RICHIE SHOWED UP the next morning, having given me a courtesy call that he was on his way, and informed me that he was bringing biscotti from Bova’s Bakery with him. The bakery, a North End landmark, wasn’t far from his apartment on Salem Street and had various Italian pastries so delicious they could make you change your political beliefs, provided you still had any.
“Okay,” I said, “you clearly want something, and it can’t be sex.”
“Too early in the day?”
I grinned. “Seems to me it’s never been too early for us,” I said. “But as much as I love Bova’s, it would take more than biscotti.”
“Cannoli?” he said.
“I don’t know why that sounds dirty when you say it,” I said. “But it does.”
I took the bag from him, smelled inside, and said, “So what is it?”
“I was wondering, and you can say no if you want to, if you might possibly be able to watch Richard for a couple of hours,” he said.
I walked over to the living room window, pushed the draperies aside, and saw his car out front, motor running.
“He’s in the car, isn’t he?” I said.
He smiled a smile like a kid who’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.
“Yeah.”
“Kathryn, too?”
“Yeah.”
“And what fun activities do you and Kathryn have planned that don’t involve your son?”
“There are two apartments she needs to look at before she loses a chance at either one of them,” Richie said. “One in Brookline, one in Needham. It will be easier without him.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“You’re busy.”
I said, “Little bit. Got one ex-hooker missing and another one that I talked to yesterday turned up dead a few hours later. Not that you asked what else is going on in my life.”
“I should have asked before I came,” he said. “Sounds like you’re up to your eyeballs.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“We can bring him,” Richie said. “Richard, I mean.”
“Kathryn can’t put on her big-girl pants and go apartment-hunting on her own?” I said.
“She hasn’t had to look at places to live for a long time,” he said, “and hasn’t done it in Boston since she and I moved to Brookline.”
I knew there was nothing I had planned for the day that couldn’t wait. The calls I needed to make I could make whether Richard was here or not.
And I already liked this boy, and not just because I trusted Rosie’s judgment. There was a sweetness to him, and a vulnerability, that were both readily apparent, and quite appealing. And as much as I worried about how all of this was affecting me, Richard was the one who was going through the most.
“How long?” I said.
“Two hours, tops,” Richie said. “So you’ll do it?”
“I shall,” I said.
“Cannolis next time for sure,” he said.
Then he went to the car and came back with the boy, whose eyes got big and bright and happy as soon as he came through the door.
It wasn’t about me.
It was about Rosie.
Already it was a love that seemed to passeth all understanding.
RICHARD FELIX BURKE immediately went looking for one of Rosie’s tennis balls, before he even had his coat off. He threw it. She fetched it and brought it right back to him. Without bribes. Damn her.
They both seemed willing to play this game until Richie and Kathryn came back. Or, from the looks of them, until the end of time.
The boy was relatively oblivious to my presence but completely and joyfully and loudly engaged by my dog. At one point, I asked if he wanted something to eat or drink.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“You can call me Sunny,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
I reached into the Bova’s bag and showed him the biscotti and asked him if he wanted some.
“No, thank you,” he said, then smiled and added, “Sunny ma’am.”
I smiled back.
He then resumed playing with Rosie. When he finally did get tired of the ball he would hold one end of one of her raggedy chew toys and she would hold the other, and the two of them would play tug-of-war until Richard would inevitably let her win. I watched them and tried to remember the last time I had babysat a child of this age. Maybe it was Mr. and Mrs. Cappabianca’s boy Johnny, when his parents, neighbors of ours, were out to dinner with my parents. I was probably fifteen.
While they continued their playdate I went into the kitchen, away from the action, and made some calls. I spoke briefly with Lee Farrell about Callie. He said he was on his way to her apartment, wanting to look through it himself. I called Tony Marcus. When he answered his voice was thick with sleep, and impatience.
“You told that queer detective Callie’d been one of my girls,” he said.
“I’m a good citizen,” I said.
“Well, I ain’t,” he said. “So don’t be telling your fucking cop friends my fucking business.”
“Did you go see her or talk to her after I saw her?” I said. “She’d been beaten pretty badly.”
“Wasn’t me,” Tony said. “There’s ones in my world think that’s part of the game, roughing up the help. But that ain’t ever been me.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. “But why you so worried about some girl who didn’t work for me no more when you supposed to be worried about one who still does, least last time I checked?”
I watched Richie’s son play with Rosie as Tony Marcus said, “You focus on the live whores and not the dead ones,” and then ended the call, the silly old romantic.
About half an hour later Richie texted me to say that he and Kathryn were on their way back. It was close to lunchtime by then. I asked Richard if he was hungry now. He asked if it would be all right if he had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
“With the crust cut off?” he said.
“Around here we don’t make them any other way,” I said.
I made one for him and one for me. Aunt Sunny. He asked if he could have a glass of milk, too. I told him I only had skim. He asked if that was real milk.
“Yes,” I said, “but for weenies.”
He looked at me and smiled his father’s smile.
“Are you a weenie?” he said.
“Totally,” I said.
As we ate I said to him, “How are you doing with all this moving around?”
He looked at me with his father’s eyes.
“Not so good,” he said. “But . . .”
He stopped there, and ate more of his sandwich.
“But what?” I said.
“But I try not to show it,” he said. “I don’t want my mom to worry about me.”
I looked at him and wondered how much she was worrying about him right now, and how much she was worrying about herself. What the percentage might be.
“So you’re trying to be tough,” I said.
He looked at me again with the big eyes.
“Sometimes I don’t feel so tough,” he said. “I miss my friends in London.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “But you’ll make new friends here.”
“I don’t want my dad to think I’m not happy to be with him,” Richard said.
“Your mom and dad will figure this all out,” I said.
“That’s what my dad says,” Richard said.
“He’s a pretty smart guy.”
Richard grinned at me. “Smart as you?”
“Heck no,” I said.
“Why not?”
“He’s a guy,” I said.
“And guys aren’t as smart as girls?” Richard said.
I put my thumb and my index finger close together.
“It’s very close,” I said. “But we get a little bit ahead at about the age you are now, and you guys spend the rest of your lives trying to catch up.”
He giggled.
“You’re just making stuff up now,” he said.
“You got me,” I said.
Suddenly he laughed. I didn’t know why what I’d said was so funny. And didn’t care. His father didn’t laugh much, either. But I loved it when he did.
When he finished eating he said, “Thanks.”
“For making such an outstanding sandwich?” I said.
“For talking to me,” he said.
“I like talking to you,” I said.
“Same,” he said.