Spenser:
I need some information from Pemberton College. My name is anathema there, so we need to use a little trick.

Lila:
What kind of name is Anathema?

Spenser:
Greek.

Spenser:
Anathema. Pervis Anathema, Refund Enactment agent.

Hawk:
You're the detective. I'm just a thug.

Spenser:
You're too modest.

Hawk:
Didn't mean to say I wasn't a great thug.

Hawk:
Let me see if I got this right: Ellis borrows or steals a car one night, an inconspicuous old pink Caddy. He drives out to Pemberton - in this inconspicuous pink Caddy - where there ain't no black folks, and the cops pay attention to any that they see. Not only that, but he cruises around in this inconspicuous pink car until he spots a white woman on a busy street. He drags this white woman into his car in front of witnesses, drives her somewhere, takes her clothes off, strangles her - though he doesn't rape her - dumps her body in the middle of the Pemberton campus and rides on back home with her clothes in his new inconspicuous pink car, coming from an all-white neighborhood just in case the cops want to stop him. And one of the eyewitnesses went to school with the victim, and the other went to school with the victim's boyfriend.

Spenser:
Your point?

Hawk:
Exactly!

Dean Evans:
You are a private detective?

Spenser:
Yes, ma'am.

Dean Evans:
How does one get to be a private detective?

Spenser:
I hesitate to generalize. I was a cop, found myself restless with the hierarchy, decided to go private. I was helped to that decision by getting fired.

Spenser:
Rita Fiore. Still got the wheels.

Rita Fiore:
Yeah, and I'm still spinning them.

Rita Fiore:
Oh, yeah. Professionally, I'm a big damn success, but am I married?

Spenser:
Gee, wish I could help.

Rita Fiore:
You still seeing Susan, the psychiatrist?

Spenser:
Psychologist.

Rita Fiore:
Whatever.

Rita Fiore:
So who shows up here last spring at my firm? My old adversary, Marcy Vance. And as soon as we're reintroduced, she starts in on me about Ellis Alves. He was framed. She was too green to conduct a proper defense. He was the victim of racial discrimination.

Spenser:
If she's right, somebody else did it. And got away with it.

Rita Fiore:
Uh-huh.

Spenser:
So there's more to this than flashing your legs at me to remind me of what I missed.

Rita Fiore:
Well, that's the primary purpose.

Spenser:
My name's Spenser. Been hired to find out if you did what you're in jail for.

Ellis Alves:
Sure. And who is this? This your butler?

Hawk:
We know you bad, Ellis. Don't have to keep showing us.

Ellis Alves:
What's your name, man? Huh? Tom, maybe?

Hawk:
My name is Hawk.

Spenser:
What I need is a list of the students who at the time of the murder were in the dorm overlooking where the body was found.

Dean Evans:
Do you have some sort of, I don't know the proper terminology, some sort of legal empowerment that requires me to give it to you?

Spenser:
No, ma'am.

Dean Evans:
Oh, then I will not.

Spenser:
You academics are so evasive.

Dean Evans:
My memory is that the man that was convicted of this crime was a career criminal who preyed on women.

Spenser:
So no harm in putting him away, even if he didn't do this one.

Gino Fish:
Your friend Spenser. He appears to be annoying somebody

Hawk:
Yeah, well, he do that.

Gino Fish:
Well, this somebody's doing something about it.

Hawk:
What?

Gino Fish:
Tell him, Vinnie.

Vinnie:
Guy wants him killed.

Hawk:
Well, you turned him down. He ask for a referral?

Vinnie:
No.

Hawk:
Any idea where he might ask next?

Gino Fish:
He knew where to ask. Vinnie's the best.

Gino Fish:
One of the two best. My feeling and Vinnie's is that when he hires, he will hire out of the city and he will get someone good. He offered Vinnie excellent money.

Hawk:
That's nice. See, Spenser's feelings be hurt, they try to ace him cut-rate.

Captain Healy:
Whaddya need today, Spenser?

Spenser:
Maybe I just dropped by to say hi, Captain.

Captain Healy:
Okay, hi.

Spenser:
Maybe to ask what you know about that murder in Pemberton about eighteen months ago.

Captain Healy:
Maybe that too, huh?

Detective Tommy Miller:
Captain Healy says I should talk with you.

Spenser:
Healy tell you why?

Detective Tommy Miller:
Something about that nigger that did the broad in Pemberton. You're trying to get him off.

Spenser:
Nicely put.

Spenser:
Lila. Lila! Time to pay me back for letting you leer at me through the office door.

Lila:
You see me leering, you'll know it.

Rugar, the Grey Man:
I heard you were a tough guy. They sent a local guy. You took him like he was a head of cabbage.

Spenser:
Actually, it was three cabbages.

Rugar, the Grey Man:
Well, don't let it go to your head. I'm not a local guy.

Rugar, the Grey Man:
I have something to tell you.

Spenser:
I thought you might.

Rugar, the Grey Man:
Drop the Ellis Alves case.

Rugar, the Grey Man:
You both been told.