Rough Weather: A Spenser Novel

said. “Or maybe Leonard did it without Tony, and it’s Tony’s way of explaining to him how wrong that was.”
    “And breaking the connection to him,” Quirk said, “in the process.”
    “True,” I said.
    “It’s still all speculation,” Quirk said.
    “At least,” I said, “we’re starting to have things to speculate about.”
    “Which is what we do,” Quirk said.
    “Until we know something,” I said.
    “Which we will,” Quirk said.

 
    Hawk and I were working out
at the Harbor Health Club, which was becoming accessible again as the Big Dig went out not with a bang but a whimper. Even though the place was now more upscale than Buckingham Palace, Henry Cimoli, who ran the place, still kept a small boxing room in back as some sort of gesture toward us, or maybe to his roots.
    “Susan say you going out too much by yourself,” Hawk said as he worked on the uppercut bag.
    “I figure they might let things slide a little after the last shot at me went so bad.”
    “Rugar don’t let nothing slide,” Hawk said.
    “This has been atypical Rugar,” I said, “since they started playing ‘Here Comes the Bride’ on Tashtego Island.”
    “Maybe stuff we don’t know,” Hawk said.
    “That’s for sure,” I said.
    I was throwing hooks at the heavy bag.
Body, body, head, head.
    “I mean maybe he got problems distracting him, why he farmed the hit out on you,” Hawk said.
    “He doesn’t normally do that,” I said. “Sees it as being dependent on other people, I think.”
    “You ever think it a fuckup?” Hawk said.
    “Tashtego?”
    Hawk nodded.
    “Didn’t go the way it was supposed to,” Hawk said. “And Rugar be scrambling ever since?”
    “Well, it sure isn’t vintage Rugar,” I said.
    Martin Quirk came into the boxing room. He nodded at Hawk. Hawk nodded back.
    To me, Quirk said, “I need you to look at another body.”
    “Everybody’s got to be good at something,” I said to Hawk.
    “Looking at bodies?” Hawk said.
    “It’s a gift,” I said.
    I untaped my hands, put a leather jacket on over my sweats, put my gun in a side pocket of the jacket. Small gun today, five-shot .38 with a two-inch barrel. Strictly defensive.
    “You probably safe with the captain,” Hawk said. “I meet you here when you through?”
    “I’ll bring him back,” Quirk said.
    Hawk nodded and went back to the uppercut bag. I followed Quirk out to the street, where his car was illegally parked at the curb, impeding traffic. With a callous disregard for anyone else driving at the time, Quirk drove us swiftly to Boston City Hospital, where I was able to look at the distorted corpse of a man I may have killed.
    “Found him by the Charles River Dam,” Quirk said, “bumping around the lock.”
    “Pretty sure it’s him,” I said. “I only saw him for a minute, and he’s been in the water for a while.”
    “No ID,” Quirk said. “No DNA match in the database. They’re trying to lift some fingerprints, but he’s pretty waterlogged.”
    “You get a slug out of him?”
    “His head,” Quirk said.
    I nodded.
    “We’ll go over to the lab,” I said. “I’ll fire a test round for you. If the slugs match, it’s him.”
    “The driver probably dumped him soon as he cleared from you,” Quirk said.
    “Which would put him in the river somewhere this side of the BU bridge,” I said.
    “And the river brought him down.”
    “Surprising no one spotted him,” I said.
    “Might have been under for a while till he started to puff up,” Quirk said.
    I nodded.
    “Nice,” I said.
    Quirk gestured with his head, and the morgue attendant slid the drawer shut.
    “Come on,” Quirk said. “I’ll buy you lunch.”
    “What could be better,” I said.
    There was a sandwich shop up Albany Street a little where Quirk bought sandwiches and coffee for us. I declined the sandwich and drank the coffee while we sat in Quirk’s car and watched the activity at the wholesale flower market across the street.
    Without looking at me Quirk said, “And the two goons got shanked.”
    “My goons?” I said. “That tried to kill me?”
    “Yep. In the jail yard, yesterday. Guard found them both in a corner. Throats cut.”
    “Jesus Christ,” I said.
    “Yeah,” Quirk said. “Last man standing.”
    “Tony got to them,” I said.
    “Or Rugar,” Quirk said. “Pretty sure it was an inmate or a guard.”
    “What a pleasure to watch a trained mind work,” I said.
    “Years on the job,” Quirk said.
    “Anybody