Robert B. Parker’s Fallout

Twenty-Nine

Nicholas lived even closer to where Charlie Farrell had lived than Miss Emma did. Usually Jesse could make it there by car in five minutes. He used the siren now, made it in two.

Nicholas was in his wheelchair when Jesse came running up the walk and through the front door. Back in the chair, as he pointed out to Jesse. He held an icepack to the right side of his face. There was dried blood over his right eye.

His.38 was on the coffee table.

“I walked... I wheeled in on the guy,” Nicholas said.

“Then what?”

“He swung the tire iron in his hand and did his level best to separate my head from my shoulders,” Nicholas said. “Maybe it was the same thing he used on Gramps. The tire iron.”

“You get a look at him?”

Nicholas shook his head. “Some kind of ski mask.”

Jesse said, “We need to get you looked at.”

“Later.”

“What happened after he clobbered you?”

“I went with the blow and slowly rolled out of my chair, like the blow had knocked me out,” Nicholas said. “But I had time to grab my gun from the little pouch under the right armrest.”

“He didn’t notice you go for it?”

“He was leaning over to swing at me again. Maybe for the fences this time. That was when I rolled over and shot him.”

“Where?”

Nicholas grinned. “I was trying to aim for center mass, like Gramps taught me at the range. But I fired too quickly, and got him in the hand instead. He screamed, picked up the tire iron, and ran like a bitch.”

“Sounds like calling him that is insulting to all the other bitches in the world.”

Jesse took the icepack away, saw how bad the bruising was on that side of Nicholas Farrell’s head, took out his phone, called his own doctor: Jim Frazier. Told the nurse it was Chief Stone and he was bringing somebody over.

Jesse grinned and said to Jim’s nurse, “Tell him he needs to see this kid right away, or else.”

After he’d put his phone away Nicholas said, “Or else? Or else what?”

“You know, I’ve always wondered about that myself,” Jesse said.

He took another look around the room, which had been tossed, and not in any kind of professional way. The desk on the other side of the room was not dissimilar to Charlie Farrell’s. The drawers were on the floor. Papers scattered everywhere.

“Charlie told me you handled his money,” Jesse said. “Were you still doing that when he died?”

“He took great pride in the fact that he hadn’t balanced a checkbook properly since my grandmother passed,” he said.

“Is there anything in the books that somebody could be worried about?”

“If there is,” Nicholas said, “it beats the shit out of me what it might be.”

Jesse put the sofa cushions back in place, and sat down.

“Odd that the guy broke in in the middle of the day,” he said.

“Maybe not so much. I was supposed to be at work. But I left some files here that it turned out I needed there. From the looks of the place, he must’ve been almost finished when I came through the door.”

“You didn’t drive?”

“Figured I’d get some exercise, over and back. Kill two birds with one stone. Except then I nearly got killed myself.”

“This had to have something to do with Charlie.”

“Nothing else makes sense, right?”

“Somehow this guy, whoever he is, thought you might know something your grandfather knew. Something that has somebody scared.”

“But what?” Nicholas said. “You think somebody killed Gramps and might have been willing to kill me over cryptocurrency?”

There was a ping then.

Incoming text, to Nicholas.

He took his phone out of his pocket, looked down at it.

His eyes got very big.

“What the fuck,” he said.

“Who’s it from?” Jesse asked.

“Gramps.”