Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “The kid?” he asked Breen, getting up and moving to the bar.

  “Stashed. His head will be aching for some time to come, but he won’t be a bother.”

  Frazetta poured himself a Chopin vodka on the rocks, threw in a wedge of lime. He didn’t offer one to Breen. “Any problems?”

  “A bit. He had a girl with him. A shame, really. Pretty slip of a thing.”

  “Did you have to do her?”

  “What was I supposed to do, send her to summer camp?”

  Frazetta shrugged. “You know best. Anyways, the kid’s father as good as condemned her when he wouldn’t listen to reason. This way maybe he’ll take us a little more serious that we’re not jerking around here.”

  “About the father . . . you want me to—”

  “Nah, let that WASPy bastard sweat a little bit. Let him come to us. Where’s Vic, just in case the father gets nervous quicker than I expect?”

  “In New York.”

  Frazetta shook his head. “That fucking little-league reunion.”

  “Why’d you say yes to that, Boss?”

  Frazetta shrugged. “You gotta let the man have his fun. Even marionettes need to think they got some control of things sometimes. Besides, Vic’s our shiny side. We need him to look good to the world. When everyone in this town whispers my name the way they used to whisper Whitey Bulger’s, it’ll be worth it. We’re gonna show people some old-time religion like they ain’t seen in years. Now get outta here. See you at the office in the morning.”

  As he headed out the front door, past the gate and the surveillance cameras, Joe Breen noticed that itch had gotten considerably stronger. Now there was nothing standing between him and getting it scratched, and scratched good.

  7

  The steakhouse was all dark wood paneling, red leather banquettes, and testosterone. The testosterone level went up a few notches after the old Albuquerque Dukes strode through the place and into the private dining room at the back. That’s what steakhouses are really about, red meat and testosterone. In the private room, two walls of the dark paneling had been supplanted by clear glass. On the opposite side of the glass were wooden racks filled with hundreds of bottles of wine. The other two walls were bare red brick, chipped and pitted with age and a hundred years of construction. There were two long tables set close together, with ten seats each, running lengthwise in the dining room. Jesse sat at the end of one table, with Julio Blanco to his left. An empty seat next to his least favorite ex-teammate was his reward for getting there late in the last limo. At least Dee had taken the seat directly across from Jesse. Her beautiful face was almost compensation enough for Blanco’s presence. Almost.

  Vic and Kayla were at the head of the other table. Vic was in his glory. This was his show. As he got up to speak, Jesse noticed that there were two guys in attendance whom he’d spotted back at the hotel bar but hadn’t connected to the reunion. They were both ten years younger than the youngest member of the old Dukes, and neither of them looked like baseball players. Football, maybe. Not baseball, not built the way they were: thick necks, thick arms, tree-trunk legs. Jesse knew the type. They were security. Muscle, probably ex-bouncers with a few ounces of smarts between them. They reminded Jesse of Jo Jo Genest, the musclehead rapist and murderer who’d been part of his unwelcome wagon to Paradise. He hadn’t thought of Jo Jo in years and he didn’t like that these two guys brought Jo Jo to mind. What, he wondered, was a man like Vic Prado doing with clowns like these two? If Vic could afford to foot the bill for this entire gig, he could afford the real thing, lethal Blackwater types you’d never see coming at you. Another thing Jesse noticed was that the two trees in suits hovered very close to Vic, paying more attention to him than to potential danger. They seemed more like keepers than protectors.

  Jesse leaned across to Dee. “Who are those bookends up there with Vic?”

  “You mean Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumbbell?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Security, I guess,” she said, flashing a neon white smile at Jesse. “They drive Kayla crazy. They’re like annoying relatives who never leave.”

  He raised his drink to her. She returned the gesture. He liked her smile. There wasn’t much about her not to like. Before they could continue the conversation, Vic started up, making a nice little speech about how, regardless of his years in the bigs, it was the guys here with him tonight who he would remember and treasure. That was why he’d paid to bring them here to be together.

  “I made three all-star teams,” he said. “I rubbed elbows with some of the greatest players to ever grace a baseball field. I’ve met Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and many other hall-of-famers. I played against Wade Boggs, Mo Vaughn, Barry Bonds, Doc Gooden, but it’s you guys that have meant the most to me.”

  Everyone applauded but Julio Blanco. All Julio did was grunt. It was an eloquent grunt that said more than all of Vic’s lofty words. If Jesse hadn’t happened to catch a glimpse of Kayla at that moment, he might not have taken the bait. But the dejection and defeat on her face pushed Jesse to say something to Blanco.

  “Okay,” Jesse said, “I’ll bite. What was the grunt for?”

  “Vic, he loves us like brothers, huh? Funny how I never heard a word from him until six weeks ago. You?”

  “Nothing since I left Albuquerque. Never heard from you or any of these guys, either.”

  “True that.” Blanco nodded. “And the guy says in his speech it’s all about us, but he does everything but mention his lifetime batting average and on-base percentage.”

  “It’s his party.”

  Blanco’s smile was cold enough to chill the wine. “He fucked you like he fucked you and you still defend him. I don’t get it.”

  “Say what you have to say, Julio.”

  “That play, the play in Pueblo when you got taken out . . .”

  “What about it?”

  “Think about it, jefe. It’s an exhibition game against a bunch of fuckin’ college kids and indie minor-leaguers on a shitty field in Pueblo, Colorado. All Vic has to do is toss the ball to first on that play and it’s you up there making the speeches about all the all-star games you been in instead of him.”

  “It was instinct to go for the double play.”

  “I call bullshit on that. You forget, I was watching the play as I’m coming up the first-base line to back up. It was a tough play Vic made, sure, but the kid running from first to second got a bad break on the ball. He had to hold up so the grounder wouldn’t hit him. When Vic got to his knees, he hesitated.”

  “Hesitated?”

  “Yeah, until the kid was almost on you. Then he threw to you.”

  “You were always a miserable SOB, Julio.”

  “Maybe, Stoney, but that don’t make me no liar.”

  Before Jesse could say anything else, the waiter came over and took their orders. After ordering the rib steak, Jesse shook his empty glass at the waiter.

  “Black Label and soda, right, sir?” the waiter said.

  “Half right. Black Label, rocks. A double.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Only it wasn’t very good. None of it. Jesse half ate his steak. He supposed it tasted all right, but he wouldn’t have been able to swear to it. Dee was making pleasant conversation, asking him about his life and about the things Kayla had told her about him.

  “She warned me you weren’t much of a conversationalist,” Dee said, after Jesse gave her another one-word answer to a question he forgot as soon as she asked it.

  Jesse put down his silverware, the steak and the scotch turning foul and bitter in his mouth. “You want to get out of here?”

  Dee smiled her neon smile. “I was hoping you’d get around to asking that.” She was already standing up as she spoke.

  Jesse Stone stood, too. Julio Blanco turned, smiling up at him, but the messag
e in his smile was as subtle as a slide trombone. Jesse gave Blanco the dead-eyed cop stare. Blanco wasn’t buying it. He’d gotten into Jesse’s head and they both knew it.

  On the way out, Vic Prado grabbed Jesse’s forearm. “Hey, where you going?”

  “Out.”

  Vic was on his feet now. He made a show of looking happy. He leaned in close to Jesse’s ear. “We need to talk.”

  Jesse could tell by Vic’s tone that he didn’t want the world to hear their conversation. “Breakfast tomorrow . . . early,” he whispered back.

  “Okay, you guys have a good time. You need a ride to or from anywhere, I’ll send a limo.” Prado wasn’t whispering now.

  “We’re all growed up,” Dee said. “We’ll survive in the big city.”

  When they were at the door, Jesse turned back for one last glimpse at all of them and saw the look on Kayla’s face. The defeat and dejection were even more profound than they’d been only a few minutes earlier.

  She mouthed, “We need to talk.”

  He nodded, Dee pulling at his wrist. Everyone needed to talk to Jesse Stone. Talking was the last thing he was in the mood for.

  8

  Ethan Farley looked like an escapee from American Gothic. He was bald-headed, sported wire-rimmed glasses, and wore denim bib overalls. All he needed was a pitchfork and a drab wife by his side. Emily, his drab wife, was dead seven years now, and there wasn’t much need of a pitchfork in Paradise. Farley’s family went back as far as the Salter family, and their relationship to the Salters had remained pretty constant over the last century. Plus, the Salters were rich and the Farleys worked for them. Until the boys returned from WWII, the Farleys worked both inside and outside the Salter family houses in Paradise, Boston, and on Martha’s Vineyard. But come the late forties, the Salters realized they were nearly halfway through the new century and that they ought to begin acting like the Gilded Age had actually come to an end. Ethan’s folks and his uncle Harold and his aunt Ruella were the last Farleys to work as house servants for the Salters. Good thing, too, as far as Ethan was concerned. He had never wanted to wear a fancy suit a day in his life and was happy to grow things and fix others. Dirty hands and a wet brow were the measures of a good man.

  He hadn’t planned on checking on the Paradise house that day, but the storm had lasted for nearly thirty-six hours. Farley wasn’t worried about the brick structure of the old place. It was as solid a house as had ever been built, but the stone foundation did spring the occasional leak in bad weather and parts of the roof were susceptible to powerful gusts. He’d found over the years that water damage was best dealt with quickly. All those solid wood floors and all that plaster and lath were bad news to deal with when water got in and was left to its own devices.

  As Ethan drove up to the noble brick house on the bluff, he got a bad feeling in the marrow of his old bones. You work on a house long enough, you get connected to it. You can read it, feel its distress like a father feels his child’s pain. And something was definitely amiss. Christ, he hoped it wasn’t anything major. With the way the Salters had shifted their focus away from Paradise, he feared they might just sell the place if the damage was too bad. He wasn’t in fear of his livelihood. No, the Salters were good that way. He had been well compensated for his loyalty to the family and wouldn’t want for much as long as he kept it simple. Simple was all he knew. What he worried about was keeping busy if the Salters sold the old house.

  Then he spotted the bright red Toyota Scion FR-S parked in the drive and smiled. He didn’t know the Salter kids the way he used to, but Ethan would have laid odds that the little Japanese sports car belonged to Harlan IV’s youngest, Ben. Ethan liked Ben. A college student down in Boston, he was a polite boy, not as full of himself and his money as his two older brothers. Good or not, boys would be boys, Ethan thought. He had witnessed generations of Salter men bringing their women to the house in the off-season for a bit of privacy. Ethan parked his Ford F-150 right behind the kid’s red machine and walked the perimeter of the house. It didn’t look worse for wear, but morning was just now breaking and the light wasn’t the best. Still, experience had taught him that things could look fine from the outside and be pretty bad on the inside.

  Ethan didn’t want to walk in on the kid, so he stood on his pickup’s horn and gave two long warning blasts to Ben that he and his female companion were no longer alone. After the second blast, he gave the lovers a few more minutes to get some clothes on. It wasn’t until Ethan placed his hand on the brass thumb latch on the big front door that his smile ran away from his face. The door was unlocked. As he opened the door and walked into the front hallway, he called the kid’s name. The echo of his own voice was Ethan’s only answer. As he climbed the stairs, he detected a faint, unwelcome odor. At the top of the stairs, the odor was stronger, and he noticed a light coming from one of the small second-floor bedrooms. He called Ben’s name again. No reply. As he approached the bedroom, Ethan saw that the door was nearly off its hinges and that the odor was definitely coming from that room.

  When he stepped into the bedroom and saw Martina Penworth’s nude, dead body sprawled face-first on the floor beside the bed, it was all he could do not to heave up his breakfast. He didn’t make it very far out of the bedroom before he did. It was only several minutes later that he had collected himself enough to call the police.

  9

  Jesse Stone hadn’t dreamed about Pueblo or Vic Prado or Julio Blanco. He hadn’t dreamed about Ozzie Smith, the Wizard of Oz. He hadn’t dreamed. Given the prodigious amount of scotch he had consumed after leaving the reunion dinner, he wasn’t sure he’d had enough functioning brain cells to conjure up a dream. His mouth was as dry as a kiln, and though he couldn’t actually see it, he was certain there was a long, sharp object embedded in his head somewhere. He was impressed. A man who drank as regularly as he did had to work pretty hard to whip up a hangover like the one he was suffering from. It wasn’t all bad, because Dee really was in bed next to him, naked as the day she was born, but looking like a goddess. He hadn’t blacked out, nor had he imagined how intense the sex had been. Jesse hadn’t forgotten the sounds Dee had made, the way her body had shuddered. He had been with many women in his lifetime, and not many were a match for Dee.

  It was still dark when Jesse cranked open his eyes and wrestled himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He found a glass somewhere and drank what felt like a gallon of tap water. It was no myth, New York City tap water did taste good. He dug a fistful of aspirins out of his bag and swallowed some more water. He brushed his teeth and showered as quietly as he could, which, given the design of the room, was no mean feat. He couldn’t manage to shave for the throbbing in his head. Before stepping back by the bed, he fantasized about waking Dee up in a way that might inspire another bout like last night’s, but his head was killing him. The fantasy he settled on was a few more hours of sleep. Neither fantasy was going to come true.

  Dee was up, and though she smiled as she passed him, some of the glimmer was out of her neon. She’d had a fair amount to drink as well. And the sun was now coming up.

  “Listen,” he said, “I promised to meet Vic for an early breakfast.”

  “Ooh, can I tag along? I think I need to put some nourishment into my body that wasn’t distilled in the Scottish Highlands.”

  “I don’t think so. Vic seemed to have something important to say to me in private.”

  “Sounds mysterious. Any ideas?”

  “None,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “About you, pretty fantastic. About my hangover, not so much. Can I see you again later?”

  “I’d like that, a lot. After breakfast I’m going to come back and get some more sleep. We can talk after that.”

  “I’m heading down to my room,” she said, emerging from the bathroom and slipping into her dress. She put her hand on Jesse’s cheek and rubbed her thumb across his lips. “Are a
ll cops so amazing in the sack?”

  “How else do you think I made chief?”

  “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.” Dee bundled up her underthings, tucked them beneath her arm, and hooked her shoes on her fingers. “Later, darlin’.” She kissed Jesse’s cheek and left.

  He called the hotel operator and asked for Vic’s room. Vic seemed to be waiting by the phone and picked up on the first ring.

  “The lobby in five minutes,” Jesse said and hung up.

  Though the sharp object in his head had softened around the edges and the pain was duller in kind, Jesse knew he looked like crap. Vic, on the other hand, looked like he got up this early every morning and had a team of valets to put him together. But Jesse saw some cracks in his old double-play partner’s veneer. Vic was on edge, pacing, his head on a swivel, making sure the Tweedle Dumbbell boys weren’t around. When Jesse walked up to him, Vic placed a cup of takeout coffee in his hand.

  “I hope you like milk and sugar in your coffee,” he said, urging Jesse toward the front door.

  “Fine with me.” At that point, Jesse would have accepted anything that mildly resembled coffee. He took a long swallow and followed Vic out of the hotel onto the street. Even at that hour a fleet of yellow cabs prowled the avenues and traffic was building. Jesse took notice, and Vic noticed Jesse notice.

  “God love this town,” Vic said. “When we used to come in to play the Mets—”

  Jesse wasn’t in the mood, especially with a hangover, especially after what Julio Blanco had had to say. “You didn’t drag me down here to talk about playing at Shea, Vic. It’s gone now, anyway.”

  “Yeah, you’re looking a little green around the gills. So tell me, how was she? I mean, sometimes it’s all I can do not to put the moves on Dee myself.”