Wonderland

by Ace Atkins

  I asked again. Blanchard pointed to the door.

  I shrugged. Begging would only demean my stature as a professional investigator. I said my good-byes, walked past the cop, and let myself out.

  38

  MY PHONE BUZZED in my jacket pocket while I was cutting through the Public Garden on the way back to my apartment. “Where are you?” Jemma Fraser said. She sounded out of breath, as if maybe she was walking.

  “Standing on a bridge and watching tourists feed ducks.”

  “I need you.”

  “My significant other may disapprove.”

  “I’m being followed,” she said. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

  “That would put a damper on an evening.”

  “I’m fucking serious,” she said. “I need help.”

  “Where have you been, and who is trying to kill you?”

  “I’m at Copley Place,” she said. “And I have no idea. This man has been following me for the last hour. The mall is closing and I’m afraid to leave.”

  “Talk to a security guard.”

  “And then what?” she said. Still walking. Still out of breath. “I don’t want to end up like Rick.”

  “So you’ve been hiding?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Ducks paddled under the stone bridge. An older black man hoisted a little girl up into his arms. She tossed some broken crackers into the water. She smiled. The old man smiled. He let her back down on the bridge and they walked on hand in hand.

  “Why me?” I said. “Why not call Blanchard?”

  “Blanchard hates me.”

  “He thought you might be dead,” I said. “Rachel Weinberg did, too.”

  “For an ace detective, there is a lot you don’t know,” she said. “Will you come or not? All the shops are closing. My credit cards have been frozen. I have no money. Nowhere to go.”

  “I must have the word ‘sucker’ removed from my forehead.”

  “I can help you.”

  “Do you know who killed Weinberg?”

  “Please.”

  “Were you with him before he died?”

  “I am on the second level,” she said. “God, there are two of them now.”

  “Go to the bar at Legal,” I said. “They’ll be open late. Nobody will make a move there.”

  “Please hurry.”

  The phone went dead. I wished Hawk was back in town. I wished Z was full strength and Vinnie and I were on the same team. But before them there was just me. And self-reliance was a hell of a thing.

  39

  INSIDE COPLEY PLACE, I passed the J.Crew, Kenneth Cole, Calvin Klein, and Armani Exchange. I walked alone, listening to a Muzak version of “April in Paris.” But I was well armed and well dressed. Only a fool would try to shoot a man in his best sport coat. I spotted no ruffians lurking about. I heard no mysterious clacking on the marble floors. Harry Lime, where were you?

  As promised, Legal did not let me down. The restaurant had a smattering of patrons. Most of them at the bar. Jemma sat at the far-left corner near the kitchen. A gray-haired man in a black suit with a loosely buttoned black shirt leaned over her with a sharp leer. As I walked up, he turned to eye me. He turned back to Jemma and said, “I bike, kayak in season, do a lot of outdoors training.”

  The bartender placed a martini in front of her.

  “Hello,” I said.

  The guy in the black suit gave me a steely stare. He sipped a glass of white wine and continued to talk as if I were a figment of his imagination. “You have great legs.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I do a lot of squats.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, buddy,” he said. He took a dramatic sip of his wine. He turned his steely gaze back to Jemma. He was a bit wobbly on his feet, closing time his specialty. I stood close to him and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. He took his white wine and left.

  “God,” Jemma said. “What did you say to him?”

  “It would only make you think less of me.”

  “Profane?”

  “Extremely.”

  She reached for the fresh martini on the bar. Legal, like all the Legals I have dined in, was a lot of dark wood and brass. They had a nifty neon sign shaped like a cod. I ordered a Sam Adams to keep with the program. Jemma’s hand shook enough that she needed them both to steady the glass.

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “When I walked in here, they didn’t follow me.”

  “I know all the best late-night spots.”

  “I am scared shitless.”

  “Why do things like that sound better with an accent?”

  “They were waiting for me,” she said. “They were the men who came for Rick.”

  “How do you know?”

  She sipped the martini. It was served dirty, with extra olives. The bartender brought me my beer.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “How would I know?”

  “You said you saw Weinberg before he was abducted.”

  “I did,” she said. “But I don’t know where he went or when he left the hotel.”

  “What time did you see him and where?”

  “He came to my room,” she said. “He was drunk.”

  “Time?”

  “Early,” she said. “Right after dinner. Maybe nine?”

  “Where was Blanchard?”

  “Obviously not with him,” she said. “Of course.”

  “But of course.”

  I drank some beer. “Are you hungry?”

  “God, no,” she said. “I’m shaking like a leaf.”

  “There is a feast in the King Suite at the Four Seasons,” I said. “Maybe we should stop back by.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. She drank a sizable portion of the martini. She looked at me for a moment and then at the neatly aligned bottles of vodka. When she finished the drink, I signaled the bartender.

  “Why did Weinberg come to see you?” I said.

  “Why do you suppose?”

  “To further his discussion on talking rabbits and disappearing cats?”

  “He wanted to get into my knickers.”

  “I guess that would hold more interest,” I said. I judiciously took another sip.

  “Were you and he . . . ?” I said.

  “Can’t you say it?”

  “I don’t want to be indiscreet.”

  “Were we fucking?”

  I inhaled and held my words.

  “Rick and I enjoyed each other’s company,” she said.

  “But that night?”

  “No,” she said. “No. Not that night.”

  “And why would he make a pass after firing you?” I said.

  “He said he was sorry,” she said. “He wanted to explain his decision to me.”

  The martini was served. I sipped my beer and studied the scene. I saw no one sauntering out in the mall carrying Thompsons.

  “What did these men look like?”

  “Swarthy,” she said. “Young.”

  “Sounds like the title of a Mexican soap opera,” I said. “Had you seen them before?”

  “I said no.”

  I took another small sip. I put down the glass and lightly tapped the bar top with my fingers. “So, going back,” I said. “When you thwarted Rick’s advances, how did he react?”

  “He put on his pants and left.”

  “Did he arrive pantsless?” I said.

  “He took them off when he walked in.”

  “Quite an entrance.”

  “He was very drunk,” she said.

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No.”

  “You said there is a lot I don’t know,” I said. “Like what? Besides
Weinberg needed tips on seduction.”

  “I promise to tell you,” she said. “But by all means, please get me out of here.”

  I studied the room again. Silver Hair had paid his tab and was escorting a new friend from the room. A man eating a lobster roll finished and dabbed his greasy lips with a napkin. He turned his attention to key lime pie and coffee. I did not see a single individual who was young, swarthy, or menacing. The waiter announced that the kitchen was closed and it would be last call.

  My night was going well.

  “So where to?”

  “I have no money.”

  “I will pay.”

  “I have nowhere to stay.”

  “Will you help me?” I said.

  “Yes,” Jemma Fraser said. Her eyes were big and brown and pleading. She had freckles across her cheeks, giving her a kidlike quality up close. I signed the check and she grabbed for her purse.

  “If you come with me,” I said, “I can promise to keep my pants on.”

  40

  MARLBOROUGH WAS VERY QUIET and pocketed in shadows and squares of light from the red-brick buildings and brownstones. The orange-white light of the streetlamps glowed intermittently from Arlington onward, toward Dartmouth and beyond.

  I looked east to west and did not hear a sound. A black sedan of some type passed and continued down the one-way street. I watched as the taillight glowed and the car hung a right on Berkeley. I took a breath and opened the passenger-side door. Jemma was silent and a bit wobbly on her tall heels as she got out of the Explorer. Cars lined nearly every inch of the street.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you walk on your own?”

  Nod. I helped her anyway.

  There was a light click of a door opening. And then another. I nearly did not hear it. I reached for Jemma’s hand and hustled her across the street as two men approached us. They were both young and swarthy and blocked the steps to my apartment. They both wore dark suits with dark dress shirts and no ties. The word “eek” came to mind but did not feel appropriate. I could ask them if they would let us through or comment on the nice spring night. Or we could turn tail and run. Unfortunately, I did not think Jemma could get far in six-inch heels and full of three vodka martinis.

  No one said anything.

  One of the men walked down two steps and shoved me with the heel of his right hand. He was thick and muscular, like a competitive weight lifter. But I had expected it and widened my stance. The other reached for Jemma and grabbed her by the elbow, dragging her to the open door of a sedan. I reached for her wrist with my left hand and clocked the young man with an overhand right. He wavered. Jemma screamed. His pal jumped on my back and started to pound my head using the bottom of his fist as a hammer. I spun him toward the glass door and rammed him against it. The glass shattered and he fell halfway into the vestibule. The other man had reached out for Jemma again, pulling her into the car by a handful of hair. He threw her inside and slammed the door shut. He was halfway around the hood of his car when I slipped a forearm around his throat and pounded his head with my left hand. He fell to the ground and I got a knee in the base of his skull, pushing his face flush to the street. I grabbed a handful of his hair and knocked his head against the bumper of the sedan.

  When I looked up, his partner was over me, holding a .45 automatic.

  He had narrow black eyes, a dumb stare, and hair artfully gelled to look like he’d just woken up. I let go of his partner’s hair and stood. He stepped carefully around me, shards of glass tinkling from his suit jacket to the ground. He was bleeding. His narrow dumb eyes watched me as we circled, trading places. Do-si-do.

  His friend was having a hard time standing. Dumb Eyes watched me, unsure what to do, keeping the gun outstretched in both hands. He held the .45 like cops in the movies did. It was so close I could touch it. And I did. I pulled forward and twisted it away from my body just as he fired. The sound of the gunshot elicited another scream inside the car from Jemma and caused her to honk the horn repeatedly. I tried to twist the gun from his grip, the barrel turning away from me, muscling it enough to keep it pointed away but unable to pull it from his hands. Lights clicked on up and down Marlborough. The horn kept honking.

  His partner on the ground reached out and grabbed for my leg. The whole thing was as undignified and unpretty as it gets. I kicked at the man on the ground and nearly got the .45 from the other’s hand. I head-butted him and knocked him back a step. He would not let go, gritting his teeth and using both hands. I held the gun with one hand and reached around his neck to pull him down in a headlock. His partner bit my ankle.

  It was that kind of thing.

  Jemma honked the horn some more. Someone new screamed. I thought I heard Pearl barking from up in my bay window. The gun went off again.

  And then it was all quiet. Jemma honked the horn two more times, and then, seeing her attacker was down, crawled outside and behind me. The ankle biter was bloody but unbowed as he got to his feet and behind the wheel of the black sedan. The key warning dinged inside until he slammed the door and started the engine.

  I was catching my breath in the headlights. The other man lay busted and bleeding against the curb as the car squealed out and headed west at about ninety. I put my hands on top of my head like a sprinter, my right hand still clutching the .45.

  “He’s dead,” Jemma said. “Bloody hell. He’s dead.”

  I closed my eyes and lowered my hands, placing the .45 on the ground. The man lay in the street, his dumb, narrow eyes staring into nothing. Police sirens sounded in the distance. There had probably been a few 911 calls. I wondered how my neighbors felt about me now.

  “Jesus Christ, Spenser,” she said.

  She started to cry. I put my arm around her and waited for the cops.

  They arrived thirty seconds later. Thirty minutes later, a patrol officer told me that Sergeant Belson requested my presence at headquarters.

  “Terrific,” I said.

  41

  I WAS BROUGHT to a slick room with a slick laminate conference table at the police headquarters in Roxbury. Everything about Boston Police Headquarters was slick. It reminded me of a conference center in an airport Hyatt. I waited at the table for maybe thirty minutes before Frank Belson walked in wearing a damp raincoat along with another homicide cop named Lee Farrell. Belson said Quirk was on vacation.

  “I didn’t know Quirk took vacations,” I said.

  “I think he spends the time rearranging his tool shed,” Farrell said.

  Farrell set a digital recorder on the table. He wore an old pair of Dockers and a red-and-white-striped golf shirt. It was very wrinkled. When he sat, he exposed navy socks worn with moccasins.

  “Are you sure you’re gay?” I said.

  “I played Celine Dion all the way here,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Sounded nice with the siren.”

  “I thought all gay men had style.”

  “No,” Farrell said. “We just like other dudes.”

  “Ah.”

  Belson took off his raincoat and sat at the head of the table. His always bluish-tinged jawline was now black with a full day’s growth. He probably shaved with a weed whacker. The rain and dampness of his clothes had deepened the smell of cheap cigars on him. It was fortunate that the city had instated a no-smoking policy when they opened the new digs.

  “So,” Belson said. “Tell us about the stiff.”

  “Well, they forgot to introduce themselves while trying to kill me.”

  Farrell snorted. Belson gave him a hard look and Farrell broke into a small grin.

  “Can I see your belt?” Belson said. “Like to know where you’re adding all those notches.”

  “They tried to take a woman by force,” I said. “When I tried to stop them, they pulled a gun on me. When I trie
d to disarm the man, he pulled the trigger and shot himself. The other one ran.”

  “And you didn’t know them?” Farrell said.

  “Nope.”

  “Never seen ’em?” Belson said.

  “Nope.”

  “Who is the woman and why were you with her?” Farrell said. He had pulled out a legal-sized yellow pad. He kept eye contact while jotting down notes. It was quite a talent.

  “Jemma Fraser,” I said. “But you know that. You just came over from talking to her. That’s why you left me for thirty minutes without coffee.”

  Belson shrugged. “So the broad worked for Rick Weinberg, and since the son of a bitch was found without his head,” he said, “she needed some protection.”

  “He didn’t show up without his head,” I said. “It was just his head that showed up. They found the rest later.”

  “And this broad was missing.”

  “Woman,” Farrell said. “You straight guys wonder why you don’t get laid more.” He tapped his pen on the paper. Since the last time I’d seen him, he’d bulked up a little and shaved the blond mustache. He looked much younger and healthier.

  “She said she was being pursued,” Belson said.

  “That’s what she told me, too,” I said. “I met her at Copley Place and drove her back to my apartment.”

  “Did you not believe her at first?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Would you?”

  Belson let out a long sigh and then leaned back in the slick office chair. He set a pair of scuffed brown loafers on the edge of the table and stared up at the ceiling. “What’d this Fraser woman tell you?”

  “She was about to tell me something of importance before those two tried to throw her into their car.”

  Belson nodded. He looked to Farrell. Farrell’s eyes looked over me, and he waited a beat. “Nobody has told you, then.”

  “Told me what?” I said.

  “Jimmy Carlucci is the dead one,” Farrell said. “We think he was working with his brother, Tommy. You don’t know the Carlucci brothers?”

  “Sounds like a used-car dealership.”

  “They were a couple of young hotshots,” Belson said. “Real up-and-comers in the life. You know?”