Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

54

It was Friday evening, and I stood outside with Kinjo at Gillette, the team buses chugging diesel into the night. The players were flying out to Denver and Kinjo had no intention of staying behind. The night had grown cold and it had started to rain.

“Cristal is gone,” he said.

“You have a fight?”

“Nope,” he said. “She was just upset and drinking and drove off about an hour before I left. She said she was going to get Akira back herself.”

“Drunk?”

“Hard to get Cristal drunk,” Kinjo said.

Water beaded off his black umbrella and across the arm of his black topcoat. It puddled the blacktop of the endless and expansive lot.

“So noted.”

“I don’t know what else to do but keep playing ball,” he said. “I feel like I stop and sit around and I’ll go crazy. I either play ball or they might as well drug me up and take me to the psych ward. When they brought me Akira’s clothes. Damn.”

He took a long breath and wiped his eyes. “He ain’t dead.”

“I haven’t stopped.”

“Why’d you want to talk to me about the Limas?” he said. “Thought that was all over.”

“Did you know Ray was still paying them off?”

“Nah, man,” he said. “Ray wouldn’t do that without telling me. He knows how I feel about that. I paid them money for their loss, but I didn’t admit nothing. If we kept on paying, that’d make me seem like I’m guilty. I never shot anyone. I never killed anyone. Thought we straight on that.”

I nodded.

“Who told you that shit about my brother?”

“Your brother.”

Kinjo shook his head. The team was boarding the buses to Logan. The parking lot was filled with many very fast and very expensive cars. The players wore their best, not a tracksuit among them. A lot of camel-hair coats over custom suits and handmade shoes. I noticed a lot of the players wore earrings among a ton of jewelry. The watches were big and shiny, and refracted the parking lights even in the rain.

“Why’d he do that?” Kinjo said.

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“Shit.”

“But it led us to something,” I said. “We went to see Lela Lopes and ended up finding Victor Lima.”

“In Boston?”

“Yep.”

“What’s he doing in Boston?”

“Lela Lopes, I assume.”

“What’d he say?” Kinjo said.

I shook my head. “He ran and we chased him through a few backyards, but he must have had a buddy with him. Someone picked him up and then tried to run down me and Z.”

“You tell the cops?”

I nodded. “Car make, model, and license plate,” I said. “Stolen plate. But they’re looking for Victor and the car. The Feds, too.”

“Fuck the Feds,” Kinjo said. “They’re quitters.”

A thick-bodied man with a shaved head and wearing a tight white polo shirt and khakis called to Kinjo. The bus sat waiting with headlights on and wipers going. The man pointed to his watch and boarded the bus.

“Got to go, man.”

“Good luck.”

He nodded. “Ain’t got nothing else,” he said. “I’m wrung up and bled out, man. Nobody can do nothing more to me. They took everything I got.”

I reached out and shook his hand. He nodded. The coach called out as the rain continued to beat down on the blacktop.

His eyes were dark and very tired. “Spenser?”

I waited.

“Can you find Cristal?” he said. “I know she’s a goddamn mess. But she’s my wife and a wreck right now. I know everyone thinks low of her, but she loves me, man, and she thinks she’s killed my kid. That’s not the truth.”

I nodded.

“I think she’s lost her shit.”

“I can look for her,” I said. “Any idea where she might have gone?”

Kinjo lifted up his chin and nodded once. “Kevin Murphy.”

“Okay,” I said.

Kinjo boarded the bus, and I stood under the umbrella as four big silver buses cut a half-circle and headed north. I walked back to my Explorer, crawled inside, and cranked the ignition.

“And,” Hawk said.

“And I don’t think he knew about the extra payoffs.”

“He say why the brother did it?”

“Nope.”

“You ask?”

“You know, I do manage to sleuth without prodding.”

“Maybe you benefit from some constructive criticism.”

“He asked me for a favor.”

Hawk turned to me and I told him about Cristal and Kinjo’s suspicions.

“Dorchester again,” he said. “Shit.”