Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Wonderland"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

65

“SO I GUESS I’m screwed on the condo deal,” Henry said.

“Afraid so.”

“I had already made plans to expand the gym,” he said. “Another room for Pilates or maybe some spin classes.”

“How about a larger boxing room?”

“That would attract more boxers,” Henry said. “You guys are gonna give me a fucking heart attack.”

“He’ll be okay,” I said.

“You believe that?” Henry said.

“Got to.” I wasn’t so sure, but thinking Z was dead didn’t help us. We would search until we found him.

“Blanchard said they used a special guy,” Henry said. “I know animals like that. In fact, we both know an animal exactly like that. They don’t make fucking mistakes.”

“Neither do I.”

We drove through the Callahan Tunnel toward 1A. It was past midnight now as we rolled past the cut-rate motels, big rusting oil tanks, and barges running along the Chelsea River. We made it to Revere in fifteen minutes. Across the highway the condos stretched north along Revere Beach like dominos, red lights blinking from rooftops. You could smell the ocean.

The parking lot at Wonderland had been cleared of most of the cars, revealing buckling asphalt and potholes. The broken pieces of the old amusement park stood as still sentries. There was still crime scene tape marking the front entrance to the grandstand and someone had thought to install a new stretch of chain link across the front of the whole racetrack. Off the lot, near a couple of ragged construction trailers, I spotted Z’s Mustang. I suddenly felt like I’d swallowed sand.

“Better to know,” Henry said.

“I’ll call Healy,” I said.

“Maybe he’s inside.”

“I’ll call Healy,” I said. “You stay here.”

“Fuck I will.”

“When the cops get here,” I said, “send them in.”

“I’m coming.”

“If someone is with him, I need to handle it,” I said. “If he’s dead, you don’t want to see it.”

“Remember what I taught you about taking a hit?”

“Sure.”

“Answer it back,” Henry said. “Times two.”

“Henry, this isn’t your work.”

“I started this,” he said. “I’ll goddamn well finish it.”

He opened the car door and started for the chain-link fence. After I left a message for Healy, I opened the hatch of the Explorer and threw a tarp from two pristine Winchester 12-gauges. I pocketed a flashlight and a box of shells. I did not want Henry to come. Nor did I want to wait around all night while we debated the point. Against my better judgment, I handed the old man a shotgun.

“Times two.”

“Goddamn right,” Henry said.

My heart felt displaced in my chest. I took a deep breath and searched for a way to get through the chain link. I kept a Leatherman in my jacket and used it to pry open the end of a section attached to a metal pole. At the very top of the rounded brick entrance was a big fancy sign for WONDERLAND, with the image of a muzzled greyhound in full sprint. I handed several shells to Henry.

He loaded the 12-gauge with great dexterity.

I nodded my approval.

“What do you expect after hanging out with you and Hawk all these years?”

“Style and class,” I said.

We stepped through the ragged opening and approached the wide red-and-white tiled entrance. I clicked on the flashlight and lifted open the bent and cracked door frame. Broken glass crunched underfoot as we passed abandoned ticket booths and turnstiles and walked up a gentle ramp to the concession stands and the wide, empty space that was once a temple to the glory of off-track betting. Empty wires and cables hung loosely from the walls. I pointed the flashlight toward the south end of the building. The ticket stubs of the losers still littered the floor like ticker tape.

Henry walked beside me. We did not speak. There wasn’t much to say.

I held the flashlight tight against the barrel while I walked. There was a smattering of puddles and the long stream of backed-up sewage. The smell was unpleasant as we briskly took stairs up to the Club House and into the booth where Sammy Cain used to announce. There were a lot of overturned chairs and hamburger wrappers and empty Budweiser cups. A large bank of windows looked out onto the dirt track itself, barely visible except for the lights to some warehouses next door. We pushed through one room. And then another. We went through a half-open door; the weak light from outside gave the room a noirish patchwork of shadow and light. That’s where we saw the fallen figure of the woman, fallen at an impossible angle on the red-and-black linoleum. I moved closer and edged the flashlight onto her face.

From the bruises and torn clothing and halo of blood around Jemma Fraser’s head, it was clear she’d been killed in a very ugly manner. Henry walked away, gagging and coughing, and toward the bank of windows. A warm wind hustled in from the track, whistling through the cracked windows and cavernous space of the Club House.

I took a breath and searched outside for anything.

“What a fucking waste,” Henry said.

I nodded.

From beyond the broken windows was a mechanical sound, a low humming, coming from deep in the bowels of Wonderland. The place had been closed up for nearly five years and I seriously doubted the electric bill had been paid. Henry and I followed the sound, out of the Club House, down the stairs, and out into the grandstand. The humming came from somewhere out into the track. Every thought was of Z and how I’d failed him. Henry patted me on the back as we walked. I had not let go of the shotgun. I held it in my hands, wishing for some violence.

“Does he have anyone back in Montana?” Henry said.

“Nope.”

“No mother, no father,” he said. “Holy Christ.”

Some old metal starting boxes lay in a heap at the far side of the track. Beyond the track, just off the dirt now grown up with weeds, was a cinder-block kennel. A bit of light came from the mouth of the kennel, and Henry and I walked toward it. I pocketed the flashlight, holding the Winchester steady in both hands.

There was no door, just a wide passage into the kennel. Dog cages ran down both sides of a straight shot through the center of the building. At the end of the passageway, a mechanic’s light had been snaked through some pipes and hooked to a generator. Along those same pipes, someone had hung thick chains where the figure of a man twisted in the dim light. The generator made the walls and metal cages shake.

Henry held the gun in his hand as if the dead man might spring to life. I did the same. The face of the dead man turned away, slowly rotating on the chains. Under the lifted feet lay an old car battery, a bucket of water and sponges, and some kind of metal brushes attached to wires. The setup was crude but probably effective.

I used the shotgun to turn the dead man. His face was black, and his purple tongue hung from his open mouth. He was a large man with large hands that had turned black in death. He was not Z.

I took a breath. Henry called out to me and I ran toward him.

Z was in the back corner of a cage, fallen to the concrete in a crushed pile. There was a lot of blood, one eye swollen shut, and deep searing burns and open wounds across his bare chest. Z had found a way to take out his torturer, but barely.

“He’s breathing,” Henry said. “Christ, he’s breathing. Give me something to stop the bleeding. Give me something. He’s bleeding like a fucking stuck pig.”

I tossed off my jacket and tore off my shirt. Henry pressed the shirt to the wounds and patted Z’s face with soft, tapping slaps. “Come on. Come on.”

I knelt down and helped move Z from the wall. I could hear sirens coming from the highway. I reached for the water bucket. Henry dabbed my shirt in the water and ran it over Z’s almost unrecognizable face.

Henry held Z in his lap, pressing the shirt against the bleeding and bruises, the broken ribs and bones.

“Breathe,” Henry said. “Come on. Come on. Breathe.”

“He’ll make it.”

Henry dabbed more water across his face and busted eye.

“How do you know?” he said.

“Because he finished it,” I said. “He won.”

There were more sirens, coming closer, echoing from the parking lot. Z opened his good eye and smiled. Henry grinned and shook his head. “Son of a bitch,” the old man said.

66

VERY EARLY THAT MORNING, I stood with Healy on the right side of a two-way mirror, watching Brian Lundquist interview Rachel Weinberg. We’d been there for more than two hours at 1010 Commonwealth and the interview had been ugly to watch. Rachel started off indignant and that soon spooled into rage. Henry stayed with Z at Mass General.

“What do you think?” Healy said.

“I’m glad we’re on the right side of the mirror.”

“She’s nuts,” he said.

“Perhaps.”

“She blames Jemma Fraser for her husband being a cock hound.”

“She blames Jemma Fraser for being the right kind of bait.”

Healy shrugged. “Same difference.”

“All the other women didn’t bother her,” I said. “What bothered her is being replaced.”

“You know how much money she gave up?” Healy said.

“You know how much power she gave up to Jemma?”

There was no place to sit on the other side of the looking glass. The room was bare and clean. In the old days, places like this were filled with empty coffee cups and cigarette butts. The cleanness of the space made everything seem very clinical.

“But she has not confessed,” Healy said.

“Nope.”

“And she won’t.”

“Nope,” I said. “Still, she won’t have much of a choice but to make a plea.”

Healy nodded. When they picked up Rachel Weinberg at the Four Seasons, Lewis Blanchard had followed. Blanchard had spent an hour with Lundquist, Healy, and me before they interviewed Rachel. He had been very forthcoming.

“Can he trade what he knows for a deal?” I said.

“Don’t see why not.”

“Even though he killed two men?”

“Fucking Jimmy Headaches and the Angel creep?”

“Jimmy Aspirins,” I said. “The Angel of Mercy.”

“Whatever.”

We were both tired of listening to the one-way conversation, most of it through Rachel’s harried attorney. He was a young guy in smart black glasses wearing a pajama top under a khaki overcoat.

“Why not,” Healy said. “I’m not crying for those guys. You think a jury would?”

I watched Rachel Weinberg lean back in her chair and firmly shake her head. She wore a lavender sweatsuit, her face a dull white without makeup. Gold and diamonds sparkled on her fingers and around her neck.

“Fucking bastard,” she said. “Fucking bastard.”

“Who’s she talking about?” Healy said.

I shrugged. “Maybe all of us.”

“How is Z?” Healy said.

“Busted up and broken.”

“I’ve seen you that way a time or two.”

“It’s character building.”

“If you make it through.”

We watched while Rachel Weinberg’s attorney stood, held up his hand, and stopped the questioning. He looked silly with his overcoat open, revealing his poorly buttoned pajama top. Rachel Weinberg sat looking down at her hands, deep in thought. No more rage but something like resolve.

“Oh, tiger lily,” I said to the glass. “If only you could talk.”

“What?”

“She was pushed,” I said. “And now she’s trying to make sense of it.”

“By what?”

“By a mathematical system.”

I left 1010 and got into my Explorer. I drove to Mass General and stayed there for ten days. Susan flew home. Henry watched Pearl.

67

I MET VINNIE MORRIS nearly a month later at one of the big open pavilions at Revere Beach. The weather was good that day, with a bright, strong sun and heavy waves that broke across the sand. I had brought Pearl with me. I had strategically parked across from Kelly’s Roast Beef, promising her a few morsels in exchange for the company.

Vinnie walked up onto the empty pavilion and threw down a copy of the Globe. There had been a front-page story that morning by Wayne Cosgrove. Gino Fish had been featured prominently.

“What the hell?” Vinnie said.

The tone of his voice made Pearl scatter back a couple steps and bark. I put my hand to her head.

“Easy.”

“Easy?” Vinnie said. “You want me to be fucking easy?”

“I was talking to Pearl.”

“We can’t have this,” he said. “You gave Gino your word.”

“I told Gino others were aware of the flow of money.”

“You said it couldn’t be proven,” Vinnie said. “I was right there. I fucking heard you.”

“I said I wouldn’t help prove it one way or another.”

“But you told this reporter about Gino and Perotti.”

“Actually, he told me,” I said. “I only had the bank information. I’m terrible with math.”

“Jesus,” Vinnie said. “The FBI raided Gino’s office this morning. They pulled Perotti out of the State House. You know what this looks like?”

“Business as usual?”

Pearl still stood at attention. She was still not overly fond of Vinnie’s tone. But the sudden whiff of Kelly’s on the ocean breezes calmed her. I patted her head again.

“You know what this means?” Vinnie said.

“I’m off Gino’s Christmas card list.”

“You damn well know.”

I nodded.

Vinnie stared at me. I was reminded of long-ago meetings in the company of the late Joe Broz. The newspaper pages fluttered between us. Seagulls glided on light breezes off the breaking waves. “You damn well know.”

He left the pavilion. I sat down with Pearl. We both watched Vinnie get into his car and disappear north. Pearl sniffed at the shifting wind.

We walked a bit on the beach and then drove back to Cambridge. Susan was waiting for us, four bags packed and ready for five days on Cape Cod. Half of one of the bags was mine. Z was staying at my apartment while I was gone, closer to physical therapy and a therapist Susan had recommended.

As we hit Route 3, Susan turned to me and said, “How did it go?”

“Vinnie is perturbed.”

“Vinnie will get over it.”

“Not this time.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I think we all got played a little,” I said. “Some more than others.”

“Z said you believe Harvey Rose was aware Jemma Fraser would destroy the Weinbergs the whole time.”

I nodded.

“That’s very confident.”

“Not if you know the odds,” I said.

“And Rose walks?”

“Yep.”

“Hands clean.”

“You tell me,” I said.

“Do you think Harvey Rose is a sociopath?”

“I think Harvey Rose is an interesting addition to the Boston ecosystem.”

“And perhaps a system now minus Gino Fish.”

“Charges of bribery won’t harm Gino Fish,” I said. “It will only enhance his reputation.”

Susan nodded. I turned to look at her on a straightaway. Her black hair was down and flowed loose and very thick. She wore a black cotton dress and leather flats, a thin gold chain around her neck.

In the backseat, Pearl’s collar jingled as she reached with a hind leg to scratch her ear. Gold afternoon light filled the car as I placed my right hand on Susan’s. She leaned in to my shoulder, and I could feel a familiar swelling in my chest. We were quiet all the way to the Sagamore Bridge. Crossing the canal, I had hope for a great many things, and tried not to dwell on things I could not change. I thought about Z and wished the same for him.

“Together again,” Susan said.

I nodded and drove, the road open and wide across the bridge.

•  •  •

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