"Then why ask?"

"Information is the capital of my work," I said. "I don't know what will matter."

She nodded.

"I went to Middlebury College, and Harvard Business School. I have two daughters. I'm divorced."

"So you knew Nathan Smith before he was married."

"I knew him professionally. He didn't spend a lot of time at the bank, and when he was here, he didn't spend a lot of time with the help."

"Who did he spend time with?"

"I don't really know. I work here. I worked for him. My job is to present the bank to the public in as favorable an image as I can. I do not keep track of the owner, for G.o.d's sake."

"And you're doing a h.e.l.l of a job of it," I said.

She started to speak and stopped. "G.o.dd.a.m.n you," she said.

"Me?"

"Y. I am supposed to be a professional and you've waltzed in here and smiled a big smile and showed me your muscles and all my professionalism seems to have fluttered right out the window."

"I didn't show you my muscles," I said.

"I saw them anyway," she said. Beneath her perfect makeup there seemed to be a hint of color along her cheekbones.

"Are you married?" she said.

"I'm, ah, going steady," I said.

"Going steady? I haven't heard anyone say that in thirty years."

I shrugged.

"How long have you been going steady?"

"'Bout twenty-five years," I said. "With a little time out in the middle."

She leaned back a little in her chair and looked at me in silence for a considerable time.

Finally she said, "Of all the banks, in all the world, you had to walk into this one."

"We'll always have Cambridge," I said.

CHAPTER NINE.

There had been something lurking behind what Amy Peters had said. She knew something about Nathan Smith. I didn't know what it was yet. I drove out of the parking garage next to the bank. A moment of brightness flicked past me from across the street and I looked over at a black Volvo sedan across from the entrance. I thought I saw binoculars, which would account for the reflected flash. I turned onto Broadway toward the Longfellow Bridge. The car didn't move. As I got on the bridge I checked the rearview mirror and the Volvo was there, two cars back.

I punched up the number for the Harbor Health Club on the car phone. Henry Cimoli answered.

"Hawk there?" I said.

"Yeah," Henry said. "Intimidating the patrons."

What's he doing?" I said.

"Nothing."

"Let me talk to him," I said.

In a moment Hawk said, "Un-huh?" into his end of the phone.

"I'm on the Longfellow Bridge," I said. "I think I'm being tailed by a black Volvo. Ma.s.s plates, number 73622. I'm going to park at the health club and go in. I want you to pick up the Volvo, if they leave. See who they are."

"You care if they see me?" Hawk said.

"Yes."

"Okay," Hawk said.

On the Boston end of the bridge, to make sure, I went straight up Cambridge Street and through Bowdoin Square and down New Sudbury Street and back down Ca.n.a.l Street toward the Fleet. On Causeway Street I turned right and headed back through the North End. It was a way to get to the Harbor Health Club that no one would take. The black Volvo was still behind me.

When I started at the Harbor Health Club I was still boxing, and it was a dark ugly gym where fighters trained. Now I wasn't boxing anymore. The club was three stories high, and they had valet parking. I gave my car to the valet and headed in. I didn't see Hawk. But I didn't expect to. Inside I went up to the second floor where there was a women-only weight room across from the snack bar and c.o.c.ktail lounge, and looked down into the street from the front windows. The Volvo was there, idling across the street.

Henry, wearing a white T-shirt and white satin sweatpants, joined me at the window. Henry used to box lightweight, and it showed in the scar tissue around his eyes and the way his nose had thickened. The T-shirt showed how muscular he still was. Which is not a bad thing in a health-club owner.

"Hawk already left," Henry said.

"I know."

"You working on something?"

"I am."

Henry looked down through the window. "The black Volvo tailing you?"

"Un-huh."

"What kinda crook tails somebody in a Volvo?" Henry said.

"Hawk's going to tell us," I said.

"I get it," Henry said. "You ditch them here and Hawk picks them up and then you've got a tail on the tail."

"Pretty smart," I said. "For a guy who got whacked in the face as much as you did."

"Never got knocked down though," Henry said. "You gonna work out?"

"Maybe later," I said. "Isn't it s.e.xist to have a women-only weight room?"

"I think so," Henry said.

The Volvo waited for two and a half hours, into the rush hour, until a cop pulled his cruiser up behind it and gave a short wail on his siren and gestured them to move the car. Which they did.

I looked down at the evening commuter traffic trying to jam past the Big Dig construction for a while and then went to the snack bar and had a turkey burger. Healthful.

I called Frank Belson while I waited and asked him to check the plate numbers on the Volvo. I ate another turkey burger. Belson called me back. After two hours and twenty minutes, Hawk came into the snack bar and slid onto the stool beside me.

"Went down to Braintree," hawk said. "Shopping center right there where 3 and 128 fork off the expressway. Parked in the lot. Got out, got in another car, drove back up the expressway to a place called Soldiers Field Development Limited."

"Would that be on Soldiers Field Road?" I said.

"How'd you guess that?" Hawk said.

I smiled modestly and looked at the floor.

"You get the plate number?" I said.

"You didn't tell me to get no license plate number," Hawk said.

"I was being racially sensitive," I said. "I didn't want to sound patronizing."

"Ya.s.sah," Hawk said and recited the plate number. Hawk never wrote anything down. As far as I could tell he never forgot anything.

"You get anything on the car they dumped?" Hawk said.

"Stolen car," I said.

"They being careful," Hawk said. "Tail you with stolen car. Dump it. Swap cars."

"Not careful enough," I said.

"'Course not," Hawk said. "How they gonna be careful enough when they up against you and me?"

"They didn't make you? I said.

Hawk looked at me without speaking.

"No," I said. "Of course they didn't. They actually go in the development company?"

"Un-huh."

"And didn't go right on through and come out the front and get in a waiting car and drive off?" I said. "Leaving you confused and uncertain?"

"Un-un."

"You got a good look at them?"

"Un-huh."

"So you'd recognize them if you saw them again."

It wasn't a question, I was just thinking out loud. Hawk made no response.

"Okay so we know who," I said. "Be good to find out why."

"It would," Hawk said. "Maybe next time they follow you we can stop and ask them."

"We'll see," I said.

CHAPTER TEN.

I was in my office tilted back in my chair with my feet up drinking a cup of coffee and eating my second corn m.u.f.fin while I reread the list of Mary Smith's closest friends. The sunlight sprawled its familiar light across my desk. Behind me I had the window open and the pleasant traffic sounds drifted up from the point where Berkeley Street intersects with Boylston. There was nothing new. Still no names with asterisks indicating a possible murderer. Just a bunch of mostly Anglo-Saxon names with mostly business addresses. One of the business addresses was Soldiers Field Development Ltd. Oh ho! I had taken to saying Oh ho! in moments like this ever since Susan had suggested that ah ha! was corny. The address was for someone named Felton Shawcross, who was listed as CEO. I took a bite of corn m.u.f.fin. It's hard to think when you're hungry. It is also hard to think when you don't have anything to think about. Something might develop out of the clue. But right now it was just a clue.

I finished my corn m.u.f.fin, drank the last of my coffee, washed my hands and face, and headed off down Berkeley Street toward the South End. By the time I crossed Columbus Ave. I knew I was being followed again, on foot this time. A dark curly-haired guy with a big mustache had gotten out of a black Chrysler sedan as soon as I had come out of my building. The sedan had been double-parked in front of FAO Schwarz on the corner of Boylston and Berkeley, and pulled away down Boylston right after Curly got out. He was so conscientious in paying me no attention that I spotted him almost at once. Though in his defense, I suppose, I was looking for him. Berkeley Street was one way the other way, so I knew that if they were tailing me again, it would have to be on foot. Larson Graff's place of business was a red brick row house on Appleton Street. The office was on the first floor. Graff lived above the store. Graff's desk was in the bow window of a room that was probably once the dining room. It was a vast pale oak piece, with thickly turned legs. The window behind it was punctuated occasionally with panes of stained gla.s.s. Through it I could see Curly standing innocently across the street talking on his cell phone.

Graff was immaculate in a double-breasted blue blazer, a yellow silk tie, and a starched white broadcloth shirt. He stood to shake my hand.

"Mr. Spenser," he said. "How nice to see you again."

"Everybody says that."

Graff smiled uncertainly. "Well," he said. "I'm sure they mean it."

He gestured me toward a client chair. I sat. Maybe it was better not to kid with Larson.

"I wanted to thank you for the list of names you sent over on behalf of Mary Smith," I said.

"Oh, no problem. Just run it off on the computer, you know."

"Yes. Do you know anybody that's friendly with Mrs. Smith who is not on the list?"

Graff's eyes widened.

"Not on the list?"