“I’ve been here before,” Blakeney said.

“Have you tried the soup dumplings?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re missing out,” I said. “It’s what they do best.”

I offered to buy him lunch, or by now dinner, but he refused. We were the only ones left in the restaurant and I ordered another hot pot of tea. The tea was very good on a full stomach, and I had no illusions that I’d be hungry an hour later. Out on Beach Street, brightly colored neon signs advertised the rows of import/export shops, pho restaurants, and small groceries. It was snowing in microspecks, which blew around in a twirling wind. Blakeney took off a blue ski hat and his gloves.

He laid a thick file on the table. “I would get fired for completing this audit.”

“Isn’t this what you do?”

“It used to be. Now I track use of EBT cards. I have to make sure people aren’t trying to counterfeit them or use them at liquor stores or strip clubs.”

“That sounds rewarding.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I go home each day knowing I’ve made a difference. I’m so glad I got a master’s.”

“The Blackburn audit caused the demotion?”

“They didn’t call it a demotion,” he said. “They called it a lateral move under the heading of Health and Human Services.”

“Got to love those lateral moves.”

“Yeah.” He reached for a napkin to dry his glasses. His ski hat was wet with melting snow.

“Who wanted you off the audit?”

“My supervisor, her supervisor, and it goes up from there,” he said. “To be honest, Mr. Spenser, I really don’t know who wanted to shut down my inquiries. All I know is that they must be connected to some powerful people in state government.”

“Who?”

“Judge Callahan and his monkey, Scali.”

“Any official reason given?”

“No.”

“Did you find out much in the time you had?”

“You said it,” Blakeney said. “Scali spends more money on sentencing kids to these facilities than anyone in the state.”

“Because he’s Mr. Zero Tolerance?”

“I’m not going to do your job for you,” he said. “My job wasn’t to find out the reasons. Only to find out how much money we were spending. You can interpret the reasons as you like.”

“But all of this started with Jim Price,” I said. “That’s how you got wind of this.”

He nodded. Both of his long hands rested on the file. He did not offer it to me, and I did not ask yet. The little specks of snow twirled and danced in the neon streetlights. Inside, several red-and-gold paper lanterns swung under the heating vents. An older Asian couple in heavy coats walked in the front door and spoke Chinese to the manager. He offered them a seat by the crab tank. I’d never been offered a seat by the crab tank. Had I been slighted?

“Judge Price and I became friends,” he said. “This whole thing is what made him sick. When they demoted him, he kind of went nuts. All he could talk about was Scali and Callahan and their unholy alliance. He would call me in the middle of the night. We would meet in the city and in Blackburn for coffee. He had ideas. Conspiracy theories about what they were up to. Some were crazy. Some of them made sense.”

“Which ones?”

“I think Judge Scali’s ego eclipsed any type of rational behavior,” he said. “I think the job of the Commonwealth is to help children and families, not to further Scali’s political and personal agenda.”

“What’s his personal agenda?”

“Like I said, I’m not doing your job for you.”

“What about Callahan?” I said. “What’s his role?”

“To protect Scali,” he said. “They’ve been friends since first grade. I don’t know if you knew that or not. Judge Price knew everything about them. He said Callahan is the one who made some calls to Beacon Hill and had me reassigned. He’s in tight with a lot of senators and congressmen. There’s rumors he’s pals with some Mob guys.”

“Like who?”

Blakeney patted the heavy stack of paper. “I have absolutely no idea,” he said. “Do I look like I know anyone in the Mob? All I know is that some people wanted this thing buried deep.”

“Even if you never finished.”

Blakeney smiled. He leaned back into his chair. He was quiet as the waiter returned to clear my empty plates. “That’s what they think,” he said. “I spent weekends for three months finishing what I started.”

“Did Price ever know?”

Blakeney shook his head. “Jim had died,” he said. “He knew what they were doing wasn’t right. I finished out of respect to him. I thought about giving it to a reporter, but they ask too many questions. I have a wife, three kids, and a mortgage. This job sucks. The people I work for do, too. But I have to pay the bills. Jobs aren’t easy to find.”

“Besides being a private snoop, I have few marketable skills.”

“You really think you can do something with this, Spenser?”

“I’m going to try.”

“This isn’t about Blackburn,” he said. “This is about backroom Boston and old families and old favors. A shit ton of money. No one likes to be embarrassed. They’ll come after you.”

“They always do,” I said. “But I’ve dealt with worse.”

“They got rid of the judge, they got rid of me. They sure as hell will do what needs to get done with you. You won’t see it coming.”

I touched the edge of the file as if it were a new and very exciting birthday present. Blakeney did not remove his hands, staring me in the eye. I stared back. I had a full stomach, an iron disposition, and a lot of time. Snow had started to fall in big flakes along Beach Street. It was very festive on the Asian neon signs. For a moment, it was hard to imagine we were in downtown Boston.

“I didn’t give this to you,” he said.

“Nope.”

“I don’t know you.”

“We never met,” I said.

He took his hands off the file, stood, and grabbed his hat and gloves. “Good luck,” he said. “But don’t ever come to my place of work again. I’m through with all this.”

They made you shower and use some kind of soap to kill lice. The boy had never had lice in his life and the shampoo smelled like kerosene, burning his eyes. After the shower, he was given two sets of clothes. A faded-out black top and a faded-out green top. The pants were the same, both green. When he put them on, he looked like he was wearing hospital scrubs. He was told to wear socks with a pair of plastic shower shoes. When he asked about his real shoes, a guard told him this is what he wore inside. “Outside,” he said, “you get work boots.”

All the boys with facial hair were forced to shave. Everyone got haircuts whether they needed them or not. As a wrestler, the boy always kept his hair cut short. But when the guards got finished with him, he looked nearly bald.

The guards handed out heavy navy coats and walked them through the cold night to the bunkhouse. Some of the boys were sent into Building A, others were marched into Building B. The boy’s name was called at C, cold air off the harbor freezing his face.

The building wasn’t like a jail at all. It was one story and wide open. The whole place smelled like a hospital, a harsh chemical smell covering up something really bad. A black man in a guard’s uniform told him to make his way to Group 4, where he’d get a bed.

Other boys dressed the same as him—black, white, Hispanic, and Asian—followed him with their eyes. Most just grouped around a flickering television watching an MMA match and yelling and screaming with each punch. He was handed clean linens for his bunk.