24

Fred drove back to Cambridge. He had decided, after reflecting on it, to keep Russ in his sights. He hated to go near this again after hearing Dawn’s voice on the recording. It smelled like the edge of a rat’s nest. But someone ought to watch Russ.

As he reached the second floor of Russell’s building, the door of the apartment opened and Dawn came out dressed as he’d seen her last, in jeans and sweatshirt, the sweatshirt pink today, her big green bag swinging.

“Fred,” she said. They were old friends now. “They told me that’s your name. Russ said he talked to you. He came back last night. He’s out again, but he wants to meet you at your hotel. The Charles? Same place as yesterday. About eleven, he said.”

“Right.”

It was almost eleven now.

“He called your hotel, he said.”

“Right. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“My mom said don’t go in a strange man’s car,” Dawn said. “Especially one as big and sexy as you.”

She gave a brilliant grin, excellently crafted.

“Not even if they want to talk about Live Models?” Fred said. “Lights—Cameras—Action?”

“Oh, shit,” Dawn said, leading him down the stairs to the sidewalk. “You’re one of them. Pussy photos. Shit. I should have known. Okay, buddy. What’s your game?”

“Where you headed?” Fred asked.

“I’m not crawling into any fucking car with you,” Dawn said. “You think I’m crazy?”

They paused while an old woman carrying groceries passed between them on the sidewalk.

“Your voice on the tape. How did the rest of it go? Tell me about Smykal,” Fred said.

“Oh, fuck,” Dawn said. “That cheap asshole. Jesus, that man was worse than he smelled.” She shuddered and looked at Fred, the two of them standing on the Pearl Street sidewalk, traffic trudging past, dirt blowing around their ankles.

“Smykal died,” Fred said.

“He couldn’t smell worse now,” Dawn said. “So what if he used my voice? What’s your angle, buddy? Everyone’s got an angle. Crotch shots.”

“Not on the sidewalk.” Fred opened the passenger door and held it.

“Fucking gentleman,” Dawn said, climbing in.

“I’m going up to the T.” She locked her door. “Ride me to Central Square. Say whatever you want on the way. You don’t have to threaten me. I’m ahead of you, buddy.”

“I need information, that’s all,” Fred said. “So I understand how it works.” He started the car and eased down toward the river, Pearl being one-way heading away from the square.

“You don’t fucking know? Central Square’s the other way.”

“If you have time,” Fred said, “we could sit somewhere. And talk. You and Russ and—was Sheila in this thing?—you are looking at a lot of trouble.”

“That jerk-off Russ, what did he tell you?”

“Why don’t we talk it over with him?” Fred suggested. “We’ll pick him up at the Charles. If you have nothing better to do.” He looked sideways and saw the sweat of consternation on Dawn’s face as she thought. Reaching the river, he turned upstream, toward Harvard and the Charles Hotel.

“Shit,” Dawn said. “Fucking Russ. He promised me our troubles were almost over.” She stared out Fred’s window, across him, at the river and the cherry trees blooming along the bank.

“I can help fix it for you,” Fred said. “If it’s fixable. But first I have to know what’s going on.”

“Shit,” Dawn said again. “What do we do, talk in your fucking room?”

“Maybe that’s good,” Fred said.

“With your cock in my mouth, right? So I enunciate better?”

“Why don’t we not bother shocking me with the frank intimacies, Dawn? I’m serious,” Fred said. “Get Russ in the Quiet Bar and bring him up. I’ll park the car.”

It was almost half past eleven.

Fred dropped Dawn at the front of the hotel.

“I’ll bring him,” she said, slamming the door.

Fred watched her sail past the doorman. If only Ophelia could see that long, athletic stride, the young woman with the dancer’s body climbing out of Fred’s car at the Charles Hotel. That would offer a year’s supply of grist for her salacious mule.

Fred drove down into the hotel’s garage and parked the car, and two large men started beating the shit out of him as he was halfway out.

They were big. They were ready, seasoned, and able. One grabbed Fred’s left arm as he opened the car door and stepped out. He pulled while the other chopped, punched, and jabbed Fred around head, shoulders, and kidneys. His right arm free, Fred whirled, grabbed the ear of the second man, twisted, jabbed his eyes, and punched at the face of the first while kicking shins and knees. He ducked and twisted in a flurry of fists, crimson, sweat, and cologne.

He felt his left arm gripped so hard he had to twist and dive to avoid the hammerlock and get his arm back. He got a good punch in on the nose of the first man—thin and dark, with long hair—and saw blood. Then he tried for the eye and connected. Harvard jacket on him, crimson: veritas.

The gleam of a blade showed the knife in the hand of the second guy. The blade moved flat, low, side-to-side, held to stab upward. It was a big, ugly camper’s knife. The lights of the garage ceiling winked off it. The man knew what he was doing. You look at the blade first, swinging, then at the man—large redhead, black clothes, big arms; smell of cologne coming off that one. The other one, the dark-haired one, then, was carrying the old sweat smell.

“We have questions, buddy,” the knife said. The first was going for the gun under Fred’s arm. Fred ducked, his hand there first. He motioned the skinny man back, his hand under his arm, ready.

“Just questions. Don’t worry about it, buddy. No big deal,” the knife said, swinging to make that paralysis of fear a knife likes to establish in its victim, if it can, before it chooses a spot.

Fred felt bruises growing on the cheek next to his right eye. He had blood there that was not from the first guy’s nose.

The brunette, weasel-quick, moved in.

Right hand on the gun butt, gun out, Fred raked hard across the face, nose, eyes, twice, of the weasel, whose face already was filling with blood. He stepped back, hurt, shaking his head.

“Shit, the man’s fast,” the weasel said. “For a big guy.”

The redhead was a problem. He held the knife in front of him, ready to make his run, his partner out of the way. “Just some questions, buddy. Don’t get sore.”

Fred drew back, leaving room between himself and his visitors. The redhead crouched lower.

“You finished with that left kneecap?” Fred asked, pointing his gun in that direction. The redhead was a big man with freckles and zits and curly sideburns. He hadn’t shaved today. He grunted, chewing gum. His wide arms sported tattoos and coarse hair, set off by the black knit shirt. He started moving forward.

“Shit,” he said.

Fred took a look at the weasel, the thin, dark one to the left. He was rubbing at his face with his cuff, getting the blood out of his eyes.

“Kid said he had a piece,” the weasel said.

“Stoopid kid, what did he know? Who knew?” said the redhead.

“Stay where you are,” Fred said. The two moved toward him.

“You’re not going to fire that,” the weasel said.

“Depends,” said Fred.

“Asshole,” said the redhead.

“Hey, asshole,” said the weasel. “There’s a guy wants to talk to you.”

“Tell me about it,” said Fred.

“Tell you shit,” said the weasel.

Fred’s shoulders, neck, and head were starting to throb. Did nobody need their car? Did nobody need to come down around lunchtime to take a car out and go someplace?

“Somebody wants to talk to you. Which he believes you have something he paid for,” the redhead said.

Fred asked, “Buddy Mangan can’t call?”

The redhead spat. “Buddy Mangan hell,” he said. “Buddy Mangan, you wish!”

Fred looked at them and waited. The redhead stood upright and shrugged his big shoulders, loosening them.

“He told us to bring you in,” the brunette said.

“That does not seem practical now,” Fred said, reminding them of the gun. “Who wants to talk to me?”

“Where’s the pitcher? Where’s the broad, the nood?” said the redhead. “Which you have.”

The weasel made a move toward the pocket of his crimson Harvard windbreaker, on which the splotches of new blood would not show.

“Try me,” said Fred. He gestured with the gun.

“Kleenex,” said the weasel. “You mind?”

“Be my guest,” said Fred. “Slow.”

Way back in the dark behind the weasel he saw lights from an elevator door opening, and people, a couple, getting out, walking this way.

Fred watched the weasel pull the pack of tissues out of the side pocket of his windbreaker, demonstrating innocence, all sweetness and light. “See?” He selected one and started work on his face.

The weasel moved a step; Fred motioned him back. The couple was coming closer.

The redhead watched, still threatening.

“Put the knife away,” Fred said, motioning with his head. The guys could hear footsteps behind them now.

The redhead’s knife went into his right pants pocket. He had a sheath in there. Fred held the gun in his jacket pocket, hoping he wouldn’t have to shoot through the tweed.

As they neared, the couple looked at the three men uncomfortably, not wanting to intrude; they were a man and woman in their sixties, wearing raincoats and hats, dressed for springtime in Boston whatever the weather. The weasel’s face dripped copiously. The couple walked on into the cement dusk, looking for their car.

“We don’t know for certain it’s the guy,” the redhead said.

“It has to be,” the weasel whispered. “We picked him up at the kid’s place. He looks right. He’s staying at the Charles Hotel, like the kid said.”

“Where’s Russ?” Fred asked, a chasm of alarm opening up in him.

The couple drove slowly past them, he at the wheel, she looking at the three men, still interested. She lowered the window. She and the old man had been arguing about it. She was telling him to slow down. She couldn’t forget the blood on the weasel’s face, and some blood on him, too, Fred thought.

“Is everything all right?” the lady asked bravely. The three men were facing each other, tense.

“How about it?” Fred said. “Everything all right?”

The two men nodded.

“My friend fell down,” the redhead explained, snickering.

“Thanks,” Fred said. The car drove off. It was a small, modest new black Cadillac. The driver was now telling his wife, “See, what did I say?”

“This is the guy, or the kid lied,” the weasel said. Fred noticed that his face was pockmarked.

“Where is he?” Fred asked again.

“This isn’t going anywhere,” the weasel said.

“Let’s call your guy, if he wants to talk,” Fred said.

“You want to call while I wait with him?” the redhead asked his partner.

“Shit, you know we can’t call. We have to fucking drive back so he can turn the fucking radio up, lean over, fucking whisper in our fucking ear, fucking drive all the fucking way to fucking Providence for fucking permission to fucking go to the goddamn motherfucking toilet?” said the weasel.

The elevator doors were opening again. A woman stepped out with two young children dressed like Easter.

“Tell me about Russell,” Fred said.

“The kid?” the redhead said. “I forget where Russell is. You remember, pal?”

The weasel shook his head, his congealing ringlets making jerky arabesques. “In case you care, buddy, he’s healthy, and he might stay healthy. You never know.” He slipped the pack of tissues back into the pocket of his red windbreaker.

The redhead bent down and slashed the left rear tire of Fred’s car with his knife. The two men turned.

“One’ll do it,” the weasel said. “We don’t want to make the guy mad. Just slow him down.”

“As long as the kid’s healthy,” the weasel said to Fred, “why don’t you stay in this nice hotel garage a few minutes and let us make, like, our getaway, so we don’t anybody worry about the kid.”

“Why don’t you tell your friend to telephone me here at the Charles,” Fred said.

“Asshole,” the weasel said.

“Stay in your room,” the redhead said, “in case he calls. He don’t like to call for nothing, you hear what I’m saying? If he calls. If you don’t hear by five, he’s not calling, is my guess. He’ll send someone.” He smiled and shook his shoulders like a fighter.

Fred watched the men swagger out of the garage the same way the cars came in, up the ramp.

The woman and her children, a boy and a girl—perfect; six and eight?—came up to him. The girl, older, pointed at the rear tire and said, “He has a flat.”

“Never mind,” Mom said, hustling them along. This was supposed to be a nice hotel.

Fred took the stairs up, disregarding the stares of his fellow lodgers. There was no sign of Dawn in the Quiet Bar. She was supposed to take Russ upstairs; not finding him, she’d hightailed it out of here, Fred had no doubt. He went up to his room and confirmed it. Dawn was slick. Could she have set this up with Russell’s friends from Providence, who were missing a painting that someone down there had paid for? In the meantime, they had Russ himself as a consolation prize. The pieces Fred saw now were plain enough. Russell, having identified Smykal’s painting, had initiated a process that led to Buddy Mangan—and evidently, now, to some disappointed backers whose money Mangan had been representing.

Fred was basically uninjured—only bruised and grazed. The bright blade had kept its distance. He ducked into the bathroom and pulled a long bath. Molly was due in less than an hour. She was going to see him roughed up, and he wanted to reduce the evidence as best he could.

He couldn’t leave the room, since they had Russell.

While he waited for the tub to fill, he called the number listed on Smykal’s poster. LIVE ** MODELS. It gave him only Dawn’s recorded message. Fred told it, after the beep, “Dawn, Sheila, this is important. Call Fred as soon as you can.” He left his number at the hotel.

He called the number on Buddy Mangan’s card. No answer. A ring, but no machine to take the message he would have left: “I can get you the painting.”

Fred climbed into the hot water and listened for the phone. For a situation that he wanted not to be his business, he’d got into this one pretty deep.

Providence would call unless he decided to send someone—someone better than the redhead and brunette tag team.

Fred lay in the tub, bruised in spirit. That was the necessary consequence of allowing domestic instincts purchase. Old as he was in this world, Fred was surprised at feeling betrayed. Russ had sold him out to buy time, or they had scared it out of him. They had the kid stashed, likely in fucking Providence. Fred had been mooning around outside his door last night, intending to offer him protection, going easy on him, and first chance he got, the kid sold him out.

Fred fixed the features of his two assailants in his mind. He wouldn’t forget them. He could find them in mug shots in fucking Providence when the time came.

While they had been picking him up at Russell’s and following him here, Fred himself had been noticing nothing but what a stud he must look, having that good-looking young woman, Dawn, in the car with him and at his mercy. He, dazzled by pussy, had been set up by the oldest trap in the world—well, no, the oldest but one. The oldest trap was a person’s native hope.

Hot water eased the bruises. There were abrasions but no cuts of consequence. Fred’s knuckles were banged and skinned; his cheek was skinned, too, and his mouth bruised. He wouldn’t get a shiner. In the art business you stood out with a shiner. Even flashing a gun for the most part wasn’t done, though Fred knew of at least one Boston dealer who wore one on his premises.

He stretched his legs a last time, then got out of the tub and toweled off. He was feeling better for a little exercise. Wrapped in the towel, he lay down.

He tried Mangan again. They wouldn’t let up on the kid until they had that painting—though what the muscle behind Mangan wanted with a painting, Fred couldn’t imagine.

Lying on the bed, he played back the grunts and ejaculations of the opposition during their conversation, the bits of information they had dropped. They hadn’t even been sure, those two, that Fred was the man they wanted.

Fred rose to a knock on the door.

Up off the bed with the hotel’s towel tucked in, gun in his right hand, Fred moved quietly to the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Molly, you goof! Who do you expect?”

He threw open the door and closed it behind her, tossing the gun on the bed. He hugged her around her arms full of groceries and kissed her bright face.

“Jesus,” said Molly, seeing the gun bounce. “Kinky.”

Then she saw Fred better. “Fred, you all right?”

“Sorry,” Fred said. “Some people came to see me who leapt before they looked. I’m all right. I should have called and told you not to come.”

“And miss this?” Molly asked. She pulled his towel off and had a look.

“Nothing important damaged.”