Small Vices

"He could have dropped the clothes off in a Dumpster somewhere."

"Why take them at all?" Hawk said.

"I can't imagine," I said. "Ellis has spent half his life in the criminal justice system. He'd know better than to be caught with stuff like that."

"He'd leave them right where they fell," Hawk said.

"Sure, unless there was something about them that would incriminate him."

"Like what?" Hawk said.

"If she fought him enough to draw blood."

"But she didn't."

"According to the coroner's report there was no blood under her fingernails," I said. "No fend-off bruises on her arms. In fact, there's no sign of her putting up any resistance."

"And Ellis didn't have a mark on him," Hawk said.

"Maybe he took her to his home and undressed her there."

"And then killed her and drove all the way back out to Pemberton with her dead in the car? Or drove her out naked in the car and killed her there?"

"Don't make any sense," Hawk said.

"No, it doesn't."

"So who would take the clothes?" Hawk said.

"Someone who didn't know what they were doing and panicked."

"Don't sound like my man Ellis," Hawk said.

"No, it doesn't."

We were quiet. The scallops and coleslaw were gone. There was about one glass each left of the wine. Hawk picked up the bottle.

"Don't keep so good once it's opened," he said.

"I know," I said.

"Better finish it up," Hawk said.

"We'd be fools not to," I said.

Hawk poured out the wine, and we sat in the quiet office and looked out at the bright morning and finished it.

Chapter 23

THE MAROON CHEVY wagon that had picked up Beer Keg and his crew was registered to Bruce Parisi at an address in Arlington, near the Winchester line. I called Rita Fiore.

"Can you find out if a guy named Bruce Parisi, currently living on Hutchinson Road in Arlington, has a record."

"Sure."

"And, if he does, and I'll bet he does, get me whatever you can on him."

"Sure, I'll call you back."

"No, I'm in the car," I said. "It's easier if I call you."

"Well, a car phone?"

"Modern crime fighter," I said.

It was a bright, windy day at the rim of the Mystic lakes. I turned left off Mystic Street and onto Hutchinson Avenue and drove across the slope of a pretty good-sized hill parked a little downhill from the house and across the street. It was a white colonial with green shutters and a screened porch on the side. It sat further uphill from the road. A long hot top driveway ran up past the screen porch and widened into a turn-around in front of a two-car garage set back of the house. The Chevy wagon was in the turn-around.

I sat with the motor idling and sca

"I'm sitting outside Bruce Parisi's office in Medford Square," I said. "What do you have on him."

"Been arrested three times," Rita said. "Loan sharking twice, once for strong arm stuff: he contracted some goons to help break a strike."

"Where's Eugene Debs when you need him," I said.

"There's something might be interesting, though. Last time he was busted, two years ago for loan sharking, the arresting officer was a State Detective named Miller."

"Tommy Miller?"

"Yes," Rita said. "Wasn't he the man who arrested Ellis Alves?"

"Yes," I said. "He was."

"Is it interesting?"

"Yes, it is."

"You want to tell me what you're doing?"

"If I knew, I would. But I don't, so please don't embarrass me by asking."

"Fine," Rita said. "Have a nice day."

We hung up. My car wouldn't last ten minutes where I was. I swung it across the street and down the alley behind Parisi Enterprises. There were three parking spaces back there. A sign on the back of the building said "Reserved for Parisi Enterprises. All Others Will Be Towed." There was a car in each space. I parked directly behind the maroon Chevy. I didn't want Parisi leaving before I did anyway. I took my.38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I'd seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies. Then I put the gun back on my hip, got out of the car, and strolled up the alley to the front of the building.

Parisi Enterprises didn't have a lot of overhead. The office was furnished with two gray metal desks, a gray metal table, and two swivel chairs. There was an empty pizza box on the table, and several days' worth of the Boston Herald scattered on one of the desks. The other desk held a big television set on which a talk show host was examining the issue of cross dressing with a bunch of guys in drag. Parisi had folded his coat on the empty swivel chair and put his gray homburg on top of it. He was seated behind the newspaper-littered desk talking on the phone. His hair was black and combed back in a big Ricky Ricardo pompadour that gleamed with hair spray. That he had been able to wear a hat without messing his do was a tribute to the holding power of whatever he sprayed on it. He didn't look too tall, but he was fat enough to make up for it. Under his several chins he wore a white spread collar attached to a blue striped shirt. His tie was blue silk, and his blue double breasted suit must have cost him better than a grand because it almost fit him. He crooked the phone in his shoulder when I came

"Wait a minute," he said into the phone, "a guy came in."

He spoke to me. "Whaddya want?" he said.

"You Bruce Parisi?" I said.

"You a cop?" he said.

"No."

"Then take a hike," he said. "I'm on the phone."

"Hang it up," I said.

"Fuck you, pal."

I walked over to the wall and yanked the phone wire from the phone jack. Parisi looked as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen.

"What are you, fucking crazy, you walk in here to my office and fuck with me?"

He let the phone fall from his shoulder as he stood and his hand reached toward his hip. I hit him with all the left hook I had handy and knocked him backwards over the swivel chair and into the wall behind it. The swivel chair skittered on its casters like something alive, the seat spi