Promised Land
(Spenser 04)
By
Robert B. Parker
Chapter 1
I had been urban-renewed right out of my office and had to move uptown. My new place was on the second floor of a two-story round turret that stuck out over the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston Street above a cigar store. The previous tenant had been a fortuneteller and I was standing in the window scraping her patchy gilt lettering off the pane with a razor blade when I saw him. He had on a pale green leisure suit and a yellow shirt with long pointed collar, open at the neck and spilling onto the lapels of the suit. He was checking the address on a scrap of paper and looking unhappily at the building.
“I’ve either got my first client in the new office,” I said, “or the last of Madam Sosostris‘.”
Behind me Susan Silverman, in cut-off jeans and a blue-and-white-striped tank top, was working on the frosted glass of the office door with Windex and a paper towel. She stepped to the window and looked down.
“He doesn’t look happy with the neighborhood,” she said.
“If I were in a neighborhood that would make him happy, he couldn’t afford me.”
The man disappeared into the small door beside the tobacco store and a minute later I heard his footsteps on the stairs. He paused, then a knock. Susan opened the door. He looked uncertainly in. There were files on the floor in cardboard boxes that said FALSTAFF on them, the walls still smelled of rubber-based paint and brushes and cans of paint clustered on newspaper to the left of the door. It was hot in the office and I was wearing only a pair of paint-stained jeans and worse sneakers.
“I’m looking for a man named Spenser,” he said.
“Me,” I said. “Come on in.” I laid the razor blade on the windowsill and came around the desk to shake his hand. I needed a client. I bet Philo Vance never painted his own office.
“This is Mrs. Silverman,” I said. “She’s helping me to move in. The city knocked down my old office.” I was conscious of the trickle of sweat that was running down my chest as I talked. Susan smiled and said hello.
“My name is Shepard,” he said. “Harvey Shepard. I need to talk.”
Susan said, “I’ll go out and get a sandwich. It’s close to lunchtime. Want me to bring you back something?”
I shook my head. “Just grab a Coke or something. When Mr. Shepard and I are finished I’ll take you to lunch somewhere good.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Shepard.”
When she was gone, Shepard said, “Your secretary?”
“No,” I said. “Just a friend.”
“Hey, I wish I had a friend like that.”
“Guy with your kind of threads,” I said, “shouldn’t have any trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I’m married. And I work all the time.”
There was silence. He had a high-colored square face with crisp black hair. He was a little soft around the jowls and his features seemed a bit blurred, but he was a goodlooking guy. Black Irish. He seemed like a guy who was used to talking and his failure to do so now was making him uncomfortable. I primed the pump. “Who sent you to me, Mr. Shepard?”
“Harv,” he said. “Call me Harv, everyone does.”
I nodded.
“I know a reporter on the New Bedford Standard Times. He got your name for me.”
“You from New Bedford, Harv?”
“No, Hyannis.”
“You’re gonna run for President and you want me for an advance man.”
“No.” He did a weak uncertain smile. “Oh, I get it, Hyannis, hah.”
“Okay,” I said, “you’re not going to run for President. You don’t want me as an advance man. What is your plan?”
“I want you to find my wife.”
“Okay.”
“She’s run away, I think.”
“They do that sometimes.”
“I want her back.”
“That I can’t guarantee. I’ll find her. But I don’t do kidnapping. If she comes back is between you and her.”
“She just left. Me and three kids. Just walked out on us.”
“You been to the cops?” He nodded.
“They don’t suspect, if you’ll pardon the expression, foul play?”
He shook his head. “No, she packed up her things in a suitcase and left. I know Deke Slade personally and he is convinced she’s run off.”
“Slade a cop?”
“Yes, Barnstable police.”
“Okay. A hundred a day and expenses. The expenses are going to include a motel room and a lot of meals. I don’t want to commute back and forth from Boston every day.”
“Whatever it costs, I’ll pay. You want something up front?”
“Harv, if you do run for President I will be your advance man.”
He smiled his weak smile again. I wasn’t taking his mind off his troubles.
“How much you want?”
“Five hundred.”
He took a long wallet from his inside coat pocket and took five hundred-dollar bills out of it and gave them to me. I couldn’t see how much was left in the wallet. I folded them up and stuck them in my pants pocket and tried to look like they were joining others.
“I’ll come down in the morning. You be home?”
“Yeah. I’m on Ocean Street, eighteen Ocean Street. When do you think you’ll get there? I got just a ton of work to do. Jesus, what a time for her to walk out on us.”
“I’ll be there at nine o’clock. If you got pictures of her, get them ready, I’ll have copies made. If you have any letters, phone bills, charge-card receipts, that sort of thing, dig them out, I’ll want to see them. Check stubs? List of friends or family she might go to? How about another man?”
“Pam? Naw. She’s not interested much in sex.”
“She might be interested in love.”
“I give her that, Spenser. All she could ever use.”
“Well, whatever. How about the kids? Can I talk in front of them?”
“Yeah, we don’t hide things. They know she took off. They’re old enough anyway, the youngest is twelve.”
“They have any thoughts on their mother’s whereabouts?”
“I don’t think so. They say they don’t.”
“But you’re not certain?”
“It’s just, I’m not sure they’d tell me. I mean I haven’t talked with them much lately as much as I should. I don’t know for sure that they’re leveling with me. Especially the girls.”
“I have that feeling all the time about everybody. Don’t feel bad.”
“Easy for you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You have anything else to tell me?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow at nine.”
We shook hands.
“You know how to get there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I know Hyannis pretty well. I’ll find you.”
“Will you find her, Spenser?”
“Yep.”
Chapter 2
When Susan Silverman came back from her Coke I was sitting at the desk with the five one-hundred-dollar bills spread out in front of me.
“Whose picture is on a one-hundred-dollar bill?” I said.
“Nelson Rockefeller.”
“Wrong.”
“David Rockefeller?”
“Never mind.”
“Laurance Rockefeller?”
“Where would you like to go to lunch?”
“You shouldn’t have shown me the money. I was ready to settle for Ugi’s steak and onion subs. Now I’m thinking about Pier 4.”
“Pier 4 it is. Think I’ll have to change?”
“At least wipe the sweat off your chest.”
“Come on, we’ll go back to my place and suit up.”
“When you get a client,” Susan said, “you really galvanize into action, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I move immediately for the nearest restaurant.”
I clipped my gun on my right hip, put on my shirt and left the shirttail out to hide the gun and we left. It was a ten-minute walk to my apartment, most of it down the mall on Commonwealth Ave. When we got there, Susan took the first shower and I had a bottle of Amstel while I called for reservations. In fact I had three.