A Scourge of Vipers
Page 26
“They’ve got more than that,” she said. “For one thing, he broke into your apartment before he scooped you up and left a suicide note on your computer.”
“How can they be sure he wrote it?”
“One of your neighbors spotted him sneaking down the fire escape. The time stamp on the note is a match for the time and date.”
“Have you seen the note?”
“No, but Freitas pulled me aside and described what was in it.”
“Tell me.”
“You confessed to killing Romeo Alfano and stealing the two hundred grand. You knew the cops had found some of the money in your apartment, and you felt the walls closing in. You didn’t see any way out. So you decided to take your own life.”
“Anything else?”
“He included a sorrowful farewell to the woman you love.”
“That would be you,” I said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Okay,” I said. “Now I get how he was planning to get away with it. He was going to say that he picked me up for questioning and then cut me loose. His questions panicked me, so I wandered down to the waterfront and shot myself with my gun.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Has he confessed?”
“No. But there’s more.”
“What?”
“Freitas and Wargart got a court order to open Parisi’s safe deposit box at Citibank. Inside, they found nearly two hundred grand in hundreds. Romeo Alfano’s prints were on a few of the bank bands.”
“They’re charging him with that, too?”
“With grand larceny.”
“What about Alfano’s murder?”
“They still don’t know if it was Parisi or Mario Zerilli,” she said. “From the sound of it, they may never find out.”
“But chances are, Parisi’s going to die in prison,” I said.
“Yes.”
“It’s a shame, really.”
“Why on earth would you say that?”
“Stephen Parisi was a damned good cop, Yolanda. For thirty years, he was relentless and flat-out incorruptible. And how was the state of Rhode Island prepared to reward him for his years of faithful service? By slashing the pension he and his wife were going to retire on. He didn’t plan his crime. He just walked into a hotel room I sent him to and stumbled on two hundred grand in cash. And in a moment of weakness, he took it. Under the same circumstances, I might have done the same thing.”
“He was going to kill you, Mulligan.”
“It wasn’t personal. He needed a patsy to pin the crime on, and I happened to be handy. I’ll never forget the tortured expression on his face when he pointed the gun at me and ordered me out of the car. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I can’t help but wonder, when it came right down to it, if he could have pulled the trigger.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” she said.
“I bet he doesn’t know either.”
Whatever Mario Zerilli’s part in the drama had been, he was apparently going to get away with most of it. He may not have shot Romeo Alfano, but he probably killed Templeton. Yet the only charges pending against him were last spring’s gay-bashing outside the Stable and the assault and gun charges from the incident at Whoosh’s store. He’d probably serve less than ten years for all that. And when he gets out, I thought, he’ll be back to making trouble for me about the bookmaking business.
I was relieved that it was all over for now, but nothing about the way things had turned out felt right.
After I helped Yolanda clear the dishes, she put Tony Bennett on the stereo. We held each other on the couch for a while, but when Bennett started crooning “Tender Is the Night,” we got up and danced.
That night, she wasn’t the tender lover I had grown accustomed to. This time, she responded with urgency. She even bit me.
53
“You look like you could use a drink,” McCracken said.
I made a show of looking at my watch. “It’s still morning.”
“But you had quite a scare this week.”
“Aw, you know me. Nerves of steel.”
He smirked, got up from behind his desk, and strolled to the bar.
“What’s your poison?”
I turned and ran my eyes over the options.
“Knob Creek,” I said. “But if you want to keep me working here, you better lay in some Irish whiskey.”
“Bushmills, right?”
“That’s my usual, but Locke’s Single Malt would be better.”
“Done.”
He poured and handed me the bourbon. For now, it would have to do.
“How are you with the way things turned out?”
“Happy to be alive. Otherwise, everything pretty much sucks.”
“A shame about Parisi,” he said.
“Templeton, too.”
“At least our client’s happy.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “No way the cops can hang murder and robbery charges on Mario now.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Um.”
“Annunzio sent over a check, and he threw in a thousand-dollar bonus.”
“How nice.”
“He’s putting us on retainer, too.”
“Good to hear.”
“Do you need a few days off, or can I toss you another case?”
I took a moment to think about it, then said, “I’d like to stay busy.”
“But nothing too heavy?”
“For now, I think that would be best.”
“Got a call from Walmart yesterday. Somebody’s been pilfering electronics from their store on Silver Spring. The manager will set you up with a job in the storeroom next week.”
“I dunno. Someone’s bound to recognize me.”
“Shear off that mop and shave your head,” he said. “And I’ll get you a pair of horn-rims with window-glass lenses. Not even Yolanda will recognize you then.”
“Unless I take my pants off,” I said.
* * *
I wandered into my office, opened the box containing the new Walther, and dry-fired it, testing the trigger pull. Then I fired up the computer, logged on to The Ocean State Rag, and caught up on the local news I’d missed while I was in lockup. Parisi’s arrest had been the main story for three days running. I picked up the desk phone and dialed.
“Mulligan? I was hoping you’d call.”
“Hi, Mason.”
“Are you okay?”
“It was touch-and-go for a while, but I’m fine now.”
“Are you up to writing a first-person account of your ride with Parisi?”
“I was on a case for McCracken when it happened,” I said. “He can be a sticker for confidentiality. I’ll have to check with him first.”
After we signed off, I wandered into McCracken’s office.
“I’ll have to clear it with Annunzio,” he said.
Ten minutes later, he popped his head into my office and gave the okay. I spent the rest of the day pounding out the story. After I checked it over, I e-mailed it to Mason. Then I leaned back in my chair and allowed myself to dream a little.
After a half hour or so, I bent over the keyboard and searched the real estate listings for Jamestown, the town that occupies the largest island in Narragansett Bay. In a year or so, I’d have enough cash from Joseph to make a down payment. Something cozy and secluded with a view of the water. If Yolanda relented and let me move in, I wouldn’t need it, but it could be our place to slip away for romantic weekends. Putting it in my name would be a risk, but Tuukka & Associates Insurance Underwriters of North America could hold the title. Nobody had to know that I was the sole stockholder.
Life after The Dispatch was coming into focus now, and I was starting to like the way it looked.
* * *
Whenever I visited Rosie at Swan Point Cemetery, it had nearly always been raining, but Saturday morning dawned clear. The sky was alive with Canada geese getting an early start on their annual pilgrimage from
Hudson Bay to the Chesapeake.
I opened my gym bag, pawed through my basketball shoes and gym shorts, and found the Manny Ramirez jersey. I draped it over the gravestone, squatted in the grass, and gave Rosie a hug.
“No, I don’t think I’m going to miss newspaper work, Rosie. The Dispatch isn’t worth working for anymore anyway. Besides, wasn’t twenty-two years as a reporter enough? It’s time for me to start a new chapter. The truth is, I’m not sure how much good I ever did there anyway.… Yeah, I know. I exposed a lot of bad people over the years. But most of them were just errand boys. The real corrupters always got clean away.
“Well, look at how things worked out this time, Rosie. Two of the Alfanos ended up dead, but the people who hired them keep getting richer. Cheryl Grandison will do time for bugging Fiona’s office, but I never laid a hand on the deep-pocket organizations that tried to buy our state legislature. The state budget is still in the crapper, the best cop I ever knew is behind bars, and Citizens United is still the law of the land.
“America is being poisoned by big money, Rosie. Casino money. Oil money. Big Pharma money. Wall Street money. It makes a mockery of our elections. It corrupt our cops and politicians, even some of the ones who entered public service for the right reasons. And somehow, the fat cats and their acolytes have convinced half the population that the avaricious pursuit of wealth is a virtue.
“What’s that?… What am I going to do about it?
“I’m heading to Begley Arena, Rosie. The guys who failed the Vipers’ tryouts are gathering for a pickup game, and they need one more to play five-on-five.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Whatever is right about this book can be attributed largely to three remarkable women who were with me every step of the way. Susanna Einstein, my agent, is one of the best story doctors in creation. Claire Eddy, my editor at Forge, is both supportive and an exacting taskmaster. And Patricia Smith, one of the finest poets working in English, edited every line, adding musical notes to my sometimes toneless prose. Of the three, only Patricia sleeps with me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bruce DeSilva’s crime fiction has won the Edgar and Macavity Awards, has been listed as a finalist for the Shamus, Anthony, and Barry Awards, and has been published in ten foreign languages. His short stories have appeared in Akashic Press’s award-winning noir anthologies, and his book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and scores of other publications.
DeSilva was a journalist for forty years, most recently as worldwide writing coach for the Associated Press, editing stories that won nearly every major journalism prize, including the Pulitzer. He has worked as a consultant for fifty newspapers, taught at the University of Michigan and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and lectured at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation. He and his wife, the poet Patricia Smith, live in New Jersey with two enormous dogs named Brady and Rondo. Find him online at www.brucedesilva.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Forge Books by Bruce DeSilva
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Forge Books by Bruce DeSilva
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A SCOURGE OF VIPERS
Copyright © 2015 by Bruce DeSilva
All rights reserved.
Cover photographs by Getty Images
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7431-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4143-7 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466841437
First Edition: April 2015