Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

63

The address led us back down to Foxboro and an old motel off Route 1 called the Red Fox. The sign was red and neon shining what was probably a permanent vacancy for lodgings that only Norman Bates could love. The Red Fox, no relation to Buddy’s, was a one-level layout with all the room doors facing the highway. The walls were brick, the doors once white, and the center of the motel was a faux-Colonial with four large columns over an office. I was delighted to see they offered both color television and electric heat.

The lights were out in room 8, but as we walked past, we noted the dull gray flickering of a television set and the muffled voices of broadcasters calling a ball game. We walked back to Hawk’s car, parked nose toward the U-shaped units, and waited for a while. After about an hour, Z showed up. He parked next to us in his Mustang and then got into the back of the Jag. No one had come in or out of the building.

Only six cars had been parked along the units. We did not recognize any of them but took down all the tag numbers in case Lima tried to make a speedy exit. If this was indeed the place Lima had decided to hole up.

“We sure?” Z said.

“Sort of,” I said.

“Sort of?” Z said.

“It would behoove the informant not to lie to The Hawk.”

“I kind of like The in front of my name,” Hawk said. “Commands respect.”

Z got out of the back of the car and was gone about five minutes and came the long way behind us off Route 1 and back into the car. It was raining again, and he was soaked.

“Small windows in the back,” Z said. “Old pebbled glass. I can see the light on in the bathroom but nothing else. I can hear a television on but no voices.”

“Can you slip into the window?” I said.

“Nope,” Z said.

“Front-door entry,” Hawk said.

I nodded.

It was my time to get out into the rain, and I walked to the big columns over the motel office. For the size of the entry, the office was very small. A narrow room with a flat-screen television perched on a coffee table and a couple of old chairs facing forward. There was a desk to the right of the front door and two large display cases loaded down with pamphlets of fun things to do in and around Boston. There was no bell, so I coughed, and a moment later, a tired-looking guy in a Pats T-shirt, khakis, and suspenders walked up and looked me over. He was bald on top but had a prodigious amount of red hair over his ears, giving him the unsubtle look of a circus clown.

“My buddy checked in earlier,” I said. “And I don’t want to wake him up. He’s such a sound sleeper. Room eight.”

“What’s his name?” the guy said.

“Ben Franklin,” I said, and laid down a hundred-dollar bill.

The guy looked at me accusingly for about two seconds and then turned and lifted a key off a gold hook. He sucked on his tooth, swiped the money, and laid down the key.

I took the key and headed out into the rain.

I dangled it in front of the Jag’s windshield, and Hawk and Z walked from the car. The asphalt was slick with the rain and red with the neon of the Red Fox sign as we walked to unit number 8. I could still hear the television going, what sounded like a baseball game from the West Coast. I tried to listen for a few hints as to the team while I slipped the key into the lock and turned back to see Hawk and then Z staggered behind me. Both had their guns drawn. Z recently taking up with a Remington 870 pump, just in case we were faced with a zombie apocalypse.

Hawk has his .44, in case we faced a charging elephant.

I turned the key and the doorknob, and we were all inside faster than Usain Bolt.

No one shot at us. Nothing moved.

The television had very poor reception of the Dodgers playing the Giants. The Dodgers were up by three in the top of the eighth as Victor Lima lay dead in a tangle of bloody white sheets. He’d been bleeding for a long while, the white sheets over him more red than anything. He had an open liter bottle of Sprite on the bedside table and some rolls of surgical tape, bandages, and pulls. In his outstretched hand was a .357 Magnum. My gun. It dangled from his lifeless fingers, him staring into nothing with lifeless eyes.

Z walked over to the television and turned it off. On the console to the TV, he found my .38. He checked the safety and then tossed it to me.

“Damn, Spenser,” Hawk said.

Z went into the bathroom and came out shaking his head. Hawk went looking through drawers and rolling over the dead man and checking in his pockets. The room was silent except for the rain hitting the shingled roof. We needed to move fast; Ben Franklin wouldn’t buy us much more time. We searched the room for anything, coming up with a cell phone and some scraps of paper, notes on a map. Hawk held up a set of car keys he found in the man’s pocket and we all walked outside to find a blue Ford Taurus.

The three of us stood by the car for a moment, none of us wanting to see what was inside but knowing we had to find out. There could be another phone, an address, or something linking us to Akira. I tossed the keys to Z, and he stared at me a long while. He silently nodded and started to walk toward the trunk.

Hawk and I stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The walk was short but felt long.

Z lifted the key to punch the button as we heard the kicking and muffled yells.

Z popped the trunk.

Akira was bound by hand and foot with silver duct tape. His mouth had been covered in duct tape as well. He was crying and kicking and rolling.

I reached into the trunk and lifted him out. His pants and shirt were wet and soiled. I held him up in my arms as Hawk gently pulled the tape from his mouth. Z used his pocketknife to cut into the tape, freeing the boy’s hands and feet. He was crying, which we took as a good sign.

He took in deep mouthfuls of air as if hyperventilating. Hawk went to the car to grab an unopened Coke.

Akira wrapped his arms around my neck. Z nudged me to look into the trunk. Scrawled into the top of the trunk hatch was the number 57. The boy started to cry very hard and very fast, and I told him I’d take him to his mother.

I called Susan to pass on the news to Nicole. And then we waited for the police.