like us to pretend that he never happened," Susan said. "That Brad never happened. That there was nothing and no one prior to that snowy Sunday after I came back from San Francisco."

"Isn't that what you shrinks call denial?" I said.

"Denial is when you tell yourself lies," Susan said.

"What is it when we tell each other lies?"

"Why is it a lie not to talk about the other men in my life? I should think you'd be thrilled not to talk about them."

"Everything in your life interests me. There's nothing I mind talking about."

"Well, I do."

"And yet you asked me to save him," I said.

"It doesn't mean we have to talk about it."

I decided that it would also be counterproductive to remind her that the conversation had started by her asking about Brad.

Instead I said, "Okay with me."

"I couldn't forgive myself," Susan said, "if I let my pathologies contribute to his ruin."

"How about our ruin?" I said.

Susan put her hand on my arm.

"This is a rough patch, and you'll have to help me through it. But nothing can ruin us."

"Good point," I said.

chapter fourteen

I SAT IN THE periodical room at the Boston Public Library reading back issues of the Globe and taking notes. Sterling's event at the Convention Center had gotten a lot of press. It had been called Galapalooza. It featured food, drink, celebrities, a message from the President of the United States, and music from a hot singer named Sister Sass. A long list of charities participated and each received a share of the profits. I took down the list of charities, in alphabetical order, and went calling.

The first place was an AIDS support organization operating out of the first-floor front of a three-decker on Hampden Street in Roxbury down back of the Newmarket. The director was a short thin woman with a fierce tangle of blonde hair. Her name was Mattie Clayman.

"You got something says who you are," she said.

I showed her my license.

"So how come a private detective is asking about Galapalooza?"

"I'm trying to investigate a case of sexual harassment that is alleged to have taken place during the production of the event," I said.

Mattie Clayman snorted and said, "So?"

"So I can't get anybody to tell me anything."

"You try asking the victims?"

"I have tried asking everybody. Now I'm asking you."

"I was not sexually harassed," she said.

"I imagine you weren't," I said.

"No? Well, I have been in my life."

"Not twice, I'll bet."

She smiled a little bit.

"Not twice," she said.

"So what can you tell me about Galapalooza?" I said.

"Who is supposed to have harassed who?" she said.

"Brad Sterling is alleged to have harassed Jeanette Ronan, Penny Putnam, Olivia Hanson, and Marcia Albright."

"Busy man," Mattie said.

"You know Sterling?" I said.

"Yep."

"Think he'd have harassed these women?"

"Sure."

"Why do you think so?"

"He's a man."

"Any other reason?"

"Don't need another reason."

"Some of my best friends are women," I said.

"That supposed to be funny?"

"I was hoping," I said.

"There's nothing much to laugh at in the way men treat women."

"How about `some men treat some women'?"

"You've never been a woman, pal."

"Hard point to argue," I said. "You didn't see any instances of harassment."

"No."

"What else can you tell me," I said. "About Galapalooza?"

She snorted again.

"Something," I said.

She shook her head.

"Don't get me started," she said.

"Au contraire," I said. "It's what I'm trying to do."

She made an aw-go-on gesture with her hand.

"How much did you realize from the event," I said.

She looked at me for quite a long time without expression.

Finally she said, "Zip."

"Zip."

"No, actually worse than zip. The people who usually would be giving us money spent it at Galapalooza. So we actually lost the money they would have donated if they hadn't spent it on Galapalooza."

"What happened?" I said.

She shrugged.

"Expenses," she said.

"You see the figures?"

"Yes. Everything was explained," she said. "The costs got ahead of them. The turnout was smaller than they'd hoped."

"So nobody got any money out of it?"

"No."

"Could they have cooked the books?"

"Look at my operation," she said and waved her hand at the small front room of the small apartment that looked out at the narrow street. "Does it look like we have a CPA budgeted?"

"So they could have cooked them."

"Of course they could have cooked them. The deal was that they'd do this big fund-raiser for all the charities too small to do a big fund-raiser. Share mailing lists, pool our volunteers. Because we're small and poor we're in no position to contest their figures. Operations like this are hand to mouth. We scramble every day, for crissake. We haven't got next Monday budgeted."

"Maybe they were just inept," I said.

"Maybe," she said. "Way down below here, where we work, it really doesn't matter if they were inept or dishonest. We don't get money, people die."

I looked at the bare plaster walls, the cheap metal desk and filing cabinet, the curtainless windows with a shirt cardboard neatly taped over a broken pane.

"How long you been doing this work?" I said.

"Ten years."

"If it matters to you," I said, "I will find out what happened and when I do I'll let you know."

"How you going to find out?" she said.

"Don't know yet."

"But you will?" she said.

"Always do," I said.

She put out her hand.

"Maybe you will," she said. "You don't look like someone gives up easy."

I took her hand and we shook.

"You should be proud of yourself," I said. "What you do."

"I am," she said.

chapter fifteen

I TALKED TO some other do-gooders: people who delivered hot meals, people who ran a hospice, people who ran a support group for breast cancer survivors. They were all different, but they had several things in common. They were all tougher than an Irish pizza, their offices were uniformly low budget, and they'd all been screwed by Galapalooza.

It was a really nice day for early spring in Boston, and the temperature was in the sixties when I went to a storefront in Stoneham Square. It was the offices of Civil Streets, the final name on the list I'd culled from the Globe, and it was closed. There was a discreet sign in the window that said Civil Streets in black letters on a white background. One of those sorry-we're-closed signs hung in the front door window. The little clock face said they'd be back at 1:15. I looked at my watch. Three fifteen. I looked in through the front window. The place had the impermanent look of a campaign headquarters. A gray metal desk with a phone on it, a matching file cabinet, a couple of folding chairs. I tried the doorknob, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The door was locked. Nothing gained anyway. Maybe they meant 1:15 in the morning. There was a hardware store across the street. I went in and asked the clerk when Civil Streets was usually open.

"It ain't," he said.

"It's not usually open?"

"Nope. Maybe couple hours a week. Some broad comes in, types a little, talks on the phone."

"That's it?"

"That's it," he said.

"What kind of operation is it?" I said.

"I got no idea," the clerk said. "How come you're asking all these questions?"

"I got sick of watching Jerry Springer," I said.

The clerk looked a little puzzled, but he seemed to be a guy who might always be a little puzzled.

"Well, I gotta get to work," he said.

"Sure."

I went back out of the hardware store, walked across the street, and stood and looked at the Civil Streets office. Maybe I should kick in the door and rummage about. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I glanced around. A Stoneham Police car drove up Main Street and pulled into the parking lot of the hardware store. A cop got out and walked into the store. In a few minutes he came out and stood by his car and gave me a cop look across the street. Cops on a two-man force in East Tuckabum, Iowa, will give you the same you-looking-for-trouble look that prowlies do in the South Bronx. Probably some sort of electro-magnetic force generated by the conjunction of gun and badge. I looked back. He kept looking. Nothing ventured, nobody arrested. I turned and walked back to my car and headed back up Main Street toward Route 128.

The trip wasn't a total waste. I was able to stop at a Dunkin' Donuts near the Redstone Shopping Center and had two plain donuts and a large coffee. Failing to learn anything is hungry work.

chapter sixteen

RACHEL WALLACE WAS in town. She was teaching a semester at Taft and was giving a lecture this evening at the Ford Hall Forum on Sexual Freedom and Public Policy. I told her if I could skip the lecture I'd buy her dinner. She said the lecture would almost certainly be too hard for me to understand and she'd settle for the meal. So there I was in Julien at the Hotel Meridian where Rachel was staying, sitting in a big chair ordering French food. Rachel Wallace was a pretty good-looking feminist. She had thick black hair, now dusted with a little gray, which she wore shorter than she used to. She had a trim body, and good clothes, and her makeup showed thought and dexterity.

"You still look good," she said when we had ordered our first drink. "If I were heterosexual…" She smiled and let it hang.

"Our loss," I said.

The waiter brought her the first of what I knew would be a number of martinis. I had never seen her drunk.

"Are you working on something at the moment?" she said.

"I could probably support myself without working," I said, "but I have joint custody of a dog."

"Of course," she said.

As she always did she checked out the room. And as she usually did she knew somebody.

"Norma," she said to a slender, good-looking woman who was following the maitre d' to her table. The woman turned, gave a small shriek, and came over to our table. Her husband came with her.

"We haven't seen you since Florida," she said.

Rachel Wallace introduced me. I stood.

"Norma Stilson," she said, "and Roger Sanders."

We shook hands.

"We're coming to see you tomorrow night," Norma said. "We've got tickets."

"I plan to offend a good many people," Rachel Wallace said.

"We wouldn't miss it," Sanders said. "Maybe a drink afterwards."

"Of course," Rachel Wallace said.

They both said they were pleased to meet me and moved on to their table.

"Some people go willingly to hear me," Rachel Wallace said.

"But I'm buying you dinner," I said.

"A transparent attempt to excuse your classic masculine fear of feminism."

"And I did save your life once," I said.

"And you did save my life once," she said. "What are you working on at the moment?"

"I don't think I know."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can't figure out what the case is about exactly, and the more I look, the more I can't figure it out."

"Tell me," she said.

The waiter brought her a second martini. I was still on my first beer. She wasn't beautiful, but her face had in it such intelligence and decency that it may as well have been beautiful.

"Well, it starts with Susan's ex-husband," I said. "He's a promoter…"

"Susan's ex-husband," Rachel Wallace said.

It wasn't a question.

"Yeah."

"Isn't that somewhat, ah, hazardous?" she said.

"It appears to be," I said.

"Susan know you're involved with him?"

"She asked me to do it," I said.

Rachel Wallace drank some martini. She held a swallow in her mouth for a moment.

"How do you feel about it?"

"I think it's somewhat hazardous," I said.

"Jealousy?"

"No, I'm all right with it."

"I doubt that," she said. "But I know your capacity for self-control, and I think you can probably do this. On the other hand, I'm not a perfect judge. I think you can probably do anything."

"Me too," I said.

She smiled.

"I know," she said. "Let me speculate for a moment. Let me guess that Susan is having trouble with it."

"She wants me to do it and doesn't want me to do it," I said. "She wants to know what's going on and doesn't want to talk about it. She wants to know what I think of him and isn't interested in my opinion of him."

"She keep his name?" Rachel Wallace said.

"Yes. But, nice touch, he changed it. To Sterling."

Rachel Wallace smiled. "Lucky his name wasn't Goldman," she said. "What do you think of him?"

"He's kind of a goofball," I said. "Goofy in that way that wealthy old Yankees are sometimes goofy. It's a little hard to describe."

"But of course he's not a wealthy old Yankee," Rachel Wallace said.

"Just pretending," I said. "He's accused of sexual harassment, and he seems to have no interest in it. Susan says he's desperate, broke, facing dissolution. He says he's doing dandy. He ran a big fund-raiser at the Fleet Center last year and nobody got any funds."

"What happened to the money?"

"Don't know. I just found out today that the participating charities got stiffed."

"Sometimes that is simple mismanagement," she said.

"Yep, and Sterling seems capable of it, but a couple of tough guys showed up at my office and threatened to beat me up if I didn't stay away from the case."

"What case?" Rachel Wallace said.

"I guess I'm trying to save Sterling from the sexual harassment charge. Susan says he came to her in desperation."

"What does he say?"

"He says it'll just go away, and by golly he's not a bit worried."

"By golly?"

"By golly."

"But you're wondering about the bad men who came to call, and about the money that didn't go to charity?"

"Yep."

"And you have a client that says `by golly.' "

"Sometimes he says `by golly, Miss Molly."'

"Please," Rachel Wallace said.

I finished my beer, Rachel Wallace finished her second martini. The waiter brought us each a new drink. I could see Rachel Wallace turning my situation over in her head.

"Either he was pretending to Susan that he was desperate," she said, half to herself, "or he's pretending to you that he's not."

"Or Susan's lying."

"You're just pretending to be objective," Rachel Wallace said. "that she is lying is not a possibility in your universe."

"A fool for love," I said.

"There are worse things to be a fool for," she said. "But don't confuse yourself by pretending you aren't."

"Okay," I said. "You happen to have a working definition of sexual harassment around?"

Rachel Wallace spoke without inflection like a kid saying the pledge to the flag.

"In Massachusetts," she said, "sexual harassment means sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when: (a) submission to or rejection of such advances, requests, or conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment or as a basis for employment decisions."

She took in a big stage breath, let it out, drank some martini, and went on. "Or (b) such advances, requests, or conduct have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance by creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating, or sexually offensive work environment."

"That's the law?"

"That's it in Massachusetts."

"And you can recite it from memory."

"I'm not just another pretty face," she said.

"Well," I said, "the legislators are clearly a bunch of pickle puss spoilsports."

"Yes," she said. "I understand the Iron Maiden is illegal here too."

"At the moment. But these women were volunteers," I said. "Does the law apply to them?"

"I'm not an attorney," Rachel Wallace said. "But part B might be the more applicable one."

"The thing about the sexually offensive work environment."

She rattled it off again.

"Maybe," I said. "Still, it doesn't seem to me like the strongest case in the world."

"Not every offensive sexual remark is, legally, sexual harassment," Rachel Wallace said. "Have you interviewed the plaintiffs?"

"They won't talk to me, advice of counsel."

"Is the counsel formidable?"

"Francis Ronan?"

"Jesus Christ," Rachel Wallace said.

The waiter offered us menus and we paused to browse them. When we had ordered, Rachel Wallace rested her chin on her folded hands and looked at me.

"Is it difficult with Susan right now?"

"Very," I said.

"Is she ashamed of herself for having been with this man?"

"Maybe," I said. "'Though I don't know why."

"I was with you in the last crisis," Rachel Wallace said. "When she went off with that man."

"Costigan," I said. "Russell Costigan."

"As I recall, she was, when it was over, ashamed of herself."

"Well, she was, and she wasn't."

"And with this, ah, Sterling?"

I started nodding before she finished her sentence.

"She is and she isn't," I said.

Rachel Wallace looked enigmatic.

"Which means what?" I said.

Rachel Wallace shrugged.

"You were implying something," I said.

"I'm not a psychiatrist," Rachel Wallace said.

"I'll keep it in mind," I said.

Rachel Wallace scrutinized the olive in her martini for a bit.

"I know of three men in Susan's life," she said. "And they permit ambivalence."

"Three?"

"Her first husband, the man she ran off with, and you."

"Me?"

She turned her glass to get a better look at the olive. Then she looked up at me.

"You look like a thug. You do dangerous work. And, however well contained, you are deeply violent."

"I like dogs," I said.

"Appearances are deceiving," Rachel Wallace said. "And I suspect when Susan first responded to you she didn't realize exactly what she was getting."

"Which was?"

Rachel Wallace smiled. It was a surprising sight.

Her face softened when she smiled, and her eyes widened, and she was pretty.

"A large, cynical Boy Scout," she said.

The waiter brought our dinner.

"She's attracted to men she can be ashamed of?"

"Perhaps."

"You're not just saying that to boost my ego?" I said.

Again that lovely smile.

"You have no ego," she said, "or it is so large it is impregnable. I've never known which."

"But the other two guys, she didn't last with them."

"No."

"With me she has lasted."

"The other two guys," Rachel Wallace said, "were perhaps what she thought they were. You turned out to be more."

"And?"

"She is a good woman, she would finally need a good man."

"And need to be embarrassed," I said, "about the bad ones in her past?"

"Maybe."

"Why?"

Rachel Wallace leaned back a little and rubbed her palms lightly together.

"We have reached the limits of pop psych," she said.

"Which means you don't know."

"I haven't a clue," she said.

"Lot of that going around," I said.