Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

20

The back patio of the Heywood house was made of flat stones and littered with dead leaves. I had my second cup of coffee that morning as Kinjo and super-agent Steve Rosen joined me at a wrought-iron table. The inside of the big stone house was filled with Brookline cops and state police. The street at the top of the hill was crowded with news trucks and reporters and rubberneckers standing outside the gates. As we walked down the hill, Hawk again mentioned that an ice-cream stand could really turn a profit.

Kinjo used the flat of his large hand to scrape away the decaying leaves on the patio table. He sat, but Rosen decided to stand. Through the long bank of windows, I could see Hawk sitting with Z and Lundquist.

“How’d it go?” Rosen said. “What did you find?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d paid off the Lima family?” I said.

“Listen, we asked you to—”

“Shut up,” I said to Rosen. “I’m asking Mr. Heywood.”

“Don’t you ever—” Rosen said.

“Shut up.”

Kinjo was worn-out, red-eyed, and beaten. He leaned forward in the chair, elbows on his knees. He was dressed in nothing but workout shorts and a gray T-shirt with the Pats logo. He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to think I shot the man.”

“Did you?”

“What I’m trying to say—” Rosen said.

I merely held up my hand.

Kinjo never once looked at his agent. He looked at me. “No,” he said. “But we didn’t want the bad publicity. We wanted it to go away.”

“How much did you pay the Limas?”

“Kinjo, you don’t have to say a word,” Rosen said.

“Half a million.”

I nodded.

“A settlement of that type isn’t unusual — surely you understand that kind of thing,” Rosen said. He had his hands in his pockets and ducked his chin as he spoke.

“Does he ever shut up?” I said.

“I hired you, and I can—”

“Jeez,” I said. “That’s new. What do you want, Kinjo?”

Cristal wandered out from the French doors with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in one hand. Her makeup was fresh, but she hadn’t changed out of her light blue silk pajamas or fuzzy slippers. She smiled at everyone as she hunched her shoulders with a little giggle. “Just one, Kinjo,” she said. “I promise.”

Rosen walked over to her and said something in her ear and they both disappeared back into the house.

“If I am going to keep working on this, you need to tell me everything,” I said. “And you need to tell the police everything, too. If I’d known you’d settled with the family, I might’ve looked elsewhere.”

“They think I killed that dude.”

I nodded. “What about in Boston,” I said. “Has anyone ever tried to offer you money or influence your play?”

“Like for me to shave points and cheat?” he said. “One man can’t throw a whole football game.”

“But you could affect a point spread.”

He looked past me up the hill to the playhouse. Behind the stone wall, smoke rose from his neighbor’s chimney. More leaves fell from high branches. “I figured if you thought I’d paid those people off, you wouldn’t want to work for me,” he said. “But I don’t cheat, man. You don’t cheat and not make plays and be All-Pro two years in a row.”

I caught his eye and stared at him. “Don’t lie to me again.”

“Akira,” Kinjo said. “He has asthma, man. The people who took him don’t know. What if they never call? I’m about to crawl out my skin, man.”

I nodded. I warmed my hands on the coffee mug. There was much activity through the windows of the house. Hawk, Z, and Lundquist continued to talk in the sectional by Kinjo’s large television. Cristal had apparently broken away from Rosen and had taken a spot between Hawk and Z.

“What about the call at the radio station?” I said.

“Paulie and the Gooch,” he said. “You know them?”

“I’ve seen their billboards,” I said. “The Sports Monstah. Boston sports all day and all night.”

“Police played it for me last night,” he said. “Man called in and said he has Kinjo Heywood’s child and wanted a payday.”

“Anything else?” I said.

Kinjo shook his head. “All I know is they tried to track the call and it came back to a throwaway.”

“So maybe it’s them?”

“I hope so,” Kinjo said. “I don’t give a shit what it costs, I want my son back. Without him, I ain’t got shit. All this around me? I can live in a trailer like I used to, and it’s all the same to me. Something happen to Akira and you better drive me straight to the nuthouse. I can’t live.”

“I’ll talk to Lundquist about that caller,” I said. “Maybe pay a visit to Paulie and the Gooch.”

Kinjo swallowed. His face was impassive, but he had started to cry. He turned his hulking back to me.

I left him outside in a slight patch of sunlight as I walked inside the glass doors.