Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Twenty-Eight

As far as I knew, Charlie Whitaker’s wife didn’t shoot him after I left and neither did anyone else.

But somebody did shoot Buster Doogan, Desmond Burke’s top trooper, outside of Touchie’s Shamrock Pub in Southie, just after last call, early the next morning.

Belson called me right before Richie did to tell me what had happened.

“You might as well come on over here,” Belson said. “Maybe you can bring some ideas with you on how to keep this out of the papers that we maybe have a serial killer on our hands.”

“Serial shooter, to be precise, Frank,” I said.

“What is this,” he said, “one of those fucking debate shows on cable TV?”

I threw on a sweater and jeans and jacket, threw my short-barrel .38 into my shoulder bag, drove over to Pearl Street. There was the usual small army of crime scene people already in place and at work. Desmond Burke was there, too, and Felix, and Richie. So was Colley, Buster’s wingman, a tough young guy who looked to be in a state of shock.

When Belson saw me he waved me through the uniforms on the perimeter, and walked me up 8th Street, away from the crush. He always looked the same, day or night, always needing a shave, always slightly pissed off, never missing anything in his range of vision. Always with a cigar in his hand, sometimes lit, sometimes not.

“He lives over on Marine Road,” Belson said. “Or lived. The guy, Buster Doogan. His shift bird-dogging Desmond was over. Desmond has them working eight-hour shifts now. Doogan is walking home when he gets popped.”

“Witnesses?” I said.

“People heard,” Belson said. “Nobody saw.”

“Guy could have taken out anybody in Desmond’s crew,” I said. “But he takes out Buster, who’s been with him the longest. Means our guy has been doing his homework.”

“Richie, Peter, Felix, you, now Buster,” Belson said. “Like the asshole is tightening a noose.”

I looked past him. Desmond and Felix and Richie were watching us from their side of the yellow tape, faces lit by flashing lights.

Belson said, “What haven’t you told me?”

“Very little.”

“But something,” he said. “Just because there always is.”

“Why my clients trust me the way they do,” I said.

He stuck the cigar in his mouth, took it out without inhaling.

“Might I remind you that you have no client here,” Belson said. “From what I gather, what you mostly got is people, including your ex, who don’t want to be your clients.”

“Well, there is that,” I said.

“So talk to me.”

“It would mean telling you things that I haven’t yet told Richie,” I said. “Things to which I’m not sure how he’ll react. And things that might cause him pain.”

“You know what causes pain?” Belson said. “Getting shot. And you know what causes me pain? People getting shot and killed. So if you’ve got a theory you’d like to share, I am all fucking ears.”

So I told him more than I had already about what the guy who’d put me down in the alley had told me before he did. I told him about what Billy Leonard had said about Desmond and women and what Felix Burke, who seemed to be in some pain of his own, seemed unwilling to say about Desmond and women. Belson let me tell it at my own pace, as if we had all night, which I suppose we did.

“Was about twenty minutes ago,” he said, “that you thought this was about some kind of gun deal going wrong.”

“Maybe it still is,” I said. “But then this guy was right in my ear. And as much as he seems to be enjoying himself tightening the noose, what I really heard was rage.”

“So this might have something to do with a woman from the old man’s past,” Belson said. “And the shooter’s connection to her.”

“Brother, husband, son, friend,” I said. “Could be any of the above.”

“Or none of.”

“Frank,” I said, “this runs deep, whatever it is. If this was just about business, the guy could hit Desmond no matter how well protected he thinks he is, and be done with it.”

“Guy wants it made clear that nobody is safe,” Belson said.

“Kind of the definition of a terrorist,” I said.

“Ain’t it, though?” he said.

He said the conversation he wanted to have with Desmond could wait, if Desmond would even agree to have it at all.

“We’re on the same page here,” I said to him.

“Be still my heart,” Frank Belson said.