Prayers for Rain (Kenzie & Gennaro 5)

There was nothing out of the ordinary in either her birth or death records, but I copied all the info down in a notepad anyway and stuck it in my back pocket as I left City Hall.

I stepped out onto the rear of City Hall Plaza and two beefy guys, both balding, both wearing aviator glasses and thin Hawaiian shirts untucked over jeans, fell into step beside me.

“We’re going to take a little walk,” the guy on my right said.

“Cool,” I said. “If we go to the park, will you buy me an ice cream?”

“Guy’s a comedian,” the one on my left said.

“Sure,” the other guy said. “He’s fucking Jay Leno over here.”

We crossed the plaza toward Cambridge Street and a small gang of pigeons took flight in front of us. I could hear both guys breathing a little heavy, a daily constitutional apparently not something they worked into their schedules.

It was hot, but a colder than normal sweat broke out on my forehead as I noticed the dark pink Lincoln double-parked on Cambridge. I’d seen the same Lincoln parked in Stevie Zambuca’s driveway on Saturday.

“Stevie felt like chatting,” I said. “How nice.”

“You notice his delivery was a little shaky on that one?” the guy on my right side said.

“Maybe this ain’t so funny no more,” the other guy said, and with an amazingly smooth and swift move for a guy his size, his hand slipped under my own shirt and removed my gun.

“Don’t worry,” he told me, “I’ll keep it in a safe place.”

The back door of the Lincoln opened as we approached and a thin young guy got out of the car and held the door open for me.

I could make a scene, and the two guys beside me would kneecap me and shove me in anyway, broad daylight or not.

I decided to proceed with grace.

I climbed in the car beside Stevie Zambuca and they shut the door behind me.

The front seats were empty. Apparently my beefy handlers did the driving.

Stevie Zambuca said, “Someday that old guy? He’s gonna die. He’s, what, eighty-four now, right?”

I nodded.

“So he dies someday, I’ll fly out to his funeral, pay my respects, and come back and take a pipe to your fucking elbows, Kenzie. You just be ready for that day, because I will be.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He smiled. “Think you’re pretty fucking cool, don’t you?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well, you ain’t. But for now, I’ll play ball.” He tossed a brown paper bag on my lap. “There’s eight thou in there. This guy, he paid me ten to back you off.”

“So you’ve done business with him?”

“No. It was a straight job. Ten grand to keep you off his back. Never met the guy until Friday night. He approached one of my people, made his pitch.”

“Did he tell you to threaten Bubba to get to me?”

Stevie stroked his chin. “Matter of fact, yeah. He knows a lot about you, Kenzie. A lot. And he don’t like you. At all, motherfucker. At all.”

“You know anything about where he lives, works, that sort of thing?”

Stevie shook his head. “No. Guy I know in K.C. vouched for him. Heard he was stand-up.”

“K.C.?”

Stevie’s eyes met my own. “K.C. Why’s that bother you?”

I shrugged. “It just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. When you see him, give him the eight Gs, tell him the other two Gs are for my aggravation.”

“How do you know I’ll see him?”

“He’s got a real hard-on for you, Kenzie. Like diamond-cutter hard. He kept saying you ‘interfered.’ And Vincent Patriso might be able to back me off, but he can’t back this guy off. He wants you dead.”

“No. He wants me to wish I were.”

Stevie chuckled. “Maybe you got something there. This guy? He’s smart, speaks real well, but in there with all that brain power, there’s disease, Kenzie. Personally, I think he’s got rocks in his head, and the rocks got little birds flying around in ’em.” He laughed, brought his hand down on my knee. “And you pissed him off. Ain’t that great?” He pressed a button on his door console and the locks popped up. “See you later, Kenzie.”

“See you, Stevie.”

I opened the door, blinked in the sun.

“Yeah, you’ll see me,” Stevie said as I stepped out of the car. “After the old guy’s funeral. Up close. In Technicolor.”

One of the beefy guys handed me my gun. “Take it easy, comedian. Try not to shoot off your own foot.”

My cell phone rang as I walked back across City Hall Plaza toward the parking garage where I’d left my car.

I knew it was him before I even said, “Hello.”

“Pat, buddy. How are you?”

“Not bad, Wes. Yourself?”

“Hanging to the left, my friend. Say, Pat?”

“Yeah, Wes?”

“When you get to the parking garage, go up to the roof, will you?”

“We going to meet, Wes?”

“Bring the envelope Don Guido gave you.”

“But of course.”

“Don’t waste our time contacting the police, okay, Pat? There’s nothing to hold me on.”

He hung up.

I waited until I was in the shadows of the garage itself, unseeable to anyone inside or on the roof, before I called Angie.

“How fast can you get down by Haymarket?”

“The way I drive?”

“So about five minutes,” I said. “I’ll be on the roof of the garage at the base of New Sudbury. You know the one?”

“Yup.”

I looked around me. “I need a picture of the guy, Ange.”

“That garage roof? How’m I gonna shoot down on that? All the buildings around it are shorter.”

I found one. “The antiques co-op at the end of Friend Street. Get on the roof.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Outside of the friggin’ expressway, I don’t see any other place you could shoot from.”

“Okay, okay. I’m on my way.”

She hung up and I took the stairs eight stories to the roof, the stairwell dark and dank and reeking of urine.

He was leaning with his arms up on the wall, looking down at City Hall Plaza, Faneuil Hall, the sudden towering eruption of the financial district where Congress met State. For a moment, I considered rushing him, giving his legs a quick lift and chuck, seeing what sounds he’d make as he tumbled end over end and splattered all over the street. With any luck, it’d be ruled a suicide, and if he had a soul, it would choke on the irony all the way down to hell.