Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

61

DeVeiga went to the hospital. His pal got a ride with the ME’s office and his other pal had disappeared. Z drove Hawk back to the Harbor Health Club and I went to Susan’s.

It was Saturday, and she was not in session. Pearl the Wonder Dog greeted me at the front door, paws extended onto my chest, and a giant lick on the chin.

“Why can’t you ever greet me like that?” I said.

“Because you’re covered head to toe in mud?” Susan said. “Ick.”

“Can I borrow your hose?”

“Around back, cowboy.”

I walked around to Susan’s deck, took off my shoes and socks, and hosed myself off. I tossed my shirt but left on my jeans, knowing Susan’s neighbors might object to a large man in his underwear frolicking in the water. But probably nothing new for the Cambridge cops.

I wrung out my shirt and socks. I hosed the mud from my boots and set them on the steps to dry. At the second-floor patio, I handed Susan my jeans and stepped inside. She pointed to the bathroom, and I stood in the shower for a good twenty minutes, stepped into the kitchen in my towel, and searched for a cold beer. I found a six-pack sampler from the Avery Brewing Company I’d left there for emergencies.

“Things getting rough in the Back Bay?” she said.

“Franklin Park,” I said. “Hawk and I took a stroll.”

“And jumped into the lake?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you okay?” she said.

I nodded and walked back into her bedroom, where I kept some spare clothes. I changed into fresh Levi’s and a black T-shirt and walked back into the living room. She was perched on the couch with Pearl.

“Two men were shot,” I said. “But not by us.”

“Who were the men?”

“Upstanding members of the Outlaws street gang.”

“And who shot them?” Susan said.

I lifted my beer and took a sip. “Victor Lima.”

I told her more about Lela Lopes and the connection through Jesus DeVeiga. I drank some more beer and told her about my adventures through the Long Crouch Woods and my salvation by a young Native American.

“Thank God for Z.”

“Yep.”

“Lima stole your guns?” she said.

“There is that.”

Susan had not been expecting me or anyone on her Saturday off. She wore an oversized gray Harvard sweatshirt and black yoga pants with no shoes. Her hair was twisted up into a bun. Pearl rested her head in Susan’s lap and stared up at me with her soulful yellow eyes as if to say, “You wish, buster.”

“So you’ll go after him,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “But I wanted to see you first.”

“Why?”

“I think Akira is alive.”

Susan turned to me and audibly inhaled. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. “But I strongly suspect it.”

“Don’t tell his parents yet,” Susan said. “Until you’re sure.”

I nodded and tipped back the beer. I walked over and scratched Pearl’s graying head and ears. She grunted and turned over on her back, legs sticking straight up in the air.

“It’s stopped raining,” I said. “We could walk down to the Open Market. Have a nice dinner at the Russell House.”

“We could,” she said. “But you can’t.”

I nodded.

“Bad guys to catch.”

“Yep.”

“And a very scared little boy to save,” she said.

“Lima has disappeared again.”

“Did you call Quirk?”

“Quirk, Lundquist, and even my old pal, Tom Connor,” I said. “They’re all looking for him.”

“If you find him,” she said, “I want to be with you when you talk to Nicole. Either way.”

I leaned down, kissed Susan, and headed out to continue the search.