by Ace Atkins
“What about the painting?” I said.
“Painting?” Morelli said. He shrugged.
I drew on the cigar and crossed my legs. Me and good-time Jimmy Morelli, pals. “The Gentleman in Black?” I said.
“Never heard of him.”
“Your sister-in-law said JoJo handed it over when he got sick,” I said. “She said it was a big hit over sambuca and cigars at their beach house in Maine.”
Morelli opened his mouth and then closed it. As he searched for a decent answer, he plugged the cigar into his mouth and took a long draw. He lifted a hand and waved away the smoke.
“I don’t know nothing about that.”
“Jimmy,” Vinnie said. “This is important. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. It got a friend killed. It also ain’t no small nothing. Whoever finds it gets five mil.”
“Oh, yeah?” Morelli said.
“That ain’t just cheese and crackers.”
“Sure, sure,” Morelli said. “Okay, okay.”
“Will you help?” Vinnie said.
“Why should I?”
“How about old times’ sake?”
“Let’s say I might have some knowledge of a painting like that,” Morelli said. “If I try to explain a pretty complex situation, I might find my ass hurting talking to the Feds in Government Center. I’m too old for that shit, Vinnie. I like to take it easy. I get along with everyone. Everyone gets along with me.”
“No trouble with the Feds,” I said. “Statute of limitations has run out. The museum just wants the painting back. No questions asked.”
“So you say,” Morelli said.
“I do,” I said. “And everyone else involved.”
“But now you got some queer friend of Gino’s dead and bunch of schnauzer tits running around Boston making trouble,” Morelli said. “Come on. I got money. I don’t need the aggravation.”
“Did you ever have it?” I said.
Jimmy Morelli smiled at me. He tilted his head, more smoke spewed from his mouth. “Maybe.”
“Help me help you,” I said. “I get paid. You get paid. The museum gets back a masterpiece and all of Boston is singing ‘Sapore di Sale.’”
“Great song,” Morelli said. He hummed a few bars. He had a smooth weathered voice that resounded off the brick walls.
I nodded. Vinnie nodded. We were making some fine progress down in the North End basement. Morelli slapped at his thigh and stood up again. It looked as if he hadn’t stood in a while, his knees growing stiff. He walked over to a small bar along the wall and poured himself a whiskey out of a cut-glass decanter.
“You boys want anything?”
“Only answers,” I said.
“I wish I could help you help me,” he said. “But that painting is long gone. And to be honest with you, it was nothing but a lot of ass ache when we had it.”
I purposely did not mention the circumstances of how it came into the hands of the Morelli brothers. I didn’t think laying the blame of the murder of Benny Barboza would grease the situation along. He reached into an ice bucket and added two cubes to his whiskey and returned to his chair. He groaned like an old dog as he settled back in.
“You know what sfortuna means, Spenser?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “But it doesn’t sound good.”
“The Gentleman in Black is sfortuna,” he said. “Bad fucking luck. It was bad luck to museum, bad luck to the man who stole it, and bad luck to my late brother. I don’t want any of that stuff. Like I said, I don’t need that kind of aggravation.”
Something went cold in me. I had the feeling that Morelli was about to tell me that he’d destroyed El Greco’s work painted more than five hundred years ago.
Morelli grunted and shook his head. “That’s Ray Russo’s trouble now,” he said. “The goddamn rat fucker.”
I looked to Vinnie. Something shifted in his eyes. He took a deep breath, sitting there cool and still in the big recliner, smoke around him.
“Can we talk to Ray?” Vinnie said.
“If you talk to Famous Ray, I’d like to talk to Famous Ray,” he said. “He turned on some good people. His own people. He buddied up with the Feds and cut a deal. What he did coulda got me sent down to Atlanta for the rest of my fucking life. Can you imagine that? My own cousin, our mothers being sisters and all.”
“You don’t know where he went?”
“Witness protection, Vinnie,” he said. “It’s like that. Damn rat fucker. He has that big ugly painting, probably hanging in some shitty garage out in Scottsdale or Tucson. Probably looks at it when he takes out his riding lawnmower and gives me and everyone he ever knew the big FO.”
I looked to Vinnie. “Fantastic.”
“I don’t know where he went,” Morelli said. “And I gotta make peace with what he done. But if I were looking for that old painting, I’d go see that crook Devon Murphy. Ever heard of him?”
Vinnie looked to me.
I nodded. “Indeed I have.”
“Him and Famous Ray cooked up some scheme to sell it to a fucking sheik of Araby or sumshit,” he said. “Famous Ray wouldn’t quit running his mouth about it, said we’d split the dough right down the middle. I told him no, thanks. I didn’t want to touch that thing. They want to deal with the old Gentleman in Black, then that luck was on them.”
“Quite generous,” I said.
“Yeah?” he said. “I think so, too. And then what does Famous Ray do but turn right around and stick it in my backside. I got no love lost for him.”
“You might say he’s dead to you,” I said.
“I might,” Morelli said. “But I won’t. I think he and that Irish prick Murphy unloaded that fucking thing together.”
“It’s still in Boston,” I said.
“Spenser’s seen it,” Vinnie said.
“No shit?” he said. “Better ask Murphy about it then, because you sure as shit ain’t getting to Ray Russo. He sticks his skinny little fucking neck out of whatever hole he’s in and he’ll get it chopped off.”
We shook hands and Vinnie and I walked up to Prince Street. The air smelled fresh and clean. I stubbed out the cigar and we headed back to his Cadillac.
“How was it?” Vinnie said.
“As terrible as I remember.”
“Devon Murphy?”
“Yep.”
45
THE NEXT MORNING, Vinnie and I drove south to Plymouth. I’d picked him up at the bowling alley at dawn and brought along donuts and a thermos full of coffee. Sometimes my thoughtfulness astounded even me. The morning light was harsh over the highway and I reached for my sunglasses on the dash.
“Murphy’s in Plymouth?” Vinnie said. “Christ. What is he, a fucking pilgrim?”
“He’l fear not what men say,” I said. “He’l labor night and day.”
“Sometimes I think you got your own language, Spenser,” he said. “Talking to yourself like that.”
“Hazard of the job,” I said. “Surveillance and tail jobs can make you a little crazy.”
“A little?”
I shrugged. I opened the box of donuts on the center console as we drove. The Land Cruiser was big, plenty of room for two toughs and their donuts. Vinnie grabbed a basic glazed as we curved south on Route 3. It was a bright, beautiful day as we drove onto Main Street, the downtown a gathering of red-brick storefronts and old white churches. There were plenty of pubs and antique stores. Most of them had cute little names like the Driftwood Public House, Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Captain’s Den. We parked by the old post office and walked across the street to a gathering of storefronts by the town square. The First Parish church of Plymouth dominated the square. In its shadow, a woman dressed in pilgrim garb handed out tour fliers to tourists. I’d had the bread at Plimoth Plantation. It was very good.
We walked down the slope
of Market Street and into a large brick building. A hand-painted sign on a plate-glass window announced Smith & James Antique Appraisers and Auctions.
“Does Murphy know we’re coming?” Vinnie said.
“Nope,” I said. “But this is where his landlady said we’ll find him.”
“Terrific.”
The inside of Smith & James was expansive and voluminous with furniture, toys, paintings, sculptures, and leather-bound books. At the entryway stood four old horses from a merry-go-round and a full-size captain’s wheel. Glass cases held coins, silverware, and handwritten letters from another age. Vinnie walked ahead of me, picking up an old duck decoy, studying the price tag on the bottom.
“Hundred bucks?” he said. “For this? You got to be kidding me.”
“That’s where bidding starts,” I said. “It only goes up from there.”
“For a fucking duck?”
There were model ships, old maps, and one section devoted completely to movie memorabilia. A framed half-sheet from Bad Day at Black Rock caught my eye when I spotted Devon Murphy staring at a far wall. He had on a light blue guayabera, his white hair loose and scattered as always, with some black reading glasses down on his nose. He held a pen and notebook in hand, jotting down prices of several racks of vases in a tall shelf.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Devon,” I said.
He turned to look at me. Murphy pulled off his glasses, holding them with his pad of paper.
“Whattya want, Spenser?” he said. “I got an auction in thirty minutes. I told you everything. You got everything.”
“Except for Famous Ray,” I said.
He pushed up the glasses on top of his head. He twisted his jaw a bit as he watched to see if I was serious.
“JoJo Morelli got the paintings as the spoils of war,” I said. “When he got sick, he placed them in the hands of his brother’s right-hand man. You and Famous Ray were going to cash in big with some money people in the Middle East.”
“Bullshit,” Murphy said. “All bullshit. Sell the painting to some rich sheik? Where did you get all this crap, Spenser? I mean, really.”
Vinnie walked up to us. He reached up onto the shelf and pulled out the piece Murphy had been admiring. He turned it over, searched for the price, and whistled.
“Lotta money for a vase,” Vinnie said.
“It’s not a vase,” Murphy said. “It’s a nineteenth-century Japanese chamber pot from the Edo period.”
“Whattya do with it?” Vinnie said.
“Same thing Devon’s been doing on us,” I said.
“Come on,” Murphy said. “You better get your money back from whoever sold you that lie. I never worked with Famous Ray. I barely even knew the guy. You think I’d do business with those animals? Use your head. What fucking idiot said that? I’ll punch him right in the mouth.”
Vinnie set the pot back on the shelf. “Jimmy Morelli,” he said. “But I’d think twice before calling him an idiot.”
“Or punching him in the mouth,” I said.
“That, too,” Vinnie said, lifting the lid on the pot and staring inside. “Oh, I get it. You shit in it.”
“You could have just told me that Famous Ray ended up with The Gentleman in Black,” I said. “It really would’ve cut down my travel expenses.”
“I don’t know nothing about Famous Ray,” Murphy said. “Or the Morellis. I’ve been real patient with you. If you’ll both excuse me, I need to get these items arranged. They’re opening the doors to real customers soon. This is how I make a living.”
“All this stuff is yours?” Vinnie said.
Murphy looked at him.
“So if one of these were to break?” Vinnie said. “You’d be swimming in Shit Creek?”
Murphy’s mouth stayed open. He shook his head as Vinnie lifted up a small vase that looked older than Methuselah’s grandmother.
“That’s part of a matched set,” Murphy said. “From the Edo period.”
Vinnie tossed it up in the air and caught it with one hand. I stepped back and he tossed it to me. I caught it with two hands.
“You fucking monkeys,” Murphy said. “You want me to call the cops? I’ll call the cops. I’ll do it.”
“Tell me where to find Famous Ray,” I said.
“I don’t even know the guy.”
I pitched the vase to Vinnie. He pretended to bobble it like a tight end with a tricky pass. But Vinnie was a shooter. He had great hands. I noticed the vase was very light and covered with a gold patina as it flew in the air.
“That’s from the 1850s,” he said. “During Okugawa Shogunate’s reign. I have it on loan from a real wealthy family.”
“I bet, Murphy,” Vinnie said. “In other words, you swiped it.”
“It’s worth nearly ten thousand bucks.”
“And I’ll crack it like a chicken egg if you don’t tell Spenser where to find that painting.”
“From Benny Barboza to JoJo Morelli to Famous Ray,” I said. “And now El Greco stops here. Where is it, Murphy?”
Devon Murphy looked at us both. His face was very red and I noted a little sweat popping out on his wide forehead. He wasn’t buying it. He lifted up his chin and told us to go fuck ourselves.
Vinnie shook his head and tossed me back the vase.
“Go long,” I said, gripping it in my right hand.
Vinnie smiled and ran down the aisle of the antiques warehouse. I pulled back my right arm, pumping it like Steve Grogan used to do.
“Okay,” Murphy said. “Okay. Jesus Christ. Okay. Give it back. Just give the damn thing back.”
“Where?” I said.
Murphy reached into his pocket and pulled out a little handkerchief. He wiped his brow and smoothed down his wild, thin white hair. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose. Vinnie walked back from his pass route.
“We couldn’t unload it,” he said. “Something like that? A fucking El Greco? It’s too damn hot. The buyer backed out.”
“And Famous Ray?” I said.
“You’ll never find him,” he said. “Jimmy Morelli’s been searching for him. He wants him dead and Ray knows it. Last time I saw Ray, he had the painting. But I don’t know what he did with it. I got no idea. That’s it. All right? Can you just give me back the vase and leave me alone?”
A few antiques shoppers had turned to stare. But they just as quickly went back to picking through stacks of antiques.
“Don’t lie to me,” I said.
“That’s it,” Murphy said. “That’s all I got. Are we done here?”
I tossed the vase up in the air, but before I could catch it, Murphy snatched it, turned his back, and walked far away.
“Touchy guy,” Vinnie said.
“Says that’s all he knows.”
“Bullshit.”
“Probably,” I said.
“And now?”
“How far can a guy named Famous Ray go underground?” I said.
“With Jimmy Morelli putting out a hit?” Vinnie said. “Deep.”
46
WE DROVE BACK TO CAMBRIDGE. I dropped off Vinnie and picked up Pearl.
Susan didn’t even see me, as she was in session. I walked upstairs, rescued Pearl from an afternoon of boredom, and took her back to the Navy Yard. As I worked out the latest details, we took a walk and played with the tennis ball at the small park by the USS Constitution.
It was well past seven by the time Epstein called me back. Pearl and I had taken a little jaunt by the marina, and I stopped off at a park bench overlooking the fishing boats. Pearl was tired, content with lying down in the grass and chewing on a tennis ball.
“You and my secretary are now on a first-name basis,” Epstein said.
“I’m never on a first-name basis,” I said. “Last name only.”
“Like Fabian.”
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“Fabian was Fabian’s first name,” I said. “Last name Forte.”
“How do you remember all this shit?” Epstein said.
“It’s a gift,” I said.
There was a long pause on the line between Boston and Miami. In the old days, it would make a nice steady hum. Now the silence was crisp and electric. I heard the squeaking of an office chair and Epstein gently sigh. Pearl shuffled the tennis ball into one side of her mouth. She looked like a Major Leaguer chawing a big plug of tobacco.
“You got my message,” I said.
“Ray Russo,” he said.
“Know him?” I said.
“Famous Ray?” Epstein said. “Yeah, I know him. You do realize I was special agent in charge of Boston for several years? We tend to know about guys like Famous Ray.”
“I need to speak to him.”
“He’s what we call incommunicado.”
“So nice for him,” I said.
“As I’m sure you already know, he turned witness against a few old wise guys in Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” he said. “Ray was a big help to us. He came through like he promised, said what he’d told us on the stand. He did his duty and started a brand-new life.”
“Can you get a message to him?”
Again the silence, the squeaking of the office chair down in Miami. A hum down in his throat and then a long groan. I pulled the wet tennis ball from Pearl’s mouth. She sat at attention, head up high, staring at the ball.
“I take it that’s a no.”
“That’s a maybe,” he said. “I can see if I can pass him a message. Is this still about that damn painting or you onto some new cockamamie case?”
“Same old cockamamie case,” I said. “It seems that Famous Ray didn’t leave Boston empty-handed.”
“How solid is your information?”
“Straight from the godfather’s mouth.”
“Don’t tell me you talked to—”
“I did.”
“Jesus Christ,” Epstein said. “You think maybe Jimmy Morelli told you the painting ended up with Famous Ray so you’d lead him right to where X marks the fucking spot?”