Robert B. Parker's Lullaby

by Ace Atkins

  “I read your mom’s file,” I said. “I talked to some cops.”

  “They’re idiots.”

  “Maybe. But they had a pretty solid case on Mickey Green.”

  “If I just wanted the cops’ side of things I wouldn’t have dragged my ass up to the Back Bay to hire you,” she said. “I already know what they think, and that’s not worth shit to me.”

  The furniture in the room that wasn’t slipcovered looked to be from the late 1960s and well worn. A stack of folded kids’ clothes sat in a laundry basket next to a pile of towels. There was a bicycle chained to a radiator and three plastic milk crates filled with dolls and toys. On one wall hung a framed picture of the Pope, a charcoal etching of Fenway, and a framed picture of an attractive young woman with bright red hair wearing a bright red sweater. It was the kind of studio portrait they take at shopping malls or discount stores. On closer inspection, I noted it was a senior portrait taken for South Boston High School.

  “She was pretty before she fucked herself all up,” Mattie said, coming up beside me. I could tell she was biting the inside of her cheek. She blinked hard three times. “That crap ages you. Makes you nuts. After a while, even your friends quit on you.”

  She was breathing like someone trying to steady herself.

  “I can’t promise anything,” I said.

  Mattie Sullivan studied my face before nodding. I was glad to see she’d cleaned the dime-store makeup off her eyes.

  “I know she looked cheap, and I know the cops thought she was a whore. But that was bullshit. She loved us. She was trying to get clean. She was going to rehab when they came for her. They never even gave her a chance to make things right.”

  “What things?”

  “Everything.”

  “Money?”

  “I don’t know,” Mattie said. “Probably.”

  I nodded.

  “She was a mess. She knew she had to do better. She was trying.”

  Mattie didn’t look at me. She looked at her mom’s picture, at the pink castle teetering with play, then down to her grandmother on the couch. “I didn’t ask you for a miracle. Okay?”

  “Amen,” I said.

  “The cops didn’t do a thing but point to Mickey Green because he was easy,” she said. “Meanwhile, the two animals who did this to my mother are still out there.”

  “How long have you been friends with Mickey?”

  “Did I say he was my friend?”

  “You said you visit him in prison.”

  “I’ve been a few times,” she said and shrugged. “He was a screwup. But he wouldn’t kill anyone. Especially my mom. He had feelings for her. That’s why he hung around and tried to help.”

  “Does he write?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see the letters?”

  “You mind me askin’ if that’s okay with Mickey?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Mattie said. “But I’m not a retard. Okay? You find Pepper and Moon, and you’ll find the men who did this. What the cops did to Mickey wasn’t right by him or my mom.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Like I said a hundred times, I seen these two guys push my mother into their car. She was fighting them and yelling. Next thing I know the papers are saying Mickey Green did it. I’m thinking, Mickey Green? All he did was help my mom out with groceries and work on her car.”

  “Were they together?”

  “You mean was she boinking him?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. He was kinda sweet and goofy.”

  “You remember the car they were driving that night?”

  Mattie shook her head.

  “Grandma see anything?”

  “We weren’t living with her then. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay like you’re done with me? Or okay like you’re going to start doing some real detective work and quit just listening to the cops?”

  “You’re a tough boss.”

  Mattie looked me over. She almost smiled. “I got to be tough,” she said. “If I wasn’t, the twins would run wild and this place would turn to shit.”

  I nodded. Besides the toys and pile of towels, the apartment was very clean. The twins looked to be socialized and up on their shots.

  “You have some more pictures?” I asked. “Anything from the last year of her life?”

  “Sure,” Mattie said. “But she looked like shit.”

  “Where’d she hang out?”

  “Four Green Fields. She went to happy hour like it was Mass.”

  Mattie turned to the dinette table and reached for her parka and pink Sox cap. The twins had again pushed aside the flap of the play castle and watched their big sister with hands under their chins.

  “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “With you.”

  “That’s not how I work.”

  “Too bad.”

  “What about the birthday party?” I said. “Who gets the twins ready?”

  “I can help,” she said. “You need me. Hey, Grandma?”

  Mattie walked over and pushed at the gaunt woman’s shoulder as she brushed past me to the door. Grandma stirred. I thought of a hundred ways to lose her or to explain just how I did my job. I could force the issue.

  Mattie stood outside the door and pointed to the center of my chest. “Whatta you want? Me to hold your hand? C’mon.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  6

  Four Green Fields looked like a hundred bars in Southie. There were neon and mirror bar signs, Sox and Celtics posters, two electronic dart boards, a video boxing game, and two ragged pool tables back by the toilets. I was pretty sure Philippe Starck had not designed the space. A well-worn barfly sat at a long row of empty stools, while a pale skinny guy with tattoos curling from shoulder to wrist beneath his sleeveless black T-shirt tended bar. He had a narrow patch of hair on his chin and a gold ring in one eyebrow. He looked up from a cutting board where he was slicing lemons. “No kids,” he said.

  Mattie acted like she didn’t hear him and saddled up to the bar. “I’ll have a Coke, please,” she said with a big fake smile.

  “Didn’t I say no kids?” the bartender said.

  “Just give me a soda and shut up,” Mattie said.

  He looked at me. I shrugged and offered my palms. “I’d do what she says. She just beat me twice in arm wrestling.”

  Tattoo Boy looked me over and shook his head. His T-shirt read DROPKICK MURPHYS. “Whatta you want?”

  “I’d like a gimlet that’s half gin and half Rose’s lime juice,” I said. “It beats martinis hollow.”

  “I got whiskies and Popov vodka, I got Guinness, and I got Sam Adams, I got—”

  I held up my hand and stopped him there and asked for a beer and a shot, a soda for Mattie. He poured Mattie a Coke over ice, making a big deal about adding two straws and wrapping the glass with a napkin. Mattie rolled her eyes when he walked away. “What a dick,” she said.

  “It’s just an act,” I said. “Deep down, he’s insecure.”

  Mattie shrugged.

  “So this was your mom’s place?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “You know Tattoo Boy?”

  “Nope.”

  I called for the bartender. Tattoo Boy looked up from the cutting, letting us know we were a real distraction. I wondered if he could chew gum and walk at the same time. I decided not to inquire.

  “When you get a second, sir.”

  He sliced up one more lemon and walked slowly from the end of the bar. The drunk never looked up from his coffee mug. He was old, weathered and whiskered, and wore a filthy brown coat that may have been blue once upon a time. Or perhaps red.

  “You want something?” he asked.

  “Besides world peace and greater harmony with my fellow man?”

  He sucked on a tooth and crossed his arms over his chest.

  I slid
a four-by-six photo of Julie Sullivan across the bar. She had her arm around a pudgy guy in a slick black shirt. He had a fat neck and a doughy, smooth face. The man’s hair looked as if it had been shellacked. Julie Sullivan’s eyes were glassy, the guy’s meaty paw resting on her breast. Good times.

  “You know her?”

  He leaned in a little, stared for a second, and shook his head.

  “What about the guy?”

  He shook his head again. “Looks like a real douche.”

  “You’ve got a keen eye,” I said.

  “How long you been working here?” Mattie asked.

  “What’s this about?” Tattoo Boy asked.

  “I’m looking to add captions to my photo album,” I said. “This is my partner, Annie Leibovitz.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He’s a detective, numb nuts,” Mattie said. “And that’s a picture of my ma. She used to make happy hour at this shithole, every day from the time she was out of high school. You know her or not?”

  “I’ll be the good cop,” I said.

  Tattoo Boy reached for the photo and held it against the green-and-white neon of the Guinness sign. He shook his head and gave it back to Mattie. He was very good at shaking his head.

  “She leave you?” he asked.

  “You could say that,” Mattie said.

  “My mom, too,” the bartender said. “She left us a box of Frosted Flakes and a bottle of sour milk and said she’d be home by supper. She moved to fucking Florida.”

  “Thank God you turned out all right,” I said.

  He nodded at me with great understanding.

  “Who’s worked here the longest?” I asked.

  “Shirley,” he said. “She’s been here for like thirty years.”

  “When does Shirley get in?” I asked.

  “She’s on Monday nights,” the bartender said. “But don’t piss her off. She keeps a Louisville Slugger under the cash register for smart-mouth types.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  He frowned at me.

  “You know a couple locals named Pepper and Moon?” I asked.

  He shook his head, but his gaze wandered. His lips pursed in thought.

  “You sure?”

  “Lots of folks come in here,” he said. “I don’t know all of them. I mean, Jesus.”

  “Seems like you’d recall those names.”

  “Everyone has fucked-up names in Southie.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ted.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  Ted returned to his lemons, slowly slicing away. The old bum at the bar lifted his mug. I was glad to see the movement, since I was beginning to think he might be a figment of my imagination.

  “Where to, Princess?” I asked.

  “Don’t get cute with that,” she said. “I was babysitting.”

  “I can’t help but be cute,” I said. “It’s part of my genetic code.”

  “How about being a detective?”

  “Okay. Your mom got any friends who still live around here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Aha.” I reached for a cocktail napkin and a pen. “In my business, we call those leads. You want another Coke?”

  “Nope.” She leaned in to her straw and then turned to me. She narrowed her eyes. “How old are you anyway?”

  “Methuselah was my kid brother.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Methuselah played ball with Branch Rickey.”

  When I was a teenager, anyone who’d graduated high school seemed ancient. I tapped the pen to the napkin. “Tell me about your mom’s friends.”

  She did.

  The bar was very long and very quiet as I wrote. The sounds of the freight trucks barreling down the road shook the bar. Tattoo Boy occasionally looked up and gave me the stink eye.

  I winked back.

  7

  The fourth person on Mattie’s list was Theresa Donovan. We chose to meet with her first through a highly selective process: The first person on the list wasn’t home, and Mattie didn’t know where the next two lived. Theresa worked at a corner convenience store on Old Colony not far from Joe Moakley Park. The store was a small brick building with a glass front that offered great deals on both cigarettes and lottery tickets. Beer was on sale, too. Yippee.

  We had to talk to Theresa from behind bulletproof glass while she rang up customers. After a few minutes things slowed, and she unlocked her cage and came out and gave Mattie a hug, being careful not to burn her with her newly lit cigarette.

  “This is Spenser,” Mattie said. “He’s helping me find out who killed my ma.”

  “Whatta you mean?” she asked. “Mickey Green killed her.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  Theresa looked at a wall clock and then back to Mattie and then back to me. She blew out some smoke from the side of her mouth. “Don’t be a smart-ass, kid. Your ma wouldn’t’ve liked that. Why are you digging that up now?”

  “If you were such great friends, why don’t you try and help?” Mattie asked. “You know Mickey Green wouldn’t hurt anyone. Tell the truth instead of spewing bullshit on him.”

  I shrugged. “She has a true gift,” I said.

  Theresa took the cigarette out of her mouth and pointed the red end at me. “You payin’ this guy?”

  “Yeah,” Mattie said.

  “You a lawyer?”

  “Do I look like a lawyer?”

  “You look like a pro wrestler.”

  I nodded. She had me there.

  “I’m a private detective,” I said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Theresa eyed me and shook her head with disgust. She wore a pair of gold hoops that went nicely with her threadbare blue sweatshirt, well-worn knockoff designer jeans, and dirty Nikes. She was a good-looking girl who’d probably been much better-looking before all the junk food and beer. Her hips had grown wide and her skin was uneven and blemished. She’d quit bleaching her hair some time back, and a good inch of her roots had started to show. But her face remained sharp, set off with a nice pair of sleepy blue eyes. Her eyes had a smart sexiness to them, studying me as I studied her.

  “You were a friend of Julie’s?” I asked.

  “I was Jules’s best friend.”

  “School?”

  “All the way through Southie High,” she said. “Our families went to Gate of Heaven.”

  “You know Mickey Green, too?”

  “Everybody knew Mickey.”

  “And you obviously think he’s guilty?”

  “You’re goddamn right.” Her mouth twitched just a bit, her eyes not meeting mine. “Of course.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mattie said. “You tossed her in the fucking garbage and wouldn’t help her. Mickey was her friend.”

  “Mattie, you were ten years old,” Theresa said. “You don’t know how I tried. It didn’t amount to shit. She was sick in the head, kid. She didn’t want help from nobody.”

  “That’s crap,” Mattie said. “She was headed for that rehab place.”

  “’Cause the judge made her.”

  Theresa squashed a cigarette under her heel. She lit another. The convenience store was brightly lit with hard, artificial light over rows and rows of cheap food and soda. The stuff probably had a shelf life into the next millennium. The air smelled of overcooked hot dogs, stale smoke, and old grease.

  “You know anyone who was still friendly with her when she died?”

  Smoke escaped out of the corner of a smile on Theresa’s face. “Sure.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Mickey Green and about a hundred other guys.”

  “Bitch,” Mattie said. Her face flushed, and her eyes grew bright. She was biting the inside of her cheek again. “You’re a liar.”

  “Your mom liked men,” Theresa said. “Sue me.”

  “Not that I don’t appreciate your help,�
�� I said to Mattie. “But would you mind waiting for me outside?”

  “Hell I will,” Mattie said. “I got the right to hear her lies.”

  An old woman walked into the store, and Theresa found her way back to the register and locked the door behind her. The old woman wore a spiffy rabbit-fur coat over a flowered housedress. She bought twenty dollars’ worth of lottery tickets, a carton of Newports, and an Us Weekly magazine. Brad and Angelina were having relationship issues. Charlie Sheen was headed back to rehab.

  Mattie dropped her head and lowered her shoulders and barreled out the front door. I walked in front of the Plexiglas and gave Theresa the million-dollar smile. The full wattage of my charisma was needed to repair the damage.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said.

  “I heard if I don’t stop, I’ll go blind.”

  “You shouldn’t take that little girl’s money.”

  “What kind of best friend were you to Julie Sullivan?” I asked.

  The question hung there for a moment in the smoke. She glared at me.

  “Surely you’ve heard of two local baddies named Pepper and Moon?” I asked. “Or don’t you allow riffraff in here?”

  She smoked the cigarette down to a nub as she studied me. Smoke fogged the inside of the bulletproof cubicle. She shook her head. The glass had yellowed with age and smoke. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “The million-dollar smile usually works.”

  “You know what kind of shit you’re kicking up? That little girl walks around Southie and starts asking questions about those two and pretty soon you’ll see her picture on the back of a milk carton.”

  “So you know them?”

  “Sure.”

  “And they’re bad guys.”

  “Hannibal Lecter was a bad guy,” Theresa said. “These guys are evil.”

  “But you don’t believe they had anything to do with Mattie’s mom?”

  “What’s the difference?” she asked. “They were friends with Mickey Green. They all lived together in a three-decker over on G Street. They sold crack and heroin. That was Julie’s candy store, where she’d do about anything to get a hot shot. You see what I’m sayin’?”