Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot Read online

  I had the number in my phone and dialed Connor. I got voice mail and told him I had a gift for him courtesy of Papa B. I hung up. Within the shadow of the Federal Building, Z grinned.

  We waited near the flagpoles in the expansive brick open space before what may be the ugliest building in all of Boston. The architecture seemed inspired by the bunkers of World War II. The flags flew and popped tightly in the wind. The day was very gray and the snow had started up again. Still spitting and fluttering, winter giving us what I considered a very poor effort.

  Forty minutes later, Tom Connor crossed the open area. We stood firm by the steps, waiting for him to come to us. He wore a very large smile on his face. His black suit and yellow tie looked as if they’d been stolen from a corpse.

  “Spenser,” Connor said, offering his hand.

  I did not take it.

  I handed him a legal-size manila envelope. He looked to and fro and then reached for it, peeking inside. “What the fuck is this?”

  “Pasco Barros’s phone records from the last year,” I said. “You must have had him on speed dial.”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “I had a tough time tracking your third phone,” I said. “But me being a master detective really paid off.”

  “Who are you talking about?” he said. “I got an extensive network in this city. If you’re trying to say I’m involved with criminals because I deal with criminals, that’s libelous.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s slanderous. Unless I put it in writing.”

  He looked to Z. And then back to me. Z studied Connor as one would study a museum exhibit of an extinct animal.

  “What do you want?” Connor said.

  “You couldn’t resist,” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “Kinjo’s bounty,” I said. “What are you buying with it, a boat? I bet it’s a boat.”

  Connor’s tie flew away from his chest and he yanked it down and stuck it under his lapel. He looked around us again. “Shut the hell up.”

  “Makes you miss Scollay Square,” I said. “The criminals were more honest.”

  “I’m fucking tired of you, Spenser,” Connor said, his Irish face turning a bright pink. “I think you’ve gone fucking mental. I think you were mental over that whack-job whore who got killed in Southie and I think this kidnapping case has made you mental now.”

  “The conversations were recorded,” I said. “Barros had them in safekeeping in case something happened to him. He got fifty grand and you kept the rest.”

  Connor’s face cut into a smile. He jagged a thumb at me and said to Z, “Can you believe this guy.”

  Neither of us spoke.

  “Something happens to me and they go out FedEx to your predecessor, Epstein.”

  “You’re fucking serious?”

  “I know you bought me a drink,” I said. “But I’m not that cheap.”

  “The kid’s alive,” he said. “What the fuck do you care? These people are filth, anyway. What kind of man plays Russian roulette with his own son?”

  “I think you forced his bet,” I said. “Kinjo said you’d been pushing him all along that he wouldn’t see his son again.”

  “You did the same.”

  “I never asked him to lay down a bounty.”

  “This is all bullshit, Spenser, and you fucking well know it,” Connor said.

  “Shall we listen to the tapes?”

  Z tapped at the side of his jacket. Connor’s face had now turned scarlet. He turned on his heel and walked back toward the Federal Building, his tie crisscrossing in front of him, his fat hand swatting it down, reaching for his badge to show the security guards.

  “You really have recordings?” Z said.

  “Nope.”

  “Phone records?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not enough to prove he got the money?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you told me phone records are tough to come by?”

  “They are.”

  “And even tougher from the private number of a Fed.”

  “True.”

  “But sources are everything?”

  “Crime-buster tip seventy-seven.”

  “And the source?”

  “Epstein.”

  Z nodded. We walked. The red taillights and blur of headlights made beautiful patterns against the gray sky and gray buildings. “So they are onto him?”

  “Very much so,” I said. “And have been for a while.”

  We walked together across Congress. The snow had picked up to a respectable level. A nice crowd had formed near Faneuil Hall, shoppers bustling about holding many bags, Christmas lights being strung along Quincy Market.

  “Is Susan bluffing about cooking?” Z said.

  I contemplated his question. “I’m afraid not.”

  “But you’ll try and intervene in that, too.”

  “I’m a very good meddler.”

  “A very lucky thing for Heywood,” Z said, looking up State Street.

  A kid about Akira’s age brushed by, walking with his mother and wearing a blue Pats jersey. Number 57. The kid seemed very proud of it.

  • • •

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