Robert B. Parker's Lullaby

Текст добавлен: 24 сентября 2016, 07:49

Текст книги "Robert B. Parker's Lullaby"

Автор книги: Ace Atkins

Жанры:

Полицейские детективы

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

I found Touchie Kiley parking cars outside the Four Seasons Hotel on Boylston Street. I made my introductions and waited twenty minutes before he took a break. I sat on a park bench outside the hotel, where I could look out on the frozen tundra of the Common. My peacoat was large and thick, and I’d planned ahead with double socks. I also wore a nice pair of cashmere-lined gloves Susan picked out for me at Neiman Marcus.

There were a lot of dogs in the Common today. My prediction called for a lot of yellow snow.

Touchie took a seat beside me. He was eating a hamburger from McDonald’s and absently reaching into a greasy sack for his fries. He was a good-looking twentysomething guy with dimples who wore too much grease in his hair. It may have been gel or mousse or some kind of styling product. I did not touch it. I took it to be grease.

“Julie’s kid really hire you?” he asked.

“She really did.”

“How old is she now?”

“Fourteen.”

“Wow. In a few years, Jules could’ve been like a grandmother or somethin’.”

“Fingers crossed.”

“Jules and I went to high school together before I dropped out,” Touchie said. “Her and me were in English together.”

“And learned much.”

I showed him the photograph of him with Julie Sullivan. He shook his head as he worked on a wad of hamburger. He nearly choked getting it down. He pointed to the photo and smiled, nodding a lot.

“She was a lot of fun,” he said. “Great tits. But she wasn’t my girlfriend or anything. More of just a fuck buddy.”

“How nice of her.”

He grinned and shrugged. “Fuck buddies are the best kind of buddies.”

“A friend in need,” I said.

He nodded with understanding. He ate some more fries. Touchie Kiley was probably coming up on thirty but was one of those guys who didn’t want to go much beyond nineteen. He would dress the part, wear his hair in a certain style, and keep playing young until it didn’t work anymore. Most guys like that never did know when they passed that point. Today he was dressed in the spiffy greens of a parking attendant. Tonight he’d be a rock star.

“Were you still buddies when she got killed?” I asked.

“I didn’t have shit to do with that, man.”

“Didn’t say you did,” I said. “Just trying to figure out who was in her circle. What her life was like. Find people who may know more about her death.”

“Mickey Green killed her.”

“Mickey Green was convicted of killing her,” I said. “Julie’s daughter thinks he’s innocent.”

“Mickey Green is a fuck-up piece of shit.”

“That may be the case,” I said. “But it doesn’t mean he killed her.”

Touchie Kiley finished off the burger, wadded up the wrapper, and sized up a trash can with gold trim. He took the shot. And missed. He walked over and placed the wrapper and the fries bag into the can. He sat back down. Conscientious.

“So,” I said, “besides Mickey Green, who else would’ve been in Julie’s company?”

“Shit, I don’t know.”

“Think, Touchie,” I said. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

“We just kind of hooked up sometimes.”

“As fuck buddies should.”

An older black man in a red-and-gold uniform and matching hat called out for Touchie and pointed to his watch. Touchie held up his hand, acknowledging he’d heard him. The man shook his head in annoyance and walked back to the valet stand. He opened the door for a silver-haired woman exiting a silver Lexus.

“There was this chick.”

“And what was this chick’s name?”

“Shit,” he said. “This was, like, four years ago.”

“It was four years ago.”

“And it’s hard to remember,” he said. “I was kind of fucked up myself.”

“But Julie had this friend.”

“Yeah, she went to Southie High, too. Shit, she was always with Julie. You didn’t see one without the other. Frick and fucking Frack.”

“Was she spotted in the company of a Thin Man?”

“I don’t know,” Touchie said. “I don’t remember him.”

“Never mind,” I said. “Would this girl’s name happen to be Theresa?”

“Yeah, Theresa Donovan,” he said. “She had great tits, too. I wonder if she’s still around? I bet we’re into the same shit, knowing the same people and all.”

“What are you into, Touchie?”

“Having a good time before my dick quits working.”

“A noble goal.”

“You got a wife?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I’ve got total commitment but don’t need a piece of paper to make it so.”

“You been married?”

“Nope.”

“Then what makes you different than me?” he said. “If you get the milk for free, then why buy the cow?”

“‘Soul and body have no bounds,’” I said. “‘To lovers as they lie upon.’”

“What is that, Bon Jovi?”

“Auden.”

“Some old-school shit.”

“Yep.”

Touchie took out a pocket comb and slicked back his dark hair. Damn if it wasn’t old-fashioned grease. I wondered if he carried a switchblade, too. He stood and shook my hand.

“Anything else you recall?” I asked. You always ended the interview like that. One more question, ma’am. Over the years, I’d perfected it.

“You didn’t ask me about the old guy.”

“And I say, ‘What old guy?’”

“Older ’an you,” Touchie said. “I seen him with Julie a lot before Mickey killed her. I figured you’d be all over that.”

“Name?”

“Don’t know,” Touchie said. “He was somebody. You know, like a guy who thought he was top dog or used to be one. I was in the pub and kind of trashed when I met him.”

“I’m sensing a pattern.”

“One night, I go up to Jules and say, ‘How’s the kids, how’s your ma, how you doin’ in the McCormack?’ and all that shit. I guess we was talking a little too close, and this old guy comes up and nearly takes my fucking head off. Just for talking to her.”

“What’d he say?”

“Didn’t say nothin’,” Touchie said. “He just reached over, grabbed my hand, and pulled my arm off Jules. He had a grip like a gorilla. Strong as an ape. A big crazy mick. A couple old guys pulled him away and tried to calm him down ’cause he’d just gotten out of the joint.”

“What’d you do?”

“Not shit,” he said. “Guy was nuts. Old men get a piece of young tail and they lose their mind. Fuckin’ nuts. People were grabbing me and telling me to get lost, that he’d kill me or something. A lot of drunk shit. Pub stuff. Me? I like to joke around. Have a drink. Have a smoke. Have fun.”

“People tell me you’re a riot,” I said.

“What can I say? It’s a gift.”

Touchie smiled. He was very pleased with himself.

“You know anyone who’d recognize the old guy?”

“Nah,” he said. “Like I said, my memory ain’t so good. I mean, the big guy coulda been you.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“Shit, I don’t know,” he said. “He was a big old tough guy.”

“You remember any detail about him?”

“He was a mean bastard.”

“Would it help if I brought some photos?”

He shook his head. “I was pretty trashed.”

I nodded. I made a mental note. I would ask around.

“Jules was a sweet girl.” He looked out into the Common and smiled, thinking some sweet and faraway thought. Wind kicked up flecks of snow and scattered bits along twisting paths. The smile was frozen on his face. “Real sweet. She was a mess, but she sure loved her kids.”

I gave him a card. And twenty bucks. “Ask around about the old guy,” I said.

Touchie Kiley thanked me before running off to park a Cadillac. He waved in the shiny new car as it passed me on the half-circle drive. He looked very at home behind the wheel.

Peter Contini, attorney at law, kept an office on Washington Street, not far from Kneeland. I once had an office in the same neighborhood, when it was known as the Combat Zone. I still recalled the Teddy Bare Lounge, the Two O’clock Club, and the Naked I with great fondness. The Naked I had a terrific sign with a neon eye flashing over a woman’s crotch. There were dancers like Princess Cheyenne and Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker. Dozens and dozens of peep shows and burlesque clubs and dirty movie houses.

But then came redevelopment and home video. Men could watch naked women on their computers. No need for a raincoat and sunglasses. Now most of the old Combat Zone was filled with electronics stores and Vietnamese restaurants.

There was a cold rain that afternoon, and I had my collar turned up on my coat. The rain slickened the neon streets, signs shining in Asian symbols and letters.

My Sox hat was soaked by the time I knocked on Contini’s office door.

When he opened it, I could tell he was slightly drunk.

“I’d like to talk to you about Mickey Green,” I said brightly.

Contini looked at me like I was the Ghost of Christmas Past. I smiled reassuringly at him. He did not smile back. He just walked back into his small office, which was cluttered in papers and thick bound files.

He sat at his desk and took a sip from a coffee mug. Contini was a small, skeletal man with very white, very bad skin. His suit had probably been purchased at a warehouse sale. And even ten years ago it must’ve been just as ugly.

He face was pockmarked. He was in need of a shave.

“How’s the coffee?” I asked.

“I don’t drink coffee,” Contini said.

I smiled.

“Mickey Green?” he said. “Sorry. I think he fired me. Someone else is doing his appeals.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I said. “Top legal beagle like you.”

“Hey, what the hell?”

“Do you have a chair?”

Contini pointed one out under an avalanche of documents and bills. I moved the pile to the floor, careful not to dismantle his ornate filing system.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

I gave my name and profession.

He wrote it out on a pad.

“With an S,” I said. “Like the English poet.”

Contini scratched out what he’d written. He nodded as if he were a great fan of Elizabethan poetry.

“Mickey Green told me you were a lousy lawyer.”

“Mickey Green’s family still owes me money.”

“He said you missed several hearings.”

“I don’t recall that.”

“He said you failed to consult forensic experts.”

“Hiring your own experts costs money.”

“And that you never presented a single alibi witness.”

“Because he didn’t have any.”

“Tiffany Royce,” I said. I crossed my legs. My jacket was flecked with rain.

“Who’s that?”

“Alibi witness,” I said. “Manicurist. Woman Mickey slept with at her house that night. Very nice body. Butterfly tattoo on her lower back.”

“Mickey lied to me so many times I didn’t know what was what.”

“Did you know Julie Sullivan had a boyfriend at the time of her murder?”

Contini’s left eye twitched. How I’d love to take his money at poker. I leaned into the chair, placing my elbows across my knees.

“She was also seen in the company of a pair of Southie shitbags hours before the killing.”

“Says who?” Contini asked. The legal mind was awake. Ready to fence.

“Julie Sullivan’s daughter,” I said. “She hired me to find out who killed her mother.”

“You work for a kid?” Contini asked. “Jesus Christ.”

He placed a pair of big unpolished black shoes on his windowsill. He laughed. “What’s she pay you in? Girl Scout cookies?”

“Nope,” I said. “Chocolate-glazed.”

“You ever worked a criminal investigation before?”

“One or two.”

“You’re welcome to look at his file,” he said. “See if you can make chickenshit into chicken salad.”

“People do say I am a wonderful cook.”

He rummaged around in his office for several minutes. A bottle of Scope sat on a tall file cabinet. He had framed a print of the Paul Revere statue behind his desk. “One if by land, and two if by sea.” A framed diploma from Suffolk Law School had yellowed and bubbled behind the glass.

I sat in the chair and studied the rain slanting along Washington Street. I missed the hookers and pimps. At least they were honest.

He handed me the file.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He nodded.

“What do you keep in that cup?”

“Fighting Cock whiskey and Sprite.”

“Good God.”

He shrugged.

I stood. “I’ll have copies made.”

“Keep it,” Contini said, before taking a swig of hooch. “I flushed the toilet on that turd a long time ago.”

“Well, you did everything humanly possible.”

“Let me give you some free advice, Spenser,” Contini said. I figured we were old buddies now, as he rubbed the shadow on his jaw. “You know, since you’re such a nice guy.”

“Ah, shucks.”

“You’re wasting your fucking time.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“But you think he’s innocent.”

“I think Julie Sullivan’s daughter has a lot questions,” I said. “I think Mickey Green never got a fair shot.”

“What would you think of me if I said not everyone deserves one?” Contini asked.

“Not very much.”

I had skipped lunch. Sensing this might be a sign of the Apocalypse, I invited Mattie to an early dinner in Cambridge. Susan joined us.

We ate at a little place on the square called Flat Patties. The shoestring fries were excellent. The burgers were indeed flat. Sadly, though, they did not serve beer.

“You can’t have beer with every meal,” Susan said.

“But with a burger and fries?” I said. “There should be a law.”

Outside the plate-glass window, a group of students gathered on Brattle Street. They were protesting something in carefully chosen ragged-looking clothes and bright ski hats. I chose not to listen. It was hard to imagine an oppressed Harvard student.

Mattie watched the students chant and began to furtively wrap the uneaten burger in some wax paper.

“Not good?” Susan asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Mattie said. “I’ll bring it home for my sisters.”

“Go ahead and eat,” I said. “We’ll get a couple burgers to go.”

Mattie looked to Susan. Susan nodded. Mattie shrugged. Her reddish hair had been braided and looped through the back of her cap.

“So you have twin sisters?” Susan asked.

Mattie nodded and took a bite.

“What are their names?”

Mattie told her. Susan picked at her salad.

“And you live with your grandmother?”

Mattie took a larger bite. She nodded with her mouth full. I felt Susan’s hand on my knee. I took this as a sign to keep my mouth shut. I promptly filled it with more burger and a couple of fries. The burger was top shelf. The BBQ Blue. Blue cheese, barbecue sauce, and bacon. It was easy to keep my mouth at work.

Susan had ordered an Asian salad with scallions, toasted almonds, and noodles.

“So what do you do for fun?” Susan asked.

“I don’t know. Watch TV and stuff.”

“I mean, if you could do anything for a day, what would you do?”

“Who has a day like that?”

“What if you could take a little vacation from life?”

“But I can’t.”

“If you could,” Susan said. She said it sweetly, smiling as she nibbled on a Chinese noodle. Just a couple ladies shooting the breeze. Susan had a wonderful ability to coax in the gentle pauses. But Mattie was one very tough nut.

“The weather sucks,” Mattie said. “You can’t do crap outside. If you do go outside, people screw with you. I guess go see a movie.”

“Is that fun?”

“I guess.”

“What did you used to do for fun?” Susan asked.

“When I was a kid?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “Back when you were the same age as your sisters?”

“I don’t remember,” Mattie said. “What did you do?”

Susan took a sip of tea and smiled. I continued to eat. Susan’s hand had yet to leave my knee. It was not at all unpleasant.

“I liked to play dress-up,” Susan said. “I liked old dresses. I had dolls. I know it’s not original, but I loved dolls when I was six.”

“She was the princess of Swampscott,” I said. “Sometimes she’ll still play dress-up.”

Susan gently kicked me.

“What about your sisters?” Susan asked. “What do they like to do?”

“They like the cartoons. They watch a ton of freakin’ cartoons. All that Japanese crap. Dora. SpongeBob. They like to go to the playground when you don’t freeze your ass off. They have friends at school. I don’t know. Kid stuff.”

“Do you enjoy playing with them?”

“I don’t play,” Mattie said. “I’m fourteen.”

I almost mentioned the tiara at the princess party but did not care to be kicked under the table twice.

“That’s not too old to play.”

“I got stuff to do.”

“Like what?” Susan asked.

“Get my sisters ready for bed,” she said. “Make sure they have clean clothes for school. All that. Sometimes my grandma helps. Sometimes she can’t.”

Mattie finished her cheeseburger in record time. She sat back. She eyed Susan. And then she eyed me. She smiled slightly and took a deep breath. “What about you, Susan?”

Susan widened her eyes. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Mattie said. “You got kids?”

“No.”

“How come?” Mattie asked. She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back.

Susan smiled slowly, admiring Mattie’s tactic, and nodded. “I wanted children when I was younger, but after my divorce, it wasn’t practical.”

“Why’d you get a divorce?”

“Her husband was an asshole,” I said.

Mattie smiled. Susan did not. She grasped my knee firmly.

“We became different people.”

“That’s me,” Mattie said. “You’re asking me about bein’ a kid and all that. It’s not the same. I don’t even remember things before my ma died.”

“But you realize you are the same person,” Susan said. “That kid is you. It’s your life history. Past, present, and future.”

Mattie shrugged.

“You can’t stop your life while you search for what happened,” Susan said. “Unhappiness won’t bring back the dead. That’s something hard to understand for many of my patients.”

“You ever lost a parent?”

“No,” Susan said. “Not like you have. You’ve gone through a horrific event.”

“This is what I do,” she said. “I’ll see it through.”

“But it will grind you down.”

“Nah.” Mattie shook her head. She looked at Susan with very old eyes. “It keeps me going.”

Susan nodded. Mattie nodded back at her.

I took a breath. Susan let go of my leg. There was a sliver of tension at the table. It was up to Mr. Personality to cut through it.

“Who’d like a malt?” I asked. “You know I skipped lunch? Something I haven’t done in twenty years. My dedication is unwavering.”

I ordered two malts.

The protest broke up and some of the protestors filtered into the restaurant. I detected the protest had not been about eating red meat. A few of the coeds removed their heavy winter jackets and scarves to reveal some very tight T-shirts. The T-shirts protested the war. I took note as the malts arrived.

“You ever thought about what you’d like to do when you graduate?” Susan asked.

“That’s a long time,” Mattie said. “Like in four years.”

“Four years goes quick,” Susan said.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” I said. “In a previous life, she worked as a guidance counselor.”

“I don’t know,” Mattie said. “Maybe be like him.”

I jabbed a thumb at my chest in surprise. I raised my eyebrows in triumph.

“Yeah,” Mattie said. “All you do is go around and ask questions. Bother people till they give you answers. I figure I could do the same thing. You basically act like an asshole and don’t let people lie.”

Susan grinned. “The young lady makes an excellent point.”

“Sometimes I do have to shoot people.”

“I could do that,” Mattie said. She sipped her milkshake. Her pink ball cap was slightly askew. Her winter coat had been buttoned all wrong.

I looked to Susan. Susan watched Mattie.

“Shooting people is not the highlight of my work,” I said.

“If I got a gun,” Mattie said, “I’d shoot down Red Cahill and Moon Murphy in two seconds.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’d kill ’em both and go to prison for the rest of my life with a smile on my face. That’d be my freakin’ vacation.”

Susan’s face showed concern. I nodded.

I understood.

After dropping off Mattie in the projects, I made two phone calls. I checked in with Bobby Barrett, the patrol officer I’d met. I told him about my run-in with Moon and the thugs who’d stolen my car and escorted me away from the Mary Ellen McCormack. He said he’d been checking on the Sullivans and would continue. He didn’t offer much hope for my car.

I thanked him anyway.

I then called my answering service to learn that a Mr. Red Cahill had called that afternoon. He would like to arrange for a meeting tonight.

“Jeepers,” I said to the service operator.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“It’s an expression I use when filled with both anticipation and dread.”

I called Red’s number. He answered on the second ring.

“Where?” he asked.

“No fond greeting?” I asked.

“Where?”

“Quincy Market.”

“Sure,” he said. He had a gravelly voice. Subdued. “What time?”

“An hour?”