Cold Service s-32

by Robert B. Parker

  "The weather sucks," Tony said. "This better be worth it."

  "I give you two words," Hawk said. "Jolene Marcus."

  Tony showed no reaction.

  "What about her?" he said.

  "She married outside the faith," Hawk said.

  "What about her," Tony said again.

  "Whassup," Hawk said, "with her husband and Boots Podolak?"

  I was wearing my black nylon raincoat with the cool zipper front. I had my hands in my pockets. In the right pocket was my Browning nine-millimeter. I kept my hand on the butt, my thumb on the hammer. I could cock it before it cleared my pocket. I'd practiced. There were people hurrying through the gardens on their way home from work, and some of them came across the bridge. But there were no casual walkers in the mean weather.

  Tony looked at Hawk as if he were appraising him for auction. Hawk waited. I watched Ty Bop. Ty Bop was the shooter. Junior probably would have an Uzi, maybe a Bull Pup, under his coat. But it wasn't second nature to him the way it was with Ty Bop. Leonard would have a handgun, and he'd be good with it. But for Ty Bop, shooting was a part of his viscera. It was who he was. Ty Bop was the one to kill first.

  "Whadya know?" Tony finally said in a soft voice.

  "I know she your daughter with Veronica," Hawk said. "I know she married to a horse's ass."

  "You seen them?" Tony said.

  His voice was even softer.

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "Rowes Wharf," Hawk said.

  "You went to her house?"

  I hunched my shoulders slightly.

  "I did," Hawk said.

  I could hear Tony breathe deeply through his nose.

  "What did she say?"

  I could feel the tightness begin to loosen in my trapezius.

  "She don't seem to know nothing 'bout Boots," Hawk said.

  "Brock?"

  "He did," Hawk said. "Pulled a gun. Told us to, ah believe, get the fuck out."

  "He pulled a gun on you," Tony said.

  "Un-huh."

  "You let it slide?"

  "Un-huh. They started shoutin' at each other and me and my trusted companion here dee-parted."

  Tony was silent. He glanced down the bridge toward Ty Bop and Junior. He looked the other way at Leonard. He raised his voice slightly.

  "Go wait in the car," he said.

  Junior and Leonard looked pleased. Ty Bop seemed disappointed. When they were gone, Tony took his hands out of his pockets and leaned his forearms on the bridge railing and looked down at the empty lake bottom.

  "Her mother's no good, never was. I wasn't married to her. Just fucked her some. Knocked her up. When the kid was born, I took her. Jolene's twenty. I sent her to fucking Hampshire College. She's had two abortions."

  He paused. I wondered if there was a connection between Hampshire and abortions. Hawk didn't say anything. The sleety rain drizzled down, not very hard and not very fast, but steady.

  "Thirty thousand a year," Tony said, "and she's the old joke. Only fucked for friends, didn't have an enemy in the world."

  It was hard language. If you told it tough, maybe it was less painful. Tony kept staring down, nodding his head softly, as if to himself.

  "Then this honkie jerk-off comes along and she decide he the one. First time I see him I know what he is. But he what she wants. So she marries him. I set him up with a nice little book in the South End, easy living, no deadbeats. But he can't hack it. Refuses to pay off on a bet, smacks the customer around when the customer complains. Customer complains to the cops. We got to shut down the book for a while. I set him up someplace else… same long story. Asshole can't make a living. But she loves him. Somebody else, I have Ty Bop kill him, but…"

  "So what about Boots," Hawk said.

  It was dark now. The lights on Boylston Street were amorphous in the drizzle.

  "Dumbass kid decides he's going to acquire new territory for us."

  "You and him?" Hawk said.

  "Yeah. Show me the kind of fucking criminal genius he is. So he decides to set us up in Marshport. Says it's a black population run by a few fucking Bohunks. Says they'll welcome us in, we get a foothold."

  "And what did he think the Bohunks be doing," Hawk said, "while he getting this foothold?"

  "He don't think, Hawk. He a fucking airhead. He think pumping iron and carrying a gun make him a tough guy."

  "You weren't able to explain that it didn't," Hawk said.

  "Jolene say I don't want him to succeed, that I, ah, repressing him. I told you she been to college."

  "You let him use some soldiers," Hawk said.

  "Sure, but I don't want no big war with Boots Podolak," Tony said. "For Marshport? What kind of business plan is that?"

  Tony shook his head.

  "So?" Hawk said.

  "So I make a deal with Boots," Tony said. "He lets the kid grab a little piece of Marshport so Jolene can think he got a dick."

  "And you let Boots grab a little piece of your enterprise," Hawk said.

  Looking down at the empty pond bed, Tony nodded yes.

  "And," Hawk said, "maybe you and Boots can designate who gets the short straw in your neighborhoods."

  Tony nodded again.

  "And Luther Gillespie gets aced."

  Tony nodded again. We were all quiet.

  After a time, Hawk said, "Known you a long time, Tony."

  "Yeah."

  "Don't want to give you more trouble than you got."

  Tony nodded.

  "But I got to even up for Luther Gillespie and his family, you understand that."

  "And I got to look out for my daughter," Tony said.

  "I got no interest in hurting her," Hawk said.

  "She wants something, I do what I gotta do to get it for her," Tony said. "Right now she wants her husband to be a player in Marshport."

  "I can work around you on this," Hawk said, "I will."

  "I'll do the same," Tony said.

  "If I can't…" Hawk said.

  "You can't," Tony said.

  "So we know," Hawk said.

  "We know," Tony said.

  28

  HAWK AND I walked in the rain up Boylston Street to my office. I broke out the Irish whisky and poured us two generous shots.

  "So how do you want to do this?" I said.

  "Gonna go right at the Ukes," Hawk said. "Leave Rimbaud to do whatever he gonna do."

  "Ukes probably don't make fine distinctions," I said. "They have trouble on their end, they'll make trouble at Brock's end."

  "Which means maybe we have trouble with Tony," Hawk said.

  "I don't think Clauswicz was in favor of fighting a two-front war," I said.

  "Got no choice," Hawk said.

  The whisky was warm and pleasant in my throat. The rain came steady against the office window.

  "You think Brock's going to settle for the little piece of Marshport that Boots will give him?"

  "Too stupid," Hawk said.

  "You bet," I said.

  "So he'll keep taking more from Boots," Hawk said. "And Boots be taking more from Tony."

  "Which isn't going to work in the long run."

  "No."

  "So sooner or later there will be a war," I said. "With us or without us."

  "Less we take out the Ukes," Hawk said.

  "Then the kid gets Marshport," I said.

  "Not for long," Hawk said.

  "No," I said. "He's too stupid."

  "And he don't know it," Hawk said. "And he ain't tough. And he don't know that, either."

  "Deadly combination," I said.

  "Tony's only hope would be to take it away from him," Hawk said.

  "Or hope the daughter gets over him."

  "Be easy to do," Hawk said.

  "Maybe not for her," I said.

  "Gonna have a lot of people mad at us," Hawk said.

  "We'll get over it," I said.

  "Ain't really your fight," Hawk said.

  We each drank a
nother swallow of whisky. The rain came steady on the black window.

  "Yeah," I said. "It is."

  Hawk was quiet for a time, then he nodded his head slowly.

  "Yeah," he said. "It is."

  I got up and looked out my window. Berkeley Street was dark and shiny wet and empty. A few cars went by on Boylston Street. And once in a while there was somebody walking, bent forward, hunched against the rain, hands in pockets. Genderless in the dark weather.

  "Can't let it go," Hawk said.

  "I know."

  "Gonna be a bad mess any way it plays," Hawk said.

  "Certainly will," I said.

  "So, I guess we may as well do what we gonna do and not think too much 'bout what everybody else gonna do," Hawk said.

  "Isn't that what we always do?" I said.

  "It is," Hawk said.

  29

  WE TOOK MY car this time, which no one would recognize, and sat in it, up the street from the Ukrainian fortress on Market Street in Marshport. The rain had gone, and the cold that had come in behind it was formidable. My motor was idling and the heater was on high. The outside temperature registered six on my dashboard thermometer.

  "Why is it again we live 'round here?" Hawk said.

  "We like the seasonal change," I said.

  The street was nearly empty. A stumblebum in many layers of cast-off clothing inched his way up Market Street. He stopped to stare down into a trash barrel and then moved on. Several windows in the three-deckers on both sides of the street were boarded over. There were no dogs, no children. Just the solitary bum shuffling numbly along.

  "Think it's colder in the poor neighborhoods?" I said.

  "Yes," Hawk said.

  "Because God favors the rich?"

  "Why they rich," Hawk said.

  "It is easier," I said, "for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than…"

  "Here they come," Hawk said.

  Two men wearing overcoats and watch caps came out of the stronghold and got into a Chevrolet Suburban. We saw the plume of exhaust from the tailpipe as the car started up. We all sat for a time while the defroster cleared the windows on the Chevy. Then it rolled forward and went toward Marshport Road. We let them get far ahead and cruised out after them. There were some cars on the road, and when we turned onto Route 1A there were more. On open highway, it's easy to stay with the car you're tailing but harder to avoid being seen. In the city it's easy to stay unseen, but more difficult not to lose the tailee. Fortunately I was nationally ranked in both modes, and when the Ukrainians pulled up in front of a used-furniture store on Blue Hill Ave, they thought they were alone.

  The store was in the first floor of a three-story wooden building with peeling gray paint. There was a liquor store on one side, and an appliance repair shop on the other. The store looked as if it had once sold groceries. The big windows in the front were frosted with the cold. A big sign pasted inside the half window of the front door read USED AND NEW FURNITURE: BUY OR RENT. An old maroon Dodge van was parked on the street in front of the store. It had no hubcaps. The Ukes double-parked their Suburban beside it and walked to the store, leaving the motor running. As they walked toward the store, one of the two men absently beeped the remote door lock device on his key chain. The taillights flashed once. The men went into the furniture store.

  "We need to be pretty close behind them," Hawk said. "They don't look like they planning to stay long."

  Hawk got out of the car. He had his big.44 Mag in his right hand. I got out my.38. There appeared to be only two guys, and I was sentimental about the little revolver. Hawk walked through the front door as if he was walking onto a yacht. The big.44 hung straight down by his right side. I glanced in both directions before I went in after him. Inside, behind the counter, a short, plump black man holding a sawed-off baseball bat was trying to keep his body between his wife and the two big white men. As we came in, one of the white men gestured at the baseball bat and laughed, and patted his leather coat over the belt area. He said something to his partner in a language not my own.

  A small bell jingled on the door as it closed behind us, and both white men turned. I moved away from Hawk. Two targets are harder than one. The four of us stood looking at each other.

  "S'happenin'?" Hawk said.

  No one spoke. Hawk looked at the short black man.

  "My name's Hawk," he said. "I'm on your side."

  "Man says we sign this store over to him or he gonna kill us both. Her first."

  The two white men looked at us with contempt. The one with the leather coat said to us, "Go way," and gestured toward the door. Hawk looked closely at both the big white men.

  "Danylko Levkovych?" he said.

  The man in the leather coat said, "Ya."

  Without a word, Hawk raised the.44 Mag and shot him in the forehead. The man fell backward and lay dead on the floor with his head propped against the dirty green wall of the little store. The only sound was the silent resonance of the recent explosion and the woman, still shielded by her husband, whimpering softly. Hawk had already shifted the gun onto the second white man before the one in leather had hit the floor. The second man stared at Hawk with no expression. Most people are afraid of dying. If this guy was, he gave no sign.

  "You speak English?" Hawk said to him.

  The man didn't speak or move. He just kept looking at Hawk.

  "He talked English to me," the shop owner said.

  He was still holding the sawed-off bat, for which he had no use-and, in fact, never had. Hawk looked at the second white man. The white man looked back.

  "Fadeyushka Badyrka?" Hawk said.

  The man nodded.

  "You know who I am," Hawk said.

  The man shrugged.

  "I was the guy protecting Luther Gillespie," Hawk said.

  The man smiled faintly.

  "I gonna kill you next," Hawk said.

  The man continued to smile faintly.

  "But not now," Hawk said.

  He jerked his thumb toward the door.

  "Beat it," he said.

  The man shrugged slightly and walked straight past us and out the front door without ever looking at his partner on the floor. He beeped the car doors open and got in and drove away.

  "I don't think we scared him," I said.

  "No."

  Hawk looked at the store owner.

  "You been having any argument lately with Tony Marcus?" he said.

  "I don't work with Tony anymore," the store owner said.

  Hawk nodded.

  "I gonna clean this up," he said. "But it gonna take a while. I was you I'd take the missus to a warm climate for a while."

  "And what happens to my business?"

  "Same thing will happen if you dead," Hawk said.

  "You think they be back?"

  "They be back," Hawk said. "I ain't always gonna be here."

  The store owner nodded. His wife had stopped crying.

  "We'll go to my sister," she said.

  Her husband looked like dying might be better.

  "Go there," Hawk said.

  "It's in Arkansas," the store owner said.

  Hawk grinned.

  "Go there anyway," he said.

  And we left.

  In the car, I said, "That's why you didn't shoot him."

  "What's why?"

  "Because he wasn't scared," I said.

  "Killing somebody ain't afraid to die ain't much justice," Hawk said.

  "Or revenge," I said.

  "I trying to get things back in balance," Hawk said. "That seem like justice to me."

  "When you do it, it's revenge," I said. "When the state does it, it's society's revenge."

  "Which it call justice," Hawk said.

  "Exactly," I said. "Change places and handy-dandy."

  Hawk grinned at me.

  "Which be the justice," he said. "Which be the thief?"

  "I think Shakespeare used is," I said. "Which is the justice."

  "Sh
akespeare wasn't no brother," Hawk said.

  "I knew that," I said.

  30

  HAWK AND I went back to my office and had a couple of beers together in the empty building, looking down from my window on the near-empty intersection.

  "That didn't do much for anybody," Hawk said.

  "Saved the storekeeper's ass," I said.

  Hawk grunted.

  "Storekeeper," he said. "Man runs a book out of there. Ukies didn't want the store, they wanted the book."

  "What I haven't figured out," I said, "since this started, does Boots or whoever's running the enterprise think he can take over the crime commerce in an all-black neighborhood and staff it with white guys from Central Europe and the people will keep right on coming?"

  "Maybe got a few Uncle Drobits for staffing," Hawk said. "Truth is, it don't matter. Some black people be more comfortable with a brother, but not all of them. Some black people figure you be a brother you can't be very good."

  "You're so smart, why aren't you white?" I said.

  Hawk nodded.

  "And people need a bookie or a pimp or a guy to sell them blow, they generally need it bad enough so they do business with whoever's at the window. They want to place a bet and the only bookie there is Joseph Stalin"-Hawk shrugged-"they place the bet with Joe."

  "The greater leveler," I said.

  "Need," Hawk said.

  "Yep."

  We were quiet, sipping the beer, looking at the city-lit night.

  "Now what," I said.

  "We let the surviving Uke go back and tell what happened and we see what develops."

  "Got anything longer-range than that?" I said.

  "I thinking about taking Boots down, put a stop to the whole thing."