Boston Cream (21 page)

“I want the address.”

“I’ll write it down.”

“You say David wasn’t involved in any of this.”

“The night of Mr. Patel’s donation, the assistant surgeon I’d been using got into an accident on the way to our facility and broke his wrist. The surgery couldn’t wait, so I drafted David in for just that one night. He was the only one I could find on the spot with the skill to take it on.”

“How did you get him to agree?”

“I know a few things about Judaism, even though I’m not Jewish. You can’t help but pick it up in this field. I knew that saving a life is considered a sacred duty. So I didn’t tell him the true circumstances until he arrived at the facility. Then I pressed him on the life-saving part until he agreed to do it. I made him take the money and keep it until he decided what to do with it. I thought everything would be okay, he’d throw the money his parents’ way …”

“But Mr. Patel died.”

Stayner nodded. “Normally, a living donor goes through extensive pre-transplant protocols. A thorough examination, medical history, genetic counselling, blood work, everything.
We knew Mr. Patel was the right blood and tissue match for our recipient.”

“Courtesy of Carol-Ann.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, he was allergic to the anesthetic we used and he suffered an episode of malignant hyperpyrexia—or hyperthermia if that’s more familiar to you.”

“No.”

“Well, it’s something we normally would have flagged in genetic testing, but Daggett forces us to cut those corners.” He decided to refill his glass now, drank half down and said, “Please understand I fought against organ racketeering in India for years. I railed against it at conferences until the government there banned it. I’ve tried to prevent it all my career and this bastard gangster has made a complete joke out of it. Stuck me right in the middle. I love my son too. I never would have gotten involved in it if it weren’t for him.”

“Save it, Doctor. Where does he live?”

“Daggett? I couldn’t tell you. Somewhere outside the city. But I know he has an office in town. He told me once if I didn’t keep doing what he wanted, he would take my son up there and throw him off the top.”

“The top of what?”

“Williams Wharf.”

W
e drove past the USS
Constitution
into the crowded North End and came to a driveway that served three six-storey condo buildings that faced the harbour. They were red brick with large art deco windows. Daggett worked up top of the middle one, Williams Wharf. We entered the private drive and came to a dead end where short concrete pillars linked by chains were set to block off a plunge into the water, accidental or otherwise. The back end of the building extended right to the pilings at the water’s edge. The views from any floor would be totally unobstructed.

As soon as we got out of the car, a uniformed security man exited the building and asked if he could help us. I got my digital camera off the floor of the car and said we were going to take a few pictures. He said okay but stayed there, arms crossed across his chest, as I struck a few touristy poses against the harbour backdrop, looking around the complex as Ryan snapped away with a flash that was nowhere near up to the job, but I doubted the guard would know that. On the right the driveway circled around to the lobby entrance; on the left it sloped deeply toward a door to an underground garage.

We traded places and I took four pictures of Ryan, letting him look around. Then we waved to the security guard and got
back in the car. He unleashed one arm to wave back, then refolded it and continued to watch us until we had turned around and headed back out to the street.

“No way he has Jenn in there,” I said. “Not with that security.”

“He could have direct entry from the garage.”

“Still. It’s too public a place. Other tenants below. Cameras over the lobby and garage entrance.”

“I saw.”

“Which also means it’s impossible for us to get in. We’re not going to fool anyone pretending to deliver flowers or pizza.”

“I used to hang around the North End with the locals when I did business here,” Ryan said. “There’s a couple of places up the corner we can watch from. We’ll see if he comes in or out.”

“If he does,” I said, “then what? This isn’t much of a place for a gunfight.”

“Few places are. But they still happen.”

We found an Italian café called Troppo that promised more of everything, including endless coffee refills. We took a window table and spent an hour eating dishes Ryan ordered, though I barely took note of what I ate. We watched fine vehicles enter and exit the driveway into the Wharves. We kept a running track of European, Asian and American luxury sedans, hybrids, crossovers and SUVs. We debated the plural of Lexus.

We didn’t see Sean Daggett come or go.

“These Irishmen,” Ryan said, “they’re crazy fuckers, you know that. In New York, back in the day, half of them weren’t even five-foot-seven, a hundred and fifty pounds, they still gave the families a run for their money. Pound for pound the most fearless guys out there, they’d go in anywhere blasting. The Gambinos, among others, used them for certain hits and muscle jobs because it was better to have them with you than against you.”

The waiter came and asked if there’d be anything else. A line was forming past the door and the table was in demand. We couldn’t drink any more coffee or water so we paid up and walked back to the car in darkness.

Halladay’s Funeral Home was in a Mattapan neighbourhood called Wellington Hill. It sounded Colonial or British but was all twenty-first-century urban blight. Half the stores were boarded up and the bus shelters advertised great deals on new foreclosures. The elderly clutched their purses and belongings tightly and put what little threat they could into the thrust of their canes. Single men gathered in tight-moving knots under canopies as a light rain drifted through.

The mortuary was surrounded by white hoarding with a gated entrance. The front half was two storeys and covered with light stucco. The back half was a long one-storey brick extension. Through the fence I could see two cars near the front door, none in the expansive lot on the west side. Signs on the hoarding said an application to turn the facility into a night club was before the zoning board. Graffiti was scrawled here and there denouncing the proposed club. As we cruised down the street we saw posters calling for a residents’ meeting to stop the zoning application.

“He’s smart,” I said. “He buys a place that suits his purposes, applies for a usage the residents don’t want, and it can sit tied up for years while he makes a fortune off it.”

“Think Jenn is in there?”

“Even if she is,” I said, “we’re not ready to storm it.”

“We’re all we got.”

“Do you know anyone in Boston?”

“No one I’ve seen in years. Back in the day, mind you, I came a few times. My old crew back home was hooked up with the Patriarcas. I mingled with them a few times.”

“Anyone you could ask for help?”

“There’s one guy here I got out of a jam. He might be a chip I can cash.”

“Think he’d accept an invitation to a gunfight?”

“Him personally, no. But he might know some guys who would. When do we need them?”

“Soon as you can.”

“Anything we can do in the meantime?”

“Go see our congressman.”

Back in my hotel room, I showed Ryan a page I had found and bookmarked during an earlier search. The architect who redesigned McConnell’s house had posted photos and a video tour of the outside on his website. “It’s on Louisburg Square,” I said. “Steps from the historic State House in the heart of Beacon Hill. The one with the black shutters and the Stars and Stripes fluttering bravely in the wind.”

Ryan took a look at the four storeys of solid red brick, the black shutters and trim. “Must have cost a fortune, that location.”

“It did,” I said. “Fortunately his wife has one, because it was way beyond his means. He took a few hits in the House when they bought it, got razzed about living off the avails of his wife while pretending to understand the common man, yada yada. I want to be there by nine, nine-thirty, approach him as he’s leaving for church.”

“How do you know he goes to church?”

“An Irish politician in Boston? I’ll bet you breakfast I can find an image of him toting a Bible in under one second.”

It took 0.63 seconds to come up with photos of the congressman and the heiress entering a historic church downtown, not far from where Rabbi Ed Lerner was striving to open his shul.

“What time do Catholics attend church on Sunday?” I asked Ryan.

“Ask someone who goes. Hey, zoom in on this corner,” he said, pointing to the lower left.

“What?”

“The front of the car parked there. Yeah, that’s a Crown Vic parked there. Preferred car of the Secret Service. Might make approaching him tricky.”

“But not impossible.”

“Not for us.” He looked at his watch and said, “I’m going to go down to the lobby, use a pay phone to call my friend.”

“Give it everything you’ve got.”

“You know me,” he said. “Mr. Persuasive.”

After he left, I kept looking at different angles of the McConnell house, zooming in on details like the coal chute and the wrought-iron fixture servants would have used to scrape manure off their shoes before entering the side door.

When the phone rang, I assumed it was Ryan calling from the lobby but it wasn’t.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s Sandy Lerner.”

“Hi.”

“We just got your message. I wish I’d listened to it sooner but we never do until Shabbos ends.”

“I figured as much.”

“Dad and I are both so sorry about your partner.”

“Sorry enough to tell me the truth?”

T
he knock on my door came half an hour later. Ryan had already come back up from the lobby, saying the man who owed him a favour was going to see what he could do on our behalf. I told him Sandy was coming over to talk about David, and that I was sure she knew where he was. He retired to Jenn’s room to give me the space I needed to get it out of her.

When I opened the door, Sandy was standing in the halo of light from the hall lamp, holding a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.

“I think I might need a glass of this,” she said.

I slipped the paper wraps off two water glasses I found in the bathroom, and poured us each a measure. I tasted mine and said, “Just right for the occasion. Now tell me what the occasion is.”

“It’s helping you find your friend, of course. As long as we protect David too.”

She was sitting on the club chair, slim in jeans and a black sweater, feet up under her. I said, “The man who kidnapped my friend is a gangster named Sean Daggett, and he’s going to kill Jenn tomorrow unless I find David first.”

“I won’t let you turn David over to him, even to save her. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I just need to speak to him, face to face. Between us we’ll find a way out.”

“From a gangster? I don’t think David’s much of a fighter.”

“I am.”

“I know. My father told me a few things about you after you left Friday night.”

“What things?”

“That you were a martial artist and you’d been in the IDF. And …”

“You can say it.”

“That you’ve killed three people.”

“Did he tell you how?”

“They were all in defence of yourself or others.”

“That was nice of him.”

She sipped her wine. “I heard you discussing Abner, so I take it there was some grey area?”

“In one of them.”

“But you live with it.”

“For the most part.”

“You’ve been injured a lot.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The way you carry yourself.”

“It hasn’t been a great year in that way,” I admitted. “As my grandmother would have said, there was too much excitement.”

“Did you get injured helping people?”

“Mostly.”

She took a longer drink than before, a longer pause, before saying, “You’ll protect David? You won’t use him as bait?”

“Just a diversion. And I’m not alone. I brought someone down from Toronto who’s a fighter too. A frighteningly good one.”

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s what happened.”

On the Friday morning after David’s flight from Summit Path, Sandy had woken at dawn and driven him to a place called Plum Island, accessible only via a causeway near Newburyport, an hour north of the city. Much of it was a nature reserve, she told me, with home ownership restricted to certain areas. A wealthy developer named Stephen Cooper, who attended Adath Israel and adored her father, had a retreat that he allowed Rabbi Ed to use from time to time, knowing his finances would never allow him a decent weekend out of the city. Sandy had always been invited too. “Normally,” she said, “a weekend with my dad after spending all week with him at home? No thanks. But Plum Island is magical. You see plants there you don’t see anywhere else around. Birds too. It’s a huge nature preserve, with all kinds of tidal flats and salt marshes. You see different water, and bluer skies. So I went a couple of times. Took a lot of long walks, tons of photos.”