by Parker
"Something happened," I said. "That made her run away."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know something happened."
It was as if Brock had disappeared. It was me and Betty Patton. "Woman's intuition."
"I have resources," Betty said. "Give me back my daughter or face serious consequences."
"You wouldn't have a thought, either of you, as to what might have been the, ah, precipitating event in your daughter's departure?"
"There was no event. Millicent is spoiled and childish. But she is quite capable of manipulating any adult gullible enough to believe her."
"Do you have anyone but me looking for her?"
"Perhaps we should."
"But you don't?"
"Of course not."
"She's afraid of something," I said.
"What?"
"I don't know."
Betty's ugly little laugh was derisive. "She's a neurotic child," Betty said.
"Has she been getting therapy?" I said.
"Doesn't every teenaged brat that can't cut it get therapy?" Brock said.
When he spoke it felt like an intrusion, something foreign to the angry exclusivity that connected me to Betty.
"Shut up, Brock," Betty said.
"Isn't that sweet," Brock said. "'Shut up,' she explained."
"Who's her therapist?" I said.
"That is no concern of yours," Betty said. I nodded.
"Did you or your husband have a fight with Millicent before she left?"
"Ms. Randall," Betty said. "I am not some Irish scrub woman, I do not fight with my daughter."
"She's very angry with you," I said.
"Millicent doesn't know what she's angry about," Betty said. "She is a petulant adolescent. Had you ever raised one you might be less inclined to take her at face value."
Actually I thought it was Betty that was taking Millicent at face value.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Do you have a license to do what you do?" Betty asked. "Yes."
"Well, if my daughter is not back here promptly you will lose it."
"Oh, oh!" I said.
"And that will be the least unpleasant thing you'll face."
"If you're going to threaten me," I said, "you need to be specific."
Betty shook her head. I looked at Brock. "And you?"
Brock tossed his hands in the air.
"I have long ago given up trying to work things out with women.
I sat for a moment.
"Okay," I said. "Your daughter is well and safe. And, despite the paralyzing impact of your threat, I will make every attempt to keep her that way."
I stood. Neither of them moved.
"I have warned you, Ms. Randall," Betty said, "don't take what I've said lightly."
"Hard not to," I said, and turned and marched out. I love a good exit line.
CHAPTER 20
Rosie and Millicent were with Richie. I didn't know where. And I was sitting at a table for four with Spike, watching the new cabaret act he had put together for the restaurant. "It's funny," I said to Spike. "I can't live with Richie, but I trust him even with Rosie."
Spike was watching the show too intently to do anything more than nod. I didn't mind: the remark had been as much to me as it had been to him, anyway. While I was thinking about my remark, and Spike was thinking about his cabaret, Don Bradley came in and sat at the table with us. The cabaret singers started a medley of World War II songs.
"Hi, Sunny," he said. "I been trying to reach you."
"I know."
". . . praise the Lord and pass the ammunition ..."
"I guess I got a little buzzed at the end of it, I don't remember the way we parted, exactly."
"I do."
"I didn't get out of hand, I hope," he grinned at me. "Sometimes I get a little wild."
"Don, please," I said. "I'm afraid we're not really meant for each other. Let's let it go."
"Damn it, Sunny, I thought we were having a good time."
Don raised his voice a little. It was enough to break Spike's concentration on the cabaret. Which I knew Spike didn't like. He looked at Don.
"Don," I said. "You spent the evening talking about yourself until you got so drunk I had to half carry you into your home, at which time you tried to force yourself on me."
"That's not how it seemed to me, Sunny."
Spike had half turned now, and leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his elbow and had his face very close to Don's, listening intently. When I spoke Spike's eyes shifted to me, but his face stayed close to Don's.
"I don't wish to argue it," I said. "I'd simply prefer not to go out with you."
"I'm not taking no for an answer," Don said.
Spike's closeness was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He looked at Spike.
"... with anyone else but me, anyone else but me ..."
"Excuse me?" he said.
"Certainly," Spike said.
"I mean, excuse me, why are you interfering with our conversation"
"I do that, sometimes," Spike said. "Well, I don't like it," Don said.
There was an edge to his voice. He was a not a man to be crossed. "Gay bashing," Spike said.
"What?"
"I'm a charming gay man, and you have turned on me for no discernible reason. I say it's gay bashing."
"I didn't even know you were gay."
"For crissake," Spike said. "What am I supposed to do, sit in your lap?"
"Of course not."
"This is blatant homophobia," Spike said. "Sunny?"
I smiled and didn't answer.
". .. a hubba hubba hubba, hello, Jack ..."
"See," Spike said.
Don said. "Why don't you just butt out."
"Sunny has made it clear that she doesn't like you and doesn't want to go out with you," Spike said. "I felt it was important that you know I feel the same way."
"What?"
"Stay away from Sunny," Spike said.
And then Spike did what he does. I don't know how he does it. Something happens behind his eyes, and whatever it is shows through, and quite suddenly there's nothing playful about Spike. Don saw it and it scared him.
"You're threatening me," he said finally.
"You bet," Spike said. "Think how embarrassing it'll be, to tell the guys at the health club that you got your clock cleaned by a ho-mo-sex-ual."
Don didn't move. Better men than Don had been frightened by Spike. But he didn't want to back down in front of me.
". . . remember Pearl Harbor, as we march against the foe ..."
"Don," I said. "There's nothing between you and me."
"I'm not scared of him," Don said.
"You should be," I said. "Walk away from this. There's nothing here for you."
Don sat for another moment. Then he stood up.
"All right, but only because you asked me, Sunny."
"Sure," I said. "I understand. Sorry it didn't work out." Don nodded and said, "Good-bye, Sunny."
"Good-bye, Don."
To salvage his self-regard he gave Spike a hard look. Spike smiled at him. Don turned away and walked stiffly out of the restaurant. "I could have chased him away myself," I said to Spike.
"Sure," Spike said, "but it's like the old joke, praise God you didn't have to."
CHAPTER 21
It was after six and I was starting supper for Millicent and me. She had slept much of the afternoon and now sat at the kitchen counter drinking a Coke and watching me. I had a cookbook open on the counter beside me. I had put a carving knife across it to keep the pages from flipping over. Rosie was between and around my ankles as I worked. "You like to cook?" I said to Millicent.
"No."
"Do you know how?"
"No."
"Would you like to learn?"
"You a good cook?" Millicent said.
"No. But I'm getting better. Actually I'm learning, too. I'd love somebody to learn wit
h me."
"Who's teaching you?"
"I've been watching Martha Stewart," I said.
"Who?"
"A woman on television," I said.
"What's in the plastic bag?"
"Pizza dough," I said. "I buy it at a place in the North End and let it warm a little and then roll it out."
"You're making pizza?"
"Yes, white, with vinegar peppers and caramelized onions."
"Whaddya mean, white?"
"No tomato sauce."
"What's that other stuff whatchamacallit onions and peppers."
"Sweet and sour," I said. "Here, roll out some of this pizza dough."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Take this roller," I said. "Put some flour on this board." I showed her.
"Put a little more flour on top of the dough." I showed her again.
"Roll it from the center out."
Millicent sighed a large sigh and took the rolling pin. She dabbed at the dough with it.
"No, no," I said. "Roll it."
I took the pin and showed her. The dough sat there inertly. When I rolled it in one direction it shrank up in another. I rolled more vigorously. The dough sat there more inertly. After five hard minutes I had a lump of pizza dough the same size and thickness with which 1 had started. I put the rolling pin down and stepped back and looked at the dough.
"You ever make this before?" Millicent said.
"Not exactly," I said.
"Maybe if you just squished it with your hands," she said.
I tried it. The dough was recalcitrant. I picked it up and dropped it into the trash compactor. Then I took the dish of sliced onions and chopped up peppers and scraped them into the trash.
"If at first you don't succeed," I said, "have something else for supper."
Millicent made a little sound that might almost have been a snicker.
"You don't know how to cook for shit," Millicent said.
"I'm learning," I said. "I'm learning." She made the sound again.
"You were pounding and shoving that sucker and it wasn't doing a thing," Millicent said.
I laughed. She might have laughed. We might have been laughing together.
"The perversity of inanimate objects," I said.
"Huh?"
"It's something my father always says."
"Oh. So what are we going to eat?"
"What do you like?" I said. "I like peanut butter."
"Me, too," I said. "And even better, I think I can make a sandwich."
"For crissake, Sunny, I can make a peanut butter sandwich."
"With jelly?"
"Sure."
"Oh, yeah? Okay, smarty pants, go ahead. Show me."
After supper we took Rosie for a walk along Congress Street down toward the Fort Point Channel.
"So can you cook anything?" Millicent said.
"Some things." I said. "Who knew pizza dough was going to be ugly?"
"How come you're not a good cook?"
"Probably the same reason you're not," I said. "Nobody taught me."
"My mother's a good cook," Millicent said.
"She teach you?"
"No. She said I would mess up her kitchen."
"My mother's kitchen was always a mess," I said. "Her problem was she didn't know how to cook either."
"I don't see why a woman has to cook." Millicent said.
"Nobody has to cook," I said. "Only if they want to."
Rosie had found a crushed earthworm on the edge of the sidewalk and was rolling purposefully on it.
"What's she doing?"
"Rolling on a dead worm," I said.
"Gross," Millicent said, "why don't you make her stop?"
"She seems to like it," I said.
"Why's she doing it?"
"I have no idea," I said.
Rosie stopped rolling and stood up and sniffed at the worm remains, and then looked proudly up at me and stepped out along the sidewalk.
"How come you're trying to learn to cook?" Millicent said.
"I like to make things," I said. "And I like to eat."
Millicent shrugged. Rosie charged ahead on her leash as if she had a place to go and was in a rush to get there. At Sleeper Street, downtown Boston loomed up solidly ahead of us. To the right was the Children's Museum in the big wooden milk bottle, and the tea party ship replica bobbed on the water next to the Congress Street Bridge.
"I suppose," I said, "as I think of it, that I also probably think at some level or other that the more I can do for myself, the less dependent I will be on anyone else."
"I think it's easier just to let somebody else do it," Millicent said. "Then you don't have to do anything."
"Which is why you're here," I said, "walking around South Boston with a detective you barely know."
Millicent was silent. Rosie was adamant, as she always was, about looking at the water under the bridge. We stopped on the beginning of it while she stared over the edge, her wedge-shaped head jammed through the bridge railing. The water was dirty. I looked up at Millicent. She was crying. Hallelujah! An emotion! I put my arm around her. She was thin and stiff.
"On the other hand, you'll know me really well in a while. And when you do you'll absolutely love me."
She didn't say anything. She stood rigidly with the tears running down her cheeks, then the rigidity went away, and she turned in against my shoulder and cried as hard as she could while I patted her and Rosie gazed intently down at the black water.
CHAPTER 22
Well into midmorning Millicent was still asleep. Rosie had hopped up on the bed and was sleeping next to her in the crook of her bent legs. I was still in my silk robe, at my easel, drinking some coffee and trying to get the right yellow onto the restaurant sign in my Chinatown painting, when the doorbell rang. I went and buzzed the speaker downstairs. "Package for Sunny Randall," the voice said.
"Who from?" I said.
"I don't know, lady, I just drive the truck."
"Okay," I said. "Second floor."
I buzzed the downstairs door open and stood looking out the peephole in my door. In a moment the big old elevator eased to a stop and the doors, originally designed for freight, slid open. There were two men with a large cardboard box. They carried it as if it was empry. I opened the broom closet next to the door and took out a short double-barreled shotgun that my father had confiscated from a dope dealer and passed on to me. I cocked both barrels and as I walked back to the door, my bell rang. Rosie jumped down from the bed and hustled to the door in case it might be Richie. I looked through the peephole again. The box had been pushed aside and the two men stood waiting. I opened the door a foot and stepped away, keeping it between me and them. Rosie sniffed and wagged and milled around their feet as they shoved the door open and came in. The first man shoved her out of the way with his foot. The second guy came through right behind his buddy, his hand under his pea coat. I wasn't dressed for company. I had the shotgun at my shoulder, and I could feel the butt of it through the thin silk of my robe.
"Freeze," I said.
The guy with the pea coat said, "Shit," and brought his hand out with a nine in it. I fired one barrel. It was a 10-gauge gun loaded with fours and it took him full in the chest at two feet. He went backwards into the hall and fell on his back. My ears were ringing. In the enclosed area the sound of the gunshot was painful. The second man threw his hands up as I turned the gun toward him.
"No," he said. "No, no, no."
"Flat on your goddamned face," I said, "now. Hands behind your neck. Right-fucking-now."
The second man went down. I held the shotgun against the back of his head while I patted him down. I took a.357 Mag from his hip. Then I backed four steps to the kitchen counter, put the .357 down and dialed 911. I kept the shotgun level and aimed over the crook of my arm. The second man remained motionless, his hands clasped behind his head, his face on the floor. Beyond him in the entryway his partner lay silently on his back, with one leg twitchin
g occasionally.
"There's been a shooting," I said, and gave my name and address. "Second floor, there's a man down."
I hung up and glanced over toward the bedroom end of the loft.
Rosie had disappeared, I suspected under the bed. Millicent was out of sight, too, maybe sharing space with Rose.
"Millicent," I said. "It's okay. The police are on the way."
No one spoke.
"Is Rosie there with you?" I said.
A voice said, "Yes."
"The cops will be here soon," I said.
I walked back to the second man, facedown on the floor.
"You want to tell me what this is about?" I said.
"Don't know."
I prodded his right temple with the shotgun.
"You kicked my dog," I said. "I might shoot you for that."
"I just pushed her," he said. "I didn't want to step on her."
"Why are you here?"
"I don't know. Honest to God. 1 just come with Terry. He said we was going to pick up some girl."
"Why?"
"Don't know."
I prodded again.
"Swear on my mother," he said. "Terry just says it'll be some easy dough. Just a couple broads."
"Terry the guy in the hall?" I said.
"Yeah."
"What's his last name?"
"Nee."
"What's your name."
"Mike."
Outside on Summer Street I could hear the first siren.
"Can you give me a break," Mike said.
"Who sent you?" I said.
"I don't know. I just come along pick up a day's pay from Terry."
"Did you rough up a pimp named Pharaoh Fox?" I said.
"Don't know his name, me and Terry slapped a black guy around a little. He was a pimp."
"Why?"
"Something about a girl."
"Do you know the girl's name?"
"No. Terry did."
The siren dwindled and went silent in front of my loft. Then another one.
"You gonna gimme a break?"
"No," I said. "I'm not."
Mike didn't say anything and in another minute the elevator door opened and two cops walked out, service pistols in hand, held against the leg, the barrel pointing at the ground. Behind them came two EMTs. I let the shotgun hang by my side. I was holding my robe together with my left hand. The older of the two cops put out his hand, and I gave him the gun. I was glad to give it up. Then I could hold my robe together with both hands. The younger cop stood over Mike and patted him down. One of the EMTs went down on the floor beside Terry Nee.