Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

55

Kevin Murphy didn’t live far from his international film studios above the packie in Fields Corner. He had a two-story house with aluminum siding off a street called Toledo Terrace. A small driveway curved behind the house, where we found an open gate and recently added wooden stairs up to a kitchen. It was dark and still raining as we knocked on the back door.

Hawk did not carry an umbrella, as Hawk was impervious to rain.

Murphy opened the door in slippers and boxer shorts.

“Yeah?” he said, looking us over. “What the fuck do you guys want?”

“We came to apologize,” I said. “We’ve come to respect your contribution to the motion-picture arts and want to bestow upon you an honorary Oscar.”

Murphy made a face and rubbed his hairless stomach. “Eat me.”

Hawk just shook his head, grabbed Murphy’s face, and walked him backward into the kitchen. Murphy took wide, looping swings at him, but Hawk had very long arms and seemed uninterested in the resistance. I closed the door behind us; Hawk pushed hard with his right hand and dumped Murphy on his ass.

“Where’s Cristal Heywood?” I said.

It was a simple question, but Murphy had considerable trouble following it. He pushed himself up off the floor and scowled at Hawk. Hawk leaned against the kitchen counter and began to whistle the theme to Jeopardy!

“Suck it,” Murphy said.

I shrugged. “Where’s Cristal?”

Murphy spit at Hawk and then lunged for a kitchen knife. Hawk backhanded Murphy and gripped his wrist. As he tore the knife from Murphy’s hand there was a very ugly, very audible pop. Murphy, being a man of more pleasure than pain, fell to the ground and began to scream.

“Did you really need me for this?” Hawk said.

“Rainy night,” I said. “Nice to have company.”

Hawk nodded that that was fine by him. Murphy kept on screaming, and after a few seconds of the wailing, Cristal Heywood came staggering from some dark back room. She wore only a T-shirt, her bleached hair spilling over the front and back of her shoulders. “What the hell? What the hell?”

“Come on,” I said.

She stepped into the kitchen and helped Murphy to his feet. He was holding his wrist and crying. If he had not been a pedophile pornographer, I might have even felt sorry for him.

“What?” she said. “What did you do?”

Cristal Heywood’s breath smelled of so much alcohol, it might have been considered an accelerant. I took a step back but could still see her pupils were pinpricks, and she wavered on her feet. She was indulging in something beyond vodka.

“Smack,” Hawk said. “She’s fucked up on smack.”

“Go to hell,” Cristal said, her arm around Murphy.

I tilted my head to the door. “Kinjo is worried about you.”

“Kinjo blames me,” she said. “He said I killed his son. I killed him. I fucking killed him.”

She was screaming in a most unpleasant way. Hawk stood next to the sink, the faucet dripping every two seconds. The only light in the room spilled from a far back bedroom and over a wide-open living room with wood floors.

“Come on,” I said.

“I can’t,” Cristal said. “Kevin knows. He knows where to find Akira. He’s going to help me. He’s plugged in to this city. He’s important. He has friends in the Mafia, they’re going to track down the kidnappers and bring him home. Right, Kevin? Tell them. Tell them so they can leave me the fuck alone.”

Murphy looked uncomfortable beyond the sprained wrist. The tap-tapping of the water underscored the silence in the small, darkened kitchen.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Where did you learn your oratory skills, Kevin?” I said. “They are stunning.”

“Eloquent,” Hawk said.

“Yep,” I said.

Murphy ran a hand over his very unpleasant face and took in a deep breath, his white, hairless stomach straining at the waistband on his boxer shorts. He would not look at any of us.

“That true?” I said. “Are you going to lead us to Akira through your underworld connections? Because if so, let’s go. We would love to get this done right now.”

“Takes time,” Murphy said.

His voice was low and barely audible. He sounded like a crazy man talking to himself.

“What’s that?” Hawk said.

“Takes time,” Cristal said. “He has to talk to his people and get the word out. But these fucking people are dead if they did anything to Akira. They’re going to be dead.”

“And Kevin is going to get that bounty?” Hawk said. “Ah.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” I said. “Maybe it will be a generous gift to the Boys and Girls Clubs.”

“Screw you,” Kevin said. “I got people. I know people. I’m trying to help. More than you’re doing. All you’re doing is breaking into people’s houses and giving them shit.”

I tilted my head in a very modest way. He had very compactly and neatly explained my best investigative technique.

“And to motivate Kevin, you fuckin’ him,” Hawk said.

Cristal crossed her arms over her chest. Her knees tight together as she stood. She wasn’t standing so good and had to free an arm to brace herself against the kitchen counter.

“Run home to what you know,” Hawk said.

“Screw you,” Cristal said.

“Come on,” I said. I reached out a hand. “This guy is lying to you.”

“He knows,” Cristal said. “We’ll find Akira alive. We need him.”

Hawk turned to Murphy. He took two steps forward, his nose nearly touching Murphy. “Be straight with her.”

“She came to me, man.”

Hawk raised his hand. Murphy flinched. Hawk and I waited.

“I don’t know where he is,” Murphy said. Again speaking down low on level one.

“What about the Mob?” Cristal said, wobbling and walking toward him. She slapped him hard across the face. “You told me the Mob. What the fuck, Kevin? What the fuck? I just let you screw me back there. What the hell?”

“True love,” Hawk said. He turned and walked back out the door and into the rain.

I reached out my hand.

“Fuck,” Cristal said.

“Sometimes words fail us,” I said.

She was crying very deep and hard now. She was stoned and drunk and a mess as she recovered her clothes and walked outside with me. Murphy did not move from his place by the sink. He stood flabby and useless, the faucet tapping behind us, unable to lift his eyes as the door closed shut.