Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot"
Автор книги: Ace Atkins
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THE SPENSER NOVELS
Silent Night
(with Helen Brann)
Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland
(by Ace Atkins)
Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby
(by Ace Atkins)
Sixkill
Painted Ladies
The Professional
Rough Weather
Now & Then
Hundred-Dollar Baby
School Days
Cold Service
Bad Business
Back Story
Widow’s Walk
Potshot
Hugger Mugger
Hush Money
Sudden Mischief
Small Vices
Chance
Thin Air
Walking Shadow
Paper Doll
Double Deuce
Pastime
Stardust
Playmates
Crimson Joy
Pale Kings and Princes
Taming a Sea-Horse
A Catskill Eagle
Valediction
The Widening Gyre
Ceremony
A Savage Place
Early Autumn
Looking for Rachel Wallace
The Judas Goat
Promised Land
Mortal Stakes
God Save the Child
The Godwulf Manuscript
THE JESSE STONE NOVELS
Robert B. Parker’s Damned If You Do
(by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice
(by Michael Brandman)
Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues
(by Michael Brandman)
Split Image
Night and Day
Stranger in Paradise
High Profile
Sea Change
Stone Cold
Death in Paradise
Trouble in Paradise
Night Passage
THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS
Spare Change
Blue Screen
Melancholy Baby
Shrink Rap
Perish Twice
Family Honor
COLE/HITCH WESTERNS
Robert B. Parker’s Bull River
(by Robert Knott)
Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse
(by Robert Knott)
Blue-Eyed Devil
Brimstone
Resolution
Appaloosa
ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER
Double Play
Gunman’s Rhapsody
All Our Yesterdays
A Year at the Races
(with Joan H. Parker)
Perchance to Dream
Poodle Springs
(with Raymond Chandler)
Love and Glory
Wilderness
Three Weeks in Spring
(with Joan H. Parker)
Training with Weights
(with John R. Marsh)
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2014 by The Estate of Robert B. Parker
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Atkins, Ace.
Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot / Ace Atkins.
p. cm. – (Spenser ; 42)
ISBN 978-0-399-17135-2
1. Spenser (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 3. Football players—Fiction. 4. Kidnapping—Fiction. 5. Mystery fiction. I. Title.
PS3601.T487R56 2014 2014003821
813'.6—dc23
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Bob and Joan.
Still here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
1
I had dressed for Chestnut Hill: a button-down tattersall shirt that Susan had bought me, crisp dress khakis, a navy blazer with gold buttons, and a pair of well-broken-in loafers worn without socks. The lack of socks implied a devil-may-care attitude understood by the wealthy. Even though the wealthy individual I was calling on today was a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound NFL linebacker with a twenty-inch neck named Kinjo Heywood. I’d seen Kinjo toss around quarterbacks like rag dolls and doubted that he’d notice the missing socks.
Kinjo’s agent had sent a private car for me. A private car was not needed or requested to find Chestnut Hill, but there were some ground rules that had to be discussed on the ride over. I tried to remain attentive and alert as we turned off Route 9 and made our way up and around on Heath Street. The homes were very old and stately, with lots of brick and ivy. The leaves had started to turn loose on the oak branches overhead. As we drove, it all felt like a ticker-tape parade.
“You can’t discuss this case with anyone, Mr. Spenser,” said Steven Rosen, Kinjo’s agent. He was a beefy guy with thick black hair and dark, humorless eyes. He smelled like a quart of Brut aftershave and was dressed in a pin-striped suit with wide lapels and a purple shirt open at the neck.
“Will he sign my bubblegum card?” I said.
“You’re trying to be funny,” Rosen said, making a sour face. “But Boston is a sports-crazy town and everyone is up in Kinjo’s business. If it gets out he’s hired a private investigator, this thing will become even more of a pain in the ass.”
“Mum’s the word.”
“And this all may turn out to be nothing.”
“Of course.”
“And we’re straight on the fee offered?”
“No.”
“No?”
I told him my standard rate.
“Seriously?”
I nodded modestly. “As you know, a fee separates the pro from the amateur.”
“Okay, okay.”
The Town Car slowed and we dipped down off the road past a stone fence and toward a very large stone house with two identical white Cadillac Escalades parked outside. Before the driver got out, I opened my door and waited for Rosen to follow.
The air smelled of a good fire burning and crisp autumn sunshine. A brisk wind warned of cold days to follow.
The front door opened. Rosen ushered us toward the brick walkway. He seemed less than enthused with having to clean up the latest mess for his client.
An old woman with copper-colored skin and dressed in a gray maid’s uniform led me into the foyer. The foyer led into a great room, where a very large black man was watching an old samurai movie on a very large television. A skinny white woman with enormous breasts and blond hair sat across from him, drinking a red drink in a martini glass. The furniture was all leather and glass and too modern for such an old house.
“What’s up, Kinjo?” Rosen said. “My main man.”
Kinjo pressed pause on the DVD player. He looked up, surprised that he had guests, and stood up as if he’d been dozing. The woman with the large breasts continued to sip her drink. She wore a white tank top with gold embroidery, gold hoop earrings, and blue jeans so tight they might have been applied by Earl Scheib.
Kinjo was much larger than me. I wasn’t used to meeting anyone larger than me except for Hawk. And Hawk stood only a half-inch taller. Kinjo was made of muscle the way a jaguar is all muscle. He moved with a strong confidence, eyes shifting from me to Rosen to his wife with just a flick. He had a mustache and a goatee and kept his hair in long cornrows. He wore a light blue Adidas tracksuit and no shoes. I’d read that he was twenty-seven, a Pro Bowl selection for the last two years, and faster than a cheetah.
“You the detective?” Kinjo said.
“Yep.”
“You look like a detective. Or a cop.”
“A cop would have worn socks.” I pulled up my pant leg.
Kinjo nodded. A frame of the film remained on the large television screen. Yojimbo. I nodded toward it.
“Toshiro Mifune.”
“I’ve seen every movie he’s made.”
“I’ve always been partial to Seven Samurai.”
“My mother named me after the emperor of Japan,” he said. “She found it in an encyclopedia, because she wanted me to stand out. That’s how I got into these movies and the way of the warrior. Not a lot of black kids in Georgia digging Kurosawa.”
“But you played college in Alabama.”
“Auburn,” Kinjo said. “Don’t ever say I played for the Tide.”
I smiled. He nodded over his shoulder at the woman with the red drink.
“That’s Cristal,” he said. “Say hello, Cristal.”
She said hello. She was slightly tipsy but did not seem drunk. Her eyes took me in with some humor. “Do you carry a gun?” she said.
I opened my blue blazer and showed the .38 on my hip.
She said, “Wow.” I tilted my head modestly.
Rosen seemed impatient with all the small talk. He stood by the housekeeper and pulled an iPhone from his pocket and studied the screen. The maid whispered in his ear. Without looking away from his phone, he said, “Teresa wants to know if anyone would like anything to drink.”
I said coffee would be nice. Kinjo turned off the film and we sat in the little grouping. Cristal finished the red drink.
It was one in the afternoon.
“You gonna catch these guys?” Kinjo said.
“Sure.”
“And find out why the hell they following me?”
“Why not.”
Kinjo looked to super-agent Steve Rosen and Rosen nodded in affirmation. Goody.
“So how much do you know?” Kinjo said.
“I know you and your wife were having dinner at Capital Grille by the Chestnut Hill mall and that someone followed you home. And when you tried to take another route, they kept on following you, and you decided to take matters into your own hands by discharging your weapon on Route 9.”
Rosen looked up from his iPhone and swallowed.
“Goddamn cowards wouldn’t get out of their car, so I tried to get their damn attention.”
“That’s one way to do it.”
“His actions were ill advised,” Rosen said. “A cop with the Boston police suggested we talk to you.”
“Instead of Mr. Heywood continuing to pursue the matter himself?”
“Stevie said if I shoot one of them, it might mess up my new contract.”
“Ah,” I said. “And the weapons violation?”
“Mr. Heywood has an attorney to make that disappear if it doesn’t happen again.”
“Have you seen the same car again?”
Kinjo leaned forward, elbows on knees, and nodded. “Yesterday. Different car. First time was a new black 4Runner, but it was a green Tahoe yesterday.”
“Same men?”
“Couldn’t tell,” he said. “But when I left Gillette, they rode up real close, I took some turns and they didn’t back off until I got home.”
“And then what did you do?”
“Got my damn gun, jumped out of my car, and they took off.”
Rosen held up his hand and smiled at me. “And the reason we called you, Mr. Spenser. You came highly recommended.”
“By whom, may I ask?”
“A detective named Belson.”
Rosen nodded. Heywood watched him nod and then nodded, too. I nodded. We looked like a collection of bobbleheads. Cristal stood and went to the kitchen.
“Could this have been just some fans?” I said. “Your face is on several billboards, and often on television.”
“These people didn’t want no autograph,” he said. “This was all business.”
“How so?”
Kinjo rubbed his goatee in thought. He tilted his head and met my eye. “They were real aggressive about it.”
“You want protection for you and your wife?” I said.
“I don’t need protection,” Kinjo said. “They need protection from me. I just want to know who they are and what they want. And I don’t want to have to shoot no one. That might make me look bad.”
“Always the trouble with shooting people.”
He looked to Rosen again. Rosen was too busy texting someone to notice.
“Any enemies? Anyone who would want to do you harm? People you owe money?”
Kinjo shook his head. “I got lots of both. Plenty of enemies and money.”
“Mr. Heywood just signed a contract extension worth ten million,” Rosen said.
“Makes you a good target.”
“Yeah.” Kinjo looked down at his hands and then back up at me. “But I think this shit is personal.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt you?”
No one said anything. Rosen unfolded his arms and made way for Teresa, who brought in two coffee mugs on a serving tray. Somewhere in the kitchen, I heard a martini shaker. Rosen shifted in his seat. “I’m sure you read up a little on Mr. Heywood before coming over.”
I nodded.
“I pissed a few folks off over the years,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Who would most likely want to get back at you?”
Kinjo leaned back into the couch. It was a big white sectional in a U shape. He stared right at me. “How much time you got?”
I shrugged. “I’m paid by the hour,” I said. “Take as long as you’d like.”
2
Don’t you need a notebook, Spenser?” Rosen said. “You’re not writing down any of these women’s names.”
I tapped at my temple with my index finger.
“You’re kidding,” Rosen said. “Right?”
“Nope,” I said, turning to Kinjo. “Have any of these old girlfriends tried to contact you recently?”
Kinjo shook his head.
“Any asked for more money?”
“Just my ex-wife,” he said. “She’s always asking for money. I hadn’t even gotten done at the press conference when my cell started ringing. Her lawyer knew exactly how much more I’d be owing her.”
“If she wants money from you,” I said, “seems like she’d want you healthy.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said.
Kinjo continued to stroke his mustache and goatee. Behind him was an expansive bank of windows. Beyond the glass, there was an elaborate play fort made of reddish wood and fashioned like something for the U.S. Cavalry. There were four turrets at each corner topped in a lookout point. In the far-left corner, I spotted a young kid, maybe seven or eight, watching us with binoculars.
I lifted a hand and waved.
The child disappeared.
Kinjo peered over his shoulder and then turned back to me. “My kid,” he said. “Akira. We work things out with games and my schedule.”
“Your ex lives in Mass?”
He nodded. “Akira my heart, man,” Kinjo said. “Everything I do is for him. Nicole never liked the name, wanted to name the kid after her uncle George or some shit. But I wanted him to stand out, the way my momma wanted for me. We love anything Japanese. Movies, comics, sushi. How many kids like raw fish?”
Kinjo turned back to see if his son was still watching us. Rosen drank his coffee, waiting for the right moment to cut the conversation short. Cristal Heywood entered the room with another big red drink in a martini glass. I would have guessed a Manhattan, but it was too red, too fruity to be an authentic cocktail. It was the kind of drink that needed the shade of a tiny umbrella.
“Nicole’s a fucking nightmare,” Cristal said, taking a seat beside Kinjo. She took a quick sip, holding up her hand to continue her thoughts. “I can’t even stand being in the same room with her. She talks down to me. Looks at me like I’m trashy or something.”
Cristal slurped her cocktail and giggled.
Kinjo gave a hard sideways glance at his wife. Cristal wore a bright pink bra under the white tank top. She giggled again and pulled up a single pink strap.
“Anyone else I should know?” I said.
“Nope.”
There was a long silence. Cristal sipped her drink. I held my coffee mug and smiled.
“When can you get started?” Rosen said.
I shrugged. “Are we going to talk about the nightclub shooting in New York?” I said. “Or pretend it didn’t happen?”
Rosen looked to Kinjo. Kinjo did not look pleased I subscribed to Sports Illustrated, watched ESPN, and that I even knew how to use Google. His jaw clenched and eyes flattened.
“I was acquitted,” he said. “I wasn’t even there.”
I nodded. “But the man’s family sued you in civil.”
“Digging for money.”
“Sure,” I said. “But don’t you think you might have listed them under the heading of people who would like to do you harm? Probably more than some jilted girlfriends.”
“That’s bullshit,” Cristal said. “Just because Kinjo is tough doesn’t mean he’s a thug.”
“I’m not being hired to investigate that,” I said. “But you told me that you believe these men want to do you harm. If you want me to find them, you need to help me with a list. I start with a list and then narrow it down. Unless it’s some nuts, and then we just wait till they follow you again.”
Kinjo nodded. Cristal swigged a bit more.
“Kinjo needs this thing settled,” Rosen said. “Regular season starts in two weeks.”
“I understand,” I said. “But I need to know if you think these men might be connected to what happened in New York.”
“No,” Kinjo said. “No fucking way.”
“A man was shot to death,” I said. “The family blamed you.”
“The family knew I was at the club,” Kinjo said. “The family wanted money.”
“Then who else would you guess?”
He looked to Rosen and then nodded along with his thoughts. “I swear to you I think it’s another player messin’ with my head.”
“For the Pats?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “Not a teammate. Somebody I hurt. They want my ass taken out before the season.”
“Who?” I said.
“You better get some paper and a pen,” he said. “’Cause I had a good season last year. People call me dirty. What’s my job but to take people out? That doesn’t make me a hit man.”
“That hatchet piece in Sports Illustrated about Kinjo being the NFL bad boy was a lot of crap,” Rosen said. “They barely mentioned his recent marriage or relationship with Akira. I thought the piece was completely racist. We will never work with that reporter again.”
“So it’s messing with your head?” I said. “And to play, you need to be relaxed and loose.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Kinjo looked up from his hands. He met my eye and nodded. He studied me again, as if I’d reentered the room. “You play?”
“A couple years in college,” I said.
“Where?”
I told him.
“That what happened to your nose and around the eyes?”
“Nope,” I said. “We had face guards back then. Leather helmets had just gone out of style.”
“Fight?”
“Boxing,” I said.
“Pro?”
I nodded.
“Boxing?” Cristal said. “Wow? Like Rocky?”
“Yep,” I said. “Just like Rocky. I used to have pet turtles and everything.”
Rosen rolled his eyes. Kinjo stood and walked to the bank of windows. Akira had moved onto another turret, another wall to be protected from the enemy. He was a skinny kid with short hair and a mischievous smile. A bright red Under Armour sweatshirt swallowed him to the knees.
The child looked at us through the binoculars. When I smiled directly at him, he ran away. A strong wind rustled tree branches overhead. A bright sun shone across the tree fort, creating small pockets and insignificant shadows. Leaves fell and fluttered to the ground.
Cristal made another drink. I finished my coffee and said my good-byes.
I would start tomorrow.
3
I made corn muffins from scratch for Susan.
I had not planned to make corn muffins but had decided today’s brisk fall wind called for chili. And to me, chili always seemed lonely without corn muffins. Or perhaps I made them because I had stocked a six-pack of Bohemia in Susan’s refrigerator. Truth be told, it was very difficult to know the meal’s catalyst. Probably the beer.
I had let myself in shortly before five and took Pearl for a short walk. Susan was in session, so as silently as possible I crept up to the second floor and helped myself to a Bohemia. I had bought the corn meal, flour, eggs, and ingredients for the chili at the Whole Foods on River Street. I drank while I chopped some peppers, garlic, and onions and browned some ground buffalo. Pearl showed a lot of interest in the sizzling buffalo.
I added the peppers, garlic, and onions to the browning meat, and then a couple dashes of the beer. Some chili powder, kosher salt, cumin, and black pepper. More beer. I played some Mel Tormé at a volume low enough not to disrupt psychotherapy. Pearl tilted her head and I scratched her ears.
“Mel Tormé?” Susan said, walking in.
“The velvet frog himself.”
“‘Goody Goody’ is very odd to hear after talking with a patient who wishes to be impregnated by her husband while conducting an extramarital affair.”
“Better odds?”
“She has no desire to be impregnated by her lover.”
“Must draw a line in the sand somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“How hot is too hot?” I said.
“Is this a trick question?”
“Yep,” I said.
I turned on the oven and found her lonely mixing bowl and measured the corn meal, flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar, and then added the eggs, butter, and some milk and whisked it all to the proper smoothness. I searched for the muffin tin I had stowed in a secret location. When I added the sautéed mix of meat and onions to a large pot of bubbling tomatoes and beans, Pearl lost interest and trotted over to a window facing Linnaean. The branch of an oak tapped at the glass.
I added more beer with the simmering chili. And a quart of water so as not to waste more beer.
“For fear of sounding too domestic, how was your day, dear?”
“I met with a professional football player named after a Japanese emperor,” I said. “His agent hired me to help him.”
“Protection?”
“In a roundabout way,” I said. “The Patriots organization thinks it’s a bad idea if their player shoots or beats up someone.”
“So you’ve been hired to protect the bad guys?”
I nodded. I stirred the chili. I waited to put the corn muffins in the oven. Mel sang “A Stranger in Town.”
“The team also wants me to find out who is following Kinjo and why.”
“Kinjo.”
“Emperor of the gridiron.”
I reached into the refrigerator for a bottle of sauvignon blanc. I poured Susan a modest glass.
“Should I know who this is?” she said.
“You should.”
“Did you?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you only paid attention to baseball and basketball?”
“Sometimes it’s on TV,” I said. “Sometimes I watch it. I played it once.”
“But you prefer baseball.”
“I prefer baseball for the skill and nuance,” I said. “I’m sure a damn good bit of sportswriters could talk to me about the elegant violence of football. But I like the pace of baseball.”
I greased the muffin tin, poured in the batter, and placed the tin into the oven. I finished the beer and opened another.
“How does an investigator, even one of your advanced skill, watch a client and sleuth at the same time?”
“I am hoping the watching will lead to a meeting with the bad guys.”
“As it often does.”
“And if not,” I said, “Z can watch while I sleuth.”
“Nice to have an understudy.”
I nodded. I set the timer. “Of course, I’m not even sure if there are any bad guys.”
“And how is that possible?”
“There is a distinct possibility that his celebrity status is making him a bit paranoid,” I said. “He’s a famous athlete. Some overzealous fans may just recognize him and see where he lives or what nightclub he prefers.”
“Did he seem paranoid to you?”
“You mean did he pace around with some metallic ball in hand and mutter about strawberries?”
“Or something more subtle,” she said. “Was he jittery or nervous? Did he seem on edge?”
“Nope.”
“Yet he felt threatened.”
“Yes,” I said. “But he couldn’t really define it.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s your diagnosis, Doc?”
“Time will tell?”
“What if he tells me the men following him are little and green and perhaps from another planet?”
“Give him my card,” she said. “I have people he should meet.”
I turned back to Susan, pulled her in close, and placed a hand against the flat of her back. I tilted my head toward her open bedroom door. I had missed her a great deal when she’d been away teaching that spring.
“Sometimes I think you use simmering for an excuse,” she said.
“But it’s such a damn good one.”
