Perish Twice

by Robert B. Parker

  “I don’t know. I try not to overmanage…besides, we have Rosie.”

  We crossed with the light at the Anderson Bridge and kept on along the river. Harvard Stadium was on our left. It was not red brick.

  “Children should be so easy,” Julie said.

  “I know.”

  The eight-person crews, both men’s and women’s, were out on the river. The traffic was light on Soldiers Field Road and I could hear the voices of the crew coaches as we walked along.

  “I…” Julie stopped and seemed to be rephrasing something.

  “I can’t live with anyone,” she said.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Not even, God forgive me, my children.”

  “That must be painful.”

  “Painful? What can you know about painful? What kind of mother am I, I can’t even stay and take care of my own children. What will happen to them? What must they be feeling?”

  “They have their father,” I said. “Michael’s a good father, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’s wonderful with them. It probably helps me feel inadequate.”

  “You’ll see them, and when this works out, you can make it up to them. You’re a good mother, Julie.”

  I wasn’t convinced that I was right, but it seemed the thing to say at the moment, and friends are friends whether they’re sane or not.

  “I’ve gotten a little place of my own.”

  “And Robert?”

  “We’re still seeing each other, but he can’t under stand why I moved out on him too.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Three days,” Julie said “How does it feel?”

  “At night sometimes I get very scared, and think, ‘What have I done?’ But other times I feel as if I could just fly.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “If everything else worked out, could you live with Richie?”

  “Currently I don’t,” I said.

  “Don’t be so goddamned existential,” Julie said. “I’m asking, could you?”

  “I can sleep with him. I do that now. I could probably share a house with him…but it would need to be a big house,” I said. “Does Michael know where you are?”

  “No. I gave him my new phone number, and of course he knows where my office is.”

  “Have you talked?”

  “By phone.”

  “How is that?”

  Julie’s face pinched and she dropped her head and didn’t say anything. I knew she was trying not to cry.

  “Time to get some help with this?” I said. “Besides me?”

  Julie nodded. We reached the Eliot Bridge at the place where the river bends south. Julie stopped at the top of the arch and leaned on the bridge wall and stared down at the moving water. She nodded. I looked at the water with her.

  “Will I feel better?” she said. “After a while?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I promise.”

  Her shoulders began to shake. I stood beside her and looked down at the water and tried to be a comforting presence while she cried.

  CHAPTER

  41

  ON TUESDAY NIGHTS from 6 to 9 I had a composition class at B.U. I’d normally leave the house at 5:30 and get home about 9:20 and take Rosie for a walk. It was a valuable opportunity for Rosie to do her final day’s business, and it was also important because she’d been alone in the loft for almost four hours and if she didn’t get some exercise she would be picking up her ball and dropping it at my feet until I was ready to dive headfirst through one of the front windows.

  The minute I came in the door, Rosie did a couple of spins and rushed to where her leash was hanging. She was so excited it was hard to get the leash attached but I did it and we dashed to the elevator and went down to the street. Five feet from the front door Rosie stopped suddenly and was motionless. She sniffed vigorously, her head raised a little, scanning back and forth with her nose. I looked around. There was nothing that I could see. The parked cars stood blank and silent at the curb.

  “Come on,” I said. “The danger seems to have passed.”

  Rosie looked at me and wagged her tail and set off ahead of me in that prancy walk she had. It was a bright evening, with a lot of stars, and the moon nearly full. We walked our usual route down to Fort Point Channel, and looked at the water, and turned and headed back. The pace was Rosie’s. It was her walk, and I never dictated how long she could spend carefully snuffing an empty beer can. We always walked down on the near side of the street and back on the far side, so that Rosie could sniff her whole territory. It was nearly ten-thirty when we got back. As we crossed the street, Rosie’s ears went back and she went into a crouch. Her little body elongated, her tail was out straight like a very short bird dog’s. She was growling. We stopped. I had never seen her do this. She was very noisy when she saw another dog through the car window. But live, in the street, where the other dog might retaliate, she was normally as aggressive as a bunny. I looked around. Same empty street. Same blank cars parked in front of my loft. Rosie’s low growl continued. She inched forward with her ears still flat and her belly almost touching the street. Since it was kind of showy to wear a gun in art class, it was in my purse. I took it out. Rosie’s attention seemed directed at the entryway to my loft. In bad weather an occasional street person would take shelter there. But it was a warm clear night, and the entryway wasn’t that comfy. I held the gun at my side and let Rosie lead me at a creep across the street toward the entry. As we reached the other side of the street, with the parked cars still between me and the doorway, I smelled cigarette smoke. I stopped. Rosie got even lower and her growl became more intense. I studied the doorway. Despite the moonlight it was still in deep shadow. Then I saw movement and the glimmer of something metallic. I went to my knees behind a parked car just before someone shot at me. There was a muzzle flash and the boom of a pretty big gun. And again, and a bullet ripped into the other side of the car I was behind. Rosie’s aggressiveness had been dispelled by the gunfire and she was straining to run. There was a fog light on the front bumper of the car next to me, and I looped her leash handle over it. She scrabbled steadily to get away. I stayed still. The shooter couldn’t stay in the doorway forever. People didn’t, in fact, usually call the cops to report gunfire. But the shooter couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t and the strain would get to him. Sooner or later she would have to show herself…or himself. At the risk of sexism I thought the shooter was probably a man. He knew I was a woman and would be careless because of it. I squirmed behind the parked car to my left, and slid between a Honda and a Taurus. Behind me Rosie was still trying to run. She paid no attention to my move away. I felt bad for her. But I would feel worse if she was orphaned. I cocked my gun.

  The shooter came out of the doorway. It was Jermaine. Good. He would be very scornful of a woman. And he was. He walked straight upright directly to the car where he thought I was. He had a revolver, which he was carrying casually at his side. Even now he was profiling. I slid between the Honda and the Taurus and came up behind him and pressed the muzzle of my gun against the base of his skull, and grabbed a handful of his hair with my left hand.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” I said.

  He stayed still.

  “Drop the gun,” I said. “Now.”

  He dropped it.

  “Down on the ground,” I said. “Flat on your face. Hands behind your head.”

  I gave him a little tap on the skull with the gun muzzle for emphasis. He did as I told him. When he was down I kicked his gun under one of the parked cars. Now that no one was shooting, Rosie was a bit calmer. She still strained at the leash but her feet were still. She wasn’t spinning her wheels.

  “Why are you shooting at me, Jermaine?”

  “Fuck you, bitch.”

  �
�Not the right answer, Jermaine. I could shoot you in self-defense and no one would say a word.”

  “You can’t shoot me in the back of the head and say it was defense.”

  “I could say you were trying to escape.”

  “You ain’t got the balls.”

  “You try to get up and we’ll see about the balls,” I said.

  I meant it. If he tried to get up I would shoot him. But he was right. I didn’t think it was a matter of balls, exactly, but I couldn’t shoot him in the back of the head while he lay on the sidewalk. I got my cell phone out of my purse and called the police.

  Jermaine and Rosie and I must have been an odd tableau in the while that we waited for the cruiser in the moonlight. None of us had anything to say and we were silent for the entire time. One of the two uniforms that got out of the cruiser was a black woman named Emmy Jefferson I’d known at the Academy. The other cop was a white guy I didn’t know. They both had their hands on their weapons. I kept my gun on Jermaine.

  “Sunny Randall,” she said. “Who you got?”

  “Jermaine Lister,” I said. “He attempted to kill me.”

  “You do that, Jermaine?” Emmy said.

  The white cop handcuffed Jermaine. He was a big cop, with the kind of thick body that suggested a lot of time in the weight room. When the cuffs were on I let the hammer down on my gun and put it back in my purse and went over and picked up Rosie and held her in my arms. She was a quick healer. As soon as I picked her up, she started wagging and lapping. The white cop patted Jermaine down and then stood him up.

  “His gun’s under that car,” I said. “There’s one of his slugs in the car somewhere.”

  Emmy nodded.

  “We let the crime-scene guys deal with that,” she said.

  She looked at Jermaine.

  “I know you,” Emmy said. “You run a string of whores.”

  “You don’t know nothing,” Jermaine said.

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  “I know we going to put you away for a lot more than pimping, Jermaine,” Emmy said. “Why’d you shoot at this lady?”

  He wouldn’t look at her either.

  “Gun’s under this Dodge,” the white cop said. “There’s a bullet hole in the door.”

  “Whyn’t you put Jermaine in the car,” Emmy said.

  CHAPTER

  42

  ELIZABETH AND I were at her kitchen table. Rosie was in the car to ensure that she wouldn’t shed a hair onto Elizabeth’s carpet. The manila envelope that Spike had taken from Mort was lying between us, next to a sugar bowl and a cream pitcher on a small tray. They were decorated in a duck motif, and the spout on the cream pitcher was designed to look like a duck bill.

  “You didn’t tell Daddy, did you?” Elizabeth said.

  How old would we be when she stopped competing with me for Daddy?

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “Did you look at the pictures?”

  “Only enough to make sure it was you,” I said. “Neither Spike nor I is interested in pictures of naked women.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand about homosexuals,” Elizabeth said.

  “Probably not.”

  “What did Mort say?”

  “Mort was in fear for his safety. I think he said, ‘Help!’”

  The Mr. Coffee machine on the counter stopped gurgling and Elizabeth got us each a cup of coffee. The sugar bowl contained Equal. The duck-billed creamer contained skimmed milk. I stirred some of each into the coffee.

  “You want to check the pictures,” I said, “make sure they’re all there?”

  “Even if they are,” Elizabeth said, “how do we know he doesn’t have the negatives?”

  “They’re Polaroids,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means there are no negatives,” I said. “Check the pictures.”

  “I don’t wish to. They are embarrassing to me.”

  “Goddamn it,” I said. “Check the pictures.”

  She took the envelope and went to the counter where I couldn’t see, and took out the photographs. She looked at them quickly and counted them and put them back in the envelope.

  “That’s all the pictures I remember,” she said.

  “Do you want to burn them?” I said.

  She was silent.

  “Or not,” I said. “I assume you haven’t heard from Mort.”

  “No.”

  “How about Hal?”

  “I haven’t talked with him.”

  “Your lawyers talking?”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “Has his lawyer been in touch with you?” I said.

  “I won’t talk to him,” she said.

  “Hal or the lawyer?”

  “Neither one.”

  “Have you told our father and mother any of this?” I said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “So just what is your plan?”

  “I’m not going to let that sonofabitch divorce me so he can go live with his floozy.”

  “He can do that now,” I said.

  “If we can catch him, he won’t be able to get his divorce. We can prove he abandoned me.”

  I drank some of the coffee. It would have benefited from cream and sugar. But Equal and skim wasn’t so bad. Compared to Elizabeth most things weren’t so bad.

  “First of all,” I said, “we have caught him. I don’t plan to keep catching him over and over. Second, I don’t know where you’re getting your legal information. But I think you need a better source.”

  “You know the good-old-boy network,” Elizabeth said. “All those damned lawyers are in cahoots.”

  “Get a female lawyer,” I said.

  Elizabeth looked a little puzzled, as if she had never thought of a female lawyer, and perhaps had never even thought that there were female lawyers. She couldn’t seem to think that through, so she did what she always did.

  “I don’t need your help to run my life, Sunny.”

  “You need someone’s help,” I said. “This is too hard. You need a shrink. You need a lawyer.”

  “He’ll find out he’s made a mistake,” Elizabeth said, “if he thinks he can walk out on me.”

  I nodded. We drank coffee in silence for a moment.

  “Well, gotta run,” I said.

  “Of course,” Elizabeth said.

  We walked together to her front door, She seemed smaller to me than I always thought of her. It’s probably why I didn’t say, You’re welcome on the pictures.

  CHAPTER

  43

  LEE FARRELL CAME to see me. He was wearing a black suit with an Italian cut, a black shirt with a cutaway collar, and a black silk tie.

  “Monochromatic,” I said.

  “Matches my gun,” he said. “Jermaine claims he shot at you because you were messing with his girls.”

  “Mostly I was asking one of them questions.”

  “What’s her name.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Farrell gave me a look. He was sitting in the wing chair my father usually sat in when he visited. Rosie was asleep on the floor with her head on his right foot.

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s funny,” Farrell said. “I would have said you were someone would remember how many fillings she had.”

  “Six,” I said.

  “Un huh.”

  “Jermaine say anything else?” I said.

  “Says he was just trying to scare you. He wasn’t trying to shoot you.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Sure,” Farrell said. “Would Jermaine lie?”

&nb
sp; “Silly me,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “How come you don’t want to give up the whore’s name,” Farrell said.

  “I don’t think she’s involved. If you question her, she’ll get scared and never talk to me again.”

  “And?”

  “And I kind of like her.”

  “Well, we can come back to her if we need to,” Farrell said. “You have a theory?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh good,” Farrell said.

  “I think it’s part of the whole thing with Gretchen Crane and Mary Lou Goddard and Lawrence B. Reeves.”

  “Those cases are closed,” Farrell said.

  “According to you. Not according to me.”

  “So, even if they weren’t, what’s it got to do with Jermaine?”

  “I have ‘messed’ with one of Jermaine’s girls, several times over the last several weeks. Why did Jermaine wait until now?”

  “Procrastination?”

  “I think I touched a nerve.”

  “Jermaine’s nerve?”

  “I don’t know what nerve I touched yet. But I think there might be a Tony Marcus connection.”

  “That’d be fun,” Farrell said. “Why do you think so?”

  “Jermaine works for Tony,” I said.

  “Every pimp in the city works for Tony,” Farrell said.

  “Jermaine is sort of middle management,” I said. “He’s been auditioning to run the, ah, prostitution division, for Tony.”

  “You think Tony ordered the hit?” Farrell said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Besides the fact that Jermaine is upwardly mobile,” Farrell said, “you have anything else to make you think Tony sent him to shoot you?”

  I tried to look enigmatic.

  “Woman’s intuition,” I said.

  Farrell looked down at Rosie, still sleeping on his foot.

  “‘Woman’s intuition,’” he said.

  “I have some vague suspicions,” I said, “about people who may be entirely innocent. Until I’m more sure than I am now, I don’t want to let you guys trample on their flowers, so to speak.”