Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour

Forty-Seven

Joe Doyle was seated in one of my client chairs when I got back to my office.

“I let myself in,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“You might think about better locks,” he said. “And a better alarm system.”

“See that, too.”

I closed the door behind me and tossed my bag next to my desk and sat down. I told him I could make coffee. He said he wouldn’t be here that long. I asked where his men were.

“Downstairs in the car,” he said. “I told them you pose no threat to me.”

“See what happens the next time you break into my office,” I said.

He was wearing a vest today. I never got the vest thing with men, but there it was. Big shine to his cap-toed shoes. He was also wearing what I was willing to bet my rent was a Zegna print tie.

Joe Doyle. A man in full.

Giving off the general impression that somehow this was his office and not mine.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Doyle?” I said.

“Call me Joe.”

“No, thanks.”

“You’re as hard as your father,” he said.

“Not even on my best day,” I said.

I excused myself and fired up my Keurig. I’d finished only half a cup at Spenser’s office, even if his coffee was better.

“So what can I do for you?” I said when I sat back down.

“I’d like to hire you,” he said.

Suddenly the private detective business in Boston had turned into a job fair.

I was wondering if there was a bad joke in here somewhere about throats being cut and cutthroat lawyers.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I have been accused of many things in my life, Ms. Randall,” he said. “Being a great kidder has never been one of them.”

“You threatened my father,” I said. “You could have killed him having his car run off the road, even though I don’t expect you’ll ever admit to being behind that. And then, big finish, my father got shot saving your life.”

I leaned forward in my chair, put my elbows on my desk, smiled at him, and said, “And now you want to hire me?”

“I’ve made my peace with your father,” he said. “I might have misjudged him.”

“No kidding,” I said.

“He is more forgiving than you,” Doyle said.

“The grudge-holding comes from my mother’s side.”

He crossed his legs, fussing with the crease on his top leg as he did. Then he stared down at those well-manicured hands. I wondered what the boys he’d grown up with in Southie would say about well-tended fingernails like those.

“You’re not a lawyer,” he said finally.

“And proud of it.”

He grinned.

“What lawyers know,” he said, “is that sometimes it’s necessary to take emotion out of the equation with those they choose to defend. And we sure as shite don’t have to like all of them. Or any of them. But often we do what we do, and not just for the money, because it happens to be the right thing to do.”

Now I grinned, as I leaned back into my chair.

“You want to know what’s a bunch of shite, Mr. Doyle?” I said. “That.”

“You know that the same person who shot at me and shot your father instead could have killed him as easily as he almost killed me,” Doyle said. “And I believe the murder attempt has something to do with the death of my son. And might additionally have something to do with that cockroach John Melvin. And I have come to the conclusion that you are the best person to find that out.”

“What a lucky girl am I,” I said.

“You know I’m right.”

“You are right,” I said. “But I know you’re aware that I’ve kind of got my hands full at the moment trying to keep Dr. Melvin’s ex-wife alive.”

“Your father explained that to me in the park,” Joe Doyle said. “But he also explained that you’d been able to keep her safe while keeping him safe at the same time.”

“Until I didn’t,” I said. “My father, I mean.”

“The best-laid plans,” Doyle said. “But I no longer pose any threat to him, either.”

“Why in the world would I believe that?” I said.

“Because he did save my life,” he said. “And I am now in his debt. It’s a thing with the Irish.”

“It’s a thing with pretty much everybody.”

His shoulder rose and fell as he took in a lot of air and let it out.

“I swear on my son’s head that you can trust me on this,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me the first time we met that you had represented John Melvin?”

He smiled.

“Because it was none of your fucking business at the time,” Doyle said.

There were a lot of things that came to mind in the moment. But with every lousy thing I was certain Joe Doyle had done in his life, what he’d already done to my father, he was talking about his dead son now. And even though I knew that the very best defense attorneys looked as if they’d been to acting school once they were playing to a courtroom, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that the old man sitting across from me was that good an actor.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Good.”

“Do you want to know what I charge?”

“I don’t care.”

“I can’t promise I will give this matter my full attention until I roll up the other matter,” I said.

“There’s an Irish proverb covers that,” he said. “Tús maith, leath na hoibre. A good start is half the work. And I have the feeling, just the way you came at me when you came to my office, that half of you might be better than the total focus of a lesser man.”

“Well,” I said, “you’ll get no argument from me on that.”

Doyle said, “Someone went after my son, even in prison. But I think it was a way to get at me.”

“Why you?”

“Because John Melvin blames me for still being behind bars, even if that is just another example of his madness,” Doyle said. “He convinced himself that I would be the one to finally get him set free. I was quite willing to take his money. But I knew what all the other lawyers he’d hired knew before me: That he is going to die in prison.”

“There’s a proverb I often use that covers that one,” I said. “Fuckin’ ay.”

Despite what he’d said about my alarm system, I knew moral alarms should be sounding for me, about him having worked for John Melvin as long as he did. But I chose to ignore them, at least for now.

I came back around my desk and put out my hand and he shook it, both of us looking the other in the eyes.

“You won’t regret this,” Joe Doyle said.

I already was. But felt that our budding business relationship would get off to a bad start if I shared that with him.