Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

76

Jesse pulled to the curb down the block from the bar. Before they got out of the car, he grabbed Tamara’s forearm and stared her in the eyes.

“You hang back outside, okay? This guy’s probably armed, and if he’s hurt...”

“I’ll be all right, Jesse.”

“Please, Doc, no heroics. I can’t lose anybody else.”

She stroked his cheek. “I promise, Jesse. I won’t come into the bar until you send for me.”

Jesse took off his hat and his cop shirt and pulled his white tee over his beltline. He unclipped his hip holster, removed his weapon, and fished his softball warmup jacket out of the rear seat. He wrapped his hand around the nine-millimeter’s grip and threw the jacket over his gun hand.

“Shouldn’t you call the BPD for backup?” Tamara asked as they walked toward Dennis’s.

“They’ll come sirens blaring and it might create a hostage situation.”

Jesse spotted him the second he came through the bar door. As Morris had said, Hump Bolton was sitting alone at a back booth, facing the front door.

“Where’s the head?” he asked the barman.

The barman pointed to the right of where Bolton was seated. “Through there.”

As Jesse walked back, he counted three other people in the place besides Bolton, the bartender, and himself. Two were up front at the bar and one was at the far end of the bar about ten feet from Bolton. The other thing Jesse noticed as he got closer to the rear booth was that Bolton looked bad-off. His skin was grayish and his face was covered in sweat. His eyes were glassy, his pupils black pinpricks, and he was bent over slightly. Both of Bolton’s arms were below table level, and it seemed to Jesse as if the man was clutching his abdomen. But he walked right past Bolton and toward the bathroom and the old phone booth. While back there, he racked the slide on his nine and counted to thirty.

When he came back through the doors, he stopped next to Bolton’s booth. “Mickey Coyle sent me. You Hump?”

Bolton straightened up in his seat, wincing in pain at the effort, looking at Jesse. There was a strange blankness in the big man’s expression, but Bolton didn’t say anything.

Jesse pushed him. “Look, you got something for me to look at or not?”

Bolton still didn’t say anything. As Jesse waited him out, he saw that below table level, Bolton’s sweatshirt was soaked through with blood. His pants were wet with it, too.

“Sit,” Bolton said finally.

Jesse sat across from him, resting his gun hand on his thigh, making sure the barrel was pointed directly at Bolton’s midsection. “So, Bolton, what you got? Let’s see.”

“Coyle didn’t send you or... maybe he did. He always was a scumbag. You a cop?” Bolton asked. “What you got under the jacket, a .38 or a nine-millimeter?”

Jesse didn’t figure it was worth arguing. “A nine, and it’s pointed right at your gut.”

Bolton laughed, his body twisting in pain. “Find another target, cop. I already got a nice hole in me there.”

“Shot?”

“Stabbed. Son-of-a-bitch tweaker I stayed with last night stuck a kitchen knife in my belly. I think he clipped my liver. I don’t think he got a liver no more, not after what I done to him.”

“I’ve got a doctor outside. You slide out of the booth, let me pat you down, and I’ll get her in here to look at you.”

Bolton ignored him. “You Boston PD?”

“Paradise police chief, Jesse Stone.”

“Chief, huh?” He laughed, his body clenching in pain again. “I’m moving up in the world. Listen, Stone, we didn’t mean to kill the old woman, I swear on my mother. She just... you know.”

“I know. Who hired you?”

Hump shrugged. “King made all of them arrangements.”

“What were you looking for in the house?”

“A key or a piece of paper with numbers on it, stuff like that.”

“Curnutt found it. Did you know he found it?”

“No, he fucked me with that.”

“You think the guy who hired you guys killed King?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Just because it figures don’t make it so.”

“Let me get the doctor in here for you.”

“Nah, I’m done. The only reason I’m even still breathing is because I’ve been tooting on some crank every few minutes.”

Jesse asked, “You still have the ring?”

“In the balled-up socks in my sweatshirt,” Bolton said, his words slurred, his eyes fluttering. “It’s a beautiful thing. You seen it?”

“Uh-huh. Pictures of it.”

“Maybe you should get that doctor in here. I don’t think—”

But before Hump Bolton could finish, he slumped over in the booth and fell onto the floor. Jesse quickly stepped around to Bolton, dragged him away from the booth, and laid him on his back. Jesse patted Bolton down, pulled the gun out of his waistband, and pushed it along the floor behind him.

Jesse held up his shield. “Police. Call nine-one-one and get an ambulance and backup here. You.” He pointed to one of the guys sitting at the bar. “Go outside. There’s a woman doctor out there. Get her in here. Now!”

The guy jumped off his barstool and ran through the door. But by the time Tamara made it inside, it was too late. Hump Bolton was dead. Jesse didn’t need the medical examiner now standing over his shoulder to tell him so. He knew death when he saw it.