The Son of John Devlin (23 page)

Jack saw Lisa at the end of the bar, seated next to Del Rio. She was slender and striking in a form-fitting black dress, her long blond hair piled on her head. When Del Rio introduced Jack to her, she smiled and cocked her head to one side. It appeared to Jack that she’d already had a couple of drinks. Sitting in front of her on the bar was an Absolut on the rocks, nearly drained.

Del Rio, in the midst of working a case, excused himself to make a phone call.

“So you two have become quite the team,” Lisa said. “A couple of white knights.”

“We’ve done okay,” Jack said.

She looked over the rim of her glass at Jack as though considering whether to share her thought with him. “He’s a difficult man, sometimes, don’t you think?” she said.

Jack hesitated. “He has his views,” he replied. “He knows what he believes.”

She smiled. “He has his views,” she said. “Knows what he believes.” She nodded. “Yes, yes he does, doesn’t he?”

She finished the Absolut and signaled the bartender for another.

“So you’re going to clean up the place?” she said. Her
tone wasn’t quite playful. There was a slight mocking edge to it.

“We’re trying,” Jack said.

“I wonder,” she said, “whether it’s possible.” She said it as though issuing a challenge.

Jack regarded her and saw that she was watching him closely. “I think it is,” he said.

She frowned. “I wonder whether it isn’t bred into the genetics of the place, sort of the DNA of the BPD.” She laughed out loud, pleased with her thought. “Part of the organization’s genetic code,” she said.

“So what have you two been talking about?” Del Rio asked when he rejoined them.

“We were analyzing the culture of this organization for which you both labor so diligently,” Lisa said, sipping her drink. It struck Jack that she seemed intent upon getting drunk.

Del Rio’s gaze lingered a beat longer than it might have otherwise. “Oh?” he said.

“I was asking Jack whether he thought you two could gallop through the town on your white steeds and make sure all the women and children were safe, all the scoundrels locked away.”

Del Rio smiled. “And he said no frigging way, right?”

“He said absolutely,” Lisa replied.

“Never happen, of course, but a worthy goal,” Del Rio said. “Never happen because human nature won’t permit it. Whenever you’re trying to accomplish something, always go with the grain. If you have a choice between being a liquor wholesaler, for example, or a leader of a temperance organization, go with the booze. People are people. Human nature is what it is. When you buck it, you’re in for a hard ride.”

“And what do people want?” Lisa asked Del Rio.

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “Hell if I know,” he said, sipping his beer.

“Come on,” she said.

Del Rio considered this a moment. “Depends,” he said.

“On?”

“Well, Jesus, are we talking someone old or young, male or female, American or what? Lots of factors here, Lees.”

She sat up in her chair. She liked this. “Okay. Female. Age seventy-five. What does she want?”

“Easy,” Del Rio said. “A few more good years. Enough dough to pay the bills. Not to be a burden on her kids.”

“Male, age thirty-five?”

Del Rio laughed. “A good blowjob.”

“Of course,” she deadpanned. “Female. Thirty-two.”

“Marriage,” he said without hesitation. “Kids.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We’re so predictable, aren’t we?” she said. “So easy to pigeonhole. How old are you, Jack?”

“Thirty-four,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Let me ask you. Male, thirty-four?”

“Oh, Jeez, I don’t think—”

“Don’t be a chicken,” she said. “Male, thirty-four.”

“What does he want?” Jack asked.

“Really want,” Lisa said. “More than anything.”

He looked at her and saw that the smile had faded. He glanced at Del Rio, looking for help, but he saw that Del Rio was sitting back, an impassive look on his face. Jack suddenly felt an odd sense of responsibility to answer the question seriously. There was something about how Lisa had asked him; something in her look and in the gaze from Del Rio.

“If I were to answer honestly, I guess I would say honor,” Jack replied, his voice soft. “Honor would be what I’d want.”

Lisa watched him very carefully, searching for some hint of mockery, finding none. “Honor,” she said, slowly nodding. Her voice was very quiet.

She sipped more of her drink and nodded ever so slowly, as though just now beginning to understand. She nodded and a pained smile appeared. She looked at Jack as though she somehow found this quaint.

“You are a noble savage,” Del Rio said. “Here’s to Jack.” He raised his glass.

“To honor,” she said, her eyes fixed on Devlin.

Del Rio nodded. “To honor,” he said. They raised their glasses and drank.

Del Rio spotted someone nearby and moved down the bar to talk with him.

“So how does an honorable man fit into that place?” Lisa asked Jack. “Do they all despise you, Jack?”

“Not all of them,” Jack said.

“Most?”

“I’d never thought of it in those terms.”

She cocked her head to the side, her eyes wide in a look of mock drama. She brushed her hair back from her face and leaned forward, her breasts straining against the black silk. She forced a theatrical smile.

“Is your naiveté real, Jack, or part of a marketing package?” she asked. “I must tell you that you are a very appealing man. If all this is real. I mean, there’s no sense in pretending. There’s a fucking elephant in the room and we’re not acknowledging it. Let’s not be disingenuous. I hate that. I so hate that. I mean, Jack, is this avenging angel thing, is this real? I need to know.”

Jack stared into her eyes and did not blink. He did not answer.

“So what are you trying to prove, Jack?” she asked, quieter, more earnest now. “Because I think they hate you more than you’re aware. I do think you are naive, but it’s quite honest, isn’t it?”

He set his glass down and paused for a moment. He looked at her and smiled. “I’m trying to be a good cop,” he said. “That’s really it. If it sounds disingenuous, I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to be.”

“And what’s the definition of a good cop?” she asked.

“You know,” he said. “Effective. Honest.” He shrugged.

She stood up, a bit unsteadily, and stared at him. “I think that being an honorable man, being a man who possesses honor—that’s why they hate you, Jack. But I think it’s also why they fear you.”

The surveillance was performed by two teams of FBI agents. It was discreet, professional, invisible to all but the most experienced eyes. Christopher Young never saw them, never noticed them when he emerged from his home in the early morning, did not see them in the lobby of the Brigham when he hurried through to work. He did not see them across the room at Au Bon Pain where he had a sandwich for lunch, nor did he see them when he drove to a suburban hospital that night to consult on several cases.

The electronic telephone surveillance yielded nothing, for Young had an instinctive sense of caution on the phone, an instinct that served him well.

Emily Lawrence had a difficult time accepting the notion that the force behind the deal was one Christopher Young. He was simply too inexperienced. An excellent
choice as a distribution and sales point, no question. A perfect marketing man for the task. But she didn’t think Young was
the
organizer. She believed, however, that if she was patient, Young would lead her to him.

Young arrived at Starbucks in Coolidge Corner in mid-morning. The agents hung back, letting him go inside. Then one of the agents followed him. Young took his coffee to a table in the far corner, no one nearby. He fidgeted nervously and waited. Twenty-five minutes later Coakley arrived. He bought a small cup of decaffeinated coffee and went to the table. There were no preliminaries.

“So?” Young said.

“Within three days,” Coakley replied.

Young hunched forward over the table. “You sure?”

“Positive,” Coakley said. “It’s coming. It’s all set.”

“How will it be delivered?” Young asked.

“I’ll have to let you know that,” Coakley said. “No earlier than the night before.”

“I need to know,” Young said.

“You will, Doc, you will,” Coakley assured him. “When you need to know, you’ll know.”

Young looked down into his coffee cup and frowned. He disliked being treated in this fashion. “So who’s making the delivery?” he asked.

Coakley regarded him a moment, then shook his head. Abruptly, Coakley got up from the table. “Soon enough it will all be done,” he said. “Soon enough. You’ll have your product, your new business. Very soon.”

When Coakley, the lawyer, emerged from Starbucks, the agent across Harvard Street, a veteran who had been assigned to the Boston office for over ten years, was
taken aback. He knew the face though he could not immediately place the man. He knew that this man had been involved somehow in a case on which he’d worked. But he was not sure how. Then it came to him, the name Coakley.

When he learned from his partner that Coakley was the man with whom Young had met, he went back to the office and dug out the file on Coakley. It was that file, along with a memo on the day’s surveillance, that landed on the desk of Emily Lawrence that evening.

The skating rink in Larz Anderson Park sat atop a hill in South Brookline. Anderson’s mansion once was at the peak of the hill and held a commanding view of downtown Boston. But after Anderson’s property had been deeded to the town, and after his death, town officials had his mansion torn down. And the gardens adjacent to it—considered to be one of the finest examples in the world of Italianate landscape architecture—had been destroyed. Scores of carved wooden Doric columns were used by the town as curbside markers. And the former site of the Italianate gardens was turned into a skating rink.

Whatever aesthetic offenses had been committed by town fathers were now in the past. What remained was the ice rink, the most beautiful in the land. The dark winter sky was its roof, and from its edges the city of Boston could be seen, from the medical centers only a mile or so east, through the Back Bay and Beacon Hill to the Financial District and the waterfront. The airport, on this clear cold night, seemed part of a Hollywood set: its lights and runways well marked, giant planes floating
smoothly, seemingly in slow motion, down for a landing, up for a takeoff.

After meeting with Young in Coolidge Corner, Coakley had taken a Green Line car to Cleveland Circle and then caught a bus that crossed Route 9 on Chestnut Hill Avenue. The bus dropped him on Newton Street, at the edge of the sprawling Larz Anderson Park. Coakley followed a pathway that cut through gardens, the ground frozen hard. A small pond with an arched footbridge sat at the base of a long hill that sloped up to the crest of the property, where the rink sat.

The walk up the hill was perhaps six or seven hundred yards, and halfway up Coakley was sweating profusely. His heart was beating so hard that he was momentarily frightened. He sat down on the hard ground and tried to catch his breath, waiting for his heart to calm down. No one was around. Coakley could see, off in the distance, cars heading up a driveway that circled around up to the rink.

After a few minutes he struggled to his feet and resumed his trek. He walked slowly, conscious of the pounding of his heart. A hundred or so yards later he again felt the need to pause, to wait for his heart to settle, to calm his breathing. Coakley felt foolish, but he decided to traverse the hill, going up in the way a cautious novice might come down a ski slope: back and forth, back and forth. It took much longer, but it also mitigated the steepness of the slope.

At last Coakley reached the rink. He saw the Zamboni making its final swing before pulling off and dumping its shavings in a pile of snow. Coakley went into the warming hut and found it was empty. He looked out the
window and saw Jack Devlin in his street clothes sitting on a stone fence with a view of the city lights.

Coakley went outside and walked over to Devlin. “Sorry I missed your scrimmage,” the older man said. “I was hoping to catch some of it.”

Jack saw the sweat on Coakley’s face, saw that he was flushed. “You okay?” he asked.

“I walked up the hill,” Coakley said. “I’m not in great shape.”

Jack smiled. “But you made it,” he said.

“Yeah, I did.”

There was a long moment of silence as the two men gazed out over the skyline.

“Listen,” Jack said. “I’ve been thinking, and I want you to know something.” He glanced at Coakley and looked back out over the city as he spoke. “I want you to know, whatever the outcome here, whatever happens, I want you to know I am very grateful for what you’ve done. It means a lot to me.”

Coakley sat very still. So surprised was he by the sincerity of Devlin’s tone, so touched was he by Jack’s words, that he sat speechless.

Jack glanced again at Coakley, and the older man nodded.

“I appreciate what you say,” Coakley finally said. “I, ah … you know, I hope this all works out for you. I don’t know where it’s going exactly, but I really do hope it works out. I have to say I admire what you’re up to. I admire what you’re up to and it feels good to be part of it.”

They sat for a long time, neither saying a word. They were soothed by the peace of looking out over the city, by
the silence of a city just far enough away so nothing could be heard.

Finally they got up and began walking down toward Jack’s car.

“I’ll drop you at the subway,” Jack said. “So it went all right today?”

Coakley nodded. “Fine,” he said.

“The feds saw you together?” Jack asked.

Coakley nodded vigorously. “No question. I’m sure of it.”

Jack nodded with satisfaction. “So you’ll be picked up soon enough.”

Coakley nodded. “Another day or two, I’d guess.”

I
f certain of his clients were to discover what he’d been doing, they would kill him. This was understood.

Coakley, the lawyer, shuffled through his kitchen to the back pantry, reached up into the cabinet, and took down his favorite tumbler, a weighty cut-glass design from Waterford. He had purchased a set of six during his one and only trip to Ireland twenty years earlier. They were intended as a gift for his wife, but upon his return he discovered that she had left him. He had failed in one too many attempts at quitting. She’d had it.