Chapter 5
I was in my office. Outside my window it was a bright hard spring day, not very warm, but no wind and a lot of sunshine. There were spring clothes in the shops along Newbury Street, and somebody had put a few tables outside some of the cafes. It was still too brisk for anyone to sit outside, but it was a harbinger, and it made me feel good. Breakfast was over and I was planning lunch when Quirk called.
"Belson got shot last night," he said. "I'll pick you up outside your office in two minutes."
"He alive?" I said.
"Half," Quirk said and hung up.
I was outside wearing my authentic replica A-2 leather jacket with the collar up when an unmarked black Ford with a buggy whip antenna swung into the curb. Quirk was in the back, and a Homicide dick named Malone was driving. I got in the back with Quirk, and Malone pulled away from the curb, hit the siren, ran a red light and headed down Boylston Street.
"Belson was coming home last night, around eight o'clock, and while he was unlocking his front door somebody pumped three nine-millimeter slugs into him from behind," Quirk said. "One broke the left scapula, one punched a hole in his right side and went on through. One is still there, right near his spine, down low."
"He going to make it," I said.
"Probably," Quirk said. "They don't know how soon he'll walk."
"Shooter didn't group his shots very tight," I said.
"We noticed that too," Quirk said. "On the other hand, he apparently hit all three shots he took. We haven't found any other slugs."
"So he's a pretty good shot," I said, "but maybe excited."
"Maybe."
Malone yanked the car dawn Arlington Street and turned left on St. James.
"He conscious?" I said.
"In and out," Quirk said. "But last time he was in, he said he wanted to see you."
With the siren full on we went through Copley Square, and out Huntington Avenue.
"What hospital?" I said.
"Brigham," Quirk said.
"Any suspects?"
"No."
We went out Huntington, turned down Francis and pulled in under the portico at the main hospital entrance, and parked. A fat black woman in a hospital security uniform came toward us as we got out, waving us away. Malone flashed his badge and she stopped and nodded and walked away.
Belson was in the intensive care unit, a sheet pulled up to the middle of his chest. There was an IV into a vein on the back of his right hand. His left arm was in a cast. Lee Farrell was there, with his hips on a windowsill. There was another Homicide cop I didn't know sitting in a chair by Belson's bedside with a tape recorder. The recorder wasn't picking anything up. Belson appeared to be sleeping. I nodded at Farrell.
The cop with the tape recorder said, "He's coked to the eyeballs, Lieutenant. He hasn't said a word."
Quirk nodded.
"Frank," he said. "Spenser's here."
Belson made no movement for maybe twenty seconds, then his eyes opened. He shifted his eyeballs slowly toward Quirk's voice and slowly past Quirk and looked at me. The cop beside the bed turned on the tape recorder.
"Talk… to… Spenser," he said slowly in a very soft voice. Everything he did was slow, as if the circuits weren't connected very well.
I moved a little closer to the bed and bent over.
"What do you need?" I said.
His eyes remained fixed for a moment at the spot where I had been, then slowly they moved and, even more slowly, they refocused on me.
"You… find… her," he said.
"Lisa," I said.
"Can't… look… now. You… look."
"Yeah," I said. "I'll find her."
Belson was silent for a while. His eyes were on me, but they didn't seem to be seeing me. Then he moved his lips carefully. For a moment no sound came.
Then he said, "Good."
Everyone was quiet in the room. Belson kept his blank eyes on me. Then he nodded faintly and let his eyes close and didn't move. The cop with the tape recorder turned it off.
In the corridor, Quirk said, "You chase the wife, we'll chase the shooter. They turn out to be connected, we'll cooperate in our common endeavor."
"He say anything I can use?"
"He hasn't said anything anybody can use. Even if he was lucid, I don't think he knows what hit him. He got it in the back and he never cleared his piece."
"A real pro," I said, "would have made sure it was finished."
"A real amateur wouldn't have hit all three shots," Quirk said. "Maybe something scared him off."
"If something did, be nice to find out what it was and talk to it."
"We're looking," Quirk said.
"Doctors give you any idea how long before he can talk more than he's doing now?"
"No. They've shot him full of hop right now, and they say he'll need it for a while."
"So I'm on my own," I said.
"Aren't you always?" Quirk said.
We walked slowly through the hospital corridors to the elevator.
"You want to look through Frank's house?" Quirk said.
He handed me a new key with a little tag hanging from it on a string. On the tag "Belson, FD" was written in blue ink.
"I suppose I got to," I said.
"Don't get delicate," Quirk said. "It's a case now."