Robert B. Parker's Lullaby

by Ace Atkins

  Hawk made a guttural sound. He could not stand it.

  Hawk fired his .44. Two men fired their shotguns.

  Hawk was knocked two feet back as if sucker-punched by an enormous fist.

  I went for my gun.

  The men who’d shot Hawk dragged one of their own inside the black SUV and disappeared. Flynn and his boys jumped inside the van as I squeezed off six shots, knocking out its back windows.

  I heard sirens.

  54

  How is he?” Susan asked.

  “Stable,” I said.

  “You said you saw him shot in the chest,” she said. “You said he was blown off his feet.”

  “I rode with him in the ambulance,” I said. “His wounds were not as bad as they first appeared.”

  Susan let out a very long breath. We stood in a hallway on the third floor of City Hospital. Everything smelled of harsh cleaners and bad food. There was a buzz of activity at the nurses’ station. I bet the nurses were buzzing about Hawk.

  “He was wearing a vest,” I said. “Told me he didn’t trust folks in Southie.”

  Susan let out a little more breath. The tension in her neck and shoulders slackened. “Good to be a little racist.”

  “I called it being an elitist.”

  “What did Hawk say?”

  “He said he was just being one smart motherfucker.”

  She squeezed my hand for a moment before we walked to the waiting room. We found a place to sit among a lot of crinkled magazines with health and diet tips. Last weekend’s edition of the Globe, sans Arlo & Janis. It didn’t matter. I didn’t much feel like heavy reading.

  Susan held my hand as we spoke. I felt very hollow.

  “Thank God,” Susan said.

  “If the Ukrainians can’t take Hawk out,” I said, “nobody can take him out.”

  She put her arm around me and pulled me in close.

  “And Mattie?”

  I was quiet. I shook my head.

  “Quirk and Belson know everything,” I said. “All of the Boston PD and the staties are looking for her and Flynn.”

  “Why didn’t Flynn shoot you?” Susan asked.

  It was a good question.

  “He had the drop,” I said. “He could have. But he needs Theresa Donovan. And to get to Theresa Donovan, he needs me.”

  “The witness.”

  “She kinda holds the cards for Jack Flynn.”

  “Is she safe?”

  “Quirk has her in protective custody,” I said. “Which is slightly less accessible than Fort Knox.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Susan said. “Flynn kidnaps the daughter of the woman he murdered to stay out of jail? Seems like he’s just adding more to his sentence.”

  “Without Theresa, they can’t reopen the case,” I said. “And snatching Mattie is also a way to get back at me.”

  “A warped issue of respect?”

  I nodded.

  “And rage.”

  “And whatever business plans he has with Gerry Broz,” I said. “Me asking questions and working with the cops is screwing up the rebuilding of the Broz dynasty. That pisses him off a great deal.”

  “Territory,” she said. “How are men different than dogs?”

  “I like dogs more.”

  “How many men came for Mattie?”

  “Counting Flynn?” I looked up at the ceiling. “Seven. Altogether, not really great odds.”

  Susan tilted her head and leaned into my shoulder. After several minutes, she sat up and wiped her eyes. “You both could have been killed.”

  “Part of the package.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like the package.”

  “I’m not always thrilled by my work conditions.”

  “But if you die, you die,” she said. “I am the one who’s left.”

  “You would manage,” I said. “Pearl would mourn.”

  “It’s not funny, goddamn it,” she said. “Belson came for me. My heart stopped. I opened the front door, saw Frank, and my heart stopped.”

  “Frank is thoughtful.”

  “Damn you.”

  “I’ve been doing this my whole adult life, Suze.”

  “Why couldn’t I have met a nice Jewish doctor?”

  “Because I’m the thug of your dreams,” I said. “Besides, could a nice Jewish doctor try that thing we tried the other night?”

  She laughed just a bit. Susan studied me and then shook her head.

  “Can we see him?” she asked.

  “Maybe we smuggle a couple of bottles of Iron Horse into the emergency ward to revive him.”

  “You two will go for Flynn?’

  I shrugged. “Yes.”

  “What in the hell do you both have to prove?”

  “Mattie is fourteen,” I said. “She hired me. She trusts me. This is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I looked down at the floor. She put a hand to my back, rubbing in strong circles.

  “I won’t stay,” she said. “This is between you and Hawk. But when you get through this, you will take a break for a while. Even if I have to shoot you myself.”

  I smiled.

  Susan did not smile back.

  “Are all Harvard-educated Jewesses so tough?”

  “You bet your ass.”

  55

  Hawk and I met Vinnie at the ball fields off Commercial Street in the North End. Since Vinnie was Vinnie, the North End was a pretty convenient spot for him. The infields were covered in dunes of shifting snow. You couldn’t really tell there were baseball fields right now except for the night lights sticking up by a half-hidden chain-link fence. Hawk and I followed the path around the seawall and found Vinnie alone, drinking from a foam coffee cup.

  “Christ,” he said. “Couldn’t we’ve met somewheres indoors? I’m freezing my nuts off.”

  “Hawk’s been shot.”

  “You look okay to me,” Vinnie said.

  “Got some buckshot in my arm,” Hawk said. “I was wearing a vest.”

  “Hawk’s not happy right now,” I said. “Flynn and his boys snatched a fourteen-year-old girl. We like her a great deal. We intend to get her back.”

  Vinnie shook his head. He drank some of the coffee.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  I held up my hand. “We need to get to Gerry Broz,” I said. “And we need you to tell us how to flip him.”

  Vinnie shook his head. With his free hand, he turned up the collar on his camel-hair overcoat.

  “I like you guys,” Vinnie said. “I like you guys a lot. But I can’t rat on Joe’s boy. I told you that from the start. If I knew how to get to Flynn, I would. But I can’t have Gerry killed for this.”

  “I won’t kill Gerry,” Hawk said. He took a deep breath. “Unless he get in the way.”

  “It’s talk like that that makes me shut my fucking mouth.”

  “This ain’t a request, Vinnie,” Hawk said.

  “I can’t,” Vinnie said. “I’m sorry. You know how this goes.”

  Hawk stepped up close to Vinnie and stared out at the dark ocean. The wind was very brisk and very cold off the water. He lowered his voice and leaned into Vinnie’s ear. “Don’t play that honky bullshit code with me. You kill a woman, you kidnap a little girl, there’s nothin’ left. Ain’t no code.”

  “Gerry knows,” I said. “How do we get to Gerry?”

  Hawk stepped back.

  “Gerry is afraid of Flynn,” Vinnie said. “You’d have to kill him, and then you still won’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Flynn will kill that little girl,” I said. “I’m asking for a favor here. You don’t owe the Broz family anymore. The old man is long gone.”

  Vinnie nodded in agreement, finished the coffee, and walked toward a trash can. He threw it away and placed his gloved hands in his pockets. Hawk remained quiet, staring at Vinnie.

  “You got to promise not to dust Gerry,” Vinnie said.

 
; “Okay,” I said.

  I looked to Hawk. Hawk shrugged.

  “Okay? I seen that look in your eye, Hawk, plenty of times. And it never leads to good things.”

  “How do we get to Gerry?” Hawk said.

  Vinnie reached into his coat and pulled out a notepad and a pen. He carefully wrote out an address in Somerville and drew out a cross street. Like everything else about him, Vinnie Morris had very fine, exact handwriting.

  “This is how you get to the kid,” Vinnie said. He shook his head with disappointment.

  “Again with ‘the kid’?” I asked.

  “He’ll always be a kid,” Vinnie said. “I don’t want him hurt. But you go here and you’ll understand.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  I passed the paper to Hawk. Hawk studied it and shrugged.

  “I ain’t into riddles,” Hawk said. “Ain’t in the fucking mood.”

  “It’s all I got,” Vinnie said. He shrugged. “What you do from here is your own business. But I got to sit this one out, fellas.”

  We both watched Vinnie walk away. We headed back to Commercial Street, where I’d parked my rental. The rental was still warm when we got inside. Hawk had stashed two loaded shotguns in the trunk.

  “You think Gerry will give it up?” I asked.

  “Vinnie better be playin’ straight,” Hawk said. “We called in a favor. He Italian and knows just what that shit means.”

  “Against his father?” I cranked the car.

  “That Godfather bullshit don’t apply tonight,” Hawk said. “No sleep till Mattie safe.”

  56

  The address Vinnie gave us led to a three-story red-brick building off Summer Avenue. The slanted roof was thick with snow. A walkway with a wrought-iron fence zigzagged to a front entrance where an empty flagpole stood between two bare young trees. A small wooden sign by the parking lot read THE SUMMER HOUSE. A man pushed a snow shovel by the sign. He stopped to rest and smoke a cigarette.

  “Hospital?” Hawk asked.

  “Hospice,” I said.

  “People on borrowed time.”

  “Yep.”

  “Think Gerry doin’ charity work?” Hawk said.

  “Somehow I doubt it.”

  At ten minutes after nine a.m., a silver Hummer wheeled into the Summer House parking lot. Gerry Broz stepped out in an ankle-length tan suede coat, black cowboy boots, and narrow wraparound sunglasses. He studied his reflection in the driver’s window, tousled the hair over his brow, and shuffled up the zigzagging steps.

  He pressed a button. Gerry opened the door and walked inside.

  “You ever notice Gerry Broz is a weird dude?” I asked.

  “’Cause how he dress?”

  “By what he wears, the way he walks, what comes out of his mouth. Just about everything about him is weird.”

  “He ain’t right.”

  “An understatement,” I said.

  “Shall we?” Hawk asked, reaching for the door handle.

  “We shall,” I said.

  We followed the same path. We punched the same intercom button. The door buzzed, and we both walked into a large, empty lobby. The gray linoleum floors had been buffed to a high shine. A grease board proudly listed today’s specials as chicken pot pie, cooked carrots, and caramel pudding cup.

  “Maybe we should stick around for lunch,” Hawk said.

  A large dining room with yellowed lace curtains opened up to the left. Pink carnations adorned every table. Pink tablecloths covered every table. Motel art of Cape Cod sunsets and fruit bowls lined the walls. The air smelled of bacon, weak coffee, and heavy doses of Pine-Sol.

  There was music while we walked. Several families sat in a large open TV room catching an episode of The Lawrence Welk Show. Small children sat on laps of frail, colorless people. Some were old. Some weren’t. The ones dying weren’t hard to spot. I didn’t see peace on their faces, only a grudging bit of understanding. Lawrence conducted on the new modern television. Children giggled and laughed, zipping through legs. They jumped from lap to lap.

  From behind a desk, a woman in an orange dress looked us over. She appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties and wore a lot of blue shadow as once had been the style. Her hair was dyed red and had been recently done. She wore many bright gold chains and rings.

  She asked, “Yes?”

  “We came with Mr. Broz,” I said. “We’re his fashion coordinators, Mr. Salt and Mr. Pepper.”

  Hawk looked at me and raised a single eyebrow. The woman stared at us for a moment.

  “Room three-oh-eight,” she said.

  I nodded. She went back to her computer screen.

  We took the elevator to the third floor and quickly found the room. The door was open. More lacy curtains covered a single window. A plush red leather chair and a small chest of drawers sat in a corner. The chest was covered with an old-fashioned lace doily, as if it could make the room feel less like a hospital. The walls were cinder block. Stainless-steel railings had been strategically placed along the way for support. A wooden cross with a golden Christ hung over the washbasin.

  The floor was very quiet. There was the smell of sickness and decay that no cleaner could ever remove. A weak winter light bled through the window as we walked inside.

  Gerry Broz sat on a small chair with his hands tented in prayer. A shriveled man with tubes up his nose slept on the bed before him.

  I knew the old man.

  When I’d first met Joe Broz, he’d been full of balls and bluster. I recalled him wearing a white suit, a white vest, a dark blue shirt, and a white tie. He’d sported a gold chain across the vest and a large diamond ring on his little finger. He’d called me a wiseass punk.

  Broz was once the most feared man in Boston and the state of Massachusetts. He was petty, greedy, and violent. At the top of his game, he had state senators and police officials in his pocket. He owned the city.

  We had an unusual relationship until he disappeared. He kept his word. Often, he tried to have me killed. At least once, he’d expected Vinnie to do it.

  What was left of Joe’s black hair was white, a few strands falling crookedly off his head. His teeth were still very large and too big for his mouth. The mouth was wide open and rasped with each breath. There were plenty of dials and machines perched over his bed.

  Gerry kept his eyes closed for a couple more moments.

  I could hear the creaking of Hawk’s leather coat as he stood next to me. I dropped my head and waited.

  Gerry opened his eyes. He looked both of us over with disgust.

  “Goddamn both of you.”

  “Hello, Gerry.”

  “What the fuck do you two want?”

  Hawk spoke first. “Everything.”

  57

  How long has your old man been here?” I asked.

  “Two years.”

  “America’s Most Wanted across the river Styx.”

  “Why don’t you talk like a normal person,” Gerry said. “Nobody knows what the fuck you’re saying.”

  “’Cept me,” Hawk said.

  Gerry shrugged. He remained seated at the chair beside his old man. He was rubbing his hands together. His face had tightened.

  “Where was he before?” I asked.

  “Gulf Shores, Alabama.”

  “No kidding?”

  “They got a nice beach,” Gerry said. “He liked to fish, feed the seagulls and shit.”

  “And no one here knows?” I asked.

  “Registered him under the name of a dead uncle,” Gerry said. “Nobody would recognize him anymore. You mighta noticed he ain’t himself.”

  The tube in Joe Broz’s throat made gurgling noises.

  “Really?”

  “My father thought you were a real piece of shit, Spenser.”

  “Aw, shucks.”

  “Should have had you killed a long time ago.”

  “He had his chance a few times,” I said. “I think he took comfort in keeping me around.�
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  “You gotta feel like a big man, droppin’ the dime on a dying old man.”

  I looked at Hawk. He nodded at me.

  “Is he?” I asked.

  “What the fuck do you think?” Gerry asked. “Does he look like he’s taking a fuckin’ nap? They got him in diapers. He’s fed through a tube.”

  “You know,” Hawk said, giving an appraising look, “Joe has looked better.”

  “I don’t want him dragged into some crazy state place,” Gerry said. “They keep ’em in cages like filthy animals, where they piss and shit themselves. Here they keep him clean and safe. These old broads come around twice a day and sing old songs to him. It’s got some dignity to it.”

  “How nice, Gerry,” Hawk said.

  “Where’s Flynn?” I asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  Hawk took a step forward. Gerry stood, sliding a hand under his tan suede coat.

  “Whatever you want, kid,” Hawk said.

  “You feel big? Pickin’ on a sick old man? You two feel big?”

  “I always feel big,” I said. “Hawk?”

  “Gargantuan.”

  “We want Flynn,” I said. “That’s all. He took a kid and will probably kill her.”

  Gerry shook his head. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and then wiped his hand on the suede. It was then that I realized Gerry Broz had started to cry. His head fell forward in his hands. His back shook.

  It looked theatrical and silly. But it was real.

  “You give us Flynn and we walk,” I said. “We leave you and Joe out of this.”

  Gerry sobbed, head still in his hands. “I knew he’d fuck it up. Flynn fucked me in the ass. Fuckin’ stupid. It’s all a mess.”

  “What?”

  “Business,” Gerry said. “It’s all a fucking mess.”

  Gerry rested his hands on the plastic bed slats running alongside what was left of Joe Broz. He looked down at his old man, his big rolling tears pattering on the laundered sheet running up to his father’s sagging neck. The gurgling noises continued.

  Hawk and I exchanged glances. I don’t know why, but I felt a little ashamed and voyeuristic.