Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Fifty-Nine

Pete said he didn’t recognize the driver but trusted that somebody at Organized Crime would.

“You think it’s our guy?” Pete said.

“Has to be,” I said.

“Just off what he looks like?” he said.

“Just because it has to be him,” I said.

“My wife always boxes me in with logic like that,” he said.

We followed the car to a big house in what Pete Colapietro said was the Mount Pleasant section of Providence. It looked even richer and more elegant than the street on which Maria Cataldo had lived, bigger, older houses set even farther back from the road.

“This is Mount Pleasant,” I said to Pete. “Maria lived on Pleasant Valley Parkway. As a detective, I’m detecting a trend here.”

“What can I tell you,” he said. “We’re a very pleasant city.”

We passed the Triggs golf course, Pete pointing out that back in the sixties there had been a famous Mob hit there by a couple bookies named Rudy Marfeo and Anthony Melei. I told him that was good to know. He said he had a lot of fun facts like that.

Antonioni and his driver went into the house together. The driver did not come back outside. Pete drove past the house and parked on a side street a block away.

“If this is one of Albert’s houses, it wasn’t on my list,” Pete said.

“Worth repeating that this is an old man,” I said, “who hasn’t lasted this long by throwing caution to the wind. Much the same as his old friend Desmond Burke.”

“Now what?” Pete said.

“We wait.”

“Maybe the one you called Little Richard lives there with him,” Pete said. “Like a live-in bodyguard.”

“Something else that would be good to know,” I said.

Pete turned on the car so he could turn on the radio. “You mind if I listen to the Sox?” he said.

I grinned. “Yes.”

“You come from Boston and you don’t like the Sox?” he said.

It came out “Sawx,” as if that was the way it was supposed to.

“I liked going to games with my dad when I was a little girl,” I said. “And I’d go with Richie once in a while if we had good seats and the weather was nice. But I just never thought there was enough going on.”

“Part of the appeal,” he said.

“So I’ve been told. Repeatedly.”

“I’m feeling the urge for beer and peanuts just listening,” he said.

“It’ll pass,” I said.

We sat and he listened to the game, but as he did, we talked about his job. We talked about how I saw the job when I was still with the cops. He talked about his family, and how you couldn’t do better with a cop wife than he’d done. I told some stories about my dad, some of which he’d heard, starting with the one about my dad and I and the day the Spare Change killer died.

Two hours later Little Richard was still inside the house. I told Pete we could call it a night and he could drive me back to where I’d parked my car on Federal Hill and thanked him again for everything he’d done, that it was above and beyond. He said he didn’t mind waiting a little longer, if I wanted to. I said I was fine, that we knew where Antonioni lived now, or at least lived part of the time.

Pete asked if I planned to circle back here myself before I went back to Boston.

I grinned again. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” I said.

“You gotta keep reminding yourself of something,” he said. “This isn’t just my turf. It’s his.”

“I’m going to head back,” I said. “I got a lot today, pictures and this address and the fact that Little Richard and Albert might be living under the same roof.”

“Okay, then,” Pete said.

“Okay,” I said.

He drove me back to Federal Hill. As soon as his car pulled away, I drove straight back to Mount Pleasant. The Navigator was still parked in the driveway. Then I drove home. I called Spike from 95, asking him if he’d remembered to take Rosie out the way I’d asked him.

“I’m insulted that you even felt the need to ask,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“How did it go?”

“I got a lot today,” I said, and told him about the driver and the house and the pictures I’d taken. Then I said, “All I need now is a plan.”

“Well,” Spike said, “ask yourself something: Who the hell doesn’t?”