by Ace Atkins
“Super nannies,” Hawk said.
“Uncle Hawk,” I said.
Hawk growled.
I stepped out of the passenger side and waited for Mattie.
I looked across the street. I looked to the other cars, studying faces of parents. I did not see Moon Murphy or my new friends from the Mary Ellen McCormack. Hawk stayed behind the wheel of the Jaguar with the engine running. I caught a bit of Tommy Flanagan’s piano on the stereo. I believed the number was called “Cherokee.”
Mattie emerged from the school. She was dressed as all the other kids were, in uniform. White shirt, blue sweater, khaki pants. She slid into her blue coat and her pink Sox cap outside the front doors.
I waved to her.
She said a few words to a young Asian girl in glasses. She walked cool and deliberate, not too excited to see me, down the front steps of the old brick building.
“Next time, I’ll hold up a little sign with your name,” I said.
“You don’t have to pick me up anymore,” she said. “I can walk.”
“I prefer my clients not be run off the road.”
“They were just screwing with me.”
“Or that my clients are harassed.”
“Where’s your car?” she asked.
“Stolen.”
“That sucks.”
I nodded. “It does indeed.”
“Your face looks like shit.”
I shrugged.
We stood at the base of the school steps. Kids piled into the school buses, the diesel fumes adding an unpleasant smell to the air. The slush covering curbs was dark black. I walked her to the car. I let her sit up front with Hawk.
“Hawk, this is Mattie,” I said. “Mattie, this is Hawk.”
“Howdy,” Hawk said. He cranked the ignition.
“He a detective, too?” Mattie asked.
“I just a simple thug,” Hawk said. “Spenser the brains.”
“Hawk is too modest,” I said. “He’s also my fashion adviser.”
She turned and studied him. She liked him. “Cool jacket.”
Hawk checked his rearview mirror. He nodded in agreement.
“Where we going today?” she asked.
“You’re going home,” I said. “Hawk and I have an appointment.”
“Bullshit.”
“Lovely elocution,” Hawk said.
“Bullshit,” Mattie said.
“I work with Hawk today,” I said. I leaned into the front seat. “Tomorrow may be different.”
“You need me,” she said. “Nobody’s gonna talk to you. I got three more of my ma’s friends I called last night.”
“Why don’t you let me handle this?”
“Nobody says they saw her before she was killed,” she said. “But one of ’em saw Red this weekend at her cousin’s wedding. He’s goin’ to parties, getting high, while Mickey Green lives in a cage.”
“As your investigative consultant, I would advise you to quit running your mouth all over South Boston.”
Mattie didn’t respond.
“Hawk and I have a mutual friend,” I said. “He will provide us with an introduction.”
I saw Hawk grin in the rearview mirror.
“And then what?”
“We will have a talk with Red Cahill.”
“The way you talked to Moon last night?”
“That’s the way you speak to guys like Moon.”
“By knocking them in the head.”
“I knocked him on the chin,” I said. “An uppercut.”
Hawk nodded in appreciation.
“Nobody talks about those guys,” Mattie said. “Nobody says jack shit. They’re a bunch of cowards. They left her out there to die on The Point and don’t have the guts to say anything about it.”
I nodded. Hawk took a turn and joined up with Dorchester Avenue.
The music changed to Barry Harris. Or maybe it was Bud Powell. But it was that jazz piano that sounded playful and alive, cat and mouse with the rest of the band. Hawk’s car smelled of fine leather and expensive perfume.
“Anyone ever tell you that your car smells like a French prostitute?” I said.
“What you know about French prostitutes?” Hawk asked.
“I knows one when I smells one.”
Mattie didn’t say anything. She did not laugh at our witty repartee. She just stared out the frosted window at the old storefronts and apartment buildings. She wasn’t listening to us. Perhaps a good thing. After a while, she spoke.
“Someone saw something,” Mattie said.
She seemed to say it more to herself than to me. Or Hawk.
“Someone knows what happened,” she said. “And they’re too scared. Fucking cowards.”
Hawk turned the steering wheel in an expert fashion. In the leather and shades, he blended into the Jaguar. Mattie just studied the long stretch of Dorchester before us. The dirty snowbanks, the covered cars, the battered road signs. SLOW. STOP. NO PARKING.
“You good at beating people up, too?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” Hawk said.
21
Gerry Broz had opened a sports bar at the edge of the Old Colony Housing Projects. There wasn’t much of Old Colony left; the wrecking ball had taken out a good half of the old brick buildings. What remained sat in decay and dim light as we passed. I remembered Old Colony being the kind of place where kids filled Dumpsters with water from fire hydrants to cool off in the summer. It had been an infamous cove of junkies and thieves, working-class fathers and mothers, professional boxers and hoodlums. Almost everyone had been Irish, with a few Italians tossed in.
“You remember that man from Southie, tried to impale a brother with an American flag?”
“During the busing.”
“Now I see brothers all ’round here.”
“We’ve been on the scene for a while,” I said. “Things change.”
“Joe Broz had you shot back in the day.”
I nodded.
“What was that about?”
“His son.”
Hawk grinned.
We drank coffee and watched the parking lot in front of the sports bar. It was an old two-story industrial building slapped with a fresh coat of yellow paint and new plate-glass windows. The narrow point of the bar met at Dorchester Street and Old Colony. A large sign read PLAYMATES.
The bar was attracting a lot of business on a Tuesday night. Of course, I didn’t think there was a hell of a lot to do on the south end of Southie. This section of the neighborhood wouldn’t be reached by gentrification for another decade.
“How ’bout we kick in the door, grab Gerry by the neck, and say, ‘Give it up, motherfucker.’”
“Or,” I said, “we walk into the bar, ask to speak to Mr. Broz, and try to talk it out.”
“Like I told the kid,” Hawk said, “you the brains.”
“God help us.”
“Can I still say ‘Give it up, motherfucker’?”
“Only if it makes you happy.”
We dodged traffic and walked across Old Colony. Hawk hid the shotgun under the edge of his trench as we made our way into the bar.
The bottom floor of the building was filled with dark wood booths, a long stretch of polished bar down the center. There were a lot of framed jerseys from the Sox, the Pats, the Celtics, and Bruins. Autographed pictures of sports stars and Boston actors who made movies about Boston hung on the walls. Throughout the bar, Gerry had rigged up a dozen flat-screen televisions, which glowed with dozens of different sports stations.
A sign at the hostess stand noted that tonight was MARGARITA MADNESS.
We bypassed the bar and found the stairwell leading upstairs. Both of us took two steps at a time to a metal door. The door was unlocked.
We found a hallway. And another door.
I went in first. Hawk covered me with the Mossberg pump.
Five nerdy-looking guys sat at a long conference table, studying laptop computers. I thought it a little shameful
. Back in the day, we would have found five toughs with bazookas.
They squinted up at us like coal miners seeing the sun after a long absence. A large stack of cash sat on the edge of the table with two money counters. I waited for one to flick through its final count.
I asked, “Is this the Broz School of Business Management?”
Hawk put down the shotgun. He was disappointed, too.
Instead of thugs, we got the math club.
No one spoke. Two of the men snapped shut their computers. They looked to each other. One of the men, a young kid about twenty or so with slick hair and an off-the-rack suit, swept the cash off the table and into a gym bag. Another started for the door.
“Sit your ass down,” Hawk said.
Hawk spoke with authority. The kid sat his ass back down.
“That goes for all you Gerry’s kids,” he said.
“Where is he?” I asked.
A fat kid in an XXXL T-shirt shot his eyes toward the back door. I walked to the door while Hawk covered the little conference table. Nearly out of earshot, I heard him ask, “So what’s the line on Philadelphia?”
Through the door, in the back room, Gerry Broz was feeding his fish.
“Gerry, don’t you know it’s a cliché for bad guys to have a fish tank?” I said. “It’s a metaphor for a guy who likes to be in control. Power over his guppies.”
He just stared at me. He put down the little green net and the fish food. He tilted his head at me like I was a hallucination.
“Spenser?”
Gerry had aged a hell of a lot in a decade. He looked beefy, like a guy who worked out with weights but still liked to eat and drink too much. His black hair was dyed, and he sported a spray tan that gave his face an orangey glow. He wore one of those slick dress shirts that middle-aged men wear untucked in an effort to be hip. His was purple. Gerry did not look hip.
“I’d hoped to find those guys you sent for me.”
“Huh?”
“Well said.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Even better.”
“Christ,” Gerry said. “Do you want me to call the cops?”
“For what?”
“Harassment,” he said. “I’m a respected business owner.”
“I think respect is on the Broz family crest.”
“Fuck you, Spenser.”
“I want to talk to a couple of your boys.”
He studied me. He put his hands on his hips. His shoes were black crocodile and very pointy. When I first met Gerry, his father had gotten him into Georgetown in an effort to class him up. Instead, he majored in coke dealing and blackmail.
“Moon Murphy and Red Cahill.”
“What about them?”
“I want to have a sit-down,” I said. “I want you to make that happen.”
Gerry laughed. He reached for a pack of cigarettes and shook one loose. He smoked and studied me. He noticed the eye and smiled.
“You look like a raccoon.”
“You look like an Oompa-Loompa.”
Gerry stopped smiling.
With the same hand that held his cigarette, he scratched his cheek. He smiled. He smoked some more. “They don’t work for me.”
“C’mon, now,” I said. “Don’t lie to an old friend.”
“Are you fuckin’ nuts?” he said. “I missed you like a case of the piles.”
“I guess that’s why I hang out with assholes.”
Broz shrugged, walked over to a big glass desk, and sat down. I pulled up a leather wingback chair and joined him. I put up my work boots on the edge of the desk. He did not seem to appreciate my casual approach.
“That Hawk out there with you?”
“Yep.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Can’t believe nobody’s killed you two yet.”
“That’s a hurtful thing to say, Ger. So much history. A lifetime of friendship.”
He nodded as if considering the importance. He placed his hands behind his head and leaned back in his leather office chair.
Gerry looked at me. I looked at him.
He nodded some more.
“You think too much and you’ll blow a gasket.”
“Trying to figure why you want to shake me down.”
“All I want is Red and Moon.”
“To talk.”
“To talk,” I said.
“Or what?”
“Or I make some calls to the Boston police about your little betting operation.”
“Go ahead,” Gerry said. “Those dorks can run the operation from their mom’s basement.”
I shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“I can ask,” Gerry said. “But they don’t work for me.”
“Sure, Gerry.”
“You still at that craphole at Berkeley and Boylston?”
“The sign says ‘luxury office space.’”
“We see the world different, you and me.”
“Thank God.”
“Let me give you some advice, Spenser.”
“I’m breathless.”
“Don’t bust a man’s nuts when you come asking for a favor.”
“This isn’t a favor,” I said. “It’s a request with muscle.”
I did not hear Hawk. But I felt him standing over my shoulder. Gerry’s eyes raised from me to above my head.
“And I’s the muscle.”
“You fucking guys make me laugh,” Gerry said. “My dad used to call you Deano and Sammy. Okay. Okay. I’ll make some calls.”
I stood. Hawk had the shotgun hanging loose by his leg.
“Which one of us is Sammy?” I asked.
We walked out past the dorks and their laptops and the big stacks of cash. I looked at my watch and told them curfew was coming up.
“Kids today,” I said.
We made our way out of Playmates and across Old Colony and back to Hawk’s Jaguar. Our coffee was still warm.
“He playin’ nice guy?” Hawk asked.
“Yep.”
“You believe it?”
“Nope.”
“You think those boys will meet with you?”
“I would request neutral ground.”
“We could call Vinnie in on this.”
I shook my head. Hawk cranked the engine. The stereo played Brubeck, “Take Five.”
“Vinnie won’t be a part of anything to do with that family,” I said. “Joe Broz raised Vinnie like a son.”
“Like the son he never had.”
“He won’t go against Joe’s kid.”
“So it’s little ole me and the Great White Hope.”
“Everybody’s got to have a dream.”
Hawk drove north. He dropped me on Marlborough Street.
I dropped my useless car keys on the kitchen counter and poured out a thick measure of Wild Turkey over ice. The streetlamps cast the slick street in a fine yellow glow. I studied the patterns of shadow and light as I drank.
I turned in to sleep.
I knew I’d need my rest.
22
The next morning I rented a car, drove Mattie to school in Southie, and then headed back to Back Bay. I bought two oat-bran muffins and a large coffee, and ate at my desk while listing witnesses on a yellow legal pad. I leaned back into my office chair and stared at the ceiling. I stared at a collection of framed Van Meer prints Susan had given me. I turned to my window and stared out at the new office building across Berkeley. Staring was on the agenda today.
I would follow with more coffee. The second muffin wasn’t long for this world.
I circled the name Touchie Kiley. I opened up a phone book and was paging through it when a paunchy man in a designer suit walked into my office.
He did not knock.
He loomed in front of my desk. I put down the phone book.
I pointed to my client chair. He sat down as if he paid the rent. He leaned forward with a small grin. “You Spenser?”
“Is the nature of the question existential?”
The grin faded. “It’s a fucking question.”
“Oh,” I said. “One of those.”
He leaned forward and pulled out a badge from the jacket of the designer suit. The suit was navy and tailored. He wore a crisp white shirt underneath with cuff links. His tie was a bright yellow, and he had a yellow show hankie in the breast pocket. The badge said he was a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Hey, I’ve heard of you guys,” I said.
“Good for you.”
“I watch a lot of TV.”
He rubbed his jaw the way dumb guys do trying to think of what to say next. Suddenly it came to him. “Epstein said you were a smart-ass.”
“Epstein is a great judge of character.”
“He’s been reassigned to Miami.”
“Lucky him.”
“He said to tell you hello.”
I nodded. I offered him an oat-bran muffin, telling him that fiber would make him less cranky. He declined. He had a beefy, florid Irish face. Jowly. His hands were short and thick, with squared nails that looked to be the work of a manicurist. His thick brown hair, shot with gray, had been barbered into a glossy helmet.
“Tom Connor,” he said. He said it like I should have heard of him and shake from excitement.
I drank some coffee.
“You paid a visit to Gerry Broz last night.”
I nodded. I noticed my coffee needed more sugar. I added some from the little packets I kept in my right-hand desk drawer, next to my .357.
“I came to you as a courtesy to Epstein,” he said. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is.”
“We have operations going on in South Boston,” Connor said. “You buzzing around Mr. Broz could fuck up two years of work.”
“That would be a shame.”
“You bet it would.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m up to?”
He shook his jowls and grinned again. “Don’t want to and don’t need to.”
“Would you like to study my Van Meer prints?”
“It’s a simple request.”
“Just lay off?”
Connor smiled. “Say, you got the idea, Spense.”
I let that one go and said, “I’m a quick study.”
He put his squared-off little hand across my desk. He offered a shake. I did not shake. He frowned and retracted his hand.