School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,29

you talk about?"

"Books, movies, ideas."

"Ideas?" I said.

She smiled.

"We talked about love," she said. "We talked about friendship. We talked about what humans should be. About what one human owed another. About what made a person good."

"But in the abstract," I said.

"Yes."

"Without concrete examples," I said.

"None tied to him," she said.

"Better than not talking about them at all," I said.

"Yes."

"Did you have any sense that some of these issues might have a personal connection?" I said.

"I never pried."

"Could you give a guess," I said.

She was quiet, looking at her glass. Then she raised it and took a long swallow.

"I would guess," she said, "that they did."

Chapter 29

THE STOREFRONT wasn't lit very well, and was kind of gloomy. I took some time for my eyes to adjust while I looked around. Next to the door was an old-fashioned Coke cooler, the red paint faded and along the edges chipped away. There was a deeply tarnished bottle-cap opener screwed to the side. At the far back end of the room was a pool table with a light hanging over it, the felt surface of the table a patch of bright green under the light. Some folding chairs and card tables were set around the room, and on the left side, there was a big, yellow oak desk and an expensive leather swivel chair with a high back and a padded headrest. There were a few men playing cards at a couple of the tables. A tall, sharp-edged, quick-looking man in a bright white tuxedo shirt sat in the swivel chair with his feet up on the desk. He was black. So was everyone else in the room. They all looked at me silently when I came in. I felt whiter than Mr. Clean.

The lean, hard guy at the desk studied me as I came in. I stood and let him look. Nobody said anything. A radio somewhere was playing rap music, but not so loud that I couldn't stand it.

The guy in the swivel chair said, "Jesus Christ."

"Almost," I said.

"Spenser," the guy said.

"Major," I said.

"You looking for me?" Major said.

"I am," I said.

"So?"

I hooked an empty folding chair and walked with it to the desk. I put it down and sat on it.

A short, thick man with prison tattoos and no hair spoke to Major.

"You want fish flop out of here?" he said.

Major shook his head.

"Know him, long time ago," Major said. "Him and Hawk."

"Some of my best friends are black," I said.

The thick man stared at me. I bore up as best I could. After a while, he sat down. But he kept looking.

"I sense racial intolerance," I said to Major.

"You better fucking believe it," Major said. "What you want here?"

"Need some help," I said.

"From motherfucking me?"

"Beautifully put," I said.

Major almost smiled. "What you need?" he said.

"You still in the gang business?"

"Not me," Major said. "I president of the Chamber of Commerce. "

"And you owe it all to me and Hawk," I said.

"Sho 'nuff. Set me on the path to re-fucking-demption."

"Makes me proud," I said.

"So what you want?"

"I'm interested in a Boston gang calls itself Los Diablos," I said.

Major laughed.

"The fucking Fritos," he said. "What you want with Los-fucking-Diablos."

"Need to talk with a guy named Jose Yang."

"Chink Frito," Major said. "He runs the thing."

"Where do they operate?" I said.

"Where we fucking let them," Major said.

"We?"

Major grinned at me.

"Hobart Chamber of Commerce," he said. "Major Johnson, head nigger."

"So where do you let them operate?"

"Part of Dorchester," Major said. "What you want with them."

"Yang's got a younger brother, Animal, involved in something I'm working on out in the far western suburbs."

"Animal?" Major said. "The bodybuilder?"

I nodded.

"Out in the white, white west?" Major said.

"Yes."

"Animal; dumber than my dick?" Major said.

"Big and scary, though," I said. "Reminds me a little of John Porter."

"John Porter in the ground, man. Long time."

"Somebody shoot him?"

" 'Course they did, man. What you think?"

"Can you set me up with Yang?" I said.

"I want to," Major said. "I can."

I nodded.

"What you want to do with him," Major said. "I can have somebody dart him, you want."

"No. His brother maybe supplied the guns used in that big school shootout last spring."

"And you want to know if Chink Frito supply them. Say he do. What you gonna do then?"

"Nothing right away," I said. "I'm just gathering information."

"And what you do if Jose don't like you asking, and decide to deuce yo white ass?"

"I figure you won't let him."

Major sat back in the big, expensive swivel chair and looked at me, beginning to smile. I