Robert B. Parker's Old Black Magic

by Ace Atkins

  “No one followed us,” Vinnie said. “Give me a little credit.”

  “I have two sets of people following me,” I said. “That I know.”

  “On the same team?” Vinnie said.

  “Nope,” I said. “One is very good. And one is very bad.”

  “The bad one is the British guy?” he said. “The one who’s been riding your coattails.”

  “Yep,” I said. “He followed me and Susan last night to Harvest.”

  “No shit,” he said. “You don’t follow a guy when he’s on a freakin’ date. That’s just bad form. What’d you have?”

  “The burger,” I said.

  “Yeah?” Vinnie said. “They make a great burger.”

  Vinnie had parked in an unlit patch of the street. We waited in the car as three kids on bicycles passed us, looking into the car but all uninterested. Vinnie pulled out his gun, checked the magazine, and slipped it back under his coat. It was a nice coat, light blue linen, worn over a pink gingham shirt. Vinnie’s eyes stayed on the back door of the house.

  “You wait here,” he said.

  “I prefer to do my own heavy lifting.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I need to find out who killed Alan. And you need to find your freakin’ painting.”

  “Agreed.”

  “But there are places you won’t go,” he said. “And many things you won’t do. I don’t have that problem. Me and Fat Freddy speak the same language. He’ll lie to you all day long, like a freakin’ rug, Spenser. With me, he’ll know he can’t.”

  I nodded.

  “I need you here,” he said. “You see any of Fat Freddy’s guys trying to go in, you stop them and have a chat.”

  “While you try and reason with Freddy’s better nature.”

  “Sure,” Vinnie said. “Reason with him. Exactly.”

  I didn’t like it but agreed. We tapped fists like two wrestlers in a tag team.

  Vinnie opened the driver’s door and crossed the street. I watched him push open a broken gate and walk through the yard to the back storm door. The windows were open and I could hear the sounds of Revere, the hum of air conditioners, a broken muffler on a passing car, and kids yelling at each other from down the block. I could also smell the ocean and feel the warm wind off the water. It was all very pleasant until Vinnie got down to work.

  From inside Freddy’s place, I heard some yelling. And then I heard some crashing. The light flickered about from inside the glass storm door. I heard the high-pitched sound of a man screaming and then furniture breaking.

  I watched the street. No one noticed. No one passed.

  I tapped out the rhythm of “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” on the passenger door. More crashing sounds came from inside the small house. But less screaming. The arguing seemed to have subsided. After a few more minutes, Vinnie walked out of the back door, combing through his salt-and-pepper hair with his fingers and straightening his jacket.

  I watched him walk across Ocean Avenue and climb back behind the wheel of the Cadillac. His light blue linen jacket now had a few fine flecks of blood.

  “I know a good dry cleaner,” I said.

  “Never works,” he said. “I just got this jacket, too. Fit me like a glove.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Fat Freddy,” he said, cranking the ignition. “Tried to argue me about it.”

  “How long did that last?”

  “Not long,” Vinnie said. “Hard to argue when you can barely stand up.”

  Vinnie knocked the car in drive and we made a squealing U-turn in front of the house.

  “Swears he doesn’t know who killed Alan Garner,” he said. “But Famous Ray is in Memphis.”

  “Him and Elvis,” I said. “You got Ray’s new name?”

  “Don’t insult me, Spenser,” he said. “Not after my coat got ruined.”

  “We’ll send the bill to the Winthrop,” I said.

  50

  MEMPHIS?” SUSAN SAID.

  “I’ve worked cases in South Carolina and Georgia, twice,” I said. “I feel this is a natural progression to conquer the South.”

  “I think you look for excuses,” she said. “You like the food too much.”

  “Biscuits and barbecue never killed anymore.”

  “It’s probably killed a lot,” Susan said. “Go easy down there, Big Daddy.”

  “Should I pack my seersucker suit?”

  “You hate seersucker,” she said. “In fact, you loathe it.”

  “I was so excited about the trip that I nearly forgot.”

  I was at Susan’s place, standing in her kitchen and making the most of the odd assortment she kept in her refrigerator. As Susan had been juicing a lot, I found just enough to cobble together an authentic Cobb salad. She didn’t have any chicory greens, but she did have parsley, watercress, and romaine. I was also pleasantly surprised to find two boiled eggs and some sliced turkey fresh from Whole Foods. I vigorously chopped the greens and turkey while Susan made us drinks.

  “I can’t imagine starting my life over again,” she said. “Did this Ray Russo have a family?”

  “He was twice divorced,” I said. “One grown son. But they were estranged and hadn’t spoken in years.”

  “Hence the reason to speak to his hefty pal.”

  “I didn’t speak to him,” I said. “Vinnie facilitated the information.”

  “I’m sure he did,” she said. “And will Vinnie be traveling with you to Memphis to help facilitate even more from Mr. Russo?”

  “Never mess with a hot streak,” I said. “I don’t even plan on changing my underwear.”

  “You might want to rethink that plan if you wish to get lucky.”

  “I prefer to think luck is based on skill,” I said.

  She handed me a vodka martini. You couldn’t eat a Cobb salad without. It was a law in California. I had taught Susan a trick I’d learned from my pal Drew at Legal. Keep your vodka in the freezer and bury your vermouth in your backyard.

  “Be prepared for Russo to shut you out completely,” Susan said. “He may actually think of himself as a whole new person.”

  “And that whole new person may be still scared shitless of Jimmy Morelli,” I said. “Guys in the North End have been known to hold a grudge.”

  “Why do you think he went against them?”

  “Excellent question,” I said. “From all accounts, Famous Ray was a known and trusted member of the family.”

  I set down the martini and started to make the French dressing. It was an old recipe of an inexact mixture of red wine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, coarse mustard, and salt and pepper. I never wrote it down, but somehow it always tasted the same.

  “I should bottle and sell this sauce,” I said.

  “You and Paul Newman.”

  “Why not?” I said. “We both have the same piercing blue eyes.”

  “But a very different nose,” she said.

  “It only adds to my rugged good looks.”

  I set aside the dressing and drank half the martini. As the last piece of the salad puzzle, I heated a black skillet for the bacon as I cut up a tomato. I then removed the seeds and chopped it into tiny pieces. All the ingredients to the salad sat in pretty piles on the chopping block.

  “Do you know much about Ray Russo’s new life in Memphis?” Susan said. “Let me guess. He’s an Elvis impersonator.”

  “Sadly no,” I said. “Even better.”

  “A pizza chef?”

  “Let’s not stereotype.”

  “A thief with ties to organized crime?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “It looks as if he’s found God.”

  “Like your con man down in Georgia?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I think it’s authentic. Or at least he believes he’s auth
entic. Famous Ray Russo is now an ordained minister at an interdenominational church off Elvis Presley Boulevard.”

  “Aha,” Susan said. “I knew there was an Elvis connection.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” I said. “He’s everywhere.”

  I removed the bacon from the pan and slipped the pieces onto the block. I chopped the pieces and set them aside with the crumbles of blue cheese. I arranged the chopped greens, tomatoes, eggs, cheese, bacon, and avocado in neat sections in two wooden bowls. I reached into the freezer and retrieved the vodka.

  “Careful, big fella,” Susan said. “What time’s your flight?”

  “Six,” I said. “Layover in Atlanta. We’ll be there by ten.”

  Susan snatched the bottle from my hand. She reached into the refrigerator and grabbed me a beer. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

  “How about I thank you more after dinner?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “‘Love Me Tender’?”

  “How about ‘All Shook Up’?” she said, taking a sip of martini. She looked both innocent and devilish at the same time, as only Susan could do.

  “Even better,” I said, leaning over the counter and kissing her hard.

  51

  WITHIN AN HOUR OF TOUCHING down in Memphis, Vinnie and I had a rental and were cruising down Elvis Presley Boulevard. According to Fat Freddy, Ray was now a pastor at the Light Keeper Church only a few miles from Graceland. I said it was time to shake, rattle, and roll. I couldn’t help myself. It was my first time in the city.

  “What’s his new name?” Vinnie said.

  “The Reverend Theo Doménikos.”

  “Famous Ray Russo a Greek?” he said. “Jesus Christ. Now I heard everything.”

  “Not just a Greek,” I said. “The Greek. El Greco was Doménikos Theotokópoulos.”

  “So he does have the painting?” Vinnie said.

  “Or at least he was very inspired.”

  “I known Ray for a long time,” he said. “It’s best I go up to him first. He trusts me. He won’t run.”

  “He won’t think you were sent by Jimmy Morelli?”

  “Never,” Vinnie said. “Ray might not like me. But he’d never think I’d throw in with Jimmy Morelli. Or do his dirty fucking laundry.”

  There wasn’t much glitz on Elvis Presley Boulevard. In fact, it reminded me a hell of a lot of Route 1 cutting though Saugus. We passed a lot of used-car dealers, cheap hotels, pawnshops, and fast food franchises. Someone had spray-painted the words Superman a Dam Fool on the side of a condemned restaurant.

  “Why the hell would Elvis live here?” Vinnie said.

  “Probably didn’t look like this in the fifties,” I said. “Lots of room to drive his pink Cadillacs.”

  “I like Elvis,” Vinnie said. “My sister and I used to go see all his movies at the Suffolk Drive-in. She loved Elvis. Couldn’t go a day without talking about how good-looking he was. I was impressed with the women. He made this one picture, I can’t recall the name, with Nancy Sinatra. He was a race car driver or something. I thought that was pretty cool. I liked Nancy about as much as my older sister loved Elvis.”

  “You can get her a souvenir.”

  “She has one of those clocks with Elvis swinging his hips,” he said. “Maybe I can get her a snow globe or something.”

  “Memphis is your oyster.”

  “I don’t think Ray’s gonna know what happened to Alan,” Vinnie said. “I think that whole thing was a fake out.”

  “All I know is that I saw it,” I said. “And the Winthrop confirmed the paint chips. So whatever Ray had is now with someone else.”

  “Whoever killed Alan.”

  “Yep,” I said. “Looks that way.”

  We spotted Elvis’s old house on the left and the museum complex across the street. Two miles down the road, I turned onto Gateway Drive and drove for a mile until I saw the small white church on the right. The sign outside read NEED A LIFEGUARD? OURS WALKS ON WATER. Light Keeper Church, Theo Doménikos, Pastor. The building was white brick and slope-roofed, with two skinny stained-glass windows facing the street.

  “Toto, we’re not in Revere Beach anymore,” I said.

  “Theo Doménikos,” Vinnie said. “Living down the street from Elvis. You almost got to hand it to Famous Ray.”

  “Almost.”

  I parked in the empty parking lot and we both got out and stretched in the hot morning sun. It had been a warm summer in Boston, but nothing like this. I felt like I was walking into the steam shower at the Harbor Health Club. The air conditioner had barely had time to dry the sweat on my T-shirt.

  As we turned the corner, we saw a man high on motorized scaffolding touching up a sun-faded portrait of Jesus, hands outstretched in a peaceful gesture. The man turned to us as we walked up close, paintbrush in hand. He was a short Hispanic man in white coveralls and a white hat, both splattered in blue paint.

  “We’re looking for Pastor Doménikos,” I said.

  “He no here,” the man said.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  The man shook his head and went back to touching up Jesus’s outstretched right hand. Vinnie had walked ahead of me, reaching the front door of the church. He pulled off a flier and handed it to me. It looked like there was a potluck supper later that evening. Half of the bill was in English and the other in Spanish.

  “Multicultural,” I said.

  “An Italian posing as a Greek, posing as a minister who speaks Spanish,” Vinnie said. “Not a bad cover.”

  “Let’s check in to our hotel,” I said. “Maybe get something to eat before we check out the other addresses I’ve found.”

  “Anything to eat down here besides grits?”

  “Vinnie, you wouldn’t know a grit if you saw one.”

  “It’s just fucking polenta,” he said. “Don’t try and fool me.”

  He had me there. We got into the car and headed back the same way along Elvis Presley Boulevard.

  “Small church,” Vinnie said. “Supper for the poor, reaching out to Mexicans, and all that. I don’t see Famous Ray’s angle.”

  “Maybe he’s not working an angle,” I said.

  “Famous Ray?” Vinnie said. “He’s been working schemes since he was born. He may change his town, his looks, and his name, but deep down he’s the same. I know a thousand guys like Ray, and as much as they want to be somebody else, nothing’s ever gonna change. You know how many guys I know would give their left nut to go straight? But if being a crook is in your DNA, nothing’s gonna change. He’s got something cooking down here. Probably donations. If it were me, that’s what I’d do.”

  “You’re a cynical man, Vinnie Morris.”

  “And you ain’t, Spenser?” Vinnie said. “Come on. I know you. You know me. Let’s eat. I can deal with Ray’s bullshit better on a full stomach.”

  52

  VINNIE AND I FOUND a place called The Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison Avenue. We drank cold Ghost River on draught and ate ribs. The ribs were lean and well done with a dry rub. Both of us polished off an entire rack each. The clean bones lay on a plate in between us.

  “Not bad,” Vinnie said. “We don’t have shit like this in Boston.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Good shit is hard to find.”

  “I wonder if Ray misses a good Italian meal?” Vinnie said. “Maybe we should’ve tempted him with some stuff from Salumeria Italiana.”

  “With every good answer, we feed him a stuffed olive.”

  “And with every wrong one, he gets a knuckle sandwich.”

  The first address I’d found wasn’t good. A man named Doménikos had lived there a few years ago, but a neighbor told me he was in his eighties and had been put in a nursing home. The second address was in midtown Memphis off Rembert Street. The street was lined with small h
ouses and crooked mailboxes. Famous Ray had taken up residence in a small white house up a sloping drive. The house looked to have been built in the forties, with few improvements since. A mailbox hung by the front door overflowed with bills and fliers, some of them addressed to Doménikos, others to someone named A. Lisle.

  I knocked on a few doors. “Father” Doménikos had lived there earlier in the year but moved out a few months ago. No one knew where he’d gone.

  We decided to check in to the Peabody Hotel and rest for a couple hours. I lay on the bed and flipped through the news and ESPN, checking the games. At five, I showered and changed into fresh clothes and met Vinnie in the lobby. He had on a rust paisley sport coat over a wide-collared white shirt, black trousers, and polished black shoes. His hair was slicked back and had on a pair of gold 1970s Elvis glasses.

  “Elvis has entered the building,” I said.

  He jacked his thumb at the shop by the elevators. “Lansky Brothers,” he said. “They made all his clothes. I figured what the hell.”

  “You’ll look right at home where we’re going.”

  “Sure,” Vinnie said. “Right. Exactly what I was thinking.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were back on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Vinnie drove this time, windows cracked to let out the floral fragrance sprayed in the rental.

  “At the church, he’ll be insulated,” I said. “We need to talk to him alone.”

  “Rental’s got a big trunk.”

  “Maybe a more subtle effort.”

  “Hold him up by his ankles and shake out the truth,” Vinnie said.

  “Perhaps I should be the one who talks with him.”

  Vinnie nodded and we turned onto Winchester, following the road back to the Light Keeper Church. The lot was filled with pickup trucks and battered cars. White lights had been strung from landscaping posts on the front lawn. Several tables laid out with red-and-white checked tablecloths with families milling about. Mostly black members, but many Hispanics, too.

  Vinnie parked down the street. He turned off the ignition, looked to me, and shrugged.

  “He ain’t gonna talk.”