Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

19

Hawk called me bright and early the next morning. I’d just walked into my office, turned on the lights, and set a cup of coffee on my desk. Puppy Pearl trailed behind me, sniffing under the couch for a squeaky toy she’d left on her last visit.

“You got donuts?” Hawk said.

“Contrary to wild and slanderous accusations, I don’t eat donuts every day.”

“Seems like a waste of time to climb those steps then.”

“Where are you?”

“Parked in the alley watching two ugly motherfuckers been watching your office since sunup.”

“Where are they?”

“Out front the Restoration Hardware in a big-ass black truck,” Hawk said. “Don’t think they shopping for drapes.”

I walked to my window and stared to where Berkeley Street had passed Boylston and on toward what was once, a long time ago, the Museum of Natural History.

“Who are they?”

“Don’t know,” Hawk said. “I got word from Tony that some serious money down on your white ass.”

“Nice to be wanted.”

“Not like this it ain’t,” he said. “Couple of sluggers in from Providence.”

“You want me to come down?” I said. “Or you want to come up?”

“You already said you ain’t got no donuts,” Hawk said. “Shit, man. Get with the program.”

I walked back to my desk, slid open my right-hand drawer, and extracted my new Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. I slid it into my jacket pocket. Pearl found her squeaky toy, and in the tradition of her predecessor, plopped up on the couch and went to work.

“I can wait,” I said. “Make them sit for a while.”

“Or maybe, in twenty minutes, you decide to take a little drive.”

“To somewhere where we might communicate better?”

“Now we talking.”

I told him I’d head over the river to the boathouse at Magazine Beach. Hawk grunted. He seemed to like the idea.

“Across from the Shell sign,” Hawk said.

He clicked off before I could answer. I found a leather holster for my .38 and strapped it to my ankle. If I’d planned better, I would’ve removed my bazooka from storage and hoisted it onto my shoulder. Sluggers in from Providence deserved a warm welcome.

I drank my coffee and responded to a few messages. After ten minutes, I heard the outside door open and pulled the .357 at the ready.

It was Mattie. She held up her hands.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” she said. “What are you? Nuts?”

I nodded toward the couch, where Pearl was working on the rubber toy and trying to get the remnants of peanut butter I’d slathered inside.

“Can you watch her?”

She nodded. I took the stairs down to my Land Cruiser, and the engine turned over with a mighty roar on the second try. Classics had style but were often temperamental.

I took Storrow over to the BU Bridge and Cambridge.

I had spotted the truck two blocks down Berkeley Street. It was a big black Chevy with a grill guard and camper over the bed. The driver was good, not overly aggressive, and I wasn’t completely sure it was them until I crossed the river. The traffic was light, and despite their best intentions, they had to stop behind me with a single car length between us. The windows were tinted.

It appeared he’d been too lazy to remove his snow tires from the winter.

I turned onto Memorial and soon pulled into the parking lot by the Riverside Boat Club. The large truck got caught at a light across the street while I crawled out of my car, stretched, and headed toward the boathouse.

It was a lovely early morning on the river. Most of the first-light joggers and dog walkers were gone, and all that remained was one old man in a scally cap sitting on a park bench under some tall trees. He was tossing peanuts to a squirrel. I didn’t see Hawk. But one didn’t often see Hawk. I knew he was there.

“Good day,” the old man said.

“We’ll soon find out.”

I took a leisurely stroll through the racing shells up on racks and on toward the river. A crew of female rowers headed down the Charles with a motorboat following close behind, words of encouragement shouted through a bullhorn. They pulled strong and hard onto the slick silver surface. A small wake headed to the rocky shoreline.

I stopped and stared across the river to the Mass Pike and on toward the stadium lights of Fenway. The air was warm and sluggish. Geese hunted for bugs around the reeds. I took in another breath of air, hand in my pocket feeling the .357 as another crew rowed out from under the River Street Bridge. Two men walked past the boathouse and between the shells and on toward the river.

One white. One black. Both had beards and wore sunglasses. The white man had on an army-green tank top. The black man wore a maroon-colored tropical shirt. Festive.

“Hey, asshole,” the white man said.

I didn’t move, as I wasn’t overly fond of his greeting.

“You,” the black man said. “Old man.”

I was really starting not to like these guys. I turned as they entered my personal space.

“Lovely morning,” I said. “Are you here to feed the squirrels or geese?”

“You’re that guy they call Spenser?” the white man said. “You don’t look so tough.”

“Same could go for you,” I said. “You should go up in size on that tank top. Makes your belly look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“Oh, yeah?” the white man said.

“Fuck him up, Buddy,” the black man said.

Buddy’s tank top didn’t do much to hide his belly or the clear outline of a pistol tucked under the tank and into a pair of camo cargo shorts. From over their shoulders, I watched a silver Jaguar slide into the parking lot, the engine purring low and effortless.

“Yeah, Buddy,” I said. “Fuck me up.”

“From now on, mind your own goddamn business,” the black man said.

Buddy took a big step toward me and moved into a fighting stance. He lifted his chin at me. “Come on, old man.”

“You guys the best Greebel could find?”

“Who the fuck is Greebel?” Buddy said.

“Peter Steiner?”

They didn’t answer. The black man looked to me and shook his head. He turned and spit as Buddy took a step toward me. It was too close for my liking, and I bopped him twice, very hard and very fast, on the schnoz. Blood ran down to his chin, but he moved forward undeterred. He wiped the blood and flicked it away with his fingers.

“Fuck him up, Buddy. Kill his ass.”

Buddy feinted a right to my midsection, and I countered with a fist to his throat. He landed a solid punch to my right ear, hard enough that I could hear the Bells of St. Mary’s. The man was close enough to smell, which was most unpleasant, and I head-butted him twice, knocking him from his center of gravity and back on his heels.

There was a hard snick of a gun. And Buddy stopped to catch his breath.

“Now you gonna stand there and take the beating, old man,” the black man said. “You understand? Take that shit.”

I saw Hawk only slightly before they did. He had slipped into a crisp Burberry trench coat, long enough to hide the sawed-off 12-gauge in his hands.

“Hey, young brother,” Hawk said. “Drop that gun. Down on your knees. Hands on your head.”

The younger man started to argue. But when he turned to Hawk, he nodded and did as he was told.

Hawk kicked the gun away, found a park bench along the path, and took a seat. He had the shotgun trained on the man’s back. He looked up to me and Buddy and said, “Continue.”

“What?” Buddy said.

“Y’all got paid to kick this man’s ass,” Hawk said. “Just giving you the space and opportunity.”

“His name is Buddy,” I said.

“Course it is,” Hawk said. “Bud-dy.”

Buddy let out a long breath, shook his hands, and then lifted them as fists. He motioned to me again with his head, a gesture I found most annoying. He stood maybe two inches taller and probably weighed eighty pounds more than me. His beard was big and burly like a logger from Oregon or a hipster from Brooklyn. He smiled as he circled me, and I noticed the glint of a gold incisor.

He grunted and came toward me, arms flailing. He landed one against the meat of my left shoulder and I tapped another on his bloody nose and two in his stomach. His stomach was large but not altogether soft, and the blows didn’t seem to have much of an impact.

“Come on, Buddy,” Hawk said. “Teach this man a lesson.”

I saw Hawk in my peripheral vision and shook my head.

“Man’s old,” Hawk said. “Probably needs one of them Rascal motor scooters.”

Buddy came at me again, loose and fast, hands flailing. I reached out and grabbed his thick hair and collared him into a headlock. He was strong, but not strong enough, and I twisted him down hard and fast into the pathway like a prized steer. I held Buddy’s head in the crook of my arm and squeezed in an attempt to unscrew his head from his body. I had on jeans and Red Wings that morning and walked the man counterclockwise into a subservient hold that would’ve brought admiration from Gorgeous George.

Down the pathway, I saw the old man feeding the squirrels had moved closer onto another green bench. His entire body turned to us as he cracked a peanut and ate it.

When Buddy’s face began to turn a bright shade of purple, his partner took exception.

“Let him go,” his partner said. “Shit, man. Let him go.”

Hawk stood and walked close to the man with his hands on his head. He pressed the end of the 12-gauge against the back of his head. “Shhh,” Hawk said.

Hawk pulled the gun from Buddy’s waist as he struggled to breathe. Hawk tossed the pistol far into the river. So far, I didn’t even hear a plop.

“Got to admire the progressive nature of these fools,” Hawk said.

“White and black,” I said, loosening my hold by a millimeter.

“Ebony and ivory,” Hawk said. “Y’all had enough? Ready to head back to Little Rhody? Had enough big-city fun?”

I let go of Buddy’s head and stood up. He moved into a seated position and gasped for breath.

The black man, still on his knees, stared at Hawk. He looked away and shook his head, spitting again.

“Nobody told me you’d be here,” the young black man said.

“You know who I am?” Hawk said.

The black man nodded. Buddy tried to stand, but I kicked his feet out from under him and told him to stay still. He sat back down hard. He looked up at me and tried to muster a hard look without success.

“Me and this white boy an old-school tag team,” Hawk said. “Your ass ready?”

The black man looked down at his partner and shook his head. “Naw, man,” he said. “Not you.”

Hawk turned and tossed the black man’s gun into the river. This time I heard a heavy plop.

“Long ride back to Providence,” Hawk said.

“Might I recommend a book on tape?” I said.

Hawk nodded. “How to Lose Friends and Not Influence People.”

Hawk pointed the shotgun at both men, explained the damage it could do at close range, and told them to run, not walk, back to their truck. They did as they were told. Hawk slid the shotgun up into its hiding place in his trench coat.

“An overcoat in June?” I said.

“You think I’m too eccentric for Cambridge?”

“Not by a long shot.”

As we passed the old man on the park bench, he looked up and cracked a peanut. He stared at me and Hawk and tipped his scally cap.

“How’d we do?” I said.

“Nice show,” the old man said, lifting his sack of peanuts to me.

I took a handful and offered a few to Hawk while we walked away.

“Maybe we should join the circus,” Hawk said.

“Plenty of time,” I said.