Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) by Steve Ulfelder Page A

someone —about Gus. About tough love. About zero-tolerance policies. About how rotten they feel.
    They sound good in meetings, in counselors’ offices.
    But try to live tough love. Try to throw a kid out on his ass for smoking a little weed.
    It’s harder on the thrower than it is on the thrown.
    And the thrown know it. They leverage it. They leverage anything, everything . Drunks and Junkies 101.
    Which is why tough love is the way to go.
    Full fucking circle.
    I parked Charlene’s Volvo SUV in her driveway. We all climbed out. I handed Charlene her keys, unpocketed my own, unlocked my truck.
    She didn’t ask where I was going.
    *   *   *
    I spent an hour prowling Framingham. Gus wasn’t answering his phone. I wondered if it was the GPS kind that could tell you its location. Probably. But how did you go about that? Cops? Court order? I thought about calling Lima. Decided against. Asked myself why, decided it was con’s instinct. You don’t tip your hand to the law. Period. Not even if he seems okay, as Lima did.
    So you’re on your own. Think like a junkie who’s got a few hundred bucks in his pocket and is on foot. And favors cocaine.
    The map in my head told me after being chucked down the stairs, Gus would’ve headed a few blocks south to Route 135, gravitating toward noise and traffic and shops. From there, east would mean Natick and nicer towns. West, on the other hand, meant Framingham’s downtown—train station, Salvation Army, alleys, and all. It’s not a big city, not hardly, but Gus could find what he needed there.
    West it was.
    I crawled the little downtown. Hit every street, every loading dock, every doorway. Framingham’s mostly made up of workers. Blue-collar: too tired on a weeknight to raise much hell. But there are some places you don’t want to be after dark.
    I looked in those places.
    Tough love.
    No Gus.
    I asked a dozen creeps in a dozen spots. White kid, probably looking to score? All his stuff in a backpack or a trash bag slung over his shoulder?
    Nobody’d seen him, or would cop to it. A Bahamian outside the train station wearing three hoodies mumbled and pointed enough so that I stuck a pair of fives in his hand, which was missing its ring finger. “Well?” I said.
    â€œThatum,” he said, pointing west. “Or thatum.” East. “You got a light, mon? You got a smoke?”
    I took back my fives.
    â€œAw, mon, ” the Bahamian said to my back.
    I kicked my truck’s tire out of frustration. Climbed in, heel-rubbed my eyes, checked my watch. Midnight. Thought about calling the Framingham cops, but Matt Bogardis was the only one I trusted, and what were the odds?
    â€œHell,” I said out loud to nobody.
    And called Luther Swale.
    â€œSorry,” I said when he picked up on four and a half rings. “It’s late, I know. But I’m looking for a kid.”
    I listened to Luther breathe for maybe fifteen seconds. “How old?” he finally said.
    â€œTwentyish.”
    â€œAnd yet you called him a kid. When I was twenty, I was a supply sergeant down at Otis.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah. And these days they’re boys until they’re thirty, and even then half of ’em want to take the easy way out and be stay-at-home daddies. Hell in a handcart. We’ve covered all that, amigo. But I’m helping this one.”
    â€œHelping. The way you help. Your Barnstormer pals.”
    â€œBarn burners .”
    He sighed. “What do you need?”
    â€œHe might have hopped on the commuter rail, looking to get out of Framingham and score. If you take Boston, I’ll take Worcester.”
    â€œYou don’t even know what direction he went in?”
    I said nothing.
    â€œWhat would he be after?” Luther finally said. “Ups or downs?”
    â€œHe’s a cocaine boy. Limited funds, so I’m guessing