by Ace Atkins
Z and I could hear the broadcast from a stale waiting room outside the studio.
“I never liked to discuss sports,” Z said. “I’d rather just play.”
“Depends on who’s talking.” I shrugged. “A Paulie and a Gooch probably don’t equal a Frank Deford.”
When the show went to a commercial break to advertise a Honda dealership, the producer, Cindy DeLuca, came out to meet us. She was a short woman in jeans, a faded green flannel shirt, and a Bruins hat. From a distance Cindy DeLuca might resemble a fifteen-year-old boy. “How long will this thing take?”
“Quick and painless,” I said. “We want to hear the clip.”
“Police already heard it.”
“I’m not the police.”
Cindy scrunched up her nose as if we didn’t pass the sniff test. But then she just threw up her hands and shrugged. “Ray Heywood called us,” she said. “He said you work for his brother. Ray’s a good guy. We need signed jerseys for sick kids? He comes through every time. We need Kinjo to stop by the studio? He’s there on time.”
Cindy ushered us through a long hall lined with various local awards for charitable events, certificates of big ratings, and framed photos of great moments in Boston sports: Damon’s World Series home run against the Cards, the Larry Bird baseline jumper against Portland, Brady celebrating a Super Bowl touchdown against Carolina. We soon found a small closetlike room with an oblong window facing the hall. Paulie and the Gooch wore headphones and were in a heated exchange with someone over why the Bruins blew the Stanley Cup. The caller referred to the radio journalists as a couple of douchebag morons. Both laughed it off right before they cut to a commercial.
“Rotten bastard,” Cindy said.
Paulie was thin and bald and wearing a Celtics hoodie zipped to the chin, jeans, and flip-flops. The Gooch was stockier, with a graying goatee, wearing a Dropkick Murphys sweatshirt. Neither had been born anywhere near Boston but had made the smart choice to go native.
We made small talk. I introduced them to Z.
“Wasn’t there a football player in California named Sixkill?” Paulie said.
Z shrugged.
“He grew up on a reservation and played fullback,” Gooch said. “You know? He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Great player, but got all fucked up with drugs and got booted before his senior year.”
Z remained impassive. He leaned against the door.
Paulie walked over to the console and began to cue up the call. The room was kept very cold and dim. The dials and switches glowed red and green as he worked. “We burned a copy for the cops,” Paulie said. “I think it’s just a crank. What says the Gooch?”
“Some nutbag.”
“If it’s good enough for the Gooch,” I said.
Gooch smiled and stroked his goatee. “Then again,” he said. “Nutbags pay our salaries.”
I smiled. “Sometimes mine, too.”
The commercial faded into the recorded voice of the hosts taking their next call. The voice had been run through some kind of electric voice changer, making the caller sound somewhere between Barry White and Robby the Robot. “I have Heywood’s kid. He’s safe and got shit to eat. We got demands and will let Heywood know when we’re ready.”
Paulie ran it back and played it again. There was a long silence before the hosts began to speak, and he shut off the recording.
“That’s it?” I said.
Paulie and the Gooch nodded. Cindy DeLuca showed up in the window and held up two fingers.
“Caller ID?” I said.
“Sure,” Paulie said. “But I thought the state police said it wasn’t any good?”
“They can run down where the phone was bought,” I said. “But it’s doubtful they’ll get a credit card or any video surveillance. They probably bought it from a third party.”
“Kinjo’s had a rough time lately,” Gooch said. “Screwed up his ankle in mini-camp. Looked like he was loafing it in the last two exhibition games. I don’t know, it’s like his heart isn’t in it.”
“I don’t know,” Paulie said. “He’s not going to give it all in preseason. To be honest, I was shocked he got selected to the Pro Bowl. I mean, he missed some key tackles in that last game against Atlanta. There’s definitely some slipping in his intensity and focus.”
The Gooch belched as if to punctuate his colleague’s point. There was an open bag of Utz chips by the microphone and two open bottles of Diet Coke.
“I’ve got Kinjo on my fantasy football team,” Gooch said. “Hope this thing doesn’t rattle him too bad. Regular season starts next week.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be inconvenient.”
Z grinned.
“Shit, I don’t mean it like that,” Gooch said. “It’s just that Kinjo is something special. He keeps it up, even half-ass, and they’ll be taking his measurements for a gold coat in Canton. I hate to hear shit like this happening to him right now. It’s really messed up.”
“You think this kidnapping could be just to rattle his play?”
“During preseason?” Paulie said.
I shrugged. “Anyone else ever call the station mad at him?” I said. “Anyone lately having an extreme hatred for any Pats players?”
The men shrugged in tandem. The Gooch looked to Paulie. Paulie said, “Sometimes people get kind of nuts on Brady or Belichick, like they control it all. But hate? I don’t know. I mean, people get pissed. But that’s the Boston way. You got to hate your team to love it.”
The producer leaned in through the doorway and held up a single finger. Paulie handed me a disc and I thanked him. We all shook hands and headed for the door. The men began to slip their headphones back on.
“You sure you never heard of that guy also named Sixkill?” the Gooch said to Z.
“Nope,” Z said. “But who knows? All us Indians look the same.”
22
I dropped Z at my office and soon found Logan Wheeler in the weight room inside Gillette. He was squatting what must have equaled a tractor-trailer truck on his shoulders. As he cranked out the reps, deep and slow, he showed little sign of strain. He racked the weight with a small grunt. A coach stood nearby and tracked Wheeler’s progress on an iPad.
As more weight was added to an already bending Olympic bar, Ray Heywood stepped up and introduced me to Wheeler. Wheeler had been with Kinjo at Chrome. I’d read his interview on the train back to Boston.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I work for the Heywoods,” I said. “And this isn’t about two years ago. It’s about now.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Wheeler said. “Kinjo didn’t do jack shit, man. He’s a good guy. When I think about what happened to Akira, I want to throw up.”
Ray, dressed in a leather jacket and a scally cap, hung back a little. He told Wheeler that I was cool. I tried my best to look cool as I waited for Wheeler to add some.
“Like I told the police,” Wheeler said. “That guy, whatever his name is—”
“Antonio Lima.”
“Yeah, Lima,” Wheeler said. “He was drunk and tried to start some shit with Kinjo, which was stupid. And then he tried to start some shit with me, which was even more stupid.”
Wheeler was six-foot-six and well over three hundred pounds. He had a lot of blond hair and a stubbled beard and wore a gray T-shirt and gray sweatpants. His eyes were brown and tiny in his large head.
“And then?”
“And then nothing,” Wheeler said. “The bouncers broke it up and we went back to the Trump. We ordered up some ice cream and cake and laughed about the whole thing. The next thing I know the cops are pounding on our goddamn door, wanting to talk to Kinjo. At first, I thought it was a practical joke.”
“Not a good one.”
“We all like to screw with each other,” Wheeler
said. “A couple weeks ago, we had these bumper stickers made up for the rookies. They said Small Penis On Board. The dummies didn’t notice until people started honking at them and laughing. It was funny as shit.”
The Pats’ weight room was part of the many chambers inside the stadium. There were rooms for watching film, for meetings with the position coaches, for holding press conferences, a training table, and a locker room nearly as large as the field itself. This room was even larger, with old-fashioned weights and several rubberized mats to work speed, agility, and coordination. A three-hundred-pound man with agility and quickness was a scary prospect. I thought about the other player interview I’d read.
“What about Robey?” I said. “Do you keep in touch?”
Wheeler shrugged. “It’s been a while.”
“And he was traded to Miami?”
“Yeah.”
“You have his number?”
Wheeler nodded. Ray stood next to us. The weight coach looked impatient, waiting for Wheeler to attack the next set. I stepped back and watched Wheeler knock out eight reps. There was more weight this time. He grunted a little.
“You want to try that?” I said to Ray.
“Shit,” Ray said. “You?”
“I value my knees too much.”
Wheeler racked the bar. He walked over to a table for a water bottle. He drank down a quart and turned back to me. He wiped his bearded face with the back of his hand. One of his sizable knees had a scar on it that looked like a zipper.
“What’s not clear,” I said, “and the reason I wanted to speak to you, is who else was there?”
“Like you said,” Wheeler said. “Me, Kinjo, and Robey.”
“Some witnesses said there was another football player there,” I said. “A third man out with Kinjo that night.”
There was a slight flick of his eyes to Ray, waiting for direction. Ray didn’t change expression or say anything. After a second, he nodded at Wheeler to continue.
“That’s not right,” Wheeler said. “I’ll give you Robey’s cell when I’m done here. You ask him.”
“And he left Chrome with you, too?”
“Yeah, man. What are you getting at?”
“Just trying to clear up a few things,” I said. “Was he involved with the fight?”
“There was no fight,” Wheeler said. “Robey was off with some girl. That Antonio guy pushed at Kinjo. Kinjo was ready to clock him and then the bouncers came up. I told him to cool off and get the hell out of there. We’re not stupid. It was all just some bullshit. How were we to know that guy was some thug? He obviously had his own problems that got himself killed. Kinjo was only talking to that girl.”
“His brother said Kinjo had inappropriately touched her.”
“Is that the reason she’d hopped up in his lap?” Wheeler said. “Kinjo doesn’t treat women like that. Why would he? Women can’t leave him alone.”
Ray nodded in agreement. Wheeler gulped down more water and looked at us with small, sad eyes. “You find out who took Akira,” he said. “Okay? God help the son of a bitch who did this. There isn’t a player on this team who wouldn’t kill for that kid.”
“Strong words.”
Wheeler nodded. “Don’t play with the meaning. You know what I mean. Kinjo is my goddamned brother.”
Ray and I walked out of the weight room and into the long concrete hall.
“What do you think?” I said.
“I think this is a waste of time,” he said. “Kinjo paid the family because he was being eaten alive by the press. The family knows he wasn’t involved. They wanted money. Kinjo didn’t want to lose endorsement deals.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “How much do you know about Cristal?”
Ray grinned. He shook his head. “Too much.”
“You think she knows more?” I said.
“Let me ask you this,” he said. “You think Cristal is mentally capable of pulling something like this?”
“I understand her background’s a bit sketchy.”
“She ain’t a virtuous woman,” he said. “But she ain’t evil, either. This isn’t an inside job, man. Not exactly a secret that Kinjo is now a ten-million-dollar man. Lots of bad folks out there who hate seeing a black man in the catbird seat. How the hell you narrow that down?”
I nodded.
“That man being killed in New York has always been the stuff of whispers and lies,” Ray said. “Don’t let it cloud what’s really happening.”
I held Ray’s eye for a while. He nodded with extreme certainty, adjusted his cap, and then led the way out of the labyrinth under Gillette.
23
Play it again, Sam?” I said to Susan.
“How’d I know that was coming?”
“That’s not really the line, but it sounds better than ‘Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’”
“Do you want to hear ‘As Time Goes By,’ or do you still want my professional opinion?”
We sat outside on Susan’s small wooden deck, drinking and listening to the phantom caller from a portable CD player. Susan drank a glass of Barolo while I worked on an Amstel. There was a pizza ordered and a quick meal planned before I’d drive back to Chestnut Hill. Being able to combine official work and time with Susan Silverman is always a perk of the job.
I played the message again. And then, to punctuate the question, raised my eyebrows.
Susan closed her eyes in thought. After taking a sip of the wine, she nodded. “I hear sexual repression, some Oedipal mother issues, and maybe some hypochondria mixed with erectile dysfunction.”
“Zowie.” I raised my brows again. “Really?”
“God, no,” Susan said. “Do you really expect a clue from a five-second threat as read by a computer?”
“Cops call it a synthetic computerized voice changer.”
“Can you even tell if it’s a man or woman?”
“I would hope you could tell me.”
“Erectile dysfunction would imply man,” Susan said.
“So, right.”
“Has this been the only contact with the kidnappers?” Susan said. “Or should I say alleged contact?”
“We believe,” I said, sipping the Amstel. “You take what you can get.”
“And the only thing Akira’s parents can do is sit around and wait,” she said.
“Separately,” I said. “They’ve been divorced for two years.”
“And there’s a new wife?”
I explained about Cristal Heywood and the little I’d learned from Lundquist and Ray. I told her Cristal had bragged earlier in the day to Z about how the kidnapping increased her Twitter followers.
“Did Nicole really try and attack her?”
“She did more than try,” I said. I pointed to the scratch on my cheek.
“Wow,” she said. “Not exactly the reaction of a parent who’d be in on the kidnapping.”
“No,” I said. “The state police ruled her out pretty quickly. As did I.”
“So why’s Hawk still following her?”
“Kinjo’s paying us to watch her.”
“Which she doesn’t know?”
I nodded and grinned. “I think Hawk is a bit smitten.”
Now was the moment for Susan to raise her eyebrows. The doorbell rang and Pearl launched into attack mode. Susan stood, placed her wine on the table, and turned to the door. “Smitten?” she said. “That word has never been used to describe Hawk.”
“Scary, isn’t it?”
Susan nodded and walked downstairs to grab the pizza. She returned in a few seconds with a pizza box and Pearl trotting enthusiastically behind her.
“She has a nose for wild game and anchovies,” I said.
Susan opened the box at the kitchen island and grabbed some good plates from the cupboards. We ate standing
up at the island. Pearl sat at our feet, studying how we worked on each slice, waiting for one morsel to drop.
“Perhaps you should be watching Cristal instead?”
“Lundquist has it,” I said. “Even a super-sleuth like me can only follow so many leads.”
“You know much about wife two?”
I shrugged.
“And that’s why you will check her out, even if she comes up clean.”
“Being of a suspicious and doubtful nature has served me well.”
“I just hope whoever has Akira calls soon,” she said.
I nodded.
“The unknowing is the worst,” Susan said. “A parent’s mind will go to terrible places.”
“If it’s just money,” I said. “The kidnappers just want Kinjo to sweat a bit. And to throw off the cops.”
“And once they’re paid in full?” Susan said. She picked at the pizza, taking in little nibbles in a distinctly Susan Silverman way. Pearl seemed frustrated and annoyed by this. Gobbling was the appropriate course of action.
“Do you really want to know?” I said. I drank some beer and reached for another slice of pizza.
Susan waited, noticing something in my face with her large brown eyes. She wore a thin silver chain around her neck.
“There is a fifty-fifty shot whether they get the kid back. Even if they pay.”
“A brutal perspective,” she said.
“But true.”
“Cops say the same?”
“Cops know the same,” I said. “Only the child can identify who took him.”
“Are you going to tell the family this?” Susan said.
“Not my job.”
“I think you should tell them.”
“They have hope right now,” I said. “And knowing the odds will only take that away. We’ll talk when the time is right. When we know more about the people who took him.”
“Any other theory besides just greed?” Susan said.
“I thought I had one,” I said. “That’s why I went to New York.”
“And now?”
“I’m not so sure,” I said, shaking my head. I told her about the Limas and my conversation with Kinjo’s teammates. I had spoken to Robey in Miami an hour earlier and came up with identical answers as those of Logan Wheeler. There was a scuffle, it was broken up, and they went back to the Trump.