Family Honor - Robert B Parker (12 page)

"You a good cook?" Millicent said.

"No. But I'm getting better. Actually I'm learning, too.
I'd love somebody to learn with me."

"Who's teaching you?"

"I've been watching Martha Stewart," I said.

"Who?"

"A woman on television," I said.

"What's in the plastic bag?"

"Pizza dough," I said. "I buy it at a place in the North
End and let it warm a little and then roll it out."

"You're making pizza?"

"Yes, white, with vinegar peppers and caramelized onions."

"Whaddya mean, white?"

"No tomato sauce."

"What's that other stuff whatchamacallit onions and peppers."

"Sweet and sour," I said. "Here, roll out some of this
pizza dough."

"I don't know how to do that."

"Take this roller," I said. "Put some flour on this board."
I showed her.

"Put a little more flour on top of the dough." I showed
her again.

"Roll it from the center out."

Millicent sighed a large sigh and took the rolling pin.
She dabbed at the dough with it.

"No, no," I said. "Roll it."

I took the pin and showed her. The dough sat there inertly.
When I rolled it in one direction it shrank up in another. I rolled more
vigorously. The dough sat there more inertly. After five hard minutes I
had a lump of pizza dough the same size and thickness with which 1 had
started. I put the rolling pin down and stepped back and looked at the
dough.

"You ever make this before?" Millicent said.

"Not exactly," I said.

"Maybe if you just squished it with your hands," she said.

I tried it. The dough was recalcitrant. I picked it up
and dropped it into the trash compactor. Then I took the dish of sliced
onions and chopped up peppers and scraped them into the trash.

"If at first you don't succeed," I said, "have something
else for supper."

Millicent made a little sound that might almost have been
a snicker.

"You don't know how to cook for shit," Millicent said.

"I'm learning," I said. "I'm learning." She made the sound
again.

"You were pounding and shoving that sucker and it wasn't
doing a thing," Millicent said.

I laughed. She might have laughed. We might have been
laughing together.

"The perversity of inanimate objects," I said.

"Huh?"

"It's something my father always says."

"Oh. So what are we going to eat?"

"What do you like?" I said. "I like peanut butter."

"Me, too," I said. "And even better, I think I can make
a sandwich."

"For crissake, Sunny, I can make a peanut butter sandwich."

"With jelly?"

"Sure."

"Oh, yeah? Okay, smarty pants, go ahead. Show me."

After supper we took Rosie for a walk along Congress Street
down toward the Fort Point Channel.

"So can you cook anything?" Millicent said.

"Some things." I said. "Who knew pizza dough was going
to be ugly?"

"How come you're not a good cook?"

"Probably the same reason you're not," I said. "Nobody
taught me."

"My mother's a good cook," Millicent said.

"She teach you?"

"No. She said I would mess up her kitchen."

"My mother's kitchen was always a mess," I said. "Her
problem was she didn't know how to cook either."

"I don't see why a woman has to cook." Millicent said.

"Nobody has to cook," I said. "Only if they want to."

Rosie had found a crushed earthworm on the edge of the
sidewalk and was rolling purposefully on it.

"What's she doing?"

"Rolling on a dead worm," I said.

"Gross," Millicent said, "why don't you make her stop?"

"She seems to like it," I said.

"Why's she doing it?"

"I have no idea," I said.

Rosie stopped rolling and stood up and sniffed at the
worm remains, and then looked proudly up at me and stepped out along the
sidewalk.

"How come you're trying to learn to cook?" Millicent said.

"I like to make things," I said. "And I like to eat."

Millicent shrugged. Rosie charged ahead on her leash as
if she had a place to go and was in a rush to get there. At Sleeper Street,
downtown Boston loomed up solidly ahead of us. To the right was the Children's
Museum in the big wooden milk bottle, and the tea party ship replica bobbed
on the water next to the Congress Street Bridge.

"I suppose," I said, "as I think of it, that I also probably
think at some level or other that the more I can do for myself, the less
dependent I will be on anyone else."

"I think it's easier just to let somebody else do it,"
Millicent said. "Then you don't have to do anything."

"Which is why you're here," I said, "walking around South
Boston with a detective you barely know."

Millicent was silent. Rosie was adamant, as she always
was, about looking at the water under the bridge. We stopped on the beginning
of it while she stared over the edge, her wedge-shaped head jammed through
the bridge railing. The water was dirty. I looked up at Millicent. She
was crying. Hallelujah! An emotion! I put my arm around her. She was thin
and stiff.

"On the other hand, you'll know me really well in a while.
And when you do you'll absolutely love me."

She didn't say anything. She stood rigidly with the tears
running down her cheeks, then the rigidity went away, and she turned in
against my shoulder and cried as hard as she could while I patted her and
Rosie gazed intently down at the black water.
 
 

"Package for Sunny Randall," the voice said.

"Who from?" I said.

"I don't know, lady, I just drive the truck."

"Okay," I said. "Second floor."

I buzzed the downstairs door open and stood looking out
the peephole in my door. In a moment the big old elevator eased to a stop
and the doors, originally designed for freight, slid open. There were two
men with a large cardboard box. They carried it as if it was empry. I opened
the broom closet next to the door and took out a short double-barreled
shotgun that my father had confiscated from a dope dealer and passed on
to me. I cocked both barrels and as I walked back to the door, my bell
rang. Rosie jumped down from the bed and hustled to the door in case it
might be Richie. I looked through the peephole again. The box had been
pushed aside and the two men stood waiting. I opened the door a foot and
stepped away, keeping it between me and them. Rosie sniffed and wagged
and milled around their feet as they shoved the door open and came in.
The first man shoved her out of the way with his foot. The second guy came
through right behind his buddy, his hand under his pea coat. I wasn't dressed
for company. I had the shotgun at my shoulder, and I could feel the butt
of it through the thin silk of my robe.

"Freeze," I said.

The guy with the pea coat said, "Shit," and brought his
hand out with a nine in it. I fired one barrel. It was a 10-gauge gun loaded
with fours and it took him full in the chest at two feet. He went backwards
into the hall and fell on his back. My ears were ringing. In the enclosed
area the sound of the gunshot was painful. The second man threw his hands
up as I turned the gun toward him.

"No," he said. "No, no, no."

"Flat on your goddamned face," I said, "now. Hands behind
your neck. Right-fucking-now."

The second man went down. I held the shotgun against the
back of his head while I patted him down. I took a.357 Mag from his hip.
Then I backed four steps to the kitchen counter, put the .357 down and
dialed 911. I kept the shotgun level and aimed over the crook of my arm.
The second man remained motionless, his hands clasped behind his head,
his face on the floor. Beyond him in the entryway his partner lay silently
on his back, with one leg twitching occasionally.

"There's been a shooting," I said, and gave my name and
address. "Second floor, there's a man down."

I hung up and glanced over toward the bedroom end of the
loft.

Rosie had disappeared, I suspected under the bed. Millicent
was out of sight, too, maybe sharing space with Rose.

"Millicent," I said. "It's okay. The police are on the
way."

No one spoke.

"Is Rosie there with you?" I said.

A voice said, "Yes."

"The cops will be here soon," I said.

I walked back to the second man, facedown on the floor.

"You want to tell me what this is about?" I said.

"Don't know."

I prodded his right temple with the shotgun.

"You kicked my dog," I said. "I might shoot you for that."

"I just pushed her," he said. "I didn't want to step on
her."

"Why are you here?"

"I don't know. Honest to God. 1 just come with Terry.
He said we was going to pick up some girl."

"Why?"

"Don't know."

I prodded again.

"Swear on my mother," he said. "Terry just says it'll
be some easy dough. Just a couple broads."

"Terry the guy in the hall?" I said.

"Yeah."

"What's his last name?"

"Nee."

"What's your name."

"Mike."

Outside on Summer Street I could hear the first siren.

"Can you give me a break," Mike said.

"Who sent you?" I said.

"I don't know. I just come along pick up a day's pay from
Terry."

"Did you rough up a pimp named Pharaoh Fox?" I said.

"Don't know his name, me and Terry slapped a black guy
around a little. He was a pimp."

"Why?"

"Something about a girl."

"Do you know the girl's name?"

"No. Terry did."

The siren dwindled and went silent in front of my loft.
Then another one.

"You gonna gimme a break?"

"No," I said. "I'm not."

Mike didn't say anything and in another minute the elevator
door opened and two cops walked out, service pistols in hand, held against
the leg, the barrel pointing at the ground. Behind them came two EMTs.
I let the shotgun hang by my side. I was holding my robe together with
my left hand. The older of the two cops put out his hand, and I gave him
the gun. I was glad to give it up. Then I could hold my robe together with
both hands. The younger cop stood over Mike and patted him down. One of
the EMTs went down on the floor beside Terry Nee.

"He's cooked," the EMT said.

"There's a gun on the counter," I said. "I took it from
Mike on the floor."

"Glock on the floor out there," the younger cop said.

"Leave everything for the detectives," the older cop said.
"You, on the floor, you stay right there.

The young cop left Mike and went and bent over and looked
at the dead man.

"Well, hello," he said. "It's Terry Nee."

"If it had to be somebody," the older cop said, his eyes
moving around the room as he spoke, "it might just as well be Terry Nee."
The young cop opened the big cardboard box and peered in. "Empty," he said.

Rosie crept out from under the bed waggling tentatively.
I scooched down and put my arms out and she scuttled over, and I picked
her up. Millicent stood up behind the bed and stayed there, her back against
the wall. The older cop looked at Rosie who was lapping my neck as if it
were her last chance.

"Not an attack dog, I'd guess."

"Not unless you're a liver snap," I said. He looked at
a scrap of paper.

"Sonya Randall?"

"Sunny," I said.

"Sunny Randall?"

"Yes."

"You Phil Randall's kid?"

"Yes."

"I was in a cruiser once with Phil. You're a lot better-looking."

"Yes," I said.

"You want to tell me what happened?"

I could hear more sirens on Summer Street. And the sound
of the elevator heading up. It was going to be a long day.