Killers (16 page)

In other words, the “solons” were a lot like Ted McGee himself. I poured myself a second cup of coffee and called Katy Bemis on her cell phone.

“What do you want?” she began pleasantly.

“I want to know what the fuck is going on with Ted McGee's column this morning.”

“That's Ted McGee's job, to make people ask what the fuck is going on with Ted McGee's column this morning.”

“I know that EMT and he claims he was misquoted.”

“Very funny,” she said. “You know as well as I do there was no EMT.”

“That's what I mean. How the hell does he get away with it?”

“What are you, the
Columbia Journalism Review
? He's been doing this for thirty years. You must have some dog in this fight, and his name is Bench.”

“Not really,” I said without much conviction.

“I mean, I never knew you to care much one way or another what was written about you or anybody else, especially by the likes of Ted McGee.”

“I just got an idea,” I said. “You want to go to the game tonight? My treat.”

“I have a saying. Beware of Jack Reilly bearing gifts.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don't trust you. What are you after?”

“If I show you something at the game tonight, will you help me out?”

She paused before continuing. “Jack, you seem to forget how well I know you. I remember helping you out one time, and it almost got me killed.”

“And it got you a job at that fine newspaper working with such distinguished scribes as Ted McGee.”

“What do you really want?”

Now it was my turn to pause. She knew what I really wanted was to have her back, but I couldn't admit it. I could handle my own sleuthin' at the State House, but cutting her on this story was a way to maybe start repairing the relationship. Working stories with her had been my entrée into her life to begin with, and maybe if I could show her I was on to something …

“The pregnant pause is duly noted,” she said. “I assume you're trying to think up a good story.”

“Why don't you just come to the game with me tonight? What have you got to lose?” I thought of adding, certainly not your virginity, but she didn't seem to be in a playful mood this morning. I told her I'd meet her at the Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square at 6:30. I offered to pick her up at the
Globe,
but she just sneered at my suggestion. Luckily, my Oldsmobile didn't take it personally.

 

15

A MATURE INDUSTRY

I've got money problems. Not cash-flow problems, which would mean things would be okay once I tracked down a few deadbeats and put a gun to their heads and asked them if they wanted to play Russian roulette with a full chamber.

No, my problem was the rackets were coming apart at the seams. They already had come apart at the seams. In the financial pages they call these “secular” as opposed to “cyclical” changes in an industry, a mature industry if you will, in this case the rackets.

As I've told you, I'm into drugs, but I keep them at arm's length. I need buffers, and the buffers cut into my end. But I can't operate without buffers, because otherwise drugs are too fucking risky. Can't trust anybody, especially once they get into sampling their own wares.

Unions are gone too, at least the kind of unions I grew up with: Teamsters, longshoremen, ironworkers and such. Nobody unloads ships anymore except with cranes. Then they put the loads on flatbed trucks. It doesn't matter how quickly you can cut the fifth wheel, you still can't get inside a cross-country load with anything less than a bazooka.

Nowadays the only real unions with any dough are in the public sector, like the Service Employees International Union, most of whose members are either illegals or hacks. From pinky rings to nose rings in less than one generation.

Gambling ain't what it used to be either. The Lottery runs numbers nowadays. Football's okay, but it's only sixteen Sundays a year, plus play-offs, and unlike the daily handle at the tracks, you can't fix games. Or at least I can't.

I used to be a stick-up guy. That's how everybody starts. I don't count burglaries. In my neighborhood, even the National Honor Society students did B&Es. They were a gateway crime, you might say, to armed robberies. From the start, I planned every one of my stick-ups down to the most minute detail. One time Bobby Bones and I took a bank in downtown Malden across the street from a freight rail line. Every morning at ten, a mile-long freight train rumbled through the downtown, cutting off the bank from the police station for four minutes. Exactly four minutes. That was all we needed. You could check it out with the Malden P.D. It's still an open case.

Problem is, for every job like that there's ten others where every fucking thing goes wrong. It's like they say about war, once the shooting starts, you can throw out all your plans. I used to front armored-car jobs. But no more, because you need so many guys, and these days at least one of 'em's bound to be a drug addict, or have an itchy trigger finger, or both. You're a hundred yards away sitting in a crash car and some Oxy zombie gets jumpy and starts shooting and your life's over. Just ask Bobby Bones.

I don't even bother hijacking local trucks anymore unless they're carrying smokes or electronics, and even then I usually subcontract the heists to the kids from Southie. Everything has gotten too risky. I had a convenience store once in Union Square. I figured I could use a free load of groceries to cut down on the overhead, so we followed this truck out of the warehouse in New Bedford every Tuesday morning for weeks. Everybody's a creature of habit, and every haul this truck driver pulled into a truck stop on Route 24 in Randolph for a piss and a cup of coffee. Simple—we didn't even have to hit the driver over the head, or pretend to. Just wait 'til he got inside, and then hot-wire the truck.

It went smooth, perfect in fact, until we got the truck back to the garage, pried open the back and saw … two backhoes. Oh sure, I unloaded them eventually, but what I'd really needed were those dry goods. I finally sold the grocery store to an Indian.

So I've got the “Irish” rackets all locked up, for what that's worth, and it ain't much these days. Sally's got a guy he needs straightened out, I straighten him out, and he pays me “expenses,” because we're supposed to be partners and all that. Then there's the Alibi, the garage and my little place in Allston.

In the cellar of the Alibi, I run my own Filene's Basement, where I stock the stolen goods sold to me by the younger hijackers, the ones who haven't figured out yet that, if you put it into hourly terms, trucks aren't worth grabbing anymore. Fencing stolen stuff is okay, but you end up giving away half the stuff. The fucking cops are the worst, of course. Get a load of furs and suddenly every cop on the job has not only a wife but a girlfriend. The Southie and Charlestown crews I buy from don't even grab furs anymore; it's not worth it to them. The cops broke up the fur-theft trade not by any great police work but simply by stealing so much stuff off the hijackers and the fences. Now the cops have to buy their own fur coats. Serves them right, the greedy fucks.

I figured I'd be okay once football season started, but for the time being, I needed cash. So I called a loan shark. I could have gone to Sally, I suppose, but that would have altered the balance of power. I already told you Sally's tighter than a frog's ass. Loan-sharking's another racket that ain't what it used to be—how can you compete against Visa or MasterCard? There's a few old-time loan sharks around, and I was on my way to meet one, Henry Sheldon. He'd started out in Roxbury, but had followed his clientele south to Weymouth years ago. He now operated out of a strip mall in a tired neighborhood where approximately ninety percent of the population was originally from Southie, Dorchester or Roxbury.

I pulled into a parking space in front of his office and walked in. He was the only one there—not much security considering he was supposed to have at least $25,000 on him at all times, which he was going to lend to me today.

I sauntered into his fly-specked storefront office and grabbed a chair in front of his desk. He was seated behind it, telephone in hand, haranguing a deadbeat client, threatening him with physical harm. It was an empty threat. Reddington had no muscle and he went maybe 320 pounds on a five-eight frame.

“Don't make me get ugly,” he yelled into the phone. Too late Henry—not to get ugly, I mean. He was about fifty, a sparse comb-over matted across his skull by sweat. He smelled like he'd already made his first trip of the day to the mean shebeen two doors down.

Sheldon had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. After hanging up, he rose and leaned across the desk to shake my hand. His was clammy.

“Bench,” he said, “I don't see you as much as I used to.”

I shook my head. “Weymouth's not really my neck of the woods.”

“And Roxbury isn't mine anymore either.”

“I got guys who handle Weymouth for me.” And they're such good earners, I'm sitting in Henry Sheldon's office, hat in hand.

“Bench,” he said, “remember the—”

“Henry,” I said, “I don't do ‘do you remembers'? Nothing personal.”

“I understand,” he said, smiling, showing off some cheap MCI-Norfolk dental work from his last bit. “Do you talk about the paper? 'Cause you're in it this morning.”

He tossed the
Globe
over to me. I'd gotten a couple of calls on my cell phone driving down, but the guys who had phoned me weren't exactly rocket scientists, and they hadn't been able to convey the gist of the piece. As soon as I saw the Ted McGee byline, I knew it had to be bullshit.

Some reporters are okay. Or so I've been told. Most of 'em, in my opinion, ought to be picked up as common nightwalkers. I can't believe the shit they print, and I know where it all comes from, the police reports. As far as I can tell, they fucking believe that just because something's in a police report, it's true. Or maybe they realize at least half of it's bullshit, but they don't care, because it's a public document, so they don't have to worry about being sued. As if any wiseguys were going to sue them anyway.

I read the column over quickly and tossed the paper back on the desk. I said nothing. What's the point of refuting bullshit from some guy who doesn't even know how to spell Sally's name? James Michael Curley used to say, “Never complain, never explain.” Words to live by. But Henry kept staring at me.

“So what's going on?” Henry asked.

“Henry, I don't do—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You don't do ‘what's going on?' questions.” He picked up a pack of cigarettes, tapped out a smoke and lit it. Then he reached into his top drawer and took out a thick business-sized envelope. Inside was the twenty-five grand, in one-hundred-dollar bills, judging from the heft of the envelope.

“Want to count it?” he said, and I shook my head.

“Vig's three points a week, which is—”

“Seven fifty,” I said. “I know. I went to Somerville High.”

“You know what they say about Somerville. You learn how to add, but never how to divide.” He chuckled softly.

“Is that what they say, Henry? About Somerville, I mean?”

“Look, Bench, I didn't mean nothing by it, it was just a little joke.” This guy was petrified of me. I liked that. “Just like asking you those questions about McGee's column. It's just, when it's in the papers—”

“Henry, you asked me a question, you got a right to an answer. The answer is, everything in that column is complete bullshit, and that includes the ‘the's' and the ‘and's.' The cocksucker is just trying to stir up trouble, is all. That's all you need to know. Your money's safe. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Was that you that the spics shot at on Broadway?”

“They're dead, aren't they?”

“One of 'em is, or so I heard,” he said. “I thought you were going to say, I don't do ‘was that you' questions.”

“Henry, you're right. You know what? I don't do ‘was that you' questions.”

Henry Sheldon stood up. Jesus, he'd gotten even fatter lately. He hadn't worn a belt for years, but now even the suspenders couldn't hide his gut.

“I don't mean to seem like a shy or anything, but how are we going to work these payments out? Maybe we could set up a time every week that I can come by the Alibi.” He saw me grimace; having a sweaty fat guy coming around looking for money from me every week wouldn't be good for business. My business, that is. It'd be great for his, being able to drop my name all over town.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I get it. You don't do meetings.”

“It's easier that way,” I said. “I'll be around. We'll run into each other. I'm good for it. You know me.”

“I do,” he said. “I do indeed.”

 

16

“I'M A GIRL WATCHER”

Katy had insisted on driving her own car to meet me at the Eastern Standard. I guess she was afraid I'd exercise my seductive powers on her to lure her back to my love nest on Shawmut Avenue to show her my etchings, after which I'd use her for my own unspeakable ends.

Like we hadn't ever … never mind. If she wanted to drop forty dollars for parking in Kenmore Square on a game night, it was okay by me. These days you need a home-equity loan to go to a Red Sox game. It's been a long time since a bleacher seat cost three bucks. It was back when my father started taking me to games, come to think of it.

While I waited for her at the Eastern Standard, I was sitting by myself at a sidewalk deuce nursing a twelve-dollar martini. The maître d' who seated me had pulled out the chair on the right, State House side, but I wanted the other seat, so I could face back toward Beacon Hill. It gave me a much better view of the local talent strolling into the park. It was still May, too cool for the really good girl-watching, when they're wearing next to nothing. On the other hand, the coeds were still in town, so the average age was a little lower, and the butts a little tighter, than in July and August.