Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Kickback"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

They were in the van for what seemed like forever. There were no windows and no one told them where they were headed. It was just him and seven other boys. Four of them were black, two Asians, and another scared-shitless white kid. One of the black kids started to talk about the island before they even left Blackburn. He said he’d been to the island three times and it wasn’t so rough. He said it got cold and the staff tried to fuck with your mind. But he said if you kept your head down and kept with the program you’d be cool.

The black kid had a paisley-shaped scar on one cheek and had kind of a far-off look in his eyes like he didn’t believe a word he was saying. Nobody else talked. The two guards were separated from the kids by a wire screen. They listened to some sports talk radio, a show called Paulie & the Gooch, and didn’t say much besides telling the kids to shut the fuck up twice so they could listen.

All of them were in orange. All of them had been cuffed and didn’t have anything to do but look at the floor and try not to think about where they were going as the van raced along. The black kid told him his name was Perry but everyone called him Pooky. He was from the projects in Grove Hill. Pooky said he’d stolen a car just to get the hell out of town. The judge committed him to Fortune Island until he turned eighteen.

“When I get out,” he said, “I’m getting the hell away from this damn place.”

The other white kid was Isaac, a chunky boy not even fourteen, who had stolen a copy of Grand Theft Auto from Target. The boy didn’t talk much, trying to listen and learn a little bit more about the island. No one had told him a thing.

He’d seen his dad for only a second before they removed him from court. His dad was crying. His dad just kept on saying he was sorry but didn’t say he knew what to do. For the first time, his father looked weak to him.

After a long while, the van slowed and the guards got out, slamming the doors. The boys looked at one another. No one spoke. You could hear the wind and sleet against the van doors. Finally the back door opened and there was a bright artificial light. The two men who’d driven them this far telling them to get the hell out.

“Move,” they said. “Come on. Now.”

It was the first time the boy noticed they weren’t cops but had uniforms with a patch that read MCC over an outline of Massachusetts. They told the boys to line up outside in the dark and cold. He could make out part of a parking lot and a dock in the streetlights. The guards marched them down a long path to a small dock, where an enclosed motorboat was waiting for them. They pushed the kids onboard, telling them to keep their feet inside because no one would be diving in after them.

“Sit down,” said an older man in a ball cap. “Shut up. Don’t start trouble for yourself before you even get here.”

The man looked to be in his forties and had a shaved head and a goatee. He wore a ski jacket and had a tattoo on his neck. The snow, sleet, and darkness made it hard to see past a few feet. The boy stared out the boat’s window at the snow catching and melting on the windows, listening to the steady hum of the motor until it revved hard and they left the dock. The men’s feet were hard and heavy around them. There was laughter and a lot of talk. Someone said something about those little fuckers. The man with the tattoo was at the wheel now, staring into nothing, the front of the boat lifting up and slamming back down.

The boy had never spent much time at sea. You could smell the cold salt air all around you.

He felt like he might puke.

He lifted his eyes, everything off-kilter. Pooky was across from him, shaking his head. “Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t show you weak or it’s all over.”

The boy just breathed and looked out the window, looking for something. In the distance came the swinging arc of brightness from a lighthouse.

“How bad is it?” the boy said.

“It ain’t good.”

“What do they do to you?”

“Everything.”

10

A few days later, I sat across from Sheila Yates in a conference room at Cone, Oakes. We were very high up, and the view of the docks and the cold, breaking waves in the harbor was impressive. I almost wished I’d worn a tie, perhaps my J. Press blazer with gold buttons. Instead, I had on work clothes. Levi’s, button-down Ball and Buck shirt, Red Wings, and my A-2 bomber jacket. I kept on the A-2 to shield my Smith & Wesson.

“I’m about to go nuts,” Sheila said. “They take him out there. To that island, and there’s no way to see him? This is crazy.”

“We’ll get him out,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because we will,” I said. “Scali has grown cocky and sloppy. The law is on our side.”

“That doesn’t always mean jack.”

“Depends on who’s cracking the whip.”

Just then a young woman walked into the office carrying a tall cup of Starbucks. She was thin, with a dimpled chin and big, sleepy hazel eyes under a ski hat. She trundled out of an enormous gray coat while she held a batch of papers in her teeth. She sat down at the head of the conference table, still in the ski hat marked with two crossed arrows, and shuffled the papers. I didn’t want to be judgmental, but she looked all of twelve.

“Is Rita coming?” I said.

“Rita is in court today,” she said. “I’m Megan Mullen. I’ll be handling your case.”

“What are you, twelve?” Sheila said.

I stifled a smile. It was a good question.

“No, ma’am, I’m twenty-nine,” she said. “There’s no age discrimination at Harvard Law School. I passed the bar and everything.”

Sheila Yates raised her eyebrows at me. I smiled just a little. I didn’t want Megan Mullen to notice, as she seemed to have small but sharp teeth. She pulled off the ski hat, unveiling a neat bun at the back of her head and two respectable-sized diamond earrings. She pushed up the sleeves on a navy V-neck sweater and settled in to read the papers before her.

I tapped my fingers. “I’m Spenser, by the way.”

“I know who you are,” Megan said.

“Excellent.”

“Rita warned me.”

“Warned you?”

“She said you’re a solid investigator and have done a lot for the firm.”

“And?”

“She said you’d make jokes about me being young.”

“But I’ve refrained.”

Megan looked up from the papers and gave me a wait-and-see glance. I waved an empty palm across the very long desk. We were up so high that a dense fog shifted below us like low-hanging clouds.

“I don’t get this,” she said. “Your son made a joke on Twitter and they arrested him?”

“I know,” Sheila said. “Freakin’ crazy.”

“On what charges?” she said.

“Keep reading,” I said. “It gets freakin’ crazier.”

Megan flipped through the file Sheila Yates and I had put together. This wasn’t a murder case. The file was very thin. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

“So ridiculous my Dillon was hauled away in shackles and taken out into the harbor,” Sheila said. “For rehabilitation, as if he were some kind of criminal. He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t do drugs. He once stole a pack of Doublemint gum when he was four. I made him take it back and pay for it. He’s a great kid.”

“Some people can’t take a joke,” I said.

Megan pushed the papers away from her as if they were a rotten meal. She made an uggh sound and crossed her arms over her very small chest. I bet if she stood on a box, she might come up to my shoulders. She tilted her head at me, dropping those big, sleepy eyes like a hammer. “Oh, I can take a joke,” she said. “If it’s funny.”

“Two lawyers and a priest walk into a bar,” I said.

Megan held up her hand. “Just tell me what you learned in Blackburn.”

“You know Dillon’s grandfather signed a waiver giving up his right to an attorney?” I said.

“I do,” she said. “And we’ve filed an appeal. I just didn’t know the circumstances behind his arrest.”

“For the record, I don’t think the waiver even matters to them. The juvie judge doesn’t like lawyers in his courtroom. Not to mention the public defender in Blackburn didn’t seem too concerned. He said a lawyer wouldn’t have made a difference. And he’s got bigger problems than kiddie cases.”

“Like what?”

“Mainly draining a bottle of Old Crow.”

“So this isn’t isolated?” Megan said.

“I think it’s the Blackburn way.”

“They can’t do that,” she said. “A judge can’t just make up his own procedure and rules.”

“Aha,” I said. “You did go to Harvard Law.”

Megan dropped her chin at me and stared. I smiled. She waited for a moment and then smiled back. Friends after all. Any protégée of Rita Fiore’s couldn’t be immune to my charms. “Disgusting,” Megan said. “Completely disgusting.”

“How long will the appeal take?” Sheila said.

“We’re working as fast as possible,” she said. “Has no one complained about this judge before?”

“A fellow Blackburn judge,” I said. “He got the local newspaper involved and they were able to prove Joe Scali had off-the-charts incarceration rates. The highest in the Commonwealth, with their annual budget being looted for keeping kids in private prisons.”

“And?” Megan said.

“And nothing ever came of it,” I said. “The complaining judge died and Scali was able to explain things off as him being tough on juvie crime.”

“Surely there have been complaints to the Department of Youth Services and the bar?”

“One would think,” I said.

“Blackburn ain’t normal,” Sheila said. “People around there keep their heads down and mouths shut. They tell me that’s the way it’s always been.”

“I heard you’re not too good at shutting your mouth,” Megan said, standing and offering her thin, small hand. I tried to look modest as I shook it.

“Tell Rita I’ll win you over, too.”

“We’ll see about that,” Megan said.

“You know, I have socks older than you.”

“Then I suggest you go shopping, Mr. Spenser.”

I grinned and walked out of the law office with Sheila Yates. She clasped her hands together over her mouth, closing her eyes in prayer, the whole ride down to the first floor. “What do you think?” she said. “Is it going to work?”

“I think the kid will do nicely.”

“I want more than Dillon just out on appeal,” she said. “I want Judge Scali to pay.”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

11

The Magic Bean was on Central Avenue in Blackburn, at the heart of what used to be a thriving business district. These days it hosted a lot of boarded-up storefronts, a Salvation Army thrift store, and the coffee shop. The Magic Bean sold hemp jewelry by the cash register, and local art from the brick walls, and two members of the staff had nose rings. One had blue hair. I felt a little less hip in my Levi’s, steel-toed boots, and lack of nose jewelry. I’d put the nose ring on the list. Maybe someday.

I met my new BFF, Beth Golnick, there, along with two of her classmates who’d had run-ins with Scali. It wasn’t even four o’clock and outside it was nearly black. But the shop was warm and pleasant, smelling of hot coffee and exotic teas. A good place to thaw out.

We seemed to be the only ones in the Magic Bean not staring at a screen. The room was packed with nervous and fidgety kids on their phones and devices. Both of Beth’s classmates were boys, Jake Cotner and Ryan Bell. Jake had been a football player. He was broad-shouldered and muscular but not quite six feet. Ryan was tall, very thin, with nearly white blond hair. If he got a crew cut, he’d look a lot like Shell Scott.

“Why’d you go before Scali?” I said. “Overdue library books?”

The kids laughed. Oh, Spenser, friend of youth.

“I got into a fight with my stepmother,” Ryan said. “She’s a total bitch.”

“She called the cops?”

“I told her she had no class and no business living with us,” Ryan said. “I threw a steak at her. She screamed at me for an hour and then called the cops. She told them I was trying to kill her. Jesus Christ. She’s only eight years older than me.”

“How long did you get?”

“Six months.”

I leaned forward, elbows on knees, and stared at Jake. Unlike me, Jake had worn his letterman’s jacket. I didn’t think I could pull it off without looking like a complete wacko.

“I was screwing around with some friends at one of the old warehouses,” Jake said. “We were just breaking bottles and windows and shit. A cop caught us and Scali sent me away for nine months. I missed my senior year.”

“Are you in school now?” I said.

“Nah.” He shook his head and looked away. “What’s the point?”

Beth sat nearby in an oversized leather chair, feet off the ground, knees tucked up to her chin. Her hair bad been pulled up into a bun on top of her head with the black streak falling in a curlicue over one eye. She played with the strand, studying its color and then tucking it behind an ear.

“Did either of you have an attorney?” I said.

The boys looked at each other and then me, shaking their heads.

“Was an attorney offered?”

They shook their heads again.

“What did your parents say?”

“My dad told me it was good for me,” Ryan said. “He said it would toughen me up. Said my stepmother was afraid to sleep at night. She’s up all night because she’s on pills and addicted to watching reality shows. He met the crazy woman on some kind of dating website. Ick.”

“I live with my mom,” Jake said. “She tried to get me an attorney, but someone told her the judge would be harder on me if she did. You know, like he thought we were fighting the system? She was told for me to take what was given and say thank you. I didn’t think it would be nine fucking months for breaking some windows.”

“Judge Roy Bean.”

“Who’s that?” Beth said.

“A real a-hole,” I said. “From the old days.”

“When you were a kid?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly.”

The kids were impressed. I told them I’d like to talk to their parents, find out what the Blackburn court had told them about a kid’s right to an attorney.

“What’s it matter?” Ryan said. “It’s all a mess now. Nobody is going to go against Scali. This is just what people do here. People say you got to have a tough judge for a tough town. When he came to school and spoke to us, he said he was the reason we didn’t have gangs around here.”

“You do have gangs,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” Jake said. “But not like the old days. People believe he’s keeping them safe.”

“From kids breaking windows and throwing steaks at their stepmoms.”

The boys and Beth didn’t know what to say. They stayed silent. The speakers overhead played a pop song that I barely recalled from thirty years ago and hoped to never hear again. I guessed now it was hip. This was the very reason I never threw away ties. “So what’s it like at the MCC?” I said.

“On the island?” Jake said. “It freakin’ sucked.”

“Sucked big-time,” Ryan said.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You got to live in bunks,” Ryan said. “Five bunks. Ten boys to a room. They wake you up at five a.m. with an air horn. You know, like people bring to football games?”

“And then?”

“And then nothing,” Jake said. “You get crummy food. You can go outside for an hour in the morning and at night. There’s one TV that has shitty reception.”

“They don’t have you weaving baskets or making license plates?”

“You’re supposed to do schoolwork,” Ryan said. “But that’s a joke. You go to this big room where you fill out workbooks. No one can talk and then you turn them in when you’re done. You never get them back. You never get a grade or anything. I started sketching in them to see if anyone would notice. I drew horses and dolphins and things like that. No one said a thing.”

“So you both left the island reformed and upright members of society.”

Beth snorted out a little coffee and then wiped her nose. Ryan got up from the sofa and went to join her in the big chair. He sat on her knee, her arm around his waist. She leaned her head onto his back the way a sister might. He smiled.

Jake excused himself and walked to the bathroom. I hadn’t taken any notes. I’d write down a few things when I got back to my car. But I wanted this to be loose and informal. I wanted to talk to their parents. I still didn’t know where I was headed or how it might help my client. Megan Mullen had appealed Dillon’s case based on no counsel. We were playing the waiting game with legal channels while I continued to snoop. Maybe the snooping would help Dillon, or maybe it would just expose more ugliness.

“Are you really a private eye?” Ryan said.

“Yeah.”

“You like it?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“I have a big neon sign outside my office with a magnifying glass,” I said. “And a sexy secretary who sits on my desk while I think.”

“No,” Beth said, looking doubtful. “Really?”

“I don’t like being told what to do,” I said. “I like being my own boss.”

“I’d like that, too,” Ryan said. “I just don’t know what I want to do.”

“He can draw,” Beth said, rubbing circles on his back. “He can draw really good. You see the artwork on the wall? He made those.”

I looked up and spotted his signature. For a teenager, they were very good. Charcoal etchings of bowls of fruit, trees, and vacant playgrounds. One of the sketches, I noted, as I stood up and walked closer, was of Beth. Her eyes were obscured, but it was the same nose and mouth, the same long strand of black. It was a nude. Beth’s face flushed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Ryan’s not like that. I told him I didn’t mind.”

“Oh.”

“She’s not my type,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“You’re gay,” I said.

“Very.”

“And was that a problem at MCC?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Can you tell me about that?”

He seemed to be very far away for a moment and then appeared as if he might cry. He didn’t speak, only shook his head. “Not now.”

Jake came back and said he had to get going. He looked to the door and around the coffee shop. Everyone was so intent on their phones, computers, and tablets that I didn’t think our presence had even been noted.

“Where do you work?” I said.

“Warehouse,” he said. “I move stone and tile. I take inventory. Drive a forklift.”

“Can’t you go back to school?” I said.

“Now?” Jake said, shaking his head. “Nah. I’m done. Screw those people. I need to get on with my life.”

“But that’s not easy,” I said. “Without the paper.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

We all walked out into the dark together. My popularity was growing.

12

Susan and I were walking in Harvard Square on the way to Russell House Tavern. Susan had on a long black down coat and dark designer blue jeans tucked into a tall pair of Italian riding boots. She bought the boots on our recent trip to Paris and was fond of telling me the great deal they’d been. Nearly half-off at a boutique in the Saint-Germain.

“They remind me of the Brasserie Lipp,” I said.

“Everything about Paris reminds you of the Lipp.”

“The frankfurters with spicy mustard, the sauerkraut.”

“And don’t forget the beer.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “We’ll always have the beer.”

Harvard Square bustled in and around the T station despite it being cold enough to freeze the banana off a brass monkey. A gray-bearded man in an Army coat and fingerless gloves played some Simon and Garfunkel on a battered guitar. Undergrads were hanging out outside the bars, smoking cigarettes and talking about things that Harvard undergrads discuss. Two inebriated girls were in an argument. One told the other that her judgment was skewed so heteronormative.

A homeless man in a ski hat smelling of Mad Dog 20/20 challenged passersby to a Bible trivia test for five bucks. Or at least that’s what his sandwich board promised.

“Let me ask you a professional question.”

“No shrink talk after hours,” she said.

“This isn’t about being a shrink,” I said. “This is about your previous occupation.”

“Housewife or guidance counselor?”

“Guidance counselor.”

She linked her arm in mine. “Fair enough. Fire away.”

“What are your thoughts about cops in schools?”

“When I was a counselor, we didn’t have them,” she said. “It’s a relatively new idea, and while I understand the need, I don’t like the message.”

“Meaning?”

“Some horrific things have happened in schools lately,” she said. “But while the old model had the counselors or teachers or administrators looking for solutions to most problems, all those problems now seem to fall to the school resource officer, and they’re ill-equipped to solve them. From what you’ve told me about Blackburn, and other things I’ve heard, it’s gotten very much out of hand. They’re cops. They have only one approach to a problem.”

“Cops make an arrest and the school’s hands are clean.”

“Out of sight and out of mind.”

“Do you still have any old contacts who may know about the current climate in Blackburn?”

“I resent that my contacts are old.”

“Old is a relative term.”

“I can make some calls Monday.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll buy you an extra order of the deviled eggs.”

“You were going to do that anyway.”

“How about a Bloody Mary?”

“This late?” she said. “I’ll take a gimlet. Ketel One. Fresh lime juice.”

“Of course,” I said. “I may need a double myself.”

“That bad?”

“It’s rotten as hell up there,” I said, both of us turning off the street and into the Russell House Tavern patio, tall mushroom heaters burning a bright orange, and ducking inside and down into the basement. “The juvie courts don’t have an issue with suspending the Constitution. And none of the locals, or even the public defender, wants to challenge it.”

Miracle of all miracles, we found a spot for two at the bar. I ordered a gimlet for Susan and a Harpoon Ale for myself. I tried to keep away from the hard stuff except on very bad days or for medicinal reasons. There was soft music playing and a lot of loud, but not unpleasant, conversation.

“It seems I’m dealing with a lot of trusting and naïve parents,” I said. “Some of them are immigrants who are slow to question authority.”

“Are you sure their rights are being denied?”

“I spent a great portion of my day talking with parents,” I said. “Some I found had the option of a release. My client had the option of a release. I found three others who said the release wasn’t optional and they were told to sign.”

“Do you think that’s the norm?”

“The good judge tries a lot of cases,” I said. “All of them are confidential.”

“But even one case of a child being denied an attorney would be enough for an official inquiry?”

“One would think,” I said. “Apparently another judge up there, a family court judge, filed a complaint that Scali was eating up his budget with all the kids he was putting away.”

“Then why not just talk to the judge?”

“I’d have to retain the services of Madame Blavatsky.”

“Dead.”

“As a doornail,” I said. “Died last year. I tried to speak to his widow, but she seems to be out of town.”

The bartender, looking spiffy in a crisp white shirt and black vest, served our drinks. I liked the new trend of bartenders dressing like bartenders. The bar had a lot of handsome polished wood and marble counters. Single lights hung from the ceiling, filaments burning in vintage globes. We raised our glasses and clinked them together.

“If the kid gets off on a technicality,” she said, “that won’t be enough for you.”

“Or his mother. On principle.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Hard to open closed doors and secrecy,” I said.

“Unless you happen to have a size-twelve steel-toed boot.”

“You have a solid point.” I smiled and sipped some of the Harpoon. “How’d you get so smart?”

“It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to appreciate your unnatural persistence,” she said. “Especially to those abusing power.”

“Toward kids.”

“The worst.”

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