Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Lullaby"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

43

Since when does Tony go to church?” I asked.

“Tony always go to church.”

I nodded.

“Even pimps got faith.”

“You think Junior and Ty-Bop go with him?” I asked.

“Nah, man,” Hawk said. “Probably steal the collection plate.”

My cell rang in my coat pocket. I answered.

“We got to talk,” Mattie said.

“Okay, talk.”

“Right now,” she said. “In person.”

“I’m with Hawk.”

“Meet me at the playground at the McCormack.”

“Hawk will like that.”

I made a U-turn and headed toward the bridge.

“Southie?” Hawk said.

“Yep.”

“Mattie?”

“Yep.”

“What she want?”

I shrugged and headed that way. It had started to rain, but it felt warm and pleasant inside the car. I turned on the windshield wipers as Southie passed in the washed-out hues of an old Polaroid. Old brick and chain-link fences. Churches and donut shops. Abandoned storefronts and renovated condos. The road was slick but not yet iced.

We parked in front of the small playground. There was a swing set with heavy chains and thick rubber seats laden with wet snow. Small metal animals with handles for ears and springs for feet poked from the white ground.

Cold rain pelted the windshield. We got out and stood with Mattie.

“You want to sit in the car?” I asked.

“Theresa Donovan is fucking missing,” Mattie said. “It was all people were talkin’ about at Mass. People tried to shut up when I was around. I guess they thought it might freak me out.”

“What did you hear?”

“That she’s gone,” Mattie said. “You know she about shit a brick when you started asking about my ma. And I know Mickey is saying she was with my ma the night she died.”

“You spoke to Mickey?”

Mattie nodded.

Hawk stood close on the sidewalk and leaned against a wrought-iron fence. Rain beaded down his bald head. His arms folded across his chest. He looked completely at home.

“You know it was Red and Moon,” Mattie said. “You got to do somethin’. Her little sister is my age. She puked her guts out this morning.”

“If she’s with those two,” I said, “we’ll know.”

“Let’s go,” Mattie said. “Come on.”

“I love a spunky kid,” I said.

“I wanna watch you guys stomp those animals,” Mattie said.

“We good at the stompin’,” Hawk said.

“Years of practice.”

The rain turned to sleet and felt like tiny needles on my face. The expanse of the housing projects seemed to grow quiet and still. It felt as if we were the only three present.

“You don’t go off half cocked,” I said. “You move when the time is right, not when you’re mad. You go clearheaded and with a plan.”

Hawk nodded. “If they got this girl, we get her.”

Mattie shook her head. “Must be easy for you two to be cool,” she said. “How can you? You just stand around and move slow and make jokes. How can you joke around? What are you thinking?”

“Hawk and I have been up against a lot worse,” I said. “We watch and wait. We rush in and scare them, we’ll never find her.”

“She’s fucking gone,” Mattie said. “They’ll kill her.”

“If they wanted to shut her up,” I said, “she’s already dead.”

Mattie’s face had grown red. Her hands balled into fists. She was doing that biting thing with her cheek again. “Jesus. Neither of you know what it’s like. I lost my mother.”

“I lost my mother, too,” I said.

“It’s not the same,” Mattie said. “Your mother died. Mine was killed. You don’t know what that feels like. It fucking hurts.”

The air seemed to drop a few degrees. Sleet fell harder than rain. We all stood there, stubborn. Two cars passed, rolling slow, down the road through the projects.

Hawk turned to Mattie. “I know.”

I had known Hawk most of my adult life. He’d never mentioned a family. For all I knew, he’d just appeared fully formed like a Greek god.

“I was older than you,” Hawk said. “A bad man killed her.”

“What happened?” Mattie said. She dropped her fists and stood in the sleet in her misshapen coat and ridiculous cap. She studied Hawk with an open mouth. She breathed as if just finishing a marathon.

“Doesn’t matter,” Hawk said.

“Did you find him?”

Hawk nodded.

“Did you get even?”

“Oh, yes.”

Mattie wet her mouth. Her face had gone from bright red to colorless. Sleet salted the shoveled pathways, crooking in broken mazes. I kept quiet.

“How’d that feel?” she asked.

Hawk moved from the fence toward us. He looked down a few feet at Mattie. Without much emotion, he said, “Perfect.”

44

Mattie sat in the backseat. Hawk rode shotgun.

She had removed her soaked Sox cap. Her jacket was weatherproof and slick. She chewed gum and smiled, leaning into the seat between us. “Where we headed?”

“We goin’ on a stakeout, missy,” Hawk said. “Sit back and enjoy the excitement.”

I turned on the car’s heat. The sleet pinged off the road ahead. Bringing Mattie along contradicted every microfiber of good judgment I had. But she’d asked to watch us work. And watching and waiting wasn’t a dangerous gig. And since I wasn’t going to teach her how to box or build a house, maybe this was something.

“This is fun to you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because it feels like I’m doing something,” she said. “They’re not making the rules. Feels like we’re in charge.”

I nodded.

“So why don’t you just snatch up those two bastards and beat their ass?” Mattie said.

“That’s what I keep on telling Spenser,” Hawk said.

“You should listen to Hawk more,” Mattie said.

Hawk smiled.

I followed Dorchester Avenue up to West Broadway and took the main thoroughfare over to G Street and Red Cahill’s three-decker. I parked down the street in a neat, unobtrusive spot between two cars still blanketed in snow. The rain and sleet had done little but pockmark the mounds of snow and ice. The sleet prattled on the windshield as I turned off the ignition. Hawk leaned back in the passenger seat. The rental felt warm and somewhat homey on a winter day.

“Did Theresa’s family have any ideas about where she might have gone?” I asked.

“Nope,” Mattie said. “Finished up her shift and was gone.”

Mattie leaned in again. She blew a large pink bubble. “She and her kid sister are real close. They were really freaked out.”

Mattie was quiet for several moments. Hawk shut his eyes.

“So what do you two do on stakeouts?” she asked.

“Sometimes Parcheesi,” I said. “Sometimes Hawk likes to sing to me.”

Hawk did not open his eyes as he hummed a few bars from “Old Man River.”

“So you sit around, drink coffee, and bullshit.”

“Kid’s good,” Hawk said.

Thirty minutes later, Red and Moon were on the move. I started the car.

I waited a beat and then followed the Range Rover out of Southie and over the Summer Street Bridge. When Red took Atlantic toward the North End, I half expected to learn of some kind of Irish-Italian collaboration. But Red kept on driving north over the Charlestown Bridge, past the Garden and up over Old Ironsides. They parked in Charlestown across from a stretch of public housing and walked into a pool room cleverly named A-1 Billiards. In a few minutes, they walked back to their car and drove off.

I hoped Mattie was getting bored.

She wasn’t.

She studied how I drove. I lagged far behind on straightaways but followed close at lights. If Red stopped at a business, I kept going. I’d circle the block, make sure they were off the street, and find a place. We blended in. We flowed with traffic.

At one point, Mattie thought we’d lost them. I jockeyed for position on a bridge and came up two cars behind them.

I smiled with satisfaction.

“Not bad,” she said.

We weaved in and out of traffic along the JFK. I would slow to five, six, eight cars behind Red’s Range Rover. I would speed up and pass them and fall back behind.

“He just showin’ off,” Hawk said. “Besides, those two wouldn’t know if they was bein’ followed by the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.”

“You saying they’re dumb?” Mattie asked.

“If those boys any dumber, someone need to water ’em,” Hawk said.

We followed them onto Storrow Drive along the river. Red left Storrow and headed south, back to the Fenway. He slowed in the neighborhood around Boston University. I was caught at a stoplight as he turned onto Kenmore Square. The huge Citgo sign stood proud over the red-brick bookstore on Beacon.

Pedestrians navigated the ankle-deep mess, umbrellas in hand, huddled under their hoods and ball caps. The light turned. I followed and caught up.

“Lovely day,” Hawk said.

“Just why do we live here?”

“To appreciate the full beauty of the seasons,” Hawk said. “But if they hoof it, you follow. Can’t ruin my new boots.”

“That may be the most unthuggish thing you’ve ever said.”

“Shit,” Hawk said. “These boots cost more than everything you got in your closet.”

“Over there,” Mattie said.

The Range Rover U-turned on Beacon and pulled in front of a sad-looking bar advertising two-for-one chicken wings. Green paint molted from the old wooden façade. A half-dozen neon beer signs blazed from the window. Busted-up metal garbage cans sat on the curb.

Red and Moon got out of the car. Moon stretched and scratched his fat butt.

We parked off Yawkey Way near the big Sox team store that was larger than the stadium. Hawk had his eyes closed. Mattie leaned up between us, and I heard her breathing against my neck.

She was popping her gum. The windshield wipers swiped every few seconds.

I folded my arms over my chest and watched the bar. I left the car running. After ten minutes, I killed the engine.

Everything grew very quiet. Sleet and rain tapped at the windows.

“I can take you home if you like,” I said.

“No, this is cool.”

“Got school tomorrow.”

“You trying to get rid of me?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said.

Hawk grinned.

A few minutes later, Red and Moon hustled out of the old bar. They dragged a very short, very skinny gray-haired man behind them. I thought I knew him. I elbowed Hawk to confirm.

Hawk leaned up to the windshield. He did not speak. He stared and then nodded.

“Right?” I asked.

“It’s him.”

“It’s who?” Mattie asked. “You two always speak in code?”

“Chico Hirsch.”

“Who the hell is Chico Hirsch?” she asked.

“Big-time bookie,” I said. “Been around since the Braves were in Boston. Jesus. How old is Chico?”

“Got to be around ninety,” Hawk said. “I thought that motherfucker was long dead.”

Moon gripped Chico’s upper arm and shoved him roughly into the back of the Range Rover. He said something harsh and unpleasant, and then slammed the door. Red and Moon piled into the Range Rover and took off.

We followed. Mattie was absolutely hooked.

In the rearview, I saw an honest-to-God smile.

Good judgment be damned.

45

They didn’t drive back to Red’s three-decker. Red and Moon hustled Chico Hirsch into a pleasant two-story house on Third Street in Southie. It was getting dark and very cold. Sleet fell in the failing light.

“Shoulda got some of them chicken wings,” Hawk said.

“Two for one,” I said.

“I could go for food,” Mattie said. “There’s a corner store close across the street.”

She pointed to a convenience store within sight, so I gave her some money for some sandwiches and coffee. The sleet tapped harder against the windshield. Streets were icing. Melting snow banks solidified.

“What you think they doin’ with Chico?” Hawk asked.

“Asking him about the good ole days,” I said. “They want to learn from the wealth of his experience.”

“Bullshit pickin’ on an old man,” Hawk said.

“It is.”

“What we gonna do?”

“I could knock on the door and shame them to death.”

“Or we could bust in the front door and say, ‘Give it up, motherfuckers.’”

“You’re dying to try that out, aren’t you?”

Hawk grinned. “Yep.”

Mattie returned with the coffee and sandwiches. The sandwiches were the premade kind, wrapped tightly in cellophane for long life. I think King Tut was wrapped in the same manner. The mustard pack was the only nourishing part of the meal.

“You owe me,” Hawk said, checking out what was between the bread.

“You are not enjoying the bounty we have provided for you?” I asked.

“Sitting in a Ford sedan, drinkin’ bad coffee, and eating a shit sandwich ain’t exactly my idea of heaven.”

“Where’s Chico?” Mattie asked.

We didn’t answer. Hawk leaned forward and rolled his shoulders. He lolled his neck until it cracked. His Mossberg pump lay against his right leg.

“Where is he?” Mattie asked.

“Hasn’t come out,” I said.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Natural selection,” Hawk said. “Chico is a bookie. Bookies got to play the game.”

“He’s an old man,” Mattie said. “They’re gonna kill him.”

“Chico know what it’s about,” Hawk said. “This ain’t his first shakedown.”

“Well, you got to do something,” Mattie said. “Call the cops. Or something.”

I took a deep breath. I wadded up the rest of my sandwich. I opened the door and tossed out the remaining coffee onto the street. Steam rose from the asphalt. I closed the door and looked to Hawk.

“We take you home,” I said to Mattie. “Then we’ll do something.”

“That’ll take too much time,” she said.

We didn’t say anything.

“I won’t get out of the car,” she said. “I swear. If something happens, I’ll call the cops. Can’t you just check? Please just check.”

“This isn’t why we’re here,” I said. “We check on some bookie, we might not find Theresa.”

I turned around and looked at Mattie. She said please again. The please wasn’t something that came naturally to her.

Hawk and I climbed out of the car. Mattie moved into the front passenger seat and closed the door. I checked the load on the .357. I absently felt for the .38 clipped to my belt.

We walked side by side down the street, empty except for the cars and trucks packed tight against the curbs. No people, just the quiet and stillness of sleet. The air felt thin, with a silent patter of the tiny ice pellets.

“Can’t say no to the kid,” Hawk said.

“It’s part of her therapy,” I said. “Watching masters at their trade.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t you miss having hair in this weather?” I asked.

“I am bulletproof.”

“Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

“Yeah,” Hawk said. “All that shit.”

Hawk moved ahead, Mossberg in his right hand, and skirted the edge of the pleasant two-story house. The house was painted a light green, with black shutters. From the driveway, you could see a picket fence surrounding a small backyard.

I watched the street. Mattie watched us from the car.

Hawk looped back around the house and met me out front.

“Got Chico in the kitchen,” he said. “Lot of blood in that old man.”

“Any others?”

“Only see the two.”

“Back door?”

“It’s one of those wrought-iron security jobs,” he said. “Locked.”

I nodded. We walked to the front door.

I tried the knob, and it turned loose in my hands.

“Shit. I wanted to kick it in,” Hawk said. He peered in a side window and moved close to my shoulder.

With the .357 extended, I turned the knob and Hawk pushed in the door. I moved into the room fast. Hawk followed and scanned the corners and staircase. We hit the kitchen within three seconds of getting in the house.

Red was screaming at Chico. Chico was telling Red to go fuck himself.

I had the .357 on them. Hawk stood at my side with the pump.

There was a lot of blood on the front of Chico’s wrinkled dress shirt. On a nearby table, I spotted several Baggies of what looked like drugs and a small digital scale.

“Give it up,” Hawk said. “Motherfuckers.”

Hawk grinned.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Red said.

“Hello, Red,” I said. “So how you been?”

Moon was standing. He stared at us with bovine eyes. Two handguns sat on a kitchen counter. Moon and Red were maybe three feet from the counter. Miles.

“Put your hands up,” I said.

No one moved. Moon inched himself toward the guns.

Hawk bolted forward and rammed the muzzle of the shotgun into Moon’s sternum. He was down. I trained my gun on Red.

His hands went up.

Chico put his hands up, too. He wore an ill-fitting wool suit. His right eye was swollen. The bulging eye made him look like a frog. He squinted at me. His thick glasses lay broken on the kitchen floor.

Hawk checked the boys for weapons. He found a .45 stuck in Red’s belt. Moon wasn’t armed except for a folding knife. Moon started to get to his feet.

He came for Hawk.

Hawk rammed the stock of the Mossberg into his gut. Moon was down on his knees. I figured Moon must suffer some type of learning disability.

“Where’s Theresa Donovan?” I asked. I tossed Chico a few napkins for his nose. I kept staring at Red as I bent down and picked up Chico’s glasses. One of the lenses was cracked.

“Who?” Red said.

“Playing dumb suits you to a T, Red,” I said. “Theresa Don-

ovan?”

He shook his head. “I’m not fucking lying. What the hell?”

“How about Jack Flynn? Does he know?”

This time Red smiled and took one step back. “Don’t know him,” Red said. “You, Moon?”

Moon made a sound like a deflating blimp.

“Moon don’t know him, either,” Red said. He shrugged. “Guess you’re fucked now.”

“That’s a unique perspective.”

Chico got to his feet. He shook his head and spit on the vinyl floor. The spitting was very theatrical but very appropriate. The old man stood next to me and put on his glasses.

“You tell Jack and Gerry to go and have intercourse with each other.”

“Chico,” I said. “So polite.”

“I’m old,” Chico said. “I got to make peace with this shit.”

Hawk smiled. The Mossberg still trained on Moon. I had the gun on Red.

I walked to the table and laid the .357 before me. I took a breath and leaned in. I smiled. Spenser, professional mediator.

“Who’s in charge?” I asked. “Jack or Gerry Broz?”

Red shrugged.

“Easy question, Red,” I said. “Shall I speak more slowly?”

Moon wavered to his feet. He wiped the blood off his doughy face. He had the expression of a beaten man.

I nodded. “Lots of dope on this table,” I said. “Got a ninety-year-old man ready to press charges.”

“No,” Red said. “He won’t. We were just playing. Right, Chico?”

Chico’s eyes shifted from me to Red. From Red to Hawk and Moon.

He didn’t say anything.

“Still a lot of dope,” I said. I pulled a cell phone from the inside of my coat. I laid it by the .357. “One call.”

Red’s eyes flicked over me. He kept a tough-guy stare.

“What do you want?” Moon asked.

I raised my eyebrows. I turned to Moon.

“Did you take Theresa Donovan?”

He shook his head. His breath was labored. He’d thrown in the towel.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s try this. We just want to know what happened to Julie Sullivan. You answer that and we’re gone.”

“Chico goes, too,” Chico said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Right. Chico is with us.”

Red shook his head at Moon. Moon looked over to Hawk and then me. He leaned against the table. He looked to Red.

“I can’t go back to prison, man,” Moon said. “I’d rather fucking die.”

“Shut up, Moon,” Red said.

“We took the girl to see Flynn.”

“Shut up, Moon,” Red said. “Shut the fuck up.”

“This ain’t business,” Moon said. “You talk to Flynn. He had us snatch her.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Shut the fuck up, Moon.”

“Because—”

I had been studying Moon’s face and body language. I had been waiting for a telltale sign he was lying. I watched his eyes. The way he breathed.

I broke eye contact with Moon.

Red snatched up my .357 and shot Moon right in the head. Moon toppled.

Hawk blasted a large hole in Red Cahill’s chest. There was a lot of noise and blood with the smell of smoke and gunpowder. My ears rang.

And then silence. The silence amplified the sleet against the roof and windows. To punctuate the violence, Red’s body slipped from the chair and onto the floor beside Moon’s.

“Holy Christ,” Chico Hirsch said. He walked over to Red and kicked him hard in the head. “Holy Christ.”

“A fine mess you’ve gotten me into,” Hawk said.

Hawk was not smiling. I took a deep breath.

I left my .357 on the floor beside Red. The crime scene techs could later lecture about the setup. At least that was something.

“Crapola,” Chico said. “That kid’s chest looks like a plate of spaghetti.”

Death was very ugly, even among ugly people.

“You want to call Quirk?” Hawk said. “He gonna love this.”

I nodded.

46

Quirk was not pleased. He walked from the kitchen into the living room, where I’d been going over the story with Frank Belson. Hawk was outside, talking to a young female detective I didn’t know. The front door was left open, with crime scene techs and detectives going in and out. The room had grown very cold.

“What a mess,” Quirk said. “What a fucking mess.”

“Spenser says he was just being a Good Samaritan,” Belson said.

“Just happened to be tooling around Southie and ran across Chico Hirsch getting the crap kicked out of him?”

“He and Hawk had been tailing those guys and saw them abduct Mr. Hirsch,” Belson said.

“Oh, goody,” Quirk said.

“I knew how much you missed seeing me,” I said.

“I was in my easy chair, watching the game,” Quirk said. “I had about this much Johnnie Walker poured into my glass.”

He spaced his thumb and index finger very far apart.

“I can see you’re still in your house clothes,” I said.

Quirk wore a stiff-collared white dress shirt under a navy V-neck cashmere sweater. His charcoal pants sported a sharp crease. His wingtips gleamed from a recent shine. The trench coat had been expertly folded under his right arm.

“We got your gun for Moon Murphy and Hawk’s shotgun on Red,” Quirk said.

“Red took my gun,” I said.

“That’s embarrassing,” Quirk said.

“It is.”

“That’s the part I don’t get,” Quirk said. “Why would he shoot his partner?”

“We were going to call the police,” I said. “And Moon Murphy, being a recent parolee, was not excited about returning to the pokey.”

“And he was about to rat on Red?”

“Something like that.”

Quirk shook his head. He looked to Belson. Belson shook his head.

Belson reached into his coat pocket for a cigar and stepped outside for a smoke. I recalled a time when he’d light up standing over a dead body.

“I’m getting the feeling I’m going to be x-ed from the Citizen of the Year Award by the Boston police.”

“Yeah,” Quirk said. He nodded as he appraised me. “But you’re number one on our shit list.”

“Was the Johnnie Walker Red or Blue?”

“Blue,” Quirk said.

“Ouch,” I said.

“Shit list,” Quirk said.

“On the other hand, Chico Hirsch wants to name his great-grandson Hawk.”

“Explain that at Hebrew school.”

“Chico is an old man,” I said. “They could’ve killed him.”

“Spenser, patron saint to bookies, con men, and thieves.”

I shrugged. We walked outside to join Belson. From the stoop, I saw Mattie standing with a patrol officer. The officer was a young black woman. Mattie was talking, and she was taking down notes.

“We hadn’t even talked about the kid yet,” Quirk said. “What the hell? You gone nuts?”

“You hadn’t heard?” Belson said. “Business is so bad, Spenser babysits for beer money.”

“That’s Julie Sullivan’s kid,” Quirk said.

I nodded.

“Why’d you bring her into this mess?” Quirk asked.

Belson smoked the cigar. I was glad the cold wind scattered the smoke. Belson liked them cheap.

“You get a dozen for a quarter, Frank?” I said.

“Nah,” Belson said. “Are you kidding? These are a whole dollar apiece.”

“Red and Moon kill her mom?” Quirk asked.

I shook my head. “We were getting to that when Moon met his early demise.”

Quirk nodded. “We’ll be taking your gun.”

“I figured.”

“And Hawk’s gun, too.”

“Hawk won’t be pleased.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

“Stand a little more in the light.”

“You mind a little off-the-record advice?” Quirk said.

I waited.

“You may want to rearm,” Quirk said.

I nodded.

“Yep,” Belson said. “You want to tell him? Or you want me to?”

“Tell me what?” I asked.

The two cops grinned at each other.

“House is owned by none other than Mr. Jack Flynn,” Quirk said. “We’re going to talk to him next.”

“He’ll probably be a little pissed about you guys redecorating the kitchen,” Belson said. “And acing a couple of his people.” He plugged the cigar into the corner of his mouth. The stubble on his face had grown thick since shaving that morning.

“You want to tell us what the fuck is going on with Jumpin’ Jack?” Quirk said. “I know that’s not your way and all. And obviously you have the matter well in hand.”

“We didn’t plan this,” I said. “It happened.”

“Shit happens?” Quirk said. “You might want to put that on your business card.”