The Judas Goat

Archived by Mike on 15 December, 1996

Latest Update 18 November 2006 by Bob Ames

Publication Information

The above information is from the online catalog of the Minuteman Library Network and my own collection.---Bob

Cover Information

Taken from the back of the paperback edition

"Spenser had gone to London--and not to look at the Queen. He'd gone to track down a bunch of bombers who'd blown his client's wife and kids away. His job was to catch them. Or kill them. His client wasn't choosy.

But there were nine killers to one Spenser--long odds that could add up to a short life. Hawk, the iron-fisted Boston enforcer, would help balance the equation. The rest would depend upon a wild plan. Spenser would get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat--to lead him to the others. Trouble was, he hadn't counted on her being very blond, very beautiful, and very, very dangerous."

Recurring Characters

• Hawk is the only recurring character that has any significant presence in TJG. He and Spenser discuss Detective Lieutenant Martin Quirk and Henry Cimoli as men who know "how a man acts". Spenser and Hawk spend a good deal of time together, and further define their relationship in the process. Spenser mentions the incident in Promised Land that allowed them to become better friends in the first place.
• Susan Silverman drops Spenser at the airport for his flight to London, and he visits her briefly midway through the story. He spends a lot of time thinking about her and missing her from afar, but she is not an integral part of the story.
• Hugh Dixon, the client who hires Spenser, also appears as a benefactor in A Catskill Eagle.

Unanswered Questions

• Who was paying the bills for Liberty? They certainly needed a lot of money in order to afford all those different flats in different countries, as well as the fake passports and such.
• And Ingrid Lether noticed a problem with the membership:

  It's a year after the blast that Hugh Dixon hires Spenser.  In London, Spenser is informed by Downes that 'there are 10,12 (people).  The figure changes every day.  Some join, others leave.'  How come the complete group is still there, a year and more after the bombing?

• If Spenser had a Montreal address on one of the passports, why didn't he stake out that address first? My guess is that he may have thought that Paul and Zachary would know their cover was blown and seek out new lodgings, but then again, Spenser is nothing if not exhaustive in his searches. He must have thought it would be a waste of time, and that he'd get better results at the Olympics (which, in fact, he did).   Well Mike, if you were making up a fake passport, which hers obviously was, would you put the actual address of a safe house on it?  Spenser knew better than to even try.  Thanks to A17tonFrog for writing in about this.
• The Montreal policeman Morgan says that Hawk carries no identification. Hawk has just been to Europe and is now in Canada. Didn't he need a passport? If he had one, even a fake, wouldn't he keep it until he got back to the US? My guess is that he used a fake ID/Passport to get to Canada from Europe, then ditched it because he wouldn't need it to get back across the Canadian border. Still, he'd probably need a license of some sort when stopped at the border. Ya know, I was in Canada a few short months ago, and I can't even remember if the customs official asked for my license or not. I think he did, but I can't remember. Peachy...

Literary References, or "The Annotated Gumshoe"

• Chapter 1: "You can't judge a house by its portico" - No doubt a play on the proverb: "You can't judge a book by its cover."
• Chapter 3: "But oh so gentle." - Iain Campbell noted this usage.  See Oft Quoted
• Chapter 4:
  1. "Be careful, Matt." "A man's gotta do what he's gotta do, Kitty" - Gunsmoke
  2. "Heathrow Airport's name leads all the rest." - A reference to the poem Abou ben Adhen by  Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). "And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." See Poetry
• Chapter 5: "...You don't have a lot of bodies out beating the bushes on Egdon Heath or wherever." - The setting for Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.
• Chapter 6:
  1. "I looked at my watch. 8:50. Subtract six hours, it was ten of three at home.  I wondered if Susan was in her counseling class." - David Richard Farmer writes:

     "UK time is five hours ahead of Eastern time."

     Good point, but it gets worse from there.  The book ends at the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal, and judging by the timing Spenser started this adventure in late Spring.  On 25 April 1976 at 02:00, clocks in the Eastern time time zone were set forward to 03:00 when Daylight Savings Time kicked in reducing the time difference to four hours, which would make it 4:50 pm in Boston. Susan's "Techniques of Counseling" course with Professor More ran from "two-o-five to four fifty-five" (chapter 3) so even if she was there ("It probably didn't meet that day.  But maybe in the summer") she would have been home less than half an hour later.

  2. The Globe Theater: "I also had the vague feeling that it no longer existed." - The original was in existence from about 1599 to 1644. Spenser may want to return and look for it now. The site was cleared in 1987 and it has been rebuilt.
  3. "There was a way to tell if they were there or not..." - If the Queen is in residence the Royal Standard is flown on the flagpole.
  4. "I didn't hear a nightingale singing." - A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square, words by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manny Sherwin. Frank Sinatra had a big hit with it.  See Lyrics
  5. "All right Louis, drop the gun." - Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart to Claude Rains.

     Hisao Tomihari notes that what Bogie actually said was simply  "Not so fast, Louis."

  6. "Flamingos on the grass, alas." - Gertrude Stein's 1927 play Four Saints in Three Acts. "Pigeons on the grass, alas."
  7. "You can't plan on the enemy's intentions...You have to plan what he can do, not what he might." - Hisao Tomihari notes that this seems to be the first reference in the series to the advice of General Carl Von Clausewitz.  See Oft Quoted
  8. "I guess I'll just see if it feels good afterward." - See Looking for Rachel Wallace
• Chapter 7: 
  1. "Spenser, man of a thousand faces." - Lon Chaney carried that sobriquet.
  2. "Please drop your pants" - I never thought about this line, but my foreign correspondent Iain Campbell writes:

     "The English doctor tells S to 'drop his pants.'  It is a direct quotation, not S reporting indirectly what the doctor had told him to do.  The doctor shortly thereafter uses the word 'arse', so he is definitely English not North American.  Being English, he would have referred to Spenser's 'trousers.'  In the UK, 'pants' means 'underpants', and I think that the doctor would have called them underwear, or shorts, or Jockeys, or boxers or briefs... I think RBP just slipped a little."

• Chapter 8: "Continuity in the midst of change." - Mark Gunther writes that it sounds similar to a line in His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle.  "Toward the end, where Holmes is buttering Watson, calling his stodginess the one fixed point in a changing world, referring to WW1.

  'Good old Watson.  You are the one fixed point in a changing world.'"

• Chapter 9: 
  1. "If at first you don't succeed put if off till tomorrow." - Thanks for Hisao Tomihari for pointing out this one.  See Oft Quoted
  2. "England swings like a pendulum do"
     • Dennis Tallett writes:

       Roger Miller wrote this and performed it. It was his smash hit of 1965. Petula Clark also made it a bestseller.

     See Lyrics

• Chapter 11:
  1. "Mr. Watson, come here, I need you." - Alexander Graham Bell. These were the first words spoken by telephone, from AGB to his assistant, Mr. Watson. Since Spenser is calling Susan overseas, this passage is particularly appropriate.
  2. "If a man tires of London, he is tired of life." - Samuel Johnson (not sure of the work). It's from James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, slightly reworded.
     • Dennis Tallett ties it down a bit more:

       "'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in 
       London all that life can afford.' The Life of Johnson, Vol. III, by James Boswell.

  3. "Come on with the rain, there's a smile on my face." - Singing in the Rain, from the 1952 movie of the same name. Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Cyd Charisse. After typing in this entry I had to go out and rent it again.  See Lyrics
• Chapter 12: 
  1. Tantalus - In Greek mythology, Tantalus was a man who, in order to please the Gods at a dinner he held for them, killed and cooked his son and served him to them (nice guy, huh?). As punishment for his sins, he was placed in a river in the underworld, near hanging branches of fruit. Every time he reached for fruit, the wind blew it out of reach, and whenever he bent down to drink the water, the water level receded, so he suffered from unending pangs of hunger and thirst. We get the verb "tantalize" from his name. Greek mythology is so cool (if a bit gory and graphic at times).
  2. "He was always having stone crab and pink champagne" - Spenser is referring to James Bond and Jay Stribling notes:

     "I am pretty certain the the reference to pink champagne is from the earlier part of Goldfinger, when Bond is helping a Mister Dupont stop Goldfinger's cheating Dupont at cards. I believe that Dupont takes Bond out for dinner and they have 'Stone Crabs' washed down with 'Pink Champagne.'"

     That is indeed the reference.  Upon further research I found that the self proclaimed Minister of Martinis has set up a research site of the Bond novels entitled "Make mine a 007."  The statistics page on drinks in the books is located at http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/007/nstats.htm and the Goldfinger page is at http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/007/goldf.htm   

  3. "We've come to follow Katherine, not to screw her." - That sounds suspiciously like what Antony said in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act 1 scene 1.  "I come to bury Caesar not to praise him."  
• Chapter 14: "Have gun, will travel. Did Paladin do revenge? Probably."

  Glenn Everett writes:

  Paladin's business card read:

  Have Gun, Will Travel
  Wire Paladin
  San Francisco

  A paladin, of course, is a knight-errant."

• Chapter 15:
  1. "I went out of the Sheraton and turned left on Vester Søgade." - David Richard Farmer writes:

     "You really can't.  The Sheraton (now the Scandic) is at the corner of Vester Søgade and Gammel Kongevej. 
     The walk he describes is turning right.  (I lived in there for five years, and would take friends to that general area.)"

     Many thanks, David.  One of the wonders of the internet is finding someone who knows which direction one should walk to reach Number 35 

  2. "You aren't Cecil Rhodes, are you?" - Cecil Rhodes was the founder of Rhodesia.
• Chapter 16: "Right now we are up a fjord without an oar, as we Danes say" - a play on "Up the creek without a paddle."
• Chapter 19: "Still waters run deep"

  Mikael Igge Holmberg writes:

  'Still water run deep' (repeated four times) is the chorus to "Still Water (Love)", a song by Four Tops, a soul group who started out in the sixties.

  'Still Water (Love)' by William 'Smokey' Robinson/Frank Wilson. Tamla Motown 1970.

  It's a very old saying, meaning that there can be much hidden beneath a placid surface.  See Lyrics

  • Dennis Tallett writes

    "It's a 14th century proverb and is similar to 'Smooth runs the water 
    where the brook is deep,' Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II, Act 3, scene 1, 
    line 53."

• Chapter 20: "A tinkling piano in the next apartment." - The example of a 'clue' Spenser gives is from the song These Foolish Things, written in 1935.   Thanks to Stephen Holland for finding this one.  See Lyrics
• Chapter 21:
  1. "Wasn't that the title of a book?" - Yes indeed Hawk, Do With Me What You Will was written by Joyce Carol Oates and published in 1973.
  2. "Boots and Saddles." - A bugle call from the days of Horse Cavalry. It was the signal to saddle and bridle the horses and (ahem) prepare them to be mounted.
     • Dennis Tallett writes

       "Boots and Saddles the 1957 TV series set in the 1870's with the American 5th Cavalry as the heroes. I think this is the theme music that Hawk is humming."

     Yep, the show ran from 1957-1959, and they used that cavalry call as their theme song.  I was wondering why Hawk was familiar with it.

     My usual source of TV lore, "The Complete Directory of Prime Time Network TV Shows" came up empty and it took quite a bit of Search Engine activity to even confirm the show existed.  When questioned Dennis replied:

     "The series went straight into syndication and the major networks were not involved.  There were 39 half-hour episodes."

• Chapter 22:
  1. "My strength is [as] the strength of ten, [/] Because my heart is pure" - See Oft Quoted and Poetry (Sir Galahad)
  2. "Oh Susanna, don't you cry for me, I come from Montreal with--" - a play on Stephen Foster's O Susanna [1848], chorus: "O Susanna, don't you cry for me; / for I've come from Alabama, with my banjo on my knee."  See Lyrics
• Chapter 23:
  1. "There were dogs there and a balloon man. I did not hear him whistle far and wee." - an allusion to e. e. cummings's Chansons Innocentes [1923], 1 (since his poems are visual as well as verbal, I'll show it in its intended form):

     it's
     spring
     and
                    the
     
                                 goat-footed
     
     balloonMan              whistles
     far
     and
     wee

     I edited Mike's original entry to the form I quoted in Thin Air.  Close enough, but I included the entire poem, in the best online presentation I found, in Poetry.

  2. "She had some kind of fancy shampoo that came in a jar like cold cream and had a flower smell to it. I used it. Ferdinand the Bull" - Probably a reference to the early Disney cartoon about the bull that loved flowers and didn't want to gore dudes in the funny hats with the red capes in the bullfighting ring.

     The 1938 Disney cartoon Ferdinand the Bull won an academy award for Best Short Subject - Animation.  See the details at http://www.teemings.com/shorts/disney/years/1938/ferdinandthebull.html 

     But the Disney people didn't make it up from scratch.  Rtfbsfrff (aka Barb) points out that it was an adaptation of the classic children's book The Story of Ferdinand, written by Webster Monroe (Munro) Leaf and first published in 1936.   I found a copy of it online, with the original pen and ink drawings by Robert Lawson.  See it at http://pages.prodigy.net/poss/ferdinand/     

  3. "I took one look at you, that's all I meant to do." - My Heart Stood Still by Rogers and Hart. Ella Fitzgerald first sang it in the 1927 movie A Connecticut Yankee.  See Lyrics
  4. "Home from the hills is the hunter" - It's the last line of Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson.  See Poetry. 

  Chapter 24:

  1. "Two shots in the ass and I was off on the greatest adventure of my career." - James Fulford points out that:

     This is in fact a famous first line, from Sleep Till Noon, by Max Shulman (1950)
     
     "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life!"

  2. "Here's looking at you, kid" - See Oft Quoted.  Also shows up in Chapter 25 (but this time Susan beat him to it!)
  3. "We deal in lead, friend" - The Magnificent Seven (screenplay) (spoken by Steve McQueen to Eli Wallach).
  4. "With a little help from my friends" - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, With a Little Help from my Friends - performed, of course, by The Beatles (sung by Ringo Starr).  See Lyrics
• Chapter 25:
  1. "...a morning of delight." - possibly from Hope by Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820.) "And though Aurora's stealing beam/may wake a morning of delight/'tis only thy consoling beam/will smile amid affliction's night."
  2. "I looked like one of the friends of Eddie Coyle." - The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a 1972 novel by George V. Higgins about a bunch of two-bit gangsters in Boston. It was made into a 1973 movie starring Robert Mitchum.
• Chapter 26: "the trains silent" - Spenser is noting how different the subway is from what he is used to. Foreign correspondent Iain Campbell writes:

  "He is struck by the silence of the Montreal subway. I was too, after the squealing of Paris Metro.  Montreal's subway cars have rubber tires, hence the silence."

• Chapter 27:
  1. "Do nothing till you hear from me." - Hawk is whistling this between his teeth while he and Spenser are taking on Zachary. It was a big band hit from 1943, words by Bob Russel, music by Duke Ellington.  See Lyrics
  2. "No more Mr. Nice Guy." - A line from an old gangster movie, I'm sure. The Alice Cooper song is one of my favorites, but the phrase has become so popular that my web searches went nowhere.  See Lyrics
  3. "He can run, but he can't hide" - See Oft Quoted
• Chapter 30:
  1. "Stick with me babe, and you'll be wearing ermine" - This maddeningly familiar line was on my Unknown Quotes page forever until Ron Hopkins wrote in to say:

     "This may be a version of the line 'Stick with me and you'll be wearing diamonds', said by Robert Armstrong to Helen Mack in The Son Of Kong (1933).

     I haven't seen the flick in a long time, but I did a search on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com) and that is what came up."

  2. "This sceptered isle, this England" - William Shakespeare, King Richard the Second [1595], Act II, Scene 1, line 40.
  3. Spenser's English Song Medley:
     • A Foggy Day in London Town  See Lyrics
     • A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square See Lyrics
     • England Swings like a Pendulum Do  See Lyrics
     • There'll be Blue Birds Over the White Cliffs of Dover  See Lyrics

Meanwhile, in the Spenser Universe

• Spenser expands his horizons somewhat in this novel. He has been to London before, as well as Amsterdam. However, he has never been to Copenhagen or Montreal. He gets to see the 1976 Summer Olympics and the Tivoli Gardens. He eats at the London landmark, Simpson's-on-the-Strand, as well as the Post Office Tower restaurant, which may never have existed or no longer exists (personal experience from one of the page authors, who tried to go once).

  Yes, it did exist back when this book was published.  Peter May writes:

  Post Office Tower definitely had a revolving restaurant and a viewing platform (which I have been to) when it opened. But the IRA left a bomb on the viewing platform which never reopened to the public, and the restaurant closed in 1980.

• "The things I won't do for money are one hell of a lot more numerous than the things I will do." - So Spenser can't be corrupted. We all kind of figured this before, but it's always nice to hear it from the gumshoe's mouth.
• Spenser's "Broo List":
  • Chapter 2: Coors in Jason Carroll's office.
  • Chapter 5: "Draught beer" at Simpsons-on-the-Strand (good old generic draught (or draft) beer; Gotta love it).
  • Chapter 9: Amstel at the Post Office Tower restaurant. The real stuff, too. None of this "Amstel Light" crap.
  • Chapter 14: Carlsberg from the hotel vending machine.
  • Chapter 21: Labatt 50 Ale on the plane to Montreal.
  • Chapter 23: Utica Club Cream Ale at Susan's.
  • Chapter 25: O'Keefe's Ale at the rented house in Montreal (Hawk picked it up).
• Just for the record, that's the sixth time his nose has been broken.
• Spenser is reading Regeneration Through Violence by Richard Slotkin.

Favorite Lines

Chapter 3: The right to bear arms

"Next I called the British Consulate. They told me that if I were bringing in a shotgun there would be no problem. I could simply carry it in. No papers required.

'I had in mind a thirty-eight caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. A shotgun in a hip holster tends to chafe. And carrying it around London at high port seems a bit showy.'

...

'It is not permitted of course to bring in machine guns, submachine guns, automatic rifles, or any weapon capable of firing a gas-disseminating missile.'

'Oh, damn,' I said."

Chapter 3: The right tool for the right job

"There are people in the city of Boston who have threatened to kill me. I don't like to walk around without a gun. So I took my spare, and stuck it in the small of my back. It was a Colt .357 Magnum with a four-inch barrel. I kept it around in case I was ever attacked by a finback whale..."

Chapter 3: It's not the thug I mind, it's the small time...

"She said to me, 'I beg your pardon, are you a Greek multibillionaire shipping magnate and member of the international jet set?'

I said, 'Yes, I am, would you care to marry me and live on my private island in great luxury?'

She said, 'Yes, I would, but I'm committed to a small-time thug in Boston and first I'll have to shake him.'"

Chapter 5: Bloody tourists...

"Flanders paid the cabbie, turned the bags over to the hall porter, and steered me to the desk. He didn't seem to have a lot of confidence in me. A hired thug from the provinces, can barely speak the language, no doubt. I checked my heel for a cow flap."

Chapter 5: Freedom of the press

"'If you were from the papers,' Downes said, 'I'd reply that we were developing several promising possibilities. Since you're not from the papers I can be more brief. No. We haven't anything.'"

Chapter 6: The drawbacks of being a non-smoker

"I hadn't smoked in ten or twelve years, but I wished then I'd had a cigarette that I could have taken a final drag on and flipped still burning into the river as I turned and walked away. Not smoking gains in the area of lung cancer, but it loses badly in the realm of dramatic gestures."

Chapter 6: Awwww, isn't that sweet?

"But when they blew up the Dixons there were nine of them that Dixon spotted. They didn't need nine. It must have been their sense of community. The group that blasts together lasts together."

Chapter 7: Spenser's mind can be a scary thing

"I was getting tired of holding the gun. My hand was stiff, and with the thing cocked I had to hold it carefully. I thought about shifting it to my left hand. I wasn't as good with my left hand, and I might need to be very good all of a sudden. I wouldn't be too good if my gun hand had gone to sleep, however. I shifted the thing to my left hand and exercised my right. The gun felt clumsy in my left. I oughta practice left-handed more. I hadn't anticipated a gun hand going to sleep. How'd you get shot, Spenser? Well, it's this way, Saint Pete. I was staked out in a hotel corridor, but my hand went to sleep. Then after a while my entire body nodded off. Did Bogie's hand ever go to sleep, Spenser? Did Kerry Drake's? No, sir, I don't think we can admit you to Private-Eye Heaven, Spenser.

Chapter 7: The perils of detective work

"'The bullet still in there?' I asked.

'No, went right through. Clean wound, some blood loss, but nothing, I think, to be concerned over.'

'Good, I'd just as soon not be carrying a slug around in the upper thigh,' I said.

'You may choose to call it that if you wish,' the doctor said, 'but in point of face, my man, you've been shot in the arse.'

'There's marksmanship,' I said. 'And in the dark too.'"

Chapter 8: Become a doctor! It's a laugh a minute!

"The doctor put a pressure bandage on my, ah, thigh, and gave me some pills for the pain. 'You'll walk funny for a few days,' he said. 'After that, you should be fine. Though you'll have an extra dimple in your cheeks now.'

'I'm glad there's socialized medicine,' I said. 'If only there was a vow of silence that went with it.'"

Chapter 8: What is the proper way to address a terrorist?

"Okay, I thought, this is where she lives. So what? One of the things about my employment was the frequency with which I didn't know what I was doing or what to do next. Always a fresh surprise. I have tracked the beast to its lair, I thought. Now what do I do with her? Beast wasn't the right word, but it didn't sound right to say I've tracked the beauty to her lair."

Chapter 10: Spenser, master of conversation

"'What's your name?'

'Suck my ass,' he said.

'Okay, Suck,' I said. 'We're going down the corridor and pick up your buddy. If you have an itch, don't scratch it. If you hiccup or sneeze or yawn or bat your eyes I am going to shoot a hole through your head.'"

Chapter 10: Or maybe it's Spenser, master of persuasion.

"'Do you know that I get twenty-five hundred dollars for you alive or dead, and dead is easier?'"

Chapter 11: So The privileges of nobility

"'I don't like you sending for Hawk.'

'It's just to help me do surveillance. Even Lord Peter Wimsey has to whiz occasionally.'

Susan's laugh across the ocean, only slightly distorted by distance, made me want to cry. 'I believe,' she said, 'that Lord Peter's butler does it for him.'"

Chapter 12: Reach out and mug someone

"Talking on the phone from 5000 miles away was like the myth of Tantalus. It was better not to. The telephone company has lied to us for years, I thought. Always tell you that long distance is the next best thing to being there. All those people call up and feel swell afterward. I didn't. I felt like beating up a nun."

Chapter 12: But not much better

"Hawk had the clip out of the .22 I had brought and was checking out the action. Shaking his head.

'The bad guys use these over here?'

'Not all the time,' I said. 'It's just what they could get.'

Hawk shrugged and slipped the clip back in the butt. 'Better than screaming for help,' he said."

Chapter 13: Ask not what your people can do for you...

"'[I'm] Just a poor old colored person, trying to get along with the white folks.'

'Well, I'll give you credit, you were the first one to integrate leg-breaking on an interracial basis in Boston.'

'A man is poor indeed if he don't do something for his people.'"

Chapter 17: So, do you race here often?

"Hawk said 'yowza' and went into the bookstore. He went to the back and down the steps. Five minutes later he was back up the stairs and out of the bookstore, his face glistening with humor.

'Get any pointers?" I said.

'Oh yeah, soon's I make a move on a pony, I gonna know what to do.'"

Chapter 18: Second prize is the two stiffs that were with her...

"There was an envelope stuck to Kathie's right thigh with some of the same adhesive tape that closed her mouth. I picked it up.

'Maybe we won her in a raffle,' I said."

Chapter 19: OOO, kinky. I like it...

"'Her idea of a good time is probably to be beaten by Benito Mussolini with a copy of Mein Kampf.'"

Chapter 19: Spenser, homemaker

"I got a can of Spot-lifter off the top closet shelf and sprayed the blood stains on the rug.

'That stuff work?'

'Works on my suits,' I said. 'When it dries I just brush it away.'

'You make a fine wife someday, babe. You cook good, too.'

'Yeah, but I've always wanted a career of my own.'"

Chapter 20: Can't these guys cooperate at all?

"'Gone?' I said.

'Uh huh.'

'Clues?'

Hawk said, 'Clues?'

'You know,' I said,' like an airplane schedule with a flight to Beirut underlined.  A hotel confirmation slip from the Paris Hilton.  Some tourist brochures from Orange County, California.  A tinkling piano in the next apartment.  Clues.'"

Chapter 23: But it's a special avocado pit...

"But they were our glasses and they were for drinking champagne out of on special occasions. Or at least I thought they were. I was always afraid I'd come in some day and find her sprouting an avocado pit in one."

Chapter 24: It was a dark and stormy night...

"'Two shots in the ass and I was off on the greatest adventure of my career...'"

Chapter 24: It's nice to be appreciated

"'...you look tired.'

'I am tired,' I said. 'I've just been screwing my brains out.'

'Oh, really?'

'Oh really, I said. 'How come you were doing all that sighing and moaning?'

'Boredom,' she said. 'Those weren't sighs and moans, those were yawns.'

'Nice talk to a wounded man.'

'Well,' she said, 'I am glad the bullet didn't go all the way through.'"

Chapter 25: Next time leave the lens cap on

"I showed him my PI license with my picture on it. I looked like one of the friends of Eddie Coyle.

'Yeah,' he said, 'that's you.'

'It disappoints me too,' I said."

Chapter 26: Our nation's finest gumshoes at work

"A tribute to careful search and survey techniques and a masterpiece of concentration, looking over the stands aisle by aisle, and he almost walks into me while I'm eating a hot dog. Super sleuth."

Chapter 28: So, does Zachary get the silver?

"Trying to control his laughter, Hawk said, 'We just copped the gold medal in outdoor scuffling.' It was the funniest thing I had ever heard, or so it seemed at the time, and the two of us were still giggling when they loaded us into the car and hauled us off to a hospital."

Food

• Chapter 4: Meatloaf at St.Botoph.
• Chapter 5: Mutton at Simpson's.
  • A plate of sandwiches later in his room.
• Chapter 6: A Steak and Kidney pudding at the zoo.
• Chapter 8: Three eggs sunny side up, ham, toast and coffee in the hotel coffee shop.
• Chapter 9: Veal Piccata, English trifle for dessert and the Post Office Tower.
• Chapter 11: Juice, oatmeal and coffee for breakfast
• Chapter 12: Sandwiches in his room.
  • A Hershey bar with almonds and a green apple for lunch while on stakeout.
  • Many shrimp cocktails in Hawk's room.
• Chapter 16: Breakfast at the hotel: Pastry, cold cuts, butter and cheese.
  • A tough piece of veal at a restaurant in Tivoli.
• Chapter 18: Dinner at the Little Num. "For dessert they brought out a great crock of red currants, cherries, strawberries and blackberries that had been marinated in cassis."
  • Five broudjes the next day, "...three out of hunger and two out of boredom."
  • Indonesian rijsttafel at the Bali Restaurant.
  • Pate, cheese, and bread in the hotel room.
• Chapter 21: Cheese and French bread.
• Chapter 22: Eggs steam-fried with a little white wine, toast with apple butter.
• Chapter 24: German potato salad, pickles, various wursts and loafs, Westphalian rye, Dusseldorf mustard. All from Karls Sausage kitchen I assume.
• Chapter 25: Coffee and two donuts from Dunkin' Donuts.
  • Dinner at Baccos, including a very good country pate and French bread.
• Chapter 26: A hot dog in the stadium.
• Chapter 27: Sausages outside the stadium.
• Chapter 30: It is implied that he will order Duck with cherries at the Post Office Tower.

Drink

• Chapter 2: Coors in Carroll's office ("Coors is okay for a domestic beer, I guess.")
• Chapter 4: Three beers on the plane to London.
• Chapter 5: Draught beer at Simpson's-on-the-Strand.
• Chapter 6: Various beers, all unnamed.
• Chapter 9: The Post Office Tower has Amstel.
• Chapter 12: Amstel in Hawk's room.
• Chapter 14: Bottles of Carlsberg from the hotel vending machine.
• Chapter 18: Amstel with the rijsttafel at Bali's.
• Chapter 21: Labatt 50 on the plane to Canada.
• Chapter 23: Utica Club Cream Ale at Susan's.
• Chapter 24: Dom Perignon with the deli meal at Susan's
• Chapter 25: O'Keefe's ale at the house, Labatt 50 ale at Bacco's.
• Chapter 26: Beer in the stadium with his hot dog.
• Chapter 27: Beer with his sausages outside the stadium.

Notes

• A rather large portion (i.e. 90%) of this page was contributed from the brain of Mike Ferguson, he of the bounteous ISBN's. Special thanks go to Mike for his kind and generous assistance.
• Spenser the master burglar picks the locks on two doors. This skill is mentioned once more in The Widening Gyre and never again.
• Just out of curiosity, who won the medals for the discus at the 1976 Montreal Olympics?  Spenser sees them on the stand when he finds the mark Paul left on the stadium wall.
  • That was one of the first questions I asked when I took over the site and it stood there for almost two years.  Thanks to Thom Brannon coming up with the names:
    • Gold: Mac Wilkins USA
    • Silver: Wolfgang Schmidt GER
    • Bronze: John Powell USA
• Point/Counterpoint:
  • Peter May is from England and points out a few legal problems:
    • I don't believe a PI would be allowed to carry a handgun in the UK. Special exceptions have to be made for the US secret service guards when the US president visits. Brits aren't allowed to walk around with a concealed handgun, so why should a foreigner?
    • Its incomprehensible that a shoot out in a London hotel resulting in deaths wouldn't attract intense media attention. One of the hotel staff would have tipped them off
    • Also incomprehensible that Spenser could just walk away with his gun. What about attending the coroners inquest? What about police investigation?  The gun would have been taken for evidence.
  • Iain Campbell responds:
    • The points raised about the use of guns and the power of the press in UK are good, but rather like my points about the alarms in Widow's Walk: they appeal to a certain belief in standard procedure and a parallel belief that everyone is treated alike. They deny that huge wealth and influence can cause things to happen or not to happen, in the UK just as in the US or Saudi Arabia...or Canada. Dixon has both. (And we see the Canadian RCMP at the Games take an unusually lenient approach to their scuffling and gun-toting). I would love to think that England's bobbies are incorruptible, and treat rich and poor alike, but alas.... while the venality of their yellow press is well established. Anyway, I suspect that the anti-terrorist top people can pull rank/influence and quash unwanted publicity, and Spenser is on an anti-terrorist hunt.
• Show me the money: Now that's what I call a payday. Fifty thousand dollars for completing his mission.

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