by Ace Atkins
“Four days ago, the museum hired me to finish what you started.”
“A little late on the trail.”
“Colder than my morning coffee,” I said. “I hoped you might warm things up for me.”
“My superiors might frown upon me talking with a Boston snoop.”
“What do you have to lose?” I said. “The museum wants my help. You’re long off the case, chasing dope runners and assassins in bikinis.”
“You grasp my situation down here so clearly,” he said. “How can I not help?”
“How far did you guys get?”
“I assume this isn’t an official conversation?”
“Is it ever?”
“Okay,” Epstein said. “Not so far. We had two guys from D.C. help out the local office. They were supposedly art theft experts. But really they were two pompous dipshits who’d taken some seminars in France. They didn’t know nothing about nothing. How to conduct interviews, build a suspect list, follow the trail.”
“And what did you do?”
“The best we could,” he said. “But we were ill-equipped for this kind of thing. We kept on waiting for a call or letter about ransom. That’s where we excelled. But we never heard a word. We had a ton of cranks and followed every lead. Crazy stuff. I even worked with some medium who told me she was in direct contact with Constance Winthrop. She said Miss Winthrop saw the paintings in a red room with a very bad man. The man was Russian or something. Hell if I remember.”
“But nothing solid?”
“I liked a couple guys who had connection to Old Man DeMarco,” he said. “Remember him? Real nice guy if he didn’t shoot you over a plate of spaghetti.”
“Now the son is in charge.”
“Apple fall far from the tree?”
“Maybe a few inches.”
“You want me to check in with the Boston office?”
“I do.”
“And perhaps review the file?” he said. “And pass on any pertinent information that probably still is highly confidential?”
“Gee,” I said. “You really get me.”
“One big thing, Spenser,” he said. “Did anyone at the museum tell you that the big one, the guy in black, might be a fake?”
“No,” I said. “In fact, they did not.”
“That’s only a rumor,” he said. “But worth you knowing. And one we took seriously. I know at one time our people were thinking this may have been an insurance-fraud case. They were having the painting appraised and found out it was old but not painted by the guy they thought.”
“El Greco.”
“Didn’t he play for the Pirates?”
“That’s Bobby Del Greco.”
“Wonder if they’re related,” Epstein said.
“Probably not.”
The front door to the two-story apartments opened and a fortyish man with a thin frame and a potbelly walked down the cracked concrete steps. He had short black hair, a short black goatee, and was wearing a black T-shirt with the Bat symbol. Sometimes my job is too easy.
I thanked Epstein and hung up. I got out of my car and approached the man, who was trying to get into a decades-old Mitsubishi compact with a busted windshield.
“SuperChadz?” I said.
He stared at me, keys hanging loose from his hand.
“I’m your biggest fan.”
10
WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Chad said.
“My name is Spenser,” I said. “I’m down from Boston. Working for the Winthrop Museum.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “No way. I’m done with all that.”
“Not today,” I said.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” he said. “I don’t have to talk to anyone no more. Not about that. No more reporters. No more cops. Just leave me the hell alone.”
“Don’t make me get tough,” I said. “If you don’t give me answers, I might give SuperChadz channel the thumbs-down.”
“Are you making fun of me?” Chad said. He stared at me through a pair of oblong prescription glasses with a reddish tint.
“Just a little,” I said. I smiled. “How about we just take a walk? Or let me buy you lunch? I only had two corn muffins in my car. That was hours ago.”
“I already ate a tunafish sandwich and some Cheetos.”
“Then a walk along the river will do you some good,” I said. “You fill me in on a few details, and I’ll be out of your way. You don’t and I’ll meet you here every day until you decide to talk. I have what some might say is an obsessive personality.”
Several old houses cut into apartments stacked against one another at the bend of River Street. They were wooden and brick buildings that probably used to house all the Canucks who’d come to the town to find work. The sidewalk continued past a garage and a fish-and-chips place to the historic district. Nearby, someone had moored a decaying fishing boat in their yard.
“I told the cops everything I know,” he said. “Jesus Christ, man. I don’t even remember much about that night. Why don’t you talk to the cops?”
“I have talked to the cops,” I said. “A few, in fact. And they feel like you were holding back. Like perhaps you knew some of the robbers?”
“Bullshit,” he said.
“Come on,” I said. “Give me a few minutes and then you can get back to simonizing the Batmobile.”
“I have another job,” he said. “At the Dollar Store. I’m going to be late.”
“How much do you make an hour?”
He told me. It wasn’t much. I handed him a twenty and said I’d give him a dollar a minute. I pulled off my PawSox cap and artfully curved the bill, sliding it back in position on my head. I was a true artist when it came to breaking in ball caps.
“Before that night,” I said. “Did anyone strange approach you about access to the museum?”
Chad shook his head. He crossed his arms over his protruding belly as we walked.
“Anyone reach out to you?” I said. “Try to be your friend that you never met?”
He gave me an odd look. But he was an odd guy.
“I didn’t know these guys,” he said. “Hell. One of them punched me in the stomach. The other one beat the crap out of my friend, Tony. It was only his second night on the job. I got him the work and he never forgave me.”
“Can you walk me through it?”
“I don’t remember anything,” he said. “They wrapped me up in duct tape and threw me and Tony into the basement. The next thing I knew the cops were there and cutting me free. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything.”
We followed the winding sidewalk for a quarter-mile to a walkway that spanned over a dam. I thought about holding him upside down over the falls, but it wasn’t guaranteed to work. I tried for a more subtle approach, asking the most obvious question.
“Why’d you open the door?”
“Because they said they were cops.”
“Did they look like cops?”
“It was hard to tell,” he said. “It’s not like now. The cameras were black-and-white, real fuzzy. But they had on uniforms.”
“Did you think to call for confirmation?”
“I fucked up,” Chad said. “Okay? Is that what you want me to say? It’s a long way from Boston just to get an apology. I’m sorry. I’m sorry those paintings are still missing. I know it was a big deal. But damn, I was only a kid. Why won’t they just leave me the hell alone?”
“Any other reason you might’ve opened that door?”
He looked at me and then turned his head. “No way.”
“Are you sure?”
“Like I said, they told me they were cops,” he said. “They were dressed like cops.”
“I know what you told me,” I said. “And the real cops. But it’s been a long time. Maybe you left out a few little
details?”
We continued walking out onto the dam itself and into the deep roaring sound of the river breaking over the falls. I had to repeat my question as we stopped and looked over the guardrails.
“Like what?”
“Like maybe a late-night visitor?” I said. “Maybe a woman you just met?”
Chad stood against the railing and felt at his stubby little goatee. I still had my hands in my jeans pockets, wide-stanced and surefooted, in case he made a run for it. Given his lack of physical fitness, I didn’t think he’d get far.
“Who told you about the girl?” he said. “Nobody ever asked me about the girl.”
“Who was the girl, Chad?”
His mouth still hung open a bit. I waited. Upriver, the shops at the old mill had just opened for business and a yellow school bus pulled up near the history center. Children in matching blue shirts wandered out into the parking lot, backpacks over their shoulders, giddy with the happiness of being free of school.
“No one,” he said. He looked at me through his rose-colored glasses, his weak chin trembling.
“She must’ve been someone.”
“I got to get to work, man,” he said. “Are you trying to get me tossed in freakin’ jail?”
“It’s been twenty years,” I said. “Statute of limitations ran out this morning. Even if you helped rip those paintings off those walls and danced them out to the ‘Toreador Song,’ nothing can be done.”
“You sure?” he said. He took a long swallow.
“Cross my heart.”
Chad leaned against the bridge railing. The river frothed and churned down by the dam and around the scattered boulders. I followed the flow down past the shops and along the other old mills built along the path, now empty. A lot of Woonsocket felt empty, a relic of better times.
“I met her at a bar,” he said. “She came over to the museum a few times. She thought my job was pretty cool. You know, having the run of the place every night, wandering around all those creepy old rooms. Damn, she was hot.”
“Prettier than most girls you’ve known?”
He nodded, his Batman T-shirt fluttering in the warm wind. He took a deep breath, but when he started to speak, he couldn’t seem to find the words.
“How many times?”
“Three,” he said. “Maybe four. I don’t remember. It was pretty wild stuff. She did things to me that I never even thought about. She did this one trick with her tongue—”
I held up my hand. “I get the idea, Chad,” I said. “What was her name?”
“Charity,” he said. “She said her name was Charity.”
I didn’t have an answer to that, just let the word hang and allowed him to continue.
“She wouldn’t return my calls,” he said. “Later. You know? I figured when she saw me on the news and stuff, she thought I was bad luck. Like some kind of loser for letting those guys in and losing those famous paintings.”
“Did it ever occur to you that she may have set you up?”
Chad started to speak, but again couldn’t seem to find the words. He opened his mouth wide, and then, not formulating anything sensible, just as quickly closed it. The water kept on churning and breaking over the falls. A morning breeze swaying tree branches along the river.
“Where did you meet her?”
He told me about a bar at Northeastern that used to be right off campus. He said he used to hang out there a lot, sometimes getting a beer or two in uniform before going on for the night.
“You won’t be able to find her,” he said. “Charity probably wasn’t even her real name.”
“Really?” I said. “I’m shocked.”
“I met her through the bartender,” he said. “He was a really nice guy.”
“And what was his name?”
“Crazy Eddie.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He ran the place and told me the girl was a regular. A sure thing. We got to talking one night. Turned out she was really into comics and superheroes. She had a major crush on Superman.”
“I know,” I said. “Same thing happens to me.”
“You won’t find her.”
“I found you,” I said.
“That was easy,” he said. “I wasn’t hiding. Not anymore.”
I handed Chad my card and told him I’d be in touch.
11
A BIG BOX CONTAINING LOCKE’S personal files was waiting at my office when I got back to Boston. I’d bought a steak sub at Al’s and opened it up on my desk as I made coffee. It was hard to investigate on an empty stomach. Perhaps damn near impossible. My new coffeemaker spit out the coffee faster than Usain Bolt in the hundred-meter, and soon I was back to the good ol’ days of twenty years ago. I recalled it wasn’t a good year for the Sox. They didn’t win as many as they lost and Wally the Green Monster arrived at Fenway.
I tried to put the image out of my mind and opened the file.
The knock on the back door of the Winthrop came at shortly after midnight that Good Friday morning. It being Good Friday didn’t seem to have any special significance other than probably a lot of cops had to work the scene and miss Mass. Wright and his detectives had interviewed the guards Chad and Tony, Marjorie Ward Phillips, and two kids who attended the nearby city college. There was also a canvassing for potential witnesses in the area, who hadn’t seen or heard a thing. The college kids said they’d seen cops outside the Winthrop shortly before midnight. “We were drunk and didn’t want trouble,” one of the kids said. “I didn’t really get a good look.”
They were the only ones to see the robbers’ faces, besides Chad. Everyone agreed they were white males. The drunk kids couldn’t decide if there were two or three people in the car. They saw only a man behind the wheel and another man in the passenger seat. I chewed and tried not to splatter marinara on the pages.
After I polished off half the sub, I stood up to stretch. I opened the blinds in my turret and looked across Berkeley Street. A trendy new womenswear shop had opened on the ground floor, replacing Shreve, Crump, & Low. I watched a comely young woman in a navy romper and no shoes strip two mannequins and start to redress one. The young woman was very pretty. The mannequins very naked.
I felt somewhat dirty and returned to my desk.
I read and reread Chad’s interview.
In the first report, Bobby Wright had interviewed him personally. He didn’t go easy on SuperChadz. He tried to trip him up several times, knowing Chad was already rattled and had no sleep. I flipped through the pages but found Wright didn’t get far.
There were sketches of the two men. As with many police sketches, they could be about anybody if you squinted hard enough and made some minor adjustment. One man was tall and sallow-faced, with a mustache. The other was short and kind of chubby. I was pretty sure I was looking for the Laurel and Hardy of crime.
Another fine mess. I set aside the sketches.
I stacked the two narratives, as told by the guards, in front of me. I commenced eating the second half of the steak pizzaiola sub. Melted cheese and homemade marinara on fresh bread. I was making up for lost time. Despite my best efforts, some marinara leaked onto the narrative.
After reading the Boston Police files front to back and side to side, I returned to the window. One of the mannequins was covered up now in a very short red dress. It had been arranged to look as if it was casually talking on a cell phone. The young woman, fitting a miniskirt on the other, looked up and saw me standing in the turret.
With my coffee in my right hand, I waved with my left. She smiled and waved back. Making friends and not influencing people.
I sat down, leaned back into my chair, and set my feet at the edge of the desk. I had some ideas about tracking down the girl who’d stolen Chad’s heart along with the priceless paintings. I wondered whether to bring up the
validity of the paintings with Large Marj and Topper, or whether it mattered. The painting was missing. They’d hired me to get it back.
I was stuck on the North End war at the time, and how that might be obscuring the tracks of the thieves, when the phone rang.
“Spenser,” a woman said. “I need you.”
“Many women do,” I said. “But my heart, and other parts, belong to another.”
“Damn you, it’s Marjorie Phillips,” she said. “Where are you?”
“In my office, eating a sub and watching performance art down on Berkeley Street,” I said. “Some very interesting nudes making social commentary.”
“How long will it take you to get to the museum?”
“Fifteen minutes,” I said. “What’s the rush?”
“Another letter arrived this afternoon,” she said. “It’s wonderful. So exciting.”
“What’s so exciting about it?”
“The chase,” she said. “We’re on. They want to meet.”
“Okay.”
“And they have offered proof of the paintings,” she said. “For half a million, they will return the Picasso. Can you believe it? If they can produce the Picasso, surely The Gentleman in Black is still with us.”
“Perhaps we might slow down and plan our next steps.”
“Goddamn you,” she said. “Don’t you think I know what I’m doing? That’s why I need you to the Winthrop right this very second.”
“When do they want to meet?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “In the Common. And I must absolutely go alone.”
“Of course,” I said. “But you won’t.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m headed your way.”
12
IT WAS ALMOST CLOSING TIME at the Winthrop. Marjorie Phillips was upstairs in the Red Room, staring at the big gold frame that once contained The Gentleman in Black. I had an odd feeling coming up the steps, seeing Marjorie standing there, arms akimbo and looking at the blank space. The moment seemed too private for me to intrude.
I started to take a step back and wait for her in the office. But she stopped me.