Free Cold Service by Robert B. Parker

and picked up the phone and dialed.
    "Spenser, sir."
    She listened for a moment and hung up the phone.
    "He'll be down to get you in a moment, Mr. Spenser."
    "Thank you."
    I would have sat, but there were no chairs. A door behind the woman opened and Ives was there.
    "Well," he said. "Young Lochinvar."
    He invited me to join him by nodding his head, and I followed him through the door and down a corridor past narrow, unmarked doors, to a corner office with a grandiose view of Boston Harbor and the city. He gestured me toward a large black leather chair with a lot of brass nail heads.
    "Drink?" he said.
    I shook my head.
    "Well, my trusty companion," he said. "You look well. Fully recovered, are we?"
    Ives had the unfeigned sincerity of a coffin salesman. He was thin and tallish and three-buttoned and natural-shouldered. His sandy hair, tinged now with gray, was long and combed back. He looked like a poet. If you had never met one. The last time we had done business, I had almost died.
    "I'm fine."
    "So," Ives said, looking out the window at his view, "what brings you to my place of business."
    So much for the small talk.
    "I need a tough guy who is fluent in Ukrainian."
    Ives smiled.
    "Who doesn't," he said.
    "I thought, given your line of work, you might have encountered someone."
    "In my line of work," Ives said, "I have encountered almost everyone."
    I nodded and waited.
    "Ukrainians are a savage people," Ives said. "Did you know that during the Second World War there was a Ukrainian SS unit."
    "I knew that," I said.
    "The Ukrainians one might meet in your line of endeavor hold promise of being the very worst kind."
    "The very worst," I said.
    "How is your African-American colleague?" Ives said.
    "No need to show off," I said. "I already know you don't miss much."
    Ives smiled.
    "It is my profession," he said.
    "Translator?" I said.
    "I know someone," Ives said, "but it is a bit of a, ah, situation."
    "I'll be brave," I said.
    "You recall several years ago you were almost killed by a man calling himself, at the time, Rugar."
    "The Gray Man," I said.
    "Once you recovered, you retaliated, I believe by apprehending him and threatening him with prison."
    "We made a deal," I said.
    "He speaks Ukrainian."
    "Rugar's Ukrainian?"
    "I don't know his nationality. Nor is Rugar his current name. But he speaks many languages, and he is not afraid of Ukrainians."
    "Nor much else," I said.
    "I might be able to arrange a meeting."
    "Do," I said.
    "Your past relationship will not interfere?"
    "Not on my account."
    "And perhaps not on his," Ives said. "The Gray Man is, after all, a professional."
    "Aren't we all," I said.

24
    THE GRAY MAN wanted a public place, so Hawk and I met him in the central rotunda at Quincy Market. It was a high-domed circular space in the center of the old market building. There were tables and benches for eating. Food stalls occupied both the wings that ran off the rotunda, and the room was normally full of tourists and high-school kids from Melrose. Hawk and I were drinking coffee at a table next to a wall where we could see the whole space.
    And there he came.
    He was still gray, a gray trench coat, gray slacks, black shoes, his gray hair smoothed back, his gray turtleneck showing at the top of his trench coat. He was still tall, and he still wore an emerald in his right earlobe. He walked straight across the floor of the rotunda and sat down at the table across from Hawk and me.
    "No one has killed you yet," he said to me.
    Hawk looked at him without expression.
    "You've come the closest," I said. "We still calling you Rugar?"
    He shrugged. "Might as well."
    "You speak Ukrainian?" I said.
    "Yes," Rugar said.
    If he was aware of Hawk's stare, he didn't show it. He showed nothing. He seemed to feel nothing. He moved only as required and then with great economy of motion.
    "You know me?" Hawk said to Rugar.
    "Hawk."
    "You scared of trouble?" Hawk said.
    "No," Rugar said.
    "What's your ask," Hawk said.
    "To