Wonderland

by Ace Atkins

  “He’s a big, tough guy, Spenser,” Healy said. “I bet he’s just trying to lay low with this woman till it’s safe. She’s got a dead boss, an attempted kidnapping with one of the guys dead. Not to mention the two sluggers who got whacked who may have been coming for her, too. I wouldn’t mind being locked up with her for a few days.”

  “He would call.”

  “This divorce thing doesn’t crystallize it.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Did he say he’d be off the grid?” Healy said.

  “Yep.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  I tucked the cell back into my pocket. The pedestrian mall had emptied. I stood alone in the rain. Everything oddly silent and hushed.

  64

  IT WAS PAST ELEVEN when I called Lewis Blanchard and asked if he could meet me. He sounded sleepy but agreed. I waited for him on a park bench in the Public Garden, halfway between my apartment and the Four Seasons. The rain had stopped, but I brought an umbrella anyway, along with my .38 and the thick, unmarked envelope Healy had handed me in the parking lot of 1010 Commonwealth.

  At night, the Garden was green and vibrant in the glow of the streetlamps. The tulips wavered in the soft wind, dappled with moisture, air smelling of fresh-cut grass and rich wet earth. The swan boats had been docked for the night, and in the near distance, a trickle of people walking home from bars and restaurants crossed over the lagoon bridge. Blanchard appeared, wearing a tan raincoat, unshaven and bleary-eyed.

  “Couldn’t this wait?” he said.

  I asked him to take a seat. Cordial. The bench was wet, but we both wore long coats and were tougher than the rain.

  “Would’ve been nice to know about the divorce,” I said.

  He rubbed his bristled jaw and leaned back. He actually slumped farther into the bench, letting out air like a deflated balloon. “Why?” he said. “It was nobody’s fucking business. And with Rick dead, it never happened.”

  “It would’ve come out sooner or later.”

  “Sure,” he said. “But why bring it out in the middle of this circus?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Blanchard didn’t speak. More people passed over the lagoon bridge. Somewhere some ducks quacked. Perhaps making way for ducklings.

  “If everything is being kept so private,” I said, “why did you hire me?”

  “We thought you could help. But Rachel wants it with the cops now.”

  I offered him Spenser’s look of doubt. The look was quite formidable.

  “What? You sore about being let go?”

  “Confused.”

  “By legal issues.”

  “By a lot of stuff,” I said. “Mainly why Rachel wanted me to find out who killed her husband if she was the one who called it.”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” he said. “What? You want to blackmail her or something, get some cash or you’ll spin this shit to the newspapers?”

  “Nope.”

  “What, then?”

  “I don’t think you knew.”

  Blanchard looked at me with both disdain and pity, two emotions tough to convey at the same moment. “What?”

  “Weinberg got by you that night because he was told to come alone.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Rachel was the one who drew him out,” I said. “She paid to have him killed.”

  “You’re fucking nuts.”

  I handed him the thick envelope. He looked at it like I’d presented a professionally wrapped turd. “Text messages between Rachel and Rick,” I said. “The instructions were very specific.”

  I kept the eye contact. When bluffing, eye contact, no flinching, was key.

  He opened the envelope and glanced through the first few pages. Blanchard stiffened. He looked straight ahead, watching traffic roll past on the wet asphalt of Boylston. “You making this up?”

  “Rachel orchestrated all of this. The slight with Jemma was bad enough, but the divorce would cut her out of the company completely.”

  “Complete bullshit.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter what you believe,” I said. “I’ll hand it over to Captain Healy.”

  “Why tell me first?” he said.

  I shrugged. “Professional courtesy?”

  He turned to watch my face, his own jaw hanging open slightly. He glanced down at the envelope. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I know some people.”

  “And Healy doesn’t know.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But he will.”

  Blanchard studied my face. I waited.

  “If we keep staring at each other on this park bench, people may begin to talk.”

  The automatic was in his hand sooner than I would have guessed. He had it out and pointing into my side. “Get up,” he said. “Now.”

  “Now that the rain has stopped, it’s turned into a lovely night.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Just shut the fuck up.”

  “Was it really Rachel’s family who helped Rick get started?”

  “Yes.” His voice sounded tired and old.

  “Hell of a slight.”

  Blanchard did not answer. The lamps on the lagoon bridge shone in creamy globes of light, reflecting on the water. “Why protect her?” I said. “She killed your boss.”

  “If you shut your fucking mouth,” he said, “it’ll make things easier.”

  “You gonna just shoot me right here?” I said. “Right in the middle of the Public Garden?”

  “Be quiet.”

  I put my hands up in mock surrender and stood. Blanchard nodded at a footpath heading toward the Common. We walked, with Blanchard following a few paces behind me. I could not feel the gun but knew it was there.

  “So who killed the sluggers from Vegas?” I said.

  Blanchard didn’t answer.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m slow, but it’s making sense.”

  “Shut up.”

  “That’s loyal, Lew,” I said. “She kills your boss, but you still look out for her.”

  I was throwing spitballs, but a great many of them were landing. We passed over Charles and into the Common, leaving the path into a sliver of darkness under a large tree. Blanchard told me to lie facedown.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Shut the fuck up and lie down.”

  I turned to him, hands still up, and smiled. “Slow and easy, or you’ll get a bullet to the spine,” I said.

  He kind of laughed but half turned. Henry Cimoli stepped from the darkness, looking a little comical holding my .357. The gun nearly outweighed him. “Put down the piece, fucknuts, or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”

  “Say it like you mean it, Henry.”

  Blanchard let out another long breath. I’d seen the look before in fighters when they were most certainly beat. Blanchard loosened his fingers and the automatic dropped to the wet ground. I kept my eyes on Blanchard as I knelt, picked up the gun, and tossed it toward the footpath.

  “Where is Jemma?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “And Sixkill?”

  He shook his head. “You’ll never know.”

  I couldn’t come up with a clever reply, so I shot an overhand right at his jaw. He stumbled a bit but remained on his feet. He wiped some blood from his mouth and nodded. I looked to Henry and waved him off. Henry remained still. Blanchard came at me in a fighter’s stance, sure-footed and dead-eyed. I still had the .38 on my hip but lifted my hands and stepped forward. Blanchard grunted as he lunged at me in a flurry of hard but uncalculated punches. One of them hit me hard in the temple and another in the kidney. But I had a reach on him, slightly shifting and knocking him with a left in the nose and a right uppercut under his chin that lifted and startled him a bit. I stepped back and circled. I wat
ched his eyes. I was pretty sure he wanted to kill me. He ran for my legs, tackling me down to the soft earth and decomposing winter leaves. I rolled away and kicked loose, then kicked him hard in the stomach and face. A man who has nothing to lose is a terrible opponent. Blanchard kept coming. He lunged for me and I slipped him. He ran at me again and wrapped me in a bear hug, squeezing all the breath from me and picking me up. We were face-to-face, and he head-butted me several times, and I saw stars and heard Henry yell to me to get my head out of my ass. For a moment, I thought he might have been geographically correct.

  I head-butted Blanchard back and knocked out my elbows, breaking free. I hit him hard, square in the face, and harder in the solar plexus. He made a sound not unlike “oof” and stumbled back just one step and dropped to a knee. He was winded and bloody. My hands were scraped and throbbing. I caught most of the breath he had squeezed from me.

  Henry stepped up, large gun in hand. “That the best you got?” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Where’s Jemma?” I said.

  “Dead.”

  “And Sixkill?”

  “Dead, too.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t understand Rachel,” Blanchard said. He wiped the blood from his lip and tried to stand. He fell back down to one knee. “It’s fucking over. It’s done.”

  “You killed those men because you didn’t know Rachel had hired them. Not until after the fact.”

  “You should check her family tree sometime, Spenser,” he said. “And ask yourself how her family had enough money to bankroll Rick.”

  “Where did you take Jemma and Z?”

  “I didn’t take them anywhere,” he said. “Those guys from Vegas didn’t come alone. There’s another guy. They call him the Executioner. He was going to take care of everything. He was going to take them out to the dog track, find out what they knew, and then bury them deep.”

  I picked up his automatic from where it lay. I jacked the magazine from the butt and thumbed out the bullets into my palm. I placed the bullets in my coat pocket and tossed Blanchard the empty weapon. Then Henry and I jogged back to my car, leaving Blanchard in the dark.

  65

  “SO I GUESS I’m screwed on the condo deal,” Henry said.

  “Afraid so.”

  “I had already made plans to expand the gym,” he said. “Another room for Pilates or maybe some spin classes.”

  “How about a larger boxing room?”

  “That would attract more boxers,” Henry said. “You guys are gonna give me a fucking heart attack.”

  “He’ll be okay,” I said.

  “You believe that?” Henry said.

  “Got to.” I wasn’t so sure, but thinking Z was dead didn’t help us. We would search until we found him.

  “Blanchard said they used a special guy,” Henry said. “I know animals like that. In fact, we both know an animal exactly like that. They don’t make fucking mistakes.”

  “Neither do I.”

  We drove through the Callahan Tunnel toward 1A. It was past midnight now as we rolled past the cut-rate motels, big rusting oil tanks, and barges running along the Chelsea River. We made it to Revere in fifteen minutes. Across the highway the condos stretched north along Revere Beach like dominos, red lights blinking from rooftops. You could smell the ocean.

  The parking lot at Wonderland had been cleared of most of the cars, revealing buckling asphalt and potholes. The broken pieces of the old amusement park stood as still sentries. There was still crime scene tape marking the front entrance to the grandstand and someone had thought to install a new stretch of chain link across the front of the whole racetrack. Off the lot, near a couple of ragged construction trailers, I spotted Z’s Mustang. I suddenly felt like I’d swallowed sand.

  “Better to know,” Henry said.

  “I’ll call Healy,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s inside.”

  “I’ll call Healy,” I said. “You stay here.”

  “Fuck I will.”

  “When the cops get here,” I said, “send them in.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “If someone is with him, I need to handle it,” I said. “If he’s dead, you don’t want to see it.”

  “Remember what I taught you about taking a hit?”

  “Sure.”

  “Answer it back,” Henry said. “Times two.”

  “Henry, this isn’t your work.”

  “I started this,” he said. “I’ll goddamn well finish it.”

  He opened the car door and started for the chain-link fence. After I left a message for Healy, I opened the hatch of the Explorer and threw a tarp from two pristine Winchester 12-gauges. I pocketed a flashlight and a box of shells. I did not want Henry to come. Nor did I want to wait around all night while we debated the point. Against my better judgment, I handed the old man a shotgun.

  “Times two.”

  “Goddamn right,” Henry said.

  My heart felt displaced in my chest. I took a deep breath and searched for a way to get through the chain link. I kept a Leatherman in my jacket and used it to pry open the end of a section attached to a metal pole. At the very top of the rounded brick entrance was a big fancy sign for WONDERLAND, with the image of a muzzled greyhound in full sprint. I handed several shells to Henry.

  He loaded the 12-gauge with great dexterity.

  I nodded my approval.

  “What do you expect after hanging out with you and Hawk all these years?”

  “Style and class,” I said.

  We stepped through the ragged opening and approached the wide red-and-white tiled entrance. I clicked on the flashlight and lifted open the bent and cracked door frame. Broken glass crunched underfoot as we passed abandoned ticket booths and turnstiles and walked up a gentle ramp to the concession stands and the wide, empty space that was once a temple to the glory of off-track betting. Empty wires and cables hung loosely from the walls. I pointed the flashlight toward the south end of the building. The ticket stubs of the losers still littered the floor like ticker tape.

  Henry walked beside me. We did not speak. There wasn’t much to say.

  I held the flashlight tight against the barrel while I walked. There was a smattering of puddles and the long stream of backed-up sewage. The smell was unpleasant as we briskly took stairs up to the Club House and into the booth where Sammy Cain used to announce. There were a lot of overturned chairs and hamburger wrappers and empty Budweiser cups. A large bank of windows looked out onto the dirt track itself, barely visible except for the lights to some warehouses next door. We pushed through one room. And then another. We went through a half-open door; the weak light from outside gave the room a noirish patchwork of shadow and light. That’s where we saw the fallen figure of the woman, fallen at an impossible angle on the red-and-black linoleum. I moved closer and edged the flashlight onto her face.

  From the bruises and torn clothing and halo of blood around Jemma Fraser’s head, it was clear she’d been killed in a very ugly manner. Henry walked away, gagging and coughing, and toward the bank of windows. A warm wind hustled in from the track, whistling through the cracked windows and cavernous space of the Club House.

  I took a breath and searched outside for anything.

  “What a fucking waste,” Henry said.

  I nodded.

  From beyond the broken windows was a mechanical sound, a low humming, coming from deep in the bowels of Wonderland. The place had been closed up for nearly five years and I seriously doubted the electric bill had been paid. Henry and I followed the sound, out of the Club House, down the stairs, and out into the grandstand. The humming came from somewhere out into the track. Every thought was of Z and how I’d failed him. Henry patted me on the back as we walked. I had not let go of the shotgun. I held it in my hands, wishing for some violence.
/>   “Does he have anyone back in Montana?” Henry said.

  “Nope.”

  “No mother, no father,” he said. “Holy Christ.”

  Some old metal starting boxes lay in a heap at the far side of the track. Beyond the track, just off the dirt now grown up with weeds, was a cinder-block kennel. A bit of light came from the mouth of the kennel, and Henry and I walked toward it. I pocketed the flashlight, holding the Winchester steady in both hands.

  There was no door, just a wide passage into the kennel. Dog cages ran down both sides of a straight shot through the center of the building. At the end of the passageway, a mechanic’s light had been snaked through some pipes and hooked to a generator. Along those same pipes, someone had hung thick chains where the figure of a man twisted in the dim light. The generator made the walls and metal cages shake.

  Henry held the gun in his hand as if the dead man might spring to life. I did the same. The face of the dead man turned away, slowly rotating on the chains. Under the lifted feet lay an old car battery, a bucket of water and sponges, and some kind of metal brushes attached to wires. The setup was crude but probably effective.

  I used the shotgun to turn the dead man. His face was black, and his purple tongue hung from his open mouth. He was a large man with large hands that had turned black in death. He was not Z.

  I took a breath. Henry called out to me and I ran toward him.

  Z was in the back corner of a cage, fallen to the concrete in a crushed pile. There was a lot of blood, one eye swollen shut, and deep searing burns and open wounds across his bare chest. Z had found a way to take out his torturer, but barely.

  “He’s breathing,” Henry said. “Christ, he’s breathing. Give me something to stop the bleeding. Give me something. He’s bleeding like a fucking stuck pig.”

  I tossed off my jacket and tore off my shirt. Henry pressed the shirt to the wounds and patted Z’s face with soft, tapping slaps. “Come on. Come on.”

  I knelt down and helped move Z from the wall. I could hear sirens coming from the highway. I reached for the water bucket. Henry dabbed my shirt in the water and ran it over Z’s almost unrecognizable face.