by Ace Atkins
I walked over to the table. Connie bowed her head and studied the napkin in her lap. I asked a table next to us if I could borrow their chair. I turned the chair around and sat with my arms resting on the back. They had yet to touch their desserts. Two pieces of cheesecake with fresh blueberries.
“You’re Spenser,” Welles said. He beamed with enthusiasm.
I nodded.
He offered his hand. I studied it. I smiled. I did not break my attention toward him until he retracted his hand.
“Lots to discuss, Mikey,” I said.
Connie continued to play with the napkin. Welles shrugged, leaned back in his seat, and neatly crossed his legs at the ankles. His dress shoes gleamed in the low light.
“Ask away,” he said. “I have no secrets. Not from you. Or from Connie. I’ve been away. It’s very complicated.”
“Speak slowly,” I said. “I’ll try and process it.”
He shrugged. The tight tailoring made the shrug harder and less convincing. He continued to smile, reaching over to fork off an edge of cheesecake. “Like some?” he said. “I think Connie’s lost her appetite.”
“Ms. Kelly would like her money returned.”
He chewed, forked off a second bite. I was no longer smiling. I studied him with great interest. He showed no signs of nervousness or contempt. He looked as if he was just simply enjoying the cheesecake.
“Connie will have the return of her investment with EDGE,” he said. “And so much more. But if you’ll excuse us, we’re having a dinner about repairing our relationship. I don’t think you need to be privy to those details.”
“Spoken like a true Harvard man.”
He grinned, dotting the edge of his lip with a napkin. “Class of ’71.”
“Nope.”
“Excuse me?”
“You never attended Harvard,” I said. “You never fought the Vietcong. And you never worked for the CIA.”
“And how exactly did you come to this accusation?”
“For starters,” I said, “Harvard has no record of you. There is no sign of you in U.S. military records.”
“I don’t think a guy like you will find out my history on the Internet.” Welles gave a smug little laugh.
“And what’s a guy like me?”
“Very local,” he said, smiling. “Very Boston. I work without borders. The things I did during Vietnam were never made public. Nor will they ever be.”
“And Harvard?”
“You, or someone, is simply mistaken,” he said. “That was a long time ago. Files get misplaced. What’s all this about, anyway? Connie, did you invite this man here? Or have you been followed? If you’ve been followed, I’ll make sure he’s escorted out.”
“Better call in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines,” I said. “Because you make one move, you’ll be flying through that plate-glass window.”
Welles laughed. I still didn’t like his laugh. Or his misplaced confidence. He took a sip of wine and just stared at me for a while. Connie Kelly seemed like a child to me, shaking her head from side to side, saying, “No, no, no.”
I didn’t know if she meant no to me. Or no to him.
Welles broke away from the staring contest, looking over my shoulder, and through the discussed plate-glass window. His smile faded. He turned behind him to look at the bar and a hallway stretching past the bathrooms. He swallowed and pushed the plate away.
“As much as I’d like to have you join us for brandy,” Welles said, “I, as they say, have bigger fish to fry.”
My laughter came up so fast, I nearly snorted. I wasn’t a snorting man. Connie’s eyes grew big and turned to me.
“Two very unsavory characters have followed me here,” he said. “They want to do me some harm, I’m afraid. Good night, sir.”
“They’ll have to wait in line.”
“This is more than some personal matter, Spenser,” he said. “These men have guns. And they know how to use them. They want to kill me. There’s a contract on my life. The reason I’ve been out of touch, Connie. This is such a goddamn mess.”
I did not turn a millimeter to follow his gaze. I continued to study him. “At the bar is my friend, Harvey,” I said. “He’s a six-foot-tall rabbit with a penchant for martinis. Maybe he can help?”
He leaned in, teeth clamped. “This is not a joke,” he said. “No matter what you think of me, we need to make sure Connie is safe.”
I shook my head. He stood up abruptly and turned toward the bathrooms and emergency exit. One way to leave the check. I followed him out of the restaurant and through the fire exit.
16
The fire exit emptied into a long alley crowded with garbage cans, dumpsters, and loading docks. I ran after Welles, who did his best in dress shoes. I, on the other hand, was fleet of foot and properly dressed for the challenge in a pair of Nikes. It took me about five seconds to catch up with him and snatch him by the jacket, just as a large SUV came barreling toward us. I couldn’t see much beyond the grille and the headlights, but the vehicle was moving fast, knocking down trash cans and kicking up sparks as it rubbed railings from the docks. Welles just kind of hung there, frozen in the bright light, until I grasped him both by the collar and belt and tossed him behind a dumpster and followed suit.
The SUV passed. I caught my breath.
The SUV braked hard. Two men crawled out and walked into the alley. It was very dark, only a couple streetlights shining. The men were dressed in dark clothes and wore ski masks. If Welles had put on this show to get my attention, he’d done well. I pulled my .38 and peered out from the edge of the dumpster. Someone began to shoot, bullets from automatic weapons pinging off the metal and ricocheting down the alley.
“I told you,” Welles said, almost excited. “I fucking told you. They’re here. They want to kill me.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer. He seemed out of shape, or very scared, breathing hard. The men walked in tandem down the alley, the sharp outline of their guns distinctive in shadow. One of them hoisted a gun to his shoulder and started firing at the dumpster where we hid. I answered back with two shots from my .38. It sounded a little like a Chihuahua snapping at a pit bill. The return fire was a long stream of bullets.
One thudded dully into a disintegrating piece of plywood placed in an empty doorway. As the gunfire resumed, I kicked out the wood, finding glass behind it, and then kicked through the glass. I took off my leather jacket, wrapped my forearm, and hollowed out a section large enough to crawl through. Welles didn’t need to be told what to do, and he jumped through the opening first and scurried into the vacant building.
I fired off another two shots, slowing the men but not stopping them. I dove into the doorway, finding broken glass and splinters on a wet floor in a pitch-black room. I called for Welles. He didn’t answer. I heard footsteps splashing in puddles. Farther into the vacant building, a bit of light leaked behind more plywood and I could just make out Welles’s shadow as he kicked at an opening, grunting and kicking more. Behind me, more glass broke and the room strobed from the muzzle flashes of gunfire. I lay flat to the floor, aiming my .38 toward the light, and fired my final two shots. I reached into my pocket and pulled out more bullets and reloaded. If properly motivated, I could be incredibly fast.
A huge cracking and breaking sound came from the front of the building and light flooded halfway onto the floor. The room was junked with empty buckets, pallets of lumber, and fallen sawhorses. I saw Welles for a second and then he disappeared.
More automatic fire from behind me. My heart jackhammered. My mouth was dry and my breathing uncontrolled. I took in a deep breath. I didn’t worry about Welles, I just watched the small square of light behind me. I aimed the gun carefully until I saw the muzzle and then a man’s masked face and eyes behind it. I squeezed off a shot. I heard a grunt and a brief spray of gunfire before th
e second man pulled him back into the alley.
I got to my feet and ran for Welles’s exit. I again wrapped my left hand with the jacket and held the gun in the right. I made my way through the glass and broken wood out onto Oxford Street. The street was bright and shiny, the blue neon from the Blue Ox glowing along the sidewalk. Connie Kelly came out of the front door, openmouthed and shaking her head.
I heard police sirens and then an engine starting in the gravel lot across the street. A dark sedan backed out and raced forward. I ran after it, getting close enough to Welles to see him at the wheel as I knocked on the glass with my gun. He didn’t even say as much as good-bye, passing me as if I were a paparazzo, hitting the accelerator, knocking me free and rolling to the gravel. I tried to make out the license plate as I watched a black GMC SUV speed around the next block and race after Welles.
I couldn’t make out their plate. Maybe because they didn’t have one.
I jogged back toward Connie. The bartender and restaurant manager joined us out on the street. Both were on cell phones, calling the cops.
“What the hell just happened?” the bartender said.
“What people will do for a free meal,” I said. “The nerve.”
Connie was trembling. I shook the glass and splinters from my leather jacket and placed it over her shoulders. Chivalrous. I walked her back into the restaurant. We watched from our table as more than half of the Lynn Police Department showed up. I identified myself and gave them an abbreviated version of what I’d seen. I did not volunteer that I had fired my weapon. I told them I’d been tailing M. Brooks Welles and had followed him into an alley. Where it seemed a couple men were waiting to ambush him.
Did I know Welles? No.
Did I know where to find him? No.
Did I know why anyone would want to kill him? Besides being an arrogant ass? Um, no.
The cops went in to talk to Connie. I drank some coffee the bartender brought me and made small talk with some of the patrolmen. After two hours of talk and a brief trip to Lynn PD, where detectives interviewed us for a second time, we were free. It was nearly two before I followed Connie back to her condo in the South End to make sure it was Welles-free and returned to the Navy Yard.
I took off my jeans and shirt and laid them across a chair. I made a bourbon on ice with a dash of bitters and watched the dark water outside, the colorful lights shining from the ships along the docks. After a while, I lay in bed and fell fast asleep.
17
The next morning, the needle was again lost in the haystack. I ran down a few names Kostas had given me. All had similar stories, none had leads to where to find Welles now. I tried to trace the phone Welles had used to call Connie. It came back disconnected with a registration to a pay-as-you-go plan from Kmart. I then tried to run the license plate from the Chevy Malibu that left me tumbling in the dust. The car had been rented from a national car company at the Logan airport yesterday. Citing privacy concerns, the corporate office refused to give out any details of the customer. Good for them, I thought, hanging up the phone in my office. I helped myself to a second donut from the Kane’s sack and drank some more of the coffee I’d made. I worked on slowly enjoying the sugar donut with a sip of coffee. I’d already finished the morning paper, gone through a round of phone calls, and paid a couple bills.
I reached over for the phone and called Connie Kelly’s cell. I told her I didn’t think she’d be hearing from him for a while.
“You don’t really think he orchestrated such an elaborate plan to get out of paying for dinner?”
“I do.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Would you put it past him?”
“I’m confused.”
“What exactly did he tell you last night?”
“The first thing he said was that his life was in danger,” she said. “He said he loved me but didn’t want to put me in harm’s way.”
I nearly gagged on the donut.
“I don’t know exactly what,” she said, “but he’s into something very bad.”
“Well, the bullets were real,” I said. “And Welles’s fear was real. I’m sure he has built quite a list of dissatisfied customers.”
“Or he was telling the truth,” she said. “He said he’d been overseas. When I pressed him, he said he’d been working with a group in Africa.”
“We Are the World.”
“I’m scared to death,” she said. “He’s scared, too. He swore to me he’d get my money back as soon as he could get to it.”
“What’s stopping him?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Last night was more about emotional reassurance.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“He really does love me, Spenser,” she said. “You don’t know how good that was to hear. I’d about made myself sick wondering if he really loved me.”
“Not just for now,” I said. “But forever and a day?”
“It’s no joke,” she said. “I’m not some lovesick moron.”
“Of course.”
“You can be glib all you want,” she said. “But you work for me. Maybe I want you to help him. What about that? Let me worry about our arrangement.”
“That’s not why you hired me.”
“My money isn’t good?”
“No,” I said. “It’s good for the job you offered. Not to babysit a con man.”
“Someone tried to kill him.”
“Just as the check arrived,” I said.
She promised to call if she heard from Welles, and hung up. I finished my sugar donut and read the comics while deciding my next course of action. Sadly, neither Arlo nor Janis had any sleuthing advice. I just learned that women believed men cared only about sex and thought about it constantly. I shrugged, put down the comics, and picked up my cup. No arguments there.
So far, Welles had left fewer crumbs to follow than those on top of my desk.
Beyond the usual databases I subscribed to, I had also tried to learn more about Welles’s registration with the dating website. They would tell me next to nothing, although they had offered me a month free. I had Connie Kelly call and the company promptly removed Welles’s profile from the site. No help there.
With little else to follow and with my client getting cold feet fast, I drove out to the car rental office at Logan. I walked inside, feigned an indignant style that Sam Spade would have loved, and told the man at the counter I’d been in an accident. My car was a mess.
“The guy who hit me wouldn’t stick around for the cops,” I said. “He told me he’d rented the car from you guys and that you’d pay for everything.”
“Do you know if he declined coverage?”
“I don’t know nothing, buddy,” I said. “Besides what he told me. But I got a messed-up truck and I’ll be out of work for a few days. I was going to call a lawyer, but figured I’d see what gives. You know?”
“What was the customer’s name?”
“M. Brooks Welles,” I said. “Or Mike Welles. He didn’t know how you had him in the system. Can you believe this guy? Can you believe it? Leaves me in the middle of traffic to figure it all out. Acting like he’s some kind of big shot.”
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “When did he rent the car?”
“Yesterday.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have anyone named Welles. Are you sure it was this location? We have thirty-two locations across Boston.”
“Can you check those, too?”
He tip-tapped at his keyboard. As he continued to type, it was getting harder and harder to hold the grimace. I felt like my face might melt. After a while, he shook his head and gave me a definite no. No Welles, Mikey, Brooks, or M. Brooks.
I then presented him with the license plate numbers. He took the scrap of paper to his keyboard and continued to look. “Huh,” he said. “Ye
s, that’s one of our cars. A new Chevy Malibu?”
“That’s right.”
“But it wasn’t rented by Mr. Welles.”
“Oh.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a Mr. Gredoni?”
“John.”
“Yes,” he said. “The vehicle was rented in his name yesterday using his credit card.”
“Did he have full coverage?”
He looked it up. “Yes,” he said. “He did.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Just terrific. I’ll just follow up with my insurance company. Boy, do I feel so much better. Were you here when the car was rented?”
“No.”
“Is anyone here now who rented this car?”
He looked at the screen and then back at me. Pride in his job had turned to a look of distrust. I smiled big and reached out and shook his hand, thanking him again. A real customer for life.
I got back to my car and thumped at the wheel. Either Johnny Two Guns was a better friend than he was letting on, or Welles had lifted his personal information and gotten a credit card set up in Gredoni’s name. I drove north on Route 1.
It wasn’t much, but it was a solid reason for a return to Gun World. I was betting Johnny had missed me.
18
A skinny guy in a khaki shooter’s shirt and a droopy reddish mustache worked the showroom of Gredoni’s Gun World. I didn’t recognize him and he didn’t seem to recognize me. I asked for Johnny and the guy told me he was busy giving a shooting lesson at the range. I showed him my firearm permit, paid twenty bucks, and he buzzed me into the back.
I found Gredoni in a wide concrete cavern with a husky kid in a Bruins jersey and a crooked ball cap. I wasn’t a fan of crooked ball caps but resisted the urge to straighten it. He was holding a Glock 40. The kid looked off-balance, arms outstretched, and giggling like a boy touching a woman for the first time.
“Okay. Okay. Get a grip with both hands,” Gredoni said. “Take a deep breath and a good sight.”
The kid giggled even more.