Killers (31 page)

“Hey, Jack,” Patty said, putting the drinks down on the table. “Who's the old bag?”

Katy's jaw dropped. Sandy seemed utterly befuddled. I had a feeling this was his natural condition. I was a little thrown off myself; she'd said no more than ten words to me all the way over from Winter Hill, and now she was trying to start a catfight. And she wasn't drunk either. I'd guzzled most of her first Long Island iced tea. I glanced back at Bench, his two arms still underneath the table, but he had a faint smile on his face. This was apparently a variation on an act he was quite familiar with. Patty slid past me into the booth.

“Jack,” said Katy, with ice in her voice, “why don't you introduce us to your new friend?”

“Oh sure,” I said, “Patty, this is Katy and Sandy.”

“Pleased to meetcha,” she said, putting on a heavy Somerville accent. I was still standing, facing Katy, when Patty grabbed me by the arm. “C'mon, Jackie, sit down with your Patty and have a drinkie-poo.”

“By all means, Jack,” said Katy, “sit down and have a drinkie-poo.”

“Look, Katy, Patty's just putting you on here.” I pulled myself loose of her arm and took a step toward Katy. That, I immediately realized, was a mistake. She swung her pocketbook directly at my head and the metal clasp hit me square on the left side of my cheek. It hurt, and I knew it would leave a welt, in just about the same place as the one she'd laid on me at the Eastern Standard.

“Please, Katy,” I said, and this time she kicked me in the shin. Just my luck she was wearing boots—pointed boots. My eyes widened in pain, but what could I do?

Now the bartender was walking rapidly toward us.

Suddenly I felt someone brush by me. It was Bench, bag in hand, smirk on his face. I'd done my job perfectly, and so had Patty. The difference was, Patty had known what she was doing, and I hadn't.

The bartender walked directly to Katy. “Is this creep bothering you, ma'am?” he said, directing a dirty look in my direction.

“Not any more he isn't,” she said, turning on her heel and walking out, Alexander Chauncey “Sandy” Giles following meekly behind her. The bartender gave me a withering look.

“I knew you were trouble from the start,” he said. “I want the two of you out of here—now.”

“Gladly,” I said. Now I was the one grabbing Patty by the arm. She got up and as she walked by the bartender toward the door she snarled, “You didn't put any Triple Sec in that last Long Island iced tea, motherfucker.”

 

33

NEVER SPEAK WHEN YOU CAN NOD

I was waiting for them outside the Burger King, one door down. I put the bag down and grabbed Patty and gave her a kiss on the lips.

“That was beautiful,” I said to her. Then I looked over at Jack. “How about that? Couldn't have gone any smoother. What a break.”

“So are my ankles,” he said.

“Your face is gonna be a mess too,” I said. “Who was that nutty, stuck-up broad?”

“My ex-girlfriend,” he said, and I laughed again.

“If she wasn't your ‘ex' before,” I said, “she sure as hell is now.”

Reilly looked over at Patty. “Did you have to call her an old bag?”

Patty smiled sweetly. “It got her attention, didn't it?”

“Yeah, it sure did.” He rubbed his cheekbone where her purse had struck him. He shook his head sadly, as pedestrians moved around the knot we had created on the sidewalk.

“What's it to you anyway?” Patty said. “I thought you said ‘ex.'”

“Yeah, but…”

I said, “There's ‘ex,' and then there's ‘ex,' right, Jack?”

“Exactly,” he said, and then his eyes widened. “They're coming,” he said, looking across Tremont Street to the Common. “It's Donuts and the probation commissioner. We gotta get back to my car.”

I grabbed him by the arm. “There was another bug under the table. Tiny, even smaller than mine. Has to be the feds—they're the only ones that have state-of-the-art shit like that.”

“No shit!” Reilly said. He seemed almost happy about it. “Great minds think alike!”

“Something like that,” I said.

His shitmobile was around the corner back in the alley. No ticket—his old police placard apparently still worked. My original plan had been to give him another cell phone and then drive back to Somerville with Patty. Let him monitor the pols' bullshit. This whole thing was a long shot anyway, and we didn't all need to be sitting in a cramped car listening to two assholes dropping names and bragging about how tough they were.

But we'd run out of time, and now we'd all have to listen together. Plus, maybe the feds knew something we didn't. They could have a bug in the State House too small and sophisticated for Donuts' state cops to spot. Reilly and I got into the front seat and Patty climbed in the back, muttering about the junk—old newspapers, fast-food bags, empty GIQ bottles of Ballantine Ale. That's what my father and uncles used to drink; until I was sitting in the backseat myself at Anthony's the other night, I hadn't even known they still brewed that panther piss. Patty was still grumbling loudly as she threw everything onto the floorboards or pushed it aside.

“Shhhhh,” I told her, as I turned on the receiver. All we could hear was the usual barroom noises, laughs, clinking glasses, an occasional shout.

“Hope we got the right booth,” I said.

“You did,” he said. “My sources are pretty good on this sort of thing.”

“Will the ex put two and two together?” I asked.

“You mean, assuming she ever talks to me again.”

In the backseat, Patty giggled. A cloud of smoke floated into my face. Patty never read the warning labels on the cigarette pack. But then she never read much, period.

Suddenly, I heard a clear voice. “Two VOs and water, Sean.”

“That's Donuts,” Jack said.

“VO and water?” repeated Patty. “Jack, do you know anyone under sixty?”

“You mean besides the old bag?”

“Shhhhhh,” I said again.

“We can't afford any more fuck-ups,” the senator said. “I thought you told me those cons at the Python knew what they were doing.”

“They killed Sally's nephew didn't they? And that other wiseguy there.”

“But none of the Somerville guys. You wanna push a war in the news, you need casualties on both sides.”

“How 'bout those two McCarthy killed up the Hill?”

“I meant, white casualties. How many times I gotta tell you, Drew, nobody gives a rat's ass about spics getting shot. Or crooked hacks like your shooter there from probation. Your average citizen cheers, actually. Nobody thinks those guys are going to take over a casino. You gotta hit some of those guys over at the Alibi.”

Reilly looked over at me. I don't know what he was expecting me to do, wet my pants maybe. But I played a dead hand. Talk is cheap.

“Tonight,” the commissioner said. “They're at the Python, just waiting for the word.”

“Normally, I wouldn't want to know the details, but I haven't been very impressed with your performance so far.”

Then there was nothing, except glasses clinking. Their VO and waters had arrived.

“Thanks, Sean,” I heard the senator say, as another cloud of smoke drifted up from the backseat.

The commissioner was talking. “The problem is, the only way my P.O.s run into these guys is if they get caught.” P.O.s—probation officers. Like they were some kind of professionals, rather than run-of-the-mill payroll patriots. “If they get lugged, maybe my guys can recruit them. Problem is, the best ones never get caught, they learned inside, like McCarthy there. That's why we're having trouble. We're using second stringers.”

“Nobody like Bench McCarthy, eh?” the senator said.

“You're a legend,” Reilly said.

“Shhhhh,” I said again.

“He did time, Bench McCarthy,” said the commissioner. “They all do time, sooner or later. I pulled his jacket. He had a spotless record with DOC, except of course for the boog he shanked in the shower for Sally Curto.”

“Let's just make sure you and I don't end up with our own jackets,” the senator said. There was an awkward silence for a moment or two before the commissioner spoke again.

“I guarantee we'll get somebody tonight, maybe not Bench, but some of his guys. The plan is, we bust into both of the places he might be at, shooting. The Alibi and the garage in Roxbury. He's gotta be one place or the other, he's never in Allston at night, and he keeps that garage open most nights 'til midnight. They're just waiting at the Python for me to call…”

“These guys I'm with, they want to see some results.”

“Results? The bill's dead, isn't it?”

“Gotta keep it that way,” Donuts said. “That's what they're paying us for.”

“I understand,” the probation commissioner said. “But the feds are closing in on the department. They subpoenaed a whole bunch more today; my people are absolutely fucking scared shitless. They're not used to this.”

“And you are?” asked the senator.

“You tell me I'm going to get taken care of, I figure I'm going to get taken care of. Your word is your bond, right?”

Reilly glanced over at me. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I was picking up major rat vibes from the commish. If this thing went south, the race would be on. The fact that they were cousins meant nothing, not when the Graybar Hotel loomed on the horizon. My money would be on the commish to beat feet to the feds first, because he had more to trade up—his cousin, the next president of the state Senate.

The commissioner was still talking.

“See, my problem is the guys at the Python are getting antsy. It's one thing to knock over a check-cashing agency on the Lynnway, it's another thing altogether to make a run at Bench McCarthy.”

Fucking right it is, pal, and don't you forget it. This is what they mean about your reputation preceding you. It really can save a lot of wear and tear on your ass.

I stepped out of the car and took out one of my burner cell phones. I called Hobart at the Alibi. I told him to get two cars over to the Python and have them tail whoever left the bar, as long as there were at least two of them inside the car. Then I told him to find Salt and Peppa and tell them that I wanted them in Roxbury on the roof of the building across the street from the garage with sniper rifles. Then I told Hobart, get my Bushmaster .223 out of the garage at the top of the hill and make sure it was loaded. I stepped back into the car.

“Did I miss anything?” I asked.

“Nah,” Reilly said. “Just some tough-guy talk. People getting whacked, hit, clipped, the usual B-movie shit.” He looked over at me. “They haven't called the Python yet, if that's what you're wondering.”

Then they mentioned Sally, and it was time to start listening again.

“What about Sally?” said Donuts. “We gotta get him too. That's part of the deal with your goddamn guinea friends, that we clear the decks for them.”

“Don't remind me.”

“So is our guy working on that?”

“Yeah, he says he's got it all figured out. He's—”

“I don't want to know. I just want it to happen.”

“How about your boy on Morrissey Boulevard?” the commissioner said. “Is he ready to run with this tonight?

The senator chuckled. “Yeah, he told me he's hearing that something might be going down tonight. That's what his ‘sources' are telling him.”

Now it was the commissioner's turn to laugh. “His ‘sources,' huh?” He laughed. “You think he's ever even met a gangster?”

“Not unless the hood lives in Lincoln. That guy, I don't think he ever leaves the
Globe
building, except when he's going down to Newbury Street to buy some sixty-dollar socks.”

“How's he get all that great dialogue?” the commissioner said, his voice cracking up. “As if I didn't know—”

“I'm sure tomorrow's piece will be full of on-the-scene reportage, cinema verité of the printed page. Maybe Bench McCarthy's last words—”

I took that as my cue to hit the road. I glanced over at Reilly. He looked like he wanted to say something, probably about what his girlfriend would think if she could hear this. I'd gotten the feeling she was one of these people who thought everything was on the level, or at least that the
Globe
was. Why else would she hang around with a fruit like the one she'd dragged into Bennigan's? But whatever Reilly wanted to say, he thought better of it after listening to those State House coat-holders running off at the mouth about killing me. Sometimes you just leave the patter to the guy who's calling the shots, which was me.

“I gotta get going,” I said to him. “Can you sit on this, let me know if anything happens? I especially want to know when that commissioner asshole makes his call. Just call me and say ‘They're in the air.' That's all, nothing else. Then hang up. And don't call me again tonight.” I turned toward the backseat. “Patty, I'm gonna be tied up the next few hours. Jack'll take you home, or you can call an Uber.”

“I'll stick with Jack,” she said.

I should have leaned into the backseat and kissed her, and I should have shaken Reilly's hand. But I was already running late.

As I closed the door, the last thing I heard was the commissioner telling the senator, “Just makes sure McGee spells Sally Curto's name right this time. It always cuts down on the verité of the cinema if you're claiming to be a street guy yourself and you can't even spell the Mafia guy's name right.”

“It's the
Globe
,” the senator said. “What do you expect? It's not like they're writing about somebody important like Harvey Milk.”

I was barely listening now. I felt it coming on, the tingly sensation I always get when I'm looking for somebody, and I don't mean looking for somebody who owes me money. I opened the door of Reilly's car, got out of the front seat, slammed the door and headed toward Tremont Street to pick up my car behind the State House.