“Where is he now?” Eddie asked.
“Specialists are working on his other injuries. His right wrist is completely shattered. Even if he survives the head injury, he’ll be lucky if he can use that hand again. He has two fractured forearms, a broken shoulder, a dislocated shoulder, and three broken ribs,” the doctor said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mrs. O’Toole said.
She sounds like my wife, Eddie thought.
“What do you think happened?” Eddie asked. “Did the blow to the head come first?”
“Yes, I believe he was hit on the head first,” the doctor said. “That blow knocked him to his knees. Then he fell forward, facedown, receiving multiple blows to his back, shoulders, and ribs. He probably rolled over to avoid further blows to that area and used his arms to defend his head. His forearms were probably broken and his wrist shattered at this point.”
“He must have pulled his gun when he was lying facedown,” Eddie theorized. “He always kept his gun in the front of his belt or in the holster on his chest. With the broken wrist he has, is there any way he could have held a gun and fired it?”
“Impossible. His wrist bone was shattered and hanging limp, totally non-functional,” the doctor said.
“Then how could he have shot Collins?” Eddie asked.
“Interesting question,” Dr. Levey said.
Eddie knocked on the front door of Shannon Collins’s house. She answered.
“Eddie,” she asked, “Is Mickey okay?”
“I don’t know yet,” Eddie said. “I left the hospital less than an hour ago and doctors were still working on him. He’s a mess.”
“I feel terrible,” she said, and started to cry. “He was here protecting me and almost got killed. I don’t blame him for shooting Bobby.”
“Mickey didn’t shoot anyone,” Eddie told her.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Bobby broke Mickey’s wrist into a thousand pieces before he was shot,” Eddie told her. “Mickey couldn’t have held a gun. Someone else shot your husband, probably to save Mickey. Was it you?”
“I never shot a gun in my life,” she said.
“I shot him,” a voice from behind her said, and her son Sean appeared. He put his hands on her shoulders and she turned to look up at him.
“I heard them fighting from my bedroom window and ran outside,” Sean said. “I saw the gun on the sidewalk and picked it up. Dad was holding the bat over his head and had started to swing it down. He was going to kill that guy and I had to stop him. I pulled the trigger without even aiming. He went down. I didn’t know he was dead. I just dropped the gun and ran back into the house.”
“Oh Sean,” Shannon said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” her son said. “He was a bad man and a drunk. He beat you, and I hated him for that.”
“Sean, you’re under arrest,” Eddie said, without enthusiasm. “You have a right to remain silent and I suggest you do.”
“Oh my God, what’s going to happen to him?” Shannon asked.
“I’d give him a medal,” Eddie said. “But the court may not see it that way.”
“Will he go to jail?” she asked, crying again.
“He killed a man to save a man,” Eddie said. “I’d call that justifiable homicide. We’ll see.”
They walked to the car together, Shannon weeping. At the car, she turned to Eddie. “Take care of my son.”
“I’ll do my best,” Eddie said.
Chapter 27
How Do You Get to Symphony Hall?
Tuesday, September 17, 1974
10:00 A.M.
Eddie spent two hours filling out forms and talking to the captain at the South Boston Police Station on D Street. Sean was put in a holding cell. When Eddie was done telling the whole story to the captain, he phoned Shannon’s attorney Adrianne Resnick and told the whole story again. She agreed to represent Sean without hesitation, and said she could be there in two hours. Eddie went to lunch and returned at two. Attorney Resnick was already there, with Sean in a conference room. Eddie introduced himself. He liked her right away; she was all business and talked about justifiable homicide from the outset. She then told Eddie to leave her alone. Eddie was glad to oblige. He had been there long enough.
He got to his office at three, sat at his desk, and dialed his home number. “How you feeling?” he asked Patty.
“I went to the day care center,” she said. “Seeing the kids made me feel a little better.”
“I’m about to make you feel worse.” Eddie told her about Mickey’s condition and Sean’s confession.
“The bad news just keeps coming,” she said, her depression returning and tiring her.
“Sometimes life is like that,” he said. “But it changes.”
“Call me when it does,” she said, and hung up.
Eddie’s mind returned to the Shotgun Man and where to find him. If I was a criminal from a foreign country, and spoke poor English, where would I hide and still have good access to public transportation? He checked a city map on the wall and finally decided, I have no idea.
He called the Metropolitan Transit Authority, identified himself, and asked for the information officer. “MTA Information, this is Aht Murphy,” answered a voice with a thick Boston accent.
“I got a tough question for you, Aht.”
“That’s what they all say,” Murphy said. “Shoot.”
Eddie asked Murphy the question about hiding out near public transportation.
“That’s easy,” Murphy said. “Your man would hide in an abandoned building on Mass Ave between Tremont, Shawmut, and West Springfield Street”
“Why?”
“Even in that armpit he’d still have super access to public transportation. Boston busing is within walking distance, and has the longest bus route from South Boston. It goes to City Hospital, Huntington Ave by Symphony Hall, and Barkley School of Music. It also goes across the river to Cambridge, MIT, and Harvard Square. If that ain’t enough, there’s a subway route a few blocks away that takes you along Washington Street to the North End or Copley Square, with a transfer to Beacon Street that takes you all the way to Cleveland Circle in Brookline. You can transfer—”
“That’s enough,” Eddie interrupted.
“I’m not done,” Murphy said.
“Yes you are. Thanks, Murph,” Eddie said, and hung up.
Eddie got up from his desk and checked his gun and ammunition. He was going to Mass Ave. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was past four. He would need a car to get to Mass Ave in a hurry. He was about to call the motor pool when his phone rang. “Eddie, its Donnie Schaevitz,” a fellow detective said. “I just wanted to let you know that the FBI just hit Nunzio Nardelli’s office. They got him on tape for murder. He’s going down.”
“I’ve been working with those FBI guys for two years and they didn’t give me a courtesy call,” Eddie said, annoyed.
“The FBI wants all the glory,” Shavitz said. “Happens a lot.”
Eddie was at Nardelli’s office in twenty minutes. With a good leg, he could have made it in ten. The second-floor office, with the social club downstairs, was filled with agents snapping pictures, checking for prints, and hauling the apoplectic little gangster away. “Get your fuckin’ hands off me,” the white-haired, bug-eyed, diminutive mob boss screamed at the towering FBI agents. “I’ll sue you assholes for breakin’ and enterin’ and plantin’ bugs in my office. I’ll plant a bug up your ass.”
“Hi Eddie,” Federal Agent Ackels said. “I forgot to call you. “
“Obviously,” Eddie said. “Now that I’m here, what have you got?”
“The electronic surveillance picked up three conversations the past two days that will absolutely convict him,” Ackels said. “We had enough probable cause to get an arrest warrant and a search warrant this morning. Your boy Nunzio is going to get arraigned, indicted, tried, and convicted. Thanks for all your cooperation.”
“Yeah,
thanks for the call,” Eddie said, letting his sarcasm show. “I’ll just have a look around as an official observer.”
Ackels shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “But watch out for this guy coming at you.”
“You, you stupid fuck,” Nardelli screamed in Eddie’s face. “Why don’t you catch that fuckin’ shotgun asshole before he blows someone else’s cock off?”
“Nice to see you too, Nunzio,” Eddie said, as the littlest Mafioso was escorted out the door.
Eddie walked the perimeter of Nardelli’s office. It was dirty and disgusting, like its former occupant. There were pictures everywhere. Nunzio with Raymond Valli in Providence, Nunzio with Boston Bruins players in Boston Garden, some guy from the Red Sox, former mayors and politicians. One picture caught his eye, and he took it off the wall. Nardelli with five guys in black suits, at an airport.
“Anyone we know?” Agent Ackels asked, looking over his shoulder.
“That’s Michael Lopresti,” Eddie said, pointing. “Gorgeous Lopresti’s father. Local hood. And that’s Frankie Comperchio, Joey Comperchio’s dad. Another Mafioso.”
Before Eddie could explain the significance of the photo, another FBI agent approached them and handed Ackels an envelope. “Agent Ackels, we found this in Nardelli’s safe, taped inside the top. You’re not going to believe it.”
Ackels opened the envelope. “Oh my God,” he said, and handed the photo to Eddie.
Eddie looked. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the Jewish cop said.
Chapter 28
Two Pictures—Two Thousand Words
Tuesday, September 17, 1974
6:00 P.M.
Eddie was back at his desk, staring at the old photograph of six dead young people and one dying old man. There was gore everywhere, bullet holes in little bodies, gaping wounds pouring blood, all posed like a family portrait. Who takes a picture like this? Eddie asked himself. And saves it for all these years?
In the confusion at Nardelli’s office Eddie had been able to make a copy of the photo and take it with him. There was a circle drawn around the old man’s head and on the back of the picture were the words “Shotgun Man.” No date, no location, no explanation. Eddie used a magnifying glass to study the two pictures in detail. Magnified, the death picture was even more ghastly. The old man’s eyes were open but the light in them had died. Rocco’s eyes had been blown out, his face destroyed. Angelina’s was the same. The children had suffered more body shots than facial and were more recognizable.
Next to the photo of the dead, Eddie placed the photo of the living found at the Lopresti and Comperchio crime scenes. At first glance it appeared that he was looking at the same people: alive in one picture, dead in the next. Suddenly he noticed a difference. The dead little boy on the grandfather’s lap had no damage to his face, though his body was badly riddled. Eddie focused the magnifying glass on the dead boy’s face and then switched quickly to the smiling boy in the family photo. He repeated the process three times and finally concluded, This is not same boy. It’s not even close. Eddie turned over the family photo and ran his index finger across the names. He leaned back in his chair. The Shotgun Man’s name is Gianni Caradonna, he said to himself, and he’s avenging the murders of his family. His next and last target is someone in the Nardelli family.
Nardelli had three grown children: one son and two married daughters. The son, Junior, was in the family business and was a murderer and a pimp. The two daughters were married to legitimate husbands, had young children, and wanted nothing to do with their father’s business. Who would Gianni target? Eddie wondered, and eventually decided on the son. Junior is most like his father, and was probably most loved by the little prick.
Eddie didn’t care if Junior Nardelli lived or died, but he couldn’t condone premeditated murder. He had to find the Shotgun Man before he struck again. Eddie glanced at the clock. Six thirty. He called Patty.
“I’m going to be late,” he said. “Will you be okay?”
“I’m just lying here, depressed,” she said. “I’m lousy company anyway.”
“I could put off what I have to do and come home if you need me,” he said, feeling guilty.
“To tell you the truth, Eddie, I need some time alone,” she said.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” he promised her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, her voice barely audible, and she hung up.
Detective Mac Burns rushed into the squad room, grabbed his coat, and began rushing out again.
“Where’s the fire, Mac?” Eddie asked.
“Revere,” Burns told him, referring to a declining ocean town north of Boston. “Junior Nardelli was just murdered in one of his own massage parlors. Sounds like your guy.”
“What happened?”
“Nardelli was on a table, getting a back rub, when some guy came in wearing a mask and carrying a shot gun,” Burns said. “The guy used the shotgun to motion the masseuse to scram, then blew off Nardelli’s head.”
“Anybody see anything?”
“No, but the masseuse heard something,” Burns told him.
“What?”
“‘Today you pay for the sins of your father’… then boom,” Burns said.
“That’s my guy, alright,” Eddie said.
“How can we stop him?” Burns asked.
“He just stopped himself,” Eddie said. “He’s killed everyone he came to kill and now he’ll leave the country.”
“We’ve lost him?”
“I have one more card to play,” Eddie said.
Chapter 29
Eddie the Kid and the Shotgun Man
Tuesday, September 17, 1974
7:30 P.M.
The section of Mass Ave was as Art Murphy had described it: a burned-out, boarded-up eyesore around the corner from Symphony Hall. Eddie parked a block away from the first blighted building on a strip of blighted buildings and turned off the engine. He was wondering where to begin his search when he saw the Shotgun Man approaching. He was tall, thin, and ghostlike in the shadow of a street lamp, wearing his floor-length coat with his long hair silhouetted in the light. He carried a large duffle bag at his side that Eddie guessed held his wide-brimmed hat, customized ammunition, and shotgun selection of the day. The street was as deserted as the buildings. He must have taken the bus from Revere, Eddie thought, as he removed his new Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum test model from his belt.
The Shotgun Man unexpectedly made a sharp left turn into an alley between abandoned buildings. “Damn,” Eddie said. He got out of his unmarked police car and hobbled to the side of the nearest building. He sidestepped along the wall and peeked cautiously around the corner. There was nothing and no one in this no-man’s-land. He had to go forward or go back. Eddie never backed off. He walked down the alley, his Smith & Wesson leading the way. At the end of the alley he peeked around the corner and looked both ways. It was a seemingly endless intersecting alley behind a row of abandoned buildings. The buildings were five stories high, and there were four rear windows per floor. Which building? Which floor? Eddie asked himself. He leaned against a wall, developing a strategy.
The Shotgun Man was in his first-floor apartment with the lamp on, invisible to the outside world. In the lifeless living room he was piling guns, papers, maps, and diagrams on the dilapidated armchair. He would burn it all. His vendetta was over, and he was going home to Vizzini where he intended to join his family in death. He did not want to live with the evil he had done. He had killed too many people who hadn’t deserved to die. He thought about Eddie the Kid and wondered how he had reacted to his warning.
When he had piled everything he would not take on or near the stuffed fabric chair, he moved the ammunition into a far corner so it would not explode until he was far away. He was running a long fuse across the room when he heard a distant voice call.
“Gianni Caradonna.”
The Shotgun Man’s heart raced and his blood pounded in his veins. Eddie the Kid is here, on
e building away, he thought. He knows my name.
Eddie stood at the intersecting alleys, challenging the man who had broken into his home and terrorized his wife, the man who had said that Eddie was no match for him. “Gianni Caradonna,” he shouted again. “I’ve come for you, man-to-man. No guns.”
Inside, Gianni put a small amount of gunpowder on the floor to ignite a fire. He lit a long fuse that led to the pile of equipment, rags, papers, and the highly flammable chair. He had a few minutes before the fire would start. He selected his most powerful custom-made, double-barreled shotgun and loaded it with exploding shells that spread on contact. I accept your challenge, he said to himself, and he fired one barrel into the upper left section of the window, blowing a large piece of plywood apart. Without hesitating he pulled the second trigger, blasting open the bottom right section of the wooden window. He walked to the dangling board, raised his left leg, and kicked the center of the plywood with the sole of his boot. The remaining plywood flew from the window frame. The Shotgun Man had opened the door for Eddie the Kid while the fuse burned.
With the sound of the first blast Eddie had dove face-first into the dirt and put both hands on the back of his head. He had remained there for the second blast. He raised his head slightly and saw the wood fly outward from the frame and fall to the ground. “Well there you are,” Eddie said quietly. He rose from the ground, leaving his Smith & Wesson behind, as promised. He moved to the open window as quickly as he could and grabbed the sill. Hoping Gianni Caradonna wouldn’t shoot, he pulled himself up as far as his waist. He somersaulted into the room and rolled to his knees just as the chair caught fire with a poof. Distraction, Eddie thought. Before he could react, Caradonna was on his back, wrapping his arm around Eddie’s neck. Strong, was Eddie’s thought, before he drove his right elbow low into Caradonna’s right side and followed with his left elbow into his left side. As the pressure increased on his throat, Eddie dug in three more elbow shots each to Caradonna’s left and right sides. Hearing grunts from the Shotgun Man and sensing his grip loosening, Eddie changed tactics. He reached behind and grabbed the taller man by the balls and squeezed. Caradonna screamed and bent forward on Eddie’s back. Eddie bent forward with him, without loosening his grip on the taller man’s scrotum. This created a little separation between them, which Eddie used in order to butt Caradonna with the back of his head, twice. The second head-butt broke something in Caradonna’s face, and the man lost his grip on Eddie’s throat.
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