The Sox game was on, and I watched while I waited for Henry to close up. I had already asked the bartender about Z. She said she had never seen a real-life Indian except in movies. I asked which movies, and she said The Searchers. We talked about The Searchers for a while.
I drank the beer very slowly. A handful of patrons hustled in and out, their jackets and hats soaked from the rain. The Sox were dry in Toronto, down in the bottom of the eighth.
The waitress smiled brightly and removed my empty plate. She brought me a new Sam Adams without being asked.
I had a few sips and my cell buzzed. Unable to hear much in crowded spots, I took the call outside on the pedestrian mall. The rain swept across the old brick street, but it was quiet.
“Okay,” Fortunato said. “I made it to the clerk’s office and stuck around till they closed. This’ll all be on the bill. But it takes time, this stuff.”
“Of course.”
“And now I’m on the other side of town,” Fortunato said. “And I had to grab a sandwich. If I had been by my office, I wouldn’t need to go and get a fucking sandwich.”
“Naturally.”
“Okay,” Fortunato said. “You ready, or you want me to call back?”
“I am all ears.”
“So I went looking for any civil suits,” Fortunato said. “I cross-referenced anything with Rachel and Rick Weinberg or that broad you mentioned.”
“Jemma Fraser.”
“Right,” he said. “Her. I also had a list of all the known corporations Weinberg operated in Nevada.”
“And.”
“And I didn’t get jack,” he said. “There was some bullshit from a knucklehead who’d run up two hundred grand at Weinberg’s casino and now claims he was Weinberg’s guest. Basically he stiffed the joint and wants Weinberg to pay him or some crap.”
“So,” I said. “No lawsuits from Rachel Weinberg. No recent suits against the board of directors or against Jemma Fraser. I’m looking for something with these women trying to get more from the will.”
“I didn’t see nothin’ like that. I went back six months before they turned off the lights on me. You want me to head back tomorrow?”
“Why not?”
There was an old-fashioned iron street clock in front of the bar. If the old clock was right, it was nearly nine o’clock. Henry would be back soon.
“The only thing I saw with both the Weinbergs was motions filed in their divorce.”
“Excuse me?”
“Rick Weinberg filed two weeks ago.”
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.”
“I thought you were working for her?”
“I was.”
“And she hadn’t told you?”
“Nope. You said Rick filed it?”
“I wouldn’t want to cross the daughter of old man Polizzi,” Fortunato said. “Do you know who her old man was?”
“A noted Las Vegas philanthropist?”
“Yeah, sure,” Fortunato said. “Christ, Spenser. I would have charged you double if I’d known Weinberg’s wife was a fucking Polizzi.”
“I guess she didn’t advertise.”
“You want me to fax it to your office?” he said. “I made copies of this and of the other thing with the deadbeat.”
I thought about what I’d learned from Healy about the dead men in Chelsea. “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.”
“You said that already, chief.”
“I feel like saying it again.”
“The sandwich wasn’t much,” he said. “But don’t go nuts when you see it was eighteen bucks.”
“Go get yourself a steak dinner and a bottle of red,” I said. “On me.”
I spotted Henry coming down Clinton Street, flags American and otherwise popping in the wind. He was still dressed in white workout clothes but had on a ball cap. I told Fortunato I’d call him back.
“Anything?” Henry said.
“Nothing on Z,” I said. “Go inside and get a beer. I’ll be right behind you.”
Henry shrugged and walked inside. I called Healy on his cell.
“This better be worth it,” Healy said. “I don’t just hand out my personal cell for the hell of it.”
“Any luck with those phone records?”
“God’s smiling on you today. We got them at lunch and finished them up a few hours later. Lundquist and I both read them. Couldn’t see jack shit. Bunch of crazy texts. Nothing jumped out.”
“Can I see them tonight?”
“Jesus,” Healy said. “You do realize I have a life.”
“Thirty minutes?”
“Okay, okay,” Healy said. “Christ. Meet you at 1010. So where’s the fire?”
“Rick Weinberg filed for divorce two weeks ago.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll bring you the filing,” I said.
Healy was quiet for a long while. “Christ.”
“Anything coming back to you about those texts now?”
“Rachel Weinberg uses a lot of colorful language.”
“Nothing else?”
“Like she threatened to cut off his fucking head?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like that.”
“Not that I recall.”
“What about between Jemma Fraser and Weinberg?”
“Some dirty shit,” Healy said. “But nothing illegal in Massachusetts.”
“Ms. Fraser seems to have dropped off the face of the earth with my former apprentice,” I said.
“Maybe they took off to Tahiti and he’s drinking mai tais and getting laid.”
“Susan suggested the very thing.”
“He’s a big, tough guy, Spenser,” Healy said. “I bet he’s just trying to lay low with this woman till it’s safe. She’s got a dead boss, an attempted kidnapping with one of the guys dead. Not to mention the two sluggers who got whacked who may have been coming for her, too. I wouldn’t mind being locked up with her for a few days.”
“He would call.”
“This divorce thing doesn’t crystallize it.”
“Maybe not.”
“Did he say he’d be off the grid?” Healy said.
“Yep.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
I tucked the cell back into my pocket. The pedestrian mall had emptied. I stood alone in the rain. Everything oddly silent and hushed.
64
IT WAS PAST ELEVEN when I called Lewis Blanchard and asked if he could meet me. He sounded sleepy but agreed. I waited for him on a park bench in the Public Garden, halfway between my apartment and the Four Seasons. The rain had stopped, but I brought an umbrella anyway, along with my .38 and the thick, unmarked envelope Healy had handed me in the parking lot of 1010 Commonwealth.
At night, the Garden was green and vibrant in the glow of the streetlamps. The tulips wavered in the soft wind, dappled with moisture, air smelling of fresh-cut grass and rich wet earth. The swan boats had been docked for the night, and in the near distance, a trickle of people walking home from bars and restaurants crossed over the lagoon bridge. Blanchard appeared, wearing a tan raincoat, unshaven and bleary-eyed.
“Couldn’t this wait?” he said.
I asked him to take a seat. Cordial. The bench was wet, but we both wore long coats and were tougher than the rain.
“Would’ve been nice to know about the divorce,” I said.
He rubbed his bristled jaw and leaned back. He actually slumped farther into the bench, letting out air like a deflated balloon. “Why?” he said. “It was nobody’s fucking business. And with Rick dead, it never happened.”
“It would’ve come out sooner or later.”
“Sure,” he said. “But why bring it out in the middle of this circus?”
“Of course,” I said.