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Promised Land
 About the Book
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Preview
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 tile 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 good-looking 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 ran 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 kidnaping. 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."
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