“How’s Kinjo?”

“Hasn’t slept since you left.”

“And his wife?”

“Wife one or wife two?”

“Who’s at the house?”

“Wife two,” Hawk said. “Z says the woman loving all those cameras on the street. Did her makeup and everything.”

“Must be her grief,” I said. “And wife one?”

“I sat on her house like you asked,” Hawk said. “She doesn’t have the boy. And if she did have the boy, she staying put. State police are all over her.”

“First to suspect a parent.”

Hawk slowed the Jag at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley.

“Not that I minded watching her,” Hawk said. “Damn. You meet her?”

“Yep.”

“And.”

“She scratched the hell out of my face.”

Hawk shrugged. “Reached out to some local pros,” he said. “Called in some favors.”

“And none of our usual suspects are touching kidnapping a kid.”

“Nope,” Hawk said. “This seem like amateur hour.”

“Anything else?”

“Some nut called in to a radio show last night,” he said. “Said he has the kid. Less than credible, but staties checking it out.”

The Jag idled at the curb where the new Bank of America was going in. I sampled one of the chocolate frosted to enhance my deductive reasoning. “What did Lundquist say?”

“State cops ain’t real fond of me,” Hawk said. “Figure they may be giving comfort to the enemy.”

“He’d talk to you.”

Hawk stayed silent. A tall young woman in tight jeans, a tight black sweater, and tall riding boots strode across our vision. The woman was quite fit. Hawk stayed silent.

“Hmm,” Hawk said.

“Hmm,” I said. “The office can wait. You mind driving me out to Chestnut Hill?”

“Why not?” Hawk said. “Always wanted to know how the other half lived.”

“You can be the other half,” I said. “Long as you have money.”

“And fame,” Hawk said. “Fame helps a brother out.”

Hawk knocked the Jag into gear and drove toward Arlington, making his way back toward Huntington and out of the city. He let the window down as we drove under the Mass Pike.

“Which radio show?” I said.

“Paulie and the Gooch,” Hawk said. “That sports-talk shit.”

“Not a super-fan?”

Hawk did not answer. We didn’t speak for a long while as we followed Route 9 into Newton. “So you struck out?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “But those most likely to do Kinjo harm are looking less likely. It seems that some key pieces of information regarding the incident were kept private.”

“By Kinjo himself.”

“Yep.”

“How key?”

“His attorney paid off the shooting victim’s family so they’d drop the civil case,” I said.

“Don’t mean it settled.”

“Or that Kinjo was guilty,” I said.

“But money sure do make this world spin.”

20

The back patio of the Heywood house was made of flat stones and littered with dead leaves. I had my second cup of coffee that morning as Kinjo and super-agent Steve Rosen joined me at a wrought-iron table. The inside of the big stone house was filled with Brookline cops and state police. The street at the top of the hill was crowded with news trucks and reporters and rubberneckers standing outside the gates. As we walked down the hill, Hawk again mentioned that an ice-cream stand could really turn a profit.

Kinjo used the flat of his large hand to scrape away the decaying leaves on the patio table. He sat, but Rosen decided to stand. Through the long bank of windows, I could see Hawk sitting with Z and Lundquist.

“How’d it go?” Rosen said. “What did you find?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d paid off the Lima family?” I said.

“Listen, we asked you to—”

“Shut up,” I said to Rosen. “I’m asking Mr. Heywood.”

“Don’t you ever—” Rosen said.

“Shut up.”

Kinjo was worn-out, red-eyed, and beaten. He leaned forward in the chair, elbows on his knees. He was dressed in nothing but workout shorts and a gray T-shirt with the Pats logo. He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to think I shot the man.”

“Did you?”

“What I’m trying to say—” Rosen said.

I merely held up my hand.

Kinjo never once looked at his agent. He looked at me. “No,” he said. “But we didn’t want the bad publicity. We wanted it to go away.”

“How much did you pay the Limas?”

“Kinjo, you don’t have to say a word,” Rosen said.

“Half a million.”

I nodded.

“A settlement of that type isn’t unusual—surely you understand that kind of thing,” Rosen said. He had his hands in his pockets and ducked his chin as he spoke.

“Does he ever shut up?” I said.

“I hired you, and I can—”

“Jeez,” I said. “That’s new. What do you want, Kinjo?”

Cristal wandered out from the French doors with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in one hand. Her makeup was fresh, but she hadn’t changed out of her light blue silk pajamas or fuzzy slippers. She smiled at everyone as she hunched her shoulders with a little giggle. “Just one, Kinjo,” she said. “I promise.”

Rosen walked over to her and said something in her ear and they both disappeared back into the house.

“If I am going to keep working on this, you need to tell me everything,” I said. “And you need to tell the police everything, too. If I’d known you’d settled with the family, I might’ve looked elsewhere.”

“They think I killed that dude.”

I nodded. “What about in Boston,” I said. “Has anyone ever tried to offer you money or influence your play?”

“Like for me to shave points and cheat?” he said. “One man can’t throw a whole football game.”

“But you could affect a point spread.”

He looked past me up the hill to the playhouse. Behind the stone wall, smoke rose from his neighbor’s chimney. More leaves fell from high branches. “I figured if you thought I’d paid those people off, you wouldn’t want to work for me,” he said. “But I don’t cheat, man. You don’t cheat and not make plays and be All-Pro two years in a row.”

I caught his eye and stared at him. “Don’t lie to me again.”

“Akira,” Kinjo said. “He has asthma, man. The people who took him don’t know. What if they never call? I’m about to crawl out my skin, man.”

I nodded. I warmed my hands on the coffee mug. There was much activity through the windows of the house. Hawk, Z, and Lundquist continued to talk in the sectional by Kinjo’s large television. Cristal had apparently broken away from Rosen and had taken a spot between Hawk and Z.

“What about the call at the radio station?” I said.

“Paulie and the Gooch,” he said. “You know them?”

“I’ve seen their billboards,” I said. “The Sports Monstah. Boston sports all day and all night.”

“Police played it for me last night,” he said. “Man called in and said he has Kinjo Heywood’s child and wanted a payday.”

“Anything else?” I said.

Kinjo shook his head. “All I know is they tried to track the call and it came back to a throwaway.”

“So maybe it’s them?”

“I hope so,” Kinjo said. “I don’t give a shit what it costs, I want my son back. Without him, I ain’t got shit. All this around me? I can live in a trailer like I used to, and it’s all the same to me. Something happen to Akira and you better drive me straight to the nuthouse. I can’t live.”

“I’ll talk to Lundquist about that caller,” I said. “Maybe pay a visit to Paulie and the Gooch.”

Kinjo swallowed. His face was impassive, but he had started to cry. He turned his hulking back to me.

I left him outside in a slight patch of sunlight as I walked inside the glass doors.

21

Paulie and the Gooch talked little else but Boston sports from a two-story brick radio station off the Birmingham Parkway in Brighton. They were hitting their noontime stride when Z and I arrived. Lou from Quincy had taken the duo to task for saying the Red Sox Nation was washed up, blaming fans for lackluster play. Lou said Paulie and the Gooch were the biggest dips in Mass. Reggie from Worcester congratulated the boys for sticking by Tom Brady this season despite inexperienced tight ends and receivers. Reggie said the naysayers would soon eat their words. He actually said they’d eat something else for the five-second delay.