Wonderland

by Ace Atkins

  “Don’t sweat those folks,” Henry said. “They’re old and scared.”

  “I know who wants your condo,” I said. “But he’s worked very hard to keep himself hidden.”

  “You know where to find him?”

  “I do.”

  “And if I know you, you’ll just harass the shit out of him until he turns.”

  “I work in strange and mysterious ways.”

  “My ass,” Henry said.

  Henry looked to Z, sitting sullen and silent in the passenger seat of my SUV. He shook his head. “Worried about that one.”

  “Yep.”

  “These people need to pay for that, too.”

  “Yep.”

  “Damn shame,” Henry said. “He’s come so far.”

  16

  I LEFT HENRY SAFELY in Z’s hands. Or Z safely in Henry’s hands. Either way, I left them both at the Harbor Health Club so I might snoop, parking outside the Four Seasons for several hours. I counted cars, listened to the radio, and tried to keep up with spring fashions.

  Several hours later, Jemma Fraser stepped under the portico, checked her watch, and waited for a car. A thick-necked man pulled around a black Lincoln Town Car and held open the door for her and an older man who seemed to be a doppelgänger for George Hamilton. Actually, the man was a few shades darker than George Hamilton, with thick leathery skin and highlighted brown hair. He grinned a blinding white smile at the doorman as I reached for a photograph of Rick Weinberg I had printed. Before I could be sure, he ducked inside the Lincoln and they drove off.

  I followed. Traffic was sluggish, even for Boston, and the thick-necked driver took his time. He crossed over Tremont and took Washington away from Chinatown and up past Downtown Crossing and into the Financial District. I had the chance to listen to most of Weekend Edition on WGBH. Around Post Office Square, the driver executed a series of twists and turns and wound up at the entrance to the Boston Harbor Hotel. If there was any reason to leave the Four Seasons, the Boston Harbor Hotel would be it.

  I found some street parking off Atlantic and dodged some cars on my way into the hotel. Ms. Fraser and the two men stood in the lobby talking, and I quickly turned to study an oil painting of yachts racing and some old nautical charts. The dark wood was well polished, and the brass gleamed. The hotel had embraced the aesthetic of the sea. I suddenly felt the need for a pipe or perhaps a can of spinach.

  Ms. Fraser and company walked toward the large windows facing the harbor and all of Rowes Wharf. I wondered if they would mind if I joined them for breakfast. I thought about eggs Benedict and a mimosa over a quick discussion of threats and intimidation. I bet I could even work in racketeering over a bowl of fresh seasonal fruit.

  Sadly, I was left alone to watch people come and go to a hotel brunch. I smiled and nodded. Past the maître d’, I could see Ms. Fraser and the Tan Man chatting away, plates coming and going. Three Asian men in very expensive suits joined them. A silver bucket of champagne was placed by the table, the coffee cups filled and refilled. I was starting to dislike these people even more.

  I had not gotten close enough to the Tan Man to make sure it was Weinberg. But if he wasn’t Weinberg, he was pretty close. Part of the problem was that the only photo I could find was ancient. It seemed Weinberg had gone in for some recent tightening and tweaking, making something about his face and hairline seem a little off. I could just walk over and ask. Maybe get a thumbprint off his champagne glass like Nick Charles. Instead I sat back in the love seat and watched the double-tiered tourist boats sliding past the wharf. Jemma Fraser, the Tan Man, and the Asian businessmen continued to dine and drink.

  “You got some kind of problem?” someone asked over my shoulder.

  The driver moved into view. He took a seat on a love seat across from mine.

  “Do you mean with the world as a whole?” I said. “Or just with you?”

  “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “You were at the Four Seasons yesterday.”

  I had been at the Four Seasons for a few hours, reading the newspaper, studying the ads next door at La Perla. “Probably.”

  “And now you’re here.”

  “You’re good,” I said. “Keen eye.”

  He looked odd for the Boston Harbor Hotel. He would have looked more at home grazing on the Serengeti. He had an eighteen-inch neck that was strangled by a burgundy turtleneck under a gray blazer. His salt-and-pepper hair was close-cropped. As he turned to the side, I spotted a gun at his right hip. It was a big gun. If he’d gone with something more fashionable, perhaps a .38, it would not have shown.

  “So you gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “I had been watching some very nice-looking people ready for a day of sailing,” I said. “I was contemplating buying a pair of Top-Siders and a nice polo shirt.”

  “You know how many guys I know like you?” he said, leaning back in his seat and smiling. He found a comfortable spot for his elbows to rest on the back of the seat. His arms were the size of a holiday ham. Ears thick with broken cartilage.

  I waited.

  “You know?”

  “Know what?” I said.

  “How many guys I know like you?”

  “You were just about to tell me.”

  “See,” he said, shaking his head in private amusement. “It’s shit like that.”

  “I thought we were talking about sailing.”

  “And you were gonna tell me why you were snooping around Mr. Weinberg.”

  “I actually wasn’t sure if it was Mr. Weinberg until you just told me,” I said. “So thanks. Looks like he’s been in the shop as of late.”

  The man shook his head again. He lifted his chin and studied me. “Oh, well.” He reached out his hand. I looked at it, took a breath, and then shook his hand. “Lewis Blanchard.”

  “Spenser.”

  “Who you working for, Mr. Spenser?”

  “A mysterious figure that is known only by the name Number Two.”

  “Jesus H.”

  “As a professional courtesy, just how did you know I was following you?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. I remember faces and especially that nose. How many times you bust it?”

  “Several,” I said.

  “And you’re following Mr. Weinberg?”

  “I was actually following Ms. Fraser, and Mr. Weinberg entered the scene as a special guest.”

  “You know who Mr. Weinberg is?”

  “I do.”

  “You know what he does?”

  “He is a very important individual.”

  “Guys like you, you know, who harass him, have a way of getting hurt.”

  “Eek.”

  “So do I have to say it?”

  “If I were you, I would say something like ‘Shoo, fly, shoo.’”

  “How about ‘Get lost’?”

  “Not as catchy. But direct.”

  “Okay,” Blanchard said, standing. “You got about a minute before I walk over to the hotel dick and tell him you’re giving some guests the hives. I don’t even break a sweat.”

  “Can I ask you one thing first?”

  Blanchard placed his right hand in his pocket. He smiled, waiting. “Sure.”

  “How much money is riding on this parcel next to Wonderland?” I said. “Because the more trouble you guys make, the more the price goes up.”

  His face reddened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Next time, send some better sluggers,” I said. “They hurt a friend of mine. He was alone and they whipped him pretty good. They won’t have the same luck with me.”

  “You off your meds?”

  “Nope. Maybe you and Ms. Fraser should have a talk about intimidation tactics.”

  “That’s not Mr. Weinberg’s style.”

>   “Okay.” I stood. “Tell your employer that the price continues to rise by the hour.”

  “Mr. Weinberg is a very busy man.”

  “Don’t forget important.”

  “I never do,” he said. We stood in the marble waiting area and smiled at each other for a while.

  “A pleasure,” I said. Blanchard did not answer as I turned and walked to the hotel entrance. As I opened the door, he was still standing and staring. I caught my reflection in the hotel glass. Who could blame him for not forgetting this mug?

  17

  “HOW YA BEEN, SPENSER,” Bernard J. Fortunato said. “Last time I seen you was in that shithole in Arizona.”

  “Potshot.”

  “Should have called it Shithole.”

  “That would do wonders for tourism.”

  I cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder and leaned back in my office chair. I stared out the window at the intersection of Berkeley and Boylston. A crew of workers were setting up some scaffolding around the old Society of Natural History building. A street musician played a guitar outside Starbucks. Will work for caffeine.

  “You were very helpful,” I said. “Considering your height impairment.”

  “Don’t have to be that tall to point a gun.”

  “True. Don’t need the gun, but could use your snooping abilities.”

  “Okay.”

  “Still charging the same rate?”

  “From what,” Fortunato said, “five years ago? What, are you nuts?”

  “What is it now?”

  He told me. I made a low whistle.

  “Business really that good in Vegas?”

  “I can’t complain,” he said. “I just bought a new hat.”

  “What could be better?”

  “So what’s the job?”

  “I’m going to fax you a list of Massachusetts corporate names and ID numbers,” I said. “I need you to cross-reference them with the secretary of state’s office in Nevada to see if anything matches up.”

  “Sure,” he said. “That’s it?”

  “One more thing.” I leaned back in my chair. “You know Rick Weinberg, right?”

  “You mean like personally?”

  “Or professionally.”

  “You know the Pope?”

  “No,” I said. “But I hear he is a fan of my work.”

  “Well,” Fortunato said, “you just don’t pal around Vegas with Rick Weinberg unless you’re loaded or famous. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not either.”

  “I bet you have a following,” I said.

  “Sure, sure,” he said. “I’m on the A-list with bookies, bartenders, and showgirls.”

  “Some of my favorite people.”

  “So what’s the deal with Weinberg?”

  “I want you to find out all you can about him,” I said. “The list of companies I gave you should connect to his businesses in Nevada. He’s setting up shop in Boston, and I want to know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Why?”

  “He may be doing business with someone I know.”

  “We talking security codes or the time of his morning constitutional?”

  “I’d like to know how he’s connected and to whom.”

  “Guys like Weinberg turned Vegas into Disney World,” Fortunato said. “He brought all the glitz and crapola and pushed out all the hoods. He’s more interested in picking carpet samples than bumping people off.”

  “Come on,” I said.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I’ve heard rumors an old Vegas family got him started with his first casino. But that was decades ago.”

  “You ever heard of a guy named Lewis Blanchard?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can you check him out?”

  “Sure thing. I quoted my rate.”

  “How fast?”

  “Check out some companies, make some calls?” Fortunato said. “Nothing to it. But spell that guy’s name again. Blanch-dick or whatever.”

  “Blanchard.” I spelled it for him.

  “And he watches out for Weinberg?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then you know he’s a pro,” Fortunato said. “Don’t be your usual self and piss him off.”

  “Too late,” I said.

  18

  I SAT IN Z’S Mustang early the next morning, again parked across from the Four Seasons at a nifty space along the Public Garden. The dark green exterior gleamed with fresh wax and the tan interior was pin neat. I tried not to drop donut crumbs on his freshly vacuumed floor mats but doubted my abilities.

  “And what do we now know?” Z said.

  Fortunato had faxed me overnight. I flipped through the pages sandwiched into a legal folder. “Cutting out ten pages of legalese and connect-the-dots, it says Weinberg owns Wonderland.”

  “Is this when an investigator is supposed to say ‘Bingo’?” Z said.

  “Precisely,” I said.

  “And without Henry’s condo,” Z said, “he’s screwed for waterfront.”

  “Life’s a beach.”

  Z just nodded. His breath smelled of Listerine and mints. But his bloodshot eyes couldn’t hide that he’d been boozing. I did not mention it.

  “And so, now properly armed with said information,” I said, “we can approach Mr. Weinberg and company and bring them to the table for discussion.”

  “Is that our job?” Z said.

  “Mainly I’ll enjoy the satisfaction of telling Weinberg we have it on record. The negotiation is the lawyer’s job.”

  “Your man in Vegas is good?”

  “If he were taller, he would be quite formidable.”

  I handed Z the faxed papers, and he read them while I watched the steady motion of valet parking at the Four Seasons. The knuckles on Z’s right hand were still swollen and black.

  Twenty minutes later, we followed Weinberg’s Town Car, Blanchard at the wheel, into downtown and dipped into the tunnel toward East Boston and Revere. By noon, we had tailed the two men back to a half-dozen empty lots. We watched them kick around one lot within walking distance of the defunct greyhound track. Weinberg was dressed down for the occasion, in work boots, jeans, and a navy coat made of canvas. A real blue-collar guy. Blanchard was dressed in a similar manner, only with a green coat that strained at his back and arms. He wore sunglasses and took glances in and around the property as Weinberg spoke to a guy with surveying equipment.

  “Exciting,” Z said.

  We were parked within a mass of cars in the track lot. We made Claude Rains look conspicuous.

  “Did I ever promise thrills from this job?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You did.”

  The marks on his face had turned from red welts to purple-and-yellow bruises. He studied his face in the rearview mirror.

  “I’d like to kick that man in the balls,” Z said.

  “His right-hand man says they have no knowledge of the goons.”

  “Bullshit,” Z said.

  “Probably.”

  After a while, we left the men kicking around in the mud and drove back to Wonderland. Z and I got out of his car and wandered the wide expanse of the broken and weedy parking lot. In an adjoining lot sat a massive pile of rusted junk from beach amusements of days gone by. Parts of an old Ferris wheel, a heap of old bumper cars.

  Even with a strong limp, Z kept up with me. The old grandstand stretched far and wide, looming over us as we approached several padlocked glass doors. A note on one door read THANKS FOR 75 GREAT YEARS. I stepped back and kicked in the door. The door was rusted and old, and came off the hinges. “Guess we found it this way,” I said.

  “Of course,” Z said. He hobbled in after me.

  The bottom level of the grandstand smelled of mildew and urine. Most of the fixtures had been
stripped away, but you could see where dozens of televisions had once been bolted to the walls for off-track racing. There was still a sign over the bar and grill, and underfoot a chessboard of red and white tiles stretched in a slant up and out to the grandstand. At that exit, the doors had already been broken out. It looked as if some homeless had been camping there recently. There was evidence of a small fire and several boxes and filthy rags were piled against the wall. We walked outside, where we found a muddy track, which now sported waist-high weeds. Vines crawled over the lower seats, and birds had nested up in the rafters. I took a seat and stared out onto the old track.

  “We had a casino in Box Elder,” Z said. “Only reason folks stopped on Highway 337. Or to hunt elk in the Bear Paw.”

  I nodded.

  Z looked around the decrepit grandstand. “Why would they call this Wonderland?”

  “For all the grandeur and majesty.”

  “Where?” Z said.

  “Used to be an amusement park,” I said. “A long time ago.”

  “When you were young?”

  “Way before that,” I said. “I remember an old roller coaster and a Ferris wheel on the beach. They kept the name for the track, but the Wonderland park was long gone.”

  The space was big and open and oddly silent except for the sound of an air drill coming from a nearby warehouse. The wind made hollow sounds blowing through the broken windows, wavering the weeds and grass on the infield.

  “Tough night?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “When Susan left a long time ago, I lost some of myself,” I said. “I started drinking.”

  “I haven’t lost anything.”

  “You got jumped,” I said. “One held a gun. There will be other times. A lot more if you stay in this business.”

  “I’m fine,” Z said.

  There was a final edge in his voice. I nodded and listened to the wind for a while. I saw a tangled heap of metal dog cages and contemplated the fate of the old racers. I hoped they’d found a better line of work. Z touched his face and hobbled to the car.