Port City Shakedown

by Boyle, Gerry

  “East. Last I saw of them, they were running due east in the storm.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But they said they were sailing along the coast. They’re headed straight for Nova Scotia.”

  “They lied?” Nessa said.

  “Or changed their minds.”

  Nessa sat, lost in thought. A lobster boat appeared, chugging away from the harbor. Nessa watched it, but her gaze was inward.

  “Nessa, when Lucky and Nikki and the rest of them were here, were they doing anything illegal?”

  Nessa focused, tightened. Outside a rain squall swept across the waters, from the southeast.

  “Drugs, I mean.”

  “Did they take drugs? I don’t know. If they did, they wouldn’t tell me, the mom.”

  “You weren’t old,” Brandon said. “You were forty-five. Lucky said it was Nessa and Nikki, like you were a team.”

  Nessa didn’t answer. Stared out at the rain and sea. After a moment, she raised the glass and drank, lowered the glass to her lap, and held it there, like it was a crystal chalice.

  “You and Nikki were friends, Nessa,” Brandon said. “Different from a regular mother and daughter.”

  “Some friend,” Nessa said. “With friends like me—“

  “It’s Lucky,” Brandon said. “I don’t trust him.”

  “You’re right not to trust him,” Nessa said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s trusting people gets you killed. Nikki trusted me.”

  “You didn’t get her killed, Nessa.

  “Set it all in motion, Brandon,” Nessa said.

  Brandon waited, watched as Nessa’s eyes filled and finally a tear fell down her right cheek.

  “How?” he said.

  She turned to him, her face drawn and flushed, the only pink in a plane of gray.

  “She would have stayed home,” Nessa said. “But Lucky, he wanted to go. He wanted to go terribly. He wanted her to go. He wanted me to—”

  As Brandon watched, a wave seemed to sweep over her, sitting there in the chair. The rosy wine flush gave way to a pale, seasick gray.

  “You were supposed to go with them?” Brandon said. “Is that what’s tearing you apart? That Nikki went and you stayed here?”

  Nessa looked old, pained, ill, distraught.

  “No,” she said. “That’s not it at all.” And she turned her back to the bay, stood and wobbled, steadied herself and went inside. Brandon heard the wine bottles rattling in the cupboard like bones.

  CHAPTER 53

  There were cops in the McDonald’s lot, two plainclothes sitting at tables inside. Four were SWAT in a plumber’s van, assault rifles ready. More undercover cops were eating in an old El Camino, two more chatting in an SUV. The two detectives inside—a young woman and an older guy, supposed to look like a dad and his daughter— were eating in a window seat. Across the street and around the block were three teams of two, ready to block the lot or go in pursuit if Fuller and Kelvin somehow made it out onto the street.

  Crystal had Destinee in the car seat. She pulled in, tried not to look around at the other cars or up into the patch of brush above the back of the lot. Pulling Destinee out of the seat, she made the van, hoped it wouldn’t be that obvious to Kelvin and Joel, but maybe they wouldn’t be thinking she’d rat them out.

  Her hand over the baby’s face to shield her from the rain, Crystal went inside. She ordered a number four, the crispy chicken sandwich with fries and a Diet Coke, paid with the $20 bill the cops had given her.

  Destinee started to fuss, as if she sensed that something was going down. Crystal got her order, pocketed the change, hefted the baby and bag, and went out to the car. She didn’t look around, tried not to feel like she was on stage, though she was reminded of the time she had this tiny part in the junior-high play and was supposed to walk from one side of the stage to the other, stopping in the middle to say, “Where is he?” She’d gotten the line out, then tripped on the high heels and stumbled. Everybody laughed.

  She colored at the thought, put Destinee in her seat, gave her a French fry, and got in the driver’s seat and started to eat. When Destinee lost her fry and started to fuss, Crystal turned and gave her another. Six fries later, she finished the sandwich and dropped the wrapper into the bag. Reached into her purse and took out the cops’ hundred bucks, slipped it into the bag.

  Destinee started to cry when she saw her mother get out, and Crystal shushed her, crumpled the bag as she walked to the trash can.

  She dropped the bag in, walked back to the car, and leaned back to fish a chewed fry out of Destinee’s seat. The baby crammed it in her mouth. Crystal backed up, pulled forward, and drove out of the lot.

  “I did it for you, honey,” she told her daughter. “I did it for you.”

  As she drove down the street in the rain, it was Crystal who started to cry.

  Fuller heard about it from a guy in jail, how you find one of these small garages where people drop their car keys through a slot when the place is closed. You grab some keys and nobody knows the car is even gone for a couple of days, until the owner calls up, says, “Is my car ready or what?” and the mechanic, he says, “What car?”

  Kelvin and Fuller had found this foreign car place on Forest Avenue, all VWs and Volvos and crap. Kelvin bought a little magnet at a dollar store and they taped it to a coat hanger. With Kelvin standing behind him for cover, Fuller fished for the keys because his hands were smaller, coming up with three sets: two VW and one Volvo. They tried a blue VW, but it wouldn’t start. A Volvo sedan belched white smoke. They settled on a white Jetta with Grateful Dead stickers on the back window. Fuller drove it out, met Kelvin up the block in the Caprice. Kelvin drove back toward downtown, finally pulled the Chevy into a strip mall lot and parked.

  In the Jetta, Fuller driving, they drove through the city to the bridge, over to South Portland. There was a pizza place midway between the streets that led to the marina and Nessa’s and they parked there, facing out. Kelvin went through the car and found some Phish CDs (“What’s this wussy shit?” Fuller said.), a Visa card, and a $20 bill hidden in a magnetic key holder in the bottom of the console storage compartment.

  “Score,” Kelvin said, and, Red Sox hat pulled down low, sunglasses on, he went in to order pizza. It was half pepperoni and half green pepper and onion, the vegetable half for Fuller. Flicking the wipers on and off, they ate slowly, needing the reason to stay in the lot. Kelvin was starting his third piece when Fuller said, “You sure she’d sell you out?”

  Chewing, Kelvin nodded. He swallowed.

  “She’d tell herself it was for the baby,” he said, reaching for his Mountain Dew. “I don’t know what it is about that kid.”

  It was like a parade, Mia thought. Police everywhere, uniforms in a dozen different colors, some with round Smokey Bear hats, some wearing no hats at all, everyone somber, everyone wearing shiny black shoes.

  They pulled the Saab in behind a television truck, its boom and satellite dish extended high above the street. The TV reporter had a mirror out and was touching up her makeup. Brandon straightened his tie.

  “You look nice,” Mia said.

  “See you in an hour?” Brandon said.

  “Yeah. Grab some clothes, take a shower, get the salt off of me.”

  “You could have taken a shower at Nessa’s.”

  “I know. I just need a little break.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Brandon kissed her cheek, got out of the car. Mia waved, pulled away. Brandon joined the throng drifting toward the church, overheard the TV reporter reading her notes: “In a brutal slaying that shocked not only the Portland community but the entire state of Maine….”

  “Somebody up there likes us,” Fuller said, smiling as he slouched in the driver’s seat.

  “She’s leaving by herself,” Kelvin said.

  “Like I just said. Candy from a baby, dude. Candy from a fucking baby.”<
br />
  They turned and followed the Saab, retracing their route from South Portland.

  “Where we gonna go after?” Kelvin said.

  “Don’t worry,” Fuller said. “I got it covered.”

  He smiled, feeling like everything was falling into place. Every cop in the state at the funeral, the rest of ’em sitting at McDonald’s watching a trash can. The blonde chick dropping her boyfriend, heading into town all alone. He figured they could use the pepper spray on her, put a knife to her back. The credit card even had a guy’s name: Timothy D. Gould. Fuller practiced saying it a couple of times in his head, using his lawyer’s voice: “Hi, I’m Tim Gould. I’m hoping to get a room for one night. No, I don’t have a reservation.”

  Then he’d give them a big shit-eating grin, take the key, have Kelvin bring the girl around. Sweet little thing, he thought, maybe they’d get a king-size bed. He smiled and tried it out loud: “I’m Tim Gould. I’m hoping to get a room.”

  CHAPTER 54

  The family was up front: Mrs. Griffin, small, brunette, and two boys in blazers sitting on each side of their mom. The rest of the row was filled with relatives: an older man, maybe Griffin’s father, a middle-aged woman who looked like Griffin, too. When they turned, Brandon could see their reddened eyes, noses rubbed raw with tissues.

  The governor sat in the next row. A thin woman in a dark suit, she was flanked by other politicians, one of Maine’s U.S. senators, patrician with his silver hair. The rest of the church was packed with cops, guys in uniform all sitting in rows like it was a graduation at the academy.

  Brandon sat in the back. Clipped to his lapel was the I.D. card Griffin had made for him: “Brandon Blake . . . Portland P.D.” The card was scuffed where it had been stepped on at the other funeral. It seemed to Brandon like months ago.

  He watched, listened to the throat-clearing, a police radio inadvertently left on, but the sound of the police call somehow fitting. Someone clicked it off and then the priest came down the center aisle from the rear of the church, preceded by two altar girls, one carrying a big gold cross. Griffin’s older son, Jeremy, turned to watch. The younger boy, Michael, leaned into his mother and sobbed. The organ played.

  The priest, a white-haired, slow-moving old man who looked like he’d come out of retirement, told the assembled cops that they were all heroes, that the difference between them and Griffin was that God had taken him up on his offer to give his life for others. He reminded everyone that Jesus had done the same thing and that those who emulated Jesus in life would ultimately sit at the right hand of God. Brandon looked at the little boy sitting at the right hand of his mother and doubted this would be much consolation.

  And then the organ played again and the family followed the coffin down the aisle. Six big cops carried the coffin. Griffin’s wife broke down twenty feet from the door. As the family passed him, Brandon thought of Griffin, the proud dad recounting every ground ball, every ball and strike. He wiped away a tear of his own.

  Then Brandon went out into the parking lot, stood in the drizzle with his I.D. showing, and looked for a woman with a face—how had Griffin put it?—whose two sides didn’t seem to match.

  He almost missed her, and when he did spot her, it wasn’t the face, it was the walk.

  Kathleen Rogan had a limp, a hitch left from the injuries suffered in the attack. She walked with a cane, and Brandon caught up with her as she was getting into her car, an Audi with handicap plates.

  “Ms. Rogan?” he said.

  She turned and he saw that Griffin was right. Her face, once handsome, was asymmetrical, the left eye drooping, the left side of the mouth turned down. She looked at him, then at his I.D.

  “You’re the ride-along,” she said.

  “Yes,” Brandon said, and he held out his hand. She shook it, gave him an assessing once-over.

  “Griffin liked you,” she said.

  “I liked Griffin.”

  “He was a good cop,” she said. “I could tell when I first met him, that he had it, I mean. He told me he saw something in you, too.”

  “Nice of him to say,” Brandon said.

  “He was a nice guy.”

  “Hard for his family.”

  “It’s a cop’s life,” Rogan said. “Could happen ten minutes from now, could never happen.”

  “Tough way to live,” Brandon said.

  “Let’s just say, you always make sure to say goodbye. I still do it today.”

  “Say goodbye to your husband?”

  “My partner. Her name is Marti.”

  “Because you never know?”

  “No, but who does?” Rogan said, turning to the car. “Griffin told me about your mother. Get in the car, if you want to talk.”

  Brandon walked around and got in. Rogan pulled her weak leg in, reached and set the cane in the back seat. She put the key in the ignition and classical music played. She turned it off.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “Did you know my mother?”

  “Knew who she was. Tended bar in the Old Port. Very pretty. Guys gravitated to her.”

  “The crew on Black Magic?”

  “Most guys, but yeah, the Black Magic crew, too.”

  “Why were you interested in them?” Brandon asked.

  Rogan thought for a moment, put her hands on the steering wheel. There was a long scar on top of her right hand, like it had been slashed.

  “I’ve thought about this, since Griffin called.”

  She paused. Brandon waited.

  “You have to know Portland in the eighties,” she said. “A lot of drugs. Coke mostly, not heroin like today. A little bit of a Wild West attitude down in the bars. Police hadn’t caught up with the drugs yet.”

  “Were the Black Magic guys into drugs?”

  “Oh, I’m sure they indulged,” Rogan said.

  “But that wasn’t what got you interested.”

  “No. What caught my attention was that these guys sailed in on a two-hundred-thousand-dollar boat. That’s the used value. Told customs they’d come from Ireland, but who knows? The ocean is a big empty space, you know what I’m saying? Once you’re out there—”

  “You can go anywhere.”

  “They’d been all over the world. Africa, North Africa, South America, all places where drug smuggling is a way of life.”

  “So you thought they were running drugs on the boat?”

  “Other people were moving dope that way back then. Packing a sailboat full in the Caribbean, sailing north, taking their chances. A lot of money to be made.”

  “But these guys, what did they do for—”

  “Work? Nothing. But they had cash. Spent thousands of dollars repairing the engine, getting the boat ready. Paid for everything with hundred-dollar bills.”

  “So they didn’t use banks,” Brandon said. “Kind of hard if you’re always moving.”

  “I calculated they spent about nine thousand dollars in a month in Portland.”

  “I heard Ketch inherited the boat,” Brandon said. “Probably money, too.”

  “You want to defend them, or know more?”

  “Anything you have.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my mother died on that boat.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rogan said. “But that was seventeen years ago. They’re all gone. Why are you asking? I mean, why now?”

  This time it was Brandon who hesitated. He looked out the car window, saw a TV reporter interviewing a state police detective. The cameraman turned away from the cop to get a shot of the departing hearse.

  “They didn’t all die.”

  Rogan turned toward him, looked at him hard, squinted with one eye.

  “Sure they did. Went down with all hands, or however they say it.”

  “A guy named Lucky. He got left behind in North Carolina.”

  “He didn’t tell anyone?”

  “He says he just took off. Had kind of a breakdown, losing all his friends like that.”

  “How do y
ou know?”

  “He told me. He’s here in Portland.”

  “Really. Smallish, wiry guy? Kind of cheerful and energetic?”

  “Yeah. Real name is Willem DeHahn,” Brandon said.

  “Not when I was asking,” Rogan said.

  “It’s on his passport.”

  “I got out the file, after Griffin called. There was no Willem on the boat. Lucky, his real name was H. Wilson Davis.”

  “Not anymore,” Brandon said. “It’s DeHahn. I saw it on a plane ticket.”

  “Huh,” Rogan said. “What’s he doing here?”

  “On vacation, he says. Chartered a boat. Sailing out of Portland. Rented a big house on the ocean in Falmouth. Here with his girlfriend. She’s from Poland, she says.”

  Rogan smiled, said, “Huh.”

  “They’ve been sailing way offshore,” Brandon said, watching for her reaction.

  “Really,” she said. “Have a lot of money?”

  “Seems to. Boat’s three thousand a week. House is a mansion.”

  “Pay cash?” Rogan said.

  “Yeah, for the boat anyway. Owner was happy because he won’t have to tell his ex-wife about it.”

  Rogan looked out the window on her side, seemed to be thinking.

  “How does he say he made all this money?” she said.

  “Investments,” Brandon said.

  Rogan gave a snort. “I’m sure,” she said.

  “He’s going to London in a couple of weeks.”

  Rogan rubbed her cheek, the sagging one.

  “So what do you think?” Brandon said.

  “What do I think or what can I prove?”

  “Think.”

  “I think he was dirty then. I think he’s probably dirty now. But he wasn’t in charge. You’re right about that guy Ketch. I think he was the brains, the strategizer. From what I could tell, he doled out the money to everybody else. I remember somebody saying the others got their allowance from him.”

  “Then Lucky’s come a long way,” Brandon said.

  “Sounds like it. Must have made a big score somehow. Hard part for somebody like that is even when you’re running drugs, it takes money to make money.”

  Rogan touched her cheek with the tips of her fingers, as though to shore it up.