The Son of John Devlin (17 page)

Young took a cab down to the fish pier, on time for his meeting with Coakley. The pier was wide and long, and dozens of boats were tied up at the dock, scores more out to sea. Men with weathered faces moved easily back and forth from boats to storage facilities, wheeling huge bins packed with fish. Young stood nervously, feeling wildly out of place, waiting. He paced for a time and then, after half an hour, sat down on a bench looking out at the harbor. Herring and black-backed gulls, their high-pitched wails filling the air, swept in low over the pier, scavenging bits of fish and bait.

After ten more minutes, growing increasingly anxious, Young got up and again began to pace. Coakley watched from behind a shed on the edge of the parking lot across
from the pier. He felt a tinge of regret, but knew that Devlin was right: Young had to be in a state of great anxiety or else their leverage over him would be minimized.

Finally, Coakley slipped out from behind the shed and made his way toward the pier. Young spotted him and began walking in Coakley’s direction.

“Sorry I’m late, Doc,” the lawyer said. “I was detained by a client.”

“Where do we stand?” Young asked abruptly. He was agitated, trembling slightly, Coakley could see. And sweating.

Coakley took a deep breath as a pained expression crossed his face. He appeared reluctant to speak, and he turned and looked down the fish pier. Dozens of men in heavy boots and slickers moved deliberately about the business of unloading huge stocks of fish from grimy-looking sixty-foot vessels. The low rumble of diesel engines could be heard on the water.

“We’ve hit a couple of bumps in the road,” Coakley said as he gazed out across the water, his eyes following a fishing boat lumbering in toward the pier. It was a trawler, perhaps 130 feet long, sitting low in the water, desperate for a paint job.

Young shut his eyes for a few seconds, as though trying to block out of his mind whatever bad news he was about to hear. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Coakley’s silence distressed him.

“What bumps?” he asked.

Coakley finally turned back from the water and looked at Young, then looked down at his shoes, as though embarrassed, then looked back at Young.

“The delivery’s being delayed,” he said.

Young shut his eyes again and his nostrils flared. “You
promised me,” he said. He moved away from Coakley and half turned, then turned back, hands thrust forward, palms up, as though pleading. His jaw was clenched, eyes narrowed.

“You assured me …,” Young said, too angry to complete the sentence.

Coakley was unshaken. “This is a different kind of business,” the lawyer said. “Not everything runs on a precise schedule. This ain’t Mass General.”

Young nodded. “I understand that,” he said. “But—”

“Do you?” Coakley asked, a quizzical look on his face. “Do you really? You did a couple of deals, upscale cokeheads, and all went well, and so you want to step up, which is fine, and I provide you with an opportunity to step up, but I’m not sure you understand that this is a business where things go wrong all the time. I’ve had clients who thought they had all their ducks in a row, and by all appearances they did, and then the next thing you know they’re in Leavenworth.”

Young was suddenly quiet. For the moment, his anger was overshadowed by the stab of fear that came whenever he considered the possibility of getting caught.

Coakley could see that Young was momentarily chastened.

“Look,” he said, “I know this puts you in a bind—”

“I made commitments to people,” Young said. “They’re expecting it. The timing is important.”

Coakley nodded. “They’ll wait,” he said, and he knew they would, for he’d dealt with them before. “But we may have something else to deal with in the meantime.” Coakley looked away from Young and watched as the big trawler docked.

“Such as?” Young asked.

“The cops,” Coakley said.

Young seemed puzzled. “How so?” he asked.

“They like a piece of whatever action they know about,” Coakley said. “They don’t like people doing business without paying them for protection. If they know about someone’s deal, then they either get paid to let it happen or they work quite diligently to destroy it. You have entered into something where people pay a great deal of money for the privilege to do business. You’ve paid nothing. If they detect this deal, you’ll either pay to participate or you won’t be in business.”

Young hesitated. “How would they know about this deal?”

“I’m not sure how much they know,” Coakley said. “I had a guy sniffing around it. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they had the basics down.”

Young was clearly alarmed. “But how would they know?” he asked, incredulous.

Good question, Coakley thought. How would they know? They would know if I told them. They would know if I discreetly passed along the information to someone I know within the department, to a man to whom I have occasionally provided information through the years. They would know if I offered that tip to this man—a lieutenant in Narcotics—a man who spent his nights seeking opportunities for shakedowns; a man who sought out deals so he could find a way to take a piece of the action. That’s how they would know. And Coakley had been certain—as certain as that he had fucked up everything he’d touched in his life—that his tip would get passed along and that the information would find its way to the people in charge of these operations;
the people behind it all, who made it all work. And they would find the deal no less than irresistible.

Coakley shrugged. “People hear things, pick things up, and things get passed around,” the lawyer said.

“So what did they say?” Young asked.

“General questions around the edge. You hear about a new thing, new deal, new people? Around the edges.”

Young considered this. “You think we’ll be okay?” he asked.

Coakley shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing. For all we know, they’re watching us right now.” Young looked down the pier at the fishermen unloading the trawler. He looked back out toward the street, at the parking lot next door.

“How do we know they’re not over there,” Coakley said, nodding down the length of the pier. “They could be watching us this very minute. There could be a photographer somewhere with a zoom lens. There are microphones, you know, that could pick up every word of our conversation from as far away as—see that van over there, Mulligan Brothers Oil Heat—from as far away as that. Pick up every word.”

There was a long moment of silence. Had he been naive? Young wondered. He’d planned all along to keep his hands clean, to stay as far from the product itself as possible. He would organize, plan, and run the operation, but it was his intention never to be in possession of any illicit substance.

“What could they do to us for talking?” Young asked.

Coakley looked sharply at him. “For talking?” he said. “You should learn to be more precise in your choice of verbs. For conspiring? For planning? For what the federal people like to call racketeering? What could they
do to you, a young man with a future? They could ruin your life. They could take away everything you own, strip you of your dignity. They could deprive you not only of your freedom, but of your hopes.”

Coakley regarded Young. “They could make your life so miserable you’d want to die.”

Young stood motionless, his heart pounding in his chest.

“That is why, if they learn more about this operation and if they approach us, we will do whatever it is they want done. Because to do otherwise would invite them to destroy you.”

Young waited a moment.

“What about you?” Young asked.

“Me?” Coakley said. “There’s nothing left to destroy.”

“L
isten, I’ve got some bad news,” Del Rio said, speaking on the phone from Boston. “Ray Murphy is dead. Shot in the head.”

Jack Devlin stood in the kitchen of the pretty pink house on the bluff overlooking the ocean and sought to steady himself.

He did not know what to say.

“You there?” Del Rio asked.

There was more silence before Jack replied: “I’m here.”

“So we have a problem at the moment, which is that Murphy’s daughter says that the other day he was very upset after talking with you. You evidently paid him a visit of some kind?”

“Yeah,” Jack said.

“What about?” Del Rio asked.

Jack hesitated. “My father.”

“And he was reluctant?” Del Rio said. “The daughter says he was reluctant.”

“He wasn’t overjoyed.”

“He told her you bullied him,” Del Rio said. “So this word gets around with the brass and they want to sit
with you. I’m telling you this so you’re prepared. You understand?”

“I appreciate it,” Jack said. “I’m headed back in the morning.”

“I think it’d be better this afternoon,” Del Rio said. “They’re kinda looking for you.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“Let me put it to you straight here, Jack. Murphy, let’s be perfectly candid about it, he was an asshole. I make no bones. But the thing is that he’s a former cop and doesn’t really do anyone any harm, and one day he’s fine, according to his daughter who visited with him daily—lived up the street—and the next day he’s all discombobulated and all upset and fucked up. And why? Well, seems he’s been paid a visit by the cop, this dick. Big kid, strong, kind of pushes his way in the door. Maybe has a threatening manner. And shit from years ago gets dredged up, and the guy is upset and then doesn’t calm down but gets more upset and maybe he shouldn’t have told the guy what he told him and maybe he should call him back and tell him to forget the whole thing, and then wham, he’s dead.

“And the problem is that the M.E. is positive he was taken out by a Glock nine, and there’s been a quick check run, and your weapon isn’t in your locker.”

“That’s where I left it,” Jack said. He did not mention that he had another Glock nine tucked away at home.

“Well, it ain’t there now,” Del Rio said. “So you hop a plane and come on back and we’ll figure out how to deal with this.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Are you saying that I’m suspected of—”

“I am merely conveying to you what I know, which is: that, one, Murphy was found dead by his daughter Maureen; that, two, the M.E. says he was shot early Sunday afternoon with a Glock nine; that, three, when asked if anything unusual had occurred of late to her father, the daughter responded by saying he had been quite upset after a visit from the son of Jock Devlin; that, four, someone in the brass got the bright idea to check out your weapon, and it is reported missing; that, five, someone around here—and I don’t yet know who—has a hard-on for you.

“ ’Cause get this one: Moloney’s lawyer went to the commissioner. This is what I hear. His lawyer went to the commissioner and says Moloney wants to fess up to certain indiscretions. He’s willing to admit that he crossed the line, took some dough, whatever. But he insists the incidents were rare and the amounts minor.”

“It’s a fucking joke,” Jack said.

“The brass are not laughing, however,” Del Rio said. “No laughter. No peals of laughter, as one might say. No yukking. No guffaws. No smiles. No grins. Many, many the pursed lip.
Comprende?
”

Jack looked out the glass doors leading to the deck. He saw a sailboat riding on the horizon.

“I’ll get a plane early this afternoon,” he said. “There’s something at one or one-thirty. Let’s assume I can get on that. I’ll come straight to your office at, say, four. I’d like to talk this through with you before I see anyone else.”

Jack Devlin reached Deputy Superintendent Tom Kennedy at his office at police headquarters.

“Jackie, where are you?” Kennedy asked, concern evident in his voice.

“Florida,” Jack said. “Del Rio called me about Murphy. I’m on my way back now.”

“Jesus, Jackie, your name is flying all over this place,” Kennedy said. “What’s this about you going to Murphy’s house and pushing him around?”

“I didn’t push him around, Tom. We had a conversation. I was there less than an hour.”

“About what?” Kennedy asked.

“About my dad.”

“Jackie, listen to me now,” Kennedy said. “There’s word going around from Murph’s daughter, evidently, that you went over there and muscled him and scared the shit out of him for some reason.”

“I was persistent with him,” Jack said. “I wasn’t threatening.”

“But Jack, what the hell are you doing going over to a guy like Murphy anyway? I don’t get that.”

“Jesus, Tom, I just wanted to talk with him about my father, that’s all.”

“But I don’t get why you’d want anything to do with that kind of a guy, a bitter old man, a hater, a poisonous guy, Jack.”

Devlin was jarred by Kennedy’s reproachful tone. For a moment he considered telling Kennedy about his father’s letter, but he had never told anyone about it, and he quickly dismissed the idea.

“I mean why Murphy, Jack, can you tell me that?” Kennedy asked.

“I just thought, maybe …” Devlin said, stumbling along. “I don’t know, Tom. I just had an instinct is all.”

“Well, you’ve got yourself in an uncomfortable situation and we’ve got to get you out of it,” Kennedy said. “There’s going to be a greeting party for you, a couple of guys who’ll question you. When I heard about it, I screamed bloody murder, but it’s a necessity based on what the daughter is saying.”

“That I was somehow—”

“That you bullied him and pushed him around and that he was very much shaken up when you left.”

“Jesus,” Jack muttered.

“So listen to me, Jackie. When you sit down with these guys—I think it’ll be Buckley and Lopez—stay very, very cool. Whatever you do, stay cool. Buckley can be a little crude, as you know. Just do me a favor, whatever you do, stay cool.”

“They feel they have to be scrupulous in a case like this,” Emily said as the plane to Boston rose above the West Palm Beach airport. “I’m trying to think about what I would do if the same thing happened in my office. Let’s say an ex–Assistant U.S. Attorney turns up murdered. And the day before, he had a visit from a current member of the staff. And the dead person’s daughter says he was distressed by the visit. I would definitely feel the need to sit down and talk with the person. Immediately.”