by Ace Atkins
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.
63
The address led us back down to Foxboro and an old motel off Route 1 called the Red Fox. The sign was red and neon shining what was probably a permanent vacancy for lodgings that only Norman Bates could love. The Red Fox, no relation to Buddy’s, was a one-level layout with all the room doors facing the highway. The walls were brick, the doors once white, and the center of the motel was a faux-Colonial with four large columns over an office. I was delighted to see they offered both color television and electric heat.
The lights were out in room 8, but as we walked past, we noted the dull gray flickering of a television set and the muffled voices of broadcasters calling a ball game. We walked back to Hawk’s car, parked nose toward the U-shaped units, and waited for a while. After about an hour, Z showed up. He parked next to us in his Mustang and then got into the back of the Jag. No one had come in or out of the building.
Only six cars had been parked along the units. We did not recognize any of them but took down all the tag numbers in case Lima tried to make a speedy exit. If this was indeed the place Lima had decided to hole up.
“We sure?” Z said.
“Sort of,” I said.
“Sort of?” Z said.
“It would behoove the informant not to lie to The Hawk.”
“I kind of like The in front of my name,” Hawk said. “Commands respect.”
Z got out of the back of the car and was gone about five minutes and came the long way behind us off Route 1 and back into the car. It was raining again, and he was soaked.
“Small windows in the back,” Z said. “Old pebbled glass. I can see the light on in the bathroom but nothing else. I can hear a television on but no voices.”
“Can you slip into the window?” I said.
“Nope,” Z said.
“Front-door entry,” Hawk said.
I nodded.
It was my time to get out into the rain, and I walked to the big columns over the motel office. For the size of the entry, the office was very small. A narrow room with a flat-screen television perched on a coffee table and a couple of old chairs facing forward. There was a desk to the right of the front door and two large display cases loaded down with pamphlets of fun things to do in and around Boston. There was no bell, so I coughed, and a moment later, a tired-looking guy in a Pats T-shirt, khakis, and suspenders walked up and looked me over. He was bald on top but had a prodigious amount of red hair over his ears, giving him the unsubtle look of a circus clown.
“My buddy checked in earlier,” I said. “And I don’t want to wake him up. He’s such a sound sleeper. Room eight.”
“What’s his name?” the guy said.
“Ben Franklin,” I said, and laid down a hundred-dollar bill.
The guy looked at me accusingly for about two seconds and then turned and lifted a key off a gold hook. He sucked on his tooth, swiped the money, and laid down the key.
I took the key and headed out into the rain.
I dangled it in front of the Jag’s windshield, and Hawk and Z walked from the car. The asphalt was slick with the rain and red with the neon of the Red Fox sign as we walked to unit number 8. I could still hear the television going, what sounded like a baseball game from the West Coast. I tried to listen for a few hints as to the team while I slipped the key into the lock and turned back to see Hawk and then Z staggered behind me. Both had their guns drawn. Z recently taking up with a Remington 870 pump, just in case we were faced with a zombie apocalypse.
Hawk has his .44, in case we faced a charging elephant.
I turned the key and the doorknob, and we were all inside faster than Usain Bolt.
No one shot at us. Nothing moved.
The television had very poor reception of the Dodgers playing the Giants. The Dodgers were up by three in the top of the eighth as Victor Lima lay dead in a tangle of bloody white sheets. He’d been bleeding for a long while, the white sheets over him more red than anything. He had an open liter bottle of Sprite on the bedside table and some rolls of surgical tape, bandages, and pulls. In his outstretched hand was a .357 Magnum. My gun. It dangled from his lifeless fingers, him staring into nothing with lifeless eyes.
Z walked over to the television and turned it off. On the console to the TV, he found my .38. He checked the safety and then tossed it to me.
“Damn, Spenser,” Hawk said.
Z went into the bathroom and came out shaking his head. Hawk went looking through drawers and rolling over the dead man and checking in his pockets. The room was silent except for the rain hitting the shingled roof. We needed to move fast; Ben Franklin wouldn’t buy us much more time. We searched the room for anything, coming up with a cell phone and some scraps of paper, notes on a map. Hawk held up a set of car keys he found in the man’s pocket and we all walked outside to find a blue Ford Taurus.
The three of us stood by the car for a moment, none of us wanting to see what was inside but knowing we had to find out. There could be another phone, an address, or something linking us to Akira. I tossed the keys to Z, and he stared at me a long while. He silently nodded and started to walk toward the trunk.
Hawk and I stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The walk was short but felt long.
Z lifted the key to punch the button as we heard the kicking and muffled yells.
Z popped the trunk.
Akira was bound by hand and foot with silver duct tape. His mouth had been covered in duct tape as well. He was crying and kicking and rolling.
I reached into the trunk and lifted him out. His pants and shirt were wet and soiled. I held him up in my arms as Hawk gently pulled the tape from his mouth. Z used his pocketknife to cut into the tape, freeing the boy’s hands and feet. He was crying, which we took as a good sign.
He took in deep mouthfuls of air as if hyperventilating. Hawk went to the car to grab an unopened Coke.
Akira wrapped his arms around my neck. Z nudged me to look into the trunk. Scrawled into the top of the trunk hatch was the number 57. The boy started to cry very hard and very fast, and I told him I’d take him to his mother.
I called Susan to pass on the news to Nicole. And then we waited for the police.
64
The Foxboro police were overwhelmed with the influx of state cops, Feds, and reporters as word leaked that Akira was alive. At dawn, questions had been asked, statements given, lawyers consulted, and finally Akira could go home. The local cops had brought him a cheeseburger and fries from a local pub. He was so hungry, the cops had to get him another. Lima had not fed him for nearly forty-eight hours, the two of them jumping from apartment to apartment since he’d been taken. The kid didn’t know where. He knew there had been three of them, two men and a woman. He had picked Lima and Lela Lopes from a photo pack shown by the police.
I called Kinjo in Denver. Susan picked up Nicole in Medford.
At dawn, they had arrived at the Foxboro police station and walked into the chief’s office, where I
watched over Akira. After eating, he had fallen asleep.
Nicole saw her child and pressed her hands to her face. She dropped to her knees and cried over him for a long while. The crying woke him, and Akira raised up and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck. I could see his small face over her shoulder, eyes closed and holding on very tight. Nicole rocked him back and forth.
Susan nodded at me. I slipped with her from the room.
We stood in a long hallway with a gray linoleum floor and hard fluorescent lights. The police station was old and very institutional. I leaned against the wall next to the chief’s office. Susan had her sunglasses on top of her head and purse thrown over her shoulder. I could tell she’d jumped into her gym clothes and sped off to get Nicole.
“He’s going to be all right,” I said.
“How was he treated?”
“He wasn’t fed for nearly two days,” I said. “He spent most of the time with his eyes and mouth taped shut and carried about like a parcel.”
“Physical?”
“No.”
“Sexual?”
“No,” I said. “He was just a bargaining chip. Lima was obsessed with getting Kinjo back for his brother. He lectured a lot to Akira. Telling him his father was a murderer.”
“What did Akira say about that?”
“He said Lima was nutso.”
Susan shook her head and walked up next to me. She slipped an arm around my waist and tilted her head against my shoulder.
“Maybe totally nuts,” Susan said. “But he did keep Akira alive.”
“Maybe he wasn’t physically able to pull it off,” I said. “He did die in the bed with my gun in his hand.”
“Or maybe Victor never had any intention of killing the boy,” Susan said. “Despite doing some awful things, perhaps Victor Lima still had empathy.”
“That kid is going to be messed up for a long time,” I said. “I find few things empathetic about Victor Lima.”
“Akira is alive.”
“Yes.”
“And Lima had plenty of chances to let that be his revenge.”
I nodded. Susan continued to rest her head on my shoulder. As I set my arm around her, I spotted Steve Rosen barreling around the corner with a rail-thin woman with a lot of blond hair and very large teeth.