Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Forty-Three

They took Spike by ambulance to the Tufts Medical Center on Washington Street, not terribly far from where he now lived. It turned out to be a flesh wound. The ER doctor said he was lucky. Spike said, “Relative to what?”

“Relative to about a foot closer to the center of your mass,” the doctor said.

They had finished working on him. Frank Belson had arrived and was with us, having badged the nurse working the desk and saying, “Friend of the family.” The doctor had already informed Spike that there was no reason for him to stay the night, even though they’d already established they had a room for him if needed.

The doctor said he was going to get Spike a sling.

“What color?” Spike said.

“Excuse me?”

The doctor was tall, young-looking, spoke with a slight Spanish accent. His name tag said “Ramirez.”

“I just want something that clashes with the fewest of my outfits,” Spike said.

The doctor frowned, said, “I think we go with basic blue here,” and left.

“Cute,” Spike said. “The doctor. Not the color.”

“Really?” Belson said.

“I actually thought he was kind of cute myself, Frank,” I said.

“Talk to me,” he said.

I told him everything that had happened from the time I opened the front door.

“Shooter was waiting out there,” Belson said. “Hard to hang around on your street without somebody noticing.”

“You have a pretty good view of my front door for a pretty good distance up River,” I said.

“Maybe he was moving around, from corner to corner, and then was in the right place to take his shot when we came out,” I said.

“Lucky,” Belson said.

“Well, for him,” Spike said.

Belson said, “We’ll send people over in the morning to canvass the neighborhood.”

“If he was out there a long time,” I said, “he knew Spike was inside with me. If not, he was there to shoot just me. If there had been people on the street, he could have just walked toward the Public Garden, or past our little dog park toward the river.”

“If you hadn’t dropped your keys...” Belson said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He’s back-shot everybody else so far,” he said. “This is different.”

“Almost more arrogant,” I said.

“And he’s willing to take a shot at him,” Belson said, nodding at Spike, “before he runs off.”

“He tried to scare me off once,” I said.

“Other than the Burkes and me and the Scarlet Pimpernel here,” Belson said, “who knows that you’re still on this?”

“Albert Antonioni,” I said.

“Now somebody comes right to your front door,” Belson said.

“And somehow nobody has yet taken a shot at Desmond Burke,” I said, “around whom this whole thing is supposed to revolve.”

“Curiouser and fucking curiouser,” Frank Belson said.