A FEW HOURS LATER Richie and I took Richard to the New England Aquarium.
Tony Marcus was still not returning my calls, which bothered me. Lisa still hadn’t called me back. I had a plan for finding out more about Gabriel Jabari. But I knew the plan would require more preparation, even if it happened to be a variation of something that had once worked quite well with Natalie.
If somebody were still following me, all they were doing was what I was doing, bouncing around as randomly as a pinball, from a strip club to Callie Harden to Olivia Hewitt’s home for wayward girls to Harvard Stadium to Paradise to Natalie’s place on Revere. Maybe if I ever did find Lisa, it would all make sense. Just not yet. And not close. I kept telling myself I had found my way out of the deep, dark forest before.
For now, though, a trip to the aquarium, one that included a six-year-old boy, seemed almost therapeutic. We spent an hour with the penguins. Richard said that he’d never seen a real one before, the only penguins he’d ever seen were in books and a movie he’d watched with his mom one time.
He loved the penguins. But, I thought, who didn’t? Richie and I had come here early in our dating life. I’d loved them then and still did. We wandered around after that. We had lunch. After lunch Richard asked if he could see the penguins one more time. We did that.
Finally the boy looked at his father, plaintively, and asked if he had to go back to the hotel yet.
Richie looked at me.
“I’m good,” I said.
Then I knelt down and looked at Richard and said, “Would you like to go back to my house and play with Rosie?”
“Yes!” he said.
“I know it’s cold out,” I said. “But we could even take her for a walk in the park.”
“This is the best day ever!” he said.
Rosie wasn’t much of a cold-weather dog. She didn’t seem to mind the conditions much today. But by now I had reached the conclusion that a nuclear attack wouldn’t bother her as long as she was with her new friend.
Richie had stayed behind at the house, saying he was getting jammed by a couple of his delivery companies, and was desperately trying to unjam himself.
So Richard and I walked past the now-frozen lake that the swan boats toured in the summer, past the statue of George Washington, and then circled back so Richard could see the small duckling statues on the Beacon Street side of the Public Garden.
At one point the boy reached over and placed his hand in mine.
“My mom is going away,” he said.
“I heard,” I said.
“It scares me,” he said.
“Would scare me, too,” I said.
“But I try not to show it,” he said. “I don’t want my dad to worry about me.”
“I think your dad is pretty proud of the way you’re handling all this,” I said. “For being as strong as you’re being.”
“I want to be strong like him,” he said.
Boys and their fathers.
“You’re doing just fine,” I said.
“I want to be like him,” Richard said. “I only knew how much I missed him until I got to be with him again.”
I feel the exact same way, I thought.
I waited for him to take his hand out of mine. But he did not. All the way home.
When we got back to the house I made hot chocolate for everyone. Rosie frolicked with Richard. Richie and I drank hot chocolate and watched them.
Reluctantly, I asked how Kathryn was doing. He said she was a mess, that she’d come to Boston hoping that it might become some sort of new beginning but that now it seemed like just another dead end.
“I don’t care how much of a mess she is,” I said. “On what planet could she leave this kid for any extended period of time?”
“I think she views it as a vacation from the responsibilities of being a parent,” he said.
“Not sure it works that way,” I said. “The vacation part.”
“I’m aware how self-absorbed she can be,” Richie said, “even at her best.”
I grinned. “Who the hell would marry someone like that?” I said.
“Not funny,” he said.
“Is too,” I said.
“Let’s change the subject,” Richie said. “Anything good happening in the case?”
“It just gets more confusing,” I said, and told him about our adventure with Jabari the night before, my latest call from Lisa, my meeting with Natalie.
“Jabari and Tony have history?” Richie said.
“According to Natalie.”
“That come up before?” he said.
“Nope,” I said.
“Could this be a whole new grudge match?” he said.
“Yup,” I said.
There was a squeal from the kitchen.
“Was that Richard or Rosie?” I said.
“Hard to tell,” Richie said.
“Tony doesn’t want to talk to me right now,” I said.
Richie smiled at me. “When has that ever stopped you?” he said. “And maybe the junior pimp is a better way to go, anyway.”
“He sees himself as more an entrepreneur,” I said.
“So did my father,” Richie said.
“Desmond was never a pimp,” I said.
“So he says,” Richie said.
“Tony says he didn’t know anything about Jabari until he showed up in town,” I said. “Do you think it’s possible he might have screwed him over in the past and doesn’t even know he did?”
“Be good to know,” Richie said. “But would it help you roll things up with Lisa?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I said.
“Find the woman,” Richie said, “find out what she has.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and leaned up and kissed him on the mouth.
“Find out once and for all,” Richie said, “if he really is more scared of losing her, or what she might have on him.”
“Tony doesn’t scare easily, we’ve long since established that,” I said. “So what could scare him that much?”
Richie said, “Didn’t you tell me that he might have more to fear from the cops right now than from anybody else?”
I had told him about my conversation with Jake Rosen, if not about Rosen’s flirtatiousness. And all-around cuteness.
“Maybe you should circle back to him,” Richie said.
I told him that was such a good idea it was worth another kiss, and gave him one, longer than before. It might have lasted longer than it did if we hadn’t heard another squeal from the kitchen.
“Not in front of the children,” he said.