Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Wonderland"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

31

I NEVER FIGURED the Fenway HoJo for the kind of place Jemma Fraser would have chosen to meet the sluggers. I figured the sluggers had probably chosen a place they felt comfortable. So Z and I drove back to the Hong Kong Café that afternoon, Z finding the same spot where he’d sat the other night. I shook the water from my coat and ball cap and took a seat on the stool next to him.

There was a different bartender pouring drinks, a young Asian woman with her hair styled like a forties pinup. Her eyebrows were artfully drawn and dramatically arched. She wore a white tank top, a red hibiscus inked on her upper arm. The flower twisted and grew as she poured out a beer for Z and another for me.

I smiled pleasantly at the bartender.

“Nice tattoo,” I said.

She smiled at me.

“Met a guy in here the other night had one I really admired,” I said. “Had it drawn on his neck. Very classy.”

She smiled some more.

“Really short hair. Balding, but with a mustache and goatee.”

“You a cop?”

I shook my head.

“Just tattoo enthusiasts,” Z said.

“Yeah, right,” the bartender said.

“I was talking business with this guy,” I said. “He seemed like a real straight shooter. I misplaced his phone number. We were going to take in a movie sometime.”

“You guys suck for cops,” the girl said.

“Do I look like a cop?” Z said.

“No,” the bartender said. “But he looks cop enough for both of you.”

I gave a modest shrug.

“We just need to speak to him,” Z said.

“No drugs here,” she said. “No way.”

“He told me his life was the seminary,” I said.

The bartender scrunched her mouth into a knot and shook her head. “You two are the worst cops I ever seen. You look like you should be pro wrestlers. Grow a mustache and you could be Pancho Villa.”

“Not Mexican,” Z said. “Cree Indian.”

“Prove it,” the bartender said. She crossed her arms across her smallish chest and raised her artful eyebrows. Her face had been dusted with a lot of makeup. She looked sort of like a Kewpie doll.

“You want to test my DNA?” Z said.

“Say something in your language,” she said.

He shrugged and said something in what I assumed was perfect Cree.

“What the hell does that mean?” she said.

“I asked, ‘What is your name?’”

“Kym with a y.”

“Kym with a y,” Z said. He smiled. She smiled back. I let my apprentice take the lead. No reason to double-team her with charisma and charm. “We just need to talk to this man.”

“About drugs.”

“No,” I said. “A woman he knows is missing. We need to find her.”

“So you are cops.”

“We are private investigators,” Z said. He smiled. I could tell he liked saying it.

“C’mon.” The bartender laughed and walked away. “That is so corny. C’mon.”

“It’s the best we got,” Z said.

I drank some more Tsingtao. Rain hammered on the big bank of windows facing Fenway. Insignificant trees bent and shook in the wind. The day had grown dark, and no light shone from the stadium. I ordered a couple of spring rolls and glanced up at the television. More news about Weinberg’s death on Fox 25. The room smelled of Asian spices and cigarettes.

“You want another beer?” Z said.

“I’m good.”

“What if I ordered another?”

“You’re a grown man,” I said.

Z took a long breath. He stared straight ahead and glanced at his bruised reflection in the mirror. He shook his head. “I’m good, too.”

I nodded.

“How long do we wait?” Z said.

“Long as it takes.”

“You know I lied before?”

“About what?”

“What I said to that woman in Cree.”

I waited.

“I told her she had the ass of a young elk.”

“Is that complimentary?” I said.

“To a Cree woman. Very.”

We both finished the last of our single beers. We waited. We watched more of the news crawl about Weinberg’s death. He had been in town to meet with casino investors. Police have not given official cause of death but were treating it as a homicide.

When I turned from the bar to the entrance, the black man Z had fought walked into the room. He smiled and pointed at Kym with his index finger. Mr. Popular. She stood motionless, mouth open, slowly shaking her head. Z stiffened and removed a boot from the railing. He set it down on the floor. His eyes met the man’s. Z braced the edge of the bar with the flat of his one hand.

The man stopped mid-stride, looked at Z, and closed his mouth. Z took a step toward him.

The man ran. Even on the injured leg, Z was quick. I left some cash with a nice tip and followed. The man had disappeared from the front lot. Z darted for one corner of the motel, and I ran around the other. When I got to the back parking lot, the man was trying unsuccessfully to scale a chain-link fence topped in concertina wire. Even without a hard rain, this would have been a difficult task. But the rain had made the metal slick and unstable, and the slugger had found himself trapped in the razor wire, one foot hanging over the HoJo property and the other on Van Ness Street and the back of Fenway.

Z yanked him from the fence, flesh and clothes ripping, and knocked him to the wet ground. The man tried to stand, but Z hit him hard in the throat, sending him to his knees. I kept running. Z kicked the man in the face, and as the man tried to regain his footing, Z punched him in the face. There was a flurry of rights and lefts, and then the man toppled to his back. Z was on him, pinning him to the ground, fists pummeling until I pulled him off. The man was bleeding badly.

“Fuck,” the man said. “Fuck.”

He had curled into a ball, waiting for more. I reached for his gun, a cheap .45, and his wallet. The man had a New York driver’s license issued in the name of Bryant Crowder. Bryant had given up trying to escape. He had the word MISUNDERSTOOD tattooed across his neck.

I stared down at him. “Ain’t it the truth,” I said.

Z had his hands on top of his head and was catching his breath. He looked like he wanted me out of the way. I held up a hand and shook my head.

“We’re looking for your friend, Jemma Fraser,” I said. “Where is she?”

Bryant wiped the blood from his lip. “Who the hell’s that?”

A lot of rain trailed off the brim of my cap. I shook my head. “See, sluggers like Bryant here will always answer with ignorance. Obviously, they come by this trait naturally.”

“Jesus,” Bryant said. “He broke my fucking ribs.”

Z looked at him. “Easier to fight with a gun on me.”

Bryant grinned a little. Z stepped up and kicked him again.

“Where is Jemma?” I said.

“Don’t know the bitch.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Such a mouth.”

“Woman hired you to shake down those old people in Revere,” Z said.

“Damn. It wasn’t no woman,” Bryant said. He was breathing heavily. “She just told us where to go and what to do.”

“Okay,” I said. “Who hired you?”

Bryant tried to push himself up off the ground. Z moved in closer, his face an inch from Bryant’s. Z did not wear a pleasant expression.

Bryant shook his head. “Mr. Weatherwax.”

I nodded. “Come on, Z.”

“Not finished.”

“You are for now.”

Bryant smiled a bit. “Got you once,” Bryant said. “Get you again.”

Z nodded but punched him hard in the throat before standing. Bryant curled into a ball, choking. I walked back to my car in the rain. Z followed.

“You know who he’s talking about?”

“Jacky Wax,” I said.

“Who is he?”

“Dope dealer, pornographer, killer, extortionist.”

“Man of many talents,” Z said.

We got into the Explorer and headed out. The windshield wipers worked overtime.

“You good?” I said.

“Better,” Z said.

32

I WONDERED if Jacky Wax still remembered me. I wondered if some people still called him Jacky or if he used John Weatherwax. I hoped he was still Jacky Wax, a name befitting the manager of a Boston landmark such as the Purple Banana. The strip club was in the South End, not far from Tufts medical school. An artfully drawn neon banana shined under dark skies as Z and I trod through a few puddles to the front door.

“Used to work a club like this in L.A.,” Z said.

“Lots of job satisfaction?”

“Nice for the first week,” Z said. “Strippers are all crazy. Hooked on drugs. The boyfriends are usually losers who either sit at home all day or deal. A man can only look at naked women for so long.”

“I am willing to test that theory.”

“Trust me,” Z said. “Music is bad. Dancing is bad. Places always smell like smoke and puke.”

“Not the Purple Banana,” I said. “This is a class place. Jacky Wax is a class gent.”

“How do you know him?”

“Used to work for a guy named Mr. Milo.”

“And who is Mr. Milo?”

“One does not utter the name Mr. Milo in these parts,” I said.

We paid the twenty-dollar cover and walked inside. A dozen or so oiled, nubile bodies worked gold poles in rainbow light. Men in crumpled suits and loose ties sat alone, fanning out dollar bills. A couple held hands in a back booth by long black curtains leading to somewhere called the VIP room.

I sat down at a table facing a giant golden birdcage while Z made his way to the bar. Two women ran their hands over each other to some music that sounded like Madonna. Of course, all bad music sounded like Madonna to me. Z placed two Budweisers in front of us, reached into his wallet, and slipped a dollar bill into the cage. One of the women picked it up with her teeth. The other woman helped her turn upside down and slide down the pole, which was not so much sexy as it was awkward.

We drank warm beer and turned from the cage to watch the main stage. A bony girl with straight blond hair came out in little else but tall fur boots. The boots looked as if they’d come from a skinned yeti. Next, a black girl with a short Afro and enormous breasts did a lot of twirling and tumbling to some pinging electronic music with a thumping electronic drum.

“You think the DJ could play ‘Night Train’?” I said.

“What’s ‘Night Train’?”

“Probably haven’t heard of pasties, either,” I said.

I hadn’t finished half my beer when a topless waitress appeared and asked if we wanted another round. I shook my head. Z did, too.

“Is Jacky around?” I said.

“Mr. Weatherwax?”

“I knew it,” I said. “Now he sounds like the brand name for a boot cleaner. Yes, Mr. Weatherwax. Tell him Spenser is here.”

“Spenser?”

I nodded. “With an s, like the English poet.”

Z waited. A young girl dressed as Pocahontas stepped onto the stage and twirled around the golden pole. “Maybe I should let you two talk,” I said.

Z shrugged. “Different tribe.”

Halfway through the song, Jacky Wax approached our table. He smiled and revealed his crooked yellow teeth. He was tall and thin-shouldered, and wore a tailored gray suit with a lavender dress shirt and pink tie. The pink tie was held in place by a ruby stickpin. When he sat down, I noted he wore very pointy black short boots that zipped at the ankles.

“You’re looking good, Jacky,” I said. “Get that suit off the back of a truck?”

“This is fucking Gucci,” he said. “Cut by a tailor with the hands of a surgeon.”

“This is Mr. Sixkill,” I said. “My associate.”

Jacky did not take his eyes off me. “I heard you was dead.”

“Maybe your watch had stopped.”

“Funny,” Jacky said. He took his eyes off me for a moment to look in the birdcage. He nodded with approval. “So what brings you to the Banana? Lose another whore?”

“The Fine Arts Museum was closed,” I said.

“Ha,” Jacky said. He crossed his legs as a waitress brought him a drink that looked like grenadine and club soda.

“Looking for Jemma Fraser,” I said.

“Who?”

I leaned in. “The woman who needed a few thugs for a shakedown.”

Jacky scratched his cheek.

“You need me to call Mr. Milo?” I said.

“Oh, that Jemma.”

Z grinned.

“You know that many?” I said.

“I was just trying to help the broad.”

“How do you know her?”

“Came recommended.”

“By whom?”

Jacky shook his head.

A couple of girls walked over to Z. One massaged his shoulders. Both wore bras and panties and high fishnets. He told them he was broke. They scattered.

“Associate?” Jacky said.

“Yep.”

“You getting old?” he said. “Need someone to pick up the slack?”

“Nope.”

Jacky shrugged, then rolled his shoulders. “Don’t know what to tell you. Ain’t my problem if you got it in for the broad.”

“Come again.”

“When she come to me the second time, she was shitting a brick.”

“Why?”

“Protection,” Jacky said. “She said someone was trying to fucking kill her.”

“They may have succeeded.”

“Not my problem,” he said. “Not now.”

Z turned from the stage and leaned forward to listen. The acoustics were not grand in the Purple Banana.

“She say who wanted to hurt her?” I said.

“Say, I could use a big guy like that,” Jacky said, looking at Z. “Work the door. Scare the knuckleheads who try and hump the furniture.”

“Not my kind of work,” Z said.

“What is?” Jacky said.

Z nodded toward me.

“Too bad,” Jacky said. “You looked smarter than that.”

Jacky studied Z. He then turned his attention back on me, slowly smiling. “I heard Hawk was out of town.”

“Maybe.”

“I’d watch your back if I were you,” he said. “These ain’t nice people.”

Jacky looked over Z’s shoulder. He then craned his neck behind him to another stage, another girl. He looked me up and down, took a deep breath, and leaned in. I met him halfway. “This ain’t nothing like the local crews you’re used to,” Jacky said, whispering. “I don’t want no part of this crap.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause I prefer to keep on breathing,” he said. “Too much money. Too many guns.”

“From Vegas?”

Jacky snorted. He shook his head with pity and walked away.

33

“Z BEEN IN ANOTHER fight?” Henry said. “His knuckles were busted again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But this time he came out on top.”

“Good,” Henry said. “Good.”

“If I hadn’t pulled him off the guy, I think Z would have killed him.”

“Not good.”

“Nope,” I said. We both stood outside our own cars at the Ocean View. The storm had brought in a heavy surf. And even in the diminished rain, the waves rocked across Revere Beach. Henry locked his car and we walked toward the condo.

“Where’s Z now?”

“Looking for the woman who sent the thugs,” I said.

“Not satisfied?”

“Not in the least.”

“You think this broad killed Mr. Weinberg?”

“I’d like to find out what she knows,” I said. “So would the staties.”

We reached the glass doors to the condo. I held one open for him.

“Might’ve finally expanded the boxing room,” Henry said.

“And a sauna?”

“Don’t push it,” Henry said. He smiled.

“The fight today wasn’t much of one,” I said.

“Then what the hell was it?” Henry said.

We stood in the empty lobby together on the silent terrazzo floor. I searched for the word. “Rage,” I said.

“What’s wrong with being pissed off?” Henry said. “If it works.”

I shook my head.

“’Cause it’s what you think made him drink before?”

I nodded.

“Because of what happened before he ended up here?”

I nodded.

“No family, people that he knew wiped their ass with him?”

“Yep.”

“But he’s not drinking?” Henry said.

“Susan said he needed to work,” I said. “So we’re working. He’s handling things.”

“But you’re concerned about the after?”

“I am.”

Henry nodded. He walked to the elevator and pushed the up button.

“But how long can you look out for the kid?” Henry said.

I tilted my head. “Long as it takes.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “Me, too.”

The elevator dinged and the door opened. Henry walked inside. I stayed in the lobby.

“’Cause he’s one of us now,” Henry said, pressing the button to his floor.

“Yep.”

34

WHEN I RETURNED to my apartment, Wayne Cosgrove was waiting at the front door. I unlocked the door, and without a word, Wayne followed me up to the second floor. I went to the kitchen, Pearl curiously sniffing at Wayne, and reached for a couple beers in the back of the refrigerator. I popped the tops. I handed Wayne one. He did not say thank you, only took a sip and said, “Okay, what the hell’s going on?”

“I left you a message.”

“Wasn’t much of a message,” Wayne said. “You said you would be in touch when you can.”

“Ta-da.”

“I have editors breathing down my neck while all the television stations are doing live shots in Revere,” Wayne said. “And the one guy who can shed some light decides to get shy on me.”

“You seem annoyed.”

“I have two whole file cabinets marked ‘Favors for Spenser.’”

I sat at a bar stool where a long counter separated the cooking from the dining. Pearl sat at Wayne’s feet. She tilted her head and waited for him to speak. I drank some beer and nodded. “I promise to tell you the whole story when I can,” I said. “But right now I’m really not sure I have anything for you. I can’t prove any of it. And what I think I know doesn’t make sense.”

“How about off the record?”

I nodded. I got up and poured out some morsels for Pearl. She sniffed the bowl and walked back to Wayne. “Have you eaten?”

“I’ve been waiting for you for the last four hours.”

“Nice to be in demand.”

“The last time we spoke, you wanted to know about casinos in Revere,” he said. “You asked me about Rick Weinberg buying up condos on Revere Beach.”

“True.”

“And now someone has cut off Rick Weinberg’s head and left it in Revere.”

“Yes.”

“And now I hear you’re working for Rachel Weinberg?”

“How about some fried chicken? You being a Southerner and everything. I have some kale, too. I can sauté it in sesame oil with some lemon.”

“That might get you arrested down south.”

I pulled out some chicken parts from the refrigerator and patted them dry with some paper towels. I reached for some black pepper, kosher salt, and garlic powder. I found a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet Susan had given me and filled it with peanut oil to set on the stove.

“You should feel honored,” I said. “I don’t fry chicken for just anyone.”

“I bet you’d be frying it for yourself just the same.”

“Probably,” I said. “I did just receive an ominous warning from the manager of the Purple Banana.”

“What did he say?”

“He reminded me Hawk was out of town,” I said. “You mind spicy?”

“Nope,” Wayne said. He walked to my refrigerator and helped himself to a second beer. He was in a threadbare blue oxford button-down and a brown knit tie. I was pretty sure he was in the same jeans and boots from the other day.

I poured some milk into a bowl, cracked some eggs, and added a nice dose of Crystal hot sauce. The mixture was whisked to an orangish pink. I mixed the spices with the flour and tested the oil with a pinch of it. Not hot enough.

“So you connected Weinberg to the condo sales?” Wayne said.

“I did,” I said. “And I had a nice deal negotiated for the residents.”

“And then someone kills him.”

“And perhaps shadows the deal.”

“But you’re still working it?” Wayne said. “I don’t get it.”

“Rachel Weinberg was so impressed by my relentless nature and perhaps by kind words from a state police captain, they hired me.”

“You got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.” I drank some beer. “Weinberg’s right-hand man asked me himself.”

“And before his untimely death, what did you find out about Weinberg?”

“That he really liked the works of Lewis Carroll.”

“And all your work is in the shitter.”

“His wife doesn’t think so,” I said. “She’s moving ahead with what she is calling Rick’s final dream.”

“Poetic,” Wayne said. “Can I use it?”

“Talk to her.”

“I tried,” Wayne said. “Her people in Vegas hung up on me.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

Wayne smiled for the first time since he walked in my door. Maybe he was thinking of the fried chicken. I tested the oil. Still not hot enough. It took a while to get the pan just right. You don’t get the oil hot enough, and your chicken turns out greasy.

“If the property deal is still good, will your people still sell?”

“Probably.”

Wayne nodded. He finished the beer. He walked in front of my windows and placed his hands in his old jeans. “So who killed him?”

“That’s where things get fuzzy.”

“How fuzzy?”

“The back of a grizzly?”

Wayne shrugged. “Some cops I know think it was the Mob wanting to stop legal gambling on their turf.”

“You make it legal and that cuts into most of their business.”

“Is that what you’re hearing?”

“What I suspect,” I said. “I just don’t know if it’s local or imported.”

I tried the oil again. The flour sputtered and hissed and started to brown. I started in on the chicken. I dipped each piece in the flour and spices, then bathed them in the hot-sauce-and-egg mix, then rolled them back into the flour, and finally set them into the hot oil.

My efforts earned another beer. I started in on my second. Wayne was on his third. He got a phone call from the desk at the Globe and excused himself for a few minutes to argue with a copy editor. When the desk was satisfied, he came back to the kitchen with his empty beer.

“That’s a message killing,” Wayne said.

“Mario Puzo would have loved it,” I said. “Or whoever writes his books now.”

“But you’re not so sure.”

I nodded. “Almost everything in this case is screwy.”

“Why don’t you just quit?”

“Henry Cimoli asked for help,” I said. “And he’s already counting his money.”

“So all we know is that not twenty-four hours after Rick Weinberg secured a very elusive piece of real estate for his dream casino, someone whacked him.”

“Yep.”

“But we don’t know who or why,” he said. “But we suspect it’s connected to organized crime either in the city or in Las Vegas.”

“That’s about all of it.”

“What’s next?” Wayne said.

I pulled out the browned chicken pieces and set them on paper towels. I forked the chicken breasts still in the milk and started the process again. I heated a wok for the kale and began rinsing the greens.

“You’re a Yankee,” Wayne said, turning his nose up at the kale. “Ever heard of collards?”

“Heard of grits, too,” I said. “And Tallulah Bankhead.”

Wayne watched me as I cooked. “Something bothering you?”

“There’s a woman who worked for Weinberg,” I said. “She had just been fired. But I think she may be dead, too.”

“What about other employees?” he said. “Surely there were others close to him.”

“I actually went the other way,” I said. “I reached out to Harvey Rose today.”

I added some sesame oil to the wok and started chopping the kale.

“What did he say?”

“His people hung out the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign,” I said. “Or, more precisely, said ‘Fuck off.’”

“I wrote his first profile when he was still teaching at Harvard,” he said. “I could call him. Set something up. Hell, I interviewed him today on the obit on Weinberg.”

“What did he say?”

“Off the record and for your ears only, he says he may pull his name from the casino license bidding.”

I tossed the kale into the wok and started stirring fast. Two beautiful heirloom tomatoes from the Fresh Market sat on the ledge over my sink. I reached for some plates. I found a couple more beers. Maybe bourbon for dessert.

“Did he sound scared?” I said.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“‘Maybe everybody in the whole damn world’s scared of each other.’”

Wayne smiled and shook his head. “Never trust a detective who reads.”

I grinned and added the chicken and greens to his plate. I sliced up the purple tomato on the side. “Food for thought.”