Robert B. Parker's Wonderland (12 page)

I nodded. “Truly sorry.”

“Even though you got me fired?” she said. “Mr. Weinberg thought I might have crossed a few lines.”

“Henry Cimoli would agree.”

She studied my face some more.

I grinned at her and toasted her with my coffee cup.

“Best of luck with your clients.” She turned on a heel and disappeared out into the soft rain. I took the fresh cup of coffee and the envelope containing the new offer and walked back across the street to my office. I almost felt bad for her. But not quite.

26

RICK WEINBERG
put on a great show. As he spoke, I waited for fireworks to shoot from his backside and an American flag to unfurl above his head. The condo board was all smiles. They didn’t just accept him, they loved him. The deal was very sweet. I would need a CPA to help me configure all the zeroes. And there were free buffet vouchers for when Wonderland opened. No self-respecting AARP member would turn down vouchers.

Z and I sat in the back row of folding chairs. No thugs showed up. No threats were made. Rita Fiore sat in front of us, occasionally turning around to roll her eyes. She was no fan of the free buffet or a literary discussion of Charles Dodgson. “What a crock of shit,” Rita whispered.

“But how’s the contract?” I said.

Rita shrugged. “Our attorney says it’s good,” she said. “But I could do without the PowerPoint and Mickey Mouse nonsense. All we need to know is how much and when.”

Weinberg wore khaki slacks and a light navy sweater over a white dress shirt with a rather long collar. His teeth were still nearly blinding at twenty feet. His voice was soft and gravelly, not pleading as much as trusting. If he talked any longer, I might have to hand over my wallet.

“We can all be winners here,” Weinberg said. “You can be a part of the resurgence of this entire beach. It starts with a grain of sand. A dream.”

Z looked as if he might fall asleep. His sizable arms were crossed over his chest, straining the fabric of his black T-shirt. That morning, he seemed more present but more silent than before.

Weinberg recognized Lou Coffone, board president, who sat beside him. Coffone stood and hiked up a pair of powder-blue pants toward his armpits with pride. Weinberg had the touch of making everyone he met feel important. A knowing smile. The two-handed handshake. Buddy, the old man who had lamented his keyed Cadillac days before, seemed to be fine with the world. His dyed black hair gleamed in the fluorescent light. He had his arm around his portly wife, who had exchanged the leopard-print muumuu for a blue pantsuit.

I leaned in to Rita. “Funny how a hundred grand can change attitudes.”

“A hundred grand extra for every blue hair in this shitbox,” Rita said.

“Worth Cone, Oakes, and Baldwin’s time?”

“We are the biggest and best in Boston,” Rita said. “Do you think I came here for the cheese and crackers?” She crossed her legs with a huff.

After the meeting ended, Coffone and Buddy braced me at the cheese table.

“It’s unanimous,” Coffone said.

“Yep,” I said.

“Sweetheart of a deal,” said Buddy Cadillac.

I nodded.

“You want some cheese?” Coffone said. “We got some of those good Ritz crackers.”

“You guys are too good to me.”

“Henry said we don’t owe you nothin’,” Buddy said.

“He’s right.”

“But the board feels like you need to be paid,” Coffone said. He hiked up his pants as he spoke. “We knew you’d pull it off. Never doubted it for a moment.”

“That’s what kept me going during dark times.”

“Weinberg, what a guy,” Buddy said. “It’s a sweetheart of a deal.”

Coffone offered his hand. I shook it. What the hell. Buddy did the same, and I shook his, too. Henry looked at me from the far corner of the room. He stood tall, pointed to me, and winked. I made a gun with my thumb and forefinger and dropped the hammer.

Z stood by silently. His face registered nothing.

I walked outside and found Blanchard next to the black Lincoln, its motor running. He reached into a summer plaid jacket for a pack of Marlboros and thumped the box like a pro.

“Ever hear of the surgeon general?” I said.

Blanchard grinned and set fire to the cigarette with a stainless-steel Zippo. The lighter was engraved with the Marine Corps insignia. His buzzed gray hair showed pink scalp in the portico lights. He blew smoke out of his nose.

“How long were you in the Corps?”

“Twenty years.”

“How’d you get into this?”

“Buddy of mine had a security firm in Vegas,” he said. “Good hours. Get to carry a gun. You?”

“I like working for myself.”

“I work for Weinberg because I trust him,” Blanchard said. “Son of a bitch is charismatic as hell.”

“Is he really going to pay girls to dress up like Alice?” I said.

“Why?”

“Thinking of investing in white pantyhose.”

Blanchard exhaled. “Lots of stuff planned.”

Z emerged from the front doors of the Ocean View.

Blanchard stared out at the weak light across the waves. He turned and watched Z walk with a limp.

“Sorry about the kid,” Blanchard said. “That was not Rick Weinberg’s doing. Or my doing.”

I caught his eye for a good long moment. He held the stare and nodded. I nodded back.

Weinberg walked out the front doors of Ocean View. Blanchard scanned the parking lot and the cars parked along Beach Boulevard. Two other men, one on each side of the circular drive, stood guard. Both wore sunglasses and pressed tan suits. Blanchard nodded to his boss. Weinberg walked on.

“You guys put on a nice show,” I said.

“It’s no show,” Blanchard said. “Two years ago, a couple ex-cons kidnapped the Weinbergs’ daughter. They wanted five million.”

“And what did they get instead?”

Blanchard tossed the spent cigarette onto the asphalt. He ground it with the heel of his shoe. Wind kicked up off the sound, and gulls floated in the soft gold light of the beach. “Five mil.”

“Catch ’em?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Know who did it?”

“Part of the deal,” Blanchard said. “Money was delivered and he got his kid back. No questions asked.”

“I would have had some questions.”

“Not Mr. Weinberg,” Blanchard said.

“How about now?”

“There’s always something,” Blanchard said. “He is a very wealthy man. And in case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Weinberg cultivates attention.”

“Really?”

“He once had a helicopter drop him off on the highest point of this construction site in Vegas. There wasn’t jack shit up there. Barely enough room to sit. But he wanted to show everyone he sat on the highest spot in the city. Even if it killed him. Shot the commercial intro from the copter.”

“Sometimes I get woozy walking up Beacon Hill.”

“Guy like you doesn’t get woozy for shit.”

Blanchard grinned. I shook his hand.

“See you around,” I said.

Weinberg blocked my path to Rita and Z. He did not speak. He looked at me for a long moment, broke into a grin, and opened his arms wide. “Thank you,” he said, and reached out to give me a bear hug. The hug was awkward, but Weinberg did not seem to notice.

27

TWO NIGHTS LATER,
at four in the morning, some unpleasant knocking at my door woke Pearl and me from a restful sleep. Pearl rushed to the door to bark loudly as I groaned and followed. I peered into the peephole to see two state troopers. Holding Pearl back by her collar, I opened the door. “I’ve paid most of those parking tickets.”

“Commander Healy wants to see you,” one of the troopers said. He wore the Smokey the Bear hat tilted across his nose. The other stood at the same height in the identical uniform of the Mass state police. Both were muscular, with square jaws and humorless faces.

“Sure,” I said. “Want some coffee?”

“Healy wants to see you now.”

I held on to Pearl’s collar with two fingers. She showed her teeth. I didn’t blame her. We both needed our beauty rest.

“Would you mind if I put on pants first?” I said.

Ten minutes later, I sat in the back of a state cruiser that headed east on Storrow and then turned north into the tunnel. The intermittent false light scattered over the windshield, down deep under the earth, and then up into the gaping mouth on the other side.

“I can think of a better route to the DA’s office,” I said.

“Headed to Revere,” said the driver. Neither trooper had introduced himself. “Healy is there now.”

“So someone is dead,” I said.

The driver was silent and kept on heading north on 1A.

“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Cimoli?”

“Don’t know the name,” the other trooper said.

I sat back and watched both sides of the highway wedged by the docks along the Chelsea River and the low hills facing the ocean. The crisp, artificial lights along the hills glinted in the black night. When we turned off 1A onto Veterans, the flashing red-and-blue lights led us the rest of the way, on into the wide expanse of the old dog track parking lot. Dozens of state police and locals from Revere crowded the lot. There was an endless ribbon of yellow crime scene tape from the main entrance stretching all the way across the lot. Two crime scene tech vans were parked nearby, with television news camera crews shooting their every step.

One of the troopers opened the back door. He pointed across the hoods of the hundreds of parked cars I had seen the other day.

A gathering of Revere cops were the gatekeepers of the tape. I pointed to the troopers. A skinny woman wearing a Revere PD badge let me through without a trace of excitement. I guessed she had not been notified of my appearance.

“Wherever I go,” Healy said from down a long row of parked sedans.

“There I am,” I said.

“Lucky me,” Healy said.

I followed Healy down the line of tightly parked cars waiting to be trucked off to parts unknown. We had to turn sideways to make our way through. Warm, sluggish salt air blew in from the sound.

“When I heard your name,” Healy said, “I kind of had to laugh. You have a knack for this kind of thing. You know?”

Healy was a skinny, medium-sized guy with clear blue eyes. He wore an off-the-rack blue suit with a red tie. His silver hair was buzzed into a crew cut.

“So,” I said. “Who’s dead?”

I continued to trail him down the length of parked cars and then turned left down another long aisle, where the techs were photographing and tweezing and doing whatever it is that techs do. Healy stood back from a car, not much of one, just a dark green Chevy Malibu. Only one of about five billion made. It looked innocuous enough. No bullet holes that I could see. No blood smears or satanic symbols. I walked behind Healy until he stopped and then held me back with the flat of his hand.

“When’s the last time you’ve been speechless?” he said.

“Been a while.”

“Just how did you get mixed up in the action with all this gambling shit?”

“Hired by a friend.”

“Who?”

“Listen, Healy. I’m fine with showing mine if you show yours. But I’ll have to explain to Pearl why you woke her master up early.”

“You got a strong stomach?”

“I eat the sausage at Fenway.”

Healy shrugged in agreement and led the way with a flourish of his hand. The techs backed away, and two bright lights shone into the open mouth of the Chevy’s trunk.

I did not say a word. I was speechless.

“Guy who watches the lot at night called it in,” Healy said. “Ex-cop, and so is the dog. The dog went bullshit.”

“I bet.”

“You ever see anything like this?” Healy asked.

“Nope.”

My breathing felt constricted. I could not take my eyes off the trunk.

“But you do know who that is?” Healy said.

“Yeah.”

“Car is a rental,” he said. “Rented it himself, in his name.”

I nodded.

“A fucking mess.”

“Yeah.”

“Speechless,” Healy said. “What did I tell you?”

He exchanged grins with the other cop.

“You tell his wife?” I asked.

“She’s on the way,” Healy said. “Flying in from Vegas. Bodyguard told us about you.”

I nodded. “Does she have to ID the body?”

“Don’t have the body,” said the young guy who brought coffee. “Just Weinberg’s fucking head.”

28

I WATCHED DAWN SPREAD
across the Public Garden through the big windows of the Four Seasons. Lewis Blanchard, Rachel Weinberg, Healy, and a state cop I knew named Lundquist sat huddled in a small group. The cops and I drank coffee. Blanchard and Rachel drank whiskey. After a while Healy nodded to the waitress and she brought him two fingers of Bushmills with his next cup of coffee. A housekeeper vacuumed back toward the bar, the only noise in the early morning. The air was silver and pale on the rolling green hills across Boylston.

“So no one saw Rick leave his room?” Rachel said.

Blanchard shook his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and soft. He looked as if he’d aged several years.

“He never takes a piss without Lewis,” Rachel said. “He was obsessive about it.”

Blanchard looked down at his hands. He rubbed them together.

Rachel Weinberg wore a pink Chanel tracksuit and very large black sunglasses. She may still have been crying, but with the sunglasses I could not tell. She looked much paler than she had the other night, washed of all color and makeup. Her bleached hair was knotted into a bun. Her hands rested on the gold handle of her oversized black bag. She answered all of Healy’s questions while downing a large glass of fifty-year-old Macallan as if it were water. I drank my coffee black and listened. There was little I could say.

“We’re pulling all the surveillance video from hotel security,” Healy said. “There will be a record.”

“Holy shit,” Rachel said. “Holy shit. My phone is buzzing like a goddamn vibrator. Investors wanting to know where we stand. If Rick did something on his own and got himself killed.”

“When was the last time you saw him, Lewis?” I said.

“Ten,” he said. “Ordered a vanilla ice cream from room service. I made sure everything was okay. Rick didn’t seem in the mood to talk. I told him good night, took off my shoes, and went to sleep in the adjoining room. Rachel is right, Mr. Weinberg did not take crazy chances. If he wanted to go down to the lobby for a stick of gum, I was paid to go with him.”