I HAD CONSIDERED GOING to Suite alone and waiting outside long enough to follow Gabriel Jabari home, wherever home was for him.
It was a place to start with him, and working my way back or forward to find out who he really was and where he had come from. I was good at following people. It had become part of a skill set I could never have imagined for myself when I was majoring in fine arts at Boston University. I liked telling myself that there were all sorts of fine arts, whether you studied them in college or not. I wondered if any of the women who’d been in my Post-Impressionist class could follow anybody as well as I could, or shoot a gun.
But if somehow I ran into trouble tonight, I did not want to be alone. So I called Spike at Spike’s in the early evening and asked if he wanted to come along.
“I had set up a thing that could turn into more of a thing after closing time tonight,” he said.
“Who with, if you don’t mind me sounding like a professional snoop?”
“You are a professional snoop.”
“There you go,” I said.
“It’s the weather guy,” he said. “Would be after he does the late news.”
“You’d rather have a date with him than sit outside a strip club with me?” I said.
“Well,” he said, “when you put it like that. But how do you know Jabari’s there?”
“He told me he’s there pretty much every night,” I said. “Hands on, so to speak.”
“Maybe he won’t go straight home.”
“But maybe he will,” I said. “I keep thinking that as much as Jabari says it’s just business with him and Tony, it seems a hell of a lot more personal to me.”
We agreed to meet at his place at a little after eleven. If I were still being followed, I didn’t want to make it easy for them. Whoever they were. So I walked over to Mount Vernon Street and went inside the Beacon Hill Hotel, where I knew the bartender. He directed me to the service entrance and I made my way to Mount Vernon, then worked my way up to Joy Street. The Uber app took care of the rest.
When I got to Spike’s, we had one drink at the bar. He’d driven his Mercedes to work tonight, saying he was going to drive over to the station and pick up the weatherman before somebody blew that shot at romance sky high.
By midnight we were parked halfway up Tremont from Suite, with a clear view of the front door. Despite the cold, and the hour on a weeknight, there was still a steady stream of customers heading into the club. Parked directly in front was the black Navigator in which Gabriel Jabari and I had taken our ride.
“There are a lot of black Navigators,” Spike said. “Doesn’t mean that one is his.”
“I remember the plate from when he dropped me,” I said.
WBOS, Spike’s favorite rock station, was playing softly on the car radio. He was dressed all in black: leather jacket, jeans, boots, even the black horn-rimmed glasses he wore when driving. He had his own Glock, too, permit in the glove compartment.
“Tell me again what we really hope to accomplish?” he said.
“He knows where I live, I ought to know where he lives,” I said. “Might be as simple as that.”
“You don’t like this guy,” Spike said.
“Not so much.”
“You ever give much thought to why you like Tony more?” he said.
“Like is a strong word,” I said. “Sometimes I just tell myself that if Tony is a pirate, he’s my pirate. Even in a disgusting line of work. And we have done each other favors in the past.”
Two big guys, walking unsteadily, got out of a limo and headed for the front door. One slapped the other on the back and nearly knocked his friend down. Then the first guy put his arm around the second guy and they disappeared into Suite. Maybe this was their idea of an expensive frat house, just with naked pole dancers and a champagne lounge.
“Tony’s a killer and a pimp,” Spike said. “All we know for now is that our boy Gabriel is some form of pimp.”
“Devil you know?” I said.
We sat in the front seat of the car and listened to music. Spike asked me more about being with Jesse again. He wanted to know if I really thought I could even be a part-time parent to Richard.
“Been thinking a lot about that,” I said. “And what I think is that I don’t know.”
“You scared?” Spike said.
“Yes!” I said in a loud voice, and we both laughed.
Spike said, “I’ve got more comedy gold about you and Jesse.”
“Save it for our next stakeout,” I said.
I asked him whatever happened to Charles Laquidara, who was the most famous rock ’n’ roll disc jockey at WBCN when I was a kid. Spike said he was living in Hawaii now, but you could still catch him online. I asked him how he knew stuff like that. He said he wasn’t just beefcake. I asked Spike why he thought Lisa was calling me.
“Protection?” he said. “Maybe she has run out of better options. If she even has any options left.”
“Only she won’t let me protect her,” I said.
“Ay,” he said, “there’s the rub.”
“Hamlet,” I said.
“Comes right after the part about to sleep and perchance to dream,” Spike said.
“Marry me, you silver-tongued devil,” I said.
“Even though I don’t have kids?” he said.
“Screw you,” I said.
“Can’t,” he said.
At fifteen minutes past one o’clock Gabriel Jabari and Gled appeared on the street. Jabari reached into his pocket and tipped the doorman. There was a woman with him, but Jabari and Gled blocked our view of her. Before we could catch a glimpse, she got into the backseat and Jabari followed her.
“Be cool,” I said as Spike put the car silently into gear with that Mercedes whisper.
“As you know from vast personal experience,” he said, “I am the coolest.”
I reminded him then that the lines right after “ay’s the rub” in Hamlet were the ones about shuffling off this mortal coil, and how we should try to avoid that tonight if at all possible.
Spike was very good at tailing cars, too. We made our way around from Tremont and then were heading toward the water, passing the Boston Harbor Hotel and Rowes Wharf. I knew that cruise ships docked right behind the hotel. Sometimes Richie and I would have dinner at The Wharf Room, which had good food and an even better view.
“If Gabriel has digs over here,” Spike said, “the hell with Spike’s, I’m opening a strip club.”
We circled back around and finally came up on the Vintage restaurant at Franklin and Broad as the Navigator made the turn on Broad and came to a stop in front of what looked like a smallish apartment building.
“The Folio,” Spike said. “I looked at a place here one time.”
“Not as expensive as living on the water?” I said.
“Still ain’t cheap, blondie,” he said.
Spike had kept his distance. He had time to park the Mercedes at the corner, in front of the Vintage. We both got out.
“Where else could he be going except inside?” Spike said.
“We’ve come this far,” I said.
The lighting was good on the street. Gled got out and opened the rear door on the driver’s side. The woman got out first. As she did, she turned and looked up the street so quickly I was afraid she’d seen me. If she did, she gave no indication.
But I had seen her.
“What the hell?” I said.
“What the hell what?” Spike said.
“I know her.”
“Tell me it’s not Lisa,” he said.
“It’s not,” I said.
“So who?” I said.
“Natalie Goddard,” I said.
“Who?”
“The former Natalie Marcus,” I said.
Tony’s ex-wife.