Family Honor - Robert B Parker (27 page)

"If you tell me everything you know, maybe I can fix this,"
I said.

"All of it?"

Betty had made a trip to her room and put herself back
together. Her voice was still small, but it no longer sounded as if it
were being squeezed from a tube.

"My concern is Millicent," I said. "I will do what seems
in her best interest."

"And what of me?"

"I don't know. One salvation at a time," I said.

"That's acceptable," she said.

"Oh good," I said. "Talk."

"I don't ... know ... where ... to begin."
 
"You said something about, I didn't know what it was
like to be married to him. Why don't you tell me?"

"Brock ..." She shook her head sadly. "Brock is one of
those people for whom too much is never enough. It accounts, I suppose,
for his success. He is passionate in pursuit of everything. He always seems
to want more. More success, more money, more power, more prominence, more
sex, more sex partners, more sexual excitement, more, more, more, more,
more, more, more."

"Excelsior," I said.

Betty Patton looked at me blankly for a moment, decided
I hadn't said anything worth asking about, and continued.

"At first that excited me. I liked the challenge. I liked
..." She made a searching-for-the-right-word motion with her left hand.
"I liked the sense of being the one."

"The one who was enough?" I said.

"Yes."

"But you weren't."

"No. It's not like there was someone else." She laughed
without amusement. "There was everyone else."

"Equal opportunity," I said, just to be saying something.

"I assume he's made a pass at you," Betty said.

"Yes."

"A lot of women are flattered. He's powerful, rich, handsome."

"I wasn't flattered," I said.

She looked into her tea cup for a minute, holding it in
both hands, then drank some, and put the cup on the tabletop. "He cheated
on me from the first day, I guess."

"What did you do?"

"I got even."

"By cheating on him?"

"Yes."

"Did you enjoy that?"

"No."

"Did it bring you closer together?"

"No."

I didn't say anything.

"But it made me feel less like somebody's discarded toy,"
Betty said. "The worse he got, the worse I became."

"See what you made me do," I said.

She looked at me as if I'd said something puzzling.

"We seemed somehow to fuel each other, we became more
perverse and more perverse. I had my plumber. He had his China dolls. I
don't remember exactly when we joined forces."

"Joined forces?"

"Yes. I would watch him. He would watch me."

"And the, ah, partners, never minded?" I said.

"At first they didn't know; we had viewing ports."

"Peepholes?"

"Yes."

I was beginning to feel as if I'd spent my life in a convent
and was just emerging.

"The strange thing was that it gave us a thing we did
together, a, ah, project. We'd plan together who, and how many, and when,
and where to meet them, and what to do with them, and that led us to think
about photographing them, and then how to do that and we'd buy photography
equipment, and, for obvious reasons, we learned how to develop our own
pictures. It was the closest we'd been since Millicent was born."

"And no matter what you did, he didn't get jealous."

"No. He seemed to like it."

"Some revenge," I said. "Tell me about Kragan and Antonioni."

"Do you know who they are?" Betty said.

"I know a little," I said. "But go ahead, why don't you
tell me whatever you know."

"And this will help Millicent?"

"She will be safe when there's no one walking around with
a reason to kill her," I said.

"And you think we can accomplish that?"

"If I know what's going on," I said.

"Is she somewhere safe?"

"Yes," I said, "she's with people who will take care of
her."

"Unlike her parents," Betty said.

I waited. Betty poured some more tea for us, and offered
me brandy. I shook my head. She put some in her tea and took a sip, and
sat back holding the teacup. There was very little light coming in through
the wet glass of the conservatory. Had the sun been out it would have been
barely visible above the western horizon.

"Brock has long been active in politics," Betty said.
"He has been a regular contributor to Republican candidates, and a vigorous
fundraiser as well. And several times he has taken a leave and served in
one governmental job or another. Now he is running for governor."

"How do you feel about that?"

"I want it very much. I would like to be First Lady of
the Commonwealth, and perhaps it would lead to more."

"And Antonioni was going to help him?"

"He was going to help us. I was very much a part of Brock's
campaign."

"Another project," I said.

Again Betty gave me the look that suggested she didn't
quite get me. She was not alone. Then she seemed to dismiss the puzzlement
and went on talking.

"Albert Antonioni is some sort of mobster from Rhode Island.
There is, as you may know, a kind of vacuum in the mob situation here."

"Yes," I said. "And Antonioni wants to fill it."

"Yes. Brock knew Albert when we lived in Rhode Island.
We stayed in touch when we moved here. Albert thinks that when he expands
into Massachusetts, it would be useful to have a governor he could trust."

"So he has put a lot of money into Brock's campaign."

"Yes."

"And Kragan?"

"Cathal is Albert's man on the scene. Much of what Albert
wants to take over is currently owned by the Irish. I think Albert feels
the need to have one of their own as a point man. You know how ethnic they
all are."

I wasn't sure who they all were. But it didn't seem like
I needed to at the moment and I let it pass.

"Does Antonioni own your husband?" I said.

Betty drank some of her brandied tea and stared out at
the dying light. She nodded slowly.

"Yes," she said.

"So when you made the mistake of giving those pictures
to Kevin the plumber, and he made the mistake of trying to blackmail you
with them, you went to Antonioni."

"Kragan," she said. "Albert is remote and prefers it that
way."

"And that was the conversation your daughter overheard."

"Yes."

"Do you know that she has found some of the pictures you
took?"

"She searched my room? She's not ever. .."

I didn't say anything. Betty heard herself and stopped.
"She's seen them?"

"Yes."

Betty continued to look out at the dark rain. "Oh God,"
she said, "oh my dear God."
 

"Spike," I said, "you are better-looking than Leonardo
DiCaprio."

"So is Rosie," Spike said. "I just dress better."

"You did bring a gun," I said.

"I don't have one that matches," Spike said.

"But you brought one."
 
Spike grinned and opened his coat so I could see the
butt of his Army Colt.

"I know you've explained it before," Spike said, "but
this Cathal Kragan is a stone killer, right?"

"Yes."

"And why is it just you and me are calling on him?"

"I'm going to have to ask Richie for help if I need to
talk with Albert Antonioni. I wasn't comfortable asking him for help with
Kragan."

"He wouldn't have even had to come," Spike said. "His
uncle could have come out with six or eight pistoleros and Kragan would
have stood at attention while you talked with him."

"Not the best way for me to learn anything," I said. "And
even if it were, I can't ask him."

"How about the cop you're bopping?"

I shook my head.

"Something?" Spike said.

"I'm afraid he's getting too serious."

"So exploit that," Spike said.

"No," I said.

"Jesus Christ," Spike said. "I gotta be pals with Nancy
fucking Drew."

"Are you scared?"

"I am without fear," Spike said. "As you know. But if
I were going to acquire some, this would be a good place to start."

I opened the car door and got out.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "You're with me, after
all."

Spike climbed out of his side of the car and shut the
door. "True," he said. "And I look so goddamned good."
 
Kragan's front door was opened by a bright-faced woman
in her forties with a mass of dark red hair. A reddish dachshund peeked
between her feet growling and wagging its tail. Talk about mixed messages.
The woman held the dog back with one foot.

"My name is Sunny Randall," I said. "I called earlier.
Could you tell Mr. Kragan I'm here?"

"Sure, I'll tell him," the woman said. "Excuse me, but
I have to close the door so the dog won't get out."

"I understand," I said.

Spike and I stood and looked at the ocean for a little
while and the door opened again. The red-haired woman stepped aside and
we went into the foyer. The dog was no longer in evidence.

"Right over here," the woman said, "in the living room."

He was just as Millicent had described him: squat, thick-bodied,
silver-haired, impeccable, and alive with force. He was sitting in an armchair
by a fireplace with a gas fire, looking a bit posed, and incredibly, wearing
a green velvet smoking jacket. Standing by the archway that led to the
living room was a guy that looked like the employee of the month for Bodyguards-R-Us.
He was about two hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle, padded by
at least a hundred pounds of fat. He glanced at Spike with amusement.

Kragan spoke in the deep purr that I'd heard on my answering
machine.

"So you're Sunny Randall," he said.

"Yes."

"Who's the clotheshorse?"

"My friend Spike," I said.

"What's he doing here?"

"Design police," Spike said. "Gas fireplaces are really
tacky."
 
Kragan's expression never changed.

"Georgie," he said, "get him out of here."

Georgie said, "Out you go, Mary."

He put his hand on Spike's chest and shoved him toward
the hallway. Spike hit him four or five karate-type chops, too fast for
an accurate count, and Georgie fell down and lay gasping on the floor.
While he was going down I took my gun out in case Kragan took offense.
If he did, he didn't show it. He seemed mildly interested in how quick
Spike was. Spike leaned over and patted Georgie down and took a gun away
from him. He removed the magazine and put it in his pocket. He racked the
slide back and ejected the shell from the chamber, and dropped the gun
back onto the floor beside Georgie.

"He gonna recover?" Kragan said.

"Few minutes," Spike said. "I didn't go full out."

Kragan nodded. "Be sort of interesting sometime to see
you go full out," he said.

"I didn't come here to cause trouble," I said.

"You brought him for that?" Kragan said.

"I brought him to protect me," I said.

"So far he's doing a hell of a job of it," Kragan said,
"You don't need the piece."

I put my gun away. Kragan appeared to pay no further attention
to Georgie. Spike leaned against the wall near the door, rubbing his hands
gently.

"There's a Boston cop named Kelly," I said. "And a couple
of members of the Desmond Burke family that know I'm here." I was lying,
but Kragan didn't know that.

"Being pretty careful," he said.
 
"I don't want you to make any mistakes," I said. "You
made one already and Georgie paid for it."

Kragan waved his left hand dismissively. "So what do you
want?" he said.