Back Bay (53 page)

“He was the son of Abigail’s servant, Sean, who died defending her from thieves. It seems that Abigail was in love with Sean for most of her life. Considering that and the context from which this quote is taken, it seems quite possible that Abigail gave the last quotation to Joseph Mannion.”

Soames wondered why Christopher Carrington had not explored the Mannion descent.

“It’s hard to say,” responded Isabelle. “He read all the diaries when I first interested him in the family history a few years ago. Maybe he never considered the Mannion reference significant. After all, everything else in the diaries indicates that Abigail was trying to keep the secret within the family.”

“Do you think you can track Mannion’s descent?” asked Pratt.

“Tomorrow I’m visiting the Massachusetts Genealogical Society, and a friend at the State House will help me research birth certificates. That’s the best way to start.”

“Let me remind you,” said Soames, “that we haven’t much time. If our plan is to work with Mr. Rule, speed is of the essence. It is Friday afternoon. We have until Monday morning.”

Soames bid them good day and left the office.

“He is a very annoying man,” said Isabelle.

“If he wasn’t annoying, he wouldn’t be Soames.” Pratt smiled. “He’s been my personal secretary since I joined Pratt Industries in 1975. I’d be lost without him.”

Isabelle studied Philip for a time. He seemed smaller, less formidable than she remembered. Once he had fitted perfectly behind the mahogany desk. Now the responsibilities that came with it threatened to engulf him.

“We need all the help we can get, don’t we?”

Pratt spun in his chair and looked down at the Public Garden. “All we can get,” he said softly. “All because of one crazy old lady who thought she was doing us a favor.”

Isabelle stood impulsively and came up behind his chair. She placed her hands gently on his shoulders. “I’ll do whatever I can, Philip.”

“Thanks, Izzy.”

She repeated the name. She hadn’t heard it in years.

They both laughed, sharing the memory. Then she began to massage his shoulders. He bowed his head foreward. She worked her hands into muscle and tendon, kneading, stretching, relaxing. She enjoyed comforting him.

“I worry about you, Philip. You’re so alone in all of this.”

“I’m lonely, Isabelle, but rarely alone. There’s a difference.” His body began to loosen and settle into the chair.

She slid her hands across his chest and clasped them in front of him. “I guess I’m lonely too, Philip. How can people be so lonely with so much?”

He placed his hands on hers. “Do we have anything that matters?”

The buzzer rang. Miss Allardyce told Philip that a young lady named Melissa Pike was on the phone.

“Tell her I’m out of town on urgent business.”

“Yes, sir.” Miss Allardyce clicked off.

Pratt looked at his cousin. “How about a game of tennis and a quiet dinner in a lonely Back Bay mansion?”

Evangeline and Peter stopped at Nahant and had lunch on the way back from Lynnewood Manor. They talked about her grandmother. They stared at the ocean for a time. And they returned to Boston around four o’clock. They parked Danny’s Chevrolet on Huntington Avenue, cut through an alley, and slipped into Evangeline’s apartment.

Jack C. Ferguson, wearing nothing but a wet towel, was seated in the kitchen. He had showered, his white hair was trimmed and neatly combed, and he smelled faintly of Jean Naté.

“Afternoon, kids,” he said cheerfully.

Evangeline looked at Peter. “I’ve been having this nightmare about a white whale in my apartment. Do you think I need to see a shrink?”

“You know, I like your girlfriend, Fallon.” Ferguson began to laugh. The rolls of sagging muscle bounced about merrily.

“I wear a thirty-four bra with a C cup,” said Evangeline. “You can borrow it any time you like.”

Ferguson flexed and the flesh tightened. “I still got it when I need it, honey, especially after a nice bath and a shave.”

“How long before the bathtub ring eats through the porcelain?”

“It usually takes about a week.” Ferguson laughed. “And I guess you’d better fumigate your washer and dryer when my clothes are finished.”

“I may just move instead.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” The good humor left Ferguson’s voice.

Fallon took out three beers and offered him one.

“No, thanks. When I shower and shave, I’m on the wagon. I got sloppy last night and nearly got blown away.”

“You mean you drank too much?” asked Evangeline.

“I mean a couple of Rule’s men were waitin’ for me when I got to my flat. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard them movin’ around. If I hadn’t drunk so damn much champagne, I would’ve
known the minute I stepped into the hallway that somebody was waiting for me.”

“How?” asked Evangeline.

“I don’t live in a very safe neighborhood, honey. So I have a little security system. But I wasn’t paying attention to it.”

“What did you do?” asked Fallon.

“I set the place on fire and got the hell out.”

“I don’t think I can deal with this.” Evangeline opened her beer and sat down.

“Don’t worry. The place was a boarded-up hovel. I found another one and had a good night’s sleep. And I think that you two better find a new place, too. The Pratts are too civilized to go around knockin’ people off, but Rulick, he’s something’ else again.”

“What do you mean by that?” Evangeline didn’t like his tone.

Ferguson flipped a newspaper to Fallon. A small article on the business page was circled. It described the possible takeover of the Pratt Industries board of directors by William Rule, who had been seeking support among the major stockholders for the last several months. It said that Rule would be making an announcement on Monday at the Pratt Industries stockholders’ meeting.

“The baseball writers call this nail-bitin’ time,” said Ferguson. “Rulick can’t let anybody find that tea set between now and Monday. If they want to make a dent in his plans, the Pratts have to find it before then. If any of us wants to see the two and a half million, we have to find the tea set before any of them. But we better be careful. Rule’s been after me since the day I got sober enough to start lookin’ for the tea set. He may just get panicky and come after you, especially if he thinks you’re gettin’ close.”

“I don’t think I want this to continue,” said Evangeline evenly. “It’s getting a little too dangerous.”

Ferguson smiled. “It will continue with you or without you until it’s found. Now, what about Granny?”

Fallon described his meeting with Katherine Carrington and showed Ferguson the note.

Ferguson read it and smiled. He read it again, then he stared at it, as though it conveyed something more than the message written upon it. “After all these years,” he said softly. Then, he stood.
He held the towel around his waist with one hand and the note with the other, and he paced back and forth. He seemed suddenly animated and excited.

“This is good. This is very good,” he said. “There’s one thing you learn when you’ve been on the run as long as I have—you don’t stick your neck out. But for this lady, I’ll do it. We get her out. We put her on an airplane. And we’ll be damn close to havin’ ourselves a tea set.”

“How do you know my grandmother?” asked Evangeline.

“It’s a long story, honey. You stick around and you’ll hear it. Crap out on us, and you’ll never know.”

“Put some pants on,” she said.

That evening, Fallon and Evangeline did not stay at her apartment. Ferguson suggested that they do something to make it seem as though they had given up the search. He told Peter to take Evangeline over to South Boston and have dinner with the Fallons, just like any young man introducing his girlfriend to the family. Ferguson didn’t tell them that the presence of several Fallons in one house would probably deter Rulick.

Evangeline went with Peter, although reluctantly. Whenever she considered going to the authorities, he persuaded her to look around one more corner. Each time, she discovered something about her family’s past that she did not want to know. But with each discovery, she wanted to know more. Now, she faced the possibility that around the next corner was a man with a gun.

She told herself that she should go to the police and inform them of everything she knew. That would be the rational thing to do. But as Fallon said, if they involved the police, the web might be broken and the tea set never found. Until it was, she could not live in peace. Besides, what could be rational when a mother was imprisoned by her children for her own good and a crazy derelict materialized periodically to dispense information? What was rational about her attraction to Fallon, which grew as the sense of danger deepened?

Danny, Sheila, and the kids ate dinner with Tom and Maureen on Friday nights. Scrod baked in breadcrumbs and milk. They were all delighted to see Peter walk through the door with his
new girlfriend. He rarely appeared unannounced, and he’d never brought a girl before. Two more plates appeared and the six helpings of scrod quickly became eight.

The dinner was passed in pleasant conversation. Maureen and Sheila both liked Evangeline, and Danny couldn’t take his eyes off her. Tom Fallon thought she was nice enough, although a trifle on the skinny side and altogether too nervous.

When the children went out to play after dinner, Peter told his family the story of the Golden Eagle Tea Set.

Danny was the first to speak after a long silence. “You’ve gotta be shittin’.”

“You know me better than that.”

“A tea set worth two and a half million bucks buried under the Back Bay?”

Peter nodded.

Danny rubbed the palm of his hand across his five o’clock shadow. He was hooked already. “Son of a bitch.”

“If you can’t say something intelligent,” said Tom Fallon, “don’t be cursin’.”

Danny opened the refrigerator and took out a beer.

“Why have you come here with all this?” Tom asked Peter.

“Because we need your help, Pa. Right now, that means a place to stay.”

“Are you breaking the law?” he asked sternly.

Peter looked at Evangeline.

“Others have broken the law. I think Peter has bent a few,” she said.

“Well,” announced Danny, “I don’t mind bendin’ a few laws for a few million bucks. It sure would get us out of the hole, Dad.”

“That thought crossed my mind, too,” said Peter.

“Why did you get involved in this, Peter?” asked his mother.

“For a change, I just followed my nose.”

“It’s not like you to be getting into trouble, Peter,” she said.

He smiled and opened a beer. He seemed pleased with himself. “I know.”

Tom Fallon looked level at his son. “I’ll do what I can for you. I’ll never turn away when you ask me for help. But before you do anything else, I think you both should have a good night’s sleep.”

“And tomorrow,” cracked Danny, “we start diggin’!”

That night, Peter Fallon slept in his old room. Evangeline slept in the guest room. As she climbed into bed, she noticed a crucifix on the wall above her head. She was struck by its beauty. She took it down and examined it. The crucifix was silver, and the figure of Christ was engraved into the metal. The word
BLOSSOM
was stamped on the back.

Maureen Fallon appeared in the doorway to say goodnight.

“This crucifix is exquisite,” said Evangeline.

“Indeed it is. It was the gift of a dear friend.”

November 1952

J
ack C. Ferguson was thirty-one years old, a tall, muscular man with wavy black hair, an ex-wife, and two suits. Today he was wearing the double-breasted that his friends said made him look like Victor Mature.

He hurried down Beacon Hill, past the courthouse, and into Scollay Square, where the lunchtime crowd was gathering. Lunch in Scollay Square: two drinks in the Domino Lounge watching Shirl the Twirl and her tassles; the midday show at the Old Howard, a burlesque house where your feet stuck to the floor and your pants sometimes stuck to the seat; or a half hour with the lady of your choice in a rundown hotel. Ferguson never spent much time in Scollay Square. He didn’t pay for sex, except in the form of alimony, which he called sex on credit. And when he drank, which wasn’t often these days, he didn’t like pasties distracting him.

He hurried through the square and down Hanover Street. As he passed a Democratic Party Campaign office, a worker thrust a “Kennedy for Senator” button into his hand and asked for a donation.

“Get it from his old man,” Ferguson put the button on his lapel and continued on to the Union Oyster House.

A small sign in the window proclaimed that the Oyster House was the oldest continuously operated restaurant in the United States. Ferguson stepped inside. The first floor hadn’t changed in over a hundred years—low ceilings, exposed pipes, pine paneling painted light yellow, raised booths toward the back, the soapstone-and-mahogany oyster bar to the left of the entrance. In the windows behind the bar, oysters, clams, and red-cooked lobsters were displayed on beds of crushed ice and seaweed. Before he walked in the door, Jack had his lobster picked out.

“Jack! Jackie! Over here!”

At the end of the bar, wearing the olive-colored uniform of a sergeant in the United States Army, sat Bill Rulick. The two old friends shook hands and embraced roughly. They had not seen each other since December of 1945, when Rulick had been home from Germany on leave. Ferguson had served, but he had never gone overseas.

“It’s been a long time, Billy.” Ferguson noticed that Rulick had lost a little hair but still had the build of a wrestler.

“Too long, Jack. What’ll you have?”

“A draft.”

“No chaser?”

“Nope. Beer’s my limit these days.”

Rulick recorded that bit of information, then called for two drafts and two orders of oysters on the half shell.

First, Rulick and Ferguson toasted their reunion, then Rulick raised his hand, as though calling for quiet, and focused his attention on the plate in front of him. He squeezed a bit of lemon and shook a drop of Tabasco onto an oyster. He picked up the crusty shell, put it to his lips, and tilted his head back. The oyster slid slowly into his mouth. He slurped the juices from the shell, closed his eyes, and chewed. After another long swallow of beer, he looked at Ferguson.