“Connor and I had a harsh talk with him and Nicole,” I said. “But now they know the odds of getting Akira back.”

We sat there and listened to a very talkative Kinjo Heywood chatting with Paulie and the Gooch about Boston being a tough city. He talked about the way the city handled adversity, took care of its own. He talked about growing up in Georgia with nothing, coming here as a rookie, and now being part of the Boston sports family.

“I represent this fucking city,” Kinjo said. “With pride.”

“The FCC phone bank just exploded,” I said.

“Spoken from the heart,” Z said.

We opened up our breakfast sandwiches and ate on a fine, chilly fall morning. The sky was thick with gray clouds. Up the hill from us, two Hispanic men with leaf blowers worked to clear the sidewalks. Heywood’s neighbors had not been thrilled about the influx of visitors. Many had posted NO PARKING signs on their front lawns.

“I know whoever took my son will be found and confronted by the city I love,” Kinjo said.

I drank some coffee. I watched the men in my rearview, cleaning the sidewalks and street of debris. They had parked an old truck nearby, loaded with black plastic bags of leaves. The trees were still full of them, still coming down in piles.

“That’s why I need y’all’s help,” Kinjo said. “I need the people of Boston to help me find my son.”

Z and I did not speak. I put down the coffee in the Explorer’s nifty holder.

“My son is only eight,” he said. “He is a good kid. He loves life. He loves to play and have fun. Who took him ain’t even human. Somebody out there knows who’s done this. They know the man or men who have broken into my world and did this, don’t deserve to live. What they have done to Akira and to my family is sick. It’s cowardly and a disgrace to this city.”

Z nodded along as Kinjo spoke. I had not said “right on” in many years. I nearly said it.

“That’s why I’ve come here to speak to this city and those who have supported me and my family since coming to Boston,” Kinjo said. “Whoever you are out there, you cowards who took my boy, you can e-mail me, tweet to me, write it up in the goddamn sky. But we are done. I am not playing any more games. I’m through. Y’all had my child for a week. I have done everything you said. And now you’ve gone away. So I guess now it’s my move.”

I looked to Z. He had quit nodding. The leaf blowers walked closer to my Explorer, making a lot of racket, and I turned up the volume. Two television news trucks passed us in the opposite direction, heading up the hill.

“I have five million dollars cash money in hand,” Kinjo said. “It’s neatly packed and ready to go. I just posted a picture of all that green onto my Twitter account. I wanted the kidnappers to check it out and see what they’re missing. Because this is as close as y’all gonna get to this money.”

I realized that I had been holding my breath, and let it out as I listened.

“I am offering five million dollars to anyone in Boston who will take these bastards out,” Kinjo said. “One of y’all listening knows who did this. You find them, kill them, and I’ll be proud to give up this money. Y’all messed with the wrong man and I’ve now laid down a bounty on your heads. I will not pay a cent—”

Before Heywood finished his speech, I reached over and turned off the radio. The landscapers had tucked away their leaf blowers and equipment into their old truck. The old truck started with a plume of black smoke and puttered into the driveway and then backed out. Another television truck raced up the hill and nearly hit the truck. It had started to rain.

“This is my fault,” I said.

“Kinjo had this in mind,” Z said. “The pictures of his child in the jersey? It was too much. Calling him out as a man. You telling him the score just gave him an excuse.”

I wasn’t so sure. We sat in the car for a long while. Neither of us ate or drank. The rain came on fast and hard, pounding the windshield. I turned on the wipers and sat, waiting for Kinjo to return. Z sprinted out into the weather to his car and back to the gym. He had to work a shift for Henry. Life goes on.

48

Kinjo did not return home.

But he did call me two hours later.

We met at a park bench overlooking the Charles River, within spitting distance of the Hatch Shell. I sat with him, and we did not speak for a long while. We watched the crew teams scull up and back across the river. The coaches yelled. The rowers pulled with great intensity. The day was dark, drizzling, and a little cold. A fine day in Boston.

“I don’t regret it,” Kinjo said.

“May I ask why?”

“Tired of being pushed around,” Kinjo said. “They gonna kill him anyway.”

I nodded. The words could not be reversed. My reprimanding him for his decision was pointless. His phone kept chirping until he turned it off. He looked around to see if anyone recognized him.

“Did they contact you again?” I said.

“Nope.”

I remained silent. Besides the crew teams, single rowers worked alone, with coaches in nearby boats yelling at them. The boats glided with no effort across the flat, calm water. Soon it would be frozen from here to MIT. Many had tried to walk across the ice, but there were often weak spots. I did not wish to ever try it. The Longfellow Bridge was built for a reason.

“I fucking mean it,” Kinjo said. “If whoever took Akira winds up dead, I want you to bring the killer the money.”

“What if the killer is part of the group that took him?”

“Does it matter?” he said. “I want the man who set this up, set it in motion.”

“Might be hard to tell who’s the bad guy from the rest.”

“Maybe someone out there knows I mean business and are setting Akira free right now,” he said. “That the case, I want every cent in that person’s hand.”

I rested my hands inside my coat pockets and adjusted my ball cap against the drizzle. A team of eight rowers was close enough for us to hear the coxswain tell them to pick it up some. The rowers were impervious to the cold, their overgrown shoulder muscles and deltoids bursting from tank tops.

“You think I fucked up?” he said.

“Not my call.”

“If my boy is dead,” Kinjo said, “I’ll pay you whatever you want for as long as you want to find out who took him.”

“I haven’t stopped trying.”

“I don’t care if it’s ten years from now,” he said. “I want you to hunt down who did this and kill them. All that money is yours. You hear me?”

I nodded. I stretched my legs out and watched the rowing. I did not want to explain that assassin was seldom part of my job description. Hawk wouldn’t mind, perhaps. A young couple with a child in a stroller jogged past us. The stroller balanced on three wheels, the kid exhilarated with the fast ride, the couple fit and steadfast at jumping puddles.

“I won’t quit,” I said.

Kinjo leaned forward and rested his head in his large hands. He wasn’t looking at the rowers, he was light-years away, thinking on revenge and killing and dark thoughts about what may have happened to his child.

“My job isn’t to doubt you,” I said.

Kinjo nodded. A hard wind buffeted along the river.

“But others will,” I said. “A lot of your fans will question you. It could get very ugly.”

“I don’t give two shits,” he said. “It’s not their kid. I laid it the hell down and we’ll see the next play. I’m not going to sit around and wait for Akira to be some kind of game to them.”

“What if you don’t hear back?”

“I guess I will have to fucking live with what I did.”

“You prepared for that?”

Kinjo didn’t answer.

“And Nicole?”

“She been trying to call me,” he said. “You know as well as I do what she’ll say.”