Robert B. Parker's Old Black Magic

by Ace Atkins

  “Train with me and you’ll be normal size in no time,” I said.

  Henry told me to go have sex with myself, only arranged in a more proper Boston syntax.

  We did a set of lunges with barbells in each hand. I did a set with double the weight, but Henry’s form was impeccable. You could have put a teacup on his head and it wouldn’t have spilled. From lunges, we moved on to the incline bench press. Again, Henry used less weight, but his control and execution were nearly effortless. He breathed in and out as if second nature, working the bar off his chest as if was a natural extension. He helped me load the bar and rerack the weights. Not reracking was the cardinal sin in the Harbor Health Club. I saw a guy once walk away from a fully loaded squat rack and attempt to leave the gym. Henry reduced the man to tears.

  One also never sat on exercise equipment. You did a set and you wiped it down and cleared the way for someone else. If you didn’t know it already, he had a list of the Ten Cimoli Commandments on the wall. It had been hand-painted sometime back in the sixties and not a one had changed. My favorite might have been the first commandment: Don’t be a Putz.

  “You mind me asking why you’re in such a great mood?” he said.

  “I have solved the unsolvable,” I said. “And I’m about to be handsomely paid for my work.”

  “Well goody-goody for you, Sherlock,” he said. “Maybe you can buy a new sweatshirt that hasn’t been cut to pieces. You know they have improved workout gear in the last twenty years.”

  “Not everyone can make satin look so good.”

  “No shit,” he said. “Now get out of the way and let me work.”

  Henry hopped up and caught the chin-up bar like an orangutan in the wild. He cranked out a set of ten without a bit of strain. I did the same amount of reps but with slightly more strain. Of course, I had an extra hundred pounds on him.

  “Hawk called,” he said. “Won’t be back for another month.”

  “Does he need anything from us?”

  “Does he ever?” he said. “Probably up to his ears in warm bodies and cold caipirinhas. We may never get him back.”

  We alternated on the chin-up bar for three sets and then turned our attention to some shoulder presses. Henry loved to show off a slight rotation he made on the extension, starting off with his knuckles inward to his shoulders. We worked the shoulders into a triple set with straight bar curls and press-downs with a cable rope.

  As we went well past five o’clock, the gym began to swell with young professionals and the gym’s afternoon regulars. Being an early-morning guy, I didn’t know many of them. As I cooled down on the treadmill, Henry wandered off for his second shift meet and greet.

  I watched ESPN as I jogged, catching up with the day’s games. The Sox were on the road and on a hot streak. I was sure the day couldn’t get any better, until I flipped back to the local news. I spotted Channel 7’s Hank Phillippi Ryan working a live shot from a crime scene. I didn’t have earphones and could only read the crawl below Hank. There had been a body found somewhere in the Back Bay. Being Boston, a murder wasn’t unusual, although the neighborhood was outside the norm. It looked like Hank was doing a standup somewhere on Newbury Street.

  I continued to jog, glancing down at the screen. The live shot zoomed in over her shoulder and showed an ivy-covered brick building at the corner of Gloucester and Newbury. Haut de Gamme.

  I pressed the emergency stop on the treadmill and caught my breath.

  On the screen, a smiling photograph of the victim.

  It was Alan Garner.

  36

  I WATCHED FROM BEHIND the crime scene tape as Frank Belson emerged from Haut de Gamme. He pulled off some latex gloves and stuck them in the side pocket of his black blazer. He stood on the stoop, talking with a tall woman with blond boy-short hair as he lit the end of a cigar. The woman waved away the smoke as she turned and pointed in my direction.

  I waved at the woman, Captain Glass, the new head of Homicide for BPD. She glowered at me and turned her back. Belson walked down the steps and approached the line guarded by several uniform cops. This block of Newbury had been shut down. Lots of flashing blue lights, cop cars, and a gray van from the coroner’s office.

  “Heard you wanted to see me?” Belson said.

  “I’ve been working with Alan Garner.”

  “We know,” he said. “Spoke to Garner’s assistant. She’s pretty busted up, but still with it enough to list you as a suspicious character.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “Can you imagine paying fifty grand for a fucking painting?” Belson said, spewing blue smoke from the side of his mouth. “If I had that kind of dough, I’d patch my damn roof before winter. You people in the Back Bay.”

  “I moved,” I said. “Remember?”

  “What’s your connection to the deceased?” Belson said. He pulled a notebook from inside his coat. He had on a blue shirt under the coat, tie askew as always. No matter how he was dressed, he always looked like an unmade bed.

  “I was in the market for a high-end painting,” I said. “I thought it would really spruce up my new condo.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “Garner used to work for Fish, and anything that smells of Gino Fish is rotten. Besides, I spoke to Quirk. He told me you were working with folks at the Winthrop about the missing paintings.”

  “Are there no secrets in this town?”

  “Not many,” he said. “You think Garner is tied in with the Winthrop job?”

  “You mind if I cross the tape?” I said. “In the spirit of shamus-police cooperation.”

  He nodded to a black woman in uniform. She lifted the tape and I stepped under it. I felt like I’d been ushered beyond the velvet rope of an exclusive club. Behind Belson, two men from the coroner’s office wheeled out Garner’s body. It was zipped up in a black bag. The men wore black and did their job quickly and effectively. After the van’s doors were snapped shut, Belson turned to me.

  “How’d he die?”

  Belson held the cigar in his teeth. “Badly.”

  “I thought you were going to say blunt-force trauma.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I save that shit for the press. But between me, you, and the call box, he was shot.”

  “What type of gun?”

  “A good one,” he said. “He’s fucking dead. Now what the hell does a fancy-schmancy guy like Garner have to do with those paintings and Benny Barboza?”

  “Ah,” I said. “You are up to speed. Sounds like you know everything.”

  “You can talk to me or Captain Glass,” he said. “You talk to me and we can do it right here. You talk to Glass and you’ll be up all damn night at headquarters. You’ll get worn out. You’ll miss dinner. I know how you get when you miss a meal.”

  I smiled at Belson. We had a long history.

  “Garner was the go-between for the Picasso sketch,” I said. “It was supposed to be a one-time deal. But he may have known something about the Big Guy.”

  “The Spanish thing?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The big Spanish thing. The Gentleman in Black. You did know it was priceless?”

  “In my world, everything has a price,” he said. We watched the squad cars part and the coroner van drive off slow on Newbury. “Guess Garner knows it now, too.”

  “Who found him?” I said.

  “Boyfriend,” he said. “Lee Farrell is inside talking to him now. EMTs gave him some meds to calm down. Guy wouldn’t stop screaming, shaking like a freakin’ leaf.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Belson said. “Farrell doesn’t think the guy was involved in Garner’s business. I’m sure you’ll take a shot at him, too. But if Farrell thinks it’s a waste, it’s a waste. What I want to know is, who was Garner fronting for?”

  “Well,” I said. “It wasn’t Gino Fish.”

 
“No shit,” he said. “C’mon, Spenser. Cooperation isn’t a two-way street. Between us, it’s the shit street where we both live.”

  “I don’t know where Garner got the sketch,” I said. “And I don’t know who, or if, he was working with someone else.”

  “Okay,” Belson said. “What the hell do you know?”

  “I know that you know, that I’ll go where you go.”

  “Christ.” Belson tilted his head back to look at the sky. He pulled the cigar from his mouth and exhaled a big blue cloud. It was very pretty in the glow of streetlamps. Several onlookers had gathered along Gloucester. The television news crew had set up tripods and lights. A spokesperson was talking to a gaggle of them.

  “You want to talk to Glass?” Belson said. “Because if you’re holding out anything, it’s gonna ricochet like a balloon loaded with dog shit all over yours truly.”

  “Lovely image,” I said, pointing at his pen tapping on an empty notebook page. Belson nodded. As I spoke, he began to scribble. He smoked and looked me in the eye as he wrote. Belson was a man of true talent. I ran down all the events from the meet with Large Marj in the Common, on to the Four Seasons bag check, and then our conversation at the gallery where we stood.

  “What did he tell you about the Big Guy?”

  “That he could arrange a deal for the museum,” I said.

  “You think he was bluffing?”

  “I think he had the inside track on something.”

  “What?”

  I shrugged.

  “He couldn’t have been lying to you,” Belson said. “Garner being such a fine upstanding dealer on Newbury Street. I will forget that he used to shack up with one of the biggest goddamn crooks this city has ever known.”

  “So jaded, Frank,” I said. “How’d you get that way?”

  I watched as Captain Glass spoke to a couple plainclothes cops and made her way over to us. Her hair was wet, slicked back to her skull, as if she’d just taken a shower before getting to the scene. She placed her hands on her hips and looked me up and down. She had on no makeup, her face looking freshly scrubbed.

  “What’s he have to say for himself?” Glass said.

  “For a middle-aged snoop, I’m in pretty damn good shape,” I said. “Just the other day I maxed out with more than three hundred and fifty on the bench press. I am a terrific cook and an above-average dancer.”

  “Get Spenser’s head examined,” Glass said. “If he’s just seen what we’d seen, he wouldn’t be so goddamn glib.”

  “He’s seen it,” Belson said. “Lots of times.”

  “I told Frank what I know,” I said. “I came across Garner while looking into the Winthrop heist.”

  “Gee,” she said. “Maybe it’s unrelated. Especially in such a high-crime neighborhood. Where were you earlier this afternoon?”

  “Doing squats with Henry Cimoli at the Harbor Health Club,” I said.

  “Headquarters,” Glass said. “No free rides, not on something like this. We’ll take you there. Right now, I have to go feed the fucking vultures.”

  She nodded toward the gaggle of news reporters gathered at the street corner. She smoothed down the slight wrinkles in her pinstriped jacket and trousers, her tan silk shirt open at the collar, showing just a thin silver chain.

  “Garner told Spenser he could make a deal for that big Spanish painting,” Belson said.

  “Where is it?”

  “East is east,” I said. “And west is west. And never the twain shall meet.”

  “Shit.” Glass gave me a hard look and then shook her head. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”

  37

  I WAS SO TAKEN ABACK by Captain Glass’s tongue-lashing the night before, I got up at six a.m. and drove straight to Mystic, Connecticut. I was set to meet with the two retired Staties who’d worked the Benny Barboza homicide and its larger implications with organized crime. Will Zimmer and I had agreed to meet at the Mystic train station coffee shop. He said his old partner Rich Roebuck, who lived in nearby New London, might join us.

  Like most cops I knew, Zimmer was early. He was seated inside the small wood-frame station that, besides selling tickets, sold coffee, T-shirts, and coffee mugs. He was an average-sized guy with close-cropped white hair and a stubbly white beard, wearing faded blue jeans and one of those ventilated fishing shirts. He had a deep tan and a lot of lines in his face.

  We shook hands and sat in a private-looking grouping overlooking the loading platform.

  “Benny Barboza,” Zimmer said. “Now, that brings back memories of the old Hit Parade.”

  “Epstein said you guys took over the investigation.”

  “Well,” he said. “Took over may be too strong a word. We’d been investigating Jimmy Morelli and his crew for a long while. Everyone knew who did it. We just tried to bring it into a larger case involving the war between Jimmy and the Old Man.”

  “How far did you guys get?”

  “Rich should be here in a second,” Zimmer said. “He stayed on a few years after me. But he’ll tell you the one big disappointment in our careers was not locking down that crew. The Barboza hit was nasty business. It was a personal FU to the Old Man, who really loved Benny. I think he loved Barboza more than his own kid.”

  “I know Jackie DeMarco,” I said. “Can you blame his old man?”

  “What a cheeseball,” he said. “Jackie was a kid when we were watching his father. He was on some kind of baseball scholarship up in Blackburn. I gotta admit, the kid had a hell of an arm.”

  “He washed out after a year,” I said. “And then took over the family business.”

  “Running tow trucks?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Also got involved with some crooked judges a little while back. He was funding some private prisons for teens.”

  “Nice family,” Zimmer said.

  “Salt of the earth.”

  “Did you ever think the hit was about more than just cocaine?”

  “Nope,” Zimmer said. “What else was there? I can’t quite put into words, Spenser, how much cocaine we were talking. They trucked it up from Florida. They had a hell of a network.”

  “Jackie still does business down in Tampa, St. Pete,” I said.

  “So did Jimmy Morelli,” he said. “He had a nice house out on Davis Islands. We were down there a lot working with FDLE, trying to shut down his middleman. Had some luck there, but not so much. I can’t go too much into the past, but I’ll say that the DeMarcos wouldn’t have cried a river of tears if their competition got shut down.”

  “Did Barboza talk with you?”

  Zimmer looked at me and smiled. He picked up a thick coffee mug stamped with the Amtrak logo and smiled. “Let me get you a cup of joe,” he said. “I think I see Rich pulling up.”

  I stayed put as Zimmer headed over to the counter. Another man, this guy a little rounder than Zimmer, walked inside and nodded at him. He was bald and red-faced, with a white Vandyke beard. Zimmer pointed at me and the man moved in my direction. Rich Roebuck had on khakis and a white T-shirt under a short-sleeved blue shirt worn like a loose jacket. Despite the loose jacket, I could tell he still carried a gun.

  “Spenser?”

  I nodded. We shook hands. We talked for a bit, until Zimmer joined us with fresh coffee and a muffin for his old partner. We discussed our mutual pals, Captain Healy and Brian Lundquist. As Roebuck ate, I developed a case of muffin envy.

  “You mind us asking why you’re looking into a twenty-year-old homicide?” Zimmer said. He handed me my coffee. “Not that we mind. It’s just few people beyond the family gave a crap for Benny the Blade. He wasn’t exactly a beloved member of society.”

  “I’m not interested in the murder,” I said. “Merely how it might connect to the theft at the Winthrop Museum. Two paintings and a Picasso sketch were taken about a year before
he died.”

  Zimmer nodded. Roebuck remained impassive.

  “Sure, I remember that,” Zimmer said. “It was a big deal. But they got the paintings back, right? Last week, some big dog-and-pony show in the Common?”

  “Only the sketch,” I said. “I’m still looking for the paintings.”

  “And you think Benny the Blade might’ve socked one away?” Roebuck said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. I can assure you it wasn’t kept in his family storage unit in Revere. But I did find some pristine copies of Limp Bizkit’s greatest hits. I was hoping you two had heard something about it.”

  “Drugs,” Zimmer said. “Lots of coke and broads. The only thing artsy these guys did was the weekend matinee at the Purple Banana.”

  “Did you ever speak with Eddie Ciccone?”

  Roebuck lifted his eyes. He exchanged a glance with Zimmer. He’d yet to touch his coffee. At the counter, my corn muffins looked forlorn. I’d wait until I’d earned a reward to get one. Or maybe one or two for the road home.

  Zimmer nodded approval at Roebuck.

  “We concentrated pretty much exclusively on Jimmy Morelli and his brother, JoJo,” Roebuck said. “They ran the North End and were the stronger of the crews. I’d like to think the work we did helped shut down their show. Jimmy Morelli retired. JoJo Morelli got cancer and kicked the bucket.”

  “Did you ever hear talk about them and the heist?”

  Zimmer smiled. He sipped some coffee and pulled out some silver sunglasses from one of the many pockets on his fishing shirt. The shirt was such an intense aqua color that it hurt my eyes. He cleaned the lenses and set them on the table.

  “I don’t think these guys gave two shits about art when an empire was at stake,” Zimmer said. “But for argument’s sake. If they’d have had some big-time painting from the Winthrop, we would have heard something about it.”

  “I’m pretty sure Barboza helped Eddie and Mikey Mike Marino steal it.”

  “Doesn’t mean he kept it,” Roebuck said.

  “I know,” I said. “But I wondered if you found sound kind of connection to the art during your investigation. Even if Benny was killed in the drug war.”