Robert B. Parker's Grudge Match E-Book

Mike Lupica

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 347

Beschreibung

Robert B. Parker's beloved PI Sunny Randall returns on a case that blurs the line between friend and foe... and if Sunny can't tell the difference, the consequences may be deadly. When Sunny's long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised - after all, she double-crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and she is willing to consider his case if it will clear the slate. Tony's trusted girlfriend and business partner has vanished, appearing to have left in a hurry, and he has no idea why. He just wants to talk to her, he says. While Sunny isn't willing to trust his good intentions, the missing woman intrigues her - against all odds, she's risen to a position of power in Tony's criminal enterprise. Sunny can't help but admire her and, if this woman's in a jam, she would like to help. But when a witness is murdered hours after speaking to Sunny, it's clear there's more at stake than just Tony's love life. Someone - maybe even Tony himself - doesn't want this woman on the loose...and will go to any lengths to make sure she stays silent.

Leseprobe

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FORROBERT B. PARKER

‘Parker writes old-time, stripped-to-the-bone, hard-boiled school of Chandler…His novels are funny, smart and highly entertaining… There’s no writer I’d rather take on an aeroplane’– Sunday Telegraph

‘Parker packs more meaning into a whispered “yeah” than most writers can pack into a page’– Sunday Times

‘Why Robert Parker’s not better known in Britain is a mystery. His best series featuring Boston-based PI Spenser is a triumph of style and substance’ – Daily Mirror

‘Robert B. Parker is one of the greats of the American hard-boiled genre’ – Guardian

‘Nobody does it better than Parker…’ – Sunday Times

‘Parker’s sentences flow with as much wit, grace and assurance as ever, and Stone is a complex and consistently interesting new protagonist’– Newsday

‘If Robert B. Parker doesn’t blow it, in the new series he set up in Night Passage and continues with Trouble in Paradise, he could go places and take the kind of risks that wouldn’t be seemly in his popular Spenser stories’ –New York Times

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR MIKE LUPICA

‘Lupica, an award-winning sports columnist, author of 40 books, and longtime friend of the late Parker, nails the Sunny Randall character and the Boston criminal milieu that Parker created’ – Booklist

‘Lupica does justice to the work of MWA Grand Master Robert B. Parker in this splendid continuation of the late author’s Sunny Randall series’ – Publisher’s Weekly

‘Mike Lupica mixes a heavy dose of suspense with a shot of nostalgia, effortlessly delivering a relentless thriller that might just be the best book in the series so far’ – The Real Book Spy

‘Lupica mimics the heroine’s voice, much less distinctive than those of Parker’s other leads, with ease’ – Kirkus Reviews

Lieutenant Commander Donna Gavin, Boston Police Department.

And, as always, the home team:

Daniel and David Parker, Ivan Held, Sara Minnich, Esther Newberg.

1

‘Listen up while I explain to you how you hold a damn grudge, Sunny Randall,’ Tony Marcus said.

We were in his office at Buddy’s Fox. Tony’s two most trusted troopers, Junior and Ty Bop, had driven me over here like they were Uber drivers, but only if Uber were hiring shooters and thugs this week.

‘Tony wants to talk to you,’ Junior had said at my front door. ‘And before you say something smart, like you can’t never help yourself, it really ain’t a request.’

‘Fortunately, my schedule is wide open the rest of the afternoon,’ I said. ‘So you’re in luck.’

Junior had turned to Ty Bop then. ‘See that right there,’ he said. ‘She can’t never help herself.’

It occurred to me on the way to the South End that it was the most I’d ever heard Junior talk. He was as big as the Back Bay and usually just stood mute and scared the living shit out of you.

Now here we all were.

‘Should I take notes?’ I said to Tony.

He closed his eyes as he shook his head. I knew it wasn’t because he thought I was funny, even though we both knew I was.

‘What’s the expression you’d use for a girl, you wanted to tell her she has balls?’ he said.

‘That she’s got balls,’ I said.

‘Well, you still got some balls on you,’ Tony said.

‘Stop or you’ll make me blush,’ I said.

Junior and Ty Bop were on either side of the door that led out to the bar area at Buddy’s Fox. Ty Bop, who was Tony’s shooter, still looked as skinny as a hairpin and so jittery I was always surprised I couldn’t hear a faint hum coming off him, somewhat like a tuning fork. Junior, Tony’s body man for as long as I’d known them both, seemed to be staring out the window and perhaps all the way to Portugal.

As always, Tony Marcus brought the word bespoke to mind. He was wearing a light gray suit, the gray so light you could barely see the pinstripes in it, a matching gray shirt, and a maroon tie and a maroon pocket square. His palms were flat on the desk in front of him. I couldn’t help noticing his hands, and being more than somewhat jealous of his manicurist. In the constantly changing crime scene in Boston, Tony was somehow as powerful as he’d ever been, almost as if he were the beneficiary of crime-world gerrymandering. But he still played to and from his base, which had always been prostitution, in all its lousy and illegal forms.

‘I believe you were talking about grudges,’ I said.

‘Like the one we got going,’ he said, ‘since you jammed me up on that gun deal when I’d gone out of the way to help you save your former father-in-law’s sorry old ass.’

A few months ago I’d made a deal with Tony – he’d get a warehouse full of illegal guns in return for helping me save the life of Richie’s father, Desmond Burke. But I’d never had any intention of letting Tony put that many guns on the street, and instead had tipped the warehouse location to the FBI.

‘Most people,’ he said, ‘they think you got to act right away when somebody fucks you over the way you did me.’ He smiled. ‘Hell, that ain’t how you hold a grudge.’

I waited.

‘What you do is, you wait,’ Tony said. ‘And then you wait a little more, until maybe the other person don’t even remember how they did you in the first place. Then you find a way to settle accounts. And if they say, “Why’d you fuck me up like that?” you say, “See there, you forgot. We had a damn grudge.”’

He patted his hands lightly on the desk, as if to punctuate the thought. He smiled at me with about as much warmth as the small refrigerator next to Junior.

‘You get my meaning?’ he said.

‘Tony,’ I said, ‘I’m as likely to forget that you’re sideways with me as I would my email address.’

He chuckled. ‘Balls on you,’ he said. ‘You forget all the other favors I did for you, back in the day. Remember that time I found out Jermaine Lister took a shot at you?’

Jermaine was a low-level pimp who’d once been Tony’s brother-in-law. He had taken a shot at me, and ended up in jail because of that, if briefly.

‘You remember what happened to Jermaine?’ he said.

‘You had him shanked in prison,’ I said. ‘And not because he took a shot at me. Because you were afraid he was going to tell the cops that you were the one who ordered him to take a shot at me.’

‘Did you a favor, that’s the point of the story,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Go with that.’

He picked up an expensive cup and sipped whatever was inside it. He’d asked if I wanted something to drink, coffee or tea or water or stronger. I had declined. This was the first time we’d been together since the Feds had confiscated guns that Tony thought were going to belong to him.

‘You know I could’ve taken you out anytime I wanted to,’ Tony said, ‘even if it would’ve gotten the Burkes all up in my shit.’

‘The thought has occurred to me.’

‘Somebody else did me like you did, I would have taken them out,’ he said. ‘But I like to think our relationship has evolved since then.’

‘Aren’t I the lucky girl?’ I said.

‘So,’ he said. ‘You wondering why you here today?’

‘You missed me?’

‘Want to hire you,’ he said.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed, loud enough that I was briefly afraid that I’d startled Ty Bop, who went through life like a grenade with the pin already pulled.

‘Look to you like I’m joking?’ Tony Marcus said.

I was at a point in my professional life where I had the luxury of picking and choosing my cases. After I’d saved Desmond Burke’s life, he had insisted on paying me a vulgar amount of money.

But I had to admit I was curious.

‘I’m listening,’ I said.

Tony smiled again.

‘See there?’ he said. ‘We all whores in the end.’

‘Not me,’ I said.

‘You must be the exception proves the damn rule,’ Tony Marcus said.

2

The problem, he said, was that prostitution had gotten more complicated than the goddamn tax code.

‘Boy,’ I said, ‘I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that.’

He gave a quick shake of his head, like clearing the immediate air around him of a gnat.

‘When I was coming up,’ he said, ‘you just put girls out over at the wharf, before they cleaned up that part a town, and in the Combat Zone, before they cleaned that up, and then you just sat back and counted your money. Was back when the girls was way more black than white.’

Then he was telling me that he could still turn a better profit than I might think just putting girls on the street and with some of the high-end escort services he was running, but how more and more he was facing competition from gentlemen’s clubs – he put air quotes around ‘gentlemen’ – and online porn, and suburban madams who’d done everything with bored housewives except unionize them, and even what he called drive-through massage parlors. He said he was now dabbling in drugs, even though he said he didn’t much like dealing in what he called that oxy-oid shit. And, he said, he kept a hand in the gun trade as well, even after the way I’d fucked him over.

‘I’m still managing to get by, is my point,’ he said.

‘I’ll bet.’

‘But I’ve been forced to, ah, expand my management structure somewhat,’ he said. ‘Used to be just me and the pimps and the whores and hotel work and the high-end houses I run and whatnot. But now there’s way more shit to keep track of.’

Only Tony Marcus, I thought, could sound this nostalgic about this particular profession, as if he were talking about the covers Norman Rockwell used to do for The Saturday Evening Post.

‘So,’ he said, ‘not only have I had to expand my operation to keep up with the goddamn times, I’ve had to do something else I never really done before.’ He sighed. ‘Delegate,’ he said.

I waited again. He always had to tell things at his own pace, there was no way to rush him.

‘And now what’s happened is I’ve got myself into an unfortunate situation with one of my delegatees,’ he said.

‘Man or woman?’

‘Woman,’ he said. ‘Moved up off the streets and even ended up running one of those high-end houses I mentioned, over near Symphony Hall. Calls herself Lisa Morneau. Like she French instead of Baltimore. That’s what she calls herself now, anyways. No idea what it was when she first come to work for me.’

‘I don’t mean to sound cynical,’ I said, ‘but often a move like that up through the ranks is facilitated by sleeping with the boss.’

Tony smiled. ‘Hell, yeah.’

‘You care about this woman?’ I said.

‘I like this one more than most I’ve had, not gonna lie,’ he said. ‘Even got to where I was spending as much time at the place I put her up as in my primary damn place, leastways until she up and left.’

‘Left and went where?’

‘Where you come in,’ Tony said.

I idly looked over to the door. Ty Bop’s eyes looked closed, even though I knew they weren’t. He had earbuds, and was moving his head up and down. He wore red-white-and-black high-top sneakers that I assumed had caught some sort of fashion wave, and a black hoodie with hollister written unevenly across the front, and black jeans. He looked, as always, as if he needed a hot meal.

Junior just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, as if Buddy’s Fox might come crashing down on all of us if he moved even a foot in either direction.

‘Only woman ever left me before is Natalie, and that only on account of her switching leagues,’ he said.

His ex-wife.

‘When you say Lisa left,’ I said, ‘does that mean she simply moved out?’

‘Moved out, disappeared,’ he said.

‘How long ago?’

‘‘Bout a week,’ he said. ‘Didn’t empty the place. But the second bedroom she used as an office, she cleaned out the desk. Took her laptop, too.’

‘Clothes?’ I said.

‘Girl got so many, I can’t tell how much she might’ve taken with her,’ he said. ‘Looking at her closet is like looking at the beach and deciding if there’s less sand since the last time you looked. Only thing she likes more than shopping is running. Should see her. Runs like she the anchor leg in the Olympics.’

‘Luggage?’

‘She took Louis and Vuitton with her, far as I can tell.’

‘So you don’t think she was taken against her will?’

‘By someone asked her to pack a bag?’ Tony said.

‘Why’d she leave?’

I thought I saw something pass across his face, as impassive as he tried to keep it. Something in the eyes, there and gone. Like Lisa Morneau.

‘We never had that talk,’ he said. ‘But I can’t lie. Thought we was happy. Happy in our relationship, happy with our business arrangement. Girl knows almost as much about my damn business as I do. She know who’s doing what, where they doing it, how much they taking in, where I got strength, where I don’t. She even had me using goddamn spreadsheets. People know me started to call her my other brain.’

‘If she’s as smart as you say she is, she’d never use what she knows about you against you,’ I said. ‘That would make her an idiot.’

‘Doesn’t mean the competition couldn’t try to hire her,’ he said.

‘I thought you had about as much serious competition these days as Amazon,’ I said.

‘Might be a guy thinks he can change that up.’

‘Name, please?’

‘Boy named Gabriel Jabari,’ Tony said. ‘Looks a little like that brother they was talking about playing James Bond.’

‘Idris Elba,’ I said.

Tony nodded. ‘Tries to act high-class,’ he said. ‘Talks like he some Ivy League motherfucker. But behind all the big words he’s as street as me. Showed up in town ‘bout six months ago, opened a high-class titty bar on Tremont, over there right ‘fore it turns into Chinatown.’

The place, Tony said, was called Suite. He spelled it for me.

‘Cute,’ I said.

‘Well, Gabriel Jabari ain’t,’ Tony said. ‘‘Fore long, I started to hear how the real reason he come here was to knock me off my perch. Like he was the one with a grudge, even though I don’t even know where the fuck he was ‘fore he got to Boston.’

‘Have you met him?’ I said.

‘I took Lisa with me over to Suite one time, just to check the place out,’ Tony said. ‘This boy Jabari finds out we there, he show us upstairs to the VIP area, comp us the best champagne, act like he wants to be my best friend. But while he blowing all that smoke up my ass, I see him looking at Lisa, and maybe her looking back at him. Then I find out she went back there on her own.’

‘Without telling you,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Like I don’t got people on the ground. What’s it they say in Vegas? Somebody always watching? In Boston, the one watching is me.’

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘Never got the chance,’ he said. ‘I go over to her place later that night, and she’s gone.’

‘And you’re sure there was no precipitating event?’ I said.

‘There was a young girl got found OD’d a couple weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Looked like she got beat up before she did. Made Lisa real upset, had her asking me if I knew what’d happened. Turned out she was one of ours.’

‘How young?’ I said.

‘Younger than Lisa wanted me running,’ he said. ‘She told me I didn’t need them that young. Said we didn’t. Said that girl could have been her once.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her that was fine with me, I didn’t need those traffic cops up in my shit.’

‘You mean trafficking?’ I said.

‘Whatever,’ he said.

‘You think what happened to that girl might have made Lisa run?’

‘You the detective,’ he said.

‘Aren’t I though?’ I said.

He shrugged again.

‘Anyway, Lisa’s been off the grid since she did up and run,’ Tony said. ‘It’s hard to do nowadays. But you can do it, long as you stop using your phone or spending money like the world about to come to an end.’

‘What about social media?’ I said.

‘I told her a long time ago to stay away from Twitter and Insta and Facebook and all the rest of it,’ he said. ‘Our business, you don’t want to be sharing your business anywhere you don’t have to. I mean, fuck Facebook and that Harvard boy runs it. He’s no better than me when it comes to making as much as he can, however he can, wherever he can.’

It was always fascinating listening to him talk, as he went back and forth between standard English and street, sometimes in the same thought.

‘There must be other people you can hire to find her,’ I said.

‘Normally I’d go to the dude does what you do, on account of him being the best,’ he said. ‘He and I got even more history than you and me.’

I knew to whom he was referring. In my work, he was a bit of a local legend.

‘But he’s off in Los Angeles or some such,’ Tony said.

‘So I was first runner-up,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ he said.

‘I can’t work for you, Tony,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot of practical reasons. But there’s a personal one, as well: I hate prostitution, no matter how much you try to make it sound like just another service industry.’

‘This ain’t about that,’ he said. ‘This is a straight-up missing-person case.’

‘Thanks for clearing that up.’

‘You’re not looking at the big picture,’ he said. ‘If you were, you’d know you almost can’t not work for me.’

‘How do you figure?’

‘Because what I am giving you here is a get-out-of-jail card with me,’ he said. ‘I clear your debt, and we start even. In fact, not only do we start even, I owe you one.’

‘One what?’

‘A favor you can call in anytime you want to.’

‘I don’t look at our previous business arrangement as a debt,’ I said.

‘What you did was the same as stealing money from me,’ he said. ‘Like I said, you think I let shit like that go with anybody else?’

I uncrossed and then recrossed my legs. I knew he liked looking at my legs. It was one of my go-to moves with him when I was trying to buy time. Girl’s gotta do.

‘How do I know that if I find Lisa, harm won’t come to her?’ I said.

‘You got my word,’ he said. ‘And, let’s face it, now we got ourselves evidence that sometimes mine’s better than yours.’

I nodded. He had me there.

‘What if I find her and she doesn’t want to come back?’ I said.

He smiled. I smiled. My father used to quote some old baseball player, I forgot which one, who said that when you came to a fork in the road, take it.

‘I just want to talk to her, ask her why she did me this way,’ he said. ‘If she still wants to walk after that, she walks.’

‘You love her, Tony?’ I said. ‘Because it sounds to me like you just might.’

‘Believe whatever the fuck you want to,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to tell how it is.’

I shook my head slowly from side to side.

‘Tony,’ I said. ‘I’m still going to have to take a hard pass.’

‘You didn’t ask how much I’d be willing to pay,’ he said.

‘If I owe you the way you say I do, why are you willing to pay me anything?’ I said.

‘Because then I’m officially your client,’ he said. ‘You find her, you give me a bill, I pay you, we done.’

‘If I don’t find her?’

‘We still clear the books between us,’ he said.

I couldn’t see myself ever taking any of Tony Marcus’s money, but I would worry about that later.

‘You really want me up in your business from now till the end of time?’ Tony said.

‘Been there,’ I said. ‘Done that.’

We were going in circles now, but Tony seemed to be enjoying himself. He’d always liked listening to himself talk. And for someone who had once again threatened to shoot me, he did seem to like me. Enough that he’d come to me to find Lisa Morneau, who seemed to mean even more to him than he was admitting.

I wasn’t about to say it to him, but I was already more than somewhat curious about her, and how she’d managed to make it this far with Tony Marcus, in all ways, personal and professional, the whole damn thing. I found myself wanting to find this particular missing person just so I could meet the woman who had rocked this particular man’s world. I wanted to know why she’d left. Wanted to know how much she might need my help if I ever did manage to find her.

‘Let me think about this,’ I said.

‘Nothing much to think about,’ he said. ‘We talking about a one-off here that’s good for both of us. And you do take your hard pass? It comes off the table forever.’

‘I’ll get back to you.’

‘Take as much time you need to make up your mind,’ he said. Then he paused and said, ‘Just make it up before the end of the day. The longer I wait to find her, the more gone she might get herself.’

‘I’ll call you in the morning,’ I said. ‘And if I do say no, no hard feelings?’

Tony Marcus laughed. ‘Fuck no,’ he said.

Tony nodded at Junior as I stood up. Junior opened the door for me. I winked at him. Tony asked if I wanted Junior and Ty Bop to drive me home. I told him I’d call a car. When I was outside, I took my phone out of my purse and saw there were two missed calls from Richie, and one voicemail.

‘Call me when you can,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll call you back in a little while.’ There was a pause. ‘I, uh… Kathryn is back in town.’

His ex-wife.

My day just kept getting better.

3

Kathryn had been living in London for years, along with their son. Hers and Richie’s. Richard Felix Burke, I knew, was six now. She’d left for London before his first birthday. And once she had left, she’d done everything possible to keep Richie from the boy, especially after she’d moved in with a rich new boyfriend in Knightsbridge.

Now she was back. Developing story, as they said on the news shows.

I didn’t call Richie back. I called Spike instead.

‘The bitch is back,’ I said.

‘Elton John’s?’ he said. ‘That bitch?’

‘Richie’s.’

‘The fair Kathryn?’

‘Her.’

‘Fuck,’ he said.

‘And, sometimes because there is bad news everywhere, I am considering doing some work for Tony Marcus,’ I said.

‘I hope you’re not driving,’ Spike said. ‘Because you’re obviously drunk.’

‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘but perhaps soon,’ and I asked where he was.

He told me he was walking up Boylston, had just passed Trinity Church, and asked where I was. I told him. He said he’d meet me at the Bristol bar at the Four Seasons in half an hour. I told him not to start without me. He made no promises.

I fed Rosie, walked up Charles and across the Public Garden to the Four Seasons. I still didn’t call Richie back. I wanted some time to think. And have a drink with Spike, which sometimes could be more therapeutic than a spa day.

We sat at a table near one of the windows. Outside, in what little was left of the afternoon light, snow had begun to fall. We were working on martinis. My plan was to stick with one, not just because of the hour, but because I didn’t want to be half-drunk when I finally did speak with Richie.

When we sat down, Spike asked whether I wanted to talk about Tony first or Kathryn first. I said Tony. He said, ‘In the whole cockeyed grand scheme of things, wouldn’t that be burying the lede?’

‘Maybe it’s simply avoidance,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But only until our second drink.’

‘I can’t believe she’s back,’ I said.

‘That bitch,’ he said.

We drank to that.

‘Okay, first things first,’ Spike said. ‘Why would you possibly think you can trust Tony?’

‘He said it himself today,’ I said. ‘For a fancified thug, his word has mostly been good in the past. And the more he talked about Lisa Morneau, the more he made me curious about her.’

‘He’s still a goddamn thug, and killer when he has to be,’ Spike said.

‘Crazy world,’ I said.

‘His or yours?’ Spike said.

‘Ours,’ I said. ‘But all things considered, I’d rather not be on his bad side until the end of days.’

‘When he wants something,’ Spike said, ‘that’s his only side.’

‘I think that a lot of this might simply involve male ego,’ I said.

‘That disgusting thing.’

‘He’s getting older. Now he’s been left by a younger woman, and a younger guy is making a move on him, in his own backyard.’

Spike plucked an olive with his fingers, ate it, and finished his martini. As he waved at our waiter, he asked if I wanted another. I told him I was good.

‘Our waiter’s upper body looks rather well developed.’

‘Does it ever end?’ I said.

‘Rhetorical question?’ he said.

He was wearing his new black cashmere jacket and a powder-blue shirt. There was, I noticed, and not for the first time, more gray in his beard than on top of his head. But then who was I to talk about coloring hair?

The waiter brought Spike his second martini. He said it was his last one, and then he was headed from here over to his place, Spike’s, on Marshall Street, to get ready for the evening’s festivities.

‘A lot can go wrong between you and Tony,’ he said.

‘I’ve spent my whole life trying to make my own way in a man’s world,’ I said. ‘Well, guess what? The world in which this missing woman has somehow survived is a whole lot tougher than mine. Now she’s knocked Tony back, at least a little bit. Come on. You’d want to meet her, too.’

‘But you’re going to be taking his money.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, and explained the deal Tony had offered me.

‘So it’s pro bono work?’

‘Might be,’ I said.

‘I don’t like that look,’ Spike said.

‘What look?’ I said, trying to sound innocent.

‘The look that says you’re already working on some kind of backup plan before you even tell him “yes,”’ Spike said.

‘More like an exit ramp,’ I said, and sipped my drink. ‘And if something does go wrong, I have the same old backup plan as always.’

Spike raised an eyebrow.

‘You,’ I said.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘You aren’t afraid of anything,’ I said.

‘Neither are you,’ Spike said. ‘So, if I might now change the subject, what has you so spooked about Kathryn?’

‘Rhetorical question?’ I said.

There was piped-in music now at the Bristol bar. I liked things better when they still had a piano player. It joined a long list of things, and places, I liked better the way they used to be. I sighed.

‘What a day,’ I said.

‘Not yet over,’ Spike said.

‘Tony’s woman left him,’ I said, ‘and the one Richie was married to after me comes back.’

‘Richie likes you better.’

‘She gave him a child.’

‘Not like it was family planning,’ Spike said.

‘Still.’

‘She’s also the woman in his life who moved to London with their son because Richie liked you better,’ Spike said.

That was exactly what she had done. Spike knew the story. Kathryn had gotten pregnant as a way of trying to save her marriage to Richie, certain that he would never leave her if she did present him with a child. I felt the same way when I found out she was pregnant, and when Richard Felix Burke was born. We both turned out to be wrong. It was about all Kathryn and I had in common, other than both of us loving Richie.

Richie told her that he always wanted to be a part of the boy’s life, that he knew he could be a good father to Richard even after the divorce.

‘I thought you loved me,’ Kathryn said at the time.

‘I did,’ Richie said. ‘And I always will. And I will love my son the best way I know how. But I can’t stay with you while loving Sunny more.’

Spike had always said it was amazing, Kathryn being a bad sport about something like that.

So she had moved back to London, where her mother still lived. Maybe she was still holding out hope that he would leave Boston and follow her there and the three of them could become one big, happy family. I could have told her there was as much chance of the Prudential Center moving over there.

More likely, or so I’d always thought, she just wanted to make it as difficult as possible for Richie to see his son, out of spite. Or all-around, world-class bitchiness.

At first Richie had tried, flying frequently over to London the first year after Kathryn had left. He always took a room at The Milestone, a boutique hotel where he and I had stayed once when I decided I needed to see Princess Diana’s dresses. But the year after that, and after her mother had died, Kathryn had moved in with the richer, older boyfriend, one who was a big deal in the restaurant business.

Kathryn then informed Richie that the boyfriend would now become the primary father figure in the boy’s life, at which point Richie asked her why, to learn how to make a proper kale salad?

Richie would still fly over occasionally. But Kathryn, with the boyfriend’s help, would sometimes make him wait days to even see his son.

When Richie complained about that, to both of them, the boyfriend had said, ‘Maybe you should take us to family court, dear boy.’

‘Or just go fuck myself?’ Richie said.

‘Or that.’

Richie had flown back to Boston the next day. That was eight months ago.

Lately Richie had talked about being a father about as often as he spoke of the Kardashians. And we were back together, or as together as two people living apart could be. Still, I knew him well enough to know that the distance between him and his son was a lingering, constant, profound sadness in his life.

Except now his son was back. Along with his mother.

‘We don’t know why she decided to come back,’ Spike said.

‘We do not.’

‘I’m assuming she has the boy with her,’ he said.

‘Same,’ I said.

‘But until you speak with Richie, we don’t know how long they might be back for,’ Spike said. ‘Or if she might be back for good.’

‘Fuckety fuck,’ I said.

‘You stole that from me.’

‘It seemed to fit the moment.’

‘You have clearly delayed speaking to Richie about all of this,’ Spike said.

‘I wanted to organize my thoughts,’ I said.

‘With old Dr. Spike.’

‘What does that say about me?’

‘I’m afraid you and Dr. Silverman will have to sort that out,’ he said.

Susan Silverman was my therapist.

There was still a little bit left of my martini. I drank it. The vodka wasn’t making me feel any better. But I had to admit, it hadn’t made me feel any worse, either.

‘I’ll find out more when Richie and I do speak.’

‘No point in putting it off much longer.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘You think it might help my thought organization to have a second martini?’

‘If you have to ask that,’ Spike said, ‘I don’t even know you anymore.’

He reached over and picked up my right hand and kissed the back of it. He was my best friend in the world if you didn’t count Rosie the dog. He was handsome in a rugged way, more ripped than he’d ever been, big and fearless and loyal and dangerous as hell when he needed to be. I’d always told him that if he weren’t gay, I’d marry him.

He said he’d rather I adopted him.

‘Maybe she got dumped,’ I said. ‘Kathryn.’

‘Ever hopeful,’ Spike said.

‘You know what’s crazy?’ I said.

‘Do tell.’

‘That I really might be more worried about Richie’s ex-wife being back in my life, even temporarily, than I am about Tony Marcus,’ I said.

Spike paid the check. It was snowing harder when we got outside. Spike said he’d walk me home. I said he didn’t have to. He said he wanted to, and he liked walking across the park in the snow, it made him feel young and gay instead of old and gay.

When we got to my door he said, ‘This probably doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Nope,’ I said.

‘Probably just a visit,’ he said.

‘Yup,’ I said.

‘Talked out for now?’ he said.

‘Yup,’ I said.

He said I should call him in the morning, or later tonight, if I felt the urge. Then he put his arms around me. I told him he was almost the perfect man. He said, ‘Why almost?’ I told him it might have something to do with his new scent.

‘What kind of cologne is that?’ I said.

‘Not cologne,’ he said, trying to sound offended. ‘Tom Ford all-over body spray.’

I told him that was way too much information.

‘I might wait until tomorrow to call Richie,’ I said.

‘That ought to show him,’ Spike said.

He kissed the top of my head and walked back toward Charles Street in the snow, and I went inside, where I was greeted exuberantly by Rosie. I had checked my phone before leaving the Bristol bar. There had been no further messages from Richie. I checked it again now. Still no messages. Were they having a family dinner? Where was she staying? Were Kathryn and Richard staying with him?

All I had to do was call. I always wanted to be the finder-out of things, smartest girl in the class. Just not at this moment. I took Rosie out, then fixed myself some pasta, melted some butter over it, added some Parmesan. I watched the Nightly News with Lester Holt, absorbed hardly any of it, except another story about legalized marijuana. Eventually they were going to be selling it at Stop & Shop. I went upstairs and took a long bath, came back down and built a fire, and put Ben Webster on Melanie Joan’s world-class sound system. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock. I fixed myself a small Jameson and took up one end of the couch. Rosie had the other. I had developed a taste for jazz long after a taste for Irish whiskey, but they seemed to fit together perfectly.

The way Richie and I had lately fit together, perhaps as well as we ever had, including when we were married and living together.

There was no reason for me to think things wouldn’t continue to go well for us, perhaps to infinity and beyond, whether Kathryn was back in Boston or not. Richie and I had teamed up when he’d been shot and his family had come under threat. We were as close as we had ever been, even without any current discussion about ever moving back in together, or remarrying.

Where was he?

Where were they?

I picked up a book I’d been reading by Joni Mitchell that included song lyrics and poetry and sketches and oil paintings that I thought were quite good, wondering all over again how one woman could have that much art in her.

I read for a while and studied some of that art and then closed the book and said out loud, ‘How come he hasn’t called again?’

Rosie instantly became alert, thinking a surprise treat might be in play. Even after establishing there wasn’t, she continued to stare at me. There were a few similarities between her and the original Rosie, whom Richie and I had shared custody of after our divorce. The big one was this:

She seemed to have the ability to stare all the way into my soul.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said to her. ‘I get it. I’m acting like a wife.’

I knew I had no right to act like a wife wondering why hubby wasn’t home from the office yet. I had no reason to be jealous. I told myself again that none of this was his doing. Since his divorce from Kathryn, their relationship had been about as amicable as the Israelis and Palestinians.

The snow was blowing sideways by now. The fire began to die out. I put on my coat, slipped into my new UGGs, took Rosie out one last time, cleaned up after her once she’d completed her nightly duties, locked the door when we were back inside, set the alarm, carried her up with me to the master bedroom, and set her down at her end of Melanie Joan’s bed, which was big enough on which to land Air Force One.

I brushed my teeth, applied some moisturizer, checked my bedside table to make sure that my Glock was where it was supposed to be. I checked my phone again. Still nothing more from Richie. It was only ten o’clock. But it had been a long day. I felt myself smiling, thinking that hanging with Tony Marcus might have been the highlight of it, and how crazy was that?

I had also decided that, under the guise of working for him, I might actually be working for Lisa Morneau, if I could find her. Some kind of sisterhood thing. Just from different sides of the street, so to speak.

Still no calls or texts from Richie.

I shut off the light.

Then my phone.

That would show him.

4

When I awakened, after sleeping surprisingly well, I turned my phone back on and saw two missed calls from Richie that had come in after eleven o’clock, along with a text message from Tony Marcus:

So u in?

I knew he was a late sleeper. I texted back anyway, saying I was, and would call him later. I didn’t know if Lisa Morneau wanted to be saved. Or was worth saving. Or wanted to stay lost. But I had made up my mind to find out.

Richie called about fifteen minutes after my first cup of coffee, right before I really was going to return his calls.

‘Where were you last night?’ he said. ‘I tried you a couple of times late.’

‘I went to bed early,’ I said. ‘Speaking of late, must have been a late dinner for you and Kathryn.’

‘I thought Kathryn and I needed to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘Lot of things,’ he said.

‘What’s she doing here?’ I said. ‘A short visit, I hope.’

‘She’s come back here to live,’ Richie said. ‘She and Richard.’

Shit.

‘Didn’t see that one coming,’ I said.

‘I really need to talk to you about all this,’ he said.

‘We’re talking now,’ I said.

‘I mean in person,’ he said. ‘I think the best way for us to get out ahead of this is if we all sit down and talk it through.’

‘How civilized,’ I said.

‘We’re on the same side, Sunny,’ Richie said. ‘You and me, I mean.’

‘Against the world,’ I said. ‘When would you like to do this?’

‘How about right now?’ he said.

‘I haven’t even showered yet,’ I said, ‘or made myself beautiful.’

‘You wake up beautiful,’ he said.

‘Save it, soldier,’ I said.

‘I explained a lot to her last night,’ he said. ‘I explained that I am committed to you and to us as much as I am to Richard.’

‘That must have gotten her motor running.’

‘She said she totally understood,’ he said. ‘The way she said she understood that whatever she and I had once ended a long time ago.’

‘Well, no shit,’ I said.

‘So can we all come over?’ he said. ‘I promise we won’t stay long.’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘there’s something I needed to talk to you about, apart from our sudden family drama.’ I took in some air. ‘I’ve got kind of a situation going with Tony Marcus.’

‘Did he do something?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He did.’

‘Did what?’ Richie said.

‘He sort of hired me.’

‘You took on Tony Marcus as a client?’ Richie said.

‘Well, in a manner of speaking.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Am not.’

‘Something else we need to talk about,’ he said. ‘Just not this morning.’

‘Agree,’ I said. ‘Let’s deal with your situation first.’

‘Mine and ours,’ he said.

‘Give me an hour,’ I said.