Rough Weather: A Spenser Novel

charge.”
    “He was?”
    “Chet. Chester DeMarco, one of the guys killed.”
    “How many people do you employ?” I said.
    “You mean overall?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Whole company.”
    “Two hundred eighty-seven,” he said. “Plus the home office staff of thirteen, myself included.”
    “Who knew about the Tashtego operation?” I said.
    “Home office, guys on Tashtego, I don’t know, some others, I’m sure. It wasn’t secret or anything.”
    “You have files on all your employees?”
    “Your guys got them already,” he said.
    “My guys?”
    “Couple Massachusetts detectives came in, borrowed all the records.”
    “Okay,” I said. “They’ll do all the fact-crunching. Leaves me to do the genius stuff.”
    Fonseca looked at me. He had shiny blue eyes that looked almost metallic.
    “You do much of that?” he said.
    “Genius stuff?” I said. “Hardly any.”
    He nodded.
    “They were okay guys,” Fonseca said. “You know? Guys like you play ball with, drink beer, talk about broads. Ordinary. They all had some experience. Cops, military. None of them had a record. All of them were trained … not one of them cleared his piece.”
    “They were up against something unusual,” I said.
    “Guy that pulled this off, what’s his name, Rugar?”
    “That’s the one he was using when he pulled it off,” I said.
    “You need anything from me to help catch him,” Fonseca said, “you got it.”
    I nodded.
    “If you need one,” Fonseca said, “I can put together a small army. Pretty good men. Some women, too. None of them happy about this.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.
    “Cops told me no ransom demand yet.”
    “That’s what they tell me, too,” I said.
    “So what kind of kidnapping is this?” Fonseca said. “Why didn’t they just wait until after the honeymoon and grab her off the street on her way to the supermarket.”
    “I doubt that she goes to the supermarket,” I said.
    “Or the polo field? Wherever people like her fucking go,” Fonseca said.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Anyone say anything to you about me being there?”
    “At the wedding?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Nope,” he said.
    “She didn’t ask you for a referral?”
    “Nope.”
    “You’d be the logical choice,” I said.
    “If it was a security question,” Fonseca said. “Maybe it wasn’t.”
    “Or maybe she thought you wouldn’t like her hiring somebody else.”
    “Maybe,” Fonseca said.
    “You know Jimmy Gabriel?”
    Fonseca shrugged.
    “Professionally,” Fonseca said. “He put us together with Ms. Bradshaw.”
    “You like him?”
    “He’s a freakin’ lawyer,” Fonseca said.
    “That makes it hard,” I said.
    “Don’t
dis
like him,” Fonseca said.
    “Any thoughts on why she might have wanted me there?”
    “Don’t know why she wanted you there,” Fonseca said.
    “Me, either,” I said.
    “Didn’t make much difference,” Fonseca said.
    Through the big window in the wall behind Fonseca’s ornately carved cherrywood desk, I could see the Providence River where it passed through the downtown.
    “No,” I said. “None at all.”
    Fonseca took a business card from a small holder on his desk and slid it across to me.
    “Offer holds,” Fonseca said. “Any help I can give you, finding that fucking Rugar, I’ll do it.”
    I picked up the card and put it in my shirt pocket.
    “You got a card?” Fonseca said.
    I gave him one of mine.
    “You ever do security work?” Fonseca said.
    “Not really. Bodyguard now and then.”
    “Well, you got the build for it,” Fonseca said. “Used to box, too, didn’t you.”
    “Face give it away?” I said.
    “ Uh-huh. Around the eyes a little, and the nose.”
    “You ever box?” I said to Fonseca.
    “Not really,” he said. “We all do a little martial-arts training in the company, ’cept the secretaries, but I never did any boxing. I might need a guy like you sometime. I’ll give you a call.”
    “Sure.”
    “What you gonna do now?” Fonseca said.
    “I’ve asked everybody else why Ms. Bradshaw hired me. I guess I may as well go ask her.”
    “Good thinking,” Fonseca said.

 
    Susan was busy trying to help
the deranged, so she didn’t come with me to Tashtego again. Too bad. I was interested in seeing how her relationship with Heidi would develop. Susan did not like women who flirted with me in front of her, or, I assume, at other times, but at other times the issue didn’t come up. She was also far too classy