Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery)
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Authors: Steve Ulfelder
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Hard-Boiled
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For Steve and Lucyâforever the heroes of Hot Wheels Land
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sometimes I feel like an exceptionally talented group is conspiring to make me look better than I deserve to look. I do not mind this one bit.
I'd be nowhere without my agent, Janet Reid. My editor, Anne Brewer, improved this book just as she's improved them all. Everybody at Thomas Dunne Books and Minotaurâeditors, designers, publicity pros, and othersâis in on the conspiracy.
Finally, I thank my partners at Flatout Motorsports and my wife, Martha Ulfelder, for riding out the ups and downs. I couldn't do this without their patience.
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CONTENTS
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CHAPTER ONE
If Walmart is too swank for your taste, maybe a little pricey, you shop at Ocean State Job Lot.
Me and Gus Biletnikov were parked outside one, waiting for a thief to get off work.
Marlborough, Massachusetts. Strip mall on Route 20, a busy east-west road that'll take you all the way across the state if you're not in a hurry. The strip mall had grown without any real planâonly locals knew which half-assed access roads led to what. An off-brand supermarket, an off-brand clothing store, a rental center, a good barbecue joint, a CVS.
An Ocean State Job Lot.
I spotted the guy leaving the store for the night. Whipping off his blue smock before he was three steps out the door, balling it in a fist. He headed for a black early-nineties Mustang. The Mustang: immaculate, maybe the nicest car in the lot.
I said, “That Andrade?”
Gus nodded. “The one and only. Should I duck?”
“Don't bother.”
“You mind if I just wet my pants then?”
I started my truck, dropped it in drive. Turned off the dome light, unlatched my door, held it ajar. Slow-rolled toward Andrade, angling up behind him.
I was on him before he looked. With my dome light off, he couldn't see inside the truck. So the first he knew of me was when I slammed my door into him.
Andrade grabbed his right elbow and went down. I stopped, hopped out, stepped on his chest. “Gus Biletnikov does not owe you any money,” I said.
“I sold that little prick a Focus,” Andrade said. “I gave him a break, took half up front even though I doubted he was good for the rest. He still owes me six-fifty.”
I leaned into the boot on his chest. “You sold Roy a piece of shit.”
Confusion flashed in Andrade's eyes. I ignored it.
“You rolled back the odometer,” I said. “You cooked up the inspection sticker yourself. The six-fifty
might
make the car roadworthy. He doesn't owe you a goddamn nickel.”
Andrade looked at the sodium light above us, waited for his breath to come back. A car slowed to watch. I stared. It rolled on past.
“Fucking junkie owes me six-fifty,” Andrade finally said. “I know who you are. I got friends too, tough guy.”
Give him credit for guts.
I sighed. Took his right hand, raised it, pistoned his elbow into the busted tarmac.
Twice.
The first time, it made a ball-bat sound. The second time, it made a crunchy sound.
I dropped his arm. “Gus Biletnikov does not owe you any money.”
Andrade passed out. It was the first smart thing he'd done.
Then I drove Gus back to Framingham.
He was speechless for a while.
But only for a while.
“I've seen some shit,” he finally said, “but that was ⦠Conway, you are the
man
!”
I drove.
He said, “My roommate and I had a few encounters with these heavy gangster types. Did I ever tell you about that?”
He said, “You ever hear the term ânoble savage'? You are primitive, man. You are â¦
pure
!”
I drove.
He said, “Who's Roy?”
“My son,” I said. “Why?”
“Aha.”
“Aha what?” I said. “How do you know Roy?”
“Never mind.”
I drove.
And thought.
A few miles later, replaying the parking-lot scene in my head, I figured out how Gus had picked up Roy's name. I felt stupid and simple and easy to read. My face went hot.
When we hit downtown Framingham, Gus said, “I live here, over the sub shop.”
It was a halfway house called Almost Home. I know a bunch of guys who've spent time there. A couple are still sober, far as I know.
“I'll pick you up tomorrow at six thirty,” I said as he climbed out. “We'll hit a meeting in Milford. You can get up and speak. You're good at that.”
“Oh.”
I started to pull away, happy for the silence. But stopped, waved Gus to the open passenger window. “I don't know anything about this Andrade,” I said. “Watch yourself.”
“Will do. Now here's the thing about that meeting tomorrow⦔
I pulled away.
The kid could run his mouth. I liked him anyway.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Gus Biletnikov had stood out from the second he banister-slid into the church basement for the weekly meeting of the Barnburners, the AA group that saved my life. The Barnburners are semifamous in the tight world of AA. Judges, cops, and counselors send us drunks and addicts who are teetering. Who are set to die or live or go to prison forever, with much depending on how their next few weeks turn out.
The judges, cops, and counselors know we're a hardcore group, so they warn the fresh fish that when they hit the basement of Saint Anne's, they'd best keep their ears open and their mouths shut.
The addicts are usually intimidated enough to take the advice.
Not Gus.
He truly had hopped on the banister and slid sidesaddle to the bottom, hollering “Whee!” like a seven-year-old. Then he'd bopped through the double doors into the big room, causing enough commotion that I stopped fiddling with the microphone and stared.
And opened my mouth.
He looked just like my son.
It was so obvious that a couple of Barnburners I knew well looked from Gus to me and back. They'd seen pictures. They thought the lippy, skinny kid tossing his bangs from his eyes was Roy.
Except in looks, though, he wasn't anything like Roy.
Roy's suspicious of the world. He
hides
behind his bangs, staring out at the world like a stray dog that knows it's going to get hitâbut doesn't know who by.
This kid, on the other hand ⦠he knew he'd created a commotion. And he loved it. Took three giant strides forward, navigating the aisle between the folding chairs. Put both hands over his heart like a hambone actor and said, “Ah am
here
! Ah am
here
! Ah am
here,
Lord, to be saved by the mighty, mighty Barnburners!”
Then he dropped to a knee like Elvis Presley, made a big show of crossing himself, sidestepped over to a chair, and plopped down next to a fiftyish woman who looked at him like he was from Mars.
Gus never did learn how close he came to getting an old-fashioned bum's rush that night. Skinny Dennis and Pablo, bikers from Medway who would've lassoed a freight train for me, raised their eyebrows in the back of the room. If I nodded, they would take the kid by his armpits and jeans pockets, quickstep him up the stairs, and see how far they could toss him into the parking lot. It wouldn't be the first time.
I damn near nodded.
But the kid had figured out instinctively that in this room, I had some juice.
He was meeting my eyes.
He was not afraid.
And he looked like my son.
I shook my head at Skinny Dennis and Pablo. They went back to their conversation.
We Barnburners set up Saint Anne's our own way. Most of the folding chairs face the podium, of course. But there's a little bump-out in the room's northwest corner, and for as long as I've been around, somebody sets a dozen or so chairs at an angle that lets the leaders and old-timers keep an eye on the entire joint.
To newcomers, they look like seats for a jury. And that's about right.
They're reserved for the Meeting After the Meeting crowd.
I'm part of that crowd, so throughout that night's meeting, I got an eyeful of the kid who turned out to be Gus Biletnikov. He mugged and made exaggerated nods and got a big kick out of himself. Once, while a black woman spoke, he said, “Testify, sister!”
I knew Skinny Dennis and Pablo were itching to toss the kid. Truth be told, I was with them. After the meeting, I figured, I would nod once to the bikers. They would escort the punk to the parking lot and explain that we Barnburners specialized in serious AA for serious people and he'd best find himself another meeting.
But something happened at the end.
As always, we closed by joining hands and saying the Lord's Prayer.
It's hard to explain, but during the prayer, I always feel like I've
done
something. Like I've risen above myself, maybe even done something to be proud ofâif sitting on your ass for an hour can fit that description. The prayer is the best part of the meeting. Sometimes it's the best part of my week.
Instinct made me open one eye during that evening's prayer.
I looked at the wiseass kid.
He wasn't being a wiseass.
His hands gripped those of the folks on either side of him. His lips moved as he prayed. His eyes were shut tight.
And he was crying honest tears.
And that meant he wasn't all bad.
So there was no bum's rush. Instead, twenty minutes later, my Meeting After the Meeting pals assigned me to connect with the new kid, to see what he was all about.
I didn't mind.
And that didn't have anything to do with the fact that the kid looked just like Roy.
Hardly anything.
The assignment led me to ask around among counselors and parole officers and rehab operators. Which led me to Almost Home and to Gus Biletnikov. Who, it turned out, had a problem with a shitbox car he'd bought from Andrade.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The morning after I pulped Andrade's elbow, I had an Infiniti on the lift for its 125,000-mile service when a cruiser pulled into my small parking lot. White Crown Vic,
FRAMINGHAM
in blue filling its flank.