Killers (10 page)

“If the bill gets killed because of this alleged gang war,” I said, “then it starts all over again next January?”

“As do the payoffs,” he said.

“And whether Carberry wins or not—”

“He won't—”

“Agreed,” I said. “So the new Senate president will be—”

“—Denis Donahue, also known as Donuts, and by the way that's Denis with one ‘n'—”

“Because he didn't have time to steal the second one. I know the joke. So you're telling me he's the one who has the most to gain, monetarily, if he can put a stake through the heart of Carberry's bill.”

Mistah Chairman nodded. “The Speaker's got his casino, in Boston. There has to be one here. Nobody gives a shit about the Indians, but they're pretty much guaranteed theirs, in Foxboro. That leaves one slot open.”

Which meant Denis Donahue was the guy I needed to keep an eye on. He was from Worcester. I used to have an aunt from Worcester. I always thought she had some kind of learning disability, but then I realized it was just that she was from Worcester. Not a deep gene pool out there. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man shall lead. That was Denis “Donuts” Donahue, the one-eyed man.

“Donuts can't directly go up against Carberry, can he?” I asked Mistah Chairman.

“No, he can't. But he can wring his hands and commiserate with him if the bill starts taking on water because of the ‘war.'”

“Anything else I need to know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Donuts is pretty much what you'd expect him to be, a garden-variety snake in the grass, your basic turd in the punch bowl.”

“You like him a lot, huh?” There seemed to be a pattern emerging here.

“Oh yeah, here's something. He has season tickets to the Red Sox. I mean, good seats. Front row, right down the first-base line. Doesn't use them himself every night, but you can tell who he's doing business with by who gets 'em.”

“You got the exact seat numbers?”

He shook his head. “Just scan the first row and you'll be able to spot 'em. If you're indicted—”

“You're invited. Yeah, I think I can figure out who's in those seats.”

I thanked Mistah Chairman for his time. It was warm for early spring, so I decided to save the cab fare and walk home. Once I got home, I cracked open a real beer, a sixteen-ounce Ballantine Ale. Then I popped three Vicodin, turned on the satellite radio, sat down and waited for liftoff. I was trying to figure out how I could approach Denis Donahue when the phone rang.

“What's going on with Sally Curto?” It was Katy Bemis. If they ever name a street after her, it'll have to be one way.

“Why are you calling me?” I said. “I thought we were
finis
.”

She laughed. “
Finis
, huh? That's a hoot, you using Latin.”

“I keep telling you, I went to Boston Latin.”

“So you say. I've never checked, and I think you told me once your ex-wife got the yearbook in the divorce settlement.”

“Katy, as much as I enjoy what the movie reviewers would call the rapid-fire Hepburn-Tracy-style banter between exes, I do have other things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe I have a date.”

Now she really laughed. “With who? Slip? Gonna catch a few wakes, go by Waterman's and steal some dimes from a Chinaman's bier?”

“A Chinaman?” I said. “That's not very PC. You'd never even been to a Chinese wake at Waterman's until you ran into me and Slip.”

“And it's something I've been meaning to thank you for, believe me. What's the old Bob Hope song? ‘Thanks for the Memories.'”

“Actually, I was thinking of Rod Stewart. To paraphrase, ‘I know you're thinking that she must be sinking or she wouldn't get in touch with me.'”

“Okay, you're right. I do need something.”

“Don't tell me the
Globe
doesn't have any sources other than yours? And how would it look if you had to tell them that when you were at the
Herald
you sometimes took tips from a guy who won a photo finish with a federal grand jury.”

“Are you carrying a foreign load, Sunshine?” Another local-color expression she'd picked up from me. What must her family in Wenham, especially Uncle Dudley, make of her jaunty urban patter every November at Thanksgiving dinner?

She said, “I figure you must be on something. Most of the time you wouldn't tell me or anybody else if their coat was on fire.”

“You called me, Sunshine. Feel free to call some of your other sources. I'm not stopping you.” I stood up and walked to the refrigerator to get another can of Ballantine.

I knew she must have heard the “
pssst
” when I popped the top. But she let it slide. For someone whose father ate lunch every afternoon at the Somerset Club, she was very pragmatic, especially when she needed information.

She said, “Can't we get along, Jack? Some men, they even go on vacations with their ex-wives. You haven't talked to yours in ten years, and now you barely even talk to me, and all we were was—”

“I wasn't the kind of guy you could bring to a
Globe
party, was I? That's the bottom line, isn't it? I helped you get over there, but once you were there, I didn't fit. White. Irish. Catholic. Heterosexual. From Boston. Want me to think of some more reasons you had to drop me?”

I heard a deep sigh on the other end of the line.

“I've told you a million times, they don't care if you're Irish. They really don't. You've got this ancient James Michael Curley chip on your shoulder about something nobody else cares about anymore. The fact that I went over to the
Globe
had nothing to do with…” Her voice trailed off again.

I thought about asking her how she was getting along with her new boyfriend, who had a trust fund, used “summer” as a verb, had a family “cottage” on Nantucket, a Yale degree and a closet full of bow ties that he wore to his job as metro editor, whatever that meant. I was pretty sure he'd never covered a fire, let alone set one. Metro editor—did that mean he was a metrosexual too? But the Vicodin had kicked in. I was more comfortably numb by the moment.

“What do you want, Katy? Go ahead, ask.” Then she could go back to her boyfriend and tell him how she'd just been talking to one of her lowlife sources, whom she couldn't name of course, to maintain an air of mystery about her extraordinary talent for enduring the foul breath of the plebeians while hobnobbing with those beneath her on the socioeconomic totem pole.

“I'm just wondering if there's a gang war about to break out,” she said. “What do you hear? Is Bench making a move against the Italians?”

“How would I know?” I asked her. “You know me, I'm just a dirty cop with a phony disability pension.”

“So what were you doing at the Alibi this afternoon?” She'd always been able to surprise me, and now she'd done it again.

“The Alibi? Isn't that Bench's place over on Winter Hill?”

“Yeah, and you were there. We had the place staked out, wanted a shot of Bench. I'm right now looking at a photo of you walking in. You didn't even pull the collar on your coat up around your neck. What were you doing there?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I had a thirst so great it would cast a shadow?”

“Yes, I would, considering how well I know you. But I also remember you don't much like hanging around wiseguys, so I'm guessing there had to be some money on the table for you to make the drive over to Somerville.”

“You got me,” I said. “There was money involved.” I said no more.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what? As you pointed out, we're not married, never have been. Ain't no spousal privilege here. I just don't like my business bein' spread all over the street.”

“Did you talk to him, Bench I mean?”

“I would ask, are we off the record, but I know the answer to that is always no, no matter what you say.”

“Spare me the lectures on journalism ethics. Just answer the question. Did you talk to him?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I talked to him, and he … well, he answered. In a manner of speaking.”

“And the subject of the conversation?”

“I walked in, and he was behind the bar, and I looked over the draft selections, and then I said, ‘I'll have a Harpoon IPA,' and he drew one for me, and I said, ‘Much obliged, pardner,' and he said, ‘That'll be four bucks.'”

There was a pause on the other end, and then she said, “Very funny. I guess you want your name and picture in the paper tomorrow as having visited the Alibi.”

“I'd prefer you didn't do that, but you're gonna do what you're gonna do.”

It went on like that for a while. I was trying to think if she could do any legwork for me, but right now I couldn't think of anything. I finally told I'd see her around the campus and hung up.

 

7

DITTO'S DILEMMA

I own a commercial building off Warren Street in Roxbury, bought it cheap off an old-line wiseguy who was retiring and moving to Florida. There was a $12,000 lien on it for unpaid city taxes, and $3,500 in overdue water and sewerage bills, all of which I paid, and the guy threw in three silencers to sweeten the pot. The price was $5,000. Setting up the real estate trust that owns it, since I can't very well have it in my own name, cost me another $1,500.

The old-timer ran a half-ass garage out of there, and the word is that during the Irish gang wars, he'd settled up a few scores there, with acetylene torches and the like. That was before my time. But I kept the garage going, with the old mechanic, a guy named Rocco. He was used to having the element around, and we do a steady business. A lot of our work is insurance—we don't fix the cars, we wreck 'em. I used to run that racket on consignment—if you got $5,000 in claims, I'd take ten percent, $500. But I was working with too many cops, and you just can't trust them guys on insurance fraud any more than you can trust 'em on anything else.

Now I charge a flat rate. Five hundred bucks. Getting the accident report is up to them. If they need an appraiser, I'll provide one for them. That's another $500, which I whack up with the appraiser. If that seems high to you, you haven't been to a new-car showroom lately. Think sticker shock.

But the garage is short money. What I like is having a place in the city. It's not what you'd call prime real estate, obviously, but I'm not in it to turn a quick buck. It's a half-acre, a good-sized lot in Roxbury. There's always been a four-foot-high brick wall around the lot, and up above that I've got eight feet of barbed wire with razors all around the top. You'd have to be an Olympic pole vaulter to get in. I used to have dogs patrolling the property, pit bulls, rottweilers, etc., but the locals shot them for sport through the front gate.

Now I have two new ones, Tyson and Atomic Dog. Neighborhood names for neighborhood dogs. I keep them inside nights. Rocco cleans up their shit every morning when he comes in at 6:30.

I called a meeting for 4:00 p.m. of all the Boston and South Shore guys except the dealers. I like to give them a wide berth. They report to Salt and Peppa. I have a piece of a couple of bars in Quincy, and some independent layoff guys who pay me for “protection” just like the bookies. I'm a silent partner in another gin mill in Weymouth, same deal with the bookies there, although their daily receipts are less than Quincy. The Chinese moving into Quincy has been a boon. Most of them still bet with their own kind, but once the Chinese assimilate enough to start betting pro football, Quincy will be a real gold mine.

To me, meetings are a big waste of time, so this was a somewhat unusual occasion. I have a state cop from the Old Colony barracks that I use for sweeping the garage at least once a week, just like I use Somerville cops at the Alibi and Brookline cops at the new A&A. Gotta spread my business around—goodwill means a lot in this line of work. I know, my policy is no serious business is ever discussed either inside a building or a car. But sometimes you get careless, or there's an exception, like today, when you need to talk to everybody at once. I didn't have time to go door-to-door.

They drifted in one by one, talking among themselves, until I finally called the meeting to order. I reminded them of what had happened over the last day or so.

“We don't know who's doing this, or why,” I said. “Anything you hear, I want to know about it, immediately, no matter how reliable or otherwise you think the information is. Considering they've already killed two guys In Town, and one of them was Hole in the Head, this is serious business. You ain't just looking for money when you blow somebody up. You're trying to deliver a message.”

“What's the message?” one of the guys asked.

I shook my head. “You find out, be sure to tell me, and we'll both know.” I paused. “Everybody here, I'm gonna have somebody from the Alibi with you nights until further notice. Salt 'n' Peppa'll handle that end of it. Talk to them if you got any questions.” I looked out at the fifteen or so guys. Middle-aged mostly, maybe two or three under forty. Most of them had beer bellies, and red faces. Donald Rumsfeld used to say, “You go to the war with the army you've got.” I remembered how that war turned out. I was not reassured.

“Any questions?” I asked.

Ditto Foley, the front man for my bar in Quincy on Adams Street, raised his hand.

“So you really got no idea who's behind this, Bench?”

“If I knew, don't you think I'd be doing something about it?”

That was the end of the meeting, but Ditto lurked around, watching me exchange small talk with some of the boys. He waited until the crowd had thinned out and then he finally got me one-on-one.