“The ‘mom’ and ‘dad’? Yeah. Tragic house fire. No survivors at either place.” Parker’s fingers were beginning to itch, and his mouth dried. He’d lost his damned cigarettes someplace, and he needed to stay calm, especially when dealing with his employer. He’d have to pick some up before he hunted Mitchell down. “I got any papers out that referenced their hire.”
“Assholes. Kept calling me to talk about how my fucking nephew was doing.” The scorn in the man’s voice carried strong over the crackling phone line. “I could have given a shit about how he was doing. The only reason I hired them was to back up the story the doctors spun him.”
“So why take Mitchell out now? Shit, why even go through any of this? He was already dead.” Parker risked a question, wondering if he even cared about the answer. His employer was a steaming vent of a man. Knowing the asshole on the other side of the phone would send in someone to kill him just for spite was the only thing that kept him from walking away from the job.
“Because he’s worth a shitload of money, and I need it. Merchandising alone is going through the roof, but that fucking singer won’t release the commercial rights to their songs. That’s someone else you might have to take care of while you’re out there,” the man groused. “And I wanted this done at Skywood because he’s starting to remember things—solid stuff someone else could back up if they wanted to. With his fucking marbles in place, he’s better off dead. Look, just find the boy and take care of him. If you can’t do him in the next twenty-four hours, call me back. We’re going to have to start taking care of other shit there to drive him out into the open.”
Parker had half a mind to tell the man to shove it. One day, probably soon, he was going to find himself on the wrong end of a bullet. His employer’s pension plan was a simple one. Outgrow your usefulness and someone like Parker would be knocking on your door. He knew what to expect. After all, it was how his predecessor retired, and Parker’d been the one to deliver the man’s pink slip.
No, doing the kid would be his last job for the man. The money from Mitchell’s kill would go a long way to helping Parker disappear. He’d already looked into setting up a gator farm in the Everglades, and if someone came looking for him to tie up his boss’s loose ends, he’d have a ready supply of hungry carnivores to take care of any nasty business that came his way.
He closed the phone, ambled over to a sidewalk coffee kiosk, and caught the attention of the tiny, pretty Filipina barista working the cart. Smiling as widely as the crocs he hoped to own one day, Parker leaned on the counter and murmured. “So, what do I have to do to get a coffee around here?”
Chapter 4
The stars are crying
It’s like the world knows you’re gone.
Slipping away and sliding on,
The shadows hold your voice
I keep hearing you on the wind
Either come back to my side
Or leave me the hell alone
—In Blue Notebook Margins, Page 82
DEE looked like he was going to bolt. Sionn could see it from across the pier walk even through the still-thick fog. Watching the lean guitarist intently, he didn’t hear what the inspector said to him until Browne poked him in the ribs with his pen.
“Sorry, what?” He jerked his attention back to the older man. Dee was proving to be a distraction. It was bad enough he found himself staring at the man through the pub’s windows whenever he covered a shift. Now he was drifting off while his uncle’s former partner grilled him about the shooting. “’Scuse me, Brownie. My brain’s a bit gone, you know.”
“What’s his story? That musician of yours.” Browne was an old hand at SFPD, a grizzled but sharp investigator whose hound-dog eyes missed nothing around him. Scratching his cheek with the same pen he used to get Sionn’s attention, he took a moment to stare at Dee. “Says his name’s Dee Thompson and that you’ve been letting him play in front of Finnegan’s for almost a month now.”
“That’s about right,” Sionn murmured. First time he’d heard Dee even had a last name, but then that hadn’t been something he’d picked out. Sionn knew the important things, like how Dee drank his coffee and liked a lot of salt on his fries. But things like last names and why he was frightened to white, Sionn intended to shake that out of Dee once Browne was done with him. “People seem to like his playing. Brings in a bit of business.”
The inspector sucked at his teeth for a moment, then drawled, “What happened to the no buskers in front of the pub rule your gran had.”
“Gran’s dead,” Sionn said flatly, pulling his gaze from Dee and back to the burly inspector. “Things change… sir.”