“We been through this before,” Spike said. “You love Richie?”
“Yes.”
“He love you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, one of the things love means is you help each other.”
“I know.”
“Richie wanted help, would you help him?”
“Yes. But to ask him to ask his family?”
“Richie asked you to help his uncle, would you do it?”
“Felix?”
“Yeah, Felix.”
“If Richie asked me.”
Spike leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers in front of his chin and smiled at me.
“God, you’re smug,” I said.
“With good reason,” Spike said.
“If I am going to find out what happened…” I said.
“You’re going to have to go through Tony,” Spike said.
“And if I am going to go through Tony and survive…”
“You’re going to need the Burkes,” Spike said.
We listened to Rosie work on the bone for a while.
“You’re right,” I said.
“If there’s a meeting and they want a public place on neutral ground, you can meet here.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER
54
WE DIDN’T MEET at Spike’s place. We gathered at one of the picnic tables set up on the rim of the parking lot at a rest area on Route 3, south of Boston. I sat on one side with Richie’s father. Tony Marcus sat across from us. At the next table were Richie and his uncle Felix. Ty-Bop leaned on the fender of a Lincoln Town Car with his arms folded and jittered to the beat of a different drummer. Junior loomed motionless beside him. Both sides had brought some soldiers, white guys with the Burkes, black guys with Marcus, and they sat, motors idling, in the parking lot. I could see Buster and Colley in one car.
Tony smiled at me.
“For a pretty little girl,” he said, “you do stir things around.”
This didn’t seem the right time to explain to him that I was a woman, not a girl, so I smiled back at him.
“Just doing my job,” I said.
“So, Desmond,” Tony said to Richie’s father, “what can I do for you?”
Desmond Burke had one of those ascetic Irish faces you see staring out of old IRA photographs. In another time he probably would have sought martyrdom at the barricades. He sat with his chin resting on his folded hands.
“As you might know, Tony, Sunny is like a daughter to me.”
“Phil Randall know about this?”
In his own way Desmond Burke was a zealot, and like most zealots, he was humorless.
“So, if she’s having a problem, I take it to be my problem as well.”
“Nothing like a loving family,” Tony said.
I glanced around. At the next table Felix Burke was paying no attention to us. He sat and stared at Ty-Bop. Felix was Desmond’s younger brother, a thick-bodied man with sloped shoulders, a former boxer with scar tissue that narrowed his eyes and thickened his nose. Desmond was the theoretician of the Burke enterprise. Felix ran the implementation. I looked at Ty-Bop. He wasn’t looking at us, either. He was watching Felix. Richie was watching me. When I looked at him, he winked.
“I don’t much like it that Sunny wants to be a detective,” Desmond said. “But Sunny don’t seem much to care a damn whether I like it or not. She wants to be a detective, so she is.”
“Broads do that,” Tony said.
I imagined Mary Lou Goddard listening to this conversation.
“Now, Sunny needs some help from you, and she figures she goes at you by herself, you might get annoyed and have the jitterbug over there put her down.”
If Ty-Bop heard himself called a jitterbug, he didn’t react. Maybe Ty-Bop didn’t listen to anything but gunfire.
“Sunny,” Tony said, “you think I’d do that?”
“Of course you would,” I said.
Desmond smiled. His smile was only facial. It was as if he knew when he was supposed to smile and he did so the way someone does for a photograph. The smile didn’t linger and when it disappeared it left no trace.
“So I thought we might sit down and work out some sort of agreement,” Desmond said.
He glanced back toward one of the cars idling near us, and raised his voice.
“Colley,” he said, “bring me that thermos.”
Colley got out of the car carrying a tall green thermos bottle with a silver cap that doubled as a cup.
“I took the liberty of bringing some coffee,” Desmond said. “You want some?”
Tony shook his head. Desmond didn’t offer it to anyone else. Colley unscrewed the cup carefully, took off the inner cap, and poured the coffee into the cup. Desmond nodded.
“Leave it,” he said.
Colley set the thermos down and went back to the car. There was tension in his movements. Desmond picked up the cup with both hands and sipped at the coffee.
“What kind of agreement,” Tony said.
If he felt any tension, he didn’t show it. He seemed entirely relaxed, a pleasant man sitting at a picnic table with a few friends. Around us, closer to the building where the rest rooms were, tourists in bad-looking shorts and colorful tops carrying cameras and children embarked and disembarked, but they were inconsequential to this event, evanescent in the ordinariness of their comings and goings.
“Sunny’s investigating a couple killings,” Desmond said. “She says the investigation might stray over into your turf.”
Tony didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem afraid of Desmond. Though Desmond was easy to be afraid of. In fact Tony never seemed afraid of anything. Which is probably how he got to be who he was.
“If it did,” Desmond said, “we don’t want you to clip her.”
Tony grinned.
“Direct,” Tony said. “Always liked that about you, Des, you’re direct.”
“Fact, we’d appreciate it if you helped her.”
“Even if it’s not in my interest?” Tony said.
I noticed that most of the black sound disappeared from his voice as he talked with Desmond.
“Sunny will keep you out of it.”
“How do I know I can trust her?”
“You can trust me,” Desmond said.
“And saying she does drift into my yard, and say I don’t like it, why shouldn’t I put her down?”
“Because we been coexisting nice in this town and we wouldn’t want that to change.”
“You’d go to war over this little broad?” Tony said.
“Family,” Desmond said.
He held his coffee in both hands, with his elbows resting on the tabletop, and tilted the cup slightly to drink. His eyes were very deep-set and he looked steadily at Tony over the rim of the cup. Tony leaned back a little on his side of the table, resting his hands palms down on the tabletop. He drummed his fingers lightly.
“I notice you’ve got a couple of hooligans following her around.”
I felt a small clench in the center of my stomach. Tony had been keeping track of me.
“Two fine Irish lads,” Desmond said.
Tony drummed on the table some more.
“It would make doing business harder, if we had to slug it out with you at the same time.”
“It would,” Desmond said.
Tony drummed some more.
“I make no promises,” he said. “But if Sunny wants to come see me tomorrow, she comes alone, no flounder-belly Irish goons trailing after her, we’ll talk and nothing will happen to her. After that it’s one day at a time.”
Desmond looked at me. I nodded. Rich
ie was looking at Tony Marcus.
“If something happens to Sunny,” Richie said, “you’re dead.”
Felix didn’t seem to move but somehow I could see him focus more closely on Ty-Bop. I thought that Ty-Bop became a little stiller. Richie’s stare could make doorknobs fall off. It was the part of him I never fully understood, nor ever fully liked. But if it bothered Tony, he mastered his emotions. Tony smiled.
“We’re all dead sooner or later,” Tony said.
“Sooner,” Richie said.
CHAPTER
55
I WAS GOING to see Tony Marcus in the morning and I was thinking about it. A gun wouldn’t do me much good if things went bad, but no matter, it would make me feel better to have one. Or two. I got out a two-shot .38 derringer from the closet where I locked up my guns, and experimented with where to conceal it on my person, until the phone rang. It was Elizabeth.
“I signed the papers,” she said when I answered the phone.
“Elizabeth?”
“Of course. I signed his fucking papers for him.”
“Divorce papers,” I said.
“Naturally.”
“That seems wise,” I said.
“And I just wanted you to know that I’m going out on the town to celebrate.”
“Good idea.”
“And I’ve got a date.”
I was completely insincere.
“Really?” I said. “Tell me about him.”
“His name is Harvey. I haven’t met him yet, but he’s supposed to be fabulously wealthy.”
“How’d you come to date him?”
“Well, I decided that it was time to stop sitting passively by, so I took steps.”
“Such as?”
Elizabeth’s voice got that defiant sound it got when she’d done something that embarrassed her and she didn’t want to admit it.
“I took out an ad in the Personals column.”
“And Harvey responded?”
“Yes.”
“Was it from him you learned of his fabulous wealth?”
“Are we just a little jealous?” Elizabeth said.
“Where are you going to meet him?”
“Steak-O-Rama in Braintree.”
In a shopping center off Route 3. Where all the multimillionaires hung out.
“Do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Meet him there and leave him there. Don’t let him know where you live and don’t be alone with him until you get to know him.”
“You think he might be dangerous?”
“I don’t know that he isn’t,” I said. “But it does no harm to let the relationship develop.”
“I really do think you’re jealous. Just a teensy bit?”
“Sisterly concern,” I said.
“Well, just remember I’m not a little girl. Certainly you know I can take care of myself.”
Just like you did with Mort.
“Sure,” I said. “Have a nice time.”
After I hung up, I looked down my loft at Rosie sleeping on her back on my bed.
“Thank God,” I said to her, “you’re not a jerk.”
I tried the derringer in my bra. It was too heavy, it interfered with the bra’s primary duty, and it made me look like I was carrying a concealed unicorn. I put on a big, loose thigh-length sport jacket with big pockets and tried that. No good. I didn’t want to rummage about in so big a pocket if I needed the gun. My phone rang again.
“Please don’t be Elizabeth,” I said to the phone.
It wasn’t. It was Julie.
CHAPTER
56
“I TALKED WITH Michael,” Julie said.
“And?”
“It was awful but it was important too. He’s so angry. But he’s so decent.”
“What did you talk about?” I said.
“Us.”
“I sort of guessed that,” I said. “What about ‘us’?”
“We are going to get some therapy.”
“Separately?”
“Yes. Couples therapy is about solving the relationship. I need to solve myself and so does Michael.”
“What do you think Michael has to solve?”
“That’s up to Michael and his shrink,” Julie said. “If I were them, I’d certainly want to examine why Michael has accepted my acting-out behavior for so long.”
“And you?”
I could hear a rueful smile in Julie’s voice.
“I’d examine why I’ve been acting out for so long.”
“How does Michael feel about therapy?” I said. “He doesn’t seem the type.”
“No he isn’t. But he’s smart. And I think he can do it, if he’s brave enough.”
“Is he doing this in hopes of saving the marriage?”
“Oh, I’m sure he is. But psychotherapy goes where it will go, and what you think you’re after at the be ginning may not in fact be what you want later on.”
“True,” I said.
“So,” Julie said, “are you proud of me?”
“Sure,” I said. “This seems like progress. Are you still seeing Robert?”
“I’m not seeing anyone for the time being, until I get myself straightened out. Dating can serve as a sort of anodyne. I need to come to be able to be alone, be fore I can be with anyone.”
“Well, I feel good about this,” I said. “This is going to work out. I don’t know how. I don’t know if you and Michael will be together or apart. But I know either way you’re both going to be fine.”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely.”
At least sort of absolutely.
After we hung up, I went back to thinking about my visit to Tony Marcus, and Junior. And Ty-Bop. Was I scared? Yes. I guessed I was. It was so not a useful feeling that I kept it tamped down. But if I turned and looked straight at it, yes, I was scared.
“Why,” I said to Rosie, “do you suppose that no one’s calling up and saying ‘How are you, Sunny? Are you scared? Do you have something bad to do tomorrow? Are you okay? Can I do anything?’ Why do you suppose that is, Rosie?”
Rosie squirmed around a little on the bed, still on her back, and let her head loll toward me so that her black oval eyes were looking right at me.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s right. We had a little spurt of self-pity there. I’ll try not to do it too much.”
I undressed and put on my pj’s and took off my face and washed. Then I loaded my short Smith & Wesson, and put two bullets into the derringer, and laid them side by side on my night table, and went to bed.
CHAPTER
57
I WAS WEARING ease-of-movement clothes—jeans, a tee shirt, and sneakers—when I went into Buddy’s Fox, where Tony Marcus kept his office. I had the .38 in my belly pack, and the derringer in an ankle holster. The booths along the right wall were maybe half full of people having eggs and home fries. Junior loomed on a bar stool, leaning back against the bar, with his elbows resting on the bar top. Ty-Bop stood beside him eating peanuts and bouncing on his toes to the sound of something he was listening to on headphones. Both looked at me as I came in. Neither said anything. I was the only white person in the place. I felt exposed and inappropriate.
The bartender was setting up for the day and when he saw me, he nodded toward the narrow hallway to the right of the bar. I walked past the booths and down the short hallway and knocked on the door at the end.
“Come in.”
I turned the knob and went in.
Tony was sitting in a high-backed red leather swivel chair at a big old mission oak table. The table had a phone on it, and a blank yellow legal-sized pad, and a Bic pen, and nothing else. Neither Junior nor
Ty-Bop followed me.
“Shut the door,” Tony said.
He was wearing a black suit with a wide chalk stripe, a white shirt, and a shimmering orange silk tie.
I shut the door. Tony got up and came around his table.
“I have to know if you’re wearing a wire,” Tony said.
I stood and turned my back to him and held my hands out away from my sides. Tony ran his hands over me without copping any more feel than he had to. If he discovered the ankle holster he didn’t say so.
“Lemme see the belly pack,” Tony said.
I unstrapped it and handed it to him. He unzipped it, took my gun out, looked inside, put the gun back in, zipped the belly pack back up, and handed it to me.
“Sit,” Tony said.
I sat in a straight-backed mission oak chair.
“Anything I say in here,” Tony said, “I’ll deny outside of here. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Did you have Jermaine Lister killed?” I said.
Tony smiled.
“Sunny Randall,” he said and shook his head slowly. “It’s what I like about you. You don’t fuck around.”
“Did you?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“He made a run at you.”
“Without your approval?”
“Hell, without my knowledge.”
“And you like me so much you had him killed?” I said.
“I do like you that much,” Tony said. “But I had him killed ’cause he was a loose fucking cannon, and I wanted him quiet.”
“About what?”
“About everything you want to know,” Tony said. “It’s why I’m talking to you. I figure maybe you get your curiosity satisfied, you’ll stop fucking with this case.”
“Why not kill me?”
“I keep telling you,” Tony said. “I like you, Sunny Randall.”
“And I’m harder to kill than Jermaine because nobody gives much of a damn about him, but the Burkes would take an interest in me.”
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