Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

48

Kinjo did not return home.

But he did call me two hours later.

We met at a park bench overlooking the Charles River, within spitting distance of the Hatch Shell. I sat with him, and we did not speak for a long while. We watched the crew teams scull up and back across the river. The coaches yelled. The rowers pulled with great intensity. The day was dark, drizzling, and a little cold. A fine day in Boston.

“I don’t regret it,” Kinjo said.

“May I ask why?”

“Tired of being pushed around,” Kinjo said. “They gonna kill him anyway.”

I nodded. The words could not be reversed. My reprimanding him for his decision was pointless. His phone kept chirping until he turned it off. He looked around to see if anyone recognized him.

“Did they contact you again?” I said.

“Nope.”

I remained silent. Besides the crew teams, single rowers worked alone, with coaches in nearby boats yelling at them. The boats glided with no effort across the flat, calm water. Soon it would be frozen from here to MIT. Many had tried to walk across the ice, but there were often weak spots. I did not wish to ever try it. The Longfellow Bridge was built for a reason.

“I fucking mean it,” Kinjo said. “If whoever took Akira winds up dead, I want you to bring the killer the money.”

“What if the killer is part of the group that took him?”

“Does it matter?” he said. “I want the man who set this up, set it in motion.”

“Might be hard to tell who’s the bad guy from the rest.”

“Maybe someone out there knows I mean business and are setting Akira free right now,” he said. “That the case, I want every cent in that person’s hand.”

I rested my hands inside my coat pockets and adjusted my ball cap against the drizzle. A team of eight rowers was close enough for us to hear the coxswain tell them to pick it up some. The rowers were impervious to the cold, their overgrown shoulder muscles and deltoids bursting from tank tops.

“You think I fucked up?” he said.

“Not my call.”

“If my boy is dead,” Kinjo said, “I’ll pay you whatever you want for as long as you want to find out who took him.”

“I haven’t stopped trying.”

“I don’t care if it’s ten years from now,” he said. “I want you to hunt down who did this and kill them. All that money is yours. You hear me?”

I nodded. I stretched my legs out and watched the rowing. I did not want to explain that assassin was seldom part of my job description. Hawk wouldn’t mind, perhaps. A young couple with a child in a stroller jogged past us. The stroller balanced on three wheels, the kid exhilarated with the fast ride, the couple fit and steadfast at jumping puddles.

“I won’t quit,” I said.

Kinjo leaned forward and rested his head in his large hands. He wasn’t looking at the rowers, he was light-years away, thinking on revenge and killing and dark thoughts about what may have happened to his child.

“My job isn’t to doubt you,” I said.

Kinjo nodded. A hard wind buffeted along the river.

“But others will,” I said. “A lot of your fans will question you. It could get very ugly.”

“I don’t give two shits,” he said. “It’s not their kid. I laid it the hell down and we’ll see the next play. I’m not going to sit around and wait for Akira to be some kind of game to them.”

“What if you don’t hear back?”

“I guess I will have to fucking live with what I did.”

“You prepared for that?”

Kinjo didn’t answer.

“And Nicole?”

“She been trying to call me,” he said. “You know as well as I do what she’ll say.”

“Perhaps you should have spoken to her before laying down the bounty.”

Kinjo’s eyes turned hard and fast on me. He stared at me for a while, breathing hard and uneasy out of his nose. I thought for a moment he was going to hit me. But he just stood, hands on hips, and looked across the river to MIT.

“I did what I thought was best for Akira,” he said. “I made the move. I have to live with it. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t regret it. It’s the right play. You’ll see. He’ll come back. That boy is tough. Me and him the same. Ain’t nothing going to get to my boy. He’s coming the hell back home.”

I stood with him.

“Goddamn it, Spenser,” Kinjo said. He was crying very softly and quietly.

I put my hand on his shoulder. And he thanked me before walking away, down a very skinny trail toward the Hatch Shell.

The trail was way too small for a guy like Kinjo Heywood. As he walked, he swatted at the overgrown branches that blocked his way.