I felt one with the earth and with the woods until I heard a voice behind me. “Don’t move a muscle, motherfucker.”

Although the slight was not appreciated, I did not move a muscle. And soon hands were on me, pulling the gun from my hand and the .38 from my waist. Someone yanked my arm and I turned to see Victor Lima staring right at me. He cocked me in the temple with my own gun. The feeling was not pleasant, but I kept to my feet.

“Stupid,” he said. “Stupid.”

“Where’s Akira?”

“Why’d you keep fucking with this?” he said. “Heywood had to be the man. Had to lay down a price on our heads.”

I touched my temple. It was bleeding badly. I felt sick and spit on the ground.

“Fucking dumb,” he said. “Now I got to kill you, too.”

“Like you killed Lela?”

“Lela?” he said, wiping water off his face with his free hand. “They killed Lela to get to me.”

“Who?”

“DeVeiga.”

“DeVeiga says this is all on you.”

“Five mil levels things a bit,” he said. “Now keep walking. Keep walking to that ditch and then lay down. I’ll make it quick and easy for you.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Fuck you,” Victor Lima said.

We walked for another twenty feet to a wide ditch brimming with running water. He told me to get into the ditch and place my hands on my head. I could reach for him and take the chance of being shot in a good way. Or I could go into the ditch and keep talking. As talking was my strong suit, I thought I could keep it going.

“Where’s Akira?” I said. When you got a good thing, stay with it.

Lima didn’t answer. He leveled my .357 at me.

“Did you kill him?” I said.

“Everything would have been cool if Heywood had been a man.”

“Is he alive?”

Something flashed in his eyes, a moment of hesitation. But then he gritted his teeth and slowly pulled the trigger. His teeth were clenched tight, jaw tight as the hammer pulled back and cylinder gently started to roll.

And then a large shot as I ducked. As if ducking would do much good.

Lima was down, bleeding and hurt, shot in the back. Another pistol shot rang out as Lima got to his feet and ran fast but ragged and ugly toward the far wall circling the park.

I crawled out of the ditch and ran after him, but he had disappeared. As I reached the park wall, Z came up on me, jogging and out of breath.

“You hurt?” Z said.

“Nope,” I said, wiping the blood off my temple. “But Hawk’s with a guy who’s bad.”

Z nodded. Sirens screamed in the distance.

“You did good,” I said.

Z looked at me with his black eyes and nodded. “I know.”

61

DeVeiga went to the hospital. His pal got a ride with the ME’s office and his other pal had disappeared. Z drove Hawk back to the Harbor Health Club and I went to Susan’s.

It was Saturday, and she was not in session. Pearl the Wonder Dog greeted me at the front door, paws extended onto my chest, and a giant lick on the chin.

“Why can’t you ever greet me like that?” I said.

“Because you’re covered head to toe in mud?” Susan said. “Ick.”

“Can I borrow your hose?”

“Around back, cowboy.”

I walked around to Susan’s deck, took off my shoes and socks, and hosed myself off. I tossed my shirt but left on my jeans, knowing Susan’s neighbors might object to a large man in his underwear frolicking in the water. But probably nothing new for the Cambridge cops.

I wrung out my shirt and socks. I hosed the mud from my boots and set them on the steps to dry. At the second-floor patio, I handed Susan my jeans and stepped inside. She pointed to the bathroom, and I stood in the shower for a good twenty minutes, stepped into the kitchen in my towel, and searched for a cold beer. I found a six-pack sampler from the Avery Brewing Company I’d left there for emergencies.

“Things getting rough in the Back Bay?” she said.

“Franklin Park,” I said. “Hawk and I took a stroll.”

“And jumped into the lake?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you okay?” she said.

I nodded and walked back into her bedroom, where I kept some spare clothes. I changed into fresh Levi’s and a black T-shirt and walked back into the living room. She was perched on the couch with Pearl.

“Two men were shot,” I said. “But not by us.”

“Who were the men?”

“Upstanding members of the Outlaws street gang.”

“And who shot them?” Susan said.

I lifted my beer and took a sip. “Victor Lima.”

I told her more about Lela Lopes and the connection through Jesus DeVeiga. I drank some more beer and told her about my adventures through the Long Crouch Woods and my salvation by a young Native American.

“Thank God for Z.”

“Yep.”

“Lima stole your guns?” she said.

“There is that.”

Susan had not been expecting me or anyone on her Saturday off. She wore an oversized gray Harvard sweatshirt and black yoga pants with no shoes. Her hair was twisted up into a bun. Pearl rested her head in Susan’s lap and stared up at me with her soulful yellow eyes as if to say, “You wish, buster.”

“So you’ll go after him,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “But I wanted to see you first.”

“Why?”

“I think Akira is alive.”

Susan turned to me and audibly inhaled. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. “But I strongly suspect it.”

“Don’t tell his parents yet,” Susan said. “Until you’re sure.”

I nodded and tipped back the beer. I walked over and scratched Pearl’s graying head and ears. She grunted and turned over on her back, legs sticking straight up in the air.

“It’s stopped raining,” I said. “We could walk down to the Open Market. Have a nice dinner at the Russell House.”

“We could,” she said. “But you can’t.”

I nodded.

“Bad guys to catch.”

“Yep.”

“And a very scared little boy to save,” she said.

“Lima has disappeared again.”

“Did you call Quirk?”

“Quirk, Lundquist, and even my old pal, Tom Connor,” I said. “They’re all looking for him.”

“If you find him,” she said, “I want to be with you when you talk to Nicole. Either way.”

I leaned down, kissed Susan, and headed out to continue the search.

62

Hawk called me at midnight.

“I got a lead, babe.”

“A lead,” I said. “That’s part of my lexicon.”

“Got word some shitbag want to talk.”

“Better.”

“Says he knows where to find Lima.”

I had gone back to my apartment for my spare gun, an S&W .40-cal, which, for a spare gun, wasn’t a bad option. I had a leather rig for it, wore it over my T-shirt and under a workout jacket. My beloved A-2 was still air-drying at Susan’s.

“He mention the kid?”

“Nope.”

“Where?”

“He wants that money,” Hawk said.

“Of course he does,” I said. “We get Lima and we’ll talk.”

“That’s what I told him.”

I checked my watch. “Where and when?” I said.

“Right now,” Hawk said. “Time waits for no man.”

“Except us.”

Hawk gave a “ha” and told me he’d be around in fifteen.

I finished a cup of coffee and loaded some spare bullets in my jacket before walking down to Marlborough. Hawk pulled around from Arlington and stopped in front of my apartment. I got in and he sped off. We cut up Berkeley to Beacon and then took Clarendon, heading south. “Back to Roxbury,” I said.

Hawk just smiled, the bright green instrument panel of the Jag lighting up his face and large hands on the wheel. Clarendon hit Tremont and we took Tremont all the way into the neighborhood.

“You got a name?” I said.

“Nope.”

“How’d they find you?”

“DeVeiga,” Hawk said. “Reached out to him in the hospital. DeVeiga told this guy we could be trusted.”