RICHIE’S APARTMENT WAS on Salem Street in the North End, not far from the saloon that he owned and operated and loved. I had asked him once if he had to choose between the saloon and me, which way would he go.
“You,” he’d said.
“Any particular reason?”
And Richie had said, “The benefits package.”
He had never considered opening another one, no matter how much Spike, who now owned another restaurant up in Paradise, had told him he should. Richie would always tell Spike he wanted to own a bar, not a chain.
He had moved more than once since our divorce. When Richie and Kathryn had been married, she had somehow convinced him to buy a town house in Brookline, which Richie considered to be the suburbs, even though I told him that he couldn’t be that close to Fenway Park and be in the suburbs. More recently he had briefly moved off Salem Street after being shot, into an apartment owned by his father, just because Desmond thought it would be easier to protect him there.
Now he was back on Salem Street. He made it to my house in twenty minutes. Rosie went running to him, as if order had returned to her world. I resisted the urge to do the same. But when he finished his love fest with Rosie he came over and put his arms around me.
“Hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” I said.
“Nothing more important than you,” he said. “Never has been, never will be.”
We went into the living room. The bottle of Jameson was on the coffee table. I had a glass of it, neat, poured for him. Richie and I sat next to each other. He picked up Rosie and put her at the end of the couch. She wasn’t happy about it, and tried to climb over Richie and get between us. Richie gently said, “Stay.” She did.
“Tell me,” he said.
I told him about my night.
“Was there any sign that the house had been searched?” he said.
“I didn’t open every drawer,” I said. “But if somebody did search the place, they’re way neater than me putting things away.”
“But somebody came here and didn’t want to deal with Rosie, so they stuck her in the closet,” he said.
“You know how noisy she gets with strangers,” I said. “And Kathryn.”
“Sunny,” he said. “Focus.”
“You sound like you’re telling Rosie to stay,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Someone came here after you left,” Richie said, “and took a chance that you would be away for a while.”
“Evidently,” I said.
“Did you think they were looking for something specific,” Richie said, “or just looking to scare you?”
“By scaring my dog?” I said.
“Does it have something to do with Tony Marcus?” Richie said.
He sipped some of his Jameson.
“Since I don’t believe in coincidence and neither do you,” I said, “I’d say yes. But I don’t have anything worth finding yet because I haven’t found anything yet.”
“I’d ask if they took any jewelry,” Richie said. He grinned. “But, well, you know.”
It was a running joke with us. He knew that I’d never loved jewelry.
“I checked the box I keep the stuff in, top drawer of my dresser,” I said. “I only lock it up when I’m going to be away for a while.”
We both reached for our glasses now, as if on cue, and sipped whiskey.
“Tell me more about this Jabari guy,” Richie said. “Could he factor into this somehow?”
“I don’t see how,” I said. “Somebody was in the house while Spike and I were at the club, but it’s not as if we called and told him we were coming.”
“If he’s got nothing going with Lisa Morneau, why would he give a flying fuck if you were asking questions about her?” Richie said.
“Because he’s lying and he does have something to do with her?” I said.
“He told you not to get between him and Tony, but maybe your friend Lisa has beaten you there,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
Richie put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him and put his lips close my ear and said, “Get out of this now.”
“Spike said the same thing,” I said.
“I hate when that happens,” he said.
“You agreeing with Spike?”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
I somehow managed to move even closer to him, making me think of an old Marx Brothers line, the one where Groucho tells a woman that if they got any closer, he’d be behind her. As always, when we were this close, I felt as if some generator had started up inside me.
Richie, though, was still talking business.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re getting yourself in the middle of,” Richie said. “But it really does sound like a shitty place to be, especially if you don’t have to be there.”
“Guys like Tony and Jabari have always controlled Lisa,” I said. “If she now has some power over one or both of them, I’d like to know why.”
“You’ve got a client you can’t trust,” Richie said.
“Not the first time that’s happened,” I said.
“Not a client like this asshat.”
“Maybe now I just want to find the asshat who scared Rosie,” I said.
“That’s not a good enough reason,” Richie said.
I leaned up and kissed him under his ear. A place I’d always considered a power point. But, I knew from vast experience, there were many.
“You’re not quitting,” he said.
It wasn’t even close to being a question.
“Not just yet,” I said. “Lisa Morneau doesn’t know it, but I’m on her side.”
“A hooker you’ve never met,” Richie said.
“But one who’s in management now,” I said.
He sighed and then turned and pulled me up and into a kiss that was always the same, which means like the first one we ever shared.
When I pulled back I said, “I need to walk Rosie at some point.”
“This,” he said, “is not that point.”
As things developed, and rather quickly, it most certainly was not. We went upstairs.
I closed the bedroom door behind us.