Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Twenty-Five

He picked me up in the Town Car that he sometimes had on call for special patrons who lived nearby. I didn’t recognize the driver. I was happy I could recognize Spike.

On the way to Melanie Joan’s he said a doctor would meet us there.

“You know a doctor who makes house calls at this time of night?”

“Friend of the family.”

“Whose family.”

“Somebody’s,” he said.

He walked me into the house. I asked him to walk Rosie while I took a shower. He asked me again if I were feeling dizzy or nauseated. I told him I was not, that I was just sore as hell.

“Not as sore as I am,” he said.

I went and undressed. Every movement was a rousing number from the Pops. But I dragged myself into the shower and made the water as hot as I could, happy that I was able to stand.

The guy, whoever the guy was, had said that he and Richie were alike.

He had said that it had been easy.

But what did it mean?

I got out and dried my hair with a towel, got into a Maroon 5 T-shirt and sweats. When I emerged, there was a man sitting next to Spike on the couch, petting Rosie. Close-cropped gray hair, stylishly cut. A bright red Ralph Lauren polo shirt and faded jeans and sneakers.

“This is Dr. Greg,” Spike said.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

Dr. Greg grinned. “Spike,” he said, as if that explained everything except quantum theory.

Then he told me to stand where I was in the middle of the room, asking me to show him exactly where the guy had hit me. I told him side of the head, top of the head, ribs. He gently probed my head, asking where it hurt.

“Everywhere,” I said.

Then he asked me what Spike had asked, about dizziness or blurred vision or nausea or loss of consciousness. I told him, none of the above. It was then that I noticed a small machine standing at the end of the couch.

“Mind if I ask what that is?” I said.

“It’s a little thing we call the TRX Dragon,” he said. “Portable X-ray machine.”

“You just happened to have one handy?” I said.

Spike said, “Is knowing where he got it going to make you feel any better?”

“Not so much,” I said.

Dr. Greg plugged it in, used it to take pictures of my ribs, then asked if I had a laptop handy. I showed him where mine was on the desk. He attached a cord from the X-ray machine into the laptop, hit some keys, nodded.

“Contusion,” he said. “No fracture, no breaks. You’re actually in pretty good shape considering the beating you say you took.”

“I feel like I’m being graded against the curve,” I said.

“This really happened in one of those Public Alleys?” he said.

“It did.”

“No shit,” he said.

“No shit,” I said.

“Ice for the ribs,” he said. “What do you take for headaches?”

Advil, I told him.

“Take three or four now,” he said, “and three or four more in a few hours.”

“Isn’t that a lot?”

He grinned again. “What is this, a Senate hearing?”

As he wheeled the TRX Dragon toward the door he said, “Ice pack to the top of the head wouldn’t be so bad, either. You can alternate.”

“I have two.”

“No shit,” he said again.

“Be prepared,” I said. “I would have made a great Boy Scout if they were taking girls back then.”

As soon as he was gone, Spike went and got the Jameson from where he knew I kept it. Came back with the bottle and two glasses. Poured what we liked to call a Spike pour at his restaurant.

I drank some Jameson. It felt much better than it tasted as it ran through me like warm water.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” I said.

“Dr. Spike knows you way better than Dr. Greg,” he said.

Then he looked at me over his glass and said, “Why didn’t you call Richie?”

“Because it wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere tonight,” I said. “And he would have had no viable outlet for the rage he would have felt.”

Spike grinned. “You really have been shrinked, haven’t you?”

I said, “He said that he didn’t shoot to kill with Richie because they were, quote, alike.”

“Alike?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“The only person Richie’s going to want to kill is him,” Spike said.

“Tell you something else,” I said. “He seemed to enjoy the power he had over me.”

“This asshat seems to be enjoying himself, period,” Spike said. “But maybe getting a little more reckless as he goes in light of tonight’s festivities.”

“Makes him more likely to make a mistake.”

I took a healthy pull on the Jameson. My head no longer throbbed as badly as it had. I wasn’t sure if it was the Advil or the whiskey or both.

“Pretty bold move on Exeter Street,” Spike said. “All in all.”

“I think the conditions might have emboldened him somewhat,” I said.

“At least he didn’t shoot you.”

“There’s that.”

“Small blessings,” Spike said. “Painful as they may be.”

“I think we’ve established that this guy, whomever he is, wants to make Desmond Burke suffer,” I said.

“And he obviously knows enough about you, missy, to be threatened by you.”

“You think he plans to kill him if he can?” I said.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Spike said.

“But he’s gonna want Desmond to know why.”

“What happened tonight doesn’t sound as if it’s about some gun deal gone sideways,” Spike said.

I shook my head.

“This wasn’t an old guy,” I said.

“Doesn’t mean an old guy didn’t send him,” Spike said. “Which gives you a leg up.”

“In what way?”

“Old guys are like your thing these days,” he said.

He said he was sleeping on the couch, and there wasn’t going to be any debate or smart talk about that. I told him I was too tired for either, and that he had Rosie, the two of them could battle it out for space.

I finished my Jameson, decided against taking more Advil, and went to bed, where I finally managed to sleep, dreaming about drowning because a hand kept holding my head underneath the water and not letting it up.