Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Seventeen

I called Frank Belson when I got home and asked if there were any leads on Peter Burke.

“What,” he said, “you haven’t already broken this thing wide open on your own?”

“Frank,” I said, “stop trying to act as if you don’t like me. Everybody knows that behind that gruff exterior—”

“Lies a complete asshole,” he said. “No, there are no leads as of yet, and maybe not forever. And let’s just say that my bosses, starting with her, haven’t exactly ordered me to drop everything to track down the killer of an aging thug.”

“So the only way we catch this guy is if he comes after someone else,” I said.

“Before I get back to work,” Frank Belson said, “let me leave you with one thought: The fuck do you mean by ‘we’?”

By noon the next day Spike and I were on our way to Providence to meet with Albert Antonioni. Normally I would have asked Felix Burke to set it up, as he had the last time I had been across a table from Antonioni. But if I did that, he would tell Desmond. And I didn’t want Desmond in my business today. So I had asked Wayne Cosgrove for help, and he had put me in touch with a columnist at The Providence Journal named Mike Stanton, who had once written a bestselling book about a colorful and often crooked former mayor of Providence named Buddy Cianci. Wayne said Stanton knew all the players in Providence. Mike called back within an hour with a number for somebody he said knew Antonioni well enough to set it up.

“You people from the big city sure know how to have fun,” Stanton said.

I told him Albert and I went way back.

“Sunny?” he said. “Hardly anybody goes way back with Albert.”

I wasn’t sure if Desmond Burke really was monitoring me, as Richie had suggested. But I decided to take no chances. I told Spike that I was going to walk over to the Taj Boston, walk out the service entrance, and that he should pick me up in the Public Alley between the hotel and Commonwealth Ave. Which he did. At noon we were on our way to Providence.

We were meeting Antonioni at a restaurant called Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen, which was in the heart of the Federal Hill section of Providence. Mike Stanton had told me the setting was perfect, that in the old days an old boss named Raymond Patriarca would meet guys in an upstairs room there when they got off the train from New York City.

We parked at the Rhode Island Convention Center and walked from there underneath the gateway arch on Atwells Avenue to where the Old Canteen stood, at what looked to me to be the corner of Atwells and 1955.

“Richie is not going to like that you went to see Antonioni without telling him,” Spike said. “As I recall, it wasn’t just Uncle Felix who set up the meet last time. It was Richie who put the whole thing in motion.”

“He did,” I said.

“So you’ve eliminated the middlemen,” Spike said.

“But if you look at it logically,” I said, “I’m actually doing what he asked me to do, and not putting him between his father and me.”

“I assume you don’t actually believe that.”

“Hell, no,” I said. “But I keep telling myself that if I finally get an actual clue today, it will have been for the greater good.”

“As you continue your tour of extremely bad guys,” Spike said. “Next up being someone who might not just be a bad guy, but maybe the worst guy of all of them. And dangerous as shit.”

“So are you, sweetcakes,” I said.

I expected the place to be dark. It was the opposite of that, with white linen tablecloths and pink walls.

“Hi ho!” Spike said.

I told him to behave. After we were patted down, one of Antonioni’s men showed us to his table. Albert sat alone in a corner, back to the wall. Classic, I thought. There were other tables in the room that were occupied. I assumed that some were occupied by men who worked for Antonioni. Or all. I appeared to be the only woman in the room. There were two younger guys in dark suits at the table closest to Albert Antonioni’s. Two other guys were standing at the end of the bar, one thicker than the other and looking like a bodybuilder in a leather jacket that was too small for him and strained at the zipper. The other was a Richie type, dark and not bad-looking. The thicker one seemed to be working hardest on his tough-guy stare, eyeballing Spike as if he were supposed to go into a dead faint. The Richie type seemed more focused on me.

Albert had a small cup of espresso in front of him. There were two cups and saucers waiting for Spike and me.

Albert had aged considerably since we’d resolved the fate of Millicent Patton. He still had a lot of white hair, combed straight back, and a well-groomed beard. He wore a black suit with a gray shirt buttoned all the way to the top. No tie. He seemed to have shrunk inside himself, in the way old people did, in the years since I’d seen him.

Albert stood up as Spike and I approached the table. Courtly. I shook his hand and noted that he was just slightly taller than I was. But he was still a hard-looking man. I remembered when I had first met him, at a place in Taunton. Richie had told me beforehand not to go all feminist, that I was in the world of Desmond and Felix Burke and Albert Antonioni, and that it was not a day to impress them with my wit and attitude. I managed to keep myself under control. And planned to do the same today.

“Who’s this?” Albert said, nodding at Spike.

“My name is Spike, Mr. Antonioni,” Spike said.

It was all part of the dance. Albert Antonioni knew I was bringing Spike because I had told Mike Stanton to tell his people that I was. And if he knew I was bringing Spike, he knew who he was and what he did and maybe even his password on Amazon.

“Oh, yes,” Albert said. “The strano.”

I knew enough Italian to know that meant queer.

Spike smiled, brilliantly. “And proud of it!” he said.

The old man let it go. He pointed at the cups and said, “You want something?” I told him that what he was having would be lovely.

Antonioni made a brief wave of his hand. The bartender was at our table like a sprinter, collecting our cups, returning just as quickly with espresso. I decided to drink it straight. No girly girl, I.

“You cost me some money the last time we were together,” the old man said. “And kept me from making a very big move into Boston.”

“There was no point once it became clear that I was going to be governor before that moron Brock Patton was,” I said.

He shrugged and took a sip of espresso. “He ever try anything with you?” he said. “Patton?”

“He did,” I said, “until I pulled out my gun and threatened to shoot him.”

He looked over at the guys at the next table. “You hear that?” he said. “This is one tough cookie.”

“As I recall,” I said, “that isn’t the first time you have made that observation about me.”

I casually looked around the room. The other men seemed to have their eyes mostly fixed on Spike. Somehow Spike had his own eyes on all of them at once.

“So to what do I owe the honor?” Antonioni said.

“I am told that you still know about everything illegal from here to Canada and back,” I said. “And because you do, I was wondering if you had any theories about who might be coming for the Burke family.”

“For Desmond, you mean,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

The old man said, “I am frankly confused by this, as I am sure you are, Miss Randall. Desmond is an old man, the way I am. I had just assumed that all old fights that needed to be fought had already been fought.”

“But you both have business interests that are still quite active,” I said.

“Ones that we have mostly managed to keep separate, Desmond and me,” he said.

“In the interest of mutual profit,” I said.

“And respect,” he said. He smiled. “It always comes down to that in our world, does it not? Respect. Or lack of respect. Or earning respect. Or avenging the lack of respect.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Sometimes I think we are all still children,” he said.

“Would you tell me if you knew who has been doing the shooting?” I said.

“For mutual profit?” he said.

“I am told that Desmond is getting more into guns,” I said, “and that such an action might have angered you.”

“Angered me in what way?”

“Perhaps he beat you out of making a similar action.”

The old man waved a hand.

“Maybe there was a time when Desmond Burke beat me to things,” he said. “But not for a very long time.”

“He says you have hated him for a very long time,” I said. “Why is that?”

“We were both full of piss and vinegar once,” he said. There was a small smile. “When we could still piss.”

Spike made a brief snorting sound.

Antonioni nodded at the bartender, who came for his cup, went back over to the espresso machine behind the bar, refilled it, brought it back. Antonioni sipped and nodded. The bartender looked relieved, as if maybe that meant his family could live. Spike wasn’t looking at the other men now. He was looking at Antonioni, fascinated.

“If I thought the risk was worth the reward with guns,” Antonioni said, “that Iron Pipeline about which people speak would be running through me, and fuck Desmond Burke. But it does not.”

“Okay, let’s assume it’s not about guns,” I said. “Who out of Desmond’s past would shoot his son and kill his brother?”

“At last an easy question,” Albert Antonioni said. “Anybody Desmond ever fucked over.”

I started to say something, but he held up an old, veiny hand.

“We’re done here now,” he said.

“Evidently,” I said.

“You have obviously taken it upon yourself to find out who is doing this to Desmond and his family, and why.”

“I have,” I said.

Antonioni stood and nodded.

“Tough cookie,” he said.

“All due respect, sir?” Spike said. “You have no fucking idea.”

“One last thing, Miss Randall,” the old man said. “It is my experience that the Irish in Boston only forget grudges when they are dead.”

“Is that a suggestion?” I said.

“More of an observation,” he said. “The answers you seek are likely there, not here.”

He gave me a long look, with dark eyes suddenly full of light.

“By the way?” he said. “Brock Patton might have gotten elected, as much of a stunad as he is. As you have probably noticed, just about anybody can in this country.”

He and his men left the room first. They had all been his. Spike and I remained at the table until we were certain they were gone from the Old Canteen. When we were outside and walking back underneath the arch, Spike said, “Did Albert’s boys scare you as much as they did me?”

“Not as much as Albert does,” I said.

“Fuckin’ ay,” Spike said.