Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot Page 16

  The plan was for Team Kinjo to view the counting of the money, sign the many documents for the money’s release, and then Hawk and I would drive the cash back to Chestnut Hill with an escort from the state police and the Feds.

  “I just hope they haven’t spotted your mug at the post office,” I said.

  “Babe, my image can’t be captured,” Hawk said.

  The twenty-second floor was soon exchanged for the second floor and the main lobby of the bank. Twelve men and women greeted us in a very large conference room wearing plastic gloves and running used hundred-dollar bills through a dozen high-speed money counters. Two stainless-steel hard-shell suitcases sat on a table in the center of the room. A young woman wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and Ugg boots packed stacks of cash, already prepackaged and sealed in shrink-wrap for the kidnappers’ convenience.

  Hawk nodded toward the suitcases. With pride, he winked at me.

  “You mind me asking when was the time you saw the four mil?” I said.

  “There was a general in the Congo Republic,” Hawk said. “He liked to buy a lot of weapons, women, and drugs.”

  “Of course.”

  There was the constant whir of the money counters. All the tellers were young, quiet, and attentive to the job. All wearing street clothes, brought in late on their days off.

  An hour elapsed, and someone sent out for sandwiches and coffee.

  Two hours elapsed, and Steve Rosen walked out of the conference room and into the darkened lobby where we sat. He held two clipboards in his hand.

  He tried to hand one to each of us.

  “Confidentiality agreement,” he said. “And that you are responsible if any of the cash goes missing. Yadda. Yadda. Typical shit.”

  We did not reach for the clipboards.

  “Bank requires it,” Rosen said.

  I shrugged.

  “Insurance company requires it.”

  I shrugged even more.

  “And I require it,” Rosen said.

  “We already discussed terms,” I said.

  “That was a million years back,” Rosen said. “This is here and now. This is what I need. Don’t be a pain in my ass. Okay, Spenser?”

  “We had an agreement,” I said. “And this is the same job.”

  Rosen whipped his head back as if I’d slapped him. “Really? And him? Him I don’t know from Adam’s fucking housecat.”

  Hawk grinned.

  “He’s with me.”

  “But who the fuck is he?” Rosen said. He had a great face for smirking, wide and rubbery.

  Hawk stood. He did not announce his name. He just looked down at Steve Rosen and studied him with curiosity. Rosen sniffed, his face continuing to go sour.

  “I don’t need this shit right now,” Rosen said. “I’ve been an agent for fifteen years. I get the respect from my clients because they know I’m an athlete, too. I know the jock code. When I was putting myself through law school, I worked my way up to second-degree black belt in tae kwon do. I still commit myself to the training every day.”

  Hawk grinned wider. His teeth were very white and perfect.

  “Oh, no,” Hawk said.

  “I’m just saying if you want to fucking get into it,” Rosen said, “I’ll fucking get into it with you, brother. This isn’t the time.”

  Hawk took a short breath, crooked his head to the right, popping his neck, and hit super-agent Steve Rosen very quick and very hard in the solar plexus.

  Rosen landed hard on his knees. He was working on breathing.

  Hawk and I walked toward the money-counting room. Ray and Kinjo met us at the door. Most of the money on the table, nearly all of it, had already been shrink-wrapped and loaded into two suitcases.

  “I don’t give a damn about any of this,” Kinjo said. “You hear me? We get the money to these sons a bitches. But I don’t want them spooked or scared off. You help me keep the Feds away. I do what these people say and don’t want any problems. Akira comes back unharmed.”

  I nodded.

  Ray Heywood was looking over Hawk’s shoulder. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Something’s wrong with Steve. He’s having a heart attack or something.”

  “All that money flying out the door?” Hawk said. “Guess it really do get to a man.”

  44

  We delivered the money without incident to the Heywood house. Since the stone mansion was surrounded by half the cops in Massachusetts, I felt comfortable dropping Hawk at his car and returning to my apartment for a fresh change of clothes.

  The kidnappers had contacted Kinjo again. Each time, they had jumped to a new Twitter handle. The Feds pegged that the messages were coming from one of the many thousands who’d used the city’s free Wi-Fi that day. A break in the case was as imminent as finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

  I brewed some coffee and pulled out my gun-cleaning kit from my closet. I laid my cell phone on the kitchen table beside my .38 and .357. I unfolded a well-used red cloth on which to rest my .38. I removed the bullets and began to run a brush though each cylinder and then brushed out the barrel. A clean gun is a happy gun.

  After the brushing, I changed tools and attached a clean patch to the cloth, spraying a little gun oil on the cloth. I played an old Dave McKenna LP as I worked. Fond memories of Susan and me at the Copley Plaza and days gone by.

  I cleaned the .38 more. Fond memories of shooting men who were about to shoot me.

  The little patch came out clean each time. But the routine felt right, adding a little oil to the patch, and then spraying some oil into the cylinder. I ran the red rag over the .38 and set it aside, picking up the .357. The .357 needed the cleaning more, as I’d just taken it to the range a few weeks ago with Z.

  McKenna played “Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread).”

  I smiled a bit. I got up, called Susan, and poured some coffee.

  When I hung up, it was a little after eleven.

  Hawk called. He was headed back to the Heywoods’.

  I drank some coffee. I went through the routine on the .357. The patch came out slightly dirty this time. I ran another patch through to make sure it was clean. I added some oil to another and sprayed the cylinder. I spun the cylinder.

  McKenna played “Deep in a Dream.”

  I was back at the old Oak Bar. Susan and I were young, McKenna was alive, and the Sox were still the lovable bums of old. The bar was dark wood panels and leather furniture and familiar bartenders and a genial wave from McKenna, who was known to listen to ballgames while he played. I wondered if I could listen to ballgames while I shot. I decided not, and set the .357 aside. I found a leather rig for the big gun and clipped the .38 to my belt behind my right hip.

  Whatever the kidnappers had in mind had been set in motion.

  And all we could do was sit and wait.

  I removed the needle from the record, locked up my apartment, and drove off along Marlborough Street.

  45

  Two more photos of Akira were sent from separate Twitter accounts. Both shut down after being sent. One of them showed the child seated in a big, ugly green recliner. His face blank, eyes wide with exhaustion and fear. The next showed the child wearing Kinjo’s game jersey, eyes cast downward, and holding up his index finger in the number-one sign. Each shot was very close, impossible to tell much about the location of the photo if the kidnappers were caught.

  Kinjo sat alone in his media room while he waited. He watched video from the game. He’d run a play back and forth twenty times before moving on.

  It was one o’clock in the morning and the house was very still but alive with federal agents and cops. The two suitcases sat in the center of the living room as if to underscore the waiting.

  I was adding sugar to my coffee when Tom Connor strode into the kitchen, talking on his cell phone. He eyed me, a second of hesita
tion, but continued toward the big island in the center of the room. He stood across from me and made his own coffee. I did not offer him any sugar or cream.

  “What’d you make of that last one?”

  “The taunt?” I said.

  “Right?”

  I nodded. I drank some coffee.

  “Why dress up the kid as Kinjo, make him do all that shit?”

  “Personal.”

  “As in Antonio Lima?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t dismissed the possibility.”

  Connor nodded, poured maybe half the sugar container into his coffee. He held the coffee and squinted his eyes in thought, nattily dressed in an official FBI golf shirt and black dress pants. I wanted to ask him if there was a special store catering only to the Feds. But with age comes wisdom. I drank my coffee, curious as to what he wanted.

  “One week,” Connor said. “And we got nothing.”

  I nodded, employing an old crime-buster technique—shut your mouth and let the other person keep talking.

  “You went to New York,” Connor said.

  “Yep.”

  “And talked to Lima’s brother?” he said. “Met with the old lady?”

  “I did.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “What did you think?”

  I shrugged again. I drank some coffee. The kitchen light shone off Connor’s helmet of perfect hair.

  “And you found out they’d been paid out.”

  “I did.”

  “We didn’t know that,” Connor said. “Kinjo brought it up. Says he’s innocent but didn’t need the attention.”

  I nodded.

  “You believe that?”

  “He said he wasn’t involved,” I said. “My job is to take him at his word.”

  “We worked three different cranks,” Connor said. “Including those goddamn numbnuts from Charlestown. Jesus H. Those were some whack jobs. That steroid freak? He was the mastermind. Wanted to use the ransom money to open a dog-grooming business.”

  “We all have a dream.”

  “But you’re onto something,” Connor said. He smiled, trying to pull me along. “Right? You go up to New York, work that clusterfuck, and then nothing? I don’t believe it. You’re holding out.”

  “I never stopped thinking there was a connection,” I said. “But since getting back, I’ve been a little sidetracked.”

  I rested my left hand on the kitchen island. A couple more Feds walked into the kitchen, looking for some stray donuts. Connor gave them the stink eye, and they turned on their heels and left. “What is this, Denny’s?” he said, grinning more at me. Just a couple of old pals shooting the breeze.

  “Why’d you go see Gerry Broz?”

  Ah, I thought.

  I shrugged, tilted my head. “Catch up on old times,” I said. “Offer my condolences on his late dad.”

  “Joe was a grade-A turd.”

  “But you worked with him.”

  “And you don’t work with street creeps, hustlers, and pimps when you need it, Spenser?” Connor said. “Don’t get all high and mighty on me. We swim in the same fucking ocean.”

  I took a long breath through my nose and let it out the same way. The coffee had grown cold and I set it in the microwave to reheat. In the living room, Cristal Heywood lay sleeping on the couch. In Akira’s bedroom, Nicole Heywood was probably still wide awake and staring at his fish tank.

  From the kitchen, you could see Cristal covered in a large blanket, eyes closed, an empty highball glass on the coffee table. Her arm was draped out from under the blanket, long red nails dangling down to touch the perfect white carpet.

  “You don’t have to tell me jack,” Connor said, speaking quietly. “But if you want to help the kid, maybe we should talk.”

  I waited. The microwave dinged, and I grabbed my coffee. Connor was staring at Cristal.

  “Gerry said you wanted to know about Kevin Murphy,” Connor said. “You think we hadn’t thought about that? We know her background.”

  “Then what’s to discuss?”

  “That you know something else,” he said. “So what if she liked to show off her goodies on the Internet? Why Murphy?”

  “Why not?”

  I considered my options. Tom Connor was a distrustful, immoral creep. And I’d rather have my manly parts roasted over an open flame than work with him. But my job wasn’t to vet the help. My job was to facilitate the return of an eight-year-old boy to his father. And if working with the devil himself would help, then I’d explore my options.

  “An associate of Kevin Murphy followed Kinjo a couple weeks ago,” I said. “He drove the same vehicle and all but admitted he’d been nearly shot by my client.”

  “This was how long before the kidnapping?” Connor said.

  I held up all my fingers and exposed my thumbs.

  “You follow him?”

  “All the way to the depths of Dorchester,” I said. “He has a first-class studio over a convenience store near Fields Corner.”

  “Anything?”

  “Business as usual,” I said. “Caught Murphy in the act of adding to his oeuvre.”

  I could tell that Connor was not familiar with the term. Probably not a fan of Godard or Truffaut. Or even Roger Corman.

  “I want to pick him up,” he said. “You say Kinjo can finger the guy he works with?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “You guys have a little more muscle when it comes to gaining warrants,” I said. “And getting someone to flip on their employer.”

  “But you like this guy Murphy for it?”

  I shrugged. “Not especially,” I said. “But it’s pretty much all we got besides the Lima family.”

  “You explain the odds to your client?” he said. “About actually ever seeing his son again?”

  “I tried.”

  “Maybe we should both try harder,” Connor said. “Everything about this feels wrong.”

  46

  At dawn, Tom Connor and I sat down with Kinjo and Nicole. Neither of them had slept. I worked on a record-setting cup of coffee as the sun rose over their fence and trees, silver and harsh. A bright, winter wind coming way too early for September.

  We had gathered in the study after a fourth message had arrived.

  BE READY. 2-MINUTE DRILL.

  In a new photo, Akira wore an oversized white T-shirt, holding up two fingers. He’d turned his head away from the camera, a postcard-size bandage affixed to his neck. We all saw the blood.

  “We just want both of you to be ready when this happens,” Connor said. “Mr. Heywood will probably be asked to deliver the money. Or his representative.”

  He turned to me and nodded. I gave the old combat-pilot thumbs-up.

  “What is that?” Nicole said. “What the hell’s wrong with his neck?”

  She dropped her forehead into her outstretched hand and closed her eyes. Her chin quivered, but she did not cry. She had nothing left.

  “I want to bring it,” Kinjo said. “Look them in the eye.”

  “Probably won’t see them,” Connor said. “They’ll send you an address, you drop the cash, and then leave. They’ll have someone watching the drop. And watching it before they tell you, to make sure we don’t set up shop. It will be quick and dirty, and you’ll have to leave.”

  Kinjo nodded. “Okay.”

  “But you both must know something,” Connor said, looking to me. I met his eye and nodded.

  “No guarantees,” I said.

  The air very briskly left the room. All of us sat together at a basic grouping in what the realtor had probably called the library. Instead it had been turned into a storeroom of Kinjo Heywood memorabilia. Unhung framed action shots, old trophies, bobbleheads, and boxes of free T-shirts and sporting goods. The
re was an empty white marble fireplace with unlit gas logs.

  The chairs were old and ragged and seemed to have come from Kinjo’s previous life. Nicole looked to me and then to Connor and said, “We know what to expect.”

  “We’ll do everything to make sure your child comes home,” Connor said. “But I’ve worked a dozen of these cases before, and often the kidnappers don’t keep to the plan.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Kinjo said.

  “It means you can’t trust what they say.”

  “And it means they don’t like witnesses,” I said.

  Kinjo was seated but rocked back and forth in his chair. He still had some tears left and started to cry. His face was as solid as granite under the streams, jaw clenching and unclenching. “I want to deliver the goddamn money.”

  “If that’s what they want,” Connor said. “But I recommend you stick to the plan, play by the rules, until they change their script.”

  Kinjo nodded. The library was sealed off from the rest of the house with two French doors, and through the beveled glass we could see more agents had arrived. I spotted at least ten surrounding the big family dining table, laptop computers and cell phones heating up, waiting for the next word.

  “How often does that happen?” Nicole said. She had on jeans and a silk top, a small silver cross hanging from her neck.

  Connor took in a breath. “More than half.”

  “In more than half of the kidnappings you’ve worked on,” Kinjo said. “More than half the time, nobody comes back.”

  Connor nodded. I did not like the son of a bitch, but knew he was telling the truth.

  “How often when the money is paid?” Nicole said.

  “In every case, the money was paid,” Connor said.

  “But he’s alive now,” Kinjo said. “That’s what we got to believe.”

  I nodded. I did not want to tell him that every photo they had could have been taken within hours of his kidnapping and that Akira could very likely be dead. A week was a long while to hold a victim before calling in a ransom. Moving the child around or keeping him hidden would be problematic. When I told Susan about this, she said be positive but honest.