Wonderland Read online

  “Years of research?” Z said, sliding onto the bench and slowly repping out 275 as if the bar were empty. He took his time, pausing the bar on his chest as I’d taught him, not pushing the weight but working on breathing and controlling the weight.

  Henry walked up to study us, watching as Z clanged the weights down on the rack and stood up. He wore a white satin tracksuit, right hand in his pocket and a grin on his face. “You turkeys gonna pump some iron or just ogle my clientele?”

  “I’m teaching Z the proper way to accomplish both.”

  “You ever think about investing in some workout clothes?” Henry said. “They’ve improved in the last century.”

  “Not everyone benefited as much from Jack LaLanne’s death,” I said.

  Henry snorted. Z smiled as I slid onto the bench and started into a slow rep.

  “I’ll have you know this workout suit is custom-fitted,” Henry said. “Probably cost more than your whole freakin’ wardrobe.”

  I paused the weight on my chest, pushing out a couple more reps. I wanted to say something about shopping in the kids’ section but kept it to myself, concentrating on the weight, the pause of the bar on my chest, exhaling as I pushed the weight upward. I finished the twelfth rep and re-racked the weight.

  “Any more trouble?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “Thought we might follow you home tonight.”

  “I don’t need babysitters,” Henry said. “I need you to do that detective thing. Find out who these crapheads are.”

  “Crapheads have muddied the water,” I said. “The prospective buyer is a corporation with an address listed as a P.O. box. The corporate contact registered with the state seems to be a phony.”

  “What about their lawyer?”

  “I called him,” I said. “He was less than forthcoming.”

  “Hung up on you?”

  “Twice.”

  “I told you he was a prick.”

  “He’s a lawyer,” I said, shrugging.

  Z had moved on to triceps presses with a fifty-pound dumbbell. He made it look easy. And for me, it wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Of course, I wasn’t in my twenties and just a few years away from college football. I had lasted only two years at Holy Cross before joining the Army, never being a fan of the rah-rah coaches or taking orders.

  I switched places with Z. He’d pulled his long black hair into a ponytail, his wide face covered in sweat. The front of his gray T-shirt read Rocky Boy Rez, Box Elder, Montana.

  “Is there a lot to do in Box Elder?” I asked.

  “Why do you think I stayed in Boston?”

  “Numerous liberal coeds wanting to right their ancestors’ wrongs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Or because you worked for a bloated, self-absorbed, immoral creep and sought spiritual guidance from a Zen master?”

  “There was that,” Z said.

  We met Henry in the parking garage thirty minutes later. I was driving a dark blue Ford Explorer that year, decent legroom for men of a certain size. Henry pulled out in a white Camry, and we followed him up Atlantic and down into the Callahan Tunnel and intermittent flashes of fluorescent light, taking 1A up past Logan, through Chelsea, and on into Revere Beach. I had the radio tuned low to a jazz program on WICE, Art Pepper on horn. The tired triple-deckers and sagging brick storefronts whizzed past.

  “A good friend of mine used to vacation in Chelsea,” I said.

  “You’re kidding,” Z said.

  “Have to know the guy,” I said. “Grew up in Lowell.”

  Henry lived in a 1960s condo with the architectural inspiration of a Ritz cracker tin. The condo building was ten stories, with small jutting balconies hanging from each unit and a wide portico facing the water. A sign over the entrance read Ocean View in a fine, detailed script. I parked just across the street in an empty slot by the beach. I had cracked the windows and the wind had kicked up a bit, slicing in the sound of the ocean and smell of salt.

  “And what’s the plan if they approach Henry?” Z said.

  “Persuade them to stop.”

  “How far do we go with the persuasion?”

  “Fists,” I said. “No guns. Unless they want to up the ante. But we carry to make sure. This is not one of those situations where you make that play first. Other times call for it.”

  Z pulled a .44 revolver from a shoulder rig. He popped out the cylinder, checked the load, and clicked it back into place. It was a big gun. But Z was a big man.

  I watched for Henry locking his car and carrying his gym bag up a concrete walkway to the condo’s front entrance. I offered Z a piece of bubble gum, but he declined. I chewed and admired my reflection in the rearview mirror, looking rakish in my Brooklyn Dodgers cap and leather bomber jacket. I fiddled with the radio a bit. I smelled the salted breeze coming from the sound.

  I glanced up to spot three men surrounding Henry’s slight figure under the portico. One of them knocked the gym bag from his hand. Henry responded with a left hook to the guy’s nose. The guy went down. His buddies rushed Henry and started pushing him. Henry set into a fighter’s stance.

  “Saddle up,” Z said. “Here we go.”

  4

  ONE OF THE MEN pressed his hand to his nose, lots of blood oozing through his fingers. Henry had done well. “You come at me again and you’ll get it in the bazoo, too,” Henry said.

  The men weren’t listening. They had switched their attention to Z and me after we drove up and slammed the Explorer’s doors. We all stood in a happy grouping under the portico. No one moved or spoke. Henry stepped back and lowered his dukes a bit. “Nice night,” I said.

  One of the men was olive-skinned, with the build of a fire hydrant, and a tattooed neck bigger than his head. He was walleyed, with a skinny mustache and goatee and black hair cut short and combed forward to disguise a receding hairline. His pal was black, with a long face, patchy beard, and that thousand-yard jailhouse stare. He’d gotten pretty good at it, flicking his eyes from me to Z, watching our hands and waiting for one of us to make the play. The bleeder was taller than the other two, and older, maybe my age, with a thick head of brown hair and a lean, weaselly face. He also had a goatee with some gray in it.

  He leered at me. It was hard to be scary while stemming a bloody nose with one hand.

  “Henry, you want to introduce us?” I said.

  “Yeah, this is Moe, Larry, and Fuckface.”

  “Nice to meet you guys,” I said. “Especially you, Fuckface. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Walleye said. His thick neck melted into his leather jacket.

  “How much are you guys getting paid for the shakeup?” I asked. “Because it’s really not worth it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Bad language is scary,” Z said. “You scared?”

  There were guns there. There were always guns. But no one made a play for the guns, because once they made that move, there was no going back. So we stood around at awkward angles under the portico, three against three, no one wanting to move. A lot of noise of crashing surf and buffeting ocean wind. I shifted my weight from one leg to another. I’d recently purchased a pair of steel-toed Red Wings for such an occasion and my feet felt solid and confident in them. Beside me, Z loosened his shoulders and rolled his neck from side to side. Henry stood beside him and spit on the ground between us and the jolly trio.

  “Walk away,” I said. “And don’t come back.”

  The black man was nearly as tall as me and had spent a lot of time in the weight room. His biceps tightened and flexed in a black denim jacket. His mouth curled into a smile, showing off a couple gold teeth as he rubbed his patchy beard. “How about we just fuck all y’all up? Don’t make no difference to me.”

  “Doesn’t make any,” I said. “You should be more careful about let
ting double negatives slip into everyday conversation.”

  “Fuck your momma,” he said.

  “Much better,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Henry said, sliding into a fighter’s stance. “How’d you like me to turn your ass into a hat?”

  Z looked to me from the corner of his eye. He was relaxed and ready.

  Walleye made the first move, tackling me around the chest and driving me back into a thick column, knocking the wind from me. He pounded sloppy, short punches into my ribs until I finally head-butted him and drove him backward. Z was into a scuffle with the black gentleman, landing a solid, bone-shaking right into the man’s temple. Walleye took another run at me as my hands instinctively lifted up to protect my face and I jabbed him twice, landing the second one. A third jab set up a perfect right, and the right rolled into a hook, with all that space under the portico giving me a nice pivot on the back foot to knock Walleye sideways. I turned to Z, who was holding the man’s collar with his right hand as he punched him with his left. Walleye gathered his feet and made another attempt. My feet ached to try out the boots, and within a few feet, I kicked his legs out from him, an audible crack coming from his shin as he lost his balance and fell to the concrete. There was a lot of blood. My right hand was swelling but my breathing was cool and controlled as I pulled a .45 auto from Walleye’s belt. Z’s black hair had loosened and fallen in his face as he turned to me and grinned, the black man at his feet, Z’s foot on his neck, and the man’s face scraped and bloody from the rough concrete.

  Z searched the man and pulled a Glock from his jacket pocket.

  Somewhere in the fight, the man Henry had hit had run away.

  There was blood all over Henry’s white satin workout jacket. But he was smiling until he noticed the blood and said, “Holy Christ. Someone is paying for my damn dry cleaning.”

  “I have a terrific deal for you guys,” I said.

  “Fuck you,” Walleye said.

  Z looked at me with disgust.

  “He can’t fight,” Z said. “Lacks verbal skills.”

  “Here it is,” I said. “Tell me who hired you and I won’t call the police.”

  “You fucking assaulted us,” Walleye said, curled in a ball and holding his busted shin. The black man looked up from the ground and closed his eyes. He wasn’t buying it, either.

  “Okay,” I said, reaching for my cell phone, dialing 911. I rattled off the address to the condo.

  “Okay,” Walleye said. “Screw it. Okay.”

  “Does this mean you wish to cooperate?”

  “Don’t call the cops,” he said. “I’m on parole.”

  “Maybe you should seek other job opportunities,” Z said.

  “And not fight like such a goddamn pussy,” Henry said.

  “That, too.”

  “Go to hell,” Walleye said.

  “Careful, you’re bleeding on my new boots,” I said.

  Walleye got to his feet slowly. His eyes flicked from Z to me. Z would not relinquish his foot from his pal’s neck.

  “Let him go,” Walleye said. “And give our fucking guns back.”

  “Name?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “I want my fucking guns back.”

  “Nope,” I said. “You got two seconds to give me a name or I’ll see you at your arraignment.”

  “I don’t know her name.”

  “Her?” I said.

  “Yeah, a woman. Nice body. Big tits.”

  “Oh, her,” Z said.

  “She should’ve come herself,” Henry said. “She could’ve done better.”

  “I just got word about a job,” Walleye said. “My cousin told me to meet this broad at the HoJo at Fenway. At that Chinese restaurant. You know the Hong Kong Café?”

  “Name?”

  “I don’t remember,” Walleye said. “I was too busy staring at her bazooms and counting the money.”

  “How’d you keep in touch?”

  “She wrote her cell number on a napkin. Told me not to use it unless it was an emergency.”

  Z smiled and shook his head. He helped the bleeding man to his feet, smoothing down the man’s denim jacket and brushing his shoulders as if he were a tailor. I reached into Walleye’s back pocket and lifted his wallet. I handed it to him, and after a few seconds, he extracted a folded napkin and handed it to me. I read it and neatly placed it into my jacket.

  “A pleasure doing business with you guys,” I said.

  They limped unhappily back to a beaten Chevy sedan, Rust-Oleum polka-dotting the doors and hood. The windshield was cracked and the muffler sagged from the rear end, catching the condo’s drive and sparking for a moment before the car turned south on Beach Boulevard and into the night.

  “Now you pissed ’em off,” Henry said. “Whoever this is won’t waste the effort on amateur hour next time.”

  I shrugged. Z grinned in expectation.

  5

  “SO YOU JUST called her?” Z said.

  “Yep.”

  “And she’s coming?”

  “Yep.”

  We shut the doors to my Explorer and walked toward the Hong Kong Café attached to the HoJo. The cracked asphalt glowed dully under the streetlamps. “I guess this couldn’t have waited or she’d be onto us?”

  “The contact point was a Chinese restaurant,” I said. “I happened to be hungry and like Chinese food.”

  “And it didn’t hurt that the woman was described as having a nice body and large breasts.”

  “I only have eyes for a cold Tsingtao.”

  “I’ll sit at the bar,” Z said, and made his way through the restaurant.

  I decided on the moo shu pork along with an order of spareribs and an egg roll. No need to be gluttonous. The waiter quickly brought me a cold Tsingtao. Z lifted his identical bottle from the bar and gave a slight nod.

  As I drank, I was ever vigilant for a gorgeous woman blessed with ample bosom. Although no woman compared to Susan Silverman, it was important to remain vigilant. I had years of experience at detail work. A keen, appraising eye. Of course, I wasn’t sure if the woman would come or not. For all I knew, Walleye might have dialed her up right after our chat and told her what happened. But guys like Walleye are seldom proficient at explaining why their asses were just handed to them, and, more often than not, pretend it never happened. It wasn’t great for business.

  I watched the door from the lobby and dug into the spareribs. From where I sat, I could see through a large bank of windows over a pool still covered, waiting for summer. Behind the pool and a large concrete wall, the lights of Fenway blazed, although the Sox were on the road. Rain had started to fall in the bright electric lights, giving a halo effect around the stadium.

  A cold beer in one hand and a warm pancake in the other; life was good. Z looked bored.

  An hour and a half after I called, a striking woman walked into the Hong Kong Café.

  I summoned my detective abilities to study her body to see if the description matched. Z watched her subtly from the bar. He raised his eyebrows. She was the kind of woman who expected men to stare.

  The woman was tall, maybe five-ten in heels, with stylish, layered brown hair. Her eyes were large and dark. She had a pert nose, prominent cheekbones, and very large, sensuous lips painted bright red. She had the figure of someone who worked out and used weights. Perhaps she had even attempted Zumba.

  The dress hit just above the knee, a black wraparound number with a deep neckline. Studying her legs, I guessed the boots cost about as much as my rent.

  I stood and walked over to her.

  “Do I know you?” she said, with the slightest trace of a British accent. I hadn’t noticed it on the phone.

  I gave Walleye’s name and said he couldn’t make it.

&n
bsp; “Why?”

  “Tonight’s his night for the Big Brothers program.”

  She gave me an appraising glance. “You look tougher,” she said.

  “What you see is nothing,” I said. “I got a Balinese dancing girl tattooed across my chest.”

  Even though she failed to smile, I motioned her to my table. The waiter had already cleared the plates and left me the check and two fortune cookies. He soon reappeared and asked if the lady would like to see a menu. She did not. Nor did she wish to have a cocktail.

  Up close, she appeared older than I had first guessed. Which wasn’t a bad thing. A very fit woman in her forties with crinkles at the corners of her eyes and subtle laugh lines around her mouth. She wore large diamond earrings. Her makeup was impeccable, and she smelled of expensive perfume.

  She smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “And?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “Those people at the condo are giving us trouble.”

  “That’s not our problem,” she said. “That’s your problem.”

  “They ain’t backin’ down.”

  I said it just like that, with the “ain’t” and the dropped g. I figured I’d go for the thick-necked Southie type. It went well with my broken nose and Irish heritage.

  “You take care of it,” she said, studying the inside of her wrist, where she wore a gold watch twisted backward.

  “You guys sure want this property,” I said. “Why not just go for somewhere easier?”

  “I don’t pay you and your friends to think,” she said, chin dropping, eyes intent.

  “These people got friends,” I said. “It could get messy.”

  “How messy?”

  I shrugged. “Some people might get hurt. You know?”

  She stared at me and crossed her legs. I followed the legs. Her eyes caught me staring. She widened them and bit her lip. “You have until the end of the week,” she said.

  “The boss is some fuckin’ ball buster, huh?”

  The rain fell in a neat slant in the stadium lights behind her.