"Cheers," he said. We drank. "How do you like campaigning, Spenser?"

"On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

"It can be tiresome, I suppose. Ronni and I have gotten used to it. And I must say there's a lift from..." He made a gesture with his hands as if he were packing a large s...o...b..ll. "From being with the people. From actually seeing the voters."

"Including the young woman who asked about your stance on public education?"

Alexander smiled his splendid smile. "Politics is compromise, Mr. Spenser."

"You saw how she was dressed," Ronni said. The's's slushed just a little.

"To try and articulate my position at that time, in that place, would not have been wise. She was obviously unsympathetic. The press was there. They'd like nothing better than to describe how I got into a shouting match in a shopping mall."

The waiter appeared. "Excuse me," he said. "May I tell you about our specials this evening."

Alexander nodded.

"First you can get me one more drink," Ronni said.

"Certainly, ma'am." The waiter took the gla.s.s, looked at Alexander and me. We shook our heads. The waiter departed.

"Tell us a bit more about yourself, Spenser. We know only that you come highly recommended, that you are unmarried, and agnostic."

"That says it all," I said.

"One of Francis's sources said you were, how did he put it, an ironist."

"That too," I said.

The waiter returned with Ronni's bourbon. She drank it while he explained about the specials. The explanation took a while and I wondered, as I always did when people recited a menu at me, what I was supposed to do while they did it. To just sit and nod wisely made me feel like a talk show host. To get up and go to the men's room seemed rude. Once in Chicago I had tried taking notes in the margin of the menu, but they got mad at me.

When the waiter got through, Ronni said, "Is that duck good?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How about the stuff with the green peppercorns?"

"The game hen? Yes, ma'am, that's excellent."

"Which do you think would be better?" she said.

"Both are excellent, ma'am."

Alexander said, "I'll have the tenderloin of beef, please." The waiter looked grateful. He looked at me. I ordered duck. He looked reluctantly back at Ronni. She finished her bourbon.

"I don't know what to have," she said. The waiter smiled.

"If you'll bring me one more little gla.s.s of bourbon, then I'll decide." The last word sounded suspiciously like deshide.

"Anything for you gentlemen?"

I had another beer. Alexander shook his head. The waiter departed. Ronni was studying the menu.

"I a.s.sume you have done police work at some time, Mr. Spenser?"

"Yes."

"You didn't like the police?"

"Yes and no," I said. "Like everything else. The work is worth doing, most of it. But"-I shrugged-"too many reports. Too many supervisors who never worked the street. Too much cynicism."

Alexander raised his eyebrows. "Too much cynicism? I would have thought you a cynic, Mr. Spenser."

I shrugged.

"You're not?"

"Not entirely," I said.

"What do you believe in?"

The waiter came back with Ronni's bourbon and my beer.

Alexander said to Ronni, "Why don't you have the game hen with peppercorns?"

Ronni swallowed some bourbon and nodded.

Alexander said to the waiter, "The lady will have the game hen with green peppercorns."

"Very good, sir. Would you care to order wine?"

Alexander said, "No, I don't think..."

Ronni said, "Oh, come on, Meade. Dinner without wine is like a kiss without a squeeze."

Alexander nodded at the waiter. He produced a wine list and handed it to Alexander. Alexander glanced through it and ordered a good California Pinot Noir. The waiter went to get it.

Ronni began to hum along with the harpist.

Alexander looked at me, finished his martini, put it down, and said, "So what is it you are not cynical about? What do you believe in?"

"Love," I said. "I believe in love-Alfie."

Alexander's face was serious as he looked at me. Ronni's humming was a little louder. The harpist was playing something cla.s.sical that I didn't know. Obviously Ronni didn't know it either, but she wasn't discouraged. She swayed slightly with the music as she hummed.

Alexander kept his gaze fixed on me. "I do too," he said.

Chapter 5.

Alexander was working a luncheon reception at the Marriott Hotel in Springfield. The crowd was stretch-fabricked and hair-sprayed and there were hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar. The hors d'oeuvres ran to bologna and cream cheese whirls, salami and cheese cubes on a stick, chicken livers and bacon. You could almost hear the arteries clogging as Alexander's supporters wolfed them down.

At one end of the room Meade and Ronni were in an informal reception line, shaking hands, smiling, cursing big government, and praising G.o.d. A young man and woman who looked like college kids stopped to talk with him. The boy had a mouse under his right eye. From where I was I couldn't hear them, but I saw Ronni's breath go in sharply, and I saw Alexander frown. He nodded then raised his eyes and looked around the room until he saw me. He gestured me toward him.

As I moved toward him through the crowd, a middle-aged man in plaid slacks said, "You can't just keep giving it away to people who won't work..."A woman in a bouffant hairdo and blue-rimmed eyegla.s.ses said, "... Darwinism simply does not have the data to support..."

Ronni smiled at me brightly. Meade said, "Spenser, these two young people have a rather disturbing story to tell. I wonder if you could find a quiet corner and talk with them." He glanced at the two kids. "This is Mr. Spenser, our Chief of Security." I tried to look modest. "This is, ah..."

"John," the boy said. "John Taylor. This is my fiancee, Melanie Walsh."

I said, "How do you do," and took them to a sort of pantry off the reception room, where gla.s.sware and china and things were stored. I leaned against a stack of folded chairs and crossed my arms and said, "What's up?"

The kids looked at each other, then John said, "We're students. AIC. I'm a junior and Melanie's a soph.o.m.ore. We were handing out literature yesterday for Mr. Alexander down by the Civic Center when a couple of men came along and told us to beat it."

I nodded.

"I said we were not doing anything illegal and what right had they to tell us to beat it. They just sort of laughed and then one of them knocked the bunch of flyers-Melanie had a bunch of Alexander flyers and we were handing them around, you know?"

I nodded.

"Anyway, one of them knocked the flyers out of Melanie's hand onto the ground and the wind blew them around and then I said something and the other one hit me and knocked me down."

"Johnny told them to leave me alone," Melanie said. "And they hit him before he was even ready and all his flyers blew around."

"And they said if she showed up there again, they'd do a lot worse."

"They tell you why they did that?" I said.

"No."

"Would you know them again?"

"Oh, yes. But they said if we told the police, they'd find us..."

I nodded. "Don't they always," I said.

John said, "I don't know, sir." Except for the mouse, he looked like a choirboy. Maybe a couple years older than Paul Giacomin.

"You folks born again?"

"Yes, sir. I accepted Jesus Christ four years ago. And Melanie found him this past year."

"How old were these guys?"

John looked at Melanie. Melanie said, "They were men, you know. Grown up. Thirty, forty years old."

John said, "They called Melanie a name."

"Don't they always," I said. Actually Melanie looked more like Dolly Parton than Aimee Semple McPherson, but the soul wears various vestments. "You have a right to pa.s.s stuff out down there without getting molested," I said. "If you're willing to try it again, I'll go with you and if the two gentlemen show up, I will reason with them."

"There're two of them," Melanie said.

"I know. It's not fair," I said. "But maybe they'll bring a couple of friends and even things up."

They both looked puzzled.

"Look," I said. "I'm really good at this kind of thing. I can handle it fine. If you're willing, we'll get right to it. If they show up, I can surely persuade them of their sinfulness."

"I don't like them saying that about Melanie," John said. "But they were too big for me."

Melanie said, "I'll go."

I said, "Good," and went to check out with Cambell and Fraser. And Alexander.

"I'm not sure this falls under security, Spenser."

"Security includes intelligence, Mr. Alexander. I think this needs looking into. Tommy and Dale will cover it here. It's just up the street. I'll be back in an hour."

Cambell walked toward the door with me. "You sure you want to handle two of them by yourself?"

I nodded toward the ceiling. "Somebody up there likes me," I said.

"No need to make fun of us, Spenser," Cambell said. "It's serious for us."

"That's what you and Fraser are doing here," I said.

Cambell nodded. "Jesus is important in our lives. Because you don't understand it, no need to put it down."

I nodded. "I make fun of everything, Tommy," I said. "Even myself. No harm intended."

Cambell nodded again. "We could leave Dale here and I could drift down with you to the Civic Center," he said. "I hate to see a couple of kids get shoved around, myself."

"Me too," I said. "Next time it's your turn." We picked up some folders that had a picture of Meade and Ronni Alexander smiling on the cover. Then we left the Marriott and headed up Main Street.

Downtown Springfield was on the way back from hard times. The hotel was in a new complex called Bay State West that included stores and restaurants and walkways across Main Street to Steiger's and across Vernon Street to Forbes and Wallace. Up and down Main Street there were other buildings going up, but the marks of poverty and suburban shopping malls still scarred the older buildings. They stood, many empty, waiting for the wrecker's ball. The fate that they were born for.

On the corner of Court Street we stood with our backs toward the munic.i.p.al complex and looked at the Civic Center. It seemed to be made of poured concrete curtains, with the square look that had been hot when it was built in the first flush of urban rescue. It fronted on Main Street. East Court Street ran alongside it to our left and a set of concrete steps went up to a landing from which an enclosed walkway stretched across East Court to the third level of a parking garage.

"We were handing stuff out there on the side, near the stairs," Melanie said.

"Okay," I said. "I'll go over in the garage. You start handing stuff out near the stairs and if these guys show up, you start retreating up the stairs and across to the garage. I'll be in the garage. Don't be worried. I can see you all the time."

They both nodded. John was having a little trouble swallowing. There was more pressure on him than there was on Melanie. He had a certain amount of manhood at stake. Or he thought he did.