Family Honor - Robert B Parker (28 page)

"You're trying to kill Millicent Patton," I said.

"Really?"

"Un huh. And me, too, while you're at it."

"You, too?" Kragan said.

"She heard you and her mother talk about killing a man
who turned out to be a plumber from Framingham named Kevin Humphries."

"She tell you that?" Kragan said.

Georgie had slowly gotten his breathing under control
and was now sitting up on the floor, trying to get oriented.

"You killed him because Albert Antonioni told you to,"
I said.

"Who's Albert Antonioni?"

"Antonioni wants to move into Massachusetts and to have
his own governor in office when he does. The plumber had pictures of himself
and Betty Patton that would ruin the governor plans."

"So?"

"So he had you kill the plumber. But the girl heard you
and her mother planning it, so the girl had to go, too. Otherwise the whole
story comes out and puts you and Albert inside, not outside," I said.

"And you can prove all of this?" Kragan said. "I can prove
enough of this to give you a lot of grief."

"Say the girl did hear me, which she didn't, but say for
the moment I believe your fairy tale. All she heard was an agreement to
kill somebody. How do you tie that to the plumber?"

I almost bit. My mouth had actually opened before 1 closed
it. If he knew that I thought I could turn Betty Patton, then he would
kill her. I waited a moment before I spoke and breathed in a couple of
times through my nose and thought a couple of sentences ahead. Then I answered.

"I can't," I said.

"So?"

"I'm not after you," I said. "I'm after Albert Antonioni."

"And?"

"Somebody's going to have to go down on this thing. I
thought maybe we could work a trade him for you."

As he leaned against the wall, Spike was absently thumbing
the shells from the magazine he'd taken from Georgie's gun. Georgie had
gotten unsteadily to his feet and gone to the couch, where he sat now,
not feeling very well.

"And all you got is the kid's story," Kragan said.

"That's all I've got, yet." Kragan laughed.

"Come back when you got more," he said.

"Such as who popped Bucko Meehan," I said.

"Well, you are a nosy little girl, aren't you."

Spike finished emptying the magazine and put the shells
into his coat pocket.

"Yes," I said, "I am, and stubborn and annoying. But a
lovely person for all of that."

"You're like a housefly," Kragan said slowly, his voice
so deep that some of it seemed to drop out as he talked. "Don't do no real
damage. But you keep buzzing around until you irritate somebody, and then
you get swatted."
 
"This is your last chance," I said. "Do you want to be
the one who gets the break or not?"

Kragan didn't speak, but he made a gesture with his hand
as if he were swatting a fly, and he looked at me straight on as he did
it, and I felt a little thrill of fear dart through my stomach.

"Well," I said. "You better send somebody better than
Georgie." Kragan kept looking at me.

"It won't be Georgie," he said.

I looked at Spike. He shrugged. I nodded and started out
of the living room. Spike tossed the empty magazine on the floor beside
the gun.

"Nobody's wearing smoking jackets anymore," he said to
Kragan, and followed me out.
 

"What kind of name is Vee?" I said.

"Short for a long funny name, I never knew what it was."

We were sitting at Spike's kitchen table. Richie and Millicent
had just come back from the movies. Spike was cooking venison sausage with
vinegar peppers on his big six-burner professionallooking stove. Rosie
had located the sausages with her keen nose and was now immobilized on
the floor under Spike's feet, pointing them.

"Georgie isn't that easy to take."

"Like Grant took Richmond," Spike said and shook the longhandled
saute pan briskly.

"Could you win a fight with him?" Millicent asked. Richie
smiled at her.

"Don't know," he said. "I never tried."

"Richie could take Georgie McPhail," Spike said from the
stove. "He's pretty tough for a straight guy."

Richie grinned.

"Did the Kragan man say anything about me?" Millicent
said.

"No," I said. "I did most of the talking."

"What did you talk about?"

"I offered him a chance to cooperate with us in our investigation,"
I said.

"And Spike really beat up a guy?"

"He was protecting me," I said.

"What did the Kragan man say?"

"He said he didn't want to cooperate."

"So you went through all that for nothing?" Millicent
said.

"Well, maybe not for nothing," I said. "It might get something
to happen."

"What?"

"I don't know, but anything is better than nothing. Things
happen, I can react to them. Nothing happens, I have nothing to do."

"But what if the something that happens is bad?"

"I expect to deal with it," I said. "It's better than
nothing happening."

Millicent shook her head.

"My parents better be paying you a ton of money for this,"
she said.

I didn't say anything. Spike cut a small bite of sausage,
checked to see if it was done, blew on it to cool it, and then scraped
it off the fork and let it drop into Rosie's quick jaws.

"They're not paying her anything," Spike said. "They fired
her a long time ago."
 
"Fired her?"

"Yeah. When she wouldn't give you back to them."

Millicent stared at Spike for a long time. But she didn't
say anything. Then she shifted her gaze to Rosie. She didn't look at me.

"Can you get me to Albert Antonioni?" I said to Richie.

"Yes. But it'll probably have to include my father and
my uncle."

"Okay," I said. "As soon as you can."

"It'll include me, too," Richie said.

"That's good," I said.

"I'd have backed you up with Kragan if you'd asked," Richie
said quietly.

"I know. I couldn't ask."

"But you could ask Spike."

"Spike is not my ex-husband," I said.

"But you can ask me to set you up with Antonioni."

"I don't fully understand it, Richie. I am feeling my
way along with this case, with you, with her--I wish I knew what I was
doing, but I don't. So I have to go by what feels right, and it didn't
feel right to ask you to back me up with Kragan."

"But it feels okay to use my family's influence to get
you to Antonioni."

"Actually," I said, "it doesn't. But I have nowhere else
to go, and I need to do this, so. .." I shrugged and turned my palms up.

Spike was discreetly busy with the sausage and peppers.
But Millicent was young enough to feel no need for discretion. She was
leaning forward, fascinated with the exchange.

"I'll set it up," Richie said.

Spike put the peppers onto a cold burner, and added two
big handfuls of pasta to a large pot that was already boiling.
 
I said to Millicent, "Do you think your mother loves
you.?"

"What?"

I said it again.

"I don't. . ."

Her shoulders stiffened and her body got that pained angular
look I'd come to recognize.

"No. I don't think so," she said.

"If you found that she did, could you love her back?"

"I hate her," Millicent said.

Her voice was flat, and she seemed once again the sullen
little girl I had dragged away from a pimp.

"But if she changed," I said. "And it was clear that she
loved you and was different than she had been, could you love her?"

"You trying to get rid of me?"

"Millicent," I said. "If I haven't proved that I care
about you by now, I'm not going to be able to prove it."

"Then why are you asking?"

"Because I want to know. If you and your mother could
be together and help each other to be happy, it would be a good thing."

"But I don't have to."

"You can stay with me as long as you need to," I said.

I felt a twinge of dismay in the bottom of my stomach.
I did not want a teenaged daughter. I felt like I still was one.

"You're nice to me," Millicent said in a very small voice.

"Yes," I said. "You deserve to be treated well. I am beginning
to think that your mother might love you. That she might be capable of
change. We won't hurry that. But I just want you to keep an open mind.
Remember no one will force you to do anything." Millicent nodded. Her posture
eased a little. Spike placed a large basket of French bread on the table.
Then he took the pot off the stove and poured the pasta into a colander
in the sink and let it drain and dumped it onto a platter. He distributed
the sausage and peppers over it and plonked the platter in the center of
the table.

"Red wine?" he said.

"Be fools not to," Richie said.

Spike began to unscrew a big jug of Cabernet. Rosie, tracking
the sausage, trotted over and jumped up into Richie's lap where she was
eye level with her quarry.

"Richie," I said, "I don't think she should be at the
table."

"Don't be so bossy," Richie said.

"That's right," Spike said.

"You are kind of bossy," Millicent said.

I looked around at the odd gathering. Then I broke off
a small piece of French bread and gave it to Rosie. "Oh, bite my clank,"
I said.
 

"Very nice," I said.

On my bed, Rosie raised her head and looked at me. "You
like?" I said.

She stared at me and kept her opinion to herself.

I fussed with the table setting for a while and then put
Rosie's leash on and went down to my car. It was early evening, still sort
of half lit with a blue tone, as I put the car in gear and drove away from
my loft. As I always did these days, I circled the block once to see if
I could spot anyone following me. I didn't see anyone, but, as I came back
to Summer Street, a black Lexus settled in behind me. It didn't have to
be a tail. This was a prime route out of South Boston. Past South Station
I took a left and headed past Chinatown toward the expressway. There was
a lot of traffic. The car behind me did the same thing. In fact ten cars
behind me did the same thing. Most of them peeled off toward the Southeast
Expressway, but at least three of us deked and dived among the pylons and
construction hazards and onto the Mass Pike heading west. The Lexus cruised
past me. It had tinted windows and I couldn't see the driver. Maybe I was
jumpy because of the vandalism in my loft, and the way Kragan had looked
at me when Spike and I left him. On the other hand, there was no exit until
we got to Allston so he could tail me from in front without worrying that
I'd turn off on him. We went under the Prudential Center and past Fenway
Park and behind B.U. The sign said Cambridge/Allston; as I pulled into
the right lane to exit, I passed the black Lexus and when I went off, he
was behind me. At the river, I turned right onto Storrow Drive. If he was
tailing me he'd have to show himself. There wasn't much reason for someone
to come out here on the pike and then head right back into town. As I passed
B.U. from this side, he was behind me. I felt the little thrill of fear
again. I looked at Rosie. She was on the floor of the passenger side with
her nose almost in the heater. Good. She was out of the line of fire. I
took my gun out and put it in my lap.

At the overpass to the Fens the Lexus began to close on
me. I took the Fenway exit and cut over to Mass Avenue and went south.
The Lexus was right behind me now, and as we approached Washington Street
the Lexus pulled out as if to pass me. A window in the back seat rolled
down. I slammed on my brakes as hard as I could and a shotgun blast went
sweeping over the hood of my car. I yanked the car left onto Washington
Street. Behind me I could hear the tires squealing on the Lexus. I was
heading for the police station on Warren Ave., but I wasn't going to make
it. There was a red light two blocks ahead. Cars were stopped in both directions.
If I got stuck in traffic I was dead. But I had a backup. I yanked the
car right, and then right again onto Tremont and jammed it up on the sidewalk
in front of Buddy's Fox. Tony Marcus. It wasn't much but there wasn't anything
else. I picked up my gun, scooped Rosie up and ran in the front door. The
place was full. Everyone was black, and most of them were male. I went
to the bar.