Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

47

Mattie had taken the Red Line back down to Southie.

Or so she said in her voicemail. I tried her back several times without luck.

After leaving Rita and Farrell, I picked up Hawk at the Harbor Health Club. Hawk was still dressed for exercise in black silk pants, a gray sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves, and black Nikes that appeared fresh from the box. I detected the heavy item in his black gym bag wasn’t a kettlebell.

“Moakley Park,” I said. “It’s where we first met Chloe Turner.”

“Mattie’s trying to get Chloe to change her mind about saying what she saw?”

“Precisely, Watson.”

“Only Watson I know played for the Astros.”

“Bob Watson,” I said. “Also played for the Yankees.”

“Every man has his faults,” Hawk said.

We parked by the stadium and walked around to the bleachers. One man jogged around the rubberized track as we looked around for Mattie. Hawk saw her first, up in the top row of the aluminum bleachers, talking with Chloe. They were alone.

“I’m gonna get in a few laps,” Hawk said. “Whistle if you need me.”

“Can you run with a .44 strapped under your shoulder?”

“Easier than strapped between my legs.”

I continued across the AstroTurf to the bleachers. The field was littered with crushed Gatorade cups and forgotten chin straps. It reminded me of being back at practice when I played strong safety at Holy Cross. Back then we still had leather helmets and kept up with the exploits of Red Grange. Simpler times.

Mattie noticed me but continued talking with Chloe. They sat close together, Chloe bent at the waist, elbows on her knees and hands over her face. It appeared she was crying.

Leave it to ole Spenser to break up a heart-to-heart between two women and offer my manly advice.

I hotfooted it up the bleachers and crossed over the rows to where they sat in a far corner. Chloe wiped her face. Mattie squinted up at me, the sun behind my back.

“Something’s a matter.”

“You might have told Susan you were leaving,” I said.

“Wasn’t time,” Mattie said. “Those people from Miami have been following Chloe the last few days. They won’t leave her alone. They’ve been asking around the neighborhood, wanting to know if she was some kind of slut. And then they gave her mom some money. Chloe doesn’t know how much. But now her mom wants her to stay away from us and Rita Fiore.”

“Could they have followed you here?”

Chloe didn’t answer. She wiped her face with her shoulder. Mattie was right. Something was a matter. Chloe was shaking as though we were in the midst of a Boston winter.

“How many of them?” I said.

Chloe didn’t answer. Mattie stared at me.

“Did they want you to bring Mattie here?” I said.

Chloe nodded. “My mom said I had to listen to them,” she said. “She told me this was all my fault and I was a whore for taking that five hundred bucks.”

I looked around the field, noting the same jogger but not seeing Hawk. The field was empty, and the bleachers empty except for us.

I had on my ball cap and sunglasses, watching for the different paths into the stadium. Behind the chain-link fence and by a trailer field house I spotted two of them. I couldn’t tell if they were the same men from Cambridge, but whoever they were, they weren’t dressed for a midday workout. They wore light-colored suits and sunglasses and appeared to be splitting up and walking into the stadium in two different directions.

I nodded to Mattie. She saw them, too.

“Shit,” she said.

“Maybe not,” I said.

A man I hadn’t seen yet entered the stadium from behind the bleachers and began to mount the steps. Soon another one followed. I didn’t see the third but hoped Hawk had.

“Shit,” Mattie said again.

I stood up. I had my .357 worn on my right hip under my T-shirt. My .38 on my ankle.

“Good morning,” I said. “Came to take in some exercise?”

One of the men was the guy whose head I had left in the T station toilet. He appeared to still hold a grudge. The other man was roughly the same age, a younger black man in a light blue linen suit. The Latin man from the other night had on a khaki suit so light it appeared white in the noonday sun.

“Crockett and Tubbs,” I said.

“Who the fuck are Crockett and Tubbs?” Mattie said, whispering.

“I’ll explain it later,” I said.

“Okay, asshole,” the black man said. “No tricks today. These girls are coming with us.”

“A fellow of infinite jest,” I said.

“Hands up, dickhead.”

“And of most excellent fancy.”

“I said ‘hands up,’” the Latin man said. “Now.”

He fell first, very hard and very fast, his legs seeming to go out from under him. He landed with a mighty clang on his back. The black man with him jerked his head back and then looked down at his feet. He fell hard and fast, too. His gun clattered down into the bleachers.

I was on both before they even looked up, holding them with my gun.

“Cerberus?” I said. “More like Pinky the poodle.”

“Got ’em?” Hawk said, down below the bleachers.

“Yep.”

The first shot came close, pinging off the aluminum. I yelled for the girls to get down. Mattie and Chloe scrambled down into the bleachers. I got onto my stomach, seeking cover, and tried to see up under the seats. The two men ran off, down the bleachers and onto the track.

It was quiet and still. The jogger scattered, running away from the track. He hopped the chain-link fence and ran into the park.

“You okay?” I said.

“Fine,” Mattie said.

I peered over the seats, and the Latin man fired two shots at me from the base of the bleachers. I ducked down and returned fire. My .357 was a newer model and held eight shots. I was lucky to have an extra two, although I also had the .38 on my ankle. My gun was heavy chrome and felt substantial as I fired off another shot.

From below the bleachers, I heard a quick double shot that sounded like small cannon fire.

The third man fell by the chain-link fence.

Two more fast shots.

I looked over the aluminum seats, my ears ringing hard.

The man from Miami couldn’t help himself and popped up again. I took the shot. The bullet ripped into his shoulder, and he fell backward, dropping from view. I heard the squeal of a car, the white Charger that had taken a run at me and Pearl, now heading over to the man lying by the fence. The car swerved onto the grass. The black man who I’d just met jumped out from behind the wheel and pulled the wounded man into the backseat.

The car sped away.

I stood up, watching the base of the bleachers. The sun high and hot over us. Heat and light radiating off the aluminum. It was quiet now, a low ringing in my ears. I told Mattie and Chloe to stay put.

I moved slow, gun in hand, down the steps. I waited for the man from Miami to pop up again. He didn’t.

Hawk met me down on the track. The man was on his back, bleeding profusely from his shoulder, squirming and in a lot of pain.

“Shame,” Hawk said. “Damn nice suit.”

“What do we do with him?”

“Put one in the head,” Hawk said. “Dumpster out back.”

“Oh, God,” the man said. “Please.”

“You get your rocks off picking on two little girls?” Hawk said. “And working for a child molester?”

The man gritted his teeth, writhing in pain, the warm blood streaking across the rubberized track.

“I’ll call Quirk.”

“When the shit goes down,” Hawk said. “Ain’t nobody wants to be the last black man in Southie.”

I pitched Hawk my keys and dialed Quirk’s number as I watched him leave. I told Quirk to send an ambulance, too.