Robert B. Parker's Lullaby

by Ace Atkins

  Connor continued to read, slowly flipping through the pages. The pages sounded crisp and loud in the small white room.

  “Are you charging me with anything?” I asked. “Because if not, there’s a sale at Filene’s Basement.”

  “I’m getting to that.”

  “You know about the sale, too?”

  “The goddamn report.”

  I nodded. I stood up and looked down at the waterfront. I stared out at all the moored and covered boats in the bright morning. Large broken sheets of ice drifted toward the shore. Seagulls rode waves of brisk wind. I started to whistle “I’ve Heard That Song Before.”

  “Sit down,” he said.

  “I asked if you were going to charge me.”

  “I said, ‘Sit down.’”

  I smiled. “Ask nicely.”

  “What the fuck does it matter how I ask?”

  “Ask nicely,” I said, dropping the smile. “It matters.”

  “Please sit the fuck down so I can ask you some questions about your dope car.”

  Connor looked up from the papers. His cheeks were full of ruddy bluster. His eyes simmered with violence as they roamed over my face. His hands stayed steady on the file as he took in a slow breath and said, “This don’t look good for you.”

  “It doesn’t look good,” I said, sitting. “If you’re going to be an asshole, use good grammar.”

  Connor tilted his thick head. “Pretty fucking stupid to throw in with these bad guys.”

  “Me and Tito.”

  He nodded and shook his head. Connor drummed his fingers on the report.

  “You want to tell me how you got involved?”

  I shrugged. “Well, it first started with a mambo and then developed into a salsa,” I said. “Before I knew it, I had engaged in an entire cha-cha.”

  Connor nodded. He did not smile.

  “Are you gonna charge me?” I said. “Because I’d kind of like to call my lawyer. She’d find the whole thing pretty funny at first, but then she might get kind of pissed about it. You don’t have a damn thing.”

  “We have jail cells here,” he said. “You can rest up while we figure it out.”

  “You have no cause,” I said. “If you wanted to scare me, you’re doing a shitty job.”

  “I try to not take an offense at two-bit thugs who make a living out of staring into peepholes.”

  “Is that Nat Pendleton or Ward Bond?”

  Connor studied me. He shook his head in disgust.

  “Let me recount how this will play out,” I said. “You know this is all crapola, but you’ll keep me here as long as humanly possible. I will call my ball-busting yet gorgeous personal attorney, and I’ll be drinking a cold beer by happy hour.”

  Connor closed the file, leaned back into the office chair, and smiled. He was very pleased with himself.

  “I will continue to investigate,” I said. “I don’t care if the people involved are the people you want to bust.”

  “I can make your life hell.”

  “You offered me coffee,” I said.

  “Your car was full of dope.”

  “And not the first stolen car to be used in a crime.”

  He shrugged. “How much money you make staring into peepholes?”

  “More than you get plugging your little pecker into them.”

  Connor pushed back the chair and stood up fast. His face was the color of a fire engine. He breathed hard through his nose.

  “Eek,” I said.

  “We got a hell of a case.”

  “I bet.”

  “You’ll lose your license.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’ll lose your gun permit.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I don’t know how you and Epstein worked things out,” Connor said. “But I ain’t Epstein.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not. He was much smarter. And had a better sense of style.”

  Connor thundered to the door and slammed it shut. Touchy.

  I stood and took in the view. I continued to watch the seagulls flutter and ride the cold wind, searching for morsels on the shore.

  They looked like they were having a hell of a time.

  32

  How is it that you make friends so damn fast, Spenser?” Rita Fiore asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I am truly blessed.”

  “You’re lucky I’m on good terms with the U.S. attorney.”

  “Or maybe he just likes hearing your sexy voice.”

  “I didn’t sound sexy when I called him,” she said. “They had absolutely no probable cause. I’ve never seen such a heinous arrest in my life. What the hell did you do to this agent? Screw his daughter?”

  “If I were ever to step out on Susan, it would be with you, Rita.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Besides, if this guy had a daughter, she would resemble a gorilla.”

  Rita and I walked down the big steps of Government Center in the late blustery afternoon. She had covered up a very formfitting emerald green belted dress with a winter-weight Burberry trench. She wore take-no-prisoners black boots that gave her impressive legs at least another four inches.

  Rita Fiore was redheaded and built. Not only did she reek of distilled sexuality, she happened to be a pit bull in the courtroom.

  “May I ask what you did to piss him off?”

  “I’m looking into a couple street soldiers who work for Gerry Broz.”

  “Joe’s son?”

  “One and the same.”

  “What’d they do?”

  “My client thinks they killed her mother.”

  “Any proof?”

  “She saw them push her mother into a car a few hours before her death.”

  “What are you going to do next?” Rita asked. A gust of cold wind shot down Congress Street and threw a slash of red hair across her eyes and mouth.

  “Eat.”

  “You always eat.”

  “It helps me think,” I said. “Would you believe this is the second day in a row that I’ve skipped lunch?”

  “No, I would not,” Rita said. “Would you like some company?”

  “Will you keep your hands to yourself?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll buy.”

  “Where?”

  “Let’s walk over to Union Oyster House,” I said.

  Union Oyster House was the oldest restaurant in Boston, the kind of place that bragged that they had routinely served Daniel Webster. It was in the section of original storefronts by the harbor and had that kind of touristy, nautical feel that was more pleasant than annoying.

  Rita and I sat at the horseshoe bar facing Union. I ordered a large bowl of chowder and some Sam Adams Brick Red. They only served Brick Red at restaurants along the Freedom Trail. I always felt patriotic when I drank it.

  Rita ordered a martini.

  The bartender served her first, then poured my beer.

  With the first sip, I was pretty sure I heard the sound of angels.

  “So how have you been?” Rita asked. “Besides having your car stolen, packed with drugs, and being threatened by lawman and hood alike?”

  I waffled my hand over the bar.

  “I figured you would have cashed that check from the firm and taken Susan to someplace very sunny.”

  “I like to work.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “A fourteen-year-old kid from Southie.”

  “Pro bono?”

  “Nope,” said, sipping some beer. “I’m adequately paid.”

  “Good for you,” she said. Rita turned on the barstool and crossed her legs. There was a lot of leg to cross. And so artfully done.

  “Are you staring at my legs?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you want me to?”

  She offered a sly smile.

  I told her about Mattie. I told her about Julie Sullivan. We talked about Red and Moon. Gerry Broz, too. Mainly I to
ld her what I’d read in Mickey Green’s file earlier in the day.

  “Who was his attorney?”

  “Peter Contini,” I said. “Heard of him?”

  “No,” she said. Rita removed an olive and popped it into her mouth. “And I hope I never do.”

  A big steaming bowl of clam chowder arrived with a thick wedge of cornbread. The heavens opened up. The angels reappeared.

  “Poor baby,” Rita said. “Didn’t they have a chow line in the big house?”

  “They had Zagnut bars and cheese crackers in a vending machine.”

  “Snob,” Rita said.

  I shrugged.

  “So let me guess,” she said. “You want me to call in a favor and have me file some motions for this poor schlub, Mr. Green?”

  “You would be a credit to your profession.”

  “If I got him off—”

  “Poor choice of words.”

  “If his case was tossed.”

  “Even worse.”

  “Eat your cornbread and be quiet,” Rita said.

  I did.

  “If what you say is true,” she said, eyeing me.

  I listened. I kept quiet.

  “Then we need a judge to grant us a hearing to test those nail clippings,” she said. “But the DNA could go either way for us. Do we really want to find out who she scratched that night?”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Those two hoodlums?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or someone else,” Rita said. “I see it in your eyes.”

  “One step at a time.”

  “You were going to call me on this case anyway,” she said. “Play toward my liberal guilt.”

  I drank the second half of my beer. The bartender brought me a second Brick Red without me asking. Professionalism.

  “Having me bust you out of jail was just fortuitous,” she said.

  “You did get lunch in pleasant company.”

  “Dinner,” Rita said. “Dinner is much more intimate.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  Rita uncrossed her legs and smoothed down her skirt over her thighs. “I have a date.”

  “Lucky man.”

  Rita finished her martini and stood. “You better believe it,” she said. “And if you weren’t so damn pussy-whipped, you’d find out how lucky.”

  She slipped into her trench, knotted it, and strutted away. I watched her until she disappeared on Union.

  I made a low wolf whistle.

  33

  I had forgotten about Mattie. I’d been spending some quality time with Agent Connor and his pinkie ring when I was supposed to pick her up. And now it was nearly six p.m. and dark. I called her four times from my apartment without an answer. So I decided to drive back to Southie in the rental.

  It was nearly seven by the time I knocked on her door in the projects. She came to the door, looked me over, and walked back inside. The apartment seemed as cold as the hallway.

  The twins were curled up on the sofa under a knitted blanket, watching a reality show. They turned in unison, bright light flicking over them in darkness, as I took a seat at the kitchen table. Not interested, they returned to the woman in a bikini eating a bowl of hog entrails.

  “Where’s Grandma?” I asked.

  Mattie shrugged.

  “PTA?” I asked. “Confession?”

  Mattie shrugged again. She took a seat in a chair facing the television and tucked her legs up into her arms.

  “You mad?”

  “I waited around for like two hours.”

  “I was unforeseeably detained.”

  “No biggie,” she said. “But if you ain’t comin’, you coulda let me know. I felt like a fucking idiot standing there.”

  “You walk?”

  “My math teacher gave me a ride,” she said. “Her car smelled like cat pee.”

  “A hazard of being a math teacher.”

  I smiled at her. Mattie looked at the television.

  The bikini woman retched. The redheaded twins laughed. Vomiting was obviously comedy gold. Mattie craned her head to look at me. “Ain’t like I’m payin’ you. You don’t owe me nothin’, okay?”

  “I got arrested.”

  “No shit.”

  “No shit,” I said.

  She looked impressed. “You beat up someone?”

  “No.”

  “Shoot ’em?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Sorry. Long story.”

  Mattie sprung off the chair and walked back to the kitchen. She was wearing a black Mickey Mouse sweatshirt beneath an old Army jacket, blue jeans, and thick wool socks with holes at the heel. More eye makeup, poorly drawn, outlined her eyes. If the goal was to make her look older, it had failed. She looked like a kid playing dress-up.

  “I think I got Mickey Green a new lawyer,” I said. My hands were deep in my peacoat pockets.

  “He any good?” she asked.

  “She is.”

  “The lawyer is a lady?”

  “You have a problem with lady lawyers?”

  “She tough?”

  “When she was a prosecutor, she made hardened criminals suck their thumbs.”

  “Mickey wants us to come out to Walpole and see him again.”

  “He have something new to say?” I asked.

  Mattie shrugged and sat on top of the table. She played with a St. Christopher’s medal, sliding it back and forth on a silver chain. I felt very foreign in the kitchen. The room smelled of cheap fried food and harsh disinfectants. There was something vaguely institutional about it.

  “There may be some DNA evidence,” I said.

  “What?”

  I took a breath. I could hear a cold wind shoot around the edges of the old apartment house. One of the twins yelled out to Mattie from the sofa.

  “Shut up,” Mattie yelled. She turned back to me. “What evidence?”

  “Some blood,” I said. “Fingernails.”

  “Mickey’s fingernails?”

  “Your mom.”

  She nodded. Her face tightened a bit.

  “Don’t they test all that shit before the trial?”

  “They should,” I said.

  “Will it tell us who did it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “Just more stuff to check out. A good lawyer will help.”

  “Is this gonna take forever?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’m getting sick of it.”

  “This is how it works.”

  Mattie shook her head with disgust. Her legs kicked back and forth under the table like a pendulum. “Sometimes I think I should just leave it alone,” she said. “My grandma says all the women at church think I’ve gone nuts. People sayin’ I should be on medication.”

  “People say I’m nuts,” I said. “Then I realize it’s just me, talking to myself.”

  I smiled at her. She stared at me.

  “You know it’s okay to laugh,” I said. “It won’t go to my head.”

  “Say something funny.”

  “You’re a hard woman to please, Mattie Sullivan.”

  She rolled her eyes and shrugged. The universal communication of the teenager. When I’d first met Paul Giacomin, he’d been a champion shrugger.

  “Is there anything that pleases you?” I asked.

  “I know what you were trying to do last night with your friend Susan,” she said. “She wanted me to start crying and say that my life is all a mess.”

  “That wasn’t really the plan.”

  “But talking about my feelings and crap doesn’t do jack.”

  “Does for some people.”

  “I’m not the one who got killed,” she said. “I’m not crazy for wanting to know what happened.”

  “Why don’t you let me handle the gumshoe work and you handle just being a kid,” I said. “I’m a professional. You did the right thing finding me.”

  She stopped playing with the medal.

  “You can take some pride in that,
” I said.

  “I’m not unhappy, you know,” she said. “Just ’cause you only see me when I’m talking about my mother.”

  “So what does make you happy?”

  “That’s a real corny question, Spenser.”

  “Okay, then. What’s your favorite food?”

  “I don’t know. I like pizza. I got a birthday cake one time at Tedeschi’s. That was pretty good.”

  “When life is tough, take pleasure where you find it,” I said. “That doesn’t make you soft. It means you’re taking care of yourself.”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t make life tougher than it already is,” I said. “You could not stop what happened to your mother. You couldn’t stand up for Mickey. But you’re doing everything possible to make that right. Like it or not, you’re a kid, and you need some practice at being a kid.”

  “This is what I got.”

  “What about a ball game?” I asked. “You like the Sox, right? Would you go to Fenway with me sometime?”

  She eyed me. There was strength there, something very solid. The twins called out again.

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  She nodded. I nodded back. One of the twins cried out that they were hungry, really stretching out the last word for emphasis.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, yelling back. “They get grouchy if I’m late on dinner.”

  “You mind if I help you cook?” I asked.

  “You cook?”

  “Like a bastard,” I said. “And I promise to clean up.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “But we ain’t got much. Grandma was supposed to bring some things home two days ago.”

  “I’ve been known to perform miracles.”

  She tilted her head, keeping her place on the kitchen table. Her pendulum legs continued to rock and swing. She stopped playing with the medal.

  I opened the refrigerator to find a nearly empty milk carton, a foam box with stale french fries, half an onion, an opened bag of very old carrots, and an open roll of cookie dough. The dough was so old it looked like wood putty.

  A sharp odor emanated from inside. I closed the door.

  “See?”

  “I’m not done yet,” I said.

  “How come you cook? What about your girlfriend?”

  “Susan burns coffee,” I said. “Sets toast on fire. And I grew up in a house with just my old man and two uncles. We all cooked.”