Robert B. Parker’s Revenge Tour

Fifty-Six

After I’d finished giving my report about the shooting to the police on the scene, I went back to my office. Joe Doyle showed up a half-hour later, saying he wanted to pay me in person as he handed me a rather impressive check.

“I didn’t do anything to earn this,” I said.

“Your father did.”

“Pay him.”

“He didn’t want my money, Ms. Randall,” Doyle said. “Are you now telling me that my money isn’t good enough for you, either?”

The check sat on my desk in front of me.

“I generally only get paid for services rendered,” I said. “I honestly believe that in this case, the renderer was my pops.”

Joe Doyle smiled thinly. Perhaps it was all he had in him. I told him what had just happened along the Charles. He nodded. In all likelihood, he already knew about it.

“Take the win,” he said. “Going forward, I will determine who put out the hit on me. And on the two of you this morning, if it’s the same person. And deal with it accordingly.”

There was no point in asking what “accordingly” meant. It would have been like asking Tony Marcus.

“Do you think it’s John Melvin?” I said.

Another thin smile.

“I believe I’ll invoke my Fifth Amendment rights here,” he said. “As a way of protecting myself from self-incrimination.”

“Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t believe in coincidence,” I said.

“Who the fuck does?” Joe Doyle said.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Do you believe that Melvin had something to do with Joe Jr.’s death?”

“For the sake of conversation,” he said, “what would it matter to you if I did?”

“You’re still technically my client,” I said. “Information is power.”

“Just know this,” Doyle said. “If something ever does happen to Melvin, and his death isn’t of natural causes, then the world will be a far better place without him. That I know. What we still don’t know, either one of us, is who that shooter was.” He leaned back in the client chair and clasped his hands on his chest. “But when it comes to getting even, Ms. Randall, I’ve always played the long game.”

I thought: Who doesn’t these days?

He stood now.

“You and your father can decide what to do with the money,” he said. “If you consider it blood money, then just tear it up.”

He came around my desk. Now I stood. He put out his hand. I shook it.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “But I wish I could say the same.”

He walked out then, gently closing the door behind him.

A few hours later I was walking back to River Street Place with Richie, after the two of us had lunched at Stephanie’s on Newbury, when the hospital in Concord called to inform me that this time John Melvin was the one who had been shanked in the yard, and might not make it.