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After the brushing, I changed tools and attached a clean patch to the cloth, spraying a little gun oil on the cloth. I played an old Dave McKe
I cleaned the .38 more. Fond memories of shooting men who were about to shoot me.
The little patch came out clean each time. But the routine felt right, adding a little oil to the patch, and then spraying some oil into the cylinder. I ran the red rag over the .38 and set it aside, picking up the .357. The .357 needed the cleaning more, as I’d just taken it to the range a few weeks ago with Z.
McKe
I smiled a bit. I got up, called Susan, and poured some coffee.
When I hung up, it was a little after eleven.
Hawk called. He was headed back to the Heywoods’.
I drank some coffee. I went through the routine on the .357. The patch came out slightly dirty this time. I ran another patch through to make sure it was clean. I added some oil to another and sprayed the cylinder. I spun the cylinder.
McKe
I was back at the old Oak Bar. Susan and I were young, McKe
Whatever the kidnappers had in mind had been set in motion.
And all we could do was sit and wait.
I removed the needle from the record, locked up my apartment, and drove off along Marlborough Street.
45
Two more photos of Akira were sent from separate Twitter accounts. Both shut down after being sent. One of them showed the child seated in a big, ugly green recliner. His face blank, eyes wide with exhaustion and fear. The next showed the child wearing Kinjo’s game jersey, eyes cast downward, and holding up his index finger in the number-one sign. Each shot was very close, impossible to tell much about the location of the photo if the kidnappers were caught.
Kinjo sat alone in his media room while he waited. He watched video from the game. He’d run a play back and forth twenty times before moving on.
It was one o’clock in the morning and the house was very still but alive with federal agents and cops. The two suitcases sat in the center of the living room as if to underscore the waiting.
I was adding sugar to my coffee when Tom Co
“What’d you make of that last one?”
“The taunt?” I said.
“Right?”
I nodded. I drank some coffee.
“Why dress up the kid as Kinjo, make him do all that shit?”
“Personal.”
“As in Antonio Lima?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t dismissed the possibility.”
Co
“One week,” Co
I nodded, employing an old crime-buster technique—shut your mouth and let the other person keep talking.
“You went to New York,” Co
“Yep.”
“And talked to Lima’s brother?” he said. “Met with the old lady?”
“I did.”
“Me, too,” he said. “What did you think?”
I shrugged again. I drank some coffee. The kitchen light shone off Co
“And you found out they’d been paid out.”
“I did.”
“We didn’t know that,” Co
I nodded.
“You believe that?”
“He said he wasn’t involved,” I said. “My job is to take him at his word.”
“We worked three different cranks,” Co
“We all have a dream.”
“But you’re onto something,” Co
“I never stopped thinking there was a co
I rested my left hand on the kitchen island. A couple more Feds walked into the kitchen, looking for some stray donuts. Co
“Why’d you go see Gerry Broz?”
Ah, I thought.
I shrugged, tilted my head. “Catch up on old times,” I said. “Offer my condolences on his late dad.”
“Joe was a grade-A turd.”
“But you worked with him.”
“And you don’t work with street creeps, hustlers, and pimps when you need it, Spenser?” Co
I took a long breath through my nose and let it out the same way. The coffee had grown cold and I set it in the microwave to reheat. In the living room, Cristal Heywood lay sleeping on the couch. In Akira’s bedroom, Nicole Heywood was probably still wide awake and staring at his fish tank.
From the kitchen, you could see Cristal covered in a large blanket, eyes closed, an empty highball glass on the coffee table. Her arm was draped out from under the blanket, long red nails dangling down to touch the perfect white carpet.
“You don’t have to tell me jack,” Co
I waited. The microwave dinged, and I grabbed my coffee. Co
“Gerry said you wanted to know about Kevin Murphy,” Co
“Then what’s to discuss?”
“That you know something else,” he said. “So what if she liked to show off her goodies on the Internet? Why Murphy?”
“Why not?”
I considered my options. Tom Co
“An associate of Kevin Murphy followed Kinjo a couple weeks ago,” I said. “He drove the same vehicle and all but admitted he’d been nearly shot by my client.”
“This was how long before the kidnapping?” Co
I held up all my fingers and exposed my thumbs.
“You follow him?”
“All the way to the depths of Dorchester,” I said. “He has a first-class studio over a convenience store near Fields Corner.”
“Anything?”
“Business as usual,” I said. “Caught Murphy in the act of adding to his oeuvre.”
I could tell that Co
“I want to pick him up,” he said. “You say Kinjo can finger the guy he works with?”