Todd Robinson - The Hard Bounce

“That’s why I’m fucking worried. At least with us scumbags, you can see us coming.”

He had a point.

Kelly Reese got out of the front passenger side and opened the rear door for me.

“Ooh, full service?” I said, smiling with the old charm turned up to eleven. She didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken. I stopped and leaned over the top of the door. “See, normally when I give the ladies my young Connery-esque grin, they smother me with thrown panties. You could at least say hello.”

“Hello.” All business and colder than a welldigger’s arse.

Ah Boo, you old hound dog, you.

Fuck it. One small step for man, one giant leap into the shit pile. I climbed into the car. Kelly shut the door and put herself back in front.

The car was upholstered in black leather softer than milk. Smelled nice too, like a new jacket. It wasn’t a limo, but a smoked Plexiglas partition divided the front and rear like in a gypsy cab, sans the money chute. If there was any conversation up front, I couldn’t hear it. I tapped “shave and a haircut.” The divider rolled down a couple inches. I could only see the tops of Kelly’s and Barnes’s haircuts.

“What?” Barnes grumbled. Nice to know we were still buddies.

“You’ve been working this,” I said to the crack, “am I right?”

“What?”

“Trying to find her yourself.”

Silence.

“Ms. Reese there told me the kid’s been gone a week. I’m gonna assume her family noticed before yesterday.”

“You’re a fucking genius.”

“So am I also correct in assuming you’ve fallen flat on your ass?”

He rolled the Plexiglas back up. I looked out the window. The car was turning off Commonwealth and getting on Storrow Drive heading east. After a couple miles, Barnes pulled off at South Boston, driving toward the harbor.

I won’t go into details on the rest of the drive, but in case you didn’t already know, Boston’s streets are a wheelman’s wet dream. Unlike in cities that were actually designed, Boston’s planners simply paved over the old horse trails. There’s never a simple route from point A to B. To get to B, you have to turn toward point N, bear left, head north past point square root of 173, back to N, then ask directions.

The car came to a final stop on Atlantic Avenue. Rows of converted industrial warehouse lofts faced the skyscrapers by the harbor. The street was empty, most of the offices closed up and lights off for the night.

We sat for a couple minutes, engine idling. I rapped on the Plexi again. The partition came down less this time. No friendly “what” either.

“Gotta suck to be that close. I mean, she was in The Cellar. Literally just minutes-”

Just before the crack disappeared again, I could have sworn I saw veins bulging in Barnes’s ears. I was driving him batshit, but he still wasn’t going to give anything away.

Barnes shut the ignition and unlocked the doors. Until then, I hadn’t realized I was locked in. The lock pulls fell completely into the hole when they were engaged. That bugged me. I don’t like knowing flight isn’t an option, even if I find out after the fact.

Fuck, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t know flight if I fell off a cliff and grew wings.

I opened the door and got out. Another black sedan sat idling in front of us.

Showtime.

Barnes opened the door to one of the loft complexes. Kelly was close behind him. I lagged back a bit. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what would put those two together in a zip code, much less connect them to the girl.

I gave the names on the door buzzer a quick look-see, in case I needed to know later. Loft one was scratched off. Two was Carbon Graphics. Three, David Pfeiffer Photography. Four through six were for Infonet Streaming. None of the names meant anything to me. Barnes walked to door number one.

The loft with no listing.

Perfect.

The loft was cavernous, dimly lit, and very empty. A painter had used it at one point, but not in a while. Dried paint in varying hues was smeared along the floor. Bolts of canvas stood by the door, and paint cans covered in thick dust sat next to a mural that read Andrew Lipp-Murals and Painting Gallery . This detective shit wasn’t going to be all that hard. Not with my steel trap of a mind.

Kelly and Barnes headed toward a lone man silhouetted in the yellow streetlamp light coming through large windows facing the street. He wore a dark suit that looked tailored for his broad shoulders. I didn’t recognize him from the suit, the salt and pepper crewcut, or his ass, which were all I could see. Then he turned and the gears clicked into place, even if the machinery wasn’t running yet.

I suddenly knew the reason for the secrecy and hush-hush.

And it was a fucking doozy.

“Mr. Donnelly,” I said, extending a hand that had gone clammy.

“You must be William Malone,” Donnelly said in a rich bass, taking my hand in his own. His grip was firm and strong. I suddenly worried about the moistness and limp weight of my own. Jack Donnelly does a lot of hand shaking. I’m more of a smack on the back or punch in the arm kind of guy.

“You know who I am.” It was a statement.

“I pick up a newspaper now and then.” And on the occasions that I did, Jack Donnelly would inevitably be in there, often on the front. Big Jack Donnelly they called him.

District Attorney Jack Donnelly.

Mayoral candidate, district attorney, Big Jack Donnelly.

“Then you understand the sensitivity of the… issue with my daughter. The reason behind all of this ‘cloak and dagger bullshit.’”

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand the papers would go ballistic if they knew the frontrunner for the mayor’s seat misplaced his young daughter.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, but didn’t bite at my snark. “She didn’t come home from her theater camp a week ago.”

“You send her to theater camp?”

Donnelly shook his head, confused. “Yes. Why?”

“And you’re wondering why she ran away?”

Donnelly’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, but he took my jab right in stride. “May I continue?”

“Please.”

“I’ve neither seen nor heard from her since. Mr. Barnes and Ms. Reese informed me that you actually saw my daughter yesterday afternoon.”

“She was at the club where I work.”

“You know that she’s underage.”

“It was an all-ages show. No alcohol.”

What the fadge? Just like that, he’d put me on the defensive.

I lit a smoke, trying to head off my simmering temper. “Look, I’m not an asshole, Mr. Donnelly. You’re the DA. You’ve got as much mojo in this town as anybody if you need somebody found.”

He nodded.

“Your daughter’s been gone a week. That means I’m not your number-one candidate to head the search party. Now, I’m sure Barnes here dusted off the old badge and came up zero. Maybe a few of your other buddies around the force gave it a shot, too. Thing is? They all stink of cop. Cop walks into a location where cops aren’t in the highest regard-which, frankly, seems to be every place your girl is hanging-nobody would tell them shit if they stepped in it. I’m guessing you figured that much out and that’s why you sent the piece of ass to talk to me first instead of Barnes.” I waggled my finger at Kelly, but kept my attention on Donnelly. “You knew I wouldn’t have a thing to say to him either.”

Silence.

I waited, wondering if I’d pushed too hard.

Donnelly rolled his neck like a prizefighter, as if his necktie was suddenly too tight. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Malone in private for a moment.”

“Jack…” Barnes was definitely in favor of Plan B, dumping my carcass off the Tobin Bridge.