She smiled. Her teeth were even and very white.

“And what are you detecting here at the bank?” she said.

“You know that Nathan Smith has died,” I said.

“Yes. I understand that he was murdered.”

“Do you understand by whom?” I said.

“Whom? What kind of private detective says ”whom“?”

“Handsome intrepid ones,” I said.

She looked at me steadily for a moment, as if deciding whether to buy me. Then she smiled a little. “The papers say it was his wife.”

“They do,” I said.

“And what do you say?”

“I say I don’t know. Tell me about Nathan Smith.”

“Whom do you represent?” she said and smiled, pleased with herself for saying “whom.”

“I’m employed by Mary Smith’s attorney,” I said.

“So you are predisposed to assume she’s innocent.”

“Me and the legal system,” I said.

“Oh… yes… of course.”

“So what was Nathan Smith like?” I said.

“He owned this bank,” she said. “His father owned it before him and I don’t know how many generations back beyond that.”

“Un-huh. So who owns it now?”

“His estate, I assume.”

“Who’s running it now?”

“Our CEO,” she said, “Marvin Conroy.”

“Does he have any ownership?” I said.

She nodded. “He’s a minority stockholder,” she said.

“How about you?”

She smiled. “I’m an employee.”

“Any other minority stockholders?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. I’m here for public relations. I’m not privy to all of the arrangements Mr. Smith made.”

“It sounds like there were some,” I said.

“If there were I don’t know of them,” Amy Peters said.

“But you might speculate?”

“Public relations directors don’t get ahead if they make improprietous speculations.”

“What kind of banker says ”improprietous“?” I said.

She smiled and there was in the smile the same sense I’d had before, that she was considering whether I’d be worth the purchase price.

“Handsome sexy ones,” she said.

“I’m a detective,” I said. “I already noticed the handsome part.”

“And the sexy part?”

“I surmised that.”

“Good,” she said.

I smiled my most engaging smile at her. If you have an ace you may as well play it. Oddly, Amy Peters remained calm.

“What sort of private arrangements could a banker make?” I said.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Have you been with the bank long?” I said.

“Ten years.”

“Before that?”

“I did PR for Sloan, Simpson.”

“Brokerage house?” I said.

“Yes. Am I a suspect?”

I smiled. Just the routine smile. If the A smile hadn’t overwhelmed her, I saw no reason to waste it.

“No.”

“Then why ask?”

“Information is the capital of my work,” I said. “I don’t know what will matter.”

She nodded.

“I went to Middlebury College, and Harvard Business School. I have two daughters. I’m divorced.”

“So you knew Nathan Smith before he was married.”

“I knew him professionally. He didn’t spend a lot of time at the bank, and when he was here, he didn’t spend a lot of time with the help.”

“Who did he spend time with?”

“I don’t really know. I work here. I worked for him. My job is to present the bank to the public in as favorable an image as I can. I do not keep track of the owner, for God’s sake.”

“And you’re doing a hell of a job of it,” I said.

She started to speak and stopped. “Goddamn you,” she said.

“Me?”

“Y. I am supposed to be a professional and you’ve waltzed in here and smiled a big smile and showed me your muscles and all my professionalism seems to have fluttered right out the window.”

“I didn’t show you my muscles,” I said.

“I saw them anyway,” she said. Beneath her perfect makeup there seemed to be a hint of color along her cheekbones.

“Are you married?” she said.

“I’m, ah, going steady,” I said.

“Going steady? I haven’t heard anyone say that in thirty years.”

I shrugged.

“How long have you been going steady?”

“‘Bout twenty-five years,” I said. “With a little time out in the middle.”

She leaned back a little in her chair and looked at me in silence for a considerable time.

Finally she said, “Of all the banks, in all the world, you had to walk into this one.”

“We’ll always have Cambridge,” I said.

CHAPTER NINE

There had been something lurking behind what Amy Peters had said. She knew something about Nathan Smith. I didn’t know what it was yet. I drove out of the parking garage next to the bank. A moment of brightness flicked past me from across the street and I looked over at a black Volvo sedan across from the entrance. I thought I saw binoculars, which would account for the reflected flash. I turned onto Broadway toward the Longfellow Bridge. The car didn’t move. As I got on the bridge I checked the rearview mirror and the Volvo was there, two cars back.

I punched up the number for the Harbor Health Club on the car phone. Henry Cimoli answered.

“Hawk there?” I said.

“Yeah,” Henry said. “Intimidating the patrons.”

What’s he doing?“ I said.

“Nothing.”

“Let me talk to him,” I said.

In a moment Hawk said, “Un-huh?” into his end of the phone.

“I’m on the Longfellow Bridge,” I said. “I think I’m being tailed by a black Volvo. Mass plates, number 73622. I’m going to park at the health club and go in. I want you to pick up the Volvo, if they leave. See who they are.”

“You care if they see me?” Hawk said.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Hawk said.

On the Boston end of the bridge, to make sure, I went straight up Cambridge Street and through Bowdoin Square and down New Sudbury Street and back down Canal Street toward the Fleet. On Causeway Street I turned right and headed back through the North End. It was a way to get to the Harbor Health Club that no one would take. The black Volvo was still behind me.

When I started at the Harbor Health Club I was still boxing, and it was a dark ugly gym where fighters trained. Now I wasn’t boxing anymore. The club was three stories high, and they had valet parking. I gave my car to the valet and headed in. I didn’t see Hawk. But I didn’t expect to. Inside I went up to the second floor where there was a women-only weight room across from the snack bar and cocktail lounge, and looked down into the street from the front windows. The Volvo was there, idling across the street.

Henry, wearing a white T-shirt and white satin sweatpants, joined me at the window. Henry used to box lightweight, and it showed in the scar tissue around his eyes and the way his nose had thickened. The T-shirt showed how muscular he still was. Which is not a bad thing in a health-club owner.

“Hawk already left,” Henry said.

“I know.”

“You working on something?”

“I am.”

Henry looked down through the window. “The black Volvo tailing you?”

“Un-huh.”

“What kinda crook tails somebody in a Volvo?” Henry said.

“Hawk’s going to tell us,” I said.

“I get it,” Henry said. “You ditch them here and Hawk picks them up and then you’ve got a tail on the tail.”

“Pretty smart,” I said. “For a guy who got whacked in the face as much as you did.”

“Never got knocked down though,” Henry said. “You gonna work out?”

“Maybe later,” I said. “Isn’t it sexist to have a women-only weight room?”

“I think so,” Henry said.

The Volvo waited for two and a half hours, into the rush hour, until a cop pulled his cruiser up behind it and gave a short wail on his siren and gestured them to move the car. Which they did.

I looked down at the evening commuter traffic trying to jam past the Big Dig construction for a while and then went to the snack bar and had a turkey burger. Healthful.

I called Frank Belson while I waited and asked him to check the plate numbers on the Volvo. I ate another turkey burger. Belson called me back. After two hours and twenty minutes, Hawk came into the snack bar and slid onto the stool beside me.