Cold Service

by Robert B. Parker

  "So far, so good," I said.

  Susan smiled.

  "Yes," she said. "So far, very good."

  50

  "SHOOTING START TODAY," Hawk said. "Leonard tell you?"

  "Yep."

  "Tell you the time?"

  "Nope."

  We were in Hawk's car, parked at the curb in the little square that fronted City Hall. It was 7 A.M. on a May morning, and even Marshport had a fresh May morning quality as we sipped our coffee and watched the few people employed in Marshport straggle along to work.

  "My guess is soon," I said.

  "Ford Expedition?" Hawk said. "On the corner?"

  "Yes."

  "Best I could see through the tinted glass," Hawk said, "there be several aggressive-looking brothers in there."

  "Car's black, too," I said.

  "As it should be," Hawk said.

  "Bet there's some more around," I said.

  "Blue Town Car over there," Hawk said. "Other corner."

  "And maybe a couple back of the building."

  "Pretty sure," Hawk said. "Vinnie's back there, case things go that way."

  "With cell phone?" I said.

  "Un-huh."

  "How did we crime busters function without them all those years?"

  "Yelled loud," Hawk said.

  "You know what I like here?" I said. "There's a bunch of black guys waiting in cars to shoot it up with a bunch of white guys, and it's not about race."

  "Be about power and money, mostly," Hawk said.

  "Race can't hold a candle," I said.

  "What can?" Hawk said.

  We drank some coffee. Nobody did anything. The Expedition and the Town Car sat quietly.

  "Gray Man know?" I said.

  "Un-huh."

  At eight o'clock, a few public servants began to drift into City Hall.

  "They waiting for Boots to arrive," Hawk said.

  "If they don't spot him when he arrives, how will they know he's there?" I said. "He might come in through his private tunnel."

  "Whenever go time is, they go," Hawk said. "He ain't in there, they shoot somebody else. Be an object lesson."

  "Lot of people to shoot," I said.

  Hawk shook his head.

  "Leonard running this," Hawk said. "He pretty slick. He know Tony don't like to shoot civilians. Civilians stay down and out the way, they be safe enough."

  "Hiding behind a desk in the middle of a shootout is not what everyone would consider safe."

  Hawk smiled.

  "Things be relative," he said.

  "Tony has Leonard running it," I said.

  "Un-huh. Tony pretty good with a gun, and he ain't scared of much, but he know who he is and what he do best, and he know how to delegate. Leonard can run this."

  "And he wouldn't send Ty Bop or Junior," I said. "They're specialists."

  "They belong to Tony. Junior will stomp somebody if Tony tells him, and Ty Bop shoot who Tony tell him. But they main work is protecting Tony."

  "Like a closer," I said.

  "Un-huh."

  "Age of specialization," I said.

  We had some more coffee. Whoever was going to work appeared to have gone. The square was quiet. At 9:35, a small procession arrived at City Hall. A police van pulled up, and some SWAT types got out with automatic weapons and spread out in front of City Hall. Then a limo pulled up and Boots got out and walked up the front steps and into City Hall with a Ukrainian on either side of him, and four uniformed cops around them. The SWAT types got back in the van and the van pulled away.

  At 10:00 Leonard and five other men got out of the Expedition. One of the men carried a shoulder bag. They walked across the square and into City Hall.

  "Here we go," I said.

  Hawk nodded.

  "Good," Hawk said. " 'Cause we out of coffee."

  "They're wearing some Kevlar," I said. "But I don't see heavy weapons."

  "Something in the bag," Hawk said.

  "Grenades, maybe?"

  "Maybe," Hawk said. "Maybe something disassembled."

  "Maybe ammo," I said.

  "Be prepared," Hawk said.

  We heard a single gunshot from City Hall. It wasn't very loud and, muffled by the building, it didn't sound like much of anything unless you were listening for it.

  "Be the cop in the lobby," Hawk said.

  Hawk's cell phone doubled as a car phone. It rang.

  We heard three more shots.

  Hawk pressed the speaker button.

  "Yo," he said.

  The Gray Man said, "They are in the building. I've encouraged Podolak to exit through the tunnel. The Ukrainians will take him."

  "Car?"

  "Yes, in the garage, a silver Volvo SUV."

  "Exchange Street exit?"

  "Almost certainly."

  "You?"

  I could almost hear the Gray Man's mirthless, wispy smile.

  "I have my own plans," he said. "We'll talk again."

  The connection broke. Hawk pressed the end button and put the car in gear, and we drove around the square and a block up, where we could see the Exchange Street exit from the garage. We were far enough away so that the gunfire, which had become more frequent, was a barely audible sequence of pops. A block from the field of fire, you wouldn't know anything was up. In the distance, I could hear a siren.

  "Reinforcements," I said.

  "My guess," Hawk said, "they going to run into some sort of roadblock 'fore they get here. I tole you. Leonard's pretty slick."

  As he spoke, the silver Volvo SUV came out of the garage and went west on Franklin Street.

  "Tally ho," Hawk said, and we drove along Franklin Street behind them.

  51

  HAWK COULD TAIL a fox through a henhouse, and neither the fox nor the hens would know it. While he drove along, three cars in back of the silver Volvo, I called Vinnie. "We're on Franklin Street, going west behind Boots," I said. "You should probably go home before somebody shoots you."

  Vinnie said "Sure," and broke the connection.

  "Vinnie don't say much," Hawk said.

  "You wish he'd talk more?" I said.

  "God, no," Hawk said.

  We went through Saugus and up Route 1. We went east on Route 128 and south on 114.

  "We seem to be moving in a large circle," I said.

  "Be safer to go around the fight than through it," Hawk said.

  "Plus," I said, "fooling anyone trying to follow."

  "You bet," Hawk said.

  After an hour and a half, we ended up almost next door to Marshport in the Phillips's Point section of Swampscott, near Tedesco Rocks, a bit beyond the foot of a long driveway that wound up to a squat little flat-roofed fieldstone castle with a crenelated roofline and a round tower at one end. The silver Volvo had pulled into that driveway and parked in the big circle at the top.

  "Tasteful," Hawk said.

  "Probably got boiling oil," I said, "ready on the roof."

  "At least there no drawbridge," Hawk said.

  We sat and looked at the house. It sat high on some sort of ledge. The ocean was below it in the back. There was land on both sides, between it and its neighbors.

  "Got an entry plan?" I said.

  "No."

  "Good to be working with a pro," I said. "Assuming we get in, you got an exit plan?"

  "Same as usual," Hawk said.

  "Run like hell?" I said.

  "That one," Hawk said.

  We sat for a while more with the car windows down. It was a warm, damp, and overcast day. The kind of day that might feature a thunderstorm before it was over. A car passed us in the other direction. A solitary gull swung over us on its way to the sea.

  "Here the plan," Hawk said.

  "Oh, good," I said.

  "We walks up the driveway and rings the front doorbell."

  "Un-huh."

  "Tha's it," Hawk said.

  I didn't say anything. Hawk didn't say anything. Above us, the gull did another long sweep.


  "Well," I said finally, "it's an easy plan to remember."

  We got out of the car. Hawk opened the trunk and took out two dark-blue Kevlar vests. He handed me one. I put it on and adjusted the Velcro straps. Hawk put his on.

  "Don't tell Vinnie we wore these," I said. "He'll think we're sissies."

  "He don't have to know," Hawk said.

  We started up the driveway. Hawk had his big.44 out and concealed behind his right leg. I had brought my Browning nine-millimeter.

  "Put the gun away," Hawk said. "We get in, I take the Ukrainians. You take Boots. I don't want him dead."

  "Okay if I tickle him?" I said.

  "Long as he don't die," Hawk said.

  I holstered the Browning.

  It was a long walk up the driveway. Except for the easy long cycle of the seagull's pattern, nothing happened as we walked it. No dogs barked. No alarms sounded. No one yelled, "Hey you." No one shot us. Only the slow silence and the seagull. It was a white seagull with some gray. There are actually many kinds of seagulls. Maybe this one was a herring gull. Maybe it didn't make all that much difference what this one was.

  At the front door, Hawk put his left hand over the peephole and rang the bell.

  There was movement, then silence, then a voice said, "What?"

  Hawk said something in a language that might have been Ukrainian. And after a moment, the door opened on a chain. Hawk and I hit it simultaneously as it opened, and the chain pulled loose. The door flew open, and the man who opened it staggered backward, raising a handgun as he staggered. Hawk shot him once in the face, under the left eye.

  "Lyaksandro," Hawk said, as if he were checking him off a list.

  We were in a high foyer full of heavy furniture. Two men appeared in the archway to our right. One of them was Boots, with a small handgun. The other man had an Uzi. I dove at Boots. I heard Hawk fire. I rammed into Boots and he went down. I got hold of the handgun and twisted it sideways as he fired. He kept firing. I kept twisting. The bullets splintered into some of the heavy furniture. He struggled to turn it toward me and failed. Then the gun was empty. He let it go and began to fight me. With my left hand, I got hold of his hair and rolled sideways, twisting him with me. He was flailing at me with both fists, but I was too close to him for him to get much behind the punches. He didn't have much of a punch, anyway. I put my forearm under his chin and pressed it against his throat. He tried to bite me. I pressed harder. He was having trouble breathing.

  "Okay," he croaked. "Okay."

  I took my forearm off his neck, kept hold of his hair, and got us both on our feet. Hawk was looking down at the man with the Uzi.

  "Vanko," he said.

  It was hard to hear him. The room still seemed full of gunfire. My ears rang. Hawk put the.44 away and looked at me and Boots.

  "What the fuck?" Boots said.

  "Shut up," Hawk said.

  He looked at me.

  "Bring him," he said, and turned and walked past the two dead men, out the front door, and toward the car parked down the hill.

  52

  WE WERE IN my office. We had parked illegally in the alley and come up the back way and encountered nobody. I was sitting at my desk, which always ups my sense of self-worth. Boots was in a client chair. Hawk was standing between Boots and my office door. Boots was looking silently at nothing, staring out the window behind me, maybe contemplating eternity. "What the hell was that mumbo jumbo at the door?" I said to Hawk.

  "Ukrainian," Hawk said. "I said, 'Hurry up, it's an emergency.' "

  "You speak Ukrainian?" I said.

  "Memorized the phrase, case I needed it."

  "Like you memorized the five Ukrainians involved in shooting Luther," I said.

  "Names and faces," Hawk said.

  "Remind me not to annoy you," I said.

  "Too late," Hawk said.

  Boots continued to stare blankly. He seemed smaller than he had been, and limp. Like an uprooted weed.

  Standing behind him, Hawk said, "You didn't make a break for it, so I figure you hoping to live."

  Boots stared.

  "You hoping to live?" Hawk said.

  Boots didn't answer. Hawk cuffed him on the back of the head.

  "You hoping?" Hawk said.

  Boots shrugged.

  "Hard being tough when you alone," Hawk said. "Easier when some of your people around."

  Boots shrugged again.

  "You got a chance," Hawk said. "You do what I tell you."

  Boots was motionless for a moment, then nodded.

  "You give me ten million dollars," Hawk said. Boots was silent for a time, and when he finally spoke, his voice sounded as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.

  "I don't have that," he said.

  Hawk took out his gun and pressed the barrel hard against Boots's right temple. He cocked it. The mechanical sound of the hammer going back was harsh in the quiet room.

  " 'Course you do," Hawk said.

  "I don't. I mean, I may be worth it, but I don't have that in cash."

  "How much you got in cash?"

  "Maybe five?"

  Hawk looked at me.

  "Marty Siegal told me, if you shop, you can get a secure three percent at the moment."

  "Hundred and fifty thousand a year," Hawk said. "Think Rita will shop?"

  "Somebody will," I said.

  "Think one hundred fifty thousand enough?"

  "Probably more than Luther made," I said.

  Hawk nodded.

  "How 'bout inflation?" Hawk said. "Kid's still a baby."

  "Invested right, it'll grow with inflation."

  "And Rita will invest it right," Hawk said.

  Then he smiled and said in unison with me, "Somebody will."

  During the conversation, Boots sat motionless and without affect.

  "Okay," Hawk said to Boots. "Five it is. I find out you had more and you dead."

  Boots nodded. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. It was the first sign of life in him.

  "You gonna wire-transfer it to an account I'll give you. When the transfer is done and the money in the account, you free as a buzzard."

  "I don't know how to do that," Boots said. "My accountant does that."

  "Where you accountant?" Hawk said.

  "State Street."

  "In town here?" Hawk said.

  "Yes."

  "Well, then he probably still alive."

  Without taking the gun from Boots's head, Hawk leaned forward and took the cordless phone from my desk and handed it to Boots.

  "I don't know what to tell him," Boots said.

  "Give him the paper from Rita," Hawk said.

  I did.

  "Routing number, account number, all that stuff," I said.

  Boots was afraid to move his head with the cocked gun at his temple. He raised the paper so he could see it. Then he took in some air and dialed the number.

  53

  "IT IS ALL over the news," Susan said. "Says the whole town of Marshport erupted. Police came from as far away as Worcester. Governor put the National Guard on alert. Something like ten people killed; the number keeps going up and down. A fire at City Hall. The mayor is missing. The city is being run by the deputy mayor, somebody named McKean." "The Kodiak Kid," I said.

  "Who?"

  I shook my head.

  "I assume you know something about this," Susan said.

  "Yes."

  "I won't ask for details, but I need to know something."

  "I'll tell you anything you want to know," I said.

  "How many dead?"

  "Since the beginning?"

  "Yes. Since they shot Hawk."

  "Counting Luther and his family, and the people did the shooting, and the Marshport numbers, maybe twenty."

  "How many are you responsible for?"

  "Depends," I said. "I helped Hawk set this up."

  "Helped him, or watched his back while he did it?" Susan said.

  I shrugged.

&
nbsp; "Mostly the latter," I said.

  "How many people did you shoot?" Susan said.

  "None," I said.

  "Good," she said.

  It was evening. We were sitting on her front steps with Pearl, watching the action on Linnaean Street, at which Pearl was poised to bark, if there was any, which there wasn't.

  "Responsibility is complicated," I said.

  "Not if you shot them," Susan said. "Then it would be simple."

  "So maybe sometimes complicated is better," I said.

  "I think so," she said. "How do you feel?"

  "Uneasy about it all," I said.

  "But?"

  "But I did the best I could with it."

  "Yes," Susan said, "you did."

  A squirrel leaped with no apparent anxiety from a high branch to a low one. Pearl's large ears pricked forward, and her shoulders tensed. The squirrel jumped from the tree to a fence, and ran along the top of it. Pearl watched closely until it disappeared and, ever hopeful, for a time afterward.

  "What happened to Boots?" Susan said.

  "He wire-transferred five million dollars to an account at Rita's firm. It'll be invested on behalf of Luther Gillespie's surviving child."

  "Does Rita know about investing?" Susan said.

  "My guess is that Rita can't balance her checkbook. She'll have one of the trust lawyers manage it, and she'll godmother it."

  "What will that provide for the child?" Susan said.

  "More than one hundred thousand dollars a year," I said.

  Susan nodded. We watched as two women with long, gray hair, one with it braided, strolled past us toward Mass. Ave.

  "Is Cambridge the long, gray hair capital of the world?" I said.

  "Un-huh."

  "Great look," I said.

  "Un-huh. Where is he now?"

  "Boots?"

  Susan nodded.

  "Part of the deal," I said. "Boots comes up with the five million, Hawk lets him stroll."

  "Just walk away?"

  "Yep."

  "So he's free and alive?"

  "For the moment."

  "For the moment?"

  "Boots won't be able to leave this alone," I said. "Eventually, he'll make a run at Hawk, and Hawk will kill him."

  "You're so sure," Susan said.

  "I am."

  "Why did Hawk let him go?"