Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot

by Ace Atkins

  Rosen walked up to me and stuck out his hand. He wore his khaki pants very high and a blue polo shirt at least a size too small. His black hair was slicked back and camera-ready.

  “Nice, Spenser,” he said. “Nice job.”

  I shrugged.

  He introduced the woman as a very important sports journalist who covered Boston for ESPN. I introduced Susan as a very important shrink who covered Cambridge and greater Boston.

  “Is he in there?” Rosen said, nodding to the door reading CHIEF.

  “Yep.”

  Rosen licked his lips and reached for the doorknob. I caught him by his wrist.

  “Hey,” Rosen said. “Jesus.”

  “You open that door and I’ll break your arm,” I said.

  “And then I’ll kick your ass,” Susan said.

  “This is a big day,” Rosen said, smiling. An old and close friend of the family. “This is happy, huge news. Kinjo has dedicated the game to his son. It’s being picked up by CBS now. We have the Today show live from Gillette tomorrow. I promised an exclusive here, and to be direct, this doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with you, Spenser. So let me in and talk to Nicole. I’ve known Nicole since she was nineteen years old.”

  “Hard to sign checks with a broken hand,” I said.

  “Hard to sit down with a broken ass,” Susan said.

  I shrugged. “People from Cambridge have fancy ways of speaking.”

  Rosen snorted. “You want to be paid? Who do you think will write you your check on this thing? Don’t be stupid. Open the door. Is your head that freakin’ hard?”

  Susan stepped up to Rosen. They were about the same height. “You have no idea, buddy,” she said.

  I tapped my skull with my knuckles.

  The blond woman with the big hair and the big teeth kept smiling as if her face had frozen. Her eyes switched from me to Rosen and back.

  I pulled Rosen’s fingers from the door and moved to block the entrance.

  “I’ll talk to the cops,” he said. “You got no power here. I’ll get the chief fucking sideline passes.”

  “He’s downstairs getting ready for a press conference,” I said. “Tell him I sent you.”

  Rosen turned and huffed off. The reporter looked to both of us, openmouthed, but then nodded and smiled and followed.

  “Is he just learning you’re hardheaded?” Susan said.

  “Apparently so.”

  “Do we have to stay any longer?”

  “No.”

  “Can Nicole take Akira?”

  “The Pats sent a private car,” I said. “It’s waiting out back. I spoke to the driver and told them I’d be walking them out.”

  “Are you okay?” Susan said.

  “Dandy.”

  “Something’s still bothering you about this?”

  “A lot.”

  “Even though Akira is home safe?”

  I nodded. We sat in the hall and waited until Nicole and Akira were ready to go home. As we walked out into the daylight, pictures were made and questions shouted. Sometime in the last few hours, the rain had stopped and the sun shone very bright.

  65

  The next morning, Ray Heywood knocked on my office door and walked inside.

  He held a large Nike gym bag in his hand and set it on the floor.

  “We need you to deliver this,” he said.

  “Old jockstraps?”

  “A half-million dollars,” he said.

  “Price has gone up on jockstraps,” I said.

  “Kinjo is a man of his word,” Ray said.

  I leaned back in my office chair. “He promised all five million.”

  “You don’t think your guy will be happy with this?” he said, smiling. “Isn’t he wanted by the cops?”

  “Yep.”

  “So this should help him get out of town.”

  “Sure.”

  Ray was still standing. He shifted from one leg to another. He was wearing a gray rollneck sweater with a matching scally cap. A large diamond glinted from his right earlobe.

  “You’ll be paid, man,” Ray said.

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my desk. I put my right hand to my face and rubbed my jaw. My contemplative look was stunning.

  “We straight?”

  I reached out and closed my morning paper. I covered the top of my fresh large coffee with the plastic lid. I looked right up at Ray Heywood and said, “Nope.”

  “Nope?” he said. “What do you mean fucking ‘nope’?”

  “I mean I don’t deliver bounties,” I said. “I agreed to bring back Akira. Akira has been brought back.”

  “To his mother, man,” Ray said, snorting. “Shit. You should have waited until Kinjo flew back. Do you work for Nicole or for us?”

  “Neither,” I said. “Our business is done.”

  Ray bit in his cheek. He started to turn around and then caught himself. He turned to me with his index finger outstretched. “I see how it is. Now you’re through with us. Don’t need shit from the Heywood brothers anymore.”

  I tilted my head and nodded a bit. “Only one thing.”

  Ray crossed his fat arms across his fat body. “What’s that?”

  “You were with Kinjo the night Antonio Lima was killed.”

  Ray’s eyes wandered over my face. He stared at me for a while and then broke the glance and shook his head with disgust. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Why would you keep on paying Lela Lopes and not tell Kinjo?”

  “’Cause that’s what I do,” he said. “I look out for my brother so he can keep his head right for the game. And that’s all I need you to do, is look out for us and pay off this piece of shit like we agreed.”

  “You shot Antonio Lima,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You never showed up in the reports.”

  “’Cause I wasn’t there.”

  “Kinjo had three men with him at the club,” I said. “Sometime later, that third man disappeared from the stories of Kinjo and his teammates. A few witnesses remembered but thought you were another player. Why wouldn’t he tell police you were with him?”

  Ray looked at me for a while. I leaned back in my chair and waited. It was a beautiful day on Berkeley Street, and the sunlight filled all of my office.

  “You crazy.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But that’s beside the point.”

  Ray shook his head some more but did not deny it. “Will you take the money?”

  “No.”

  “How will the man get paid?”

  “That’s your problem,” I said.

  “Must be nice to be blameless, man,” he said. “Spotless and clean.”

  “Nobody is clean in this,” I said.

  Ray picked up the Nike bag and left in a huff. He didn’t even bother to shut the door behind him.

  I reached for my coffee, removed the lid, and watched the steam roll out. I opened the newspaper and resumed reading the argument between Arlo & Janis.

  66

  I never knew, nor ever asked, if the bounty was delivered. It took more than two months for my invoice to be paid in full by Steve Rosen Enterprises. I searched within his envelope for a thank-you card or hair-styling tips but came up empty.

  It was late November, Thanksgiving week, and I left my office for the Harbor Health Club. I changed in the locker room and walked out to find Z and Henry Cimoli wearing identical white golf shirts with the club logo.

  I smiled.

  “Don’t say shit, Spenser,” Henry said.

  I lifted up my hands. I wore an old pair of blue running shorts and a gray sweatshirt cut off at the elbows and neck. “I was about to compliment you both on the professional attire,” I said.

  “Screw
you.”

  Z was cleaning off a lat pull-down machine and oiling the chain attached to the weights. He looked up at me and just shook his head.

  “Women go crazy for Z in the uniform,” Henry said. “I got twenty new members in the last couple months. Housewives and divorcees who act like they don’t know how to use the machines. Jesus.”

  “If he asks you to wear the white satin,” I said, turning to Z, “run.”

  Z continued to clean off and oil the equipment as a handful of people ran on treadmills. Some local businessmen on their lunch break talking more than pumping iron. On the other side of the wide picture window facing the harbor, snow flurries twirled and whirled about, dusting across the wharves and melting on impact.

  I made my way to the new-and-improved boxing room and went about wrapping my hands and wrists. The walls were mirrored, and I started off with three rounds of shadow-boxing before sliding into the gloves and attacking the heavy bags. On my third round with the bag, Hawk strolled into the room carrying a paper cup of coffee. He set the coffee on a window ledge and watched as I finished up. I took on the bag with an added ferocity, making the bag dance and jangle on the chains.

  “No need to show off,” Hawk said.

  “Showing you how it’s done.”

  “Ha.”

  “You want to spar a bit?” I said. “I have time.”

  Hawk shook his head. He raised his eyebrows. “You remember our pal, Papa B?”

  “Sure.”

  “Motherfucker is dead.”

  “DeVeiga?”

  “My guess,” Hawk said. “But DeVeiga the one who told me. Said he’d been looking for Papa B since his sister got killed. Seemed upset that he wasn’t the one to finish him off.”

  “Where?” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “Gone to New York,” Hawk said. “Live large.”

  “What’s it to us?”

  “DeVeiga wants to talk. He says someone else in on this.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Matters to DeVeiga,” Hawk said. “Might matter to us. Depends on what he’s got to say.”

  “Akira said there were three of them,” I said. “All dead. Victor Lima. Lela Lopes and now Papa B.”

  “Real name is Pasco Barros.”

  “I like Papa B better.”

  “God rest his soul.”

  I walked to the corner and found a pair of heavy mitts. I tossed the mitts to Hawk. He removed his black duster but not his sunglasses. He slipped the mitts onto his hands and I practiced combos for the next three three-minute rounds. Hawk told me several times that my left hook needed some work. I was breathing very heavily and sweating when I walked over to the water cooler.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Figure we at least hear what the man have to say.”

  “Sure.”

  “And good to know a man like DeVeiga down in Glocksbury.”

  “A gangbanging drug dealer?”

  “You rather know someone with the Rotary Club?”

  I took off my gloves and unwrapped my hands. In fifteen minutes, I was showered and changed back into my street clothes and riding in style with Hawk to meet Jesus DeVeiga.

  67

  We met DeVeiga at the Jim Rice ball fields in Ramsey Park. Two Outlaws stood watch at the iron gates as we walked inside and started climbing the stands toward DeVeiga. He sat alone up on the top row, staring out at the empty field dusted with snow. Hawk took two steps at a time. I followed suit.

  “Took Rice a long time to get in the Hall of Fame,” Hawk said.

  “Would have won the series in ’75 if he hadn’t broken his wrist.”

  “Not bad in ’86 against the Mets.”

  “Why did it take him so long?”

  “’Cause Rice is a surly motherfucker,” Hawk said. “Press hated him.”

  “Reason you like him.”

  Hawk grinned. We hit the top steps and sat down beside Jesus DeVeiga. DeVeiga was wearing the same flat-billed Sox cap, and this time a navy-blue parka with a fur-trimmed hood.

  I looked out onto the empty field. “‘A robin hops along the bench.’”

  DeVeiga looked to the field and then back to me. He exchanged glances with Hawk, who simply shook his head. “What you got to say, Jesus?” Hawk said, again pronouncing his name with a hard J.

  “Wondering what you heard about Papa B,” he said.

  “We know as much as you,” I said.

  “I didn’t kill him,” he said.

  “Don’t care if you did,” Hawk said. “Don’t care if you didn’t.”

  DeVeiga nodded. “I been looking for him since he killed Lela,” he said. “Even checked NYC. But didn’t come up with nothing. I’m now hearing he was down there trying to trade out that cash.”

  “So the bounty was paid,” I said.

  The wind was very cold and very brisk and shot through the open field and the wide expanse of the park. I had on a peacoat and kept my hands deep in my pockets. Not only to keep warm but to find comfort in the .38 in my right hand.

  “I know people,” DeVeiga said.

  “Good to know people,” Hawk said.

  “People I know in New York said Papa B traded out fifty grand for thirty-five clean.”

  “That money wouldn’t have been marked,” I said.

  “Yeah,” DeVeiga said. “Tell that to Papa. But why he only trade a little? I heard he got at least a million.”

  “Maybe he squirreled it away,” I said.

  DeVeiga shook his head. “Man wanted to split town,” he said. “Ain’t the type to plan a future. He’d been talking free and easy down there. If someone hadn’t shot him, I was coming up the next day to settle the shit.”

  “So he had a partner,” I said.

  “A partner who got most of the cash?” DeVeiga said. “That ain’t no partner. That’s a goddamn boss.”

  Hawk leaned in from the stands. He had on a leather jacket with the collar flipped up over his ears and dark shades. “You said you got something to say,” Hawk said. “Say it.”

  DeVeiga nodded. The two Outlaws had come into the stadium and were walking back and forth at the bottom of the stands. They strolled end to end and crossed paths in the center like sentries. Neither of them speaking or looking at each other.

  “Papa B was a snitch.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Never trusted his ass,” DeVeiga said. “Didn’t like him around any of my boys. Any my boys talk with him and they gone, too.”

  “I think it’s been firmly established that Papa B was of low moral character,” I said.

  “Papa B wasn’t one of the kidnappers,” he said. “I know the boy was working with Victor Lima. And took the kid.”

  I looked at him.

  DeVeiga laughed. “For me to know.”

  “But you still think Papa B killed Lela?” I said.

  DeVeiga nodded. “And Lima,” he said. “He on the hunt for that money. But here’s the thing about Papa B. I think he got tipped. Man ain’t smart enough to track down Lima or Lela. He being played.”

  “By whom?” I said.

  DeVeiga stared at me, tilting his head.

  “Man talks funny,” Hawk said. “Who’s the motherfucker put Papa B on this?”

  “A cop,” DeVeiga said.

  I widened my eyes. Hawk leaned in some more and rubbed his hands together a bit in the cold. He nodded, too.

  “What kind of cop?” Hawk said.

  “People down here say Papa B made his money from the Feds,” DeVeiga said. “He was a goddamn CI for them. How he got his groceries. I think they the ones that planted the seed in that dumb bastard’s brain.”

  Hawk stood and looked to me.

  “Hmm,” Hawk said.

  “You said it.”

&n
bsp; “We straight?” DeVeiga said, touching the upper part of his chest where he’d been shot.

  Hawk nodded. DeVeiga nodded down to his boys. They stopped patrolling and waited for him at the foot of the steps. He gave Hawk a fist bump. He just looked at me and walked down the steps.

  “I feel excluded,” I said.

  “What’s that shit you said about a robin?”

  “Thinking of empty ball fields.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Hawk said.

  “Connor?”

  “Fool me once,” Hawk said.

  “Connor didn’t fool me,” I said. “Connor does for Connor.”

  “Man learned from the best,” Hawk said. “Joe Broz and Jumpin’ Jack Flynn.”

  “Hard to prove.”

  “All but impossible,” Hawk said.

  68

  On Wednesday, Susan threatened to cook a turkey and invite Z and Henry to Thanksgiving dinner. We could have invited Hawk, but Hawk did not do Thanksgiving. I told Z of the invitation when I found him working the door at the Black Rose pub on State Street.

  He was seated outside on a barstool, drinking coffee from a ceramic mug. Z listened to the news with great suspicion.

  “Haven’t my people been through enough?” Z said.

  “True,” I said. “But I promised to help. I may even buy the turkey from Verrill Farm in Concord. Already stuffed and cooked.”

  Z nodded. He checked some IDs of some tourists and picked up his coffee.

  “Say yes,” I said. “You can bring the corn.”

  “And we exchange the tobacco after,” he said.

  “Exactly,” I said. I patted him on the back.

  We watched as two shapely women jogged past in matching black athletic attire. Z drank some coffee. I checked the time.

  “Very nice for you to deliver the invitation in person.”

  “I was taking a walk,” I said.

  Z looked at me. I pointed toward Faneuil Hall and beyond.

  “Government Center?” Z said.

  I nodded. Z got off the stool, walked into the bar, and came back a moment later. We walked together side by side outside the Quincy Market and over North Street to Congress. The Custom House Tower loomed large and historic behind us.