Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

67

We met DeVeiga at the Jim Rice ball fields in Ramsey Park. Two Outlaws stood watch at the iron gates as we walked inside and started climbing the stands toward DeVeiga. He sat alone up on the top row, staring out at the empty field dusted with snow. Hawk took two steps at a time. I followed suit.

“Took Rice a long time to get in the Hall of Fame,” Hawk said.

“Would have won the series in ’75 if he hadn’t broken his wrist.”

“Not bad in ’86 against the Mets.”

“Why did it take him so long?”

“’Cause Rice is a surly motherfucker,” Hawk said. “Press hated him.”

“Reason you like him.”

Hawk grinned. We hit the top steps and sat down beside Jesus DeVeiga. DeVeiga was wearing the same flat-billed Sox cap, and this time a navy-blue parka with a fur-trimmed hood.

I looked out onto the empty field. “‘A robin hops along the bench.’”

DeVeiga looked to the field and then back to me. He exchanged glances with Hawk, who simply shook his head. “What you got to say, Jesus?” Hawk said, again pronouncing his name with a hard J.

“Wondering what you heard about Papa B,” he said.

“We know as much as you,” I said.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said.

“Don’t care if you did,” Hawk said. “Don’t care if you didn’t.”

DeVeiga nodded. “I been looking for him since he killed Lela,” he said. “Even checked NYC. But didn’t come up with nothing. I’m now hearing he was down there trying to trade out that cash.”

“So the bounty was paid,” I said.

The wind was very cold and very brisk and shot through the open field and the wide expanse of the park. I had on a peacoat and kept my hands deep in my pockets. Not only to keep warm but to find comfort in the .38 in my right hand.

“I know people,” DeVeiga said.

“Good to know people,” Hawk said.

“People I know in New York said Papa B traded out fifty grand for thirty-five clean.”

“That money wouldn’t have been marked,” I said.

“Yeah,” DeVeiga said. “Tell that to Papa. But why he only trade a little? I heard he got at least a million.”

“Maybe he squirreled it away,” I said.

DeVeiga shook his head. “Man wanted to split town,” he said. “Ain’t the type to plan a future. He’d been talking free and easy down there. If someone hadn’t shot him, I was coming up the next day to settle the shit.”

“So he had a partner,” I said.

“A partner who got most of the cash?” DeVeiga said. “That ain’t no partner. That’s a goddamn boss.”

Hawk leaned in from the stands. He had on a leather jacket with the collar flipped up over his ears and dark shades. “You said you got something to say,” Hawk said. “Say it.”

DeVeiga nodded. The two Outlaws had come into the stadium and were walking back and forth at the bottom of the stands. They strolled end to end and crossed paths in the center like sentries. Neither of them speaking or looking at each other.

“Papa B was a snitch.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Never trusted his ass,” DeVeiga said. “Didn’t like him around any of my boys. Any my boys talk with him and they gone, too.”

“I think it’s been firmly established that Papa B was of low moral character,” I said.

“Papa B wasn’t one of the kidnappers,” he said. “I know the boy was working with Victor Lima. And took the kid.”

I looked at him.

DeVeiga laughed. “For me to know.”

“But you still think Papa B killed Lela?” I said.

DeVeiga nodded. “And Lima,” he said. “He on the hunt for that money. But here’s the thing about Papa B. I think he got tipped. Man ain’t smart enough to track down Lima or Lela. He being played.”

“By whom?” I said.

DeVeiga stared at me, tilting his head.

“Man talks funny,” Hawk said. “Who’s the motherfucker put Papa B on this?”

“A cop,” DeVeiga said.

I widened my eyes. Hawk leaned in some more and rubbed his hands together a bit in the cold. He nodded, too.

“What kind of cop?” Hawk said.

“People down here say Papa B made his money from the Feds,” DeVeiga said. “He was a goddamn CI for them. How he got his groceries. I think they the ones that planted the seed in that dumb bastard’s brain.”

Hawk stood and looked to me.

“Hmm,” Hawk said.

“You said it.”

“We straight?” DeVeiga said, touching the upper part of his chest where he’d been shot.

Hawk nodded. DeVeiga nodded down to his boys. They stopped patrolling and waited for him at the foot of the steps. He gave Hawk a fist bump. He just looked at me and walked down the steps.

“I feel excluded,” I said.

“What’s that shit you said about a robin?”

“Thinking of empty ball fields.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Hawk said.

“Connor?”

“Fool me once,” Hawk said.

“Connor didn’t fool me,” I said. “Connor does for Connor.”

“Man learned from the best,” Hawk said. “Joe Broz and Jumpin’ Jack Flynn.”

“Hard to prove.”

“All but impossible,” Hawk said.