"So we oh for two."

"At best," I said.

"Nice detective work though, found Anthony's love nest, found Bibi's high school chum."

"Makes you proud," I said.

"Doesn't it."

"Make a nice slogan," Hawk said.

"Missing? Don't want to be found? Call Spenser. Your secret is safe with us."

"You haven't found anybody either," I said.

"Yeah," Hawk said.

"But I got a lobster sandwich."

"Good point."

We were quiet while Hawk ate his sandwich, and drank his beer. When he was through he got up and washed his hands and face in the sink. Then he came back and sat down and put his feet up on my desk.

"So where are we," he said.

"I'm not sure," I said.

"But I don't think we got a paddle."

"Well," Hawk said.

"We know something."

"We know we don't know anything," I said.

"We listen to Fast Eddie Lee," Hawk said, "we know there seem to be a hostile takeover percolating."

"Okay, we know that."

"And it seem to have something to do with Anthony Meeker."

"But we don't know what," I said.

"Not yet," Hawk said.

"And we don't know where Anthony is," I said.

"Nor what scam he and Marty were trying to run, nor what was going on between Marty and Shirley, nor what went wrong between them, nor who is going to take over what hostilely, nor who killed Shirley Ventura, nor whether Marty is after Bibi, nor where Bibi is."

"Okay," Hawk said, "so we don't know everything."

"I suppose you could say that."

"You talk to Julius since we left Vegas?"

"No."

"So we could do that," Hawk said.

"Well, aren't you perky," I said.

"I be even perkier, I knew exactly what the hell we trying to do.

We looking for Bibi, or Anthony, or we trying to solve Shirley's murder, or we keeping tabs on the mob, or we trying to get even with Marty Anaheim for popping you in the kisser?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yes?"

"All of the above," I said.

"I don't like somebody getting killed when they are sort of my client. I don't want Marty to find Bibi and hurt her. I don't like losing Anthony. I don't like stuff going on and I can't figure it out. I'm trying to make sense out of this hairball."

"If there is a hostile takeover coming, we can sit tight and watch and after a while we'll find out," Hawk said.

"And maybe there'll be some fallout and we'll learn some other stuff."

"Maybe," Hawk said.

"And maybe Madonna will come into the office and moon us," I said.

"That ain't perky."

"Fuck perky."

CHAPTER 41

Julius lived in a three-story stucco house with a five-car garage and grates on the windows. He and I sat on high, hard, hand carved mahogany chairs in his big ornate formal living room and looked out through the grated windows at the guest cottage, in the backyard, the big house in miniature. There was no grass in the backyard. It was covered with beige pea stone, ornamented with statuary.

"How's your wife?" I said.

"No good."

"Takes a while," I said.

Julius shook his head.

"She ain't going to get better," he said.

"I know a shrink."

"Shrinks are a bunch of fucking perverts," Julius said.

"Oh yeah," I said.

"I forgot that."

"You know anything about where that fucking Anthony is?"

"No," I said.

"But I'm still looking."

"You look all you want, long as you don't think I'm paying you."

"My own interest," I said.

"There's a hundred thousand out on him," Julius said.

"You find him, you kill him, you get the hundred grand. Just like anybody else."

"Very fair," I said.

"Did you know he and Marty Anaheim were running some kind of scam?"

"What kind of scam?"

"I don't know. Did you know your daughter and Marty were friends?"

Julius stared at me.

"Shirley?"

"Yeah."

He shook his head.

"Not with Marty Anaheim."

"You any idea what that might be about?"

"You know this?"

"I got it on good authority."

"Who?"

I shook my head.

"Any thoughts?" I said.

Julius slumped back in his chair and stared at me.

"You want some fruit?" he said.

He made a listless gesture at a big pink and blue and white bowl on the coffee table. There was a large Technicolor picture of Shirley on the table near the fruit.

"No thanks."

"Her mother couldn't have no more kids," Julius said, "after her. Her womb was tipped or something."

He was staring out the window at the guest house. His voice rumbled up out of him, as if his mind were elsewhere and his voice was on its own.

"I had a business to run. Her mother was supposed to raise her."

He paused. There must have been other people in the big ugly house but there was no sound. Nothing moved. The house felt as if it had been closed up for a long time.

"She never let her out. Not even for school. One of the fucking nuns come in every day and teach her, and my wife would sit there the whole time. When she finally had to go to high school, my wife takes her in the morning, picks her up in the afternoon. She never learned to drive a car. Hell, she can't… couldn't… even ride a bicycle. She might fall off, get hurt."

We were quiet. I could smell the ripening scent of the apples and pears in the bowl on the coffee table.

"How'd she meet Anthony," I said.

"She knew him from high school. He used to come around, bring some videocassettes and him and Shirley and my wife would watch movies in here."

"The three of them."

"Yeah. My wife had to make sure he wasn't showing her no bad movies. Make sure there was no sex going on. So they'd sit there and watch the movies and the thing is… it's a real funny thing, you feel like laughing… my wife gets to like this creep. The fucking head chicken gets to like the fucking fox. He's polite, you know, and he talks to my wife. Why not, what the fuck you going to talk to Shirley about. She's hardly ever been out of the fucking house. But my wife tells me he ain't a fucking hoodlum, except she don't say 'fucking," like the hoodlums work for me. And he's going to many Shirley and I'm going to give him a nice responsible job.

And I say, then he'll be a hoodlum. But my wife don't pay no fucking attention. She's good at not paying no fucking attention. So I put him to work. He's collecting money for me on all of the out of-turf accounts and paying off the people I gotta pay off to do business quiet in those places. I need somebody I can trust to do it."

"Why not pay off the people yourself?"

"Bookkeeping. I let Anthony collect, say, from bookies on Gino's turf and he pays Gino direct out of collections, and there's no money trail. Federal guys especially like to follow the money.

The less tracks back to me, the easier everything works."

"And the easier it is to skim," I said.

"Why you want a trustworthy guy doing it," Julius said.

"Like Anthony."