The Professional - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,55

He was impersonating a police officer.”

Belson glanced at him.

“We all thought that,” Belson said, “when he was a cop.”

“Was carrying,” Harper said. “With a permit. I got the piece.”

“Give it back to him,” Belson said.

Harper shrugged and handed me my gun.

Belson looked at the super.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“I’m the superintendent. He told me he was a cop.”

Belson nodded.

“Fucking crime wave in here,” he said.

He nodded at one of the detectives.

“Get a statement from the super,” he said.

Then he looked at the paramedics.

“Woman dead?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” the woman said. “Appears to be blunt-instrument trauma.”

“Guy?”

“He’s way out,” she said. “But vital signs are steady. He should come around.”

“When?”

The woman shrugged.

“When he does,” she said.

“You taking him to City?”

“We call that Boston Medical Center now,” she said.

“You taking him there?” Belson said.

“Yes.”

Belson turned to Harper and his partner.

“You two go with him. Make sure nobody tries to finish the job. When he wakes up, call me.”

“What about her?” the paramedic said.

“Coroner will take her away. Right now she’s evidence.”

The medics put Gary on a stretcher, stabilized him, and took him to the ambulance. Charlie and Harper went with them. Belson turned to me.

“Impersonating a police officer,” Belson said.

He was looking at the room as he talked to me. He always did that at a crime scene, and when he left, I knew he would have seen everything in the room, and he’d remember it.

“Mea culpa,” I said.

“How many times you done that now,” Belson said, “since I knew you?”

“Sixty-three times, I think.”

Belson nodded, still slowly absorbing the room.

“Tell me what you know,” he said.

Chapter66

I DON’T KNOW QUITE why I left Boo out of it, but I did. When Gary woke up he’d tell them what happened, and they’d come for Boo. I wanted a little time to get there first. I didn’t quite know why I wanted to get there first. I left Vinnie out, too—professional courtesy. I said that I’d been watching her place and seen somebody suspicious-looking come out of the building. So I’d called on my cell and got no answer. The rest of it I told as it happened.

I don’t think Frank bought it all, he came at it from a few different directions, but my story didn’t change and Frank let it go. He knew I hadn’t done it. And he knew that sooner or later, he and I were working the same side of the street.

Mostly.

I got to JP a little before midnight. There was a light on in the window of the second-floor apartment that Boo shared with Zel. I rang the bell. After a minute Zel came to the door, and looked out and saw it was me, and opened the door.

“Trouble?” he said.

“Where’s Boo?” I said.

“He ain’t here, ain’t been home all day.”

“We need to talk,” I said.

Zel nodded and stepped aside. He closed the door behind me and preceded me up the dim stairway. He had a gun in his right hip pocket.

In the kitchen, we sat on opposite sides of the table, under a single naked bulb.

“What?” Zel said.

I looked around the apartment. It wasn’t much. Two bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen. The doors to all the other rooms were open to the kitchen. There was no sign of Boo.

“Boo killed Beth Jackson tonight,” I said. “Beat her to death.”

Zel didn’t move. He didn’t change his expression.

“Cops know she’s dead, but they don’t know yet that it was Boo.”

Zel nodded slightly.

“But you do,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But they’ll know soon enough. Boo left an eyewitness alive.”

Zel shook his head sadly.

“Poor dumb bastard,” Zel said.

“Gary Eisenhower,” I said. “He was unconscious when we found him, but when he wakes up, he’ll pretty sure be mentioning Boo’s name.”

Zel nodded.

“So why are you here,” Zel said.

I paused. The room wasn’t much, but it was neat. No dirty dishes, no crumbs on the table. The refrigerator was old and made a lot of noise. Otherwise, there was no sound anywhere, and no sense that there was anyone alive in the building but me and Zel under the one-hundred-watt bulb.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just figured I oughta talk with you before the cops came to get him.”

“Boo won’t want to go,” Zel said.

“They’ll come in large numbers,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zel said. “They do that.”

He got up and got two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and gave me one and sat down again.

“You know why he killed her?” I said.

“I got an idea,” Zel said.

I nodded.

“Here’s my theory,” I said. “See what you think.”

Zel