Robert B. Parker's Kickback

by Ace Atkins

  She bit her lower lip and nodded. I wrapped my arms around her and rested my head on her shoulder. “What about the woman?” she said. “The lawyer? Will she help?”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s the one who tipped the men off to snatch me.”

  “But you already knew that,” she said. “Why you had Hawk following you.”

  “I had doubts about her integrity.”

  “What about now?” Susan said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s in a different situation,” she said. “If she had any doubts about covering for the judges, perhaps this may have put her over the edge.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “The shootings made the news,” Susan said. “If she isn’t a complete sociopath, this will rattle her a great deal and could make her more likely to discuss private matters with you.”

  “She knew she was setting me up.”

  “How do you know?”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. Channel 7 news teased SHOOTING IN SOUTHIE. Three dead. Local reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan was at the scene.

  “I could ask her,” I said. “I know where she lives.”

  “I could go with you,” Susan said.

  “Moral support?”

  “Push her some,” she said. “I could perhaps persuade her in a way you couldn’t.”

  I nodded. “Therapeutic talk?”

  Susan shook her head. “She needs to be slapped around,” she said. “She almost got you killed. You can’t physically threaten her. But I can.”

  “Maybe I should go alone.”

  Susan looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps that would be best.”

  “Can’t have shrinks slapping around vulnerable people.”

  Susan took me by my chin and kissed me full on the mouth. “You look kind of vulnerable right now,” she said. “I kind of like it.”

  Susan wandered back to the bedroom. She left the door wide open.

  I took a long sip of the bourbon.

  And followed.

  He slept outside all night. No one came looking for him. The guards must’ve thought he had nowhere to go and would eventually turn himself in. But he didn’t. He kept moving, finally settling into a small island of trees on the south side of the island at the bottom of the big hill facing the ocean. He found part of a blue tarp to use as a blanket and some pieces of cardboard to make a little shelter against a young tree. The sound of the ocean was strong, and at night, when the lights went off on the island, Boston looked like a bright jewel. He had nothing to eat. The fever and the shakes were coming on again.

  But he couldn’t be sure if he shook from the sickness or the cold. He crawled out of the shelter sometime in the early morning where the hills had eroded into the beach. He searched through the pieces of trash that had spilled from the old landfill. Looking for anything to keep him warm. He found some ragged but dry pieces of cloth, maybe part of old pants and a shirt, and used them to make a nest to sleep.

  He couldn’t sleep. The wind blew stronger. And at one point, a hard gust toppled his whole shelter. It took an hour in the full dark to rebuild and settle back into the nest. Everything smelled of garbage and rot. He didn’t care. He buried his head deeper in the mess. He tried to sleep. He had a fever but couldn’t sweat in the cold. He wanted to throw up. But his stomach was empty.

  The cold was too much to take. If he could have moved, he would have walked back. He would have quit. But he was weak and the cold was so deep and paralyzing that he was pretty sure he’d die out here. He knew they’d kick him into the sea or bury him deep with all of the city’s garbage from years ago. They wouldn’t find him. He’d be nothing.

  The sun is what kept him going. He lay facing the hills when the black became a bright, electric blue. He staggered to his feet and dragged the ripped blue tarp on top of the hill. He wrapped the tarp around him, still sick and breathing hard. He tried his best to will the sun to come on faster to warm things up even just a little, hard waves beating against the thin cut of beach. A hollowness turned in his stomach. There was a prick of light coming on. The blue light shading into orange. Just a wisp of clouds over the ocean, a light roll of the waves. The little light became a small ball shooting out spectrums of light, turning the entire horizon orange. The boy made it to his feet. He wore the tarp over his shaved head, wind rattling around him.

  “Isn’t that pretty?” a voice said behind him.

  It was Robocop.

  The boy turned. He wavered on his feet, not from being afraid but from the hunger and the sickness.

  “I thought you’d be dead by now.”

  The boy didn’t say anything. Only the wind off the Atlantic answered.

  “I hoped you were dead,” he said. “Come on.”

  The boy didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

  “I said come on.”

  The boy shook his head. The light bled up over the beach and onto the hills, crossing the shadows of his feet and the space that separated them.

  “You’ll take what’s coming to you.”

  The boy shook his head.

  The guard pulled out a police baton and walked fast, trampling the sun in the dead grass. “Come on, you little fucker.” He raised the baton, and as he wavered over the boy’s head, the boy snatched it from him and thwacked the man on the side of the head.

  The man yelped in pain. The boy did not stop. He hit the man again and again until he saw the blood. The man was on his knees when he heard the yelling. A fat woman in uniform and an old guy holding a gun ran up onto the hill. The old woman was out of shape and breathing hard when she told him to drop the weapon. The boy waited a beat and then tossed the baton off the hill and down to the narrow beach. He felt empty, spent, almost hollow with lack of sleep and food.

  Robocop got to his feet and wiped blood off his mouth. He snatched a Taser from the fat woman’s hand, and before he had time to react, shoved it up under the boy’s arm. The pain of it nearly lifted him off his feet. He clenched his teeth, not wanting to show the pain, as the man zapped him again.

  He fell with a thud. Robocop looked down at the boy. He spit in his face.

  “Get this piece of shit back to the compound,” he said. “He tried to fucking kill me. That’s attempted murder.”

  The boy fell to his back, trying to catch his breath. He looked up at the bright sky. The fat woman, the old guy, and Robocop grouped in a sloppy circle. The kid just tried to breathe.

  “He’s screwed,” the fat woman said, her voice gaspy and excited. “That’s attempted murder. He ain’t never getting home.”

  51

  Sydney Bennett lived in the South End on the second floor of an old redbrick row house. Hawk and I drove past the address the next morning. Hawk sat in the passenger seat and stared right ahead, and we drove along Appleton at a slow, yet confident, pace. A lot of cars had been covered in the sleet and snow overnight but the streets had been scraped clean as a fat man’s dinner plate. “Someone’s minding the woman,” Hawk said.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Guess you figured that,” Hawk said. “Since she didn’t show for work.”

  “White BMW,” I said. “Two guys up front.”

  “That’s them.”

  “You think you could redirect their attention while I attempt to talk to Miss Bennett?”

  “Be my pleasure, bawse.”

  “You do a good job,” I said, “and I’ll let you wax the car later.”

  “Lawdy,” Hawk said. “You just too good to me, Mista Spensah.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Sometimes it’s important to underscore the racial dynamic to our relationship.”

  “Well, in that case . . .”

  I found a parking space two blocks away and settled in while Hawk got out and disappeared around the corner,
doubling back on Lawrence. I waited ten minutes, got out into the cold, and then strolled back toward Sydney Bennett’s town house. Steam rose out of sewer grates. A few cars zipped along the street. The white BMW had disappeared. I walked up to the front door and mashed a few buzzers. Someone let me in and I made my way into a warm marble entrance and up a flight of stairs.

  I knocked on Sydney’s door, took off my hat, and turned to look in the opposite direction so as not to be seen in the peephole. Thirty seconds later, she opened up. She was wearing a blue terry-cloth robe with a white towel wrapping her head.

  She took one look at me and then started to close the door. I stuck the steel tip of my Red Wing into the door frame and held firm.

  “Goddamn you,” she said.

  “Lovely morning,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Get your foot out of this door or I’ll call the police.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Seriously,” she said. “You better get out of here. If you don’t want to get hurt.”

  “You mean Mr. DeMarco’s friends in the Beamer?”

  She stared at me and didn’t say a word. I slipped my ball cap back on. “They’ve gone out for a ride with a pal of mine,” I said. “I don’t know when—or if—they will return.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  I shrugged. “I smell fresh coffee.”

  Sydney Bennett made a grunt and turned from the door. I pushed the door open, walked inside, and shut it behind me. The apartment had probably been a crack den twenty years ago. Now it was high-end. Refinished hardwood floors, stainless-steel appliances, and a commercial stove larger than my kitchen. She had a nice mix of new leather furniture and antiques. She’d hung a lot of old family photos, some sepia-toned, on a gallery wall between two large windows. A lot of stern old white men with impressive mustaches.

  Sydney walked back to the kitchen. She’d taken the towel off her head and was pouring coffee.

  Unless she planned to throw scalding coffee in my lap, I took this to be a good sign. I had a seat and waited. At the end of a long hall, the door was open and I spotted an unmade bed. I listened for sounds of anyone else in the apartment but heard nothing. I had brought a new gun with me just in case. Not that I had any reason not to trust Sydney.

  She thunked down a mug of coffee so hard some of it sloshed onto her coffee table.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “You set me up.”

  She sat down in an oversized leather chair close by. She held the front of her robe shut with one hand, her thick, naked calves poking out below. She had calf muscles like an athlete, wide shoulders, and large hands for a woman.

  I sipped some coffee.

  She tucked her large feet up under her. She waited.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I think you know that.”

  I nodded. I was the master of stringing out the silence. And I think the disappearance of DeMarco’s men had left her a little off guard.

  “Why didn’t you tell the police about me?” she said.

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “Because I haven’t seen any police,” she said. “No one has come to talk to me.”

  “Besides Jackie.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Besides him.”

  “So how exactly does it work?” I said. “Who’s on first?”

  “What?”

  “Where does the money start and where does it flow?”

  “I would have thought you’d had that all figured out by now.”

  “I think the judges get a piece of whatever plans DeMarco and Talos have cooked up.”

  She shook her head with great disappointment. I’d had that reaction from only a few women. It felt strange. I crossed my legs, ankle across my good knee. I sat up straight and drank a little more coffee. “I can always tell the police about your involvement in the shooting yesterday.”

  “That you were stalking me at the mall? Go ahead. That’s all I know.”

  “You texted DeMarco and he sent Arty Leblanc and his crew.”

  “So you say.”

  “It doesn’t bother you that Jackie DeMarco wanted to have you killed?” I said. “That Callahan and Scali were scared shitless you’d turned on them?”

  She didn’t say a word. She rubbed the back of her neck and leaned back farther in the seat. She took a long, good breath and settled in.

  “Are you working with the Feds?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

  “Would you?”

  She looked as if I’d poured ice water onto her head. “Excuse me?”

  “Would you work with the Feds if you knew you could escape being roped into this mess?” I said. “At best, you’ll be disbarred. At worst, they’ll kill you.”

  She leveled her large brown eyes at me and ducked her chin. But she offered no response. I took her moment of thought to warm my hands on the mug. The coffee was terrible. It tasted like the kind of coffee you get free with an oil change.

  “Did they say you were being protected?” I said. “Or watched?”

  She cleared her throat and shook her head. “Nobody told me anything,” she said. “I saw the men outside and I was afraid to leave.”

  I nodded.

  “I saw the news last night,” she said. “I saw all those men had been shot. I didn’t know they were trying to kill you. I wasn’t told anything other than to let Arty know if I was being harassed.”

  “Any of DeMarco’s people threaten you?”

  She shrugged.

  “How does Talos figure into all this?” I said.

  She swallowed. Her hair had started to dry and curl, shining after a good wash. She wiped her eyes and nodded. “You’re going to get me killed.”

  “Or save your life.”

  “How’d you know they’d threatened me?”

  “I spoke with a former employee of the family, remember?”

  “And he told you about the judges getting greedy?”

  I leaned forward, picked up the coffee mug, and took a sip. As natural as can be. I nodded with a lot of confidence that this had been my plan all along.

  “They weren’t happy with the initial deal with Talos,” she said. “Callahan wanted a lot more and Scali sided with him. They couldn’t get enough money after the island facility was built. They threatened to send kids somewhere else and leave Talos with a big white elephant.”

  “You can’t have that.”

  “No,” she said. “And so a new deal was made. Talos first balked, but then. Well, you can imagine what happened.”

  “Jackie DeMarco.”

  “Ziggy didn’t want to be involved in this,” she said. “He had no interest in anything but setting up some shell companies for the judges. He’s not a bad guy. Really.”

  “Forgive me if I’m skeptical.”

  She nodded. She dropped her head into her hand and started to cry a little. I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I pitched the rest of my coffee into the sink. I walked to the big window and looked down on the street. I saw Hawk standing in a fur coat outside the BMW. The BMW looked empty. Hawk was smiling.

  “I know someone in Tampa,” I said. “He’s a good man and can help you out of this.”

  “Ziggy,” she said. “That dumb bastard. I busted my ass in college and law school all to end up stuffing FedEx boxes full of cash in the back room of his practice. When I told him I wanted to quit, that’s when they started to follow me. No one made threats.”

  “They didn’t have to,” I said. “They were implied.”

  “I want out of this.”

  “I know you do.”

  “I feel like I’m a prisoner,” she said. “I can’t go anywhere without being watched. People following me aro
und. I don’t even have a life anymore.”

  I nodded. She wiped her eyes and looked at me.

  “Just imagine how the kids feel,” I said.

  52

  Two nights later, I was back in Florida watching two Feds test a wire on Ziggy Swatek. It wasn’t pretty. Ziggy had taken off his shirt, showing off a pudgy pale body and thick black hair on his chest, back, and weirdly long arms. If he were running through the woods, hunters might have mistaken him for a small bear or a large ape.

  “Do we have to use the freakin’ tape?” he said.

  A female agent in a blue suit nodded. She tore off more tape and patted a microphone to his chest. She was short and stocky, with cropped, frosted hair and little makeup. As she worked, I noted the impressive government-issue auto she wore on her hip. The other agent was tall and gawky, fidgety, as he tested a signal on a laptop. When finished, he gave the woman a thumbs-up.

  “What if they make me take off my shirt?” Ziggy said.

  “They’d be sorry,” I said. “Ever hear of manscaping, Zig?”

  “Man-what?”

  “You might want to invest in a Weedwacker.”

  “Screw you, Spenser,” he said. “Who the hell invited you?”

  I nodded to Special Agent Jamal Whitehead, who stood near two French doors facing the Gulf. He was talking on a cell phone. Outside, it was raining, and a little thunder growled overhead. The newly planted palms at the judges’ planned community whipped around in the tiny squall, rain tapping at the glass. But the weather was tropical and pleasant, and the warm air had felt good as soon as I’d landed that morning. Whitehead had picked me up at Tampa International.

  We had gone to see Zig. At first, Zig had threatened. And then Agent Whitehead had run down his short list of options. Zig finally agreed to give up the judges. He wouldn’t even mention Jackie DeMarco’s name.

  “What if they try and throw me overboard?” Ziggy said. “I can’t swim.”

  “We’re on a boat two slips down,” the female agent said.

  “And we have a net,” Whitehead said, pocketing his cell phone in his gray pants. He had on a tailored white shirt with his initials on his pocket and a black knit tie. “We’ll pull you in with the rest of the sea creatures.”