“You don’t like Beth,” I said.
“Good call,” Zel said.
“I’m a trained detective,” I said.
“No,” Zel said. “I don’t like her.”
“Because?”
“Because I kind of liked Chet.”
“And she cheated on him,” I said.
“She didn’t give him no respect,” Zel said.
I nodded.
“Boo like her?” I said.
Zel looked at me sharply.
“Why?”
“He had a confrontation with her Monday,” I said. “Outside her house.”
“Shit!” Zel said.
He poured some sherry wine over the sausage and peppers and watched it boil up briefly and then start to cook away. He lowered the heat to simmer, then turned from the stove and went to the refrigerator and got a bottle of beer for himself and another one for me. He put mine on the table in front of me and went and leaned on the counter near the stove. He drank some of his beer and looked at me.
“Boo ain’t right,” he said. “We both know that.”
I nodded.
“But like I said, he’s forty-two years old. I try to look out for him, but… I can’t treat him like a little kid.”
“He’d know it?” I said.
“It would be disrespectful,” Zel said.
I nodded.
“But…”
Zel drank some more beer and checked his cooking.
“But Boo can’t do time,” Zel said. “He’s okay if I’m with him, but if I ain’t, he can’t stand close places.”
“Claustrophobic?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what he is, claustrophobic. ’Less I’m with him, he can’t ride an elevator. Can’t go in the subway if it’s crowded. Has to leave the window open in his room a crack, no matter how cold it is.”
“But he’s all right if he’s with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you worried about him doing time?” I said.
Zel checked his cooking again and shut off the heat under his pan.
“You ain’t here to sell him magazine subscriptions,” Zel said.
“You know why he would be having an argument with Beth Jackson?” I said.
Zel got another beer from the refrigerator. He held one toward me. I shook my head.
“Another thing,” Zel said, “about Boo. He gotta be a tough guy. It’s all he ever had, being a tough guy.”
“And he’s not so good at that,” I said.
“Not against somebody like you,” Zel said. “But for Boo, it almost don’t matter if he wins. He gotta fight, you know? He wins, or he shows he can take it. Either way, he gotta be a tough guy.”
Zel drank some beer.
“All he got,” Zel said. “He does time, he’ll be scared, and he can’t stand to be scared, so he’ll be a tough guy and he’ll get hurt bad. Don’t matter how tough you are. Inside, they can break you.”
“You’ve been inside,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And Boo,” I said.
“What’s made him so… odd,” Zel said. “I mean, he started out with a lot of problems, and he was always kinda slow. But time in made all of it much worse.”
“You know what he’s doing with Beth Jackson?” I said.
“No.”
“You know who killed Chet Jackson and Estelle Gallagher?”
“No.”
“You think Boo was involved?” I said.
“Boo’s mostly a slugger,” Zel said.
“He had a gun when I was here last,” I said.
Zel nodded.
“So you think he was involved?” I said.
“No.”
“If he was, I’m gonna find it out,” I said.
“He wasn’t,” Zel said. “I’d know.”
“I think he was,” I said.
Zel nodded.
“He can’t do no time,” Zel said.
Chapter 64
VINNIE CALLED ME at home from his cell phone. It was nine-eleven at night. I was watching the Celtics game.
“You might want to know this,” he said.
“I might,” I said.
I muted the sound on the television.
“Been watching Beth’s ass all day. Followed her home from the club, ’bout five-fifteen, watched her go in. ’Bout six o’clock the boyfriend comes home. I watch him go in. By seven I figure they’re in for the night, so I call it a day. I walk down Arlington to the Ritz, Taj, whatever the fuck it is now, and go in to take a leak. Then I’m in there, I figure I’ll go in the bar, have a couple pops, think about Beth’s ass, which I would now recognize at three miles in the dark. So I’m in there for maybe an hour or so, and I have a few, and then I go out and head down Arlington to get my car. I know a guy works the door at The Park Plaza, and he’s holding my car for me.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
The Celtics were up four on the Wizards late in the first half.
“And I see the pug,” Vinnie said.
I shut off the television.
“Boo?” I said.
“Same guy had the argument with Beth a while back,” Vinnie said. “He’s walking along Arlington same direction I am, like he could have been down at Beth’s place. He’s on the other side of the street. So I slow down and sort of let him get ahead of me and I see what he does. He crosses over in front of me at Boylston and goes into the subway. So I chuck along after him and go down, too.”
“Was it crowded?” I said.
“Naw,” Vinnie said. “Place was empty. So he goes through the turnstile and waits on the outbound platform, and I don’t see any reason to waste two bucks, so I go back upstairs and get my car. On my way home I swung by Beth’s building, but everything looked, you know, copacetic, so I kept going.”
“Thank you, Vinnie,” I said.
We hung up.
I dialed Gary Eisenhower’s number. After four rings the answering machine picked up.
“Hi, it’s Beth. Neither Gary nor I can come to the phone right now, but your call is important to us, so please do leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as quick as we can.”
When the beep sounded I yelled a couple of times that it was Spenser and pick up the phone. But nothing happened, so I hung up and got dressed and took a gun and hoofed it down to the apartment that Beth now shared with Gary, which was only a couple of blocks from my place.
The front door was locked. I rang Gary’s bell; nothing happened. I rang a few other bells. One of the tenants answered. It was a woman.
“Hi,” I said. “It’s Gary from the first floor. I seem to have the wrong front-door key. Could you buzz me in.”
“Call the super,” she said, and broke the connection.
Neighborly.
I found the superintendent’s number and rang the bell. After two rings he answered, sounding foggy.
“Yeah?”
“Police,” I said. “I need you to come open a couple doors for me.”
“Police?” he said.
“You heard me, now run your ass up here.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, officer, gimme a minute.”
It took more than a minute, but it was only two or three before he appeared in the entryway and opened the door.
“You ain’t wearing a uniform,” he said.
“No shit,” I said.
“You got a badge or something?”
I looked at him hard.
I said, “Ain’t I seen a mug shot of you, pal?”
“Me? I never done nothing.”
“That’s your story. Open up apartment one-A pretty goddamned hubba hubba, or I’ll run your ass down to the station for a look-see.”
“One-A, yeah, sure,” he said, and took out his key ring. “No need to get all worked up.”
“Move it,” I said. “Or I’ll work you up, you unnerstand that?”
“Yes, sir, sure thing.”
He went to Gary’s door and unlocked it. I went in. The super came in behind me a step.
“Jesus,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Call nine-one-one,” I said. “Cops and an ambulance.”
“But you’re a…”
“Call it,” I said.
Chapter 65
BETH WAS DEAD, I knew that the minute I saw her. Her face was bruised, there was dried blood, and her neck was turned at an odd angle. Gary was unconscious but not dead. He had a big purple bruise on the side of his face at the hairline. But he was breathing pretty steadily, and his pulse wasn’t bad.