CHAPTER 42
Belson and I were sitting at the bar in Grill 23 across the street from police headquarters and two blocks from my office. We were each drinking a martini. I had mine with a twist. Around us were a host of young insurance executives and ad agency creative types wearing expensive clothes and talking frantically about business and exercise. Campari and soda seemed popular.
“One of the Hobart Street Raiders got shot,” Belson said.
There were mixed nuts in a cut-glass bowl on the bar. I selected out a few cashews and ate them.
“That so?” I said.
“Dude named John Porter. Somebody dropped him off at City Hospital ER with a slug in his shoulder. John Porter wouldn’t say who.”
“John Porter?” I said.
“Yeah. You been dealing with the Raiders, haven’t you?”
“Small world,” I said.
I sipped my drink. It takes awhile acquiring a taste for martinis, but it’s worth the effort.
“Raiders have cleared out of the Double Deuce apartments,” Belson said. “Packed up and left. Hear from the gang unit that Tony Marcus put out the word.”
“Public-spirited,” I said.
“Tony? Yeah. Anyway, they’re gone.”
Belson drank the rest of his martini and ordered another. His were straight-up and made with gin and an olive. Mine was made with Absolut vodka, on the rocks. I ordered one too.
“Just being polite,” I said. “Don’t want you to feel like a lush.”
“Thanks,” Belson said. He sorted through the mixed nuts.
“You eating all the cashews?” he said.
“Of course.”
“One-way bastard,” Belson said.
He found a half cashew and took it, and two Brazil nuts and ate them and sipped from his second martini. His jacket was unbuttoned and I could see the butt of his gun. He wore it in a holster inside his waistband.
“Marty and I were talking,” Belson said. “Figure whoever spiked Porter probably did us a favor. Been in and out of jail most of his life. Leg-breaker. Some homicides we could never prove.”
We each drank a little. Around us the afterwork social scene whirled in a montage of pastel neckties and white pantyhose and perfume and cologne and cocktails, and talk of StairMasters and group therapy and recent movies.
“Old for a gangbanger,” Belson said. “Nearly thirty.”
I nodded. I rummaged unsuccessfully for cashews. They were all gone. I ate three hazelnuts instead.
“Kid seemed kind of proud about being shot,” Belson said. “Gang kids put a lot of stock in that.”
“They got nothing else to put stock in,” I said.
“Probably not,” Belson said. “But that’s not my problem. I investigate shootings. Even if the shooting is maybe necessary, I’m supposed to investigate it.”
“And handsomely paid for the work, too,” I said.
“Sure.”
Belson picked up the martini glass and looked through it along the bar, admiring the refracted colors. Then he took a brief sip and put it down.
“Spenser,” Belson said, “Marty and me figure you or Hawk done John Porter. And we probably can’t prove it, and if we could, why would we want to?”
“Why indeed,” I said.
“But I didn’t want you thinking we didn’t know.”
“I understand that,” I said. “And I know that if you thought, say, Joe Broz had done it, that maybe you could prove it, and would.”
Belson looked at me silently for a moment, then he drank the rest of his martini in a swallow, put the glass on the bar, and put his right hand out, palm up. I slapped it lightly.
“Tony Marcus killed Devona Jefferson and her baby,” I said.
“Himself?”
“He had Billy do it. I got a witness.”
I looked around the bar. There were several attractive young executive-class women with assertive blue suits and tight butts. I could ask one to join me for a discussion of Madonna’s iconographic impact on mass culture. The very thought made my blood boil.
“Who you got?” Belson said.
A new drink sat undisturbed in front of him on the bar.
“Major Johnson,” I said.
“Kid runs the Hobart Street Raiders.”
“Yeah. He was in the truck when she got hit. He won’t say so, but he probably ID’d her for Billy.”
“And?” Belson said.
“He’ll need immunity.”
“I can rig that,” Belson said. “Can he tie Tony to it?”
“Heard him give the order,” I said. “Whole thing supposed to be an object lesson for the gangs. Tony wanted them to remember who was in charge.”
Belson nodded.
“Sort of dangerous being the only eyewitness against Tony Marcus,” he said.
“We’ll protect him,” I said.
“You and Hawk?”
“Yeah.”
“Still, it’s his word against Tony’s. Tony ain’t much, but neither is the kid.”
“Thought of that,” I said.
“You got a plan?”
I smiled.
“Surely you jest,” I said.
Belson pushed the undrunk martini away from him and leaned his elbows on the bar.
“Tell me,” he said.
I did.