Free Back Story by Robert B. Parker Page A

painted. The gate hung crooked, its hinges loose. In the small, weedy front lawn, a black Labrador retriever with a red bandana around his neck barked at me without hostility when I pushed the gate open.
    Behind me, Hawk lowered the power window and said, "Backup?"
    "Fortunately, I'm armed," I said.
    Once I was inside, the Lab came over with his tail wagging slowly and his ears flattened, and waited for me to pat him, which I did before I knocked on Barry's door, which needed the same treatment the fence needed. The door opened almost at once.
    "Hey," Barry said.
    "Hey," I said.
    "You Spenser."
    "I am."
    "So come on in, man."
    "Thanks."
    Barry was shirtless, wearing only tartan plaid shorts and flip-flop rubber shower sandals. He had a lot of gray hair, which he wore in a single braid that reached the small of his back. His upper body was slim and smooth, with no sign of muscle. The house appeared to have a living room on one side of the stairs and a kitchen on the other. My guess was that there were two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Barry waved at the living room in general.
    "Have a seat, man. Anywhere you'd like."
    The choices were limited. He had a daybed covered with a khaki blanket and two cane-backed rocking chairs. A big television sat on a small steamer trunk under the front window, and an old pink princess phone rested on an inverted packing crate. There was a large circular dog cushion in the middle of the room, filled, from the smell, with cedar shavings. The Lab, who had come in when I did, plomped down on it and stretched his legs out to the side and went to sleep. I sat on the daybed.
    "You want a glass of water or something?" Barry said. I shook my head. He sat in one of the rocking chairs. Beside the chair, on what looked to be an orange crate, was a Baggie full of something that looked like oregano but probably wasn't. Beside the Baggie was a package of cigarette papers.
    "So," he said. "How's baby Daryl."
    "She's quite a good actress," I said. "You ever see her perform?"
    "No, man, regrettably, I never got the chance."
    "I can see you're a busy guy," I said.
    "I write music," he said.
    "Of course you do," I said. "What can you tell me about Daryl's mother?"
    "Emmy?"
    "Emily Gordon," I said.
    "Well, shit, man, she died thirty years ago."
    "Twenty-eight," I said.
    Without looking, Barry extracted a cigarette paper from the packet and picked up his Baggie. "That's a long time ago, man."
    He shook out some of the contents of his Baggie and rolled himself a joint. He was expert. He could roll with one hand. He put the joint in his mouth and fumbled with the flat of his hand on the orange crate.
    "You got a match?" he said.
    "No."
    He stood and flip-flopped past the front stairs to the kitchen and came back with a pack of matches. He lit the joint, took a big inhale, and let it out slowly.
    "Calmer?" I said.
    "Huh? Oh, the joint. I know I smoke too much. I got to cut back one of these days. So what did you want to ask me?"
    "Anything you could tell me," I said.
    "About Emmy? Well, you know, I haven't seen her in about twenty-eight years."
    He took a big drag on the joint and held the smoke in for a time and let it out slowly. He let his head rest against the woven cane back of the rocker. Then he giggled.
    "Shit, man, nobody seen her in twenty-eight years, have they?"
    "Probably not," I said. "Why did she go to Boston?"
    "Always wanted to, I guess. You know how it is, man, you get some vision of a place, you finally got to go look at it, see how it compares."
    He took another drag.
    "She have a boyfriend?"
    Barry shrugged.
    "Is that a yes?" I said.
    "We had a sort of informal marriage, man. You know?"
    "So she had a boyfriend?"
    "She had a lot of them."
    "But this one she followed to Boston."
    "I guess," Barry said. "You know his name?"
    "His name?"
    "Barry, are these questions too hard for you?"
    "It's been thirty years, man."
    "Twenty-eight, and in that time you forgot the name of the guy that your wife ran off