"Aren't you a little long in the tooth to be wearing your hat backward?" I said.
"I was younger," Hawk said, "I be wearing it sideways."
We turned left and went uphill a block on Revere Street. Like most of Beacon Hill, it was lined with red brick buildings, which were mostly four-story town houses. The one we stopped at had a front door painted a shiny black, with a peephole and a big, polished brass door handle. Hawk rang the bell and stood where he could be seen through the peephole. In a moment the door opened narrowly, on a chain bolt. A black woman wearing big eyeglasses with green frames looked out.
"Yes?"
"Natalie Marcus?" Hawk said.
"Goddard," she said.
Hawk nodded and smiled.
"Natalie Goddard," he said.
When he really juiced it, the smile was amazing. It created the illusion of warmth and friendship and genuine personal regard.
"My name is Hawk," he said. "I need to talk with you about Tony's daughter."
"What makes you think I know anything about her?" the woman said.
"I know you were once married to Tony. Seemed reasonable."
"She is not my daughter," Natalie said.
Natalie had a careful WASP drawl, which seemed odd in someone as clearly not a WASP as she was.
"Could we come in out of the rain?" Hawk said. "Talk about it in the foyer, perhaps?"
Hawk is a wonderful mimic, and I thought he might be picking up her accent. She looked at me.
"And this gentleman?"
"My assistant," Hawk said. "His name is Spenser."
Hawk smiled at her again. She did nothing for a moment.
Then she said, "There's no need to come in. I can talk with you right here."
"As you wish," Hawk said.
I knew he was disappointed. He didn't mind the rain, but he hated to have the full smile rejected.
"So how old is Dolores now?" Hawk said.
"Dolores?"
"Do I have it wrong?" Hawk said.
"I thought you knew her."
Hawk looked embarrassed.
"I do, but… names… I'm terribly embarrassed."
"Jolene," Natalie said.
"Of course," Hawk said with a big smile. "Dolores… Jolene… an easy mistake."
Natalie smiled slightly.
"How old would Jolene be now?" Hawk said.
"I was with Tony ten years ago…" She did some silent math. "She'd be twenty-four now."
"She live with Tony?"
"Not with her mother."
"They divorced?"
"Tony and Veronica? I don't think they were ever married."
"But Tony acknowledges Jolene as his."
"Oh, yeah," Natalie said.
The yeah slipped out as if Natalie had shifted into another language.
"Why 'Oh, yeah'?" Hawk said.
"Tony never loved anything in his life. And he decides to love Jolene."
"What's wrong with Jolene?" Hawk said.
The rain was steady. Everything glistened, including my stunning black zip-front raincoat. Cars moved narrowly past us on Revere Street.
"Everything is wrong with Jolene," Natalie said. "Drugs, sex, alcohol, rebellion, disdain. He has spoiled her beyond fucking recognition."
Maybe the foreign language was her native tongue.
"Where does she live?" Hawk said.
"With her current husband, I suppose."
"Heavens," Hawk said. "I didn't even know she was married."
"Maybe she isn't, but I think she is; either way, she's living with Brock."
"Brock?" Hawk said.
"Brock Rimbaud," she said. "I've heard he's worse than she is."
"Do you know where they live?"
"On the waterfront somewhere."
"You wouldn't have an address?"
"Oh, God, no," she said. "I've had no connection, to Tony or his hideous family, in years."
I was not buying that.
Natalie appeared to see that as an interview-ending remark, because she closed the door after she said it.
"Brock Rimbaud?" I said.
"Don't sound like no brother," Hawk said "Maybe he changed his name," I said. "Trying to pass."
"What you think his real name is?" Hawk said.
"Old Black Joe?" I said.
"Mostly they ain't naming us that no more," Hawk said.
We walked back down Revere Street in the melting rain. I hunched my shoulders a little as a drop of water wormed down inside my collar on the back of my neck. Maybe wearing his hat bill backward was more than a fashion statement on Hawk's part. I grinned at him as we reached Charles Street.
"Smile didn't work," I said. "Did it."
"Just prove she a lesbian," Hawk said.
26
SPENSER'S CRIME-STOPPER TIP number 31: If you have a name and no address, try looking in the phone book. I did, and there they were. Brock and Jolene Rimbaud, it said proudly, with a Rowes Wharf address. Hawk and I went down there. For the second straight day, it was raining. The Big Dig was still everywhere, as they began to dismantle the aging ironwork of the old elevated expressway.
The Rowes Wharf condos were part of a big handsome complex on the waterfront that included a huge archway and the Boston Harbor Hotel. In the lobby of Rimbaud's building was a security guy in a blue blazer and striped tie. Hawk asked him for the Rimbauds.
"May I say who is calling?"
"Say we from Mr. Marcus," Hawk said.
The guard dialed the phone and spoke into it and hung up.
"Through that door," he said, "down the steps, turn right, second condo."
We went. The door led outside. We were on a boat slip. To our right, a promenade led past the big archway, to the hotel. In good weather, people sat outside on the promenade and drank flavored martinis and ate light meals and listened to live music. In the cold rain, the promenade was empty except for one guy in a fashionable yellow slicker, trying to hold an umbrella over a miserable little white dog whose hairdo was being seriously compromised as they walked toward the archway. We walked up the two steps at the Rimbaud condo and rang the bell. The door opened and it was Brock himself. He looked like the cover of a romance novel. Shoulder-length blond hair, pale blue eyes, chiseled features, pouty lips, his flowered shirt unbuttoned halfway down his manly upper body. He stood so that his right hand was concealed behind the door.
Hawk said, "My name's Hawk. This is Spenser. We need to talk."
"Tony send you?" Brock said.
" 'Course he did," Hawk said. "It's raining."
"I don't give a fuck what it's doing," Brock said. "You come in when I know why you want to."
A good-looking young woman with coffee-colored skin appeared behind Rimbaud. Her hair was in an elaborate pattern of tight cornrows. Ethnic as hell.
"Who is it, Brock?" she said, and pressed her considerable boobs against his left arm.
"Couple dudes say they from your old man," Rimbaud said.
Jolene was barefoot and a little big for her clothes. She looked to be a size six. Her jeans appeared to be a size two. They ended well below her navel. Her cropped tank top ended well above. She had a nice, flat stomach, and her arms and shoulders looked strong.
"I don't know them," she said.
"Well, my heavens," Hawk said. "Look at how you've grown, girl. I knew Veronica and Tony when you was born, child. And look what you turned out to be."
I looked at Hawk. He was thrilled to see her. He was folksy. I felt a little nauseous.
"You know my mom, too?" Jolene said.
"Huh-unh."
"Oh, Brock, let them in," Jolene said. "They seem nice."
Brock nodded us in. Anything the little lady wants. As we came in he put the gun he'd been concealing behind the door into his belt. He saw me see him do it, and he met my look.
"My line of work," he said. "Pays to be careful."
Jolene went across the living room to the couch. It was less than a flounce but certainly more than a walk. On the low table in front of the couch there was a bottle of Riesling in an ice bucket, and two glasses, half empty. Or half full. There was some kind of fusion jazz playing on the stereo. I hated fusion jazz. Brock went and stood near Jolene. I stood near the door. Hawk sat on a big, red, tasseled hassock in front of them. Nobody offered us a drink. Nobody turned down the fusion. Through the big picture window, I could see the rain dappling the gray water of the harbor.