“To be honest,” she said, scrolling through messages, “it didn’t take much to argue Beth’s not a flight risk or a danger to others.”

“What were the charges?”

“Originally?” she said. “They had her with possession with intent to sell. I got the intent dropped. She will have to go before Scali, but she can be at home until her court date.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“You ever heard of molly?”

“As in ‘Good Golly’?”

“As in the club drug.”

“I’ve been off the club scene lately,” I said. “Since I quit the DJ gig.”

Megan eyed me with just a hint of suspicion. “Just what does Rita see in you?”

I offered her my biceps and flexed. Megan looked at me and widened her eyes behind her smart glasses. She declined to squeeze. “I don’t like these people, Spenser,” she said. “The clerk seemed completely ill-equipped to deal with a juvenile with counsel, as if having an attorney is unheard of.”

“You should meet the public defender,” I said. “He’s a real hoot after a few drinks.”

“From what you told me,” she said, “ick.”

“Yep, Mr. Ick. That’s him.”

Two Blackburn uniform cops passed and eyed me with a bit of suspicion. Maybe the word had gotten out. Or maybe I’d just grown paranoid. They might have very well been jealous of my Dodgers cap or my vintage leather bomber jacket. Maybe they wanted to sit down and join us. Talk a little about Duke Snider and the ’59 series.

“What sucks is how dismissive they are here,” she said. “A senior partner had to call and ream out the DA.”

“Yowzer,” I said.

There was talk and laughter up on the marble landing, and as we both looked up, a short man with thin black hair and purple-tinted glasses descended the staircase. He wore civilian garb, a gray suit with wide lapels and padded shoulders, set off with a wide and bright silver tie. The last time I’d seen a suit like that was right before Dynasty went off the air.

Joe Scali walked with two men who looked to be cops. They wore street clothes and each displayed a shield and a gun on their belts. Scali did not break stride as he passed our little wooden bench. But the talk and laughter stopped and there was a slight beat of hesitation, a slight turn of his head, eye contact, and then he moved on.

“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

“That’s him?” Megan said.

“I know,” I said. “I thought he’d be taller, too.”

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “I didn’t think he’d be so—”

“Sharply dressed?”

“Oily.”

The few people milling about the halls were called back into one of the courtrooms. The ancient twin doors opened onto the street and Scali and his pals left the building. A cold wind shot through the entrance and down through the halls. I sunk my hands into my jacket. “Thanks,” I said.

Megan smiled. “I only wish I could do more for Dillon Yates.”

“You filed an appeal,” I said. “Now we wait.”

“I do wish his mother had contacted us first,” she said. “After working for the firm, she should have known better. He would have never been sentenced to that island.”

“You know much about Massachusetts Child Care?”

“No,” she said. “Most of my clients are over eighteen.”

“They own Dillon’s digs on Fortune Island,” I said. “They get two hundred and fifty bucks a day to keep him there.”

“What can you do while we wait?” she said.

“Follow Scali around,” I said. “See how the judicial set lives.”

I took off my Dodgers cap, rolled the bill, and set it back on my head.

“Good luck,” she said. We walked out of the old courthouse together and shook hands before going different ways.

19

A car, or even an SUV in my case, was only comfortable for so long. I once drove a ’68 Chevy convertible with bucket seats. For a while I had a Subaru Outback with seats designed for Billy Barty. Sometimes I borrowed Susan’s MG and later her Bronco. But I liked the Explorer. It was comfortable, innocuous in traffic. Good gas mileage for the size. It had seat warmers and Bluetooth technology. Sometimes when the tech gods were with me, I could talk dirty to Susan while keeping both hands on the wheel.

But my Ford was little match for Scali’s gunmetal-gray Cadillac ELR. The car had jeweled brake lights, glowing with a lot of style at stoplights, and bright chrome wheels. I hung back as I followed him. I knew his address. I just wanted to see if he made any other stops on the way home.

I listened to an Artie Shaw CD as I drove through Blackburn.

He drove in the opposite direction of his Belleview home. He jetted along the Merrimack River to an exit off I-93 and parked in the lot of an International House of Pancakes. I knew that he’d seen my face. What a shame I’d miss a chance to dine at an IHOP. Maybe the old Bickford’s cafeteria. But I drew the line at IHOP.

I waited inside my car with Artie. When I’m calling you / Will you answer, too?

Scali was gracious enough to take a seat by the picture window. He was seated alone, with a very large menu. About twenty minutes later, a beefy-looking gray-headed man in a tan overcoat joined him. Scali didn’t stand or shake hands. The beefy man took a seat, and the waitress dropped off a menu. So many culinary choices, so little time. They both snapped their menus shut at about the same time. The sign outside advertised SIGNATURE FAVORITES. And the all-new Blue Cheese and Bacon Sirloin. Mario Batali, take note.

I checked my e-mail. I checked my voice mail. I checked my profile for any stray hairs I missed while shaving. Late afternoon turned later. It got dark very early. It seemed even later in Blackburn. Susan would be finishing with her last client about now. She would be taking Pearl out for a long walk along Linnaean Street. Inventive cocktails were being poured in Harvard Square. Bistros along Newbury Street had opened for dinner. I had two dry-aged filets in my refrigerator.

I had three other cases to be stoked.

There was more dry apple wood in the cellar of my apartment building. And according to my phone, TCM was running Monte Walsh.

After an hour and sixteen minutes, Scali and the beefy man walked out together. Scali had on a long black overcoat and swiveled a toothpick in his mouth. The pancakes must’ve been something else.

The men separated with a handshake. I wrote down the tag number on the beefy man’s big black Mercedes and gave Scali a two-minute start. I followed him back up the Merrimack and back into the center of town. There was something obsessively cold and dark about February in Massachusetts. The dull burn of streetlamps, the dirty snowbanks, the long, meandering stretch of a half-frozen river.

Scali’s house was about a quarter-mile away from Judge Price’s house in Belleview. Christmas decorations still adorned Scali’s house. I thought about walking straight up to the door and regaling him with some carols. Any man who loved Christmas so much he wanted to celebrate it two months later couldn’t be all bad. Multicolored lights ran up and down the V’s of the roofline. A snowman made of LED lights glittered on the snow-covered lawn. I parked a few houses down the street. I removed my Dodgers cap, although I needed it, turned up the collar on my jacket, and went out for a stroll. This was in equal parts surveillance and a way of loosening my stiff knee.

I had already received two texts from Susan reminding me of my rehab. I walked for nearly a half-mile, trying to get a feel for the upper-middle-class neighborhood. I learned a lot of people liked to celebrate Christmas well into the next year. The houses were a mix of mid-century modern and neo-Colonial. I had my hands in my jacket pockets, my breath coming in clouds. I missed the jogging. I liked the rhythm and feel of pounding the pavement.