Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“You filed an appeal,” I said. “Now we wait.”

“I do wish his mother had contacted us first,” she said. “After working for the firm, she should have known better. He would have never been sentenced to that island.”

“You know much about Massachusetts Child Care?”

“No,” she said. “Most of my clients are over eighteen.”

“They own Dillon’s digs on Fortune Island,” I said. “They get two hundred and fifty bucks a day to keep him there.”

“What can you do while we wait?” she said.

“Follow Scali around,” I said. “See how the judicial set lives.”

I took off my Dodgers cap, rolled the bill, and set it back on my head.

“Good luck,” she said. We walked out of the old courthouse together and shook hands before going different ways.

19

A car, or even an SUV in my case, was only comfortable for so long. I once drove a ’68 Chevy convertible with bucket seats. For a while I had a Subaru Outback with seats designed for Billy Barty. Sometimes I borrowed Susan’s MG and later her Bronco. But I liked the Explorer. It was comfortable, innocuous in traffic. Good gas mileage for the size. It had seat warmers and Bluetooth technology. Sometimes when the tech gods were with me, I could talk dirty to Susan while keeping both hands on the wheel.

But my Ford was little match for Scali’s gunmetal-gray Cadillac ELR. The car had jeweled brake lights, glowing with a lot of style at stoplights, and bright chrome wheels. I hung back as I followed him. I knew his address. I just wanted to see if he made any other stops on the way home.

I listened to an Artie Shaw CD as I drove through Blackburn.

He drove in the opposite direction of his Belleview home. He jetted along the Merrimack River to an exit off I-93 and parked in the lot of an International House of Pancakes. I knew that he’d seen my face. What a shame I’d miss a chance to dine at an IHOP. Maybe the old Bickford’s cafeteria. But I drew the line at IHOP.

I waited inside my car with Artie. When I’m calling you / Will you answer, too?

Scali was gracious enough to take a seat by the picture window. He was seated alone, with a very large menu. About twenty minutes later, a beefy-looking gray-headed man in a tan overcoat joined him. Scali didn’t stand or shake hands. The beefy man took a seat, and the waitress dropped off a menu. So many culinary choices, so little time. They both snapped their menus shut at about the same time. The sign outside advertised SIGNATURE FAVORITES. And the all-new Blue Cheese and Bacon Sirloin. Mario Batali, take note.

I checked my e-mail. I checked my voice mail. I checked my profile for any stray hairs I missed while shaving. Late afternoon turned later. It got dark very early. It seemed even later in Blackburn. Susan would be finishing with her last client about now. She would be taking Pearl out for a long walk along Linnaean Street. Inventive cocktails were being poured in Harvard Square. Bistros along Newbury Street had opened for dinner. I had two dry-aged filets in my refrigerator.

I had three other cases to be stoked.

There was more dry apple wood in the cellar of my apartment building. And according to my phone, TCM was running Monte Walsh .

After an hour and sixteen minutes, Scali and the beefy man walked out together. Scali had on a long black overcoat and swiveled a toothpick in his mouth. The pancakes must’ve been something else.

The men separated with a handshake. I wrote down the tag number on the beefy man’s big black Mercedes and gave Scali a two-minute start. I followed him back up the Merrimack and back into the center of town. There was something obsessively cold and dark about February in Massachusetts. The dull burn of streetlamps, the dirty snowbanks, the long, meandering stretch of a half-frozen river.

Scali’s house was about a quarter-mile away from Judge Price’s house in Belleview. Christmas decorations still adorned Scali’s house. I thought about walking straight up to the door and regaling him with some carols. Any man who loved Christmas so much he wanted to celebrate it two months later couldn’t be all bad. Multicolored lights ran up and down the V’s of the roofline. A snowman made of LED lights glittered on the snow-covered lawn. I parked a few houses down the street. I removed my Dodgers cap, although I needed it, turned up the collar on my jacket, and went out for a stroll. This was in equal parts surveillance and a way of loosening my stiff knee.

I had already received two texts from Susan reminding me of my rehab. I walked for nearly a half-mile, trying to get a feel for the upper-middle-class neighborhood. I learned a lot of people liked to celebrate Christmas well into the next year. The houses were a mix of mid-century modern and neo-Colonial. I had my hands in my jacket pockets, my breath coming in clouds. I missed the jogging. I liked the rhythm and feel of pounding the pavement.

I turned back and walked past Scali’s house. The curtains were closed and the Cadillac safely stowed away in his garage. The house was big, a three-story Colonial painted gray with white trim. A wrought-iron fence encircled the property. I gave up the idea of knocking on the door and singing carols and returned to my SUV. I plugged in the address to a realty website for an estimate of how much the good judge had paid for the house.

Being a master detective with a smartphone, I learned he’d bought the property only two years ago for $750,000. He paid about nine grand a year in property taxes. Ouch.

I didn’t know how much a juvenile court judge made, but I could easily find out.

I waited for a couple minutes for Scali to run from the house and confess his sins. When this didn’t happen, I started the Explorer and drove back to Boston. It was late, so I’d only cook one of the steaks and open a nice bottle of Cabernet.

I didn’t even slow down when I passed the IHOP.

20

The next morning, I had huevos rancheros with a side of fresh fruit, OJ, and black coffee at the Paramount before driving out to the office of Massachusetts Child Care. The day was sunny and bright, with a hard white glint off the Common and the tips of snowbanks lining Boylston. I cut up to Soldiers Field Road and followed the Charles before crossing over the river and into Watertown, where I found MCC’s offices on the entire third floor of a repurposed turn-of-the-century schoolhouse. The office had wide-plank wood floors, plaster walls, and transoms over the glass doors. There was soft light along a row of framed posters of happy children free of drugs, behavior problems, or crime. A sign on the door read MAKING A DIFFERENCE FOR TODAY’S YOUTH!

There were six glass doors along each side of the long corridor, old classrooms subdivided. A perky young black woman in a tailored suit asked if she might be of help.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Talos,” I said. After seeing Robert Talos Jr. share the hallowed booth at IHOP with Scali and running his license plate, I’d learned he was the big cheese at MCC. Putting two and two together, I’d come up with one.

“Do you have an appointment?” she said. “Mr. Talos is often out with business. May I ask what this is regarding?”

“You may,” I said. “I have questions about MCC and a teenager in your care.”

Less than thirty seconds later, I was being introduced to Jane Corbin, parental communication specialist. Since I wasn’t a parent, I worried we wouldn’t be able to talk. Would a translator be necessary? I thought maybe I could win over Jane and then maybe get a handoff to Talos. “My name is Knute Rockne. My son George is to be rehabilitated by MCC. I had a few questions.”

“Have a seat, Mr. Rockne,” she said. “Please. How might we be of help?”