Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Fifteen

It was a verifiable fact, of both my life and Richie’s, that the new Rosie didn’t love him nearly as much as the original had.

The original Rosie had been as much Richie’s as she’d been mine, of course. After our divorce our custody schedule had been as strict as it would have been with a child. But even when Rosie was no longer living with Richie on a full-time basis, the love they continued to share sometimes seemed to pass understanding. Even when they were apart for only a few days the dog would, as Richie loved to point out, lose her shit every single time she saw him again.

The relationship between him and the new Rosie, on the other hand, continued to be a work in progress. Much like our own. Except that the dog, bless her heart, didn’t overthink her relationship with Richie nearly as much as I did. Or require a therapist to sort through it.

Today she had lapped his face when he’d arrived at Melanie Joan’s and then sat next to him on the couch until arriving at the conclusion that no treats were in the offing.

“A little sugar never hurts with a girl,” I said.

“I’m going to forget I heard that,” Richie said, “especially in this time of enlightenment for men and women.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Paying her off makes me feel like a john.”

“Are you calling our precious angel a treat whore?” I said.

“If the round heels fit,” he said.

He was feeling well enough that we had made an actual dinner date for Davio’s, our favorite Italian restaurant in this part of town, on Arlington. He had informed me that the family had decided there would be no wake for his uncle Peter, or funeral, just a brief memorial service at one of the Burke family’s cemetery plots at St. Augustine’s in South Boston. The church itself, on Dorchester Street, was the oldest Catholic Church building in the whole state.

“My mother’s there, and now Peter.” He smiled. “As always, the Church cares about as much where the money comes from as a lot of other people with whom my family has done business.”

Richie asked if we had time for a glass of wine before Davio’s. I told him I was way ahead of him, and had already opened a bottle of La Crema.

I went into the kitchen, came back with two glasses. I handed Richie his, turned and tried to discreetly slip Rosie a small biscuit.

When I turned back to him, he was shaking his head.

“Busted,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Right.”

“And besides, who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”

“Chico Marx,” Richie said, clinking his glass with mine. “Duck Soup.”

“You always seem to know things that I didn’t know you knew,” I said.

Rosie was between us on the couch. I asked if he was feeling any pain. He grinned and said not after two sips of pinot noir. I told him he knew what I meant. He said that he was feeling as good as new and thanked me for asking.

“Why were you spared and your uncle was not?” I said.

“You think I don’t keep asking myself the same question?”

“You had no way of knowing who your shooter was,” I said. “Your uncle had to know.”

“But maybe didn’t know it was the shooter,” Richie said.

“Until it was too late,” I said.

“This can’t possibly be over,” he said.

“There’s a pleasant thought,” I said. I grinned at him. “I take it that you didn’t arrive here unaccompanied.”

“I did not.”

“You think the boys will allow us to walk across the Public Garden to the restaurant?”

“At a respectful distance,” Richie said. “I told them I had my date, they had to get their own.”

He looked less tired than he had the first day after the shooting. But he still looked tired. And did not look as good as new, or even close.

“You sure you want to go out?” I said. “We could order in.” I brightened. “And have the boys go pick it up!”

“I am going to buy the artist formerly known as Sonya Randall a proper dinner,” he said.

He sipped the last of his red wine. I did the same. Like an old married couple, with the baby between us. And armed men somewhere outside.

He blew out some air.

“My father has asked me to ask you once again to leave this alone,” Richie said.

I reached down and absently scratched Rosie behind an ear. She did not stir, which meant she would provide no assistance to me in the moment.

“We’ve gone over this,” I said.

“Now we’re going over it again.”

“No one knows me better than you do,” I said.

He nodded.

“He’s my father,” Richie said.

“Yup. And I’m me.”

I thought: The date is not starting off well. Not the first time.

“I went to see Vinnie Morris today,” I said.

“He told me.”

“Vinnie told you?”

“My father.”

“Sweet Jumping Jesus,” I said. “Desmond is having me followed?”

“Monitored might be a better choice of words,” Richie said.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling at him. “Go with that.”

“This is not easy,” Richie said. “For any of us.”

“I know that,” I said. “Don’t you think I know that? But how about if I ask you to ask your father to stay out of my business?”

“This may sound like an odd choice of words,” Richie said. “But don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Vinnie thinks this all might somehow be connected to some gun deal your father is about to make,” I said.

Richie put his glass down.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Talk about things in my father’s business about which I know nothing,” he said. “Get between you and my father’s business. Or just between you and my father. I didn’t want to do it when we first fell in love. I have far less interest in doing it now.”

“I am not worried about your father,” I said. “I am worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“One gunshot wound later.”

“I am fine and will be fine,” he said.

“You think that they won’t come for you again?” I said. “Maybe this is just the beginning of this guy torturing your father. Maybe Felix is next. It took exactly one day for things to get dialed up with Peter.”

“My father is a survivor,” Richie said.

“So was your uncle Peter until he wasn’t.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“We’re not fighting,” I said.

“What you used to say when we were married.”

I sighed. It came out louder than I had intended. “I don’t need his permission to do some detecting,” I said. “But I would very much like to have yours.”

“And if not granted?”

I tried to give him a smile that once had done everything except cause his knees to buckle.

“I will have to find ways to persuade you,” I said.

“Wouldn’t that make me the treat whore?” Richie said.

There seemed to be nothing more to say at the moment. Richie finally looked at his watch.

“We should get going,” he said.

“I haven’t annoyed you to the point where you want to dump me?” I said.

“I keep trying,” Richie said. “But it just never seems to goddamn take.”

“Maybe we should agree to drop the subject of your father’s current business interests for the rest of the evening,” I said. “Unless, of course, you just can’t help yourself.”

“I’ll try to maintain control.”

“Never been much of an issue for you, big boy.”

He suddenly looked even more tired to me, as if the conversation had come close to exhausting him. I told him we could Uber to Davio’s, or have the boys drive us. Richie said he could use the air. He walked more slowly than usual up River Street and then Charles and then across Beacon, and into the Public Garden past the small duckling statues that actually made Rosie growl when we’d walk past them.

When we were finished with dinner, there seemed to be no thought, and certainly no conversation, about the two of us spending the night together at my place. Two of Desmond’s men had walked behind us on our way to the restaurant. I had seen one of them at the bar while we ate. When we finished, the car was waiting out front. The man who had been at the bar opened the door to the backseat for Richie and me.

Richie didn’t introduce me to the two men, neither of whom I recognized, which meant nothing. Desmond Burke likely employed a small army of Irish just like them.

When we got to the house, Richie kissed me softly on the cheek. I said I’d call him in the morning. He said not to make it too early.

I went inside, grabbed Rosie’s leash, took her for a quick walk so she could perform her last-walk-of-the-night obligations in the little fenced-in area around the corner that the other residents of River Street Place had sadly nicknamed the Poop Loop. Then we went back inside and I locked the front door and got ready for bed, alone.

At least nobody I knew had gotten shot today.

It might not have been progress. But as my father liked to say, it wasn’t nothing.