Robert B Parker
Double Deuce
PROLOGUE
Her name was Devona Jefferson. She was going to be fifteen years old on April 23, and she had a daughter, three months and ten days old, whom she had named Crystal, after a white woman on television. Crystal had the same dark chocolate skin her mother had, and the large eyes. She probably looked like her father too, because some of her didn’t look like Devona. But Devona didn’t know which one the father was, and she didn’t care, because Crystal was all hers anyway, the first thing she’d ever had that was all hers.
She loved carrying Crystal, loved the weight of her, the smell of her hair, the soft spot still in the back of her skull, where the white lady doctor at City had told her the skull hadn’t grown together yet. They were together most of the time, because there was no one to leave Crystal with, but Devona didn’t mind much. Crystal was a quiet baby, and Devona would carry her around and talk with her, about their life together and what it would be like when Crystal got bigger and how they’d be friends when Crystal grew up, because they’d be only fourteen years apart.
She had Crystal dressed that day in a new snowsuit with a little hood that she’d bought at Filene’s with money she’d gotten from a boyfriend named Tallboy who dealt dope and might be Crystal’s father. It was white satin with lace at the hood, and she liked the way Crystal’s face looked, so black in the middle of the white satin. Devona had on a pink sweatsuit with pink high-cut sneakers that she wore with rainbow shoelaces. It was a warm spring and she wasn’t wearing anything over the sweatsuit, even though she had Crystal bundled in her snowsuit.
She was on Hobart Street. It wasn’t her turf, but she wasn’t down special with one gang, and she might have even duked one of the Hobart Street Fros sometime. She wasn’t sure. Still she felt the little tight feeling in her stomach when the van crawled up behind her and followed along as she walked. She always felt a little protected when she had Crystal. People were usually more careful about a baby, and she always felt like she could protect her baby, which made her feel like she could protect herself.
She rounded the corner by Double Deuce with the spring sun warm in her face. The van came around behind her. Somebody spoke to her from the passenger side.
“You Tallboy’s slut?”
“I not no one’s slut,” she said. “I Crystal’s momma.”
Somebody else in the van said, “Yeah, she’s Tallboy’s.” And something exploded in her head. She never heard the shots that killed her, and killed Crystal. There were twelve of them, fired as fast as the trigger would pull, from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol through the back side door of the van. Devona fell on top of her baby, but it didn’t matter. Three slugs penetrated her body and lodged in the baby’s chest, one of them in her heart. Their blood was mixed on the sidewalk outside Twenty-two Hobart Street, when the first cruiser arrived. It wasn’t until the wagon came and they moved her to put her on the litter that anyone even knew the baby was there and they had two homicides and not one.
CHAPTER 1
Hawk and I were running along the river in April. It was early, before the Spandex-Walkman group was awake. The sunshine was a little thin where it reflected off the water, but it had promise, and the plantings along the Esplanade were beginning to revive.
“Winter’s first green is gold,” I said to Hawk.
“Sure,” he said.
He ran as he did everything, as if he’d been born to do it, designed for the task by a clever and symmetrical god. He was breathing easily, and running effortlessly. The only sign of energy expended was the sweat that brightened his face and shaved head.
“You working on anything?” Hawk said.
“I was thinking about breakfast,” I said.
“I might need some support,” Hawk said.
“You might?”
“Yeah. Pay’s lousy.”
“How much?” I said.
“I’m getting nothing.”
“I’ll take half,” I said.
“You ain’t worth half,” Hawk said. “Besides I got the job and already put in a lot of time on it. Give you a third.”
“Cheap bastard,” I said.
“Take it or leave it,” Hawk said.
“Okay,” I said, “you got me over a barrel. I’m in for a third.”
