A Trouble of Fools (22 page)

It was his dream.”

Right out of his boys’ adventure novels.

“Where’s Eugene, then?” Boyle murmured. Elbows on knees, he cupped his palms, and let his head sink into his hands.

Margaret Devens knew the answer to that one. You could read it in her face.

“Margaret,” Sean Boyle said, “I just don’t know… I don’t know what to say to you.”

“The whole lot of you should go to prison for what you’ve done—”

“Margaret,” I interrupted. We’d been over that ground.

“All you can say, Boyle,” she continued bitterly, “is nothing.

And all you can do is pay attention to this red-haired woman. You do exactly what she says, and maybe you won’t see the inside of a cell for years to come.”

I cleared my throat, to give the men time to think about what they’d heard, and because it was hard to watch Margaret and not get caught up in her pain. “I know something about the distribution plan,” I said. “I know it has to do with the cab radios, and with the code name ‘Maud,’ from the poem.” I gave a silent thank you to Pat, who’d put me on the right track. A woman’s name. Something poetic.

I thought about Jackie Flaherty with reluctant admiration.

True, he was too dumb to change his name, but he was smart enough to find a secret organization in place, a band of men well known in the community, with access to all neighborhoods, a reliable communication network—a group ripe for co-opting. Talk about a respectable cover—God, half of them must have cousins on the force. A whole fleet of unpaid, dependable mules, dreaming outdated dreams of glory.

An unquestioning army brimming with unexploited loyalty.

If felons were smart all the time, cops would go out of business. I wondered if the setup had been Flaherty’s idea from the start. Or if it had come from the top.

“Maud,” Sean Boyle began slowly, looking at Margaret, but speaking to me. “Maud or Maudie, that was the signal.

And it was always a woman’s voice that made the call, so Gloria wouldn’t get suspicious, and the calls were made none too often, and never from the same place twice.”

At home the next morning, Red Emma was in a feisty mood, digging her claws into my index finger and pecking away at the kitchen phone. I held her farther off so she wouldn’t disturb the cute little bugging mechanism I’d discovered inside the speaker.

“Budgies of the world, unite!” I intoned at the bird.

“Read my lips, kid.”

Muzak oozed from the receiver. I held it a good six inches from my ear.

“How about ‘Better red than dead’?” I asked. Red Emma was not interested. She wanted to peck my nose off. “Better green than dead?”

“What did you say?” The voice was female and accusing.

I almost dropped both the receiver and the budgie.

“I’m trying to reach Mr. Andrews,” I said politely. “It’s important. Urgent, you might say.”

Muzak gushed.

I can always tell Red Emma’s mood by her degree of fluffiness. On those rare occasions when she is cheerful, she puffs up into a green featherball. When she’s pissed, she gets so skinny you can barely see her. She dug her talons into my finger, and looked positively anorexic. Not without difficulty, I waved her off. She contentedly dive-bombed my head.

“Mrs. Carlyle.” The welcoming bass was that of “our Mr.

Andrews” all right. Thanks to Mooney, I knew who he really was. I kept my knowledge out of my voice.

“Great news, Mr. Andrews,” I said eagerly. “I got in touch with Thomas. Is there any chance you can wait till the end of the week for us to visit Cedar Wash? He’ll be home by then, and I’m sure he’ll want to—”

The bastard tripped over his own words in his eagerness.

“Where did you say he was now? Did he call?”

If he’d called, you’d have heard every word, Mr. FBI man, I thought.

“He called a friend, a business partner, and the, uh, friend got in touch with me. But the important thing is that Tom will be home by, oh, Friday, at the latest. So, do you think you can stretch the contest rules for us? We can visit Cedar Wash as soon as he gets home.”

“Just a minute,” Andrews said. He put me on hold. I imagined him chortling on the other end of the line, informing his colleagues that he’d hooked a big one.

“Well,” he said, returning after a suspensefuj pause, “since we’ve come this far, I suppose we might as well go all the way. Cedar Wash is run by a group of caring individuals.

We pride ourselves on that.”

I almost choked.

“So,” Mr. Andrews said contentedly, “as soon as your husband gets home, be sure to give us a call.”

Right.

Believe me, the days never zipped by faster. Friday, which had seemed a distant prospect when I’d contacted Mr.

Andrews, was looming closer. The clocks speeded up. The Old Geezers were strung tight. If things didn’t start moving soon, one of them, probably hot-tempered Joe Fergus, would snap, storm up to Jackie Flaherty, and punch his lights out. Or else the Cambridge cops would wake up, bust Wispy Beard, plea-bargain him till he talked, and arrest everybody at G&W.

I was glad I had so much to do. Activity kept me from brooding over possible points of disaster.

I couldn’t use my phone because of the bug. I dropped a lot of change in pay-phone slots.

Headquarters was Margaret Devens’s house. Roz and Lemon moved in with her for the duration—for protection, and as an auxiliary work force. It took them a whole day to record the addresses of all “Maud” or “Maudie” pickups and deliveries.

I let Sean Boyle split up the list because he kept hounding me for something to do. He used my old police area map as a guide. All Area A addresses went on one sheet of paper, all Area B locations on a second, all Area C—and so forth. Joe Fergus xeroxed copies at a self-service machine in Harvard Square.

The main thing the cabbies had to do, the main thing I hoped they could do, was shut up and play along, not give Flaherty any cause for suspicion. They also served as onthe-spot observers, with Boyle as their captain. He divided them into three squadrons of three cabbies each. Fergus, O’Keefe, and Corcoran were his lieutenants. Flaherty’s every move was reported, charted, analyzed. Timing was everything. No way was he going to take delivery of a single new shipment of dope. I was willing to keep the cops out as long as no more cocaine traveled the route. But as soon as the coke came in, the cops came in. That was the deal. I owed it to the kids at the schoolyard, to Paolina.

I gave Gloria the bare bones of the story. I didn’t mention Gianelli. I felt lousy about it, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“What?” She slammed an unfinished Mars Bar down on her desk, glared at me, and repeated herself an octave higher.

“What?”

“I thought your boys were IRA collectors, right?”

“Right. I got that part.”

“Sometime last year, around the time Pat left, they let a new member into the Gaelic Brotherhood Association— that’s what GBA stands for, by the way. This new brother outdid all the rest when it came to blarney. Instead of passing the money along to the IRA, he bought cocaine with it— maybe not a huge amount at first, but business expanded.

And he fed your cabbies a tale about bigger deals with the IRA, and pretty soon he got them picking up cash, and scooting drugs around the city, and feeling proud of themselves to boot.”

I outlined the mechanics of Flaherty’s plan. When I got to the part about her own unwitting involvement through the “Maudie” calls, she did something I’d never seen her do before.

She tossed the unfinished Mars Bar in the trash can.

“Mules ” she muttered sadly. She hit her broad forehead with the flat of her palm. “I’ve got a stable full of fucking mules. No way you can keep cops out of this, Carlotta.”

I felt terrible. I wanted to retrieve the Mars Bar. “You’re right, Glory,” I said gently. “But maybe G and W can stay in the background.”

“Hah. Right. Background.” Gloria’s brief peal of laughter had no humor in it.

“The Old Geezers didn’t know what they were doing— and I, for one, don’t think they should go to jail for being half-assed romantic jerks who live in a time warp.”

“Well, I don’t want to go to jail either, Carlotta. The food would sure as hell kill me.”

“There might be a way out.”

“Oh, Christ, Carlotta, is this the lead-up to one of your cockeyed schemes? I’m starting to sweat.”

“It’s your choice, Gloria. You can call the cops now, and put them all behind bars.”

“And probably go with them. What the hell kind of choice is that?”

“Then play along,” I said. “Your part is small, but crucial, Glory. Your chance to be a star.”

“Star, hell,” she muttered. “Don’t give me any of that upbeat star shit. Next thing, you’ll tell me not to worry.”

“Calm down, Gloria.”

“What I want to know is, will your plan keep my ass out of jail?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

She glanced around for her Mars Bar, shook her head despondently when she couldn’t locate it. “Wait till I tell my brothers,” she said.

I could wait. I’d deliberately picked a time when none of the bruisers were around. I didn’t want them asking me why I was hassling their sister.

“If you need more muscle,” Gloria said, “you let me know. I’m sure my brothers could help.”

I swallowed. “Keep them in reserve, okay, Gloria? The fewer people who know about this the better.”

“This new GBA member,” she said, “is he one of my drivers? Say, somebody who came on about the time old Pat left?”

So much for keeping things from Gloria.

I swallowed. “I’d rather not say.”

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I’ve gotta tell my brothers.”

“Okay. If you think your brothers are big on self-control, you just go ahead and tell them. But if they move before I’m ready, they’ll screw the entire plan. And I don’t think the guards allow any junk-food care packages at Framingham State.”

As I walked out the door, she unwrapped a fresh Mars Bar, and gobbled it in two huge bites, as though it might be her last.

Among the calls I made from pay phones was one to my lawyer, just in case. Whenever I left the house, I dialed home religiously, every half hour. Roz was staying at Margaret’s most of the time. She had strict instructions not to answer my phone when she dropped by for a change of clothes or a meal of peanut butter. I used my remote beeper to check calls received. I heard from a manufacturer of vinyl siding, and a woman doing a toothpaste survey.

From my home phone, I made no calls, with the exception of one preplanned session with Roz, stationed at a pay phone in a Jamaica Plain diner. We chatted about how pleased I was that Tom was finally coming home.

I didn’t let the Devens case totally rule my life. I ate. I slept. I played volleyball. I told myself it would all be over by Friday. Nothing would interfere with Paolina’s Saturday band concert. I had plenty of time. Instead of picking her up for our regular noon rendezvous, I was expected in the school auditorium at 7 p.m. sharp. I look forward to band concerts with mixed emotions. My ears wince, my heart smiles.

I called Mooney from Dunkin’ Donuts, after a strenuous morning at the Y. I’d intended to visit him, but I changed my mind after dueling a tough squad from the East Boston Y.

Near the end of the game, I blocked a spiked ball with the heel of my palm so hard the return practically shot to the ceiling. My team made the point, but we lost. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. My hand ached.

That really doesn’t explain why I was not in a mood to confront Mooney. Let’s just say that he always had a way of punching holes in my cases when I was a cop. Besides, I like his voice on the phone. It’s low and gruff and nimbly. He’d have made a good blues singer.

I asked if the door to his office was closed.

“Nope.”

“Could you close it?”

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

“People will think I’m getting a personal phone call.”

I could picture the wide grin on his face. “You are,” I said. “Personal and business-related and important.”

I heard the receiver thump against his wooden desktop, the slam of his office door.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“Mooney,” I said. “Would you say you still owed me a favor, or what?”

He considered it for a while. “I’d say we’re pretty even.”

“Then how’s my credit?”

“Depends.”

“Mooney, how’d you like to help your career, and give the FBI a gorgeous black eye at the same time? Would you be remotely interested?”

“I could be,” he said cautiously.

“Look, I don’t need any credit for this. I’m not saying I’d mind seeing my name in the papers. It might be good for business. But I’ll leave that up to you. What I want is cooperation.”

“What

kind of cooperation, Carlotta? I can’t break the law.”

“Don’t tell me what cops can do, Moon. I know what you can do. You can make plans based on the word of a reliable informant. You can make judgment calls.”

“Go on.”

“Mooney, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. This will all go down by Friday, or else I’ll turn it over to you. Completely. The whole thing. You’ve got my word.”

Silence.

“I can do it without you, Mooney. I just thought you might like to be there for the finale, make the FBI look dumb.”

“What’s my end of the deal? What do I have to guarantee?”

“First,

that you won’t jump the gun. Even if you decide to pass on it, you’ll give me until Friday, free and clear.”

“This Friday?”

“Make it Saturday morning. Eight a.m.”

“IsitaboutT.C?”

“Sort of.”

“Would it require a lot of work?”

“I’d leave that up to you, Mooney. I trust you. You’ve got to trust me. No more Twenty Questions.”

I could hear him breathing. “Deal,” he said.

We talked.

Mooney, being Mooney and Irish to the core, could see my point. He felt a sneaking sympathy for the Old Geezers.

He didn’t want to arrest a whole bunch of cops’ elderly uncles and fathers-in-law. Nor did he wish to arrest a fat black woman in a wheelchair, especially one with three hulking brothers. I admit I played fast and loose with Gloria. She would have despised my romantic version of her plight. I didn’t let that stop me. I was convincing as hell. Once I even had to lower my voice because the Dunkin’ Donuts waitress was taking an interest in my performance.