Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

“Okay,” the boy said. “What now?”

“Follow me.”

Never be alone with the guard.

“I don’t like being out here.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“You have to have other guards around,” the boy said. “That’s the rule.”

“Someone will come back.”

“I want someone now.”

The man wore an old Army jacket and a black ball cap. He hadn’t shaved and the whiskers on his chin looked dirty. From across the boat, he could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath.

“Sit down.”

“I’m fine.”

“I said sit down,” Robocop said. “Or do you want to go swimming again?”

The boy sat. The boat rocked up and down, unstable on the two lines tethering it to the dock. He caught his breath, feeling the sweat under his clothes and the tight frozen feeling on his face. He wiped his nose. He looked far across the harbor of Boston.

Robocop lit a cigarette. A deep purple light shone from over the old trash mounds beyond the pods. The guard blew some smoke into the wind. He scratched the back of his neck. The cold silence, the rocking of the boat, made the boy feel uneasy. He wanted to get back to the pod and join the others. Dillon was gone.

He heard a new boy was coming in today.

“There’s no reason we can’t be friends,” the man said. He spoke the boy’s name. “Wouldn’t you like that?”

The boy shrugged. The man smiled and turned his head over the edge of the boat and spit. The boat rocked some more. The man rested his arm on his thigh, tight and immovable in the silence around them.

He smoked down the cigarette, tossed it into the harbor, and walked over to the boy.

The boy stiffened. The man, bony and now reeking of booze, sat down next to him. There was no space between them. The boy moved over. The man laughed. He offered the boy a cigarette. And the boy shook his head.

“No reason not to be friends.”

“What do you want?”

“Good to have a boy in charge,” he said. “You know. Like Tony.”

“Then keep Tony in charge.”

“Can’t have that.”

“Why?”

“ ’ Cause he’s weak,” the guard said. “He’s not like you. You showed him up.”

The boy swallowed. His hot breath turned to smoke in the cold harbor air. The guard smoked some more and then reached into the pocket of his dirty coat. He pulled out a pint of whiskey and put it into the boy’s hands. “This makes things easier.”

“I don’t want things to be easier.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “You do.”

He didn’t wait a beat before grabbing the boy by the scruff of the neck and sticking the neck of the bottle into the boy’s mouth. He felt the hot burn of the booze in his throat as he tried to knock it away. The man suddenly thought he’d had enough and yanked the bottle back. He laughed some and took a swig. The boy wiped his chin.

The boat kept on rocking. Somewhere on the other side of the harbor, people were going about things in Boston. Having normal lives. Doing normal things.

“It makes it easier,” the guard said. “The thing about you? I see you’re a lot like me.” Robocop swallowed a bit more and tucked the whiskey bottle into his oversized Army coat. The boy looked to the boat steps, the hard line of the ropes trying to keep everything close to the dock. The rope squeaked and ached with the pressure.

“Come on,” Robocop said. “I ain’t so bad.”

The older man reached out and touched the boy’s knee. He then gripped the back of his neck, squeezing hard with his big fat hand. The boy recoiled, jumped up, and jackrabbited off the boat. He leaped over the steps and onto the beaten dock. He tripped and fell, caught on a loose nail. But he was up again. You never stayed down.

Robocop yelled obscenities at him. He ran after him, off the dock, and onto the shore. The older man threw the bottle at him and it shattered in a million pieces. The boy was on the path toward the pods and then decided to break away and run toward the South Shore and into the grouping of trees weirdly rooted in the old landfill.

He ran fast, tried to keep his breathing under control. You kept moving. You didn’t stay down. You kept moving.

He couldn’t hear the yelling anymore.

There was only the wind breaking and fluttering the bare limbs of the trees and the crashing of the harbor surf. Jesus Christ. He was dead. The guy would kill him.

46

After Iris and I compared notes, I drove back to Boston. Iris was working on a story about conditions on Fortune Island while I followed the money trail from Bobby Talos Jr. to the pockets of Judge Joe Scali. Since I’d left Tampa, I had tried to get in touch with Sydney Bennett outside Ziggy Swatek’s office. I had left three messages at her Boston office and two at her home number. I said I had something important to tell her, knowing being told you were on a hit man’s punch list was something best done in person. I was pretty sure Hallmark didn’t make a greeting card for that purpose.

I tried again. The call went right to voice mail. Being a persistent investigator, I drove to her office in Brookline. Ziggy Swatek kept his Boston office in the heart of Brookline Village. The building was decidedly less grandiose than the beer-can building and was located on the second floor of a short brick building on Harvard Street.

I bought a corned-beef on rye at Michael’s and ate while I watched. I knew her car tag and her car, parked five spaces away. I didn’t really get bored until three hours later. The sandwich was gone, as were the chips and a pickle. I used my branch office, the closest Dunkin’, for the facilities and bought a coffee.

I listened to “Here and Now” with Robin Young. I watched the world stroll by in their heavy coats and ski hats. A woman in a white puffy coat and blue jeans walked a high-strung black Lab on a red leash. The woman had on aviator sunglasses and had a blond ponytail that fell the length of her back. The Lab bounded and jumped, grabbing the leash with its mouth, wanting to take the lead.

After nearly four hours, Sydney Bennett emerged from the office building, waited for traffic to pass, and then crossed Harvard Street to her car.

I waited until she’d backed out and then started mine. I followed her west on Route 9 for fifteen to twenty minutes. I kept a decent distance away from her Lexus, although she had no reason to know my vehicle. I kept out of sight more as a professional courtesy than anything.

I still had some cold coffee and drank it. I turned off the radio and turned on the windshield wipers, as it had started to rain. The rain was cold, the day was gray and miserable, and soon the roads would turn to ice. But I felt comfortable back in my native habitat.

Traffic was slow and sluggish as we passed the Brookline Reservoir. I knew she wasn’t headed home. I had her address in an apartment in the South End. I had resigned myself to the fact that I might be spending the day in Framingham or Worcester when she pulled into the Chestnut Hill Mall. Again, familiar turf. Susan had propped up the gross national product of Guatemala in those hallowed halls while I’d drunk beer at Charley’s.

Sadly, Charley’s was no more. And lately Susan had preferred dragging me around Copley Place.

Sydney parked near one of the Bloomingdale’s that bookended the mall. Since I was well versed on the turf, I knew this was the one that sold women’s clothes. I was good, but blending into the intimates collection might prove difficult.