Black Tide

by Brendan DuBois

  The stars seemed very bright indeed. Upstairs in my study was the folder I had stolen from Craig Dummer's silent and haunted home, but that would wait. I needed to turn down the volume in my head, needed to make everything seem less edgy. I went back inside and from the cellar I pulled out my summer sleeping bag and a rolled-up mattress pad, and then I grabbed a pillow from the couch. In a quick movement upstairs and back, I retrieved my 9 mm Beretta, then I went out to the rear deck, carrying three Molson Golden Ales with me. I was sure that Felix wouldn't begrudge me this one indulgence.

  I unrolled the mattress pad on the hard wood of the deck, spread out the sleeping bag and crawled inside. I sat up against a wall and sipped at the first of the Molson Golden Ales, letting the little movies, the dark fantasies and thoughts race through my mind as I looked out into the limitless miles of the ocean. Craig Dummer, alone in the mobile home, being threatened. Taken into the bathroom, trembling and stinking with fear, sweat running down his face, urine leaking down his leg. Forced into the bathtub, a couple of gunshots to the head. Silencer, of course, though even with a silencer great chunks of bone and flesh are torn away. Then the body is taken out and the cleanup begins, but ends abruptly, leaving behind a couple of pieces of … well, of evidence. And then the pistol and the facemask, hidden, but not so well hidden. Left behind in the closet. Why? And why bother taking the body and doing the cleanup?

  I was surprised at how quickly I had finished the first Molson, and I started working on the second. Out on the ocean a light moved, a light representing a boat, a man or woman, and a family, staying busy and trying to make a living out on the unforgiving ocean. Busy. The person or persons in that trailer had been busy, quite busy, with the corpse of Craig Dummer in the bathroom of that trailer. Somehow, the decision is made to take the body out and to hide the fact that Craig is dead. Keep it covered up, no publicity, no newspaper headlines, nothing to distract anyone from what is going on.

  And what's going on?

  Nothing.

  Except for Friday. Day after tomorrow. The exchange of the safe house's location and the paintings for the money that was promised Felix Tinios.

  Was Craig going to blow something on the exchange? I thought about that some more, and somewhere between the second and third Molson’s, I fell asleep.

  Morning after the night out on the deck seemed to come early, but I managed to roll over and pull part of the sleeping bag over my head to get some more sleep. The less said about breakfast and what I felt like, the better. Suffice it to say that ten o'clock I was in my study, nibbling on buttered toast and drinking an iced tea, looking through Craig Dummer's file, which was one of those accordion cardboard folders that open up. For all the mess and dumped clothes and dirty dishes and crumpled newspapers that I had found in his apartment in Bainbridge and his trailer in Exonia, the man had kept pretty good records. Year-by-year collections of pay stubs, W-2 forms and photocopies of job application sheets. In the five years since the theft at the Scribner Museum, Craig had worked at seven companies in the Manchester-Bedford-Concord area as a security guard, never lasting longer than a year at any job.

  Not much of a career path. Then I got my first surprise. His salary. I'm no expert on many things, including the pay practices for security guards, but something seemed wrong about Craig Dummer getting paid about four times the minimum hourly wage. It was a hefty salary, one that didn't make any sense, and it was a wage that started out big with his first job and then grew by a few percentage points with each new job. Something seemed screwy indeed.

  Then there were other surprises. Stuck in the folders of the file were torn-off sheets from a Gary Larson desk calendar. I smiled as I read each cartoon and then I looked on the reverse. Notes had been written on the back. I checked the dates; the oldest cartoon was nearly five years old. I looked again at the writing, which was crabbed and small and hard to read. The oldest cartoon had a note that said something like "The wait begins." Another said, ''A whole year. Hard to believe." A couple were indecipherable, but one said, "Europe seems so far away," and another said, "What is to be done?"

  A diary, or a journal. Or a record of something not going right, for many years in a row. There were a few cartoons that made reference to someone called "The Man."

  "Someone had a big mouth that night. I think I got The Man's name." The date was a week after the theft. A month later: "Confirmed! It was The Man." And a few months after that: "The Man is a sissy. Quickly offers a deal for my closed mouth."

  The most recent cartoon was just over a week old. On the reverse: "Such awful work. But it had to be done, hard as it was. Europe and the payoff awaits."

  I checked the date again. The same day that Tony Russo was killed.

  I went downstairs and made myself another iced tea, and when I got back to my book-lined study, I returned to the paycheck stubs. Seven different companies. DiskJets. Grayson Enterprises. Data Lock Systems. Blue Horizon Software. Uplink Corp. Ravine Data Service. Mycroft Computer Development. All seemed high-tech or computer-based, but something about their names nagged me. I took a couple of swallows of iced tea and put the sweating glass down on my desk, next to my computer. One of the paycheck stubs --- for Mycroft Computer Development --- said ''A Division of Brass Cannon Systems" in tiny print at the bottom.

  Brass Cannon Systems.

  "I'll be damned," I whispered. I reached across the desk and pulled out the Petro Star file, and in the listing I stole from DefNet, there it was. Brass Cannon Systems.

  Owned by one Cameron Briggs.

  I quickly got on the phone and went to work, pretending to be one Sam Matheson, reporter for Business Week magazine. A half hour later, I put down the phone and started rubbing my face. All seven companies were connected to Cameron Briggs, who owned some of them outright and held a major portion of the stock of the rest. Craig Dummer and Cameron Briggs. Craig and The Man. I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling. I wanted to pick up the phone and make a call, and ask Cameron if he had been in Exonia last night scrubbing down a bathroom, but instead I waited.

  I'm glad I did.

  In the afternoon I was out on the deck when the phone rang. I took it outside, trailing the long cord. It was Roger Krohn, and he didn't waste time.

  "I have the information you wanted," Krohn said. "You ready?"

  "Hold on, will you?" I went upstairs and retrieved a pad of paper and a pen, and when I carne back to the deck I held the phone to one ear as Roger talked to me.

  "Operation Harpoon," he began. "Joint Suffolk County-FBI investigation into corruption and organized crime influences in and around Boston Harbor. Looking at all aspects of harbor business: who controlled the longshoremen's union, who had influence over the container traffic and who passed along what funds to what companies. Case was opened about seven years ago and was then closed out a little less than two years later, with no arrests, no recommendations, no future investigations."

  "Who were they investigating?"

  "The usual suspects. Local mob, government and business leaders. People who had influence on the piers, on what went in and out of the harbor. File indicates some preliminary investigative work had been done but then a budget crunch carne and with nothing solid to move on, the case was closed out."

  "Do you have the file right in front of you?"

  A slight pause. "Yeah, I do. Why?"

  "Got a couple of questions. On the organized crime side, were they looking at Jimmy Corelli?"

  Roger laughed. "Hell, I don't have to look at the file to confirm that. Look, Lewis, anything serious going down in Boston or eastern Massachusetts back then, the feds and the Suffolk County DA would be looking at Jimmy Corelli without question. It's a given, an automatic. They were looking at him right up to the day he croaked in Leavenworth."

  "But is his name on the list?" I insisted. I made out the sound of shuffling papers.

  "Yep, he's right here."

  "Okay," I said, doodling aimlessly on the pad of paper. "One m
ore question. On the business side of the ledger. You see anything there on a Cameron Briggs, a guy from New York City?"

  A longer pause, and then Roger said quietly, "You're working on something that's not going to get my ass fried, right?"

  ''Absolutely,'' I said, and the doodles on the pad became darker as I pressed down on my pen. In the afternoon light the ocean swells seemed gentler. I could make out the bobbing colors of the lobster buoys, waiting to be retrieved. I thought I could feel my breathing and my heart rate slow down as I waited for Roger Krohn's answer.

  "One Cameron Briggs," he said simply. "He's there, Lewis."

  "Thank you," I managed to say. "What do they have on him?"

  “Just a scoping document. Somebody in the Suffolk County DA's office thought Corelli and Cameron Briggs had a secret business relationship. Some favors done back and forth, but like I said, no arrests. No recommendations."

  No arrests, but a piece of paper that opened up a lot of doors, a lot of possibilities. "I owe you one, Roger."

  "That you do," he said, "and we'll talk about that later. I'll be interested in what you've got, but in the meantime, I've got to get going. Want to get together this afternoon for a beer?"

  "No, I'm afraid I'm meeting someone about then."

  "Well, okay, then," he said. "We'll see about tomorrow."

  "That's fine."

  After I hung up the phone I held the pad of paper tight in my hands and brought it against my chest, and thought of dinner tonight with Felix Tinios, and how much I was going to enjoy that, for it had been a long time since I had impressed Felix with anything.

  Jimmy Corelli, a Boston organized crime leader. Cameron Briggs, wealthy New England businessman. Craig Dummer, security cop and art lover.

  Three men. Three Winslow Horner paintings. All together, in one package, and now, with just one survivor.

  "Oh, Felix," I whispered, and I waited for the afternoon to drift by.

  I met Felix at 6 P.M. sharp at a tiny restaurant called Rick's Place, which is in a small business complex on Route 108 in Exonia, a couple of miles away from downtown. The interior was tables and booths against one wall, with an L-shaped bar in one corner. It was quiet, small and out-of-the-way, and I guess it was perfect for Felix's needs. We both ate quickly and without much conversation, and I was almost trembling with excitement, knowing what tales I would tell Felix. We ignored the dessert menu, and when the check carne Felix looked at me and said, "You've got something, don't you?"

  "What?"

  "The way you've been sitting, the way you bolted through your cheeseburger and everything else, Lewis. You've got something."

  My mood was such that I didn't mind being made by Felix. "That I do. A lot."

  "Something about the paintings?"

  I leaned forward. "Everything about the paintings, Felix."

  He slowly nodded and said, "Go on."

  So I told him. Told him that Craig Dummer was dead, blown away and dragged out of his mobile home in Exonia, but in his death he had left behind some important evidence. The silencer-equipped pistol and face mask, and the paychecks linking Craig to Cameron Briggs. And then there was Cameron Briggs, a few years ago for having contacts with Jimmy Corelli after that incident, three paintings were stolen from the Scribner Museum and then ended up at a safe house owned by Jimmy Corelli, and after he was fired, Craig Dummer gets what amounts to a lifelong job with companies owned or controlled by Cameron Briggs.

  Throughout the conversation, Felix listened carefully, his head cocked slightly, like a hunting dog hearing the sounds of something rasping about in the brush. Not once did he look away, and not once did he ask any questions. He just listened, comparing what I was telling him with what he knew.

  When I was finished, I said, "It looks pretty clipped together, Felix. Five years ago Jimmy Corelli had those paintings stolen for Cameron Briggs, using the aid and assistance of Craig Dummer, guard at the museum. Then there's a screw-up and the paintings end up at Corelli's safe house. Along the way Craig Dummer somehow finds out that Cameron Briggs was the customer, was The Man, and Cameron gave him lifelong employment to keep him quiet."

  Felix shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "But why keep him working? Wouldn't it have been just as easy to give him the money without going through the hassle of finding him a job every year or so?"

  "Remember what Justin Dix told me earlier," I said. "Right after the theft, Craig and the other guard were under suspicion and were probably under surveillance for quite some time. Having Craig sit around and support himself with no job would have raised a lot of questions. But having him survive on dead-end security guard jobs, well, that makes sense. Nothing out of the ordinary. "

  Felix began playing with the salt and pepper shakers, moving them about in his big hand. They made tiny clicking noises. It sounded as if he was getting ready to roll bones. "So there's a screw-up and the paintings sit still for five years," he said, speaking in a thoughtful tone. "Cameron Briggs wonders where his paintings are, and Craig Dummer wonders if he's ever going to do more than just guard pieces of computers. Maybe Craig was promised a big bonus when the paintings were delivered safely, and he was still waiting for that."

  I nodded back and said, "Then Tony Russo finds out five years later that the paintings are at a safe house owned by Jimmy Corelli, a house that's in Maine. After a bit of checking, he finds out that Felix Tinios of North Tyler, New Hampshire, is the only one who knows that particular address. After some dark work he meets with you and me at a restaurant in Porter, and after some negotiations and some talking back and forth, he ends up dead in the parking lot. Killed by Craig Dummer."

  Felix looked at me sharply. "Why do you say that? What makes you think the shooter was Craig Dummer?"

  I told him about the calendar note, and Felix shrugged. ''A note that could mean almost anything. You got better than that?"

  "Yeah, because the pistol and the face mask were in his--- Oh. Just because they were there doesn't mean he used them. Whoever killed Craig Dummer could have planted the mask and the gun."

  Felix nodded. "Exactly. So then try this one for size. What was one of the last things that Tony Russo said as we were going to the parking lot?"

  "He said we were going to meet with the buyer. He said the buyer was waiting in the car, and wanted to meet you, Felix."

  "That's right. So maybe Tony --- God rest his miserable soul ---- maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe the buyer was waiting outside, and that was your Cameron Briggs. Except that somewhere between the first drink and the check, he got out and loaded up and waited for Tony near the fence and bushes, waiting to eliminate a guy who could prove to be trouble later on. Sound reasonable?"

  "Could be."

  "This Cameron Briggs of yours. Does he have it, Lewis? Does he have what it takes to put down a guy like Tony Russo?"

  I remembered what Paula Quinn had said earlier about Cameron Briggs, how there was no life in that man's eyes. "It's quite possible, Felix."

  Then Felix's look darkened and he said, "You know something about this guy?"

  "Yeah, I do. I found out he's the nitwit who owns the Petro Star, the tanker that had the oil spill in June."

  "Jesus. I had to move out of my house for a month because of the stench when that happened. I'm beginning to like him just fine, Lewis. Where does he live?"

  "On Atlantic Avenue in Wallis."

  By now Felix's skin was flushed, and I was wondering about his heartbeat. "Makes sense, my friend. He lives a couple of miles up the road from my house."

  I sipped at the rest of my ice water, for my throat was quite dry. "You think that's where your cousin Sal ended up?"

  "Why not? You got a better place?"

  I thought of Cameron Briggs's home, on a fairly quiet stretch of Atlantic Avenue. Lots of property with hedges and trees. You could bring someone in and come out with a corpse in the early morning hours, and there was a very good chance that nothing that went on would be witnessed. A very ea
sy trip over the berm and into the ocean.

  "No," I finally said. "I don't."

  By then the restaurant's single waitress had come by to pick up the check. As the waitress stood at the cash register and started talking to the bartender, I said, "Cameron Briggs, Jimmy Corelli and Craig Dummer. But there's a couple of names missing. "

  "Oh? Really?"

  "Yeah. The two fake Manchester cops. Had to be someone extra --- I don't think Cameron Briggs would have been out there skulking around."

  Felix looked over his shoulder and sighed at the sight of the waitress still jawing with the bartender. "Simple answer. From Corelli's organization."

  "Guys disguised as cops?" Felix grunted. "Hah. Lewis, a crew like Corelli's, it was probably real cops. He had them on the payroll. Probably took of ‘em from his crowd and sent them up to Manchester to do job."

  The waitress finally came back with a handful of change, which neither Felix nor I touched. Felix wiped his hands with a napkin. The back of my neck suddenly hurt and I held on to my glass and said, "Felix?"

  "Yeah?"

  ''Any names come to mind?"

  "What?" I swirled the glass for a moment. "You used to work with Corelli. You got contacts down there. Any names come to mind of cops who used to be on the payroll? Who might know their way around Manchester?"

  Felix swore something in Italian and scooped up the change that represented the waitress's forlorn tip, and he said, "I'm heading for a pay phone. You hold on."

  Which is what I did. The waitress looked over at me and gave me a weak smile, and from my wallet I pulled out three singles and shoved them under the plate that held my half-eaten cheeseburger. Felix came back and slapped me on the side of the shoulder and said, "You feel like going for a ride?"

  I smiled up at him. "Why the hell not?"

  In just an hour a lot of things can happen, and on this particular night, sixty minutes took me from a small town in southeastern New Hampshire to the famous North End of Boston, thanks to the ghost of President Eisenhower and the Highway Civil Defense Act of 1956. A true fact, one that is still not well known: the nation's interstate highway system wasn't built for commerce or travel or for anything having to do with peace. It was built in the 1950s for war, to speed up the transportation of troops and heavy supplies across the nation, against a forgotten foe once called the Soviet Union. Ask most students today about the Soviet Union and the Highway Civil Defense Act and you get a blank look, which is all right, according to the education experts. We're not supposed to be filling those young minds with rote facts. As to what we're filling them with instead, I'm not sure.