Robert B. Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me Read online

  I crossed my legs at the ankles and leaned forward in a half-hearted stretch. Hawk and I had performed many walking lunges that morning, and it felt good to hang there for a moment.

  “Can you ask her to meet you?” Mattie said.

  “No.”

  “Can you ask her to meet us?” I said.

  “I don’t want to get in trouble,” she said. “I just want all this to go away. When I think about that man and what he was doing, I want to throw up. I got a boyfriend. I didn’t even tell him. He’d probably think I was a whore, too.”

  “Please don’t say that,” I said.

  Chloe nodded.

  “Can you tell Debbie you know another girl who’s interested?” Mattie said.

  I looked to Mattie and shook my head. Mattie, being Mattie, ignored me. I reached for Pearl and slipped the harness around her skinny brown body. She rewarded me with more kisses and a healthy dose of puppy breath.

  “I know she’s got a summer job at an ice-cream shop at the bottom of Pru Center. That’s where we first talked about giving massages and how much it would pay. I tried to get on at the food court but they weren’t hiring.”

  “Tell her you’re sorry you got nervous, but you have a friend who’s ready to make some fast money,” Mattie said. “And tell her I’m seventeen.”

  “I don’t know, Mattie,” Chloe said. “What if she recognizes you?”

  “It won’t matter,” Mattie said.

  Chloe placed her hands on her hips and stared out onto the beach, where some kids had started a pickup game of volleyball. They laughed and played, someone setting up a large speaker beside some beach towels. Endless summer.

  “Okay,” Chloe said, nodding. “But watch yourself, Mattie Sullivan. Something about this man. I don’t know. He was friendly at first. But something in him changed. He had a look, watching me as he took the towel off. I don’t know. It was weird. Like an animal. It looked as if he wanted to hurt me. Hurt me real bad.”

  “No one’s hurting you,” I said. “Ever.”

  Chloe looked to me and then back to Mattie. “This guy really do all those things you said?”

  “Leaping tall buildings in a single bound?” I said. “Outracing locomotives?”

  Mattie shrugged. “Yep,” she said. “I don’t want to say too much. It always goes to his head.”

  8

  Two days later, I knocked off work and walked around the corner to join Wayne Cosgrove for a quick drink at Davio’s. Wayne was late as usual, so I started early with a tall Allagash White. I’d yet to break the foamy head when Mattie sauntered in and took a seat beside me at the bar.

  “Startin’ a little early,” she said.

  I eyed the beer, then looked over to Mattie. “Thank God,” I said. “You caught me just in time. I was about to chug this entire pint.”

  “You could at least wait until five. Or until you got home to let Pearl out.”

  “Pearl’s with Susan,” I said. “I’m on my own tonight.”

  “Good,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m present in both mind and spirit.”

  “Busy?”

  “As a beaver.”

  “You don’t look busy.”

  I took a long sip of cold beer. “I spent half the day checking out our new pal, Greebel,” I said.

  “And?”

  “He’s a creep, too.”

  “And?”

  “And I found no mention of a specialty in working with foot-massage enthusiasts.”

  “What about the other half of your day?”

  I shrugged. “Background work on some cops for a defense case for Rita Fiore.”

  “Checking out the cops?”

  “Some cops,” I said, “are like Belson and Quirk.”

  “And others.”

  “Others,” I said, “not so much.”

  “I think that Rita Fiore has the hots for you.”

  “Shocking,” I said, doing a subtle Sean Connery. “Positively shocking.”

  I drained a little bit more of the beer, the foamy head soon gone. Little bubbles rose up and broke the surface as the bartender placed a bowl of mixed nuts on the bar. I decided I might never leave.

  “I found Debbie Delgado,” she said. “I waited all day until she came on at that ice-cream shop at Pru Center. I went up, ordered a strawberry cone, and basically shot the shit with her until some customers came up. I told her when she got a break, I wanted to talk with her about maybe hooking me up with her rich friends.”

  It was early evening at Davio’s, and much of the dining room was empty. The large U-shaped bar had just started to fill up with the office crowd. Lots of men in loose ties speaking with women in sleeveless silk tops. I liked being among the office crowd after work. Their exasperated faces made me recall why I did what I did.

  The bartender returned. Mattie ordered a Coke without ice. The bartender left, and I nodded at her excellent selection.

  Mattie picked up a cocktail napkin and began to play with the edges. She had on jeans and her Sox windbreaker, hair pulled into a ponytail and her face scrubbed of any makeup. She looked as wholesome as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

  The bartender set down the Coke and walked away.

  “I waited around for like an hour, and finally Debbie comes out and sits with me in the food court,” Mattie said. “I tell her that I’ve heard that she’s got some kind of connection with a rich guy who likes to get his feet rubbed. Actually, I didn’t say feet. I just said some rich guy that likes massages. And Debbie stopped me right there. She said I wasn’t exactly the type. And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And she says, ‘You’re way too old.’”

  “You are ancient.”

  “I asked her how young are we talking,” Mattie said. “And Debbie says, ‘the younger the better.’ Can you believe that crap? The younger the better? I didn’t know what to say and just blurted out that that was pretty sick. And Debbie was like it was no big deal. She says the man just liked fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Debbie said if I knew some girls who might be interested to let her know,” Mattie said. “She says she got two hundred bucks with each new girl. And if I brought some good ones to her, we could split the money.”

  “Did she know what had happened to Chloe?” I said.

  “If she did, she didn’t mention it,” Mattie said. “I asked her if she didn’t think the whole thing was pervy. She said the guy was super-rich, like crazy rich, and real stressed out. She said young girls made him feel like a kid again. It relaxed him. Like a sleepover or something. It was all real clean. Pillow fights and gossip and all that. Debbie says she did it once or twice and that it was no biggie.”

  “Did you find out his name?”

  “I asked,” Mattie said. “But she wouldn’t tell me. I told her that he sounded like a fucking child molester. I said that if you’re over eighteen, that’s your own business. But kids, little girls, got no reason to be around some weird old man.”

  “And how did she reply?”

  “She said I needed to grow the fuck up,” Mattie said. “That the world wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. She said a man like this could change your life. He knew people. Powerful rich people that could make shit happen with the snap of their fingers.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The rich are different.”

  I’d been studying the menu, contemplating a lobster roll with fries. If I didn’t eat now, I’d have to stop by the Public Market on the way home. But if I did eat now, I’d be fully sustained for the evening. That way I could focus more on sipping Johnnie Walker on ice while I watched The Magnificent Seven on TCM. I’d seen the movie a hundred times and looked forward to a hundred more.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “There are other ways to find this guy.”

  “Would
you hold on one second?” Mattie said. “Christ. Let me finish.”

  I turned toward her on the barstool. “Do I sense dogged determination?”

  “Duh,” Mattie said. “I said screw it, took the T back to Southie, and found her sister, Sandy. I should’ve just gone to Sandy first. We go way back. To Gates of Heaven. To middle and high school. Both Sandy’s younger sisters are fuckups. Sandy’s been going to Bunker Hill when she’s not working. Studying to be a nurse. Got a good head on her shoulders.”

  “Did she know about Debbie’s new friend?”

  “Nope,” Mattie said. “But she knew something was wrong. She said Debbie had been acting weird and bragging about having all this extra money. Like a shit ton of money. She knew that money wasn’t coming from slinging ice-cream cones. Sandy had seen Debbie out with some rich lady. Drives a fancy car, clothes outta Newbury Street window, lots of jewelry.”

  “A woman of means.”

  “Sandy says she had a British accent, too,” Mattie said. “She doesn’t know her name, but Sandy thinks Debbie has been working for the woman as a personal assistant. Running errands. Fetching coffee. Said it was her side hustle on her days off.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Bet your ass, hmm,” Mattie said. “Chloe said the woman at the club had a funny accent. Right? She’d met the woman when she got the instruction on the massage and the cash.”

  “So all we have to do now is catch Debbie with this lady of means,” I said. “And then hopefully connect this woman to Mr. Feet.”

  “Really, Spenser?” Mattie said. “I’m like five steps ahead of you.”

  “It’s almost as if you’d been trained by a professional,” I said.

  “To add a little pressure,” Mattie said, “I told her about what happened with Chloe. How the guy acted like he wanted a massage but then pulled off the sheet and started going to town. I thought Sandy might puke. She promises she’ll call when Debbie’s back with this woman.”

  “How often are they together?”

  “Sandy says Debbie gets a ride home from her at least twice a week,” Mattie said. “Hey. Tonight might be the night. I’ll let you know. The Delgados live over on Fourth and G. I’ll text you the address if I hear anything. What do you think? You think Susan will let you out of the house to come play?”

  “I went to the woods because I wished to live differently.”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  I tilted my head and nodded. “Yes.”

  Mattie left, nearly bumping into Wayne Cosgrove on the way out. Each one unaware of the other’s significance in my life. I waved to Wayne and ordered the lobster roll with fries. And another Allagash.

  Stakeouts gave me no pleasure on an empty stomach.

  9

  “You come back much?” I said.

  “Not much to come back to,” Mattie said. “My sisters would rather take the T into town and stay with me. When they graduate, they’ll be long gone from here. Southie ain’t Southie anymore. It’s Condoville for rich dipwads.”

  “Glad I’m not rich,” I said.

  “Or a dipwad,” Mattie said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

  It was dark, and we sat in the front seat of my Land Cruiser watching the twin doors of a triple-decker duplex in South Boston. The building needed paint and new windows and stood out on Fourth Street, where most of the old houses were either gutted and renovated or replaced with modern-looking condos. Mattie was right. The Old Southie of corner stores and dive bars was tougher to find than an authentic accent in The Departed. Many of those who’d grown up here could no longer afford it.

  “What about your grandmother?”

  “You know she’s been sober four years now,” Mattie said. “Can you believe it? But that life. That aged her a lot. She’s got a lot of health problems. Diabetic. Can’t walk across the street without losing her breath. You can’t live on cigarettes and whiskey.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  Mattie nodded.

  “Ever hear from Mickey Green?” I said.

  “Nah,” she said. “I heard he moved to Florida.”

  “He owes you,” I said. “You were the only one who believed him. If it weren’t for you, he’d still be in the can.”

  “I didn’t care as much for him as I did getting the scumbag who killed my mom.”

  “You did great.”

  Sitting in the passenger seat, hidden in shadow, Mattie nodded again. I leaned back in the seat, the windows down. The street was dark except for the intermittent tall lamps and lights in windows. No one passed, and no one paid us any attention. We’d been there for forty-five minutes. I knew I’d made the correct decision about the lobster roll.

  “Chloe may have been stupid about money, but she didn’t deserve to see that shit.”

  “Nobody does.”

  “I remember when I was a kid getting a bad feeling from this priest who used to come around the projects,” she said. “He ran some kind of youth program. Board games and watching movies and all that. After-school bullshit. You know. He used to always knock on my door and ask my mom if I wanted to join him and the other kids. And my mom always shut the door in his face. She said the man had the devil in his eyes and she’d seen it before.”

  “Your mom knew.”

  “Yeah,” Mattie said. “But once, I heard this priest was taking a bunch of kids to the zoo. And my mom wouldn’t let me go. I was mad and said screw it and decided to go anyway.”

  A city electric truck rumbled past, nearly taking off my side-view mirror, and then turned down G Street. It was very dark and quiet again. I heard a dog barking far in the distance, making me think of Pearl and wonder how she was doing with Susan.

  “The priest had this big black car,” she said. “But when I met him at the front of the projects, it was just him. I asked the priest if I’d gotten there early, and he acted like he’d already been to the zoo, dropped off the other kids, and come back for me. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he opened up the door. Like my mom said, something was wrong with his eyes. His skin was also real white, like someone who never went outside. So white you could almost see through him.”

  “Translucent.”

  “Sure,” Mattie said. “Anyway. He was sweating and smelled like bathrooms and old closets at Gates of Heaven. Like he’d crawled out of one and come for me. I got real nervous, told him I had to get back home, and ran all the way back to my apartment. Two weeks later, I found out he’d been watching some girls change into their swimsuits. He was reported, they canceled the after-school thing, and I never saw him again.”

  “Sometimes you just know.”

  “Is that something you’re born with?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I think the older I get, the better I am at reading people. Sometimes I’m wrong. But more often I’m right.”

  “Like if someone is lying.”

  “Lying is tough,” I said. “Sometimes people are such good liars they believe it themselves.”

  “But you know when someone wants to do you harm.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I usually know when they aim the gun at me.”

  “Smartass,” Mattie said. “You know what I mean.”

  “Sure,” I said. “You can see it in their eyes or the way they hold themselves. Men often stiffen up when they react to you. Like dogs. You need to develop a sense of awareness when you’re in a bad place with bad people. Realize it may come at you from any side or all sides all at once.”

  “How come you didn’t like being a cop?” she said. “I bet you were a good cop.”

  I shrugged. A pair of headlights appeared far off in my rearview mirror. We both watched the car come up fast and then disappear into the distance. A few seconds later, another turned behind us and moved slowly past my window.

  “I liked being a co
p,” I said. “I didn’t like taking orders.”

  “And you like working for yourself.”

  I nodded.

  “Maybe being a cop wouldn’t be so bad,” Mattie said. “The guy who came to talk to me after my mother was killed was stand-up. The detectives that came later wouldn’t listen. But the guy on patrol stayed with me and my sisters until my grandmother got there. In the same way I got the bad feeling about the priest, I had a good feeling about this cop. Even though my world had just been tossed upside down, he made me feel like everything was going to be okay. That I would live through this. You know? That’s something else.”

  “Love all,” I said. “Trust a few.”

  “You love all?”

  “Maybe not all,” I said. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

  The second car stopped in front of the duplex. The side door opened and a young woman in a white hoodie got out. She headed up the steps, showing herself under a bright porch light, and pulled out some keys to unlock the door.

  “That’s Debbie.”

  “Nice car.”

  It was some type of Mercedes coupe with the top up. We were too far to see the license plate or who was inside.

  “Can I say, ‘Follow that car’?” Mattie said.

  “Please do.”

  10

  The car was registered to a woman named Patricia Palmer. But it didn’t take too many strokes of the keyboard the next morning to learn she went by Poppy. I’d clicked through so many party photos of Poppy Palmer on the Boston scene that I started to feel underdressed.

  She was forty-three, born in Surrey, England, and operated some type of consulting company not far from the Quincy Market. It didn’t appear she had ever been sued. Or arrested. I found a bland and vague company website that told me only that she worked with many Fortune 500 companies. Doing what, I had no idea. She was thin but muscular, with severe, somewhat masculine features and short black hair and black eyes. She kept constant company with men in tuxes and women in sequins.

  In every photo, she seemed to be having a hell of a time lifting a champagne glass to fight illiteracy, poverty, cancer, blindness, hunger, domestic violence, and animal abuse. I didn’t see Save the Whales, but maybe I hadn’t been at it long enough.