Small Vices (12 page)

On the wall by the desk was some sort of motivational gimmick with credit given for hours on the treadmill, and a bar graph showing people's various progress. The main workout space was banked with windows over the street and mirrors around the other walls. It was a bright room with some shiny weight-training machinery lined up in front of the windows and an exercise floor behind it. I could see Glenda at that end of the room wearing painfully tight black shorts and a bright green halter top. She was leading a class of women who stepped on and off of a plastic step to the throb of rock music while Glenda yelled, "Aaand over, aaaand back, aaand nine, eight, seven… aaand take it on down." The Gray Man was nowhere in the room.

I told the kid at the desk that I was here to see Glenda Baker, and I'd wait until she was through. There was a small waiting area in front of the desk, a low sofa, and a bentwood coffee table. And a long coat rack, mostly filled, on the wall by the door. I took off my coat and hung it on the rack and sat on the sofa with my feet on the coffee table and my hat on. The teenybopper eyed my gun covertly. She'd probably have told me to have a great shoot if she'd seen it when I came in.

When Glenda's class ended she started across the room toward the waiting area carrying a big bottle of Evian water and taking healthful sips from it as she walked. She went straight to the coat rack without paying any attention to me.

I said, "Hello, Glenda."

She stopped and smiled and said "Hello" vaguely.

"Spenser," I said. "The sleuth."

"Oh, hello."

"May I buy you a cup of coffee?" I said.

If she saw the gun, she was too well bred to pay it any mind.

She smiled without much enthusiasm. "Well, sure, okay."

"Good."

"Let me change and grab a quick shower," she said. "Ten minutes."

"No hurry," I said.

She went to the locker room, and I passed the time counting the number of women in spandex who should not have been wearing spandex. By the time Glenda came back out of the locker room in an ankle-length camel's hair coat and high boots, the count was up to All.

"For crissake," I said. "It really was ten minutes."

Glenda smiled faintly. She smelled of expensive soap and maybe a hint of even more expensive perfume. I stood and held the door for her. As we left, I said to the receptionist, "Have a great front desk."

She smiled even more faintly than Glenda.

It was always a pleasure to go into a coffee shop on a cold day and smell the coffee and the bacon and feel the warmth. We sat in the back in a wooden booth with blue checkered paper place mats on it. I started to slide in opposite Glenda.

"Sit beside me," she said. "It will be easier to talk."

Glenda slid in, I sat beside her, and a waitress with a white apron over jeans and a green sweater came over and asked if we wanted coffee. We did. The waitress poured it while we glanced at the menu. Since I had to stay alert for the Gray Man, I felt that caffeinated was a health necessity. In fact, it seemed to me that I'd best have more than one cup.

They were out of donuts but there were corn muffins and I ordered a couple. Glenda had decaf, black, and an order of whole wheat toast, no butter. I hung my jacket on a hook on the corner of the booth. Glenda kept her coat on.

"How many classes a day do you teach?" I said.

"Varies. Today I just had the one."

"Where'd you learn to do this stuff."

"I was a sports and recreation major at college," she said. "After I got married, I took a certification course."

"Better than sitting around the house reading Vogue?"

"I'm a very physical person," Glenda said.

"I could tell that," I said. "Is your husband equally physical?"

"Hunt is more business oriented," Glenda said.

The waitress brought the toast and the corn muffins and freshened the coffee.

"That's decaf?" Glenda said.

"Yes, ma'am," the waitress said. "You can always tell by the green handle on the pot."

Glenda seemed not to have heard her. She was half turned in the corner of the booth, looking at me. Her gaze had that mile long quality that politicians had-the eyes were on me, but the focus was somewhere else.

"So the aerobics teaching is a nice outlet for you," I said.

"There are better outlets," Glenda said absently.

"Un huh."

"But to tell you the truth, we can use the money. Hunt's not making a very big salary."

"Doesn't his family run the business?"

"Yes, and they are cheap as hell. I tell him they're exploiting him simply because he is family and they can get away with it."

"Well," I said, "someday it'll be his, I suppose, and then he can exploit somebody."

"Someday is a long way off," Glenda said.

"And you have to pass the time somehow," I said.

The mile-long stare disappeared, and her gaze suddenly focused very concretely on me.

"You are very understanding," she said.

I dropped my eyes a little and shrugged.

"Part of the job," I said.

"Am I part of the job, too?" she said. "Is that why you wanted to see me again?"

I finished my second corn muffin. She was looking at me in such sharp focus that I sort of missed the mile-long stare.

"I thought so when I drove up here," I said.

"And now?"

As we talked, she had been completely still, moving only to drink her black coffee. Her dry toast lay untouched on the paper plate in front of her.

"I'm glad I came."

She smiled. There was nothing faraway in the smile. It was smiled at me, and it was full of charge and specificity.

"There are a few questions I need to ask," I said as if it were an afterthought, or maybe something to be got out of the way before we got to more serious business.

"Yes," she said, "but let's go to my place. Hunt's at work and we can relax. Talk more privately."

"Sure," I said. "You have a car?"

She smiled the penetrating smile.

"I'll ride with you," she said.

I paid the check and we went to my car. No one took a shot at me. The car was as I'd left it. Neither of us said much as we drove down the hill to Glenda's condominium. The building was silent. Apparently everyone who lived in The Trevanion worked. The heels of my rubber-soled running shoes sounded loud on the marble floors. I felt as if I ought to tiptoe. Glenda unlocked the door to her place and I followed her in and closed it behind me. One of them was a neat housekeeper. The place looked as if it were ready for company. Maybe it was always ready for company.

Glenda took my coat, standing close when she did so, and I got a full scent of the milled soap and subtle perfume that had been hinted at at the health club. There was a brass hat stand beside the front door and Glenda hung my peacoat on it. Then she turned and smiled at me very idly and began to unbutton her coat.

"Can I get you some coffee?" she said. "Or something stronger?"

"Coffee would be fine," I said.

She unbuttoned the last button and shrugged out of her coat. Except for the high boots, she had nothing on under it.

"Or maybe something stronger," I said.

She walked slowly toward me, looking at me with a half smile, and pressed against me and put her arms around me and looked up at me with her head thrown back.

"How much stronger?" she said.

Her voice had a hoarse overtone to it now.

"Maybe a quart of Valium," I said. "Over ice?"

My voice had a pretty hoarse overtone, too. She pressed against me more insistently.

"Anything else?" she said.

I put my arms around her and looked down at her.

"Yeah," I said. "How come you were at Andover the same time Clint Stapleton was and you don't know him?"

She stiffened. I kept my arms around her.

"Can't you think about anything but that stupid murder?" she said.

"I can, but I'm trying not to," I said. "And what murder was it that Clint was connected to?"

She got stiffer still and tried to push away from me. I wouldn't let her. I held her tight against me.

"Let go of me," she said.

"All I said was Clint Stapleton. Why did you think I was interested in a murder?"

"Well, I mean he was Melissa's boyfriend, so I thought that's what you were talking about."

"When I talked to you last time, you said you didn't remember her boyfriend's name," I said.

She pushed hard against me now, trying to get away. I held on. She tried to knee me in the groin. I turned my hip enough to prevent it.

"Now if you went to Andover with him, and he dated your sorority daughter, and you double-dated with them a few times, isn't it odd that you didn't remember it the first time I asked you, and remembered it now in the throes of passion."

"Let me go," she said, Her teeth were clenched and the words scraped out through them. "Let me goddamned go."

She got her hands to my face and started to scratch. I let go of her and stepped away, and she stood breathing hard with her absolutely spectacular body on full display. I looked at it happily. I was all business, but I tried to be never so busy that I couldn't stop and smell the flowers.

"That is a hell of a body," I said.

"Don't you want to fuck me?" she said.

"The answer to that is actually pretty complicated," I said, "but to oversimplify-no, ma'am, I don't."

"But I thought when you wanted to see me again, alone…" She frowned for a minute and I realized that she was thinking, or something. "You didn't… you were just trying to get information."

"Still trying," I said.

"Damn," she said and flopped onto the arm of an easy chair behind her and let her butt slide over the arm and onto the seat so that she sat sideways in the chair, and her legs dangled over the arm.

"I'm not usually that wrong," she said.

She seemed entirely at ease being naked and made no effort to cover herself. Her camel's hair coat remained in a pile on the floor where she'd dropped it. The high boots only emphasized how undressed she was.

"You and your husband know Clint Stapleton," I said.

She shrugged.

"And his parents know you," I said.

She moved one foot in a small circle, watching it as she did so.

"Sure," she said finally. "They're Hunt's aunt and uncle."

"Clint is your husband's cousin?"

She shrugged, watching her boot make small circles in the air. "Yeah," she said.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

We were quiet. It was hard to think with that worldclass body staring at me. I was the complete professional, and totally loyal to Susan, but I had to fight off the urge to rear up on my hind legs and whinny. She kept moving the toe of her boot in its little circle.

"Cops know this?"

"I don't know."

"You tell them?"

"I don't remember if I did or not. What difference does it make?"

"Did you really see a black man drag Melissa into his car?"

"Of course."

"Why did you pretend you didn't know Clint when I asked you before?"

"Hunt says it's better not to get Clint involved."

"Protect that pro career, right?"

"Sure."

"What makes the Stapletons related to the McMartins?" I said.

"Dina Stapleton is Hunt's father's sister."

"You happily married to Hunt?" I said.

She shrugged again.

"Hunt's got a good future," she said.

"You get along?"

"He cares about me, but he's not as, ah, physical as I am."

"And you take care of that problem by, ah, branching out," I said.

"Most of the time I'm luckier than I was with you."

"I don't think luck's got much to do with it," I said.

She smiled a little but didn't say anything.

"You love your husband?" I said.

She was quiet for a moment watching her toe circles.

"We get along," she said. "If I have a little adventure like this one, it doesn't mean we don't get along."

"Hell, Glenda," I said. "Maybe it means that you do."

"You can understand that?"

"I can understand that it might," I said.

"But not for you?"

"No, not for me."

"Why not."

"I'm in love," I said.

"Oh," she said.

I stood up. I knew she hadn't seen a black man pull anyone into his car. I also knew she wasn't going to make a court-useful admission of that fact, so I saw no reason to press the point. Besides that, my id was locked in grim combat with my super ego, and was going to prevail if I didn't get out of there.

"Thanks for showing me your body," I said.

"I had hoped to do more."

"Yeah," I said.

I tried not to sound wistful. She stood, and walked with me to the door.

"Would you kiss me good-bye?" she said.

"Of course," I said.

We kissed. It was a nice kiss, but I didn't quite know what to do with my hands.

When the kiss was over I opened her door behind me. She made no attempt to conceal herself. If anyone in the hall wanted to look, apparently Glenda didn't mind. I stepped into the hall and closed the door. The hall was empty. Walking out of the building toward my car, I did some deep breathing, trying to get my blood flow back into its normal pattern.