22

The next morning I rented a car, drove Mattie to school in Southie, and then headed back to Back Bay. I bought two oat-bran muffins and a large coffee, and ate at my desk while listing witnesses on a yellow legal pad. I leaned back into my office chair and stared at the ceiling. I stared at a collection of framed Van Meer prints Susan had given me. I turned to my window and stared out at the new office building across Berkeley. Staring was on the agenda today.

I would follow with more coffee. The second muffin wasn’t long for this world.

I circled the name Touchie Kiley. I opened up a phone book and was paging through it when a paunchy man in a designer suit walked into my office.

He did not knock.

He loomed in front of my desk. I put down the phone book.

I pointed to my client chair. He sat down as if he paid the rent. He leaned forward with a small grin. “You Spenser?”

“Is the nature of the question existential?”

The grin faded. “It’s a fucking question.”

“Oh,” I said. “One of those.”

He leaned forward and pulled out a badge from the jacket of the designer suit. The suit was navy and tailored. He wore a crisp white shirt underneath with cuff links. His tie was a bright yellow, and he had a yellow show hankie in the breast pocket. The badge said he was a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Hey, I’ve heard of you guys,” I said.

“Good for you.”

“I watch a lot of TV.”

He rubbed his jaw the way dumb guys do trying to think of what to say next. Suddenly it came to him. “Epstein said you were a smart-ass.”

“Epstein is a great judge of character.”

“He’s been reassigned to Miami.”

“Lucky him.”

“He said to tell you hello.”

I nodded. I offered him an oat-bran muffin, telling him that fiber would make him less cranky. He declined. He had a beefy, florid Irish face. Jowly. His hands were short and thick, with squared nails that looked to be the work of a manicurist. His thick brown hair, shot with gray, had been barbered into a glossy helmet.

“Tom Connor,” he said. He said it like I should have heard of him and shake from excitement.

I drank some coffee.

“You paid a visit to Gerry Broz last night.”

I nodded. I noticed my coffee needed more sugar. I added some from the little packets I kept in my right-hand desk drawer, next to my .357.

“I came to you as a courtesy to Epstein,” he said. “He’s a good guy.”

“He is.”

“We have operations going on in South Boston,” Connor said. “You buzzing around Mr. Broz could fuck up two years of work.”

“That would be a shame.”

“You bet it would.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m up to?”

He shook his jowls and grinned again. “Don’t want to and don’t need to.”

“Would you like to study my Van Meer prints?”

“It’s a simple request.”

“Just lay off?”

Connor smiled. “Say, you got the idea, Spense.”

I let that one go and said, “I’m a quick study.”

He put his squared-off little hand across my desk. He offered a shake. I did not shake. He frowned and retracted his hand.

“We can make life difficult for you,” Connor said.

I nodded. He had a point.

I turned my chair on the swivel and looked out across Berkeley. “There used to be a woman who worked in the office opposite mine. She’d dazzle me every day with her figure. In the spring and summer, I got almost no work done.”

“So?”

“So now the building is gone,” I said. “The new building kind of looks like the old one. But now I look across at a bald guy who cleans teeth.”

He shrugged and stood up. He self-consciously ran his tie between his fingers and buttoned up his coat. I noted the service revolver under his arm.

“Thanks for dropping by.”

“I got my eye on you.”

“Your attitude has been noted,” I said. “Someone once said that to Omar Sharif. I think it was Alec Guinness. Or was it Rod Steiger?”

Connor looked back from the door frame. “You can’t be a hot dog forever,” he said.

He left. He did not shut the door.

I drank some more coffee. I pulled out the phone book and went back to searching for Touchie Kiley. Sometimes being a hot dog took persistence.

23

I found Touchie Kiley parking cars outside the Four Seasons Hotel on Boylston Street. I made my introductions and waited twenty minutes before he took a break. I sat on a park bench outside the hotel, where I could look out on the frozen tundra of the Common. My peacoat was large and thick, and I’d planned ahead with double socks. I also wore a nice pair of cashmere-lined gloves Susan picked out for me at Neiman Marcus.

There were a lot of dogs in the Common today. My prediction called for a lot of yellow snow.

Touchie took a seat beside me. He was eating a hamburger from McDonald’s and absently reaching into a greasy sack for his fries. He was a good-looking twentysomething guy with dimples who wore too much grease in his hair. It may have been gel or mousse or some kind of styling product. I did not touch it. I took it to be grease.

“Julie’s kid really hire you?” he asked.

“She really did.”

“How old is she now?”

“Fourteen.”

“Wow. In a few years, Jules could’ve been like a grandmother or somethin’.”

“Fingers crossed.”

“Jules and I went to high school together before I dropped out,” Touchie said. “Her and me were in English together.”

“And learned much.”

I showed him the photograph of him with Julie Sullivan. He shook his head as he worked on a wad of hamburger. He nearly choked getting it down. He pointed to the photo and smiled, nodding a lot.

“She was a lot of fun,” he said. “Great tits. But she wasn’t my girlfriend or anything. More of just a fuck buddy.”

“How nice of her.”

He grinned and shrugged. “Fuck buddies are the best kind of buddies.”

“A friend in need,” I said.

He nodded with understanding. He ate some more fries. Touchie Kiley was probably coming up on thirty but was one of those guys who didn’t want to go much beyond nineteen. He would dress the part, wear his hair in a certain style, and keep playing young until it didn’t work anymore. Most guys like that never did know when they passed that point. Today he was dressed in the spiffy greens of a parking attendant. Tonight he’d be a rock star.

“Were you still buddies when she got killed?” I asked.

“I didn’t have shit to do with that, man.”

“Didn’t say you did,” I said. “Just trying to figure out who was in her circle. What her life was like. Find people who may know more about her death.”

“Mickey Green killed her.”

“Mickey Green was convicted of killing her,” I said. “Julie’s daughter thinks he’s innocent.”

“Mickey Green is a fuck-up piece of shit.”

“That may be the case,” I said. “But it doesn’t mean he killed her.”

Touchie Kiley finished off the burger, wadded up the wrapper, and sized up a trash can with gold trim. He took the shot. And missed. He walked over and placed the wrapper and the fries bag into the can. He sat back down. Conscientious.

“So,” I said, “besides Mickey Green, who else would’ve been in Julie’s company?”

“Shit, I don’t know.”

“Think, Touchie,” I said. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

“We just kind of hooked up sometimes.”

“As fuck buddies should.”

An older black man in a red-and-gold uniform and matching hat called out for Touchie and pointed to his watch. Touchie held up his hand, acknowledging he’d heard him. The man shook his head in annoyance and walked back to the valet stand. He opened the door for a silver-haired woman exiting a silver Lexus.