by Ace Atkins
I nodded.
“You made time for him when he was shot.”
I nodded.
“Take Hawk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My old sweatshirt rode up above Susan’s taut waist and very tasteful panties.
“I like those panties,” I said.
“I don’t think they’d fit you.”
“Lace isn’t my thing.”
“What is your thing?”
“Extra-large boxers with red hearts.”
“Sexy.”
“In some cultures.”
“So I’ve waited around for you long enough,” Susan said. She sipped at her wine. “Disrobe.”
“Twist my arm.”
40
Susan and I breakfasted at the Paramount in Beacon Hill. I had hash and eggs and black coffee. She had an egg-white omelet with fruit on the side. The pain in my ass was gone. I had a spring in my step as we followed the Public Garden back to my apartment. Susan and Pearl headed to Cambridge. I went back to work.
I parked, bought another cup of coffee across Boylston, and opened up my office.
A stack of mail had spilled through the slot and onto the floor. I threw away all but a rent notice and a card from Paris. Paul was touring with his dance troupe. He wrote me in French. Paul was very aware I did not speak French.
He was a grown man now, and a successful human. But when he’d been Mattie’s age, he had no one. His existence centered on soap operas and game shows. I’d taken him up to Maine to work on a cabin. I taught him to lift weights, box, and drink beer. I was afraid if I taught Mattie how to box, I would unleash a loaded weapon on Gavin Middle School. I wondered if trying to think of an equivalent plan for a girl was sexist. Probably. And Mattie was not the typical girl. In the movies, teen girls solved all their problems through a makeover. I could only do what Mattie had asked of me. I could offer shrinkage from Susan, but she would probably wholeheartedly decline. What I wanted more than anything was to return some sense of childhood to her. Finding her mom’s killer was the first step. A makeover was lower on the list.
I sat at my desk and used my computer to check the weather and play Ella singing “Angel Eyes.” I called my answering service. And then I called Hawk.
Hawk said to give him fifteen minutes.
“I got to say goodbye to the lady.”
“The woman with the silk sheets?”
“Don’t know what kinda sheets this one got,” Hawk said. “Didn’t make it to the bed.”
I sipped some more coffee and looked down at the building across Berkeley. The lights were off in the insurance offices. It seemed I was the only one who enjoyed working Saturdays. At street level, Shreve, Crump & Low enjoyed a brisk business. They sold fancy jewelry, and for a long while had a display for something they called The Gurgling Cod. It was a fancy pitcher shaped like a fish. New England chic.
I was halfway done with the coffee when I heard Hawk’s heavy footsteps. You always know when it is Hawk walking. He walks with authority.
“For your troubles, I’ll buy you a gurgling cod.”
“What the fuck’s that?” Hawk asked.
I told him.
“White people got more money than sense,” Hawk said.
“No arguments here.”
“What’s for breakfast?” Hawk asked.
“I ate with Susan.”
“Didn’t bring me nothin’?”
“I didn’t know you’d be available.”
“Am I not a faithful sidekick?”
“I consider myself a first among equals.”
“No shit,” Hawk said, pondering the statement. “I just consider myself first.”
“They got scones across the street.”
“I don’t want no doorstop,” Hawk said. “I said breakfast.”
Hawk was wearing a brown suede sport coat and a black silk shirt opened wide at the neck. His jeans were properly faded and frayed in the current style, and his cowboy boots were made from ostrich hides.
He caught me staring at his boots.
“What’d an ostrich ever do to you?” I asked.
“Bird died with pride knowin’ it be on my feet.”
I grabbed my peacoat, and the .357 out of my desk drawer.
“Double gunnin’?” Hawk asked.
“Always be prepared,” I said brightly.
“Boy Scouts?”
“Genghis Khan,” I said.
I locked the door behind us. We walked side by side down the flight of steps in a pattern and rhythm we’d developed running Harvard Stadium.
“You did notice the suits parked by the Arlington Street Church?” Hawk asked.
“I didn’t walk that way,” I said. “I walked from my place. I had a spring in my step.”
“Well, Easter Bunny,” Hawk said, “since people are looking to do you in, you might want to be more vigilant.”
“Why be vigilant when I have you?”
“’Cause if you ain’t, you be dead.”
I stopped at the landing outside my office building. “You do have a point.”
“Where to?” Hawk asked.
“Did the car have a federal plate?” I asked.
“Yes, suh.”
“A little joyride around town,” I said. “After we lose them, I figured we might want to see what Moon and Red are up to.”
“Not Gerry and ole Jumpin’ Jack?”
“Nope,” I said. “Foot soldiers do the work. They’ll trip up while Broz and Flynn pick their teeth and count their money.”
“And my breakfast?”
“You work up an appetite?”
“You bet,” Hawk said. He grinned very wide.
“Lunch at Legal?” I asked.
Hawk nodded.
I pulled out into traffic. Two lights down Boylston, I made the Feds’ car behind me. I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror.
“On a full stomach, we ditch these turkeys.”
I nodded and headed downtown.
41
We played cat and mouse with the Feds for a while. We ate oysters and drank draft Sam Adams at Legal Sea Foods by the Custom House Tower. Afterward, we indeed ditched the Feds in the South End and looped up to Fenway just to make sure. We drove around for a long while until we headed into Southie and Gerry Broz’s sports bar.
On the way, I told him about Theresa Donovan.
“She dead,” Hawk said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Woman don’t show up for work, leave a plate of food half eaten, and clothes half packed,” Hawk said. “Don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that shit out. Larry Holmes coulda figured that shit out.”
“The Easton Assassin,” I said.
“Only man to defend the belt more was Joe Louis.”
“Doesn’t mean he’d make a good detective,” I said.
Hawk agreed.
We parked in another alley with a good view of Playmates and the wrecking ball facing the Old Colony Housing Projects. A chain-link fence surrounded the property. The day was cold and colorless, the trees bare and stark against gray skies.
“They supposed to tear down all this shit last year,” Hawk said.
“Takes a long time to break it down,” I said. “Built with quality.”
“Lot a bad shit happened in those walls.”
I nodded.
“‘Go, nigger, go,’” Hawk said. “I can still hear them shouts.”
“That was not good for Boston.”
“No,” Hawk said. “Irish got some hard heads. Must be all the potatoes you eat.”
“Or the beer we drink.”
Hawk grinned.
“You think Broz did the shooting in Dorchester?” I asked.
“Yep,” Hawk said. “Course, he didn’t pull the trigger. You think Gerry knows one end of the gun from the other?”
“Probably not.”
“Leaves us with Red and Moon.”
“Bad guys,” I said.
“We bee
n up against much badder,” Hawk said. “Those boys still minor-league.”
“And Jack Flynn?”
“Jack Flynn is on the thug all-star team.”
Hawk reclined in the passenger seat. His eyes were half closed. He’d always been able to calm himself. I’d known him since we were seventeen and remembered how he’d nearly fall asleep before he’d step into the ring. He could come alive with violence as fast as he could nap. He was on shut-down mode now, waiting for Red or Moon. Or both.
“Heard Red was a good fighter,” Hawk said. “Trained down at McDonough’s.”
“Not much future for old fighters.”
“Man makes his way with his fists got few options.”
“You ever think about selling insurance?” I asked.
“I am the reason for insurance, babe.”
At five, I cranked the car engine. Hawk lifted up the passenger seat.
We watched as Red Cahill and Moon Murphy piled into a green Range Rover and made a series of turns before cutting onto Broadway. Hawk and I did not speak as we drove.
I watched my tail in the rearview. No suits.
Red stopped off at a dry cleaner. We had to park too far away to see what was going on inside. We didn’t want Moon to spot us.
Red climbed back in the Range Rover and headed west. We passed over D Street and a Catholic Charities Labor Center. Red circled into a Burger King parking lot. A black Chevy Blazer pulled alongside, headed the opposite way.
Something passed between the cars.
“Pay that piper,” Hawk said.
I nodded. Red wheeled back onto Broadway and stopped in at a liquor store and a gas station. He cut up Dorchester Avenue at the T station.
“Since when they got a goddamn yoga studio in Southie?”
“World’s going to hell,” I said.
We followed Red north toward downtown on Dorchester Avenue, passing the old Gillette plant. We crossed over the channel bridge and passed the post office distribution site. We turned north on Summer Street, near the bridge, and made our way up the waterfront.
Red turned into the Boston Harbor Hotel. He and Moon both got out.
He tossed the keys to the valet.
“Red gone upscale,” Hawk said. “Shall I?”
“Please do.”
Hawk got out and walked inside the Boston Harbor Hotel. I stayed on the street for about twenty minutes.
I watched the valet stand until Red and Moon reappeared. Hawk opened the passenger door and got back inside.
“Taking a piece of the book from the bartender?”
“Passing some drugs off to some preppie kids,” he said. “Drugs ain’t got no social class.”
I nodded.
“Vinnie know about all this?” Hawk asked. “Gettin’ close to Gino’s turf.”
I nodded, careful to keep about four cars back. Red and Moon turned into the city.
For the next two hours, Hawk and I counted twelve more shakedowns. Mostly bookies. They also visited two strip clubs just off the Common. Hawk volunteered twice for surveillance inside the clubs.
My stomach told me dinnertime approached as Red dipped south again and headed back over the Summer Street Bridge and to the three-decker off G Street.
They parked and went inside.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
“On my last stakeout, I enjoyed a sub sandwich downed with a pot of motor oil.”
“We can do better,” Hawk said.
“One would hope.”
“How long we wait?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Kind of hoped something would come to me.”
“How’s that workin’?”
“Give it time. Give it time.”
A sedan headed toward us on G Street. I slowed to a stop nearly nose to nose. The headlights clicked to bright, blinding us.
Hawk was out of the car. I was out of the car.
I had my .357, and Hawk had a Mossberg pump.
Two figures crawled out. The two young agents who arrested me two days ago.
They put their hands up. But they did not smile as they did it.
Hawk dropped the shotgun to his side. I lowered the .357.
“Nice night,” one of the men said. I believe it was Tweedledee. In the dark, it was hard to tell. “You looking for something?” said Tweedledum. His breath was a cloud.
“Looking for a couple pencil-dick motherfuckers,” Hawk said.
“Oh, look,” I said. “We’re in luck.”
“Get lost,” Tweedledee said.
“Public street,” I said. “Or do you want to arrest me again?”
One agent looked to the other. They got back into the car. They dimmed their lights. They just sat there for a while.
“You still call it a Mexican standoff if we in Southie?” Hawk asked.
“If Red and Moon come out, we’re blown,” I said. “They know it. Doesn’t do us any good. They probably know the Feds, but they don’t know my car.”
Hawk tilted his head from side to side. His neck popped.
“You want to start fresh tomorrow?” he asked. “Woman with the sheets just shot me a text message.”
“Two-timer,” I said.
“Who say they just two?”
“Hawk, you give us all hope,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I sure as hell do.”
42
Sunday morning started off the same. I had spent the night with Susan in Cambridge and again had a fine spring in my step. I hit the stairs to my office with a bounce and a smile. Hawk arrived a short time later. He brought donuts and two large coffees.
He did not say a word. He opened the box and sat in my client chair. He sipped and grinned.
“You burn a hole in those sheets yet?” I asked.
“At the height of passion, Teddy Pendergrass on the stereo, she gone and tell me she love me.”
“Hazard of the job.”
“Can you believe that shit?”
“And Hawk loves no one.”
“I love myself,” he said.
“How could you not?” I said. “And you loved Cecile.”
Hawk did not speak. He sipped some coffee. He leaned my client’s chair back on two legs and crossed his boots onto my desk.
Then he said, “You gonna eat or go all Dr. Phil this morning?”
I shrugged before choosing a cinnamon. I thought it a bold yet solid decision.
“We gonna drive around again today?” Hawk asked. “Follow Red and Fat Boy to hell and back?”
“You have a better idea?”
“I do.”
“And?”
“You wanna find out what’s what,” Hawk said. “We go see Tony. Tony will know.”
I nodded.
“Does Tony work Sundays?” I asked.
“After church,” Hawk said. “Somebody got to run the whores.”
“I like a man with priorities.”
We both polished off three more donuts and walked down the steps to Berkeley with the rest of our coffee. We agreed to take my rental again.
“You think a black man in a Jag is conspicuous?”
“Only in Southie,” I said. “South End is another story.”
We drove to the bottom of the South End to Tony’s bar. The parking lot across the street was empty, as were many of the storefronts that lined it.
A few years ago Tony had a marketing consultant rename the bar Ebony and Ivory. Hawk and I had a lot of fun with the name. Not a lot of ivory drank at Tony’s bar. But since I’d last seen him, he’d gone back to the original name, Buddy’s Fox.
A new neon sign spelled it out in neat cursive letters. We crossed the street and found the front door open.
Junior and Ty-Bop, Tony’s muscle, looked up from a game of pool in the barren bar.
Ty-Bop nodded to us. Junior ignored us. Ty-Bop hammered off a shot that sounded like bones cracking.
Red vinyl booths lined each side of the room, with a bar at the far end. A do
or beside the bar led to Tony’s back office. The bar had not changed in decades. In a strange way, I liked that.
Had we not been so well respected by Tony, Ty-Bop and Junior might have stalled us. But they kept playing. We kept walking.
The door to Tony’s office was open. He sat behind his desk.
Tony was dressed in an immaculate gray pin-striped suit with a purple tie. Boston’s most successful pimp looked just like an aging CEO, down to the soft neck and graying temples. His mustache was neatly trimmed.
“Look what the motherfuckin’ cat dragged in.”
“Tony,” I said.
“Spenser,” he said. “Hawk, my man.”
Hawk nodded at Tony. Tony grinned and rubbed his chin. He smiled, taking us both in like we were auditioning for a comedy act. I was not sure if I was Martin or Lewis.
“What y’all want?”
“Information,” Hawk said.
“I should start chargin’ for that shit,” Tony said. “Do I look like goddamn four-one-one?”
“You owe me,” I said.
“How long till that tab run out?”
“Long time,” Hawk said.
Tony nodded. He knew Hawk was correct.
Tony lit a fat dark cigar and leaned into the padded leather desk chair. His lighter was bright gold. He smoked the cigar in an expert fashion as he snapped the lighter shut.
“Y’all want a drink?”
“I don’t drink on Sunday,” I said.
“Now, I know that’s some bullshit.”
Tony pressed a button on his desk and told Junior to bring in three glasses of Crown Royal. In a few moments, Junior lumbered in with three glasses of whiskey rattling on a tray. He left the whiskeys on Tony’s desk without a word.
Hawk and I drank. Tony left his on his desk while he smoked.
“Y’all want to sit?”
Both of us shook our heads.
“Okay,” Tony said. “Tell me what you want to know.”
“What’s Gerry Broz doing with Jumpin’ Jack Flynn?” I asked.
“Oh, shit.”
“‘Oh, shit’?” I asked.
Tony smoothed down his neatly trimmed mustache. “Seems like me and you have a similar pain in the ass.”
“They cutting in on your turf?” I asked.
“Just starting,” Tony said. “Joe’s kid got some kind of ambition.”