“How can I help?” I said.

Carmen took a sip of the scotch, rolled it around her mouth, then closed her eyes and swallowed. It was good to encounter a woman who enjoyed scotch.

“I come from a very poor area near San Juan. My father is Puerto Rican, my mother was Irish. She died when I was two. My dad had a lot of different jobs when I was growing up. Sometimes he drove a cab. Sometimes he gambled or dealt drugs. Small-time stuff. It was a shame, too, because he had a knack for sports. He played a little tennis and fell in love with the game. He put a racquet in my hand as soon as I could hold a doll. He saw what I could do, saw it could get us out of that slum we lived in.” She looked at me hard.

I waited. She sipped her drink.

“Go on,” I said.

“I was his ticket. I was a quick study, and he saw a way out. He coached me, just like a lot of parents have coached their kids in tennis. Parents coached both Martinas, Steffi Graf, the Williams sisters, all of us. My dad worked me very hard, but I loved it. And I was talented. I was headed for the big time. Started when I was eight and never looked back.” Her voice rose slightly. “By the time I was twenty, I was playing Wimbledon, the Open. And not just playing. Winning.”

I waited while she went back. I waited some more. Then I said, “What happened?”

She took a deep breath and focused on me again.

“The papers said that my knees went bad. I was only twenty-two, and I had to retire from professional tennis. The real story is a little different.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“I fought with my dad. I was rebellious and wanted to be independent. I thought I knew everything. He stopped coaching me and left the circuit in disgust. I went crazy from the fame and money. I was wild and tried everything that came my way. Booze, drugs, men, women, you name it. I was young and healthy and strong and did my workouts and continued my training no matter what else I did at night. And I was able to get away with it for a while.” She took a swallow of her scotch and looked hard at me with her amazing eyes. “You know how easy it is to throw everything away when you never had anything to begin with?”

I nodded.

“I thought I was invincible.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “When I hit bottom, I hit pretty hard. I don’t seem to do things halfway.”

“And now?”

“A couple of years ago I got straightened out. There was a very rich man I had met in London when I was playing Wimbledon who now lives in Boston. I ran into him.” She paused. “When we first met, I had no idea he knew my father, that his family had left the same bad neighborhood in Puerto Rico and come over here to live in Lawrence.”

I nodded. “Juan Alvarez.”

“Yes. Almost four years ago he got me into a rehab place, and after I got out he took me to live with him in Weston at his farm. He wants to get married, but that’s not for me.” She smiled. “I don’t mind playing his hostess at his social events, and up until recently he’s been good to me. I got bored sitting around while he traveled, which is a lot, so in my spare time I started giving tennis lessons to the area children, and some of the adults, too. People here have plenty of money for that. Juan loves tennis himself and built a beautiful all-weather tennis court in his big barn. Despite my ups and downs, I’ve kept in touch with my good friends, and once in a while I get a big-name player to come out for a match. So I’ve managed to rehab my reputation a bit as well.”

“That’s good to hear. But we haven’t gotten to the why-you-need-me part,” I said.

“Juan Alvarez is not the man I thought he was. When I knew him before, he was kind and gentle. And that is the way most people see him. But gradually I have learned that he can be vicious and cruel. He hides this side brilliantly, but now I see it. Until now, I managed to escape his temper, but when a runaway boy came to the barn out of nowhere and I befriended him, Juan was furious and ordered me to get rid of him or he would make him disappear. He was jealous of my affection for a lost boy, and I knew he meant he would do the boy great harm.”

“Has he actually acted on his threats?”

“I have heard from some of his employees that he has had people beaten and tortured. Even killed. Sometimes for minor mistakes, silly things. Last week, a maid forgot to lock the front door of the house. Juan had one of his men slam the door on the woman’s hand. He broke several bones in her hand.”

“This may be a dumb question, but did she report it to the police?”

Carmen smiled without humor. “No,” she said. “She is undocumented. Most of Juan’s workers are. If they go to the police, they will be deported. He has also convinced them that worse things will happen.”

“Like what?”

“Many of the workers have children. If the parents try to leave or make trouble, they fear Juan will harm their children, or they will never see their children again. He encourages that fear.”

“Because they are illegal, they have no protection from him.”

“Yes. I’ve heard he also holds some children of people he does business with in Mexico, to make sure they don’t double-cross him in business dealings. He’s stowed these kids, three or four at most, at Street Business, and Jackie knows nothing about it. And when officials question what goes on at Street Business, Juan pays off whoever he needs to to keep Street Business above the law. This way Street Business always looks clean. Of course, it’s all a lie, but he’s got enough money to keep everyone involved quiet.”

I sat back and contemplated what she said.

“Jackie is so sincere, and he looks up to Juan so much. He is blind to what Juan really is,” she said. “I am very fond of Jackie. He’s been so good to Slide.”

“You mentioned torture and murder. Have you seen Juan actually harm someone?”

“No, it’s just talk. But people who anger Juan sometimes disappear and are never seen again. It is never Juan who does this, of course. He always needs to be the good man. I think he has deluded himself into thinking that he really is a good guy. But he has others do his work for him. And he always arranges it in a way that cannot be traced to him, which allows him to maintain his charade as a good man.”

“Is it just the stories you hear from the immigrant workers which make you believe Juan’s a criminal?”

“That’s one part of it,” Carmen said. “But I have firsthand knowledge of some of his business dealings. Juan has a legitimate international trading and import business, but his real wealth comes from trafficking in drugs from Mexico. He launders the funds through his other businesses, and uses his money to buy status and respectability in Boston. But in truth he is little more than a drug dealer.”

“So forgive me for being cynical,” I said, “but it seems like you hit the jackpot with Juan. He may be a bad man, but I imagine being a kept woman on a horse farm in Weston beats where you were when you met him.”

Carmen looked into her near-empty glass. I raised the bottle. She shook her head and stirred the remaining ice cubes with her finger.

“A whore is a whore, Spenser,” she said, “no matter how expensive the clothes.”

“So why don’t you just leave?”

“I can take care of myself, Spenser,” she said. “But I fear for the others, Martita and her baby, her brother. And for one in particular.”

She drained the rest of the scotch from her glass.

“I don’t have children, Spenser, and I doubt that I ever will. But when Slide showed up at the stables, I sort of adopted him. Juan is jealous of Slide because he senses I care more for a lost little boy who needs my love and help than I do for him,” Carmen said. She thought for a moment. “I have not lived a true life, Spenser. I think Slide may have been brought into my life to open my eyes. I want to protect Slide. And I want to be the person Slide believes me to be.”