"Don't do anything silly," I said to John. "I know you're mad, and I know you feel compromised that they pushed you and Melanie around. But you're not a big kid, and I am."

"Yesterday there were two of them and one of me," he said. "Today we're even."

His face was very serious. He had a short haircut, parted on the left. He wore a red plaid shirt with a b.u.t.tondown collar, chino pants, rust-colored deck shoes with crepe soles, and a tan parka with a forest-green lining. He probably weighed 155 pounds. He was probably an accounting major.

"Yeah," I said. "What are you majoring in?"

He looked surprised. "Finance," he said.

Close.

Melanie had on a black watch plaid jumper and a beige sweater, a full-length camel's hair coat, and black boots. She looked at John and said, "Don't be foolish, Johnny. I don't want you to get hurt."

"You can't just lie down and take it," he said.

"We won't," I said. "Let's get to it."

They went to the stairs. I strolled over to the garage. I'd have to be quick about things or John would get his clock cleaned proving he was manly. What happened to turning the other cheek?

You see one civic center you've seen them all, but the weather was splendid for November. Sunny, no wind, temperature in the low sixties-a grand day for scuffling. I had on a gray Harris tweed jacket and a black knit tie and charcoal gray slacks and a Smith & Wesson.38 Chief Special with a two-inch barrel, and cordovan loafers with discreet ta.s.sles. I was conservatively dressed, but when you take a size 48 jacket, the choices are limited. Especially if you insist that the fabric be animal or vegetable.

It was a twenty-minute wait before the two sluggers showed up. I knew who they were even before I saw the kids stiffen and glance toward me and then quickly away. Both were overweight, though neither was exactly fat, and I knew if the fight lasted more than five minutes, I had them. They were swaggering a little as they approached the kids, feeling pleased, thinking they would be having some fun. One of them wore a navy watch cap and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There was a nude woman tattooed in blue ink on each forearm.

He said to the kids, "You didn't learn nothing yesterday, huh?"

His partner was a little taller and little less overweight. He had shoulder-length hair, streaked with gray.

Melanie started to move away from them, up the stairs, toward the walkway. John had to follow, keeping himself between the two sluggers and Melanie.

"Good idea," said the gray-haired slugger. "We'll talk in the garage."

The walkway was topped with a translucent amber plastic and they all looked a little yellowish as they walked across.

When they got across, there was no one on level three of the garage but me. The levels were color-coded. Mine was green. When the four of them walked into the little anteroom off the main garage floor, I was leaning against the far wall, by the elevators, with my arms folded.

"Hidey-ho," I said.

Tattoo said, "Who the f.u.c.k are you?"

I said, "I'm with the clean mouth bureau. Let's just step around the corner here and I'll explain why swearing is ignorant."

Tattoo frowned. He had come down here with Old Gray-hair to roust a couple of college kids and now he had something he wasn't comfortable with. Probably hadn't rousted a size 48 in a while. His partner took over.

"You a cop?"

I moved my head at the kids and we started into the garage while we talked. The two sluggers unconsciously stayed with us. I didn't look like a college kid, but there were two of them. And they were supposed to be tough. And it would be hard for them to explain to each other why one guy had scared them away. So they moved into the parking garage with us.

"A cop?" I said. "No, no. You misunderstand. I'm with the Alexander campaign."

We were fully into the garage now, and between two rows of cars. There was no one in sight.

The one with gray hair spoke again. "Alexander campaign, huh? Well, you probably know what we told these two nerds. Same goes for you."

"You a holy roller too?" Tattoo said.

"No," I said. "I'm a policy implementation specialist."

"What the f.u.c.k's that mean?" Gray-hair said.

I smiled very flutely. I said, "Well, it is campaign policy that our campaign workers not be hara.s.sed, if you see what I mean." I shifted my feet a little and got balanced.

"Oh, yeah." Tattoo again. "And what d'ya do if they are?"

I hit Tattoo a left hook. Maybe the best left hook ever thrown in Springfield. He went rattling back against a tan Buick Electra, and his knees buckled and he sagged without falling.

"Implementation," I said. And kicked the gray-haired man in the groin. He doubled up and fell down. Tattoo's eyes got a little clearer and he shoved himself off the Electra and lunged at me. Not smart. He lunged right into a straight left and stopped short. I shuffled a little to my right and came down over his left shoulder and hit him a right-hand shot that finished it. Tattoo dropped to the concrete floor and stayed.

John was just getting into his fighting stance as Tattoo went down. I smiled at him.

"There," I said. "The power of sweet reason."

Chapter 6.

Alexander and I were sitting alone at a small table in the corner of the main dining room at a German restaurant called The Student Prince and The Fort. It was on Fort Street, which probably accounted for some of the name. Why it had all that other name was a mystery to me. But the food was good, and there was German beer, and I wasn't having a bad time.

Alexander ordered sauerbraten. I chose Wiener schnitzel. The restaurant was a splendid clutter of beer mugs and German artifacts. Susan and I had eaten there a couple of times before when she'd come to Springfield on business and I'd come for the ride. The food was good.

The waitress brought us two draft beers. Alexander looked down into the top of his as if there might be a message.

"You going to turn that into wine?" I said.

Alexander smiled without much pleasure. "That was water, I believe. I know you don't mean any harm, but I'd rather not joke about Jesus, if you don't mind."

We are not amused.

I drank some beer. Alexander went back to studying his.

"You probably wonder why I wanted to have dinner with you alone," he said.

I nodded.

"Well, first, what did you learn about the two men that molested my young campaign workers?"

"I learned they had reached their limits with the kids," I said. "With me they were in over their heads."

"I heard you had a fight with them."

"Fight is too strong a word. I breathed heavily on them and they fell down."

"Even so," Alexander said. "I would have preferred another approach."

I shrugged. "Made me mad, slapping a couple of kids around."

Alexander nodded. "Did you learn why they did that?"

"They told me a man they didn't know gave them two hundred dollars to hara.s.s the kids. Said that he told them there might be more to come if they showed him they could handle it."

"A strange man just approached them on the street?"

I shook my head. "No, not quite. I called the Springfield cops, these guys have a modest reputation in what you might call paralegal circles. If you were from Boston or Worcester or Hartford and you wanted to hire a cheap small-time arm twister, the grapevine would lead you to these guys."

"Will the two young people press charges?"

"They said they would."

"What if these two men harm them, threaten them to make them withdraw the charge?"

"No," I said. "They won't. I told them not to."

Alexander looked up from his still unsipped beer. He studied me for a minute. "And they're afraid of you?"

"Um-hmm."

"Well, you are physically imposing, but there must be a savagery in you that doesn't show normally."

"Um-hmm."

Our waitress went by, and paused, and looked at my yearning eyes and empty gla.s.s.

"Would you like another beer, sir?" she said.

I nodded and she took my stein away and brought it back full very promptly. Alexander hadn't touched his yet. How could you respect a man like that?

Alexander looked at me some more. Probably checking for hidden savagery. "And there's no way to trace back who hired them?"

"I wouldn't say no way." I paused, sampled the second beer. It was in no way inferior to the first. "It could be investigated; the two sluggers could be pressed more vigorously. Maybe they'd remember more. Maybe not."

Alexander clasped his hands together and pressed his lips against the knuckles of his thumbs.

"What I am going to tell you, Spenser, is absolutely private. It is something that you must tell no one at all. No one."

I waited.

He looked back down at his beer some more.

"I have to confide in someone. I need help. I have to be able to trust you."

I waited some more. He looked up at me again. Piercing. "Can I trust you?"

"Sure," I said. "But the foreplay is getting tiresome."

He kept his piercing look on me. Must have spent hours getting it right. Probably a real purse-loosener at fund-raising speeches. Then he tightened the corners of his mouth, relaxed them, and said, "Yes. I will have to trust you. I must."

He waited for relief to sweep over me.

Then he said, "I'm being blackmailed. Now you see why I wondered who sent those thugs. I don't know who is doing the blackmail, but they wish me to drop out of the Senate race and throw support to my opponent."

"Browne," I said.

"Yes."

"You think he may be personally involved?"

"I don't know," Alexander said. "Obviously he's the one to benefit if I do as I'm asked."

I nodded.

"I don't know what to do," Alexander said.

I nodded again.

"Do you have any thoughts on the matter?" Alexander said.

"Not yet," I said.

We sat and looked at each other. Our waitress returned with dinner. We were silent while she set it before us, took my gla.s.s, went away, and brought it back full, and asked if we needed anything else.

Alexander said, "No thank you," in his Westbrook van Voorhees voice. The waitress departed. I took a bite of Wiener schnitzel. "Yum, yum," I said. I washed it down with a sip of beer. There were fried potatoes, and applesauce, and dark bread in a basket. I thought about the proper sequence for them. Maybe a rotating basis, a bite of schnitzel, a bite of potato, a taste of applesauce, some bread, a sip of beer. Then start over. Yes. That was the best approach, though one needn't be rigid. I had another bite of Wiener schnitzel. Drank some beer. Alexander was still looking at me. Didn't drink any beer, now he wasn't eating any sauerbraten. The man was mad.

"I will have to tell you, won't I."

"If I'm going to help you, you probably will," I said.

He looked down, took in a long breath, and closed his mouth and held it, and then let the breath out through his nose. He placed both hands, palms down, on the table and tapped his spread fingers once on the tabletop. Then he looked back up at me.

"It's Mrs. Alexander."

I nodded.

"She has, I'm afraid, been indiscreet."

I nodded some more.