Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

59

Two hours later, we got word from Tony that Jesus DeVeiga would grant us an audience at Franklin Park. We were told to use the Walnut Street entrance into the Long Crouch Woods and follow the northern path up into the old part of the zoo. That part of the park was a lot of green space and walkways and bikeways at the edge of Roxbury. It was a great place to be during daylight hours and not so nice at night.

“Public space,” Hawk said. “People will be around.”

“Good place to get shot,” I said.

“Not perfect,” Hawk said. “But good as any.”

“There’s a rock wall on Columbus Ave,” I said. “You could hop the fence. Take the path toward me or frolic through the woods.”

“Hard to frolic with a twelve-gauge.”

“Or we go in together,” I said. “And impress Jesus with our numbers.”

“Gangbangers don’t have sense,” he said. “He into this kidnapping thing, he’ll start to shooting. No conversation. Bam.”

“But I so enjoy the conversation,” I said.

“Call Z,” he said.

I did and we rode around Roxbury a bit. Although we had multiple reasons to suspect Jesus DeVeiga and his people, perhaps he might also supply some answers about Victor Lima and his brother and their connection to his half-sister. I could spend the rest of the day chatting with the de facto head of the Outlaws. I wondered aloud if Jesus had ever seen West Side Story.

“Sure,” Hawk said. “He start snappin’ his fingers. Expect trouble.”

I took Columbus to where it connected with Blue Hill and then took Blue Hill south as it circled the park. The park was very big and had a lot of ball fields, a zoo, and a golf course. I cut across on Morton and found my way back again north on Forest Hills. We stopped at a Shell station to use a bathroom and get a couple coffees. There was no sense in going against an entire drug gang uncaffeinated.

We parked at the north entrance. Hawk walked around to the back of the Explorer and removed a Mossberg twelve-gauge. He had a specially made leather rig worn for such occasions and slipped the shotgun onto his side. I knew he had his .44 somewhere, along with a .22 pistol worn on his ankle, should all else fail.

We found the stone gate on Walnut and walked inside the park. The sky was a darker shade of slate and the rain had returned. The rain wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t exactly wonderful, either. It meant fewer walkers and joggers and people milling about. A decided advantage for the Outlaws.

Hawk and I walked down a narrow path cutting through the center of the Long Crouch Woods. We found the northern path, signs marking the way to the old bear dens, and followed.

“Fucking bears?” Hawk said.

“Old bear dens,” I said. “The bears have been moved.”

“Closest I ever get to a bear was a married woman’s rug,” Hawk said. “Her husband liked to shoot dangerous animals.”

Hawk wiped the rain from his face, his teeth white and beaming.

No one was in the woods that day. The woods and path were cold and still, bright yellow leaves littering the walkway. A few leaves shook loose in the light wind and rain and twirled down. We walked on. No one came out to us. No one approached us on the path. We kept on walking and moving and watching. In the distance, I spotted the big stone entrance to the old bear cages. I remembered coming here as a teenager with my father and the walkway and the bears. It was pretty much the way I recalled, except overgrown by weeds and ivy.

As we crested the top, three men approached us. They were young, light-skinned blacks, and dressed in traditional gangbanger wear. Low-hanging jeans, team jackets, and ball caps. The ball caps were brand-new Sox game caps, flat-billed and still boasting a 59Fifty sticker. All wore thick chains, gold and silver, and sported simple mustaches. They were hardened men, but not as old as a decent whiskey.

“You Hawk?” said a young guy with shoulder-length cornrows.

Hawk nodded.

“I heard of you,” he said.

“’Course you have.”

“I’m DeVeiga,” he said, not bothering to introduce his friends. Of course, Hawk didn’t introduce me, either.

One of his boys was light-skinned and short. The other was taller and of a darker complexion. The darker one wore earrings in both ears and a very unpleasant scowl as Hawk spoke to Jesus DeVeiga. I smiled at him, but he acted as if he did not notice.

“Your sister is dead,” Hawk said.

DeVeiga nodded.

“She tied in with Victor Lima?”

“Mr. Marcus said you’re cool,” DeVeiga said.

“Mr. Marcus knows his shit.”

“Yeah,” DeVeiga said. “Lela and Victor. They were together. Been together for a long time.”

Hawk stood there, right foot on the tallest step, back foot behind him, but still taller than DeVeiga and his crew. I stood off to the right, very aware of the gun on my hip and the time it would take to draw.

“Where’s the kid, Jesus?” Hawk said, pronouncing the name with a hard J.

DeVeiga stood his ground, his ball cap obscuring his eyes like a gunfighter in a Stetson. He nodded in thought and looked to Hawk. I smiled again at DeVeiga’s crew. No use in spreading a bad attitude for the day.

“Kid’s dead,” DeVeiga said.

I swallowed and took in a long breath.

“Who?” Hawk said.

“Like you said, Lima,” he said. “Him and his brother were Outlaws. But their mama wanted them out. Moved them to New York, tried to get them out of the life around here. Lela come to be with them. She was with Antonio but then with the brother when Antonio got killed. Then they come back to Boston. But this ain’t Outlaw stuff, man. This his own shit he swimming in. This gonna be a problem for us?”

Hawk nodded. “You bet, Jesus. You bet.”

I stepped forward. “Where’s Lima?” I said.

DeVeiga shook his head.

“Can you find him?”

He shrugged, not once looking at me. “That five mil for real?” he said.

“Kinjo Heywood says so,” I said. “You get his kid back.”

“Money wasn’t for finding the kid,” he said. “I heard the money was for killing who took him.”

“And that’s already started.”

“Somebody is hunting,” DeVeiga said. “Damn, Lela. She fucked up as soon as she hooked up with those boys. Should have come back home when Antonio was shot.”

Up behind DeVeiga and his men sat several large, rusted cages connected to failing brick walls. Beyond the cages was a large stone wall with a frieze of two bears caught on their hind legs in a sort of royal seal. The rain was coming down harder now, pinging off the bill of my ball cap, the gangbangers’ ball caps, and Hawk’s bald head. No one seemed to want to call it quits on account of the rain.

“You helping them?” Hawk said.

“Outlaws got no fucking business with folks kill a child,” DeVeiga said.

Hawk nodded, and DeVeiga turned to me. He stared at me and I stared back.

When the rifle cracked in the woods, I recoiled and ducked and DeVeiga spun and turned and hit the ground, toppling down a couple concrete steps. His boys fanned out, pulling automatics and firing wildly into the woods. Two more rifle shots sounded, and the kid with the double earrings was down, too. A large and ugly wound bloomed in his chest. I hopped the side of the stone steps, seeking cover. I had my .357 out, leveled on the concrete wall and firing toward the shots.

The firing stopped. I heard DeVeiga screaming from the top of the steps. I heard my own breath and the patter of rain from the trees. Hawk called out to me, and I called back. Everything was still and silent. I did not move from the wall. I steadied my breath and eased up along the rock barrier against the staircase and raised the gun.

Two more quick rifle shots. Stone and concrete flew upward. The sound of Hawk’s .44 boomed like a cannon into the woods. I looked up in time to see Hawk pulling Jesus DeVeiga from the top of the steps and behind the wall. I fired to give them cover.

The rifle sounded twice more and then went quiet again.

60

DeVeiga had been shot in the upper chest. Hawk removed his jacket and used it as a compress on the wound. One of DeVeiga’s men was dead. The other had run for the woods. I wasn’t sure if he’d made it or not.

There seemed to be only one shooter taking careful aim from somewhere in the thick woods below the old stone cages. I could jump up again and fire off a few rounds. But it wouldn’t do any good. I had absolutely no idea, beyond the sound of the shot, where the shooter had set up.

If I tried to run from the cover of the stone steps, I’d have a nice big target on my back. I could call the cops and wait. But that would give the shooter time to move through the woods and gain a better position. My best chance was to leave Hawk and DeVeiga and get north, beyond the back of the cages, and circle around to the shooter. The only trouble came from about twenty yards of open ground to the cages. I thought about yelling “time out” but figured the bad guy or guys to be not all that sporting.

Instead I looked to Hawk and nodded to the old cages. He nodded back, pressing the wadded-up jacket into DeVeiga’s chest. I made it down onto my belly, and snake-crawled inch by inch on the mud and leaves and trash and debris. The rain came on even harder now, and I continued to crawl, stomach and thighs and chest pressed to the ground. Two shots cracked again from the woods. Still, I was confident I could make it without being seen, until the last eight to ten yards, when my plan was to run like hell to the stone wall.

Inch by inch, mud up under my hands and on my .357 carried in my right hand, I made it close to the wall. And then I ran like hell.

Three shots echoed through the woods. I saw stone chip a few feet away to my right and another chip off the far wall as I dove to the ground and crawled behind the wall. The bear cages were more than ample cover, reaching up fifty feet, built of sturdy stone and concrete. The gun went silent. I ran behind the curvature of the old cages, well protected, and hoped to make it back into the woods before the shooter was gone. My clothes were soaked, jeans drenched in water and mud, bomber jacket coated and heavy. I dropped the jacket at the far corner of the cages, looking into the depths of the Long Crouch Woods. The thick trees, leaf-covered ground, and the stillness of the rain in the woods made it difficult to believe I was still in Roxbury.

I called 911 and reported a shooting and the need for an ambulance. I quickly reloaded my .357 and checked the load on the .38 from my jacket pocket. I listened and waited. I hoped I’d see a movement, a glint off a scope. But in the rain, I couldn’t have spotted a rhino tap-dancing to “Stormy Weather.” I just needed to make it far enough behind the shooter and come back on him before he spotted or heard me. I would walk with stealth. The wilderness preservation of my world.

I again took up the old tactic of running like hell. I sprinted far into the woods, following the stone fence around the park until I was confident I was beyond the shooter. I cut back into the woods, water dappling muddy holes and tapping hard off the yellowing leaves. I ducked low branches and jumped over fallen logs until I was far within the park. I breathed quietly and tried to listen, but again heard only the rain. If Pearl was with me, perhaps she might point to the shooter. But if Pearl had been with me, I’d have been worried about her safety. I kept moving, kept walking, far into the woods, heading back to the stone steps where I’d left Hawk tending to DeVeiga. I could see the steps raising up from the walking path and leading up into the old bear cages. I turned from left to right and saw nothing. I had my .357 held tight and at the ready. At another fallen log, I stopped and scouted the woods before me.

I felt one with the earth and with the woods until I heard a voice behind me. “Don’t move a muscle, motherfucker.”

Although the slight was not appreciated, I did not move a muscle. And soon hands were on me, pulling the gun from my hand and the .38 from my waist. Someone yanked my arm and I turned to see Victor Lima staring right at me. He cocked me in the temple with my own gun. The feeling was not pleasant, but I kept to my feet.

“Stupid,” he said. “Stupid.”

“Where’s Akira?”

“Why’d you keep fucking with this?” he said. “Heywood had to be the man. Had to lay down a price on our heads.”

I touched my temple. It was bleeding badly. I felt sick and spit on the ground.

“Fucking dumb,” he said. “Now I got to kill you, too.”

“Like you killed Lela?”

“Lela?” he said, wiping water off his face with his free hand. “They killed Lela to get to me.”

“Who?”

“DeVeiga.”

“DeVeiga says this is all on you.”

“Five mil levels things a bit,” he said. “Now keep walking. Keep walking to that ditch and then lay down. I’ll make it quick and easy for you.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Fuck you,” Victor Lima said.

We walked for another twenty feet to a wide ditch brimming with running water. He told me to get into the ditch and place my hands on my head. I could reach for him and take the chance of being shot in a good way. Or I could go into the ditch and keep talking. As talking was my strong suit, I thought I could keep it going.

“Where’s Akira?” I said. When you got a good thing, stay with it.

Lima didn’t answer. He leveled my .357 at me.

“Did you kill him?” I said.

“Everything would have been cool if Heywood had been a man.”

“Is he alive?”

Something flashed in his eyes, a moment of hesitation. But then he gritted his teeth and slowly pulled the trigger. His teeth were clenched tight, jaw tight as the hammer pulled back and cylinder gently started to roll.

And then a large shot as I ducked. As if ducking would do much good.

Lima was down, bleeding and hurt, shot in the back. Another pistol shot rang out as Lima got to his feet and ran fast but ragged and ugly toward the far wall circling the park.

I crawled out of the ditch and ran after him, but he had disappeared. As I reached the park wall, Z came up on me, jogging and out of breath.

“You hurt?” Z said.

“Nope,” I said, wiping the blood off my temple. “But Hawk’s with a guy who’s bad.”

Z nodded. Sirens screamed in the distance.

“You did good,” I said.

Z looked at me with his black eyes and nodded. “I know.”

61

DeVeiga went to the hospital. His pal got a ride with the ME’s office and his other pal had disappeared. Z drove Hawk back to the Harbor Health Club and I went to Susan’s.

It was Saturday, and she was not in session. Pearl the Wonder Dog greeted me at the front door, paws extended onto my chest, and a giant lick on the chin.

“Why can’t you ever greet me like that?” I said.

“Because you’re covered head to toe in mud?” Susan said. “Ick.”

“Can I borrow your hose?”

“Around back, cowboy.”

I walked around to Susan’s deck, took off my shoes and socks, and hosed myself off. I tossed my shirt but left on my jeans, knowing Susan’s neighbors might object to a large man in his underwear frolicking in the water. But probably nothing new for the Cambridge cops.

I wrung out my shirt and socks. I hosed the mud from my boots and set them on the steps to dry. At the second-floor patio, I handed Susan my jeans and stepped inside. She pointed to the bathroom, and I stood in the shower for a good twenty minutes, stepped into the kitchen in my towel, and searched for a cold beer. I found a six-pack sampler from the Avery Brewing Company I’d left there for emergencies.

“Things getting rough in the Back Bay?” she said.

“Franklin Park,” I said. “Hawk and I took a stroll.”

“And jumped into the lake?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you okay?” she said.

I nodded and walked back into her bedroom, where I kept some spare clothes. I changed into fresh Levi’s and a black T-shirt and walked back into the living room. She was perched on the couch with Pearl.

“Two men were shot,” I said. “But not by us.”

“Who were the men?”

“Upstanding members of the Outlaws street gang.”

“And who shot them?” Susan said.

I lifted my beer and took a sip. “Victor Lima.”

I told her more about Lela Lopes and the connection through Jesus DeVeiga. I drank some more beer and told her about my adventures through the Long Crouch Woods and my salvation by a young Native American.

“Thank God for Z.”

“Yep.”

“Lima stole your guns?” she said.

“There is that.”

Susan had not been expecting me or anyone on her Saturday off. She wore an oversized gray Harvard sweatshirt and black yoga pants with no shoes. Her hair was twisted up into a bun. Pearl rested her head in Susan’s lap and stared up at me with her soulful yellow eyes as if to say, “You wish, buster.”

“So you’ll go after him,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “But I wanted to see you first.”

“Why?”

“I think Akira is alive.”

Susan turned to me and audibly inhaled. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. “But I strongly suspect it.”

“Don’t tell his parents yet,” Susan said. “Until you’re sure.”

I nodded and tipped back the beer. I walked over and scratched Pearl’s graying head and ears. She grunted and turned over on her back, legs sticking straight up in the air.

“It’s stopped raining,” I said. “We could walk down to the Open Market. Have a nice dinner at the Russell House.”

“We could,” she said. “But you can’t.”

I nodded.

“Bad guys to catch.”

“Yep.”

“And a very scared little boy to save,” she said.

“Lima has disappeared again.”

“Did you call Quirk?”

“Quirk, Lundquist, and even my old pal, Tom Connor,” I said. “They’re all looking for him.”

“If you find him,” she said, “I want to be with you when you talk to Nicole. Either way.”

I leaned down, kissed Susan, and headed out to continue the search.

62

Hawk called me at midnight.

“I got a lead, babe.”

“A lead,” I said. “That’s part of my lexicon.”

“Got word some shitbag want to talk.”

“Better.”

“Says he knows where to find Lima.”

I had gone back to my apartment for my spare gun, an S&W .40-cal, which, for a spare gun, wasn’t a bad option. I had a leather rig for it, wore it over my T-shirt and under a workout jacket. My beloved A-2 was still air-drying at Susan’s.

“He mention the kid?”

“Nope.”

“Where?”

“He wants that money,” Hawk said.

“Of course he does,” I said. “We get Lima and we’ll talk.”

“That’s what I told him.”

I checked my watch. “Where and when?” I said.

“Right now,” Hawk said. “Time waits for no man.”

“Except us.”

Hawk gave a “ha” and told me he’d be around in fifteen.

I finished a cup of coffee and loaded some spare bullets in my jacket before walking down to Marlborough. Hawk pulled around from Arlington and stopped in front of my apartment. I got in and he sped off. We cut up Berkeley to Beacon and then took Clarendon, heading south. “Back to Roxbury,” I said.

Hawk just smiled, the bright green instrument panel of the Jag lighting up his face and large hands on the wheel. Clarendon hit Tremont and we took Tremont all the way into the neighborhood.

“You got a name?” I said.

“Nope.”

“How’d they find you?”

“DeVeiga,” Hawk said. “Reached out to him in the hospital. DeVeiga told this guy we could be trusted.”

“Part of the kidnap?” I said.

“Probably.”

“Who sold out his partners,” I said. “Not exactly someone to trust.”

“We be careful,” he said. “Kid don’t have much time. If Lima still breathing, he’s going to be on edge and ready to get out of Boston. He can’t take the kid with him.”

We didn’t speak for a long time until we came into Roxbury. Hawk dialed a number and asked where and then hung up. Hawk shook his head with great disdain. “Man wants to meet at Burger King,” he said.

“Did you expect the Four Seasons?” I said.

“Kinjo pay up if the man is right?”

“Up to Kinjo.”

“And if the boy is dead?”

I didn’t answer. The ethics of laying down a bounty were pretty complex. Hawk drove along Route 28 into Dorchester and crossed over to Washington Street and a late-night Burger King. The restaurant sat on a corner with a large but empty parking lot facing a long row of recently remodeled three-story brick apartments. A large sign boasted this was part of the Codman Square Redevelopment Initiative.

Hawk parked at a crooked angle and we got out of our car.

A few minutes later, a white Crown Vic pulled in beside us. A thick-bodied black man in a white shirt and matching white ball cap crawled out and approached us. He had on dark baggy jeans and running shoes so white they gleamed. He had a mustache and goatee trimmed to a razor’s width and a coiled gold chain around his neck. He looked at Hawk and tilted his head in recognition.

We did not shake hands or introduce ourselves.

“Where’s the money?” he said.

“Ain’t no money,” Hawk said. “Money comes when we get Lima and the kid.”

“Kid’s dead.”

“How you know?”

“How you know he ain’t?”

“Where?”

“I want my fucking money, man,” the man in white said. Hawk looked from left to right and then over his shoulder at the Burger King. I rested my backside against his Jag, careful not to apply any pressure. I smiled good-naturedly at the young thug.

“What’s your name?” Hawk said.

“Papa B,” the young man said. He tilted his chin up with pride.

“You know who I am?” Hawk said.

“Yeah,” he said. “You the Hawk.”

“You know about me.”

The boy swallowed. His eyes darted away for a moment and then back on Hawk. He crossed his arms over his chest and then nodded a few times.

“Where?” Hawk said.

“I want that money.”

“You deliver,” Hawk said. “We talk. You fuck us and you get dead quick.”

The boy reached into his baggy jeans and gave Hawk a crumpled piece of paper. Hawk read it, turned his head to me, and then nodded. He turned back to Papa B and told him we’d be in touch.

“Come on, man,” he said. “I got to get something. I ain’t doing this for free.”

Hawk walked up so quickly on the boy that the boy flinched. Hawk tilted his head down into the boy’s, nearly nose to nose, and said, “You kill that girl?”

Papa B didn’t answer.

“You in with them?” Hawk said.

Papa B didn’t answer.

“You turn on your pals?”

Nothing.

“If you wastin’ our time,” Hawk said. “I will be back for your ass.”

I looked to Papa B and raised my eyebrows. There was little to add to Hawk’s comments. We got into the Jag and pulled away from the Burger King and headed to the address scrawled on the scrap of paper.