Black Tide (44 page)

As of now, I have no such friends, except for Felix. I was content to let him take me into this foreign place, where the streets were quiet but filled with simmering tension, oaths broken and crimes planned and families loved. I was also content knowing that if my guide abandoned me this night, at least I could make it home to New Hampshire. I don't think that would happen quite the same way in Kazakhstan. At a nondescript building like so many others, with bricks and painted blank doors, Felix stopped before two men sitting near the stoop playing cards on a folding table. A window on the first floor was open and a woman was leaning out on a tasseled pillow, her fat arms looking like rolls of sausage, warm in the night air. The men wore straw hats and had glasses of wine before them, and Felix talked to them in Italian and they replied in the same language. I stood still, with that uncomfortable half smile of the man who only knows his native tongue.

There was some laughter, and Felix bowed a bit --- in respect, I thought --- and then we went up the two stone steps into the building. The lights were set far up on the wall and seemed old, and a wooden stairway was before us. There were old and fresh smells mixed in together, of spices and hot sauce. From behind one of the apartment doors came the sound of some classical music. We went upstairs to the first-floor landing and then continued going up. At about the third floor I said, "One thing I've always been curious about, Felix."

"Yeah, what's that?" he asked, his head swiveling, eyes looking around at the polished wooden doors. None of them had numbers. I suppose if you had to ask, you didn't belong.

"You and your last name," I said. "You come from this area, you speak Italian, and you've worked with…  well, you've worked for some interesting organizations. But you have a Greek last name, Felix. I don't understand."

"Not much to understand, Lewis," he said, looking at me finally, his face expressionless. "My father was Greek, my mother was Sicilian. An odd match, one that some members of my family never got over, and one that some business associates of mine never forgot. Some groups here, well, they can be as racist as the KKK. If you're not pure-blood, there's only so far that you'll go."

We stopped before a door and Felix knocked. "That's another reason why I got out when I did."

I said nothing and Felix knocked again, louder, calling something in Italian. A muffled voice answered, and we went in. "Not locked?" I asked.

"Doesn't have to be," Felix said.

The apartment was small, with plaster walls and a dark oval rug covering a cracked linoleum floor. There was a thin couch on one side and a couple of chairs, and beyond the tiny living room was a kitchen. Old photos with ornate frames hung on the walls, and there was elaborate plaster scrollwork at the top, near the ceiling. An old man was sitting at a metal table in the kitchen, looking out the window. He was smiling at Felix. He had on a sleeveless white T-shirt and baggy gray pants, and black slippers on his feet. The kitchen had green tin cabinets and a small refrigerator and a two-burner hot plate. There was a photo of the Madonna on the wall --- and I don't mean the singer --- and more photos in elaborate frames.

Felix walked ahead of me and I followed, again feeling uncomfortable, as if I were in high school and accompanying a teenage friend while he was visiting a dying grandparent in a nursing home. The old man looked to be in his late seventies. He had wispy white hair and age spots on his wrinkled face and hands and clumps of white hair along his upper arms. Felix murmured something and held both of the man's hands in his and kissed them. Felix pointed to me and the man smiled and waved. Felix sat in the only empty chair in the kitchen, while I folded my arms and tried to look inconspicuous.

From his chair Felix looked up at me and winked, and said, “Gerry here wishes you good health, and he says he's pleased that you have come here with me."

"Tell him it's a pleasure to meet him," I said. "

Don't have to," Felix said. "I already told him that."

And then I was lost, for the two of them leaned into each other and talked for at least a half hour. At first it was all smiles and little giggles, as they talked like old friends who had not seen each other for years. Then it became a bit more serious, with little pauses and then tiny outbursts of statements or questions. Through it all, though, no voices were raised, and there was no yelling. In a way, it was like Felix was seducing the old man, trying to draw out knowledge or information. There was a fluidity in their language and hand movements that made me wish I had taken some anthropology classes in college. I felt as if I was witnessing some ancient ceremony, some rite of a young man seeking guidance from an elder of the tribe. It also made me ponder why tiny island states ---Sicily, Ireland, England and Japan --- have always managed to break out from their shores and go out to raise hell in the world.

In their talk a few times I caught the name of Jimmy Corelli, but that was all. Once I was embarrassed when the two of them quickly looked at me and the old man whispered something and Felix whispered back and then they both laughed. I ignored them and looked out the window. Below the window was the narrow strip of the street, and across the street was a building almost identical to the one we were sitting in. I could see shapes sitting by the windows, looking outside. So many quiet lives in these buildings. On the cracked windowsill was an old black pair of binoculars, with a frayed leather strap. It wasn't hard to imagine the old man spending his long hours up here, gazing at the tiny world that was before him. Out in the brightness of the night sky I made out the landing lights of a jet going into Logan, and it seemed as though I was a hundred years away.

Then it was over. Felix stood up and said, "
Molte grazie
," and pressed an envelope into the old man's hands, and kissed them again. I nodded and smiled and the man waved at us and we went out of the apartment and then downstairs. Felix was smiling and I knew enough not to say anything until we were near his car, and then I said, "Who was that?"

"Gerry DelCorso. Everybody down here knows him as Uncle Gerry."

"Was he with the Corelli organization?"

Felix unlocked the car for both of us. "Nope, not at all." We got in and he started the Lumina and said, "Gerry was… well, it's hard to describe. He was a neighborhood guy, ran a couple of stores. Dabbled in politics, worked in the church and was everybody's favorite uncle, you know? Helped with baptisms, funerals, let some of the families buy stuff on credit. After a while he became a peacemaker, a guy that other groups would call on when things were going to the shits and they needed an outside negotiator to bring some sense to things. He became well respected, and now, well, he's almost the unofficial historian of what's gone on in these streets."

We pulled out into traffic and the way was slow, with lots of stopping and going. I said, "It seemed to take a while. Was there a problem?"

He drove for a moment, fiddling with the radio station and then sitting back and saying, "Lewis, it's been a while since I've seen Uncle Gerry, so I had to get some necessary preliminaries of the way. How he's feeling. How his family is doing. How I was doing. And then there was a problem, yes. One of the reasons Gerry has been trusted all these years is that he's always kept his mouth shut, and he's kept it shut through some pretty tense times, times that have never made the newspapers. So you can see he might not have been that eager to spill all about Jimmy Corelli."

We stopped at another traffic light, and again I was glad that Felix was behind the wheel, for he was extremely self-assured in handling the madness that is Boston driving.

"You were smiling when we left, Felix," I said. "So how did you get Gerry to talk?"

"Two things, really," he said, deftly pulling the Lumina in between a double-parked car and a delivery truck that seemed lost. Behind us a number of horns were blaring. "One is that since Jimmy Corelli's dead, his group is now busy yelling and shooting at each other and not doing a hell of a lot, and I don't think Gerry has much allegiance to whoever's running the show now. Second is that I was looking for the names of cops, and I wasn't looking for anything about anybody down here. Just cops, and that was all right. For a nice old man, Gerry's got a low opinion of cops."

"So, opinions and ancient history aside, what did you get?"

Felix looked over and smiled. "I got the names of two cops, Lewis. Does that sound all right?"

"Sounds just fine."

"Then let's keep on going."

"Won't argue with that."

At a 7- Eleven store Felix pulled into the parking lot and got out. I went with him to a pay phone and he said, "I told Gerry what I was looking for, and he came up with two names. Two cops that Jimmy Corelli had in his coat pocket, bought and paid for, and who Jimmy could trust to do a big-time, out-of-state job like this art theft. That makes a difference. You wouldn't send just anybody on a job like this museum caper. A cop who's in your pocket for fixing tickets, this would be too dangerous. So Gerry thought for a bit and came up with two candidates. Cal Maloney and Paul Demers."

"Still Boston cops?" I asked, thinking that if Felix didn't know, maybe I could call in another favor tomorrow from Roger Krohn, but as he does a lot, Felix impressed me.

"That's what I'm going to find out. You just hold on." Felix dialed a local number and let it ring for a moment, and when it was answered, he said, "Sergeant Macklin, please."

I think Felix was amused by my expression, and he whispered, "What? You think Boston cops moonlight as altar boys?"

In response I just shook my head, and a voice came on and Felix said, "You recognize this voice? Good. Okay." Some chatter from the phone that I couldn't make out, and then Felix said, "Need current info and bio on two of your guys. One Cal Maloney and one Peter Demers. Last I knew, they were active four, five years ago. Got that?"

I looked around the lot. Concrete barriers and puddles of liquid broke up the parking lot. Felix's rented Lumina looked to be the best vehicle in the area, and traffic roared by on a four-lane city street whose name I didn't know. Buildings of all varieties were around us, and I saw not a single tree. I bent back my head and looked up into the orangey night sky and didn't see a single star.

Felix's voice got a bit louder. "Well, I don't care."

A pause. Felix again. "You should have thought about that before you had that lovely weekend rendezvous with your babysitter, Kenny. Or do I have to remind you?"

The next pause was shorter and Felix said, "I'll be here. Ten minutes ? You got it," and then he read off the phone number of the pay phone and hung up.

"Success?" I asked.

"Of course," Felix said, leaning against the side of the booth. "We should know in less than ten minutes. My contact is very thorough."

"I should think so, considering what I think you have against him."

Felix smiled, and it wasn't a very pleasant sight. "We're always in a battle with what some columnists call the forces of good, Lewis, and we take our advantages and victories where we can. Old Sergeant Macklin has an unhealthy interest in teenage girls. One weekend in a Saugus motel and a full set of photos and videotapes later, Sergeant Macklin took on a part-time job. Working for us."

"Thought you were freelance."

''An extra set of prints didn't hurt."

We waited in the parking lot and I sat on the Lumina's hood while Felix kept his stance at the pay phone. Twice people came over to use the phone --- a young couple and a guy in jeans and T-shirt who looked like he just got off a construction site --- and Felix stayed there and smiled with his thick arms folded and the people veered off. I don't know what it is, but when Felix is in his working mode, he puts up something --- a field, an aura, whatever --- that makes people veer away. Even standing near him, I felt jumpy, which is probably why I stood up quickly when the phone rang.

Felix let it ring only once. A pad and pen appeared in his hand, and with his head cocked over, he started taking notes, saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," over and over again in a monotone, and then he said, as one word, "Thanks-okay-bye," and hung up.

"Well?" I asked.

Felix looked at me, his face troubled. "Gerry was right. Both cops, detectives, working for Boston five years ago." Then he stopped.

''And?'' I demanded.

''And they're both dead, Lewis."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Everything seemed to smell worse right about then, and the light seemed to dim about me, and I said, "Dead? What else? Do you have how and when?"

Felix said, "Sure do." He looked down at his pad and said, "Peter Demers. Retired four years ago, moved to Florida and died of a heart attack two years later. Buried down there with his wife, according to the good sergeant."

"Great," I said. ''And what about the other guy, Cal…"

"Cal Maloney," Felix said. "Also deceased. Died in a car accident five years ago."

"Where?"

"Newburyport, Massachusetts. Just over the border from New Hampshire. In the early morning hours of July 7." 

July 7. The date sounded familiar. Very familiar. I said in a tone, "Felix…"

Then his grin threatened to explode, it was so huge. "Exactly, Lewis. He died in a car accident, night of the painting theft. Paintings were stolen little bit after 11 P.M. on July 6, and he croaks in a car accident about 2 A.M. on July 7. Blood alcohol content at least point two. And you want to know something interesting?"