to crack. We crack it if we have to. But you eliminate Ollie and another Ollie will turn up. It ain't efficient."
"But eliminate his employer and you won't have to eliminate Ollie," I said.
"Tha's right," Tony said.
"You believe Ollie," I said. "That he doesn't know?" "
Don't know," Tony said. "Was hoping you might shed some light."
"You don't think it's Ollie himself?" I said.
"His crew does mostly muscle work," Tony said. "Ollie ain't a whore-business guy."
"You think the employer is local?" I said.
Tony put his fingertips against his lips and tapped them lightly as he thought about the question.
"Never thought he wasn't," Tony said after a while.
"So," I said. "We're teaming up to crack the case?"
"Thought I'd let you know I was interested," Tony said. "You find this guy, might be something in it for you."
"What might be in it for him?" I said.
"You wouldn't need to worry 'bout that," Tony said.
"Nice," I said.
Tony stood and put on his coat. Outside my window the snow was starting to come down again. Small flakes, not falling hard but falling quite steady.
"We got a common interest here, Spenser," Tony said.
"I know," I said. "I'll keep you on the mailing list."
"Good," Tony said.
He nodded at Ty-Bop. Ty-Bop took out a cell phone and dialed and said something I couldn't hear. Then he opened the door and went out. Tony went out behind him. I went to my window and looked down at Berkeley Street. The Caddy SUV pulled up. Ty-Bop opened the front door. Tony got in. Ty-Bop closed the front door and got in the back. The Caddy pulled away across Boylston, straight on down Berkeley toward the river.
I closed my desk drawer.
8
There is a walkway down the center of the mall on Commonwealth Avenue, and the city had kept it shoveled during the winter. They hadn't yet gotten to it this snowfall, and there was maybe an inch of dry snow beneath our feet as April and I walked down toward the Public Garden in the early evening. The snowfall had slowed to a light haze that created halos on the streetlights and made the expensive condos in their handsome brownstone look especially comfortable.
"You've not heard from the anonymous caller," I said.
"No."
"Business is okay?" I said. "Hawk isn't scaring the clients?"
"Business is as good as ever," April said. "Hawk has stayed pretty much in the background, and there haven't been any incidents."
The evening commuter traffic in this part of town was on Storrow Drive and the Pike. The traffic moving on Commonwealth was mostly cabs. The only other pedestrians on the mall were people with dogs.
"So," I said, "since I last saw you..."
"You mean when I was still a kid?"
"Yeah."
"After I left you and Susan, I went back to Mrs. Utley, in New York, and ... she sort of brought me up."
"You worked for her," I said.
"Yes. She taught me how to dress, how to walk, how to speak. She showed me how to order in good restaurants."
"She did a lot of that before you ran off with Rambeaux," I said.
"My God, you remember his name."
"I do," I said.
"She taught me to read books, and go to shows, and follow the newspaper so I could talk intelligently. I still read The New York Times every morning."
"Any love interests since Rambeaux?"
"No," April said. "And she always gave me the best assignments. No creepy stuff-young men, mostly. Regular customers."
"But none you've met that matter to you."
"Oh God, you're still such a romantic," she said. "Whores don't fall in love. I learned that from Rambeaux."
"He was the wrong guy to fall in love with," I said. "Doesn't mean there isn't a right one."
She laughed. I heard no humor in the sound.
"Men are pigs," she said.
"Oink," I said.
"Except you."
"There may be another one someplace that isn't," I said. "I'm not even absolutely sure Hawk is or isn't."
She sighed loudly.
"Most men are pigs, okay?" she said.
"So what's your social life?" I said.
"Social life?"
"Yeah."
"I don't have much of a social life," she said. "Mostly I work."
"Friends?"
"I get along well with my employees," she said.
"Any free time?" I said.
"If I have free time I go to the gym. How I look matters in my work."
"Turn tricks anymore?" I said.
"Now and then, for fun, with the right guy."
"What would make him right?"
"He'd need to be interested in someone my age, for one thing."
"Anything else?" I said. "That would make him right?"
"Oh, leave me the hell alone," April said. "I almost forget what you're like. You're still working on me."
"Working on