Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro 4)

I remembered Broussard’s face and Poole’s voice as Poole had talked about finding a child in watery cement. They could be great actors, but those were De Niro-caliber performances if they really did feel as indifferent to a child’s life as they would to an ant’s.

“Hmm,” I said.

“I know what that means.”

“What?”

“Your ‘hmm.’ It always means you’re completely baffled.”

I nodded. “I’m completely baffled.”

“Welcome to the club.”

I sipped some coffee. If just a tenth of what we were hypothesizing was true, a pretty large crime had been committed right in front of us. Not near us. Not in the same zip code. But as we’d knelt beside the perpetrators. Right under our noses.

Did I mention that we make our livings as detectives?

Bubba came to the apartment shortly after sunrise.

He sat on the living room floor with his legs crossed and signed Angie’s cast with a black marker. In his large fourth-grader’s scrawl, he wrote:

Angie[* *]

Brake a leg. Or too. Ha ha[* *].

Ruprecht Rogowski[* *]

Angie touched his cheek. “Aww. You signed it ‘Ruprecht.’ How sweet.”

Bubba blushed and swatted her hand, looked up at me. “What?”

“Ruprecht.” I chuckled. “I’d almost forgotten.”

Bubba stood up and his shadow fell across my entire body and most of the wall. He rubbed his chin and smiled tightly. “’Member the first time I ever hit you, Patrick?”

I swallowed. “First grade.”

“’Member why?”

I cleared my throat. “Because I gave you shit about your name.”

Bubba leaned over me. “Care to try again?”

“Ah, no,” I said, and as he turned away I added, “Ruprecht.”

I danced away from his lunge and Angie said, “Boys! Boys!”

Bubba froze and I used that time to put the coffee table between the two of us.

“Could we address the matter at hand?” She opened the notebook on her lap, uncapped a pen with her teeth. “Bubba, you can beat up Patrick anytime.”

Bubba thought about it. “This is true.”

“Okay.” Angie scribbled in her notebook, shot me a look.

“Hey.” Bubba pointed at her cast. “How do you shower in that thing?”

Angie sighed. “What did you find out?”

Bubba sat on the couch and propped his combat boots up on the coffee table, not an act I usually tolerate, but I was already on thin ice with the Ruprecht thing, so I let it slide.

“The word I get from what’s left of Cheese’s crew is that Mullen and Gutierrez didn’t know nothing about a missing kid. As far as anyone knew, they went to Quincy that night to score.”

“Score what?” Angie said.

“What drug dealers usually score: drugs. Chat around the campfire,” Bubba said, “was that after one hell of a dry spell the market was going to be flooded with China White.” He shrugged. “It never happened.”

“You’re sure about this?” I said.

“No,” he said slowly, as if talking to a slow child. “I talked to some guys in Olamon’s organization, and they all said Mullen and Gutierrez never mentioned going to the quarries with a kid. And no one on Cheese’s crew ever saw a kid hanging around. So, if Mullen and Gutierrez had her, it was strictly their deal. And if they were going to Quincy that night to dump a kid, that was strictly their deal, too.”

He looked at Angie, jerked a thumb at me. “Didn’t he used to be smarter?”

She smiled. “Peaked in high school, I think.”

“Another thing,” Bubba said. “I never could figure why someone didn’t just kill me that night.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Everyone I talk to on Cheese’s crew swears up and down they had nothing to do with piping me. I believe ’em. I’m a scary guy. Sooner or later, someone would have coughed it up.”

“So the person who piped you…”

“Probably isn’t the type who kills on a regular basis.” He shrugged. “Just an opinion.”

The phone rang from the kitchen.

“Who the hell calls here at seven in the morning?” I said.

“No one familiar with our sleeping patterns,” Angie said.

I walked into the kitchen, picked up the phone.

“Hey, brother.” Broussard.

“Hey,” I said. “You know what time it is?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Look, I need a favor. Big one.”

“What is it?”

“One of my guys broke his arm chasing a perp last night and now we’re one short for the game.”

“The game?” I said.

“Football,” he said. “Robbery-Homicide versus Narcotics-Vice-CAC. I might be Motor Pool, but I’m still Narco-Vice-CAC when it comes to ball.”

“And this,” I said, “concerns me how?”

“I’m short a player.”

I laughed so loudly Bubba and Angie turned their heads in the living room, looked over their shoulders at me.

“That’s hilarious?” Broussard said.

“Remy,” I said, “I’m white and over thirty. I have permanent nerve damage to one hand, and I haven’t picked up a football since I was fifteen.”

“Oscar Lee told me you ran track in college, played baseball, too.”

“To pay my tuition,” I said. “I was second-string in both cases.” I shook my head and chuckled. “Find another guy. Sorry.”

“I don’t have time. Game’s at three. Come on, man. Please. I’m begging you. I need a guy can tuck a ball under his arm and run short yards, play a little defensive end. Don’t bullshit me. Oscar says you’re one of the fastest white guys he knows.”

“I take it Oscar will be there.”

“Hell, yeah. Playing against us, of course.”

“Devin?”

“Amronklin?” Broussard said. “He’s their coach. Please, Patrick. You don’t help me out, we’re screwed.”

I looked back at the living room. Bubba and Angie were staring at me with perplexed faces.

“Where?”

“Harvard Stadium. Three o’clock.”

I didn’t say anything for a bit.

“Look, man, if this helps, I play fullback. I’ll be punching your holes for you, making sure you don’t get a scratch.”