Robert Parker: The Professional

“Sure,” I said. “In the meantime, lemme buy you some coffee and talk with you about Boo.”

She stared at me for a moment, then sighed.

“Very well,” she said, and stalked ahead of me to the snack bar.

I knew Boo would get her, and if it didn’t, it would mean whoever Vinnie saw wasn’t Boo. If it was Boo, she would have to talk to me enough to find out what I knew. We ordered coffee.

“What about this Boo person, or whatever Boo is?” she said.

“Boo is the slugger used to work for your husband,” I said.

“He and a guy named Zel.”

The coffee arrived. I added some sugar and took a swallow. “Oh,” she said, “Boo. I hadn’t thought of Boo since Chet died.”

“Until Monday,” I said.

“Monday?”

“Boo stopped you in front of your house. You and he argued. You shoved him and went in. He stayed outside for a while and looked at your door.”

She didn’t say anything. She looked at me silently for a long time. I let her look. I was interested in what she’d come up with.

Finally she said, “Are you spying on me?”

“Yuh,” I said.

“Why?”

“What did Boo want?” I said.

“Boo,” she said. “So that’s who that was.”

“You didn’t recognize him,” I said.

“No. I mean, I thought he looked familiar, but… no.”

“And what did he want?” I said.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I have no idea. I thought he was some kind of stumblebum, you know? I just wanted him to leave me alone.”

I nodded.

“And I object to you lurking around spying.”

“Noted,” I said.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Got nothing else to do,” I said.

“Do you think I’m doing something bad?”

“Are you?” I said.

“Gary and I are just trying to live our lives,” she said, “in the midst of terrible tragedy.”

“Boo want money?” I said.

“No… I don’t know… I just wanted to get away from him,” she said.

“What’s the first thing he said to you?”

Her face got sort of squeezed up. Her cheeks reddened a little.

“I won’t talk about this anymore,” she said. “I’ve done nothing wrong, and I won’t let you question me as if I have.”

She stood up abruptly and walked to the elevator. I watched her go.

Spenser, the grand inquisitor.

ONE OF SPENSER’S RULESfor criminal investigation is that most things have two ends. I’d gotten nothing much from Beth’s end, so I decided to try the other end, and went out to JP to visit Boo.

Zel was cooking sausage and peppers when I got there, and I sat at the kitchen table and drank a beer he gave me while he cooked.

“Boo ain’t here,” Zel said.

“Where is he?” I said.

“Out,” Zel said.

“What’s he doing while he’s out?” I said.

“Got me,” Zel said.

He moved the peppers and sausage around with a spatula.

“Low heat,” Zel said. “Cook it slow. That’s the secret.”

“He go out much alone?”

Zel looked at me.

“Boo’s forty-two years old,” he said. “Course he goes out alone.”

I nodded.

“You and he doing any business with Beth Jackson?” I said.

“Beth? Chet’s wife? No, thank you,” Zel said.

“Trouble?” I said.

“With a capital T,” Zel said. “And that rhymes with B, and that stands for bitch.”

“You don’t like Beth,” I said.

“Good call,” Zel said.

“I’m a trained detective,” I said.

“No,” Zel said. “I don’t like her.”

“Because?”

“Because I kind of liked Chet.”

“And she cheated on him,” I said.

“She didn’t give him no respect,” Zel said.

I nodded.

“Boo like her?” I said.

Zel looked at me sharply.

“Why?”

“He had a confrontation with her Monday,” I said. “Outside her house.”

“Shit!” Zel said.

He poured some sherry wine over the sausage and peppers and watched it boil up briefly and then start to cook away. He lowered the heat to simmer, then turned from the stove and went to the refrigerator and got a bottle of beer for himself and another one for me. He put mine on the table in front of me and went and leaned on the counter near the stove. He drank some of his beer and looked at me.

“Boo ain’t right,” he said. “We both know that.”

I nodded.

“But like I said, he’s forty-two years old. I try to look out for him, but… I can’t treat him like a little kid.”

“He’d know it?” I said.

“It would be disrespectful,” Zel said.

I nodded.

“But…”

Zel drank some more beer and checked his cooking.

“But Boo can’t do time,” Zel said. “He’s okay if I’m with him, but if I ain’t, he can’t stand close places.”

“Claustrophobic?” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what he is, claustrophobic. ’Less I’m with him, he can’t ride an elevator. Can’t go in the subway if it’s crowded. Has to leave the window open in his room a crack, no matter how cold it is.”

“But he’s all right if he’s with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you worried about him doing time?” I said.

Zel checked his cooking again and shut off the heat under his pan.

“You ain’t here to sell him magazine subscriptions,” Zel said.

“You know why he would be having an argument with Beth Jackson?” I said.

Zel got another beer from the refrigerator. He held one toward me. I shook my head.

“Another thing,” Zel said, “about Boo. He gotta be a tough guy. It’s all he ever had, being a tough guy.”

“And he’s not so good at that,” I said.

“Not against somebody like you,” Zel said. “But for Boo, it almost don’t matter if he wins. He gotta fight, you know? He wins, or he shows he can take it. Either way, he gotta be a tough guy.”

Zel drank some beer.

“All he got,” Zel said. “He does time, he’ll be scared, and he can’t stand to be scared, so he’ll be a tough guy and he’ll get hurt bad. Don’t matter how tough you are. Inside, they can break you.”

“You’ve been inside,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And Boo,” I said.

“What’s made him so… odd,” Zel said. “I mean, he started out with a lot of problems, and he was always kinda slow. But time in made all of it much worse.”

“You know what he’s doing with Beth Jackson?” I said.

“No.”

“You know who killed Chet Jackson and Estelle Gallagher?”

“No.”

“You think Boo was involved?” I said.

“Boo’s mostly a slugger,” Zel said.

“He had a gun when I was here last,” I said.

Zel nodded.

“So you think he was involved?” I said.

“No.”

“If he was, I’m gonna find it out,” I said.

“He wasn’t,” Zel said. “I’d know.”

“I think he was,” I said.

Zel nodded.

“He can’t do no time,” Zel said.

VINNIE CALLED MEat home from his cell phone. It was nine-eleven at night. I was watching the Celtics game.

“You might want to know this,” he said.

“I might,” I said.

I muted the sound on the television.

“Been watching Beth’s ass all day. Followed her home from the club, ’bout five-fifteen, watched her go in. ’Bout six o’clock the boyfriend comes home. I watch him go in. By seven I figure they’re in for the night, so I call it a day. I walk down Arlington to the Ritz, Taj, whatever the fuck it is now, and go in to take a leak. Then I’m in there, I figure I’ll go in the bar, have a couple pops, think about Beth’s ass, which I would now recognize at three miles in the dark. So I’m in there for maybe an hour or so, and I have a few, and then I go out and head down Arlington to get my car. I know a guy works the door at The Park Plaza, and he’s holding my car for me.”