Back Story (17 page)

"Can you actually drive that thing?" I said.

"Course I can," Hawk said. "Used one for a year once."

"Doing what?"

"Covert stuff," Hawk said. "In Burma."

"Everything you do should be covert," I said.

"This the third day we be here," Hawk said, "and we ain't seen nothing but some seagulls."

"I looked in that bird book," I said. "They are officially known as herring gulls."

"Hot damn," Hawk said.

He took another bite of his sandwich and another sip of coffee.

"Susan okay?" Hawk said.

"Yep. Quirk was there last night."

"What I like," he said, "is when I thinking 'bout Quirk marching over there to relieve Ty-Bop on guard duty."

"I'm just hoping Ty-Bop doesn't get a snootful of coke and shoot up West Cambridge."

"Ty-Bop be clean till we done," Hawk said. "How long we going to hang here?"

"Until she shows up or we think of something better," I said.

"That's how long I figured," Hawk said. "How's Susan taking to the security stuff."

"She's had to do it before."

"Kind of hard on her, ain't it."

"It is, but she thinks I'm worth it."

"Goddamn," Hawk said. "Think what I'd be worth."

"Hoo, hoo," I said.

"Hoo, hoo?"

"Here she comes," I said.

Hawk ate the last of his sandwich and finished his coffee. Then he turned onto his belly and snaked up the rock and lay beside me, looking over at Bonnie Czernak and her husband. They were in bathing suits. Bonnie carried a beach bag. The two men who came down with them set up a couple beach chairs for them. And they sat.

"That the husband?" Hawk said.

"Ziggy," I said.

"He sing reggae?" Hawk said.

"Not that Ziggy," I said.

Bonnie took a portable radio out of the beach bag and set it on the ground beside her chair and fiddled with it. In a moment, some rock music drifted over to us. Bonnie rubbed oil on herself and put opaque white shields over her eyes and lay back in her chair. Ziggy talked on his cell phone. The two bodyguards stood around under the trees and looked bored. Hawk and I lay behind the rock and took turns with the binoculars and were bored. Behind us, the Zodiac moved gently on its tether. The sun was clear and steady. The rocks were hot. On her reclining chair, her sun-dark skin slick with tanning oil, Bonnie fried in the sun.

"We don't get her pretty soon," Hawk said, "she be dead with melanoma."

"When she swims to the raft," I said.

"Burn, baby, burn," Hawk said.

At about quarter of three in the afternoon, when I was near turning into a barnacle, Bonnie stood, dropped her eye shields on the sand, walked to the water, splashed herself to get used to it, and then plunged in.

"Okay," I said to Hawk.

We slid down the rock and into the Zodiac. I hunched over the engine as if I were trying to fix it, and Hawk paddled us with one oar slowly around the rock and in toward the beach where Ziggy sat with the bodyguards. They'd seen me. But they hadn't seen Hawk, so I kept my face turned away, hunched over the engine, trying to get it started. Bonnie paid us very little heed as she swam toward the raft. She was a strong swimmer, and she looked good. But she kept her head up out of the water, so she wasn't much for speed. Susan swam the same way. It was about the hair.

"I think we're out of gas," Hawk shouted to the men on the shore.

"Well, this ain't a fucking gas station," Ziggy shouted back. He stayed seated. "Beat it."

"Just lemme use your cell," Hawk shouted. "I only got one oar. I can't row this sucker all the way around the Neck."

We were now between Bonnie and the shore.

"What part of fucking beat it don't you fucking understand," Ziggy shouted.

Bonnie pulled herself up on the raft and sort of rubbed the water off herself like Esther Williams. The two bodyguards came down to stand beside Ziggy and look menacing. One of them made a dismissive wave-away gesture. Hawk shrugged and turned the boat a little and began to paddle away, past the raft. He let the oar slip from his hand.

"Shit," he said loudly and stood up.

I stayed hunched over the big outboard. The motor had an electric start, off a heavy marine battery beneath it on the floor of the Zodiac. As we drifted next to the raft, Hawk stepped up onto it, picked up Bonnie around the waist, and stepped back into the Zodiac. I hit the electric start button and the motor roared and the boat jumped. Hawk fell over backward with Bonnie still clamped in his arms. On shore, the two bodyguards had their guns out but they couldn't shoot for fear of hitting Bonnie. Ziggy, too, was on his feet. He was yelling, and I think Bonnie was screaming, but the engine was too loud and I couldn't hear either of them.

"Who are you. I know you. You were at my house. What are you going to do. My father will kill you. What are you going to do to me. My father will find me. My father is going to kill you. " With one of us on each arm we ran Bonnie up the beach and stuffed her into the backseat of Hawk's car. I got in with her. Hawk got in the front and drove it away with all deliberate speed.

On the ride to Cambridge, she kept it up.

"You better not hurt me. If you touch me, my father will kill you. Why are you doing this to me. If you want money, my father will pay. My father has tons of money. "

The years of sun had not been kind to Bonnie's skin. It was deeply tanned and deeply weathered and rough with an infinity of small diamond-shaped wrinkles that you could only see if you were close. I was close. I didn't want her opening the door and jumping or lowering the window and screaming. I would have been pleased had she shut up, but it was, I supposed, one of the hazards of kidnapping.

We pulled into the driveway beside Susan's house and went past Junior's huge mass and up the back stairs to Susan's apartment. After he saw who we were, Junior showed no interest. I opened the back door with my key, and we went in. Pearl appeared from the bedroom, walking very low and growling and making very short barks until she saw that it was me. Then she bounded past Bonnie and jumped up as I'd often urged her not to do, put her paws on my shoulders, and gave sort of bitey kisses on the nose, some of which hurt. While I accepted my welcome from Pearl, Hawk sat Bonnie down in Susan's living room. It was almost five. Susan would be up from her last appointment in a little while.

"You'll be sorry," Bonnie said. "When my father finds you, you're going to be really, really sorry."

Pearl came bounding across the room and jumped up on the couch beside Bonnie. Bonnie screamed. Pearl sniffed at her face and Bonnie huddled into a ball. Hawk looked amused. He made a little clucking noise to Pearl and she jumped off the couch and went over to him and the two of them sat in the big armchair and Hawk patted her. The front door opened and Vinnie Morris came in with a gun. He looked at me and Hawk and put the gun away. He paid no attention to Bonnie.

"I heard people moving around up here," Vinnie said.

"Where's Ty-Bop?" I said.

"Out front."

"And you're inside."

"Senior man," Vinnie said.

I nodded at Bonnie.

"Now," I said to Vinnie, "might be the time for extra alertness."

"Sure," Vinnie said and went back downstairs.

"Would you like a drink?" I said to Bonnie.

"Like whisky?"

I nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Gimme some Chivas on the rocks."

I looked at Hawk. He grinned.

"Yassah, Boss," he said and shuffled off toward the kitchen where Susan kept her booze.

I got a straight chair and straddled it in front of Bonnie.

"Whaddya want with me, anyway?" Bonnie said. "You got any idea who I am. You got any idea what kinda trouble you got yourself into?"

"Yes," I said.

Hawk came back and handed Bonnie her drink. Holding the thick lowball glass in both hands, she took in a lot of it.

She didn't seem to mind that it wasn't Chivas Regal. Hawk looked at her for a moment and went back to the kitchen.

"So why don't you say something?" Bonnie said.

"Do you prefer Bonnie or Bunny?" I said.

She stared at me for a moment. "You came to my house," she said. "It was you that came, and Ziggy and the guys chased you off."

"I left in a dignified manner," I said. "Bonnie or Bunny?"

"Bonnie."

Hawk came back in with a bucket of ice and a nearly full bottle of Dewar's Scotch. He put both on the coffee table near her.

"Please," she said, "let me go. My father will give you a lot of money and, honest to God, I won't tell anybody."

Susan came in. We all waited while Pearl loped wildly around the room and jumped up on Susan, even when Susan asked her not to. Finally, she got calm enough for anyone to speak.

"Here she is," Susan said, looking at Bonnie.

"Here she is," I said.

"Am I now an accessory to kidnapping."

"I would guess, yes," I said.

Bonnie drank some more Scotch. Susan's arrival heartened her a little. The sisterhood is strong.

"Who are you?" she said.

"I'm Susan."

"What kind of place is this?"

Susan smiled. "This is my home," she said.

"Why'd they bring me here?"

"I would guess several reasons," Susan said. "People would probably not think to look for you here. If they did, there are several men here with guns. And I think there was the thought that I might be helpful in talking with you."

Bonnie's glass was empty. She added more Scotch.

Susan looked at me. "That about right?"

"On the money," I said.

"Talking to me?"

"Yes," I said.

"That's all you want?"

"I need to know some things," I said.

She drank some Scotch. Susan had sounded reasonable. Now I sounded reasonable. Hawk had brought her whisky. The whisky made her feel better.

"Like what?" she said.

"What happened to Abner Fancy?"

I could see her throat tighten. She stared at me without speaking.

"Shaka," I said.

Her voice had a squeezed sound when she spoke.

"My fa. who?"

"Your father?" I said.

She shook her head.

"Your father killed him, or had it done," I said.

"No."

"Bonnie," Susan said. "Did your father kill Abner because of you?"

Bonnie shook her head and drank some Scotch.

"Because you had a liaison with a black man?"

Bonnie kept shaking her head, her head down, looking at the floor.

"Because you produced a mulatto child?"

Bonnie's head came up and her eyes widened.

"Whom you gave away?" Susan said. "To Emily Gordon?"

"You and your mother have been paying Barry Gordon cover-up money for years," I said.

"It was support," she said. "For Daryl."

I nodded. Susan sat in an armchair across from Bonnie. I sat in front of her. Hawk leaned against the wall behind Susan, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes steady on Bonnie, his face without expression. Bonnie was still an okay-looking woman. She had spent too much time in the sun, and it had coarsened her skin. And she had spent too much time being Sonny's daughter and Ziggy's wife, and it had coarsened her soul. But I could see why Leon had considered her a hot little bitch.

"Who killed her?" I said.

"Who.?"

"Who killed Emily?"

"I don't know."

"You do," I said. "You were in the bank when it happened."

"I. " she drank some more Scotch. "I'm not going to talk about this."

"How about the white guy?"

"White guy?"

"In the bank?"

"Rob," she said. "He did it."

"Uh-huh? Where's Rob now?"

"I don't know."

"Shaka killed him," I said. "So that Rob wouldn't talk."

She drank some Scotch and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes," she said. "That's what happened."

"Shaka shot Rob," I said, "to keep Rob from confessing to the murder?"

She nodded again. She wasn't very bright, and the booze wasn't making her brighter. I shook my head.

"You killed her," I said.

"No," she said.

"Shaka was her lover. Rob was there on behalf of peace and love and an end to imperialist aggression. You used to be Shaka's honey and he knocked you up, then he dumped you for Emily. You shot her to get Shaka back."

Bonnie dropped her head again and began to cry.

"I can understand how that would feel," Susan said to her. "You loved him, bore him a child. Did you give the child away because he'd leave you if you didn't?"

Bonnie nodded without looking up, still crying.

"And then he took up with the woman who had the child."

Bonnie nodded again.

"Was he suddenly interested in the child?"

Nod. Susan smiled sadly.

"How awful," Susan said. "You gave away your child to be with Shaka, and the child became something that took him away from you."

Bonnie cried loudly now.

"For crissake," I said. "Lovers, children. You people passed each other around like Fritos."

"It was a different time," Susan said gently.

Bonnie raised her teary face and looked at Susan. "It was," she said. "It was different. And I loved him so much, and that little Jew bitch took him away from me and she used my own kid to do it."

"And you had no other choice," Susan said. "You had a gun and it was your chance."

"I loved him too much to let her have him."

"I understand," Susan said.

"She was gone, and the kid got sent back to Barry and it was me and Shaka again."

"And Daddy killed him," I said.

She dropped her drink on the floor. The noise made Pearl jump and slink in behind Susan's chair. Susan put her hand back automatically and patted Pearl. Bonnie put her face in both hands and doubled over and began to rock back and forth, gasping for breath between the huge sobs that made her whole body shake.

"And gave you to Ziggy," I said.

She couldn't speak, but she nodded. We all sat. No one said anything.

Finally I said, "We'll send you home. When you are able to, call your father, and let me speak to him."