Pale Kings and Princes

“Where,” I said.

“On the ground.”

“Where on the ground.” I had stepped closer to him.

“Near the library.”

“In the snow?”

“Yah.”

“So how come there’s no rust where the nickel’s worn?”

“I dunno.”

Brett’s voice got softer with each response and his gaze stayed unvaryingly on the blue and red braided rug on the living room floor.

“I think you’re lying, Brett,” I said.

“No.”

“Yes, you’re lying.”

Brett began to snuffle.

“Am not,” he said.

“Enough,” Caroline Rogers said. “He’s a seventeen-year-old boy. I won’t let you bully him. He’s done nothing wrong. You’re treating him like a criminal.”

“Caroline,” I said, “he’s running dope, he threatened me with a loaded weapon. He may be in possession of the weapon used in a murder.”

Caroline’s eyes began to tear as well. “Oh, Brett,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Brett said. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry.”

They were both crying full out now, incoherently.

I took the four rounds out of the Navy Colt and slipped them into my pants pocket. I stuck the gun into my belt and turned and walked to the front window and stared out at the snow-covered lawn.

So far so good. I had a recently widowed mother and her orphaned son crying hysterically. Maybe for an encore I could shoot the family dog.

Behind me I heard Caroline say, “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right. We’ll fix it, nothing we can’t fix. It’ll be all right.”

I turned and she was looking at me. She had her arms awkwardly around her fat child.

“We have to fix it,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “We’ll fix it. But we have to know what we’re fixing. Brett needs to tell us where he got the rod.”

“Tell me, Brett,” his mother said. “You don’t have to say it loud. You can whisper if you want to, just whisper it to me.”

Brett nodded.

She put her ear close to his mouth and he whispered. She nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell Mr. Spenser, but I’ll whisper too.”

She walked over to me and whispered in my ear. “Esteva.”

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered back.

22

I was sitting in the front seat of Lundquist’s State Police cruiser parked in the lot behind the library. The Navy Colt was in a paper bag on the floor of the rental Mustang parked next to us.

“This is going to be a little tricky,” I said.

Lundquist nodded.

“I may have the weapon that killed Rogers, and I need to get it tested against the bullets they took out of him to see if in fact it’s the gun.”

“No problem,” Lundquist said.

It was a gorgeous winter day. Bright sun bouncing around off the snow, just warm enough for eaves to drip.

“Well, maybe not,” I said. “The thing is that I don’t want to tell you where I got it.”

Lundquist nodded. “I can see where that might be a problem,” he said.

“Say it turns out to be the gun, and it’s going to be major-league coincidence if it doesn’t, you’re going to want to know whose gun it is, and if I tell you that I’ll have to tell you how I know it’s his and if I tell you that I’ll have to tell you things I don’t want to tell you.”

“But now that we know you’ve got it,” Lundquist said, “we can sort of insist.”

“True,” I said.

“And you know how hard we can insist when we feel like insisting.”

“Also true,” I said. “On the other hand, you’ve only got my word that I’ve got it, and if I retract, what have you got?”

“There’s that,” Lundquist said. “We could squeeze you a little.”

“Un huh.”

“But I got the feeling you been squeezed before.”

“Un huh.”

“So,” Lundquist said, “you got a plan?”

“I give you the piece,” I said. “You find out if it killed Rogers and tell me, and we go from there.”

“Go where,” Lundquist said.

“Where we can,” I said. “There’s stuff that has to be worked out.”

“Like what?”

I shook my head.

Lundquist looked out at the little park off to his left in front of the library. He drummed his thick pale fingers gently on the top of the steering wheel.

“I don’t see where I’m worse off than I was,” he said.

I got out of the cruiser and opened my car door and took the gun out in its paper bag and got back in the cruiser and handed the gun to Lundquist. He opened it and looked in.

“Fingerprints?” he said.

“No,” I said. “I wiped it.”

“Swell,” Lundquist said.

“Told you it was tricky,” I said.

Lundquist nodded. “I think I’ll keep this pretty much to myself,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. I got out of the cruiser. Lundquist put the gun on the seat beside him, still in the paper bag, and put the car in gear and drove away. I watched him pull out into North Street and turn down the hill toward Main Street. Then I got back in the Mustang and sat.