Bosstown

by Adam Abramowitz

  It’s harder for Will to acclimate himself when McKenna does the choosing, which he does at first, before he trusts him fully, trusts his trap. He started closer to home as would be expected—Nashua, Stowe, Poughkeepsie—and then fanned out in a wider arc, the guns and money where Will said he’d deposited them, either McKenna himself darting out under cover of darkness to verify or maybe sending Ritter, who sizes Will up like a tailor eyeballing a suit for a corpse as he delivers McKenna’s parcels.

  Storage lockers in Topeka, Raleigh, Flint, one year paid in advance and after that, the money wired through Western Union, filtered through out-of-town PO boxes. Guns in Sacramento. Cash in Taos. Treasure maps marked with skulls and X’s. The rule is keep to small cities, avoid the glare of large metropolises—Chicago, Miami, New York—too many players, knowing eyes, crime buffs; same goes for small towns where a new face brings scrutiny, lazy porch banter, hayseed theorizing. Will has become a traveling salesman with nothing to sell, the Fuller Brush Man with a negative quota: Lose everything. Or else.

  The gun is under his pillow. The gun is in his hand. For the life of him, he can’t remember where he is.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  It’s early, but my body tells me it’s late, half past rigor mortis, any energy I had draining from me as the static returns full blast. My cuts and bruises reassert themselves, the primacy of pain top dog again.

  I ride Harrison Avenue toward Thayer, cutting down Randolph to approach via Albany Street, the Expressway at my back so I don’t worry about getting spotted from behind, no telling if Darryl’s changed his tune and wants another pound of flesh for his troubles. There’s a squad car parked at the stairs of my loft, the cab glowing with the electric blue of a computer, a single silhouette visible on the driver’s side. Albert’s nowhere to be seen. At the corner of Thayer and Albany, I step into a dark doorway and use the card Detective Wells gave me to dial his number.

  “Wells.” He answers on the first ring.

  “You find Britta Ingalls, Detective?” Wells doesn’t respond, but I hear movement over the line, other voices.

  “Zesty,” he says wearily. “When I said you were up to your neck in shit, it wasn’t meant as an invitation to dive off into the deep end.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you want to tell me why there’s a cruiser sitting in front of my loft?”

  “You’re in a world of trouble, Zesty.” He repeats my name louder than the rest of the conversation, probably alerting Brill or others to the call. In the background a car door slams.

  “You’re not at headquarters?”

  “No.”

  “Your partner with you?”

  “He’s about to be.”

  “I have something for you.”

  “Hold on a second.” I listen to movement and another car door shutting, Wells settling into his seat and then the same sounds again, probably Brill sliding in beside him. “Now, you listen good, Zesty,” Wells’s voice comes fast and angry. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but shit is piling up so fast around you, you’re liable to drown in it.”

  “Make it quick,” I say. “Your metaphors suck, and I’m about to hang up.”

  “Wait! Where are you? I’ll pick you up.”

  “No thanks. I didn’t like the feel of your cuffs the first time.”

  “Then fuckit,” Brill shouts into Wells’s phone, somebody besides me sounding like they need a nap. “Tell us something we need to know like—”

  I shut the phone off, edge around the corner to look over an empty street, the cruiser gone. I turn the phone back on, and when Wells answers, I say, “Black Hole Vinyl. They run dirty money through the record business.”

  “‘They’ being…?”

  “I don’t know.” I still keep Darryl’s name out of it, nothing to gain yet by pointing in his direction. “That’s for you to figure out. Gus was dealing cocaine, but I think it was his own thing and doesn’t have anything to do with Wells Fargo. If you find Britta, I’m betting you’ll find the bulk of the Fargo money.” I give up Gus and Britta, figuring that with the pair of them in custody, they’ll be out of harm’s way from Darryl, or if by some minor miracle I find the money—I can exchange it for the promise of their safety. If Darryl’s a man of his word. Too many ifs.

  “Well, if you’re right about any of that,” Wells says evenly, passing over my put-down, “you’re only half right, then.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We have your buddy Molten already. He doesn’t have the money, isn’t carrying any blow, and he’s not talking. Got any other suggestions?”

  “You have him there right now?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “You going to come meet us, or are we still playing Where’s Waldo?”

  “I’ll come to you,” I say. “Where are you?”

  “LaGrange Street,” Wells says. “This is Molten’s place, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m actually pretty close. Can I talk to Gus a minute before I get going?”

  “No you cannot,” Brill barks over the line. “’Less you can float a fucking séance to reach him. Your boy Gus is dead. Now, you gonna come see him off or not?”

  THIRTY-NINE

  If nothing else, Will admires McKenna’s long game. It reflects a realistic view; he knows the day will come when he’ll be forced to abdicate his crown of thorns. He doesn’t come right out and say it, but Will knows he likens himself to a general at war, and why not? There’re enough bodies to back that up, unmarked graves, blood on the beaches. Will knows of two: Wollaston. Tenean.

  Only McKenna is not planning to win any war, just the skirmishes, as he plans exit strategies, quotes passages from Sun Tzu, from Demosthenes. “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.” Will prefers the Bob Marley version. Or better still, Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street.

  Will assembles a marked deck only he and McKenna can read, though he has trouble picturing McKenna winding his way through these Middle American waiting rooms, collecting his blood money, flattening his heavy Boston accent to fade into retirement and anonymity.

  It doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. One by one, McKenna’s adversaries fold. The DiMasis are defanged by the FBI riding their wiretaps; Ritter is set loose to do what he does best: Jerry Dapolito bound in the trunk of a Pontiac, a bullet through his brain. Johnny Lockwood in the bed of a tanning salon of all places, his Irish blood bubbling on the hot glass; his brother practically decapitated in a Lowell barber shop, a little too much off the top. McKenna consolidates power as the rest of the city bleeds.

  McKenna must be a target of law enforcement, the state if not the feds, but it’s Keystone Kops every time, Inspector Clouseau meets DA Magoo. McKenna’s name tumbles off every indictment, wriggles out of every legal noose, witnesses recanting, decomposing, every attempt on his life a bungled card trick by double amputees.

  That Will is bound to McKenna seems inconceivable. His lips are sealed. He runs his table. Omaha Hi-Lo. Seven Stud. Texas Hold’em. If nothing else, McKenna has focused him, put everything in perspective. He knows his role, keeps dealing from the top of the deck. He has a family to provide for. Now is not the time to shave odds. Not yet. Rake the chips, wash the cards, and deal.

  Like it or not, McKenna’s the only game in town.

  FORTY

  The crime scene is lit like a movie scene, like a bad dream—police cruisers and unmarked cars, yellow tape, crime scene analysts, a crowd of extras, a silver roach-coach parked as close as the blues will allow, opportunities everywhere, you just have to find your niche. I half expect Mark Wahlberg or one of the Affleck brothers to show up on set, start yammering in an exaggerated Boston accent: Whatta we got he-yah? Or Someone pahked a couple a monstah slugs in our vic and we-yah workin’ on an ID. Pretty fuckin’ wom out he-yah.

  Instead I get Wells and Brill stripping disposable gloves, huddling with a slick Asia
n suit. Not as slick as Wells’s fitted Armani, or whatever it is he’s changed into since last night, but nice enough. The uniforms are working the crowd, notepads out like waiters listing daily specials. Brill makes a circular motion with his hand as I roll up and one of the unis lets me glide under the tape, setting off a rumbling from the onlookers angling for a better view.

  “Why’s he so fuckin’ special?” one guy snapping pictures yells out, framing me in his lens.

  Before I can answer, Brill grabs me by the shoulders, spins me around, and cuffs my wrists behind my back, the bike rattling to the curb. His pat-down has a personal feel to it, rougher than it has to be. Wells retrieves the Trek and rolls it to a tech wearing white paper booties and matching gloves working out of the back of a mobile crime scene truck. He motions with his chin to a strip of taped-off pavement pointing up Tremont.

  The Weegee of phone photography clicks away, yells, “Hey, what’s your e-mail? I’ll send you pictures.”

  Brill leans me face forward against the unmarked Crown Vic, lifts my pack over my head, and rummages through it.

  “You ever afraid of being typecast, Zesty?” Brill finds my eyes. “You know, like forever one of those goofy characters they march out on sitcoms for a cheap laugh.” He pulls out the leopard-spotted underwear I’ve forgotten to give Martha, lets it dangle off his finger. “Question withdrawn.”

  By all rights I should be wired, but stress makes me want to curl up and go to sleep, the metal hood of the Crown Vic as inviting as a pillow. The buzzers for Gus’s building are protected by an outdoor cell of paint-glopped iron bars, a door cut seamlessly into the frame. I close my eyes to avoid looking at Gus, but I’ve already seen him laid out inside the gated foyer, the sole of one Converse All Star pointing straight up at the end of his extended leg, his other sneaker twisted up behind him as if death had come just as he was busting some hellacious dance move.

  “Am I boring you, Zesty?” Brill’s voice snaps me back to the artificial light.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Shit. What do you think?”

  “I haven’t been Mirandized yet, and I watch Law & Order, so I’d have to say no.”

  “Then Mirandize your own goddamn self, if you know the script.”

  Wells returns from the van and turns me around. “You have the right to remain stupid.…” He opens the front door, guides me in with his hand on top of my head.

  The Asian suit is in the backseat already; I hadn’t noticed where he’d disappeared to or felt any of the doors open or close as I was leaning on the car. I look at him in the rearview mirror instead of twisting around, the cuffs at my wrists too tight, digging into flesh.

  I hate to say it, but the Asian guy looks, well, inscrutable. Maybe it’s because he’s sitting as if a board’s been jammed down the back of his suit jacket, his mirror image flat as the jack on a playing card, his lips no more than a line drawn across his face, dark hair shaved close to the skull, his nose a visual sleight of hand to suggest a depth that isn’t there. In fact, if he weren’t wearing that expensive suit, he’d be as animated as a cardboard cutout.

  “Zesty Meyers,” he says in a similarly flat voice, betraying no regional or ethnic accent whatsoever. “My name is Wellington Lee. It’s been quite a while since someone from the bureau’s spoken to you, hasn’t it?”

  “You’re FBI?”

  “What has it been, a little over two years now?”

  “I don’t count the days. Anyhow, if you’re with the bureau, I figure that D. B. Cooper thing’s still keeping you busy.”

  “Detective Wells informed me that you fancy yourself quite the comedian.” Lee’s frown drags his caterpillar eyebrows down for a triplicate image of disapproval.

  “Really? I’d say I’m more pithy than funny, but funny gets the girls, so okay.”

  “The agent whom you spoke to last, Grossman, do you remember him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Said the same thing. He even thought it worth mentioning in your file.”

  “Sweet. So two out of three law enforcement officials agree I’m funny. What are you selling, Agent Lee? Am I in your custody now?”

  “We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, it has come to my attention that you are peripherally involved in a matter involving the robbery of that Wells Fargo truck a week ago, at least a portion of the money you were delivering from an outfit by the name of Black Hole Vinyl originating from said robbery.”

  “Whoopee.”

  “I’m told that you knew Collin Sullivan, the guard who was killed, in a corollary manner, which is to say, in passing. You worked with him at your brother’s place of employ, twice, which your brother’s statement confirms, though he declined to turn over any written record. Do I have your full attention now? Why are you smiling?”

  “You’re the one talked to Zero?” When we spoke, Zero didn’t tell me anything about the agent himself; I just assumed it was the regular patrician suit with the bad comb-over.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So you get around.”

  “Yes. You sound surprised.”

  “I’m just taking mental notes. The timing doesn’t surprise me,” I say.

  “No? How so?”

  “Leila Markovich’s parole.”

  “Ah, very astute. What about it?”

  “Whenever anyone who so much as claims to have smoked a joint with my mother pops up, I get a visit from you guys. Least I used to.”

  “Leila Markovich did much more than smoke a joint with your mother. They were the founding members of Sparhawk, were responsible for the Harvard bombing—”

  “And they both robbed banks. I get it. What do you want, Agent Lee?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I could guess, but jumping into the FBI’s fantasy isn’t such a turn-on for me. Hey, Lee, do I smell like a Grateful Dead concert to you? You know who they are, right? Because Zero’s got this collection of old albums used to belong to my dad, and every time he plays ‘Box of Rain,’ I can’t help but picture my mom planting that bomb in Harvard Yard.”

  “Your point being?”

  “That you’d catch a better lead from a pint of Cherry Garcia than wasting your time with me. Now are we done here? Because I’d like to get on with this arrest already. The cuffs are killing me, and I don’t like wearing bracelets, I think they look a little feminine on me. Or maybe it’s just the color?”

  Lee takes a deep breath, presses on. “I noticed your brother’s not quite as committed to humor as you are. Or do you think it was just me?”

  “That’s just Zero being Zero.”

  “Brothers are often different.” Agent Lee nods in understanding. “My older brother is a very successful gynecologist in Philadelphia.”

  “Good for him.”

  “Not according to my brother. I believe his profession severely limits his dinner conversations. Anyhow, at this point it’s the bureau’s determination that you’ve been led into your current predicament through no fault of your own, although your continued meddling has perhaps … I want to get the right word here … accelerated events. And I’m sorry to say, for your friend Gus Molten, it has accelerated consequences.”

  “Gus getting killed is my fault now?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Lee taps his ear to keep me on point. “But things are certainly moving quickly, are they not? And in that you are perhaps culpable. Would Mr. Molten have met the same fate without your involvement? In my opinion, it is probable. The people that he, and by proxy, you are dealing with are dangerous and violent criminals. This is how things often end if you are not adept or equipped to handle them.”

  Way to state the obvious, I think, but keep to myself, seeing as it’s neither funny nor pithy, and I’d hate to ruin such a cultivated image with one sarcastic remark. Probably not a lot of FBI files list “funny” in the personal description column.

  “Do you know a man by the name of Darryl Jenkins?” Lee finds my eyes in the mirror.
<
br />   I look away too quickly, kicking myself for being caught off-guard.

  Growing up, whenever Zero and I would sit down to play cards, the deal rotating among us, our father would admonish us, Control yourselves. You think your eyes are just there to look at pretty girls? Your eyes have muscles. Work them. Fill them with smoke, polish them to mirrors.

  Zero proved to be a better student of the game, only behind his smoke and mirrors was a flame that tended to get the better of him in the long run. I had the gift of patience but enjoyed the sound of my own voice too much, meaning I tend to lie with my lips moving. “I know Darryl,” I say. “Assuming we’re talking about the same guy.”

  “It is the same,” Lee assures me. “He utilizes a number of vehicles but is primarily driven in a black Pathfinder by his lieutenants Cedrick Overstreet and Otis Byrd. Together they run a narcotics distribution enterprise in Roxbury and parts of the South End. Darryl Jenkins also owns a number of legitimate businesses and residences, a dry cleaners in Mattapan, a two-family rental unit in Mission Hill, and most pertinent to your predicament, a recording company on Newbury Street, through which he launders his corner drug money. Quite successfully, I might add, until recently, when he made one enormous miscalculation.”

  “And what would that be?” I’m fully alert now, my head spinning with what Lee’s telling me: Darryl’s empire built on a foundation of quicksand, our little arrangement already voided with Gus dead, the city’s federal and blue tide rolling in on him fast. Has Valentine flipped already, or is there something I’m missing entirely?

  “Why, the money from the Wells Fargo robbery,” Lee says. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  At one of the police vans, Wells is talking to the paper-booted tech he’d handed my bike to, the tech handing it back, shrugging. Brill has wandered off, working the crowd’s periphery as Wells had done in Roxbury, arms spread like an open invitation for random hugs, a lit cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth, homicide’s very own game show host: Step right up and win the dead guy.