Family Honor

Chapter 53

Thirty-three King’s Beach Terrace was in Swampscott, just over the line from Lynn, facing east across Lynn Shore Drive, where the Atlantic Ocean rolled ashore at King’s Beach. I parked on Lynn Shore Drive. Beside me in the passenger seat, Spike, wearing Oakley wrap-around sunglasses, was drop-dead gorgeous in a blue suit, dark blue shirt, amethyst tie, blue socks with some sort of small, round clock pattern in the weave, and black brogues gleaming with polish. He wore a big showy silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. It matched his tie.

“Spike,” I said, “you are better-looking than Leonardo DiCaprio.”

“So is Rosie,” Spike said. “I just dress better.”

“You did bring a gun,” I said.

“I don’t have one that matches,” Spike said.

“But you brought one.”

Spike grinned and opened his coat so I could see the butt of his Army Colt.

“I know you’ve explained it before,” Spike said, “but this Cathal Kragan is a stone killer, right?”

“Yes.”

“And why is it just you and me are calling on him?”

“I’m going to have to ask Richie for help if I need to talk with Albert Antonioni. I wasn’t comfortable asking him for help with Kragan.”

“He wouldn’t have even had to come,” Spike said. “His uncle could have come out with six or eight pistoleros and Kragan would have stood at attention while you talked with him.”

“Not the best way for me to learn anything,” I said. “And even if it were, I can’t ask him.”

“How about the cop you’re bopping?”

I shook my head.

“Something?” Spike said.

“I’m afraid he’s getting too serious.”

“So exploit that,” Spike said.

“No,” I said.

“Jesus Christ,” Spike said. “I gotta be pals with Nancy fucking Drew.”

“Are you scared?”

“I am without fear,” Spike said. “As you know. But if I were going to acquire some, this would be a good place to start.”

I opened the car door and got out.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’re with me, after all.”

Spike climbed out of his side of the car and shut the door.

“True,” he said. “And I look so goddamned good.”

Kragan’s front door was opened by a bright-faced woman in her forties with a mass of dark red hair. A reddish dachshund peeked between her feet growling and wagging its tail. Talk about mixed messages. The woman held the dog back with one foot.

“My name is Sunny Randall,” I said. “I called earlier. Could you tell Mr. Kragan I’m here?”

“Sure, I’ll tell him,” the woman said. “Excuse me, but I have to close the door so the dog won’t get out.”

“I understand,” I said.

Spike and I stood and looked at the ocean for a little while and the door opened again. The red-haired woman stepped aside and we went into the foyer. The dog was no longer in evidence.

“Right over here,” the woman said, “in the living room.”

He was just as Millicent had described him: squat, thick-bodied, silver-haired, impeccable, and alive with force. He was sitting in an armchair by a fireplace with a gas fire, looking a bit posed, and incredibly, wearing a green velvet smoking jacket. Standing by the archway that led to the living room was a guy that looked like the employee of the month for Bodyguards-R-Us. He was about two hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle, padded by at least a hundred pounds of fat. He glanced at Spike with amusement.

Kragan spoke in the deep purr that I’d heard on my answering machine.

“So you’re Sunny Randall,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Who’s the clotheshorse?”

“My friend Spike,” I said.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Design police,” Spike said. “Gas fireplaces are really tacky.”

Kragan’s expression never changed.

“Georgie,” he said, “get him out of here.”

Georgie said, “Out you go, Mary.”

He put his hand on Spike’s chest and shoved him toward the hallway. Spike hit him four or five karate-type chops, too fast for an accurate count, and Georgie fell down and lay gasping on the floor. While he was going down I took my gun out in case Kragan took offense. If he did, he didn’t show it. He seemed mildly interested in how quick Spike was. Spike leaned over and patted Georgie down and took a gun away from him. He removed the magazine and put it in his pocket. He racked the slide back and ejected the shell from the chamber, and dropped the gun back onto the floor beside Georgie.

“He gonna recover?” Kragan said.

“Few minutes,” Spike said. “I didn’t go full out.”

Kragan nodded. “Be sort of interesting sometime to see you go full out,” he said.

“I didn’t come here to cause trouble,” I said.

“You brought him for that?” Kragan said.

“I brought him to protect me,” I said.

“So far he’s doing a hell of a job of it,” Kragan said, “You don’t need the piece.”

I put my gun away. Kragan appeared to pay no further attention to Georgie. Spike leaned against the wall near the door, rubbing his hands gently.

“There’s a Boston cop named Kelly,” I said. “And a couple of members of the Desmond Burke family that know I’m here.”

I was lying, but Kragan didn’t know that.

“Being pretty careful,” he said.

“I don’t want you to make any mistakes,” I said. “You made one already and Georgie paid for it.”

Kragan waved his left hand dismissively.

“So what do you want?” he said.

“You’re trying to kill Millicent Patton,” I said.

“Really?”

“Un huh. And me, too, while you’re at it.”

“You, too?” Kragan said.

“She heard you and her mother talk about killing a man who turned out to be a plumber from Framingham named Kevin Humphries.”

“She tell you that?” Kragan said.

Georgie had slowly gotten his breathing under control and was now sitting up on the floor, trying to get oriented.

“You killed him because Albert Antonioni told you to,” I said.

“Who’s Albert Antonioni?”

“Antonioni wants to move into Massachusetts and to have his own governor in office when he does. The plumber had pictures of himself and Betty Patton that would ruin the governor plans.”

“So?”

“So he had you kill the plumber. But the girl heard you and her mother planning it, so the girl had to go, too. Otherwise the whole story comes out and puts you and Albert inside, not outside,” I said.

“And you can prove all of this?” Kragan said.

“I can prove enough of this to give you a lot of grief.”

“Say the girl did hear me, which she didn’t, but say for the moment I believe your fairy tale. All she heard was an agreement to kill somebody. How do you tie that to the plumber?”

I almost bit. My mouth had actually opened before I closed it. If he knew that I thought I could turn Betty Patton, then he would kill her. I waited a moment before I spoke and breathed in a couple of times through my nose and thought a couple of sentences ahead. Then I answered.

“I can’t,” I said.

“So?”

“I’m not after you,” I said. “I’m after Albert Antonioni.”

“And?”

“Somebody’s going to have to go down on this thing. I thought maybe we could work a trade — him for you.”

As he leaned against the wall, Spike was absently thumbing the shells from the magazine he’d taken from Georgie’s gun. Georgie had gotten unsteadily to his feet and gone to the couch, where he sat now, not feeling very well.

“And all you got is the kid’s story,” Kragan said.

“That’s all I’ve got, yet.”

Kragan laughed.

“Come back when you got more,” he said.

“Such as who popped Bucko Meehan,” I said.

“Well, you are a nosy little girl, aren’t you.”

Spike finished emptying the magazine and put the shells into his coat pocket.

“Yes,” I said, “I am, and stubborn and annoying. But a lovely person for all of that.”

“You’re like a housefly,” Kragan said slowly, his voice so deep that some of it seemed to drop out as he talked. “Don’t do no real damage. But you keep buzzing around until you irritate somebody, and then you get swatted.”

“This is your last chance,” I said. “Do you want to be the one who gets the break or not?”

Kragan didn’t speak, but he made a gesture with his hand as if he were swatting a fly, and he looked at me straight on as he did it, and I felt a little thrill of fear dart through my stomach.

“Well,” I said. “You better send somebody better than Georgie.”

Kragan kept looking at me.

“It won’t be Georgie,” he said.

I looked at Spike. He shrugged. I nodded and started out of the living room. Spike tossed the empty magazine on the floor beside the gun.

“Nobody’s wearing smoking jackets anymore,” he said to Kragan, and followed me out.