Or maybe Murphy had turned over a new leaf and was working to help young wayward girls. Maybe he was up above the storefront right now taping a public service announcement about how to watch out for strangers and believe in yourself. Maybe Murphy was a complete turd but not the turd I was looking for. I still didn’t like the loose ends and what-ifs of the New York shooting. A payoff was temporary, but revenge was forever. I had the feeling that every person I’d spoken to about the murder was lying.
I still wanted to talk to Lela Lopes. I still needed to find out if there was a third man with Kinjo that night.
At first light, the big guy with the crew cut walked out onto the stairwell and smoked a cigarette. After a few minutes, another man joined him. I assumed it was Kevin Murphy, as Z had seen only one more guy. I didn’t have any binoculars with me but in my backseat had a Nikon with a pretty good zoom lens. I reached for it and zoomed in.
If it was Murphy, he in no way resembled the NBA player. This Kevin Murphy was white, pudgy, and very pale. He was shirtless, with a paunchy stomach that hung over his designer jeans. He had a wide, freckled face, jug ears, and brown hair swept back, with longish sideburns and a little tuft of hair below his lip. There was a big tattoo of some kind of animal on his back. It was hard to imagine anyone paying to see him naked.
He talked with the big guy. They pounded fists and he walked inside. Back to the salt mines.
The big guy flicked his cigarette away and walked down to the street and crossed over to the moving van. He climbed in, started the van, and disappeared for nearly an hour. When he returned and parked in the same spot by the insurance company, he had upgraded to a black Toyota 4Runner. At first I made no connection. But the car was dealership new and very out of place with the neighborhood. I took another sip of coffee and a few moments to recall Kinjo saying he’d been initially followed by a black Toyota 4Runner. This was not the same as saying you’d been followed by a silver 1921 Pierce-Arrow.
Still, it was a connection, however common.
The big guy crossed back over Dot Ave, lit a cigarette as he did so, and had finished it as he’d tramped up the steps and walked back inside.
I called Kinjo Heywood. He sounded as if he’d been asleep. But answered on the first ring.
“What was the car that followed you the first time?”
“Spenser?”
“Yep.”
“Whew,” Kinjo said. “Oh, man. It was a Toyota, I think.”
“I need you to think more,” I said. “What color?”
I recalled. But I wanted him to recall, too.
“Black,” he said. “New.”
“And the guy you pulled a gun on?”
“Man, we been through this before,” he said. “What’s up?”
“The driver,” I said. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “White guy. Kinda fat and had a haircut like he’d been in the Army or something. What’s up?”
40
At six a.m., Hawk joined me.
We walked up to the convenience store in early light and then bounded up the steps. At the metal door, Hawk tested the doorknob, nodded, and we moved quickly inside without knocking.
We both carried our guns of choice. Hawk with his .44. I carried the Smith & Wesson auto I saved for special occasions.
Kevin Murphy was seated on a black leather couch in white-hot stage lights. A woman kneeled between his legs, practicing method acting.
The big guy ran the camera. When we entered, he stepped away from the camera, just a digital on a tripod, and said, “What the fuck, man?”
The girl discontinued performing Shakespeare in the Park and got to her feet. She had on a red G-string. The room was large and open, an old storage area with a wood floor and exposed brick walls. There were old desks and old chairs stacked against the far wall.
“You must be Moose,” I said to the big guy.
“And this motherfucker is Jughead,” Hawk said. “All ears, no brains.”
“What the fuck?” Murphy said. He was completely naked, wearing only what looked like a platinum bicycle chain around his neck.
“Moose already asked that,” I said.
Hawk stepped over to a chair and tossed the girl a pink robe. She was blond, petite, in her mid-twenties. She slid into the robe without a word.
“Archie know about you and Betty?” I said.
“If you aren’t cops,” Murphy said. “You two are dead.”
“Kevin, please sit down and shut up,” I said. “And please cover yourself before I get sick.”
I found a wadded-up pair of jeans and threw them at him.
“We don’t have any money here,” Murphy said. “Whoever sent you fucked up. We don’t keep cash laying around.”
“Why were you following Kinjo Heywood?” I said.
“What?” Murphy said. He wore a cocky, big-mouth grin until Hawk slapped him hard across the face.
Moose took a step forward. I simply shook my head. He stayed in place by the girl.
“I never followed him.”
“Mr. Heywood pulled a gun on Moose,” I said. “You recall that, Moose?”
Moose looked to Murphy, his mouth hanging open. He turned back to me, trying to tighten his jaw and appear mean. The girl wrapped her arms around herself and bit her lower lip. Her mascara had run down her eyes and her forehead was shiny with sweat.
“So, yes,” I said.
“Where’s the kid?” Hawk said.
“What?”
Hawk slapped Murphy across the face and then punched him in the gut. Murphy fell to his knees. Hawk gripped a lot of his greasy hair and tilted his chin upward. “Where’s the kid?”
Moose and the girl stared, openmouthed. Moose probably always had an open mouth. He looked as if you’d need a shovel to find his IQ.
“So the fuck what?” Murphy said from his knees. “So the fuck what if I was following my old girlfriend? That doesn’t mean jack shit.”
“It means jack shit when her stepson is missing a week later.”
“I don’t know nothing about that.”
“You never turn on the TV, the radio, or look at your phone?” I said. “Yes, Kevin. You’re the only one in Boston that hasn’t heard the news.”
“I didn’t take the kid.”
“But you followed Cristal,” I said.
“That’s between me and Cristal.”
Hawk lifted a hand. Murphy flinched.
Hawk stepped back and smiled.
“It looks like you have a first-class operation here, Kevin,” I said. “The glamour is overwhelming. Cecil B. DeMille of Dot Ave.”
He pushed up off his knees and stood. We let him. “I make more money in one day than you probably do all year,” Murphy said.
“Probably,” I said. “But then again, if I had talent the size of a gherkin, I wouldn’t want to broadcast it.”
The distraught girl snorted. Kevin’s face turned bright red. He rubbed at the tuft of hair under his chin and sucked in his gut.
“You want me to throw ’em out, Kev?” Moose said.
“Yeah, you do that, Moose,” I said.
“Anytime,” Hawk said.
Moose wiped his face and nodded at us. His toughness had dissipated.
We all stood together in a tightly knit group under the hot stage lights. Kevin nodded to the camera. “It’s all there, dumbasses,” he said. “Trespassing, harassment. I’ll own Kinjo Heywood’s fucking black ass.”
“And a bigot, too.”
Hawk took a short breath and exhaled. Bored, he held the .44 at belt level.
“And now destruction of property,” I said. I walked over to the tripod and ripped out the SIM card from the camera. If it had been the old days, I would have ripped the film from the camera and torn the strips from the canister. Pulling a SIM card had less gravitas.