“Sure,” Hawk said. “He start snappin’ his fingers. Expect trouble.”
I took Columbus to where it connected with Blue Hill and then took Blue Hill south as it circled the park. The park was very big and had a lot of ball fields, a zoo, and a golf course. I cut across on Morton and found my way back again north on Forest Hills. We stopped at a Shell station to use a bathroom and get a couple coffees. There was no sense in going against an entire drug gang uncaffeinated.
We parked at the north entrance. Hawk walked around to the back of the Explorer and removed a Mossberg twelve-gauge. He had a specially made leather rig worn for such occasions and slipped the shotgun onto his side. I knew he had his .44 somewhere, along with a .22 pistol worn on his ankle, should all else fail.
We found the stone gate on Walnut and walked inside the park. The sky was a darker shade of slate and the rain had returned. The rain wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t exactly wonderful, either. It meant fewer walkers and joggers and people milling about. A decided advantage for the Outlaws.
Hawk and I walked down a narrow path cutting through the center of the Long Crouch Woods. We found the northern path, signs marking the way to the old bear dens, and followed.
“Fucking bears?” Hawk said.
“Old bear dens,” I said. “The bears have been moved.”
“Closest I ever get to a bear was a married woman’s rug,” Hawk said. “Her husband liked to shoot dangerous animals.”
Hawk wiped the rain from his face, his teeth white and beaming.
No one was in the woods that day. The woods and path were cold and still, bright yellow leaves littering the walkway. A few leaves shook loose in the light wind and rain and twirled down. We walked on. No one came out to us. No one approached us on the path. We kept on walking and moving and watching. In the distance, I spotted the big stone entrance to the old bear cages. I remembered coming here as a teenager with my father and the walkway and the bears. It was pretty much the way I recalled, except overgrown by weeds and ivy.
As we crested the top, three men approached us. They were young, light-skinned blacks, and dressed in traditional gangbanger wear. Low-hanging jeans, team jackets, and ball caps. The ball caps were brand-new Sox game caps, flat-billed and still boasting a 59Fifty sticker. All wore thick chains, gold and silver, and sported simple mustaches. They were hardened men, but not as old as a decent whiskey.
“You Hawk?” said a young guy with shoulder-length cornrows.
Hawk nodded.
“I heard of you,” he said.
“’Course you have.”
“I’m DeVeiga,” he said, not bothering to introduce his friends. Of course, Hawk didn’t introduce me, either.
One of his boys was light-skinned and short. The other was taller and of a darker complexion. The darker one wore earrings in both ears and a very unpleasant scowl as Hawk spoke to Jesus DeVeiga. I smiled at him, but he acted as if he did not notice.
“Your sister is dead,” Hawk said.
DeVeiga nodded.
“She tied in with Victor Lima?”
“Mr. Marcus said you’re cool,” DeVeiga said.
“Mr. Marcus knows his shit.”
“Yeah,” DeVeiga said. “Lela and Victor. They were together. Been together for a long time.”
Hawk stood there, right foot on the tallest step, back foot behind him, but still taller than DeVeiga and his crew. I stood off to the right, very aware of the gun on my hip and the time it would take to draw.
“Where’s the kid, Jesus?” Hawk said, pronouncing the name with a hard J.
DeVeiga stood his ground, his ball cap obscuring his eyes like a gunfighter in a Stetson. He nodded in thought and looked to Hawk. I smiled again at DeVeiga’s crew. No use in spreading a bad attitude for the day.
“Kid’s dead,” DeVeiga said.
I swallowed and took in a long breath.
“Who?” Hawk said.
“Like you said, Lima,” he said. “Him and his brother were Outlaws. But their mama wanted them out. Moved them to New York, tried to get them out of the life around here. Lela come to be with them. She was with Antonio but then with the brother when Antonio got killed. Then they come back to Boston. But this ain’t Outlaw stuff, man. This his own shit he swimming in. This gonna be a problem for us?”
Hawk nodded. “You bet, Jesus. You bet.”
I stepped forward. “Where’s Lima?” I said.
DeVeiga shook his head.
“Can you find him?”
He shrugged, not once looking at me. “That five mil for real?” he said.
“Kinjo Heywood says so,” I said. “You get his kid back.”
“Money wasn’t for finding the kid,” he said. “I heard the money was for killing who took him.”
“And that’s already started.”
“Somebody is hunting,” DeVeiga said. “Damn, Lela. She fucked up as soon as she hooked up with those boys. Should have come back home when Antonio was shot.”
Up behind DeVeiga and his men sat several large, rusted cages connected to failing brick walls. Beyond the cages was a large stone wall with a frieze of two bears caught on their hind legs in a sort of royal seal. The rain was coming down harder now, pinging off the bill of my ball cap, the gangbangers’ ball caps, and Hawk’s bald head. No one seemed to want to call it quits on account of the rain.
“You helping them?” Hawk said.
“Outlaws got no fucking business with folks kill a child,” DeVeiga said.
Hawk nodded, and DeVeiga turned to me. He stared at me and I stared back.
When the rifle cracked in the woods, I recoiled and ducked and DeVeiga spun and turned and hit the ground, toppling down a couple concrete steps. His boys fanned out, pulling automatics and firing wildly into the woods. Two more rifle shots sounded, and the kid with the double earrings was down, too. A large and ugly wound bloomed in his chest. I hopped the side of the stone steps, seeking cover. I had my .357 out, leveled on the concrete wall and firing toward the shots.
The firing stopped. I heard DeVeiga screaming from the top of the steps. I heard my own breath and the patter of rain from the trees. Hawk called out to me, and I called back. Everything was still and silent. I did not move from the wall. I steadied my breath and eased up along the rock barrier against the staircase and raised the gun.
Two more quick rifle shots. Stone and concrete flew upward. The sound of Hawk’s .44 boomed like a cannon into the woods. I looked up in time to see Hawk pulling Jesus DeVeiga from the top of the steps and behind the wall. I fired to give them cover.
The rifle sounded twice more and then went quiet again.
60
DeVeiga had been shot in the upper chest. Hawk removed his jacket and used it as a compress on the wound. One of DeVeiga’s men was dead. The other had run for the woods. I wasn’t sure if he’d made it or not.
There seemed to be only one shooter taking careful aim from somewhere in the thick woods below the old stone cages. I could jump up again and fire off a few rounds. But it wouldn’t do any good. I had absolutely no idea, beyond the sound of the shot, where the shooter had set up.
If I tried to run from the cover of the stone steps, I’d have a nice big target on my back. I could call the cops and wait. But that would give the shooter time to move through the woods and gain a better position. My best chance was to leave Hawk and DeVeiga and get north, beyond the back of the cages, and circle around to the shooter. The only trouble came from about twenty yards of open ground to the cages. I thought about yelling “time out” but figured the bad guy or guys to be not all that sporting.
Instead I looked to Hawk and nodded to the old cages. He nodded back, pressing the wadded-up jacket into DeVeiga’s chest. I made it down onto my belly, and snake-crawled inch by inch on the mud and leaves and trash and debris. The rain came on even harder now, and I continued to crawl, stomach and thighs and chest pressed to the ground. Two shots cracked again from the woods. Still, I was confident I could make it without being seen, until the last eight to ten yards, when my plan was to run like hell to the stone wall.