“At least the top was closed,” Z said.

“Always an upside.”

“But we lost him.”

We were both breathing very heavy. I was glad Z was breathing just as heavy.

“But now we know that Victor Lima is in Roxbury,” I said. “Now we just need to find out where he’s gone.”

“That was Lima? You sure?”

I shot Z a look. He grinned and nodded.

“You know the other guy who was with him?” Z said.

I shook my head. We both walked back to the car, opting to forgo the fences and take Blue Hill Avenue by using the sidewalk.

54

It was Friday evening, and I stood outside with Kinjo at Gillette, the team buses chugging diesel into the night. The players were flying out to Denver and Kinjo had no intention of staying behind. The night had grown cold and it had started to rain.

“Cristal is gone,” he said.

“You have a fight?”

“Nope,” he said. “She was just upset and drinking and drove off about an hour before I left. She said she was going to get Akira back herself.”

“Drunk?”

“Hard to get Cristal drunk,” Kinjo said.

Water beaded off his black umbrella and across the arm of his black topcoat. It puddled the blacktop of the endless and expansive lot.

“So noted.”

“I don’t know what else to do but keep playing ball,” he said. “I feel like I stop and sit around and I’ll go crazy. I either play ball or they might as well drug me up and take me to the psych ward. When they brought me Akira’s clothes. Damn.”

He took a long breath and wiped his eyes. “He ain’t dead.”

“I haven’t stopped.”

“Why’d you want to talk to me about the Limas?” he said. “Thought that was all over.”

“Did you know Ray was still paying them off?”

“Nah, man,” he said. “Ray wouldn’t do that without telling me. He knows how I feel about that. I paid them money for their loss, but I didn’t admit nothing. If we kept on paying, that’d make me seem like I’m guilty. I never shot anyone. I never killed anyone. Thought we straight on that.”

I nodded.

“Who told you that shit about my brother?”

“Your brother.”

Kinjo shook his head. The team was boarding the buses to Logan. The parking lot was filled with many very fast and very expensive cars. The players wore their best, not a tracksuit among them. A lot of camel-hair coats over custom suits and handmade shoes. I noticed a lot of the players wore earrings among a ton of jewelry. The watches were big and shiny, and refracted the parking lights even in the rain.

“Why’d he do that?” Kinjo said.

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“Shit.”

“But it led us to something,” I said. “We went to see Lela Lopes and ended up finding Victor Lima.”

“In Boston?”

“Yep.”

“What’s he doing in Boston?”

“Lela Lopes, I assume.”

“What’d he say?” Kinjo said.

I shook my head. “He ran and we chased him through a few backyards, but he must have had a buddy with him. Someone picked him up and then tried to run down me and Z.”

“You tell the cops?”

I nodded. “Car make, model, and license plate,” I said. “Stolen plate. But they’re looking for Victor and the car. The Feds, too.”

“Fuck the Feds,” Kinjo said. “They’re quitters.”

A thick-bodied man with a shaved head and wearing a tight white polo shirt and khakis called to Kinjo. The bus sat waiting with headlights on and wipers going. The man pointed to his watch and boarded the bus.

“Got to go, man.”

“Good luck.”

He nodded. “Ain’t got nothing else,” he said. “I’m wrung up and bled out, man. Nobody can do nothing more to me. They took everything I got.”

I reached out and shook his hand. He nodded. The coach called out as the rain continued to beat down on the blacktop.

His eyes were dark and very tired. “Spenser?”

I waited.

“Can you find Cristal?” he said. “I know she’s a goddamn mess. But she’s my wife and a wreck right now. I know everyone thinks low of her, but she loves me, man, and she thinks she’s killed my kid. That’s not the truth.”

I nodded.

“I think she’s lost her shit.”

“I can look for her,” I said. “Any idea where she might have gone?”

Kinjo lifted up his chin and nodded once. “Kevin Murphy.”

“Okay,” I said.

Kinjo boarded the bus, and I stood under the umbrella as four big silver buses cut a half-circle and headed north. I walked back to my Explorer, crawled inside, and cranked the ignition.

“And,” Hawk said.

“And I don’t think he knew about the extra payoffs.”

“He say why the brother did it?”

“Nope.”

“You ask?”

“You know, I do manage to sleuth without prodding.”

“Maybe you benefit from some constructive criticism.”

“He asked me for a favor.”

Hawk turned to me and I told him about Cristal and Kinjo’s suspicions.

“Dorchester again,” he said. “Shit.”

55

Kevin Murphy didn’t live far from his international film studios above the packie in Fields Corner. He had a two-story house with aluminum siding off a street called Toledo Terrace. A small driveway curved behind the house, where we found an open gate and recently added wooden stairs up to a kitchen. It was dark and still raining as we knocked on the back door.

Hawk did not carry an umbrella, as Hawk was impervious to rain.

Murphy opened the door in slippers and boxer shorts.

“Yeah?” he said, looking us over. “What the fuck do you guys want?”

“We came to apologize,” I said. “We’ve come to respect your contribution to the motion-picture arts and want to bestow upon you an honorary Oscar.”

Murphy made a face and rubbed his hairless stomach. “Eat me.”

Hawk just shook his head, grabbed Murphy’s face, and walked him backward into the kitchen. Murphy took wide, looping swings at him, but Hawk had very long arms and seemed uninterested in the resistance. I closed the door behind us; Hawk pushed hard with his right hand and dumped Murphy on his ass.

“Where’s Cristal Heywood?” I said.

It was a simple question, but Murphy had considerable trouble following it. He pushed himself up off the floor and scowled at Hawk. Hawk leaned against the kitchen counter and began to whistle the theme to Jeopardy!

“Suck it,” Murphy said.

I shrugged. “Where’s Cristal?”

Murphy spit at Hawk and then lunged for a kitchen knife. Hawk backhanded Murphy and gripped his wrist. As he tore the knife from Murphy’s hand there was a very ugly, very audible pop. Murphy, being a man of more pleasure than pain, fell to the ground and began to scream.

“Did you really need me for this?” Hawk said.

“Rainy night,” I said. “Nice to have company.”

Hawk nodded that that was fine by him. Murphy kept on screaming, and after a few seconds of the wailing, Cristal Heywood came staggering from some dark back room. She wore only a T-shirt, her bleached hair spilling over the front and back of her shoulders. “What the hell? What the hell?”

“Come on,” I said.

She stepped into the kitchen and helped Murphy to his feet. He was holding his wrist and crying. If he had not been a pedophile pornographer, I might have even felt sorry for him.

“What?” she said. “What did you do?”

Cristal Heywood’s breath smelled of so much alcohol, it might have been considered an accelerant. I took a step back but could still see her pupils were pinpricks, and she wavered on her feet. She was indulging in something beyond vodka.

“Smack,” Hawk said. “She’s fucked up on smack.”

“Go to hell,” Cristal said, her arm around Murphy.

I tilted my head to the door. “Kinjo is worried about you.”