Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Forty-Nine

Richie and I were having dinner at the Capital Grille on Boylston, next door to the Hynes Auditorium. The restaurant had originally been on Newbury, right before you got to Mass Ave. But they’d decided they needed a bigger space and found it the next block over. Blessedly, the steaks hadn’t gotten any smaller, nor the side dishes or desserts. Nor had the big pours for their wine.

Sometimes you just needed red meat and red wine, as diligent as you were about maintaining a girlish figure. Tonight was one of those nights.

“You pulled a gun on this jamoke?” Richie said.

“I did.”

“And you thought this was a prudent decision... why?”

“There was just something about him that pissed me off,” I said. “The casual way he thought he could harass me in broad daylight, and that I was just supposed to take it.”

Richie smiled.

“He fucked with the wrong Marine,” he said and raised his glass. I touched his with mine. We both drank.

Richie said, “I could tell my father to once again urge Albert Antonioni to leave you alone.”

“I think we are well past that,” I said. “Albert told me that your father had run out of favors.”

“Maybe Desmond still has things that Albert wants.”

“You mean business things,” I said.

“Who the hell knows?” Richie said.

Garrett, our waiter, brought Caesar salads for both of us. When he was gone, Richie said, “I’ve been thinking: It’s still a possibility that Maria might only turn out to be a side actor in this.”

“I know I could be wrong about her,” I said. “But I don’t think I am. I think she’s the star.”

“You hate being wrong,” he said.

“You’re the same way,” I said. I smiled sweetly. “Look how angry you were at yourself after so badly remarrying.”

“I know you like to play this game,” Richie said. “But I don’t.”

“Change of subject?”

“If you do, I’ll pay the check,” he said.

“You’re doing that anyway.”

He smiled. I liked it when he smiled.

I said, “Your father knows more than he is telling about her.”

“I’ve continued to ask about that in different ways,” he said. “To no avail.”

“Ask again when you get the chance,” I said. “I’m willing to offer sex in return.”

Richie Burke smiled then, and I felt the way I did when he smiled at me that way on our first date.

“As if I need to negotiate to get that,” he said.

And, as it turned out, he did not.