Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn

by Ace Atkins

  I sipped some coffee. Terrible, but coffee nonetheless.

  “What do you know about Jackie DeMarco?” I said.

  “We’ve been over this before,” he said. “Right before Hawk shot a couple of his guys down in Southie.”

  “We had a misunderstanding.”

  “My advice is to leave alone whatever you have in mind,” he said. “DeMarco walked away from the flaming pile of shit you started. He won’t do it again.”

  “I know he’s into stolen property and drugs,” I said.

  Vinnie shrugged.

  “How about arson?”

  Vinnie looked away and scratched the back of his neck. He pulled his notebook close, scribbled in some figures, and then turned back to me. He picked up his half-burned cigarette, took a puff, and squinted through the smoke.

  “Maybe,” he said. “If money’s involved, he’d set his mother’s house on fire.”

  “And who might do that work for him?”

  “What, you got some kind of Symphony Road situation?” he said. “That was a long, long time ago. No one burns for insurance anymore. Property in this town is worth too much fucking money.”

  “So I’ve been told,” I said. “This was about turf.”

  “Someone pissed him off?”

  I nodded. Vinnie raised his eyebrows.

  “And that didn’t scare you in the least?”

  I shrugged. Never being a fast learner, I drank some more coffee. It was late afternoon. I could use the fuel.

  “Only one guy I know,” Vinnie said. “Worked for Broz back in the day. I hear he’s still called out of retirement from time to time. A real artist with burning shit.”

  “A name?”

  “Listen, why don’t you come see me sometime when you or Hawk don’t need me doing work for you,” he said. “We could bowl a few games. Have some beer. A few laughs.”

  “You really want that?”

  Vinnie lit a new cigarette. “Hell, no,” he said. “What I want is for you to know what you’re getting into. Learn something for me. I’ve moved from the field into management. I get up late, drink coffee, read the newspaper. I make some calls and I’m done. After all these years, I got out while the getting is good. Unnerstand?”

  “Not many Thug Emeritus positions.”

  “Check Harvard,” Vinnie said. “I wouldn’t put any crazy shit past them.”

  I nodded. I waited. Either Vinnie would give me a name or he wouldn’t. He looked me over and said, “Ever hear of Tommy Torcelli? Aka Tommy Torch?”

  “Sounds like he used to front a doo-wop group.”

  “Ha, ha,” Vinnie said. “He used to work as a mechanic in Dorchester. Down by Fields Corner. He was the go-to guy for a long time. I heard he got busted for some kind of kiddie-porn thing. He’s a true sicko in every way.”

  “Boy, I sure would love to meet him.”

  “I think he’s still in the can,” Vinnie said. “But I know he did business with Jackie and his old man. If someone wanted something burned, Tommy Torch would be on his speed dial.”

  I nodded.

  “The guy can burn two city blocks and make it look like a firefly farted. You know?”

  “A true genius.”

  “Yeah,” Vinnie said. His cigarette bopped in his lips. “What got burned?”

  “A Catholic church in the South End.”

  “The one where those firefighters died?”

  I nodded.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What’s the world coming to?” Vinnie said. “Joe Broz did a lot of bad things. Killed a lot of people. But he’d never have burned a church. Or hurt a Boston firefighter.”

  “The new generation,” I said. “Thugs without ethics.”

  Vinnie made a couple calls. I finished the coffee while watching the afternoon traffic jam up on the pike. After ten minutes, he’d arranged for a meet with Tommy Torcelli at Walpole. Vinnie said he and Tommy Torch went way back.

  “How far?” I said.

  “Far.”

  “Does he have ethics?”

  “The man can’t even spell ethics.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good to know.” I gave him a soft salute with two fingers and descended the stairs.

  15

  MCI Cedar Junction at Walpole was a quick yet not scenic drive from Boston on Route 128 South. The next morning, I made it in a little over an hour. The security process took a bit longer. Morning visitation was nearly done before I met Tommy Torch face-to-face through the glass. We had about twenty minutes to exchange pleasantries.

  “I know you.”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “You’re the guy that killed Fran Doerr,” he said.

  “Aw, shucks.”

  “He was an asshole,” Tommy said. “Never liked the fucking guy. I like Vinnie. When Vinnie walked behind Broz, you knew where you stood.”

  “True.”

  “And Vinnie likes you.”

  “Vinnie and I have a mutual respect.”

  “He don’t work with that queer Gino no more,” he said. Tommy nodded for effect. “Runs his own affairs.”

  The guy gave me the creeps. His thin white skin was dotted with age spots. His face was small, skeletal, with bright blue eyes, his white and wispy hair pasted flat in long, useless strands. But no one looks good in an orange jumpsuit. It was very hard to pull off with style.

  “So what can you do for me?” he said. “You wanna know something? Right?”

  “I don’t think we’d get along socially.”

  “I want a reduced sentence. This thing they got me for is junk. It wasn’t even my computer. Someone set me up.”

  “I thought they caught you in the act?” I said. “With your pants around your ankles in Moakley Park?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well. I did that. Sure. But the other stuff. The added charges that keep me in here. That’s not true.”

  If only the world’s smallest violin were handy. Even with the Plexiglas separating us, our words exchanged only through a phone line, I felt the direct need to take a shower.

  “I heard Jackie DeMarco had a church in the South End torched last year,” I said. “You know anything about it?”

  “I’ve been in jail for two years.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I heard you’d been Jackie’s go-to guy before you got popped.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I knew his old man a lot better. His old man was something. Used to run most of the city before Broz set him up. Drank espresso at a little table on Prince Street every morning. Funny how them things work. Everyone in this world is trying to cut you off at your knees. You know what? What I did was wrong. But I got popped for pissing off the wrong people. It was a setup. I got a sickness. People knew it. They used it as a fucking tool.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I want to know about the church fire.”

  He sat back and rubbed his face. He tried futilely to assemble a bit of dignity. But Elvis had left that building long ago. Tommy had few options, and this was probably his best chance since he’d landed back at Walpole.

  “I read about it,” he said. “In all the fires I set, I never had one fireman hurt. My fires burned right. They were places that needed to be torched, abandoned shit boxes for insurance cash-out. I just made it look like it was an accident. Electrical and all that. Sometimes I’d cover a rat with kerosene and let it loose in the walls.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “But who would Jackie use?”

  “Nobody is gonna admit torching a place that killed no firefighter.”

  “Three,” I said.

  “I never killed no firefighter.”

  “You said that.”

  “You catch that guy and he ge
ts life,” he said. “If he’s lucky. If he’s unlucky, Boston Fire will find him first.”

  “I need a name,” I said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “I don’t want no part of this,” he said. “I mean, I give you a name and then you go beat the crap out of someone. I mean, I got my own personal fucking code.”

  “Sure,” I said. “If not, we’re just a wild beast lost in this world.”

  “Huh?”

  “Or at least some guy with lollipops in his pants.”

  “Fuck you, Spenser,” he said. “I took this meet out of respect for Vinnie. If you don’t want to do business, I got to get back to watching a bunch of blacks kill each other over shootin’ hoops.”

  “You help me with this thing and I’ll let the DA know,” I said. “It’s up to them what they do with you.”

  “I got people doing that for me already.”

  “I’m sure you’re reforming every day here,” I said. “Maybe you’ll walk out of Walpole a clean and righteous man.”

  “I don’t need this,” Tommy said. He was about to hang up the phone. “I don’t need to waste my time with the crap. Come back if you got a deal.”

  “How many visitors have you had lately?” I said. “It took a lot of effort to get a meet.”

  Tommy dropped the phone in a loose hand. He stared at me and thumbed his nose. He stared for a bit. I stared back. He was ugly and it wasn’t easy.

  “I help and you put in a good word?”

  “The world is round,” I said.

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “Because Vinnie said so,” I said. “And because I’m not making you any promises.”

  Tommy took in a long breath. He looked worn out and beat. He rubbed his scruffy face and sat up straight in the hard plastic chair. “Let me see what I can do and I’ll be in touch.”

  “You know how to find me?”

  “I got your number.”

  “No promises.”

  “How about we quit talking,” Tommy Torch said, “before I change my fucking mind.”

  16

  By early afternoon, I returned to Boston only to find two ugly guys blocking my apartment building’s doorway.

  I might have walked around them. But one was John Grady and he was very fat. He also looked pissed-off. On the upside, he seemed to be sober and clean-shaven, his thick hair washed and styled. Grady had on a green T-shirt that read IT’S OUR FUCKIN’ CITY. His friend was younger and in better shape. He was balding, with the rest shaved down to nearly nothing, wearing a black Gold’s Gym tank and workout shorts. He was a bodybuilder with bloated muscles and puffy veins. His pinprick black eyes radiated as much intelligence as a lab rat’s.

  “You boys soliciting for the Jimmy Fund?” I said.

  “You were down in the South End for the service,” Grady said. “Trying to make trouble on a big day.”

  “How’d I make trouble?”

  “Poking around,” he said. “Asking questions. Talking shit with the commissioner.”

  Grady looked to the Michelin Man. Michelin Man staggered his stance. He stared at me with little eyes. He had a scar on one massive shoulder where he’d had a shoulder repaired. Lots of juicers had that problem. He looked to me and said, “Mmm.”

  “No one needs this shit,” Grady said. “I don’t need you bothering me at the pub. And no firefighters need you poking around on a sacred day.”

  “When should I poke around?”

  “You got no business.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “Trouble is my business.”

  “Like I told you,” he said. “People are waiting in line to stomp your ass.”

  Michelin Man said “Mmm” again. His repertoire was dazzling. I waited for him to launch into the soliloquy from Hamlet.

  “That line is long and winding,” I said. “Past efforts have proven futile.”

  “What?”

  “Futile,” I said. “It means it’s not worth attempting to threaten me or fight me. I’m tired and have planned a late breakfast. You boys don’t look like you could make it to the Public Garden without a lot of sweat and sucking wind.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “I’m trying to help,” I said.

  “I’ll toss you right in the garbage,” the young guy said.

  I shrugged. He took a fast step toward me, grabbing my arm. I pivoted off my right foot and landed a hard left in his soft gut. He made an oof sound and attempted to tackle me around the waist. I rammed his bald head into a brick wall and he slumped to the ground.

  “John,” I said, “unless you have some secrets, I’m working for you, too. Now, you can attempt to accost me and we could dance around Marlborough. The neighborhood watch might complain, as this type of behavior is frowned upon in the Back Bay. But I’d grow bored and tired. I have linens to change.”

  “Pfft,” he said. Grady spit on the sidewalk. Michelin Man was on his ass.

  “Or,” I said, “I’ll buy you brunch. There’s a nice place down the street. They even let you chain your pets outside.”

  Grady looked to his friend, sucking air. His bald head had started to bleed. I leveled my eyes at him and crossed my arms over my chest. If he didn’t move, I might just start singing “If You Knew Susie, Like I Know Susie.” I started to hum.

  “‘Oh, what a girl,’” I said, under my breath.

  “What?” Grady said.

  “Your call, John.”

  He seemed to think about it for a moment and then nodded to the Michelin Man. Michelin Man called me a few choice words and shuffled back to his car. We watched him go and then drive off in a beat-up Chevy sedan.

  “Let’s walk,” I said.

  We followed the Public Garden along Beacon and took a left on Charles to the Paramount. I bought Grady a stack of blueberry pancakes. I had the huevos rancheros with fresh-squeezed OJ and black coffee. Creature of habit. The afternoon was soft and warm. They’d opened up the windows fronting Charles.

  “To recap,” I said. “What’s your problem with me?”

  Grady hadn’t touched his food. “You got no business.”

  “You said that,” I said. “But if that stopped me, I wouldn’t be very good at my job.”

  “This is Arson’s case,” he said. “They don’t need you tracking shit through their house.”

  “A good metaphor, but far from accurate,” I said. I reached for the coffee.

  “A guy like you ain’t in it for no one but themself.”

  “That’s why you agreed to break bread with me?”

  “Maybe I was fucking hungry.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Hard to argue with bulletproof logic.

  “I think you have some kind of beef with Jack McGee and this doesn’t have anything to do with you or me,” I said. “Or even Dougherty, Bonnelli, and Mulligan.”

  “McGee is an asshole.”

  “Doesn’t change what he believes.”

  “We never got along,” Grady said. “We worked together six years ago. I never wanted to be on the same shift with him. He liked to piss me off. Always complaining and making trouble.”

  “How’s he making trouble now?”

  His mouth was full with a slab of blueberry pancake. I held up my hand to let him know he could finish chewing. I sipped on some coffee and added a half-packet of sugar.

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Come the fuck on,” Grady said.

  I shook my head. I waited. When in doubt, be quiet, let them talk. People like to fill the silence. I cut into the huevos rancheros. If there was any logic to the world, this breakfast would hang at the MFA.

  “He didn’t say?” Grady said. “No shit?”

  “None at all.”

  “It’s my
fault.”

  I looked up. There was a lot of chatter and hum around us. People laughing and talking. Silverware clanging as small tables were cleared. New customers hustled for a seat once they got their food.

  “How?” Oh, Spenser. Master interrogator.

  “I killed them,” Grady said. His face had drained of color and his blue eyes had grown very large. He breathed in and out of his mouth. He’d had only a few bites of pancake, and as he reached down for the coffee, his hand produced a slight tremble. “Jack knew. Jesus. He didn’t say that? Isn’t that what this is all about?”

  I shook my head.

  “Laying the blame,” he said. “He wanted me to be exposed. I broke down that door, let in all that air. I wasn’t listening to the radio chatter. I just fucking bust through that office. When that room opened up. All that fucking oxygen. Whoosh. That fire came up hard and fast. I got knocked back. My ears were burned and back broke. But, shit, I got out. I was pulled out. But. Oh, holy hell. Jesus. Jack? Jack didn’t say?”

  Grady was crying. I always had a hard time watching big men cry. I saw my father cry only twice. Both times scared the hell out of me.

  “That’s not your fault,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “It’s in a report. But it was kept quiet.”

  “McGee doesn’t want you,” I said. “He wants the men who set this. He thinks it’s this firebug who’s driving the department crazy.”

  “That’s it?” Grady said.

  I nodded. He wiped his face and blew his nose. It sounded like an out-of-tune trumpet. “What’d Arson tell you?”

  “Zip,” I said.

  Grady rubbed his face. He nodded. “But you know they got a tape?” he said. “A surveillance tape of some bastard running from the church. Christ. I know for a fact they been sitting on that for a year.”

  17

  The Arson squad kept separate offices from headquarters in an old firehouse on Mass Ave, blond brick with twin bay doors for investigators’ vehicles. I found a battered red door and took the stairs up to the second floor. The captain knew I was coming and he buzzed me in.