13 Hangmen (22 page)

“
Hagmann
knows about the heist?” Paddy said, jumping up. “Then it must be true. I've got to warn Stevie.”

“Why?” Finn said. “Just let them get caught.”

“I can't,” Paddy said.

“But they robbed and beat up One-Eyed Jack!”

Paddy flushed with shame. “I swore an oath of loyalty to the gang on my ring. And a man's only as good as his word.” Paddy twisted the ring off his finger. He dropped it into Finn's palm. “But I swear to you now—with this very same ring—that I will quit the gang as soon as I've done my duty by Stevie. Meantime, wish me the luck of the Irish. I'm going to need it.” Paddy dashed out the door.

Finn hurled the ring across the room. It ricocheted off the wall and landed on top of the slate shelf with a clank. Loyalty, be damned! Men like Stevie Wallace should earn the trust and respect of others, not just expect it because of some stupid ring! Finn climbed off the bed. There was no way he could just lie there. His loyalty wasn't to any symbol, it was to his brother! He went to collect the ring off the spiral. In doing so, he got a static shock. And he heard the echo of a voice:
Put the ring on the ring.

“I take it you're Finn McGinley?”

Finn whirled around. Paddy? No, three boys his own age. Kids he'd never seen around the neighborhood before.

He went rigid and toppled over, fast asleep.

he bedroom door swung open. Solly materialized and strode in. “Sorry,” he said. “Mameh pulled me aside to show me a
Globe
article about what they've already called the Great Molasses Flood. They're definitely blaming it on the warm weather.” He did a double take when he saw Finn sitting on the bed. “You're awake,” he said.

“I take it you're Solly,” Finn said.

Solly nodded. “Did I miss anything good?”

“There's a treasure,” Angelo said. “And it's hidden somewhere in the house!”

“Where?” Solly said.

All eyes turned to Finn.

“I have no idea,” Finn said. “I don't even know what it is.
All I know is Cedric Hagmann will do anything—including blackmail my poor mam into marrying him—to get his filthy paws on it.”

“I guess that explains why ol' Benedict couldn't care less about tearing the place down,” Tony said. “He's not after the house. He's after what's hidden
in
it.”

Finn stood. “I don't know who this Benedict is. And right now, I don't care. I need to rescue my brother.”

Tony turned to Solly. “Didn't grown-up Finn say something about how the ring saved Paddy from the Wallaces when he gave it to you?”

“He's OK, then?” Finn said.

“He's fine,” Solly said. “You told me so yourself when you gave me his ring.”

“What did I say?” Finn asked, anxiously.

Solly told them all: By the time Paddy finally caught up with Stevie Wallace, it was five minutes too late. The Tailboard Thieves were already inside the Charter Street Bank holding it up. That's right: Wallace's next caper was actually to rob Cedric Hagmann's bank! All Paddy could do was watch from the nearest street corner—having tried his best to warn them—as the police wagon roared up and half the precinct spilled out. Leading the charge up the front steps was the captain, who shouted into a bullhorn that the Tailboard Thieves were all under arrest.
Honey-Fitz, who was right behind the captain, grabbed the bullhorn from his hands and shouted—loud enough for all the boys in the press to hear—that Wallace might as well come out with his hands up. There would be no more shenanigans from the Tailboard Thieves this holiday season. Wallace was giving the good, honest, hardworking Irish citizens of Boston a bad name.

Paddy watched Frank Wallace climb out a side window and dash away, as Stevie Wallace and the others came out the front doors with their arms raised. The cops slapped them all into handcuffs. “Boston hasn't heard the last of the Wallaces,” Stevie cried as he was being led to the wagon. “Meantime, we're leaving the good Irish folk of the North End something to remember us by—”

Which was when the bank's safe blew up! The side window Frank had just crawled through shattered, and a cascade of bills fluttered out—mostly twenties—several handfuls of which Paddy himself was able to pocket in the mad scramble. That minor mishap didn't stop Honey-Fitz from holding a huge campaign rally at Faneuil Hall the day after Christmas. He'd proved to all of Boston he was indeed for reform by locking the Tailboard Thieves behind bars before New Year's Day, as promised. And he reminded all his dearos he was one of them by singing a rousing chorus of “Sweet Adeline”—thereby clinching January's mayoral election by a landslide. As for Paddy, he
simply set off for Hanover Street with a pocketful of twenties on Christmas Eve, to buy his family presents. He was, in fact, safely home and decorating a surprise tree by eight o'clock.

“The luck of the Irish!” Finn grinned.

“Plus that song was your idea,” Angelo said, slapping Finn on the back. “If it hadn't been for you, Honey-Fitz would never have gotten reelected.”

“And if that hadn't happened,” Tony added, “his grandson, John F. Kennedy, might never have become the thirty-fifth president of the United States.”

“So why's that such a big deal?” Angelo said.

“Hey, I think that's Paddy now,” Finn said, interrupting. “Sounds like he's letting himself in the front door. I'll just pop down and check.” He strode out of the room, disappearing into the early evening of his own time.

Tony heard the front doorbell ring. He ignored it. Michael or Julia or one of the twins would just have to get it. He was in the middle of a situation, here. “Now what do we do?” he asked Angelo and Solly. “It isn't going to be all that easy to convince Finn his mam should marry Cedric Hagmann, just so the dirty blackmailing creep can find whatever treasure he's talking about and leave the rest of us alone.”

The doorbell rang again. Where
was
everybody?

“Yeah, but look what happens if we don't,” Angelo said.

Whoever was at the door started pounding. Probably the cable guy, ready to finish installing the broadband. Tony said he'd be right back. Meanwhile Angelo and Solly should brainstorm what to do about Finn.

It wasn't the cable guy. It was two men in shirts and ties and hard hats. Looking over their shoulders, Tony saw an official-looking van parked at the curb:
CITY OF BOSTON HEALTH & SAFETY UNIT
.
Uh-oh.
They declared they needed to speak with Anthony DiMarco, the owner of the building. Tony raised his hand, guilty as charged.

Michael pulled up in the family car. They all watched him pop the trunk and pull out two more tarps and a fistful of bungee cords. “Can I help you?” Michael asked, joining them at the stoop.

“We're safety inspectors for the city,” said the one who looked like the boss. “There's been a complaint from a concerned citizen—one of your neighbors—about the condition of this building.”

Uh-oh.

Michael admitted they were having a little trouble with the back wall. But he had put a call in to a local contractor. It should only be a matter of days before the guy started in on the necessary repairs.

“There's a bit more at stake here than that,” the chief said. “We've come to perform an emergency inspection of the entire building. We need to determine whether this town house poses a health or safety hazard to its inhabitants and immediate neighbors. We would like to begin in the basement, please.”

“Um, sure,” Michael said. “Right this way.”

Uh-oh.

As soon as everyone was standing among the stacks of Christmas decorations, the chief informed Michael they would need to check the main chimney flue for obstructions. They all peered around. His assistant finally located it behind an old metal cabinet. Could Michael and Tony move it aside? Both he and his boss had bad backs. Tony and Michael huffed and puffed the cabinet a few feet to the left. The doors swung open, spilling an avalanche of dusty folders and yellowed paperwork onto the floor. Michael suggested they deal with it later. Because the inspectors had already begun to examine a gigantic old fireplace, framed in rough-hewn slate slabs.

“Probably the original kitchen hearth,” the chief inspector guessed.

“I wonder what happened to the mantel,” his assistant said, frowning and noting a long crack in the mortar on his clipboard.

Tony couldn't help but wonder—after everything he'd learned at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe the day before—if
Jebediah Pickles hadn't salvaged the slate for both this hearth and the shelf in his room—the missing mantel—from Obbatinewat's pawcorance.

The inspectors shone their flashlights up the flue. Michael peered over their shoulders and asked how everything looked. Tony poked his toe at the pile of paperwork on the floor. Utility bills. Tax forms. Canceled checks.
Wait, what's that?
A photo of a handsome blond man in his early twenties, standing at the beach. Cape Cod? The man was windswept and tan, dressed only in one of those embarrassing old-fashioned bathing suits. Grinning and waving at the camera, like he wasn't used to getting his picture taken. Tony turned the photo over.
Anders Fogelberg
was scrawled in pencil across the back in Zio Angelo's spidery script. Next to it was added a date in ballpoint pen:
d. June 8, 1979.

Who the heck was Anders Fogelberg?

Tony shoved aside a stack of dog-eared travel brochures, looking for clues. He unearthed an old photo album. The cover was embossed with the initials
A. D'M
. He took a quick peek through its yellowed pages. Photos, ticket stubs, postcards, luggage tags, exotic stamps, foreign coins. A scrapbook. Most of the pictures seemed to be of Angelo posing in front of random monuments and tourist sites at different stages of adulthood: the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge. Tony wedged the photo
of Anders Fogelberg into the album and tucked it under his arm so he could have a closer look later. Meanwhile, the chief inspector strongly advised Michael not to use
any
of the fireplaces until the chimneys had been properly cleaned by a certified sweep.

“Time to check out the boiler,” said the assistant.

“Get a look at
that
dinosaur,” said the chief. “I doubt it's ever been replaced.”

And that's pretty much how it went as Tony and Michael followed the inspectors around the rest of the house. At garden level they were not at all pleased to see the hole in the back wall or the missing deck. By parlor level it was clear the electrical wiring was a potential fire hazard. On the second floor, the inspectors found strong evidence of termite damage—
that
wouldn't be cheap—and on the third floor they discovered none of the gas-lamp jets had ever been properly capped, and a few were even leaking. Big problem.

Tony fumed as the assistant scribbled an alarming number of notes on his clipboard. It couldn't be more obvious that Benedict Hagmann was the concerned citizen who had called Health & Safety—trying to psych the DiMarcos out, no doubt, so they would end up begging him to take No. 13 off their hands for a song.

The inspectors asked to see the attic. If the stains in the
ceiling plaster were any indication, the roof was leaking and would need to be replaced.

Tony's heart leaped to his throat.

Michael led everyone up there. He opened the door on Angelo and Solly, sitting on the bed. Nobody freaked out, though. Michael just sat in the ladder-back chair. The inspectors started poking at beams, taking floor measurements, knocking on walls.

“What's wrong?” Angelo said to Tony. “You have this weird look on your face.”

“How long is this going to take,
Dad
?” Tony said, telegraphing he was not alone.

“Gotcha,” Angelo said. “We'll just sit tight until you give us the all clear.”