The Son of John Devlin (33 page)

He must have dozed off, for he was jarred awake and saw by his wristwatch that it was nearly one
A.M.
Jack set the letter down on the coffee table and yawned. Then he heard it again: a noise from the back of the house. It had been the sound that awakened him. A tapping sound.

Jack went quickly into the darkened hallway and got his service revolver. He turned off the kitchen lights and went toward the back of the house. Through the rear window he could see the shape of a man dressed in black on his porch, huddled by the door. Jack’s heart raced. Had they come for him as they had Murphy? Would he be killed here and now, this very night? Would they take the letter, his precious words from the grave, and destroy them?

Jack moved silently, slowly, toward the back door, his gun in position. Then he was startled by the sound again and realized that the person was knocking quietly on the glass. Jack moved to the door and looked out.

Del Rio.

Jack unlocked and opened the door.

“They’re coming for you,” Del Rio said as he entered the kitchen. “Tonight.”

The two men stood silently, facing each other across the kitchen table.

Del Rio frowned. “I wanted to warn you,” he said.

“Who?” Jack asked.

Del Rio shrugged. “Some guys,” he said, a look of distaste crossing his face. “Wiseguys. What difference does it make? Some guys they got who’ll do what they want and get protection in return.”

“How do you know this?” Jack asked.

Del Rio glowered at him, then looked away. “What the fuck,” he muttered. “How do I know …” He shook his head, then looked back. “I know,” he said.

Jack regarded Del Rio and wondered whether he could trust this man, this man for whom he had developed a genuine affection. Or was this part of the scheme—Del Rio comes in the night posing as his savior, then
leads him into a trap; leads him to his ruin, destroys him and shatters his dream of getting to the bottom of it all, of solving the mystery, of understanding. Worst of all, depriving Jack of the chance to claim redemption for his father.

“So you come here to warn me,” Jack said.

Del Rio looked back at him and said nothing.

Jack shrugged as though to say, I don’t get it. “So help me with that,” he said.

Del Rio frowned and looked away again. He was deeply ashamed in Jack’s presence. Then he looked back, and into Jack’s eyes. “I owe you,” he said.

Jack was surprised. “How so?”

“You trusted me,” Del Rio said. “I betrayed your trust. I want it back.”

Jack did not know what to say.

Del Rio took a breath, exhaling in a deep sigh. “I always thought of myself as intelligent, as able to use the God-given intelligence I have. I always thought of myself as determined and having balls. Real balls, you know? And I always thought of myself as the one who persevered, who hung in for as long as it took.”

Del Rio squinted, his brow furrowed, a pained expression overtaking his face.

“But I’ve found something out about myself,” Del Rio said, his voice quieter. “I’ve found out I’m a pretender. I’m not who I thought I was. I’m not the image I’ve had of myself.”

He hesitated, then looked at Jack in a searching way.

“You’re more who I thought I was than I am,” he said. “You’re the one with balls. Perseverance.” Del Rio’s eyes widened and he nodded in affirmation.

Suddenly, Del Rio seemed very tired, and he sat down,
propping his elbow on the kitchen table and leaning the side of his head against his fist.

“I thought about getting out,” he said. “Twice I was close. Lisa convinced me—just about.”

His voice trailed off and he shook his head slowly. “You can’t,” he said. “It’s not part of the deal.” He stared at Jack. “You know that better than anybody. But I want you to know that I tried. In my own way I did try. I wasn’t strong enough.”

Jack had to fight an impulse that said he was being set up. And he did fight it, and fight it successfully, for he believed that what Del Rio was telling him was the truth. He believed he was seeing Del Rio unvarnished, without the bluster and the facade. Within Del Rio, Jack believed, there was decency. And as he thought this, Jack had a strong sense of feeling sorry for Del Rio, sorry for the choices Del Rio had made, choices that had diminished him.

Del Rio looked up at him. He rubbed his eyes with the fingers of his left hand and checked his watch. “We should go,” he said. “This is not a safe place to be.”

“Where will we go?” Jack asked.

“I’d suggest Lisa’s, but I’ll take you wherever you want.”

Jack wasn’t sure he was comfortable with the idea of simply showing up at Del Rio’s girlfriend’s house in the middle of the night.

“She’d be fine with it, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Del Rio said.

“You sure?” Jack asked.

“Definitely,” Del Rio said.

“Okay,” Jack said. “Let me get some things.”

Jack went to his bedroom and quickly packed a bag.
Then he went to the living room and retrieved the letter, which lay on the sofa where he’d been reading. He folded it and put it into his pocket. He then slipped into his shoulder holster, put on a jacket, set the alarm system, and followed Del Rio out the back door.

Del Rio hung back in the doorway scanning the yard, the driveway, and the street. He nodded to Jack to follow, and they turned back through the yard and hopped a fence, cutting through a neighbor’s yard. Del Rio led the way down an adjoining street to where his Crown Vic was parked.

They climbed into Del Rio’s car and quickly, quietly, pulled away and drove off into the night.

Jack said nothing as they rode out the VFW Parkway and then cut over through Newton out Commonwealth, across Route 128. They followed a series of twists and turns into the town of Weston, then rode down a long country road where the houses were set back hundreds of feet. After a few miles they turned right and went down a dark road through the woods. At the end of the driveway was a house of modern design set on a plot of land overlooking a pond. They pulled into the garage and entered the house. Few words were exchanged.

“She’s asleep, I’m sure,” Del Rio said. He removed his jacket and took off his shoulder holster. He placed his gun on a kitchen counter. “There’s a guest room down that hall. You hit the hay. I’ll stay up.”

Jack shook his head. “I can’t sleep.”

Del Rio went into the kitchen and Jack followed. Del Rio was scooping coffee into a cone-shaped filter. Once he had the coffee machine in place, he sat down in a kitchen chair and sighed heavily.

“I know how he must have felt,” Del Rio said. “I know.” His eyes were narrow and he was clearly pained. “He couldn’t stand it anymore. He must have wanted redemption. He was legit. That’s why he scared them so much, ’cause he was legit. He’d gotten religion. Road to Damascus.”

Then suddenly, inexplicably, Del Rio smiled. “He must have been one tough bastard to get out,” he said. “That’s real balls.” He nodded admiringly.

Jack, acting purely on impulse, walked back to the hallway where his jacket hung and retrieved his most precious possession. He returned to the kitchen and placed it in Del Rio’s hands.

Del Rio unfolded the pages and began reading. “Jesus Christ,” he said softly as he realized what it was. He read it through without stopping, without comment, and when Del Rio, the toughest of tough men, was finished reading, he started to cry.

It was then that he and Jack made the plan.

“I
can’t explain it in any more detail, all I can say is that you should not go home,” Jack said. “You should go to a safe house under the protection of federal marshals.”

Emily had difficulty believing what she was hearing. “This is madness, Jack,” she said, her voice marked by incredulity.

“I’m sorry, Em,” he said. “I’m sorry to be the cause of this.”

“But what happened that makes you believe I may be in danger?” she asked.

“I can’t go into it, Em, other than to say I am in danger and the people after me might very well look for me at your house. You have to be careful.”

“You can’t go into it!” she said angrily. “You have me beeped, pulled out of a sensitive deposition, and you tell me that I should not go to my home but instead go to a safe house and place myself under the guard of the U.S. Marshal Service. You suggest someone might try to kill me—that someone has already tried to kill you and you can’t go into it! Well, you goddamn well better go into it, Jack.”

He had no choice. He could not explain any more at
the moment. The explanations would have to wait. And as angry as she was at him now, he knew it was about to get worse.

“Please, Em,” he implored. “I beg you. Do not go home. Let the marshals protect you. I love you.”

And he hung up the phone.

Jack parked his Jeep by the back of the school early in the evening, leaving it there. He went to the church and worked his way down into the subbasement, a cata-comblike series of dank, narrow hallways. At the farthest end of one of the ancillary hallways, he pushed back a huge stone, loose in the wall, revealing a large open space of two feet by two feet. In the space was an airtight canister he’d put there weeks earlier. The time was finally right, and he withdrew the canister and unscrewed the heavy top. He trained his flashlight on the contents and found the white crystalline powder within.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Not that he had ever doubted it would be there. But he was relieved that the time had come, that the waiting was about to end. He felt alert, though there was anxiety mounting within.

He pushed the stone back into place and carried the canister to a section of the subbasement leading to a tunnel. There, he checked his watch with his flashlight and saw that it was still early. He sat down to wait. There was a musty smell in the air, and in the darkness he heard creaks and groans within the massive stone structure. But he heard no signs of humans. For that, for the silence and the tranquility of the moment, he was grateful. For he knew that in the hours ahead all would be determined. The plan would either succeed or fail. There was no middle ground.

Jack sat back, leaning his head against the cool stone wall. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He felt very calm. He felt certain that he was doing what he had to do, what he’d been destined to do for so many years.

Soon, the time had come. He rose and brushed the dust off his pants. He carried the canister under his right arm and worked his way through the tunnel, traveling under the West Roxbury Parkway to the Holy Name school. He came up from the ground into the school’s boiler room and out a heavy metal door that shut loudly behind him. It was very dark as he took the stairs up to the rear parking lot. The lot was enclosed on three sides by the three-story school building. It was a horseshoe-shaped structure and he was within the U. There were no houses or stores for a thousand yards.

As Jack started across the lot toward the Jeep, Del Rio stepped out of the shadows directly behind him. From a distance, a dangerous, violent man named George Tran, sitting in the driver’s seat of a black Chevy Blazer, watched the scene unfold. He saw Devlin stop, watched as Del Rio held his gun to the back of Devlin’s head. George Tran saw Devlin bend very slowly and place the package on the ground. He saw Del Rio kneel down and place handcuffs on Devlin’s wrists. Because of the distance, George Tran could not hear what was being said.

“Follow the script,” Del Rio had said, pointing his pistol at the back of Jack’s head.

“Following the script,” Jack had replied, bending slowly and placing the package on the ground. He then lay facedown on the pavement and placed his hands behind his back. Del Rio placed the cuffs on but did not lock them. He wrapped a scarf around Jack’s eyes as a blindfold.

“Okay?” Del Rio asked.

“Fine,” Jack said.

“See you in the morning,” Del Rio said. “Good luck,”

Jack replied.

George Tran watched as Del Rio scooped up the package and raced across the parking lot to the Blazer.

“Let’s roll,” Del Rio said, out of breath, as he jumped into the passenger seat.

Tran pulled out of the lot and headed south on the West Roxbury Parkway, headed for the first of three delivery points. Within a couple of hours the drugs would be passed along to distributors who would, in turn, pass them out into channels that would carry the morphine to thousands of customers throughout eastern Massachusetts. The drug that Emily Lawrence had so desperately wanted to head off had officially made its way into circulation.

Jack tugged off the cuffs and removed the blindfold. He climbed into his Cherokee and eased out of the lot, heading north on the parkway. He felt a tinge of guilt about the distribution of morphine, but that was not his concern at the moment. He knew the deal had to be real, had to be done in order to get them with their guard down.

From Holy Name Circle, Jack drove out the parkway to Brookline and followed Chestnut Hill Avenue to Cleveland Circle. He parked down Beacon Street and walked to Dunkin’ Donuts, where he bought coffee and a honey-dipped cruller. He ate the doughnut and sipped the coffee as he crossed Beacon and stood outside a bar where he had a view of the rink. While he waited in the
cold, he spotted FBI units getting into position—one on Chestnut Hill Avenue, two on Beacon Street. He saw two agents get out of a Chevy Suburban and enter a wooded lot behind the rink.

Jesus, he thought, why not just put up a neon sign out front saying “This property under federal surveillance”?

He watched for over an hour, until he was thoroughly chilled, and went inside the bar. He took a seat down at the far end and watched the third period of the Bruins game against the Colorado Avalanche. The Bruins played well and the game was tied at two at the end of regulation. Throughout most of the overtime period the two teams were scoreless. Then, suddenly, with three seconds left in the overtime period, the Bruins suffered a momentary defensive breakdown and Claude Lemieux of the Avalanche scored the winning goal.

When the game was over, Jack thought about Emily. She was out there, he knew, somewhere nearby, waiting for the deal to go down. He looked at his watch and calculated that Del Rio and Tran would have made their deliveries by now. He took out his cell phone and called Emily’s beeper number. One minute later the phone rang.