Free Stardust by Robert B. Parker Page B

the world, it would be clear what happened next.
    â€œSo you were going steady?”
    â€œI don’t enjoy your manner very much, Spenser.”
    â€œDamn,” I said. “Everybody says that. Did you and Jill Joyce spend a lot of time together?”
    â€œWe were intimate for several years. Then she stopped seeing me.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know. I had done her several favors. Perhaps once they were accomplished she felt no further need of me.”
    â€œTell me about the favors,” I said. My cup was empty. I put it down on the coffee table. Automatically Rojack picked up a small napkin from the coffee service tray and put it under my saucer.
    â€œSome were merely routine: reservations at a restaurant, tickets for a sold-out event, a drunken driving charge—I have a good deal of influence.”
    â€œCongratulations. Were there any favors that weren’t routine?”
    Rojack leaned back thoughtfully and gazed out at his trees and horses. He looked healthy and very satisfied. He was talking about himself, and he took it seriously.
    â€œI suppose one must define routine,” Rojack said.
    I waited.
    â€œThere was a somewhat salacious piece of gossip that I was able to keep out of the papers.”
    I waited.
    â€œIt involved a young driver on the show and Jill in an elevator.”
    I nodded encouragingly. There was no need to prod him. He liked talking about the things he could fix. He’d tell me all there was. Maybe more.
    â€œAnd there was a young man whom she’d known before she went to Hollywood.”
    Rojack said Hollywood the way a lot of people did, as if it were a place where one might actually run into Carole Lombard on any corner. As if it were glamorous. The sun had edged up to its low winter zenith as we’d sat talking, and now it shone directly in on the atrium from above and reflected in whitely from the unlittered snow. Everything shone with great clarity.
    â€œApparently this young man had been calling Jill, trying to see her, and Jill wanted nothing to do with him. But he persisted until Jill spoke to me about it, and I sent Randall to ask him to stop.”
    â€œAnd he stopped?” I said.
    â€œRandall can be very convincing,” Rojack said.
    Leaning on the archway, Randall looked as pleased with himself as Rojack did. He was one of those rawboned, square-shouldered Yankee types with long muscles and big knuckley hands—all angles and planes, as if he’d been designed to go with the house.
    â€œWhat’s this guy’s name?” I said.
    Rojack looked at Randall.
    â€œPomeroy,” Randall said. “Wilfred Pomeroy.”
    â€œWhere’s he live?”
    â€œPlace out in Western Mass., Waymark, one of those Berkshire hill towns.”
    â€œWaymark?”
    â€œUn huh.”
    â€œWhat was Jill’s connection to him?”
    Rojack pursed his lips for a moment. “Pelvic,” he said.
    I nodded.
    â€œSo,” I said, “why were you after her this morning?”
    Rojack picked up his coffee cup, saw that it was empty, gestured toward Randall with it. Randall came over, took it, filled it, put it back. During which time I watched the red roan horse browse beneath the soft snow.
    Rojack took a sip of coffee. He held the cup in both hands, like people do in coffee commercials, and then they say ahhh! He didn’t say ahhh! He stared for a moment into the cup and then he raised his eyes.
    â€œWe agree,” he said, “that Jill has many failings.”
    I nodded. At the end of the pasture, the red roan browsed too close to a chestnut with a red mane. The chestnut stretched out its neck and took a nip at the roan. The roan shied, kicked at the chestnut, and moved away. The peaceable kingdom.
    â€œBut what you probably don’t see is the Jill that is so . . .” He searched thoughtfully for the right adjective. He spoke as if every word were being reported to an