by Ace Atkins
“Why’d you partner with him?” I asked.
“Flynn made me promises,” Gerry said. “He said we could get back what had been my dad’s after Knocko Moynihan got aced. Now he’s gone fucking nuts over what he done to that girl.”
“Julie Sullivan.”
Gerry kept his head bowed, crying. He nodded. “Pussy makes you crazy.”
“Why’d he kill her, Ger?”
Gerry shook his head. He ran the back of his hand under his nose again. I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t wipe snot on his jacket again. There were limits. Instead, he shook his head some more.
“Give us Flynn,” I said. “He’s a sociopath. You have our word we leave your old man alone.”
Gerry was silent for a long while. He tilted his head up at me, staring and nodding. He sniffed a little. He looked at Hawk. Hawk looked to me.
Hawk nodded and left the room. The door behind him closed with a slight click.
I pulled over the red leather chair. Gerry studied my face with a mix of disgust and sadness. Somehow, I didn’t really blame him. He’d hated me for a long time. He hated that I’d beat him. More than anything, he hated that his old man respected me and never respected him.
“Sit,” I said.
“It’s my fuckin’ room,” he said. “I sit when I want to.”
“Sit down, Gerry.”
Gerry sat. We stared at each other over the body of Joe Broz. Broz looked like the centerpiece on a dinner table. Lilies would have looked appropriate propped up in his hands.
“That Fed Connor wants your old man bad,” I said. “You think Flynn won’t give you guys up? You give him up and you have time to move the old man any place you like.”
“You always wanted him dead,” Gerry said. “You’ll sell us both out for a nickel.”
“Nope,” I said. “Your old man was a lot of things, but his word was good.”
“He used to talk to me about ethics and shit,” Gerry said. “Since when do crooks have ethics?”
“We only want the kid safe,” I said.
Gerry brushed his longish dyed hair from his eyes. On a middle-aged man, long hair looked plain ridiculous. Long strands dropped back over his bloated face. His fingers were stubby and fat.
He patted the old man’s wrinkled hand, holding it. He seemed to be willing Joe to sit up and make a decision.
“Hawk and I walk,” I said. “You can have your old man FedExed to Boca Raton.”
Gerry was silent. I was pretty sure he was thinking. But with Gerry, it was hard to tell. I waited. I crossed my legs. I studied Joe Broz’s face, all that cocky swagger and jittery mean gone. He was a shell.
I looked to Gerry. I didn’t see the old man in the kid. I never had. Joe was a crook, but he had a code.
“Connor knows,” Gerry said. “Of course he fucking knows. Are you mental? Of course he fucking knows.”
I nodded. I acted as if I’d known all along. I gave him a slight nod to make it appear I’d been testing him.
“How do you think he and Flynn put the screws to me?” Gerry said. “Jesus H. Are you fucking stupid? Flynn has been ratting to the Feds since they let him out four years ago. That was his deal with Connor. They both have me by the nuts.”
“What’s Connor get out of it?”
“Dirt on everyone in the city and a single guy he can control,” Gerry said. “Or thought he could control. Flynn is batshit crazy. And now he goes off and snatches that broad’s daughter. You don’t do shit like that.”
“Why’d he kill Julie Sullivan?”
“’Cause she was fucked up,” Gerry said. Gerry patted his old man’s hands. He slowly let go of Joe Broz’s fingers. “She wanted Flynn to leave his fucking wife. When he told her to screw, she came back and says she’s dropping the dime on him and Connor bein’ buddies. They used to go and have dinners together on Connor’s boat. Goddamn, she killed her own fucking self.”
I nodded.
“Where’s Flynn, Gerry?”
Broz looked at me with his large eyes. His neck had grown even more fat and spilled out over his collar. Buttons looked as if they’d pop down the length of his purple dress shirt. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never worn clothes that fit. He always looked out of breath, red-faced, uncomfortable.
“You and Hawk walk away?” Gerry said.
“My word.”
“Your word means shit to my family.”
“Meant something to your old man,” I said.
Gerry studied my face. He nodded some more in secret Gerry Broz thoughts. Something rattled around in there, and a gumball finally popped out. “Why should I feel bad for rattin’ on a rat?”
“There you go.”
“Bastard never respected me.”
“The shame of it.”
“You tryin’ to make fun of me?”
“Never.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on,” I said. “What was in it for you? You’re too smart for this.”
Having to say that last part pained me.
“We were gonna take down the Albanians and Gino Fish,” Gerry said, all in a big rush of air. “And then he goes psycho and fucks me in the ass.”
“How lovely,” I said. “Where’s Flynn?”
Gerry stood up. He looked down at his old man. Joe Broz’s chest, as thin and delicate as a bird’s wrapped in hospital paper, rose and fell.
“Still in Southie,” Gerry said. “He’s keepin’ the girl at this old office building on West Broadway. That’s where he keeps his guns. He’s got a fuckin’ arsenal.”
“Good to know.”
“You better buckle the fuck up.”
“Will he know we’re coming for him?” I asked.
Gerry shook his head. “Didn’t I say we had a goddamn deal?”
I nodded. I stood.
I reached my hand over what was left of Joe Broz and shook hands with his kid.
His grip was wet and limp.
58
You know, we could turn all this shit over to Quirk and have a late breakfast at the Russell House Tavern,” Hawk said.
“We could.”
“Brioche French toast with a big Mescal Mary on the side.”
I nodded.
“But we won’t.”
“That what you want to do?”
“Hell, no.”
“Let’s check out what Gerry said,” I said. “We find Flynn, we hit him hard.”
“Plant your feet, bite down on your mouthpiece, and say let’s go.”
Hawk steered us toward the Mystic River and 93 South. We caught the interstate for a few miles, crossing the channel, and snaked down to the exit in South Boston. The winter light was weak and hazy; snow flurries dissolved against the windshield.
Hawk slowed in front of a long row of three- and four-story brick storefronts that lined West Broadway. He parked across the street from a defunct bar with a FOR SALE sign hung from a second-floor window. The bar was abandoned. Shades and file cabinets covered most of the windows in the building.
Snow was coming down harder now. It had started to stick.
“How come Flynn does business in plain sight and no one says shit to him?”
“Must have something to do with charisma.”
A patrol car pulled right onto the curb by the defunct bar. Officer Bobby Barrett got out and adjusted his cap on his head. He craned his neck up to the second floor and dialed a phone in his hand. A door at street level opened, and he waddled inside.
“Nice to have the law on your side,” Hawk said.
“That’s the officer who caught Mickey Green washing down the car,” I said. “His testimony put Green away.”
“Ain’t that a coincidence,” Hawk said.
Ten minutes later, the side door opened. Barrett walked out alone, got into his patrol car, and drove off.
“He one of the officers watching Mattie’s family?”
“One of ’em.”
“Nice choice,” Hawk said.
“Maybe we should call Quirk.”
“Maybe,” Hawk said. “Or maybe Flynn see that SWAT team on his ass and starts to clean house. Bein’ the psycho we think he is.”
I nodded. “Keep it clean and simple.”
“If Mattie inside,” Hawk said, “time is tight. And we the best she got.”
“And if we’re the best she’s got, that’s not too shabby.”
“No, it ain’t.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Cool.”
“How’s the chest?”
“Sore.”
“How many men do you think Flynn has?”
“Does it fucking matter?” Hawk said.
“Nope,” I said. “Just thinking out loud.”
59
The door to the stairwell was metal and well worn and locked. Someone had scrawled some graffiti in big diagonal letters that said BLACK NEVER. SOUTHIE FOREVER. Hawk craned his neck to read it. He turned back to me and shook his head. Snow drifted down along the cracked sidewalks of Broadway. Across the street, thickly bundled people hustled into the T station.
Hawk looked both ways, stepped back, and kicked in the door.
The door slammed open, and light shone into a narrow stairwell covered in dirty red carpet. The light was very dim, burning from a couple of bare bulbs. We moved quickly to the second floor and curved up to the third. Dust motes twirled in the soft gray light.
The third-floor hall seemed to stretch out forever in the dim light. The old building shifted in the darkness; its loose windows battered and thumped against the sills.
I nodded to Hawk. I took the lead.
If Mattie was with Flynn, a pistol was much more precise.
We moved through the hall, checking the first two small offices fronting Broadway. Hawk watched my back, eyeing the length of the hallway, looking for opening doors and waiting for footsteps behind us.
Down the hall, we heard the creak of an office chair.
“Spenser?” a voice called out.
I turned to Hawk. Hawk looked to me. He fitted the stock of the Mossberg into his shoulder. Agent Tom Connor stepped out into the long hallway and lifted his hands. He was dressed in a blue wool suit and red power tie. He held his hands up, smiling in a patronizing way.
“Come on in,” Connor said. “We need to have a powwow.”
“And you wonder why Native Americans don’t like the Feds.”
“Let’s talk.”
“Where’s your buddy, Jumpin’ Jack?” I asked.
I kept the gun aimed at Connor. Hawk did not lower the shotgun as we walked down the hall. The office was empty except for two rolling office chairs and a file cabinet turned on its side, spilling paper onto the floor. Connor stood, lit a cigarette, and stared out at the snow falling on a pleasant winter afternoon.
People always smoked when trying to look pensive. Connor was very pensive.
“This is a mess, Spenser,” Connor said. “What can you say? You’ve burned a major source of mine. You’ve scared poor Gerry Broz senseless. He doesn’t know which way is up.”
“Gerry has often had that problem.”
“I don’t think you get what’s going on here.”
“It’s become pretty clear.”
“No, it’s not,” Connor said. He blew smoke out of his nostrils. He shook his head like a befuddled parent. “I look out for this entire city, and in doing so, you got to make compromises. I’m not going to lecture a thick-headed guy like you. Or your spook sidekick.”
Hawk had not lowered his weapon. It was unwise to call Hawk a spook. Especially when Hawk was armed. Of course, it was an unwise move to call Hawk a spook anytime.
“Where’s Flynn?” I said. “Where’s the girl?”
“You want to talk about this city’s greater good,” Connor said. He shifted his weight, placed his right hand into his pants pocket. I felt for the trigger. But he only jingled the coins or keys inside. “You know what this case means to us?”
Hawk leaned forward with his shotgun.
“Easy there, Hawk,” Connor said. “Down, boy.”
“I takin’ an instant dislike to this motherfucker,” Hawk said.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got a kind of reverse charisma.”
“You can never imagine the filth and violent shitbags I have to deal with every day.”
“My apologies,” I said.
“Sad,” Hawk said.
“I have to compromise.”
“You said that.”
“Jack Flynn goes to jail, this whole thing goes bust.”
“Kind of fucked-up logic, Tom.”
“I protect my informant.”
I nodded. Snow fell softly out onto West Broadway. Smoke billowed up from the diner down the street. A crowd emerged from the T station, and a handful of people replaced them.
Connor blew more smoke from his nose. He ground the cigarette under his tasseled loafer. He looked up at me dramatically. He sneered at Hawk.
“I’m the best chance you got for getting that kid back,” Connor said. “I don’t want her hurt.”
“Then bring in Flynn,” I said.
“I can do more damage with Flynn on the outside,” he said. “Play the game, the girl goes free. Let me do what I do best.”
“C’mon, Spenser,” Hawk said. “Trust the nice man.”
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up,” Connor said.
“This Mossberg been modified for military use,” Hawk said. “Twenty-gauge, with a kick like a mule. Leaves a nasty hole through a man.”
“I don’t give a shit who you know with the staties,” Connor said. “You shoot a federal officer, and you’re toast.”
“If you’re going to play with us, Connor, please work on your dialogue,” I said.
“‘Toast’?” Hawk said. “Shit, this might be worth it.”
I lifted up my free hand. “We get the kid. Then talk.”
“Flynn won’t do it,” Connor said. “I swear to Christ I tried. What you don’t really get is that Jack Flynn is a sociopath.”
“I had a sneaking suspicion.”
“He’s a suspect in more than fifty killings. I can get him personally on about twelve. But I want it all. I want to use him up till he’s dry and then send him to jail for the rest of his life.”
“For some reason I don’t see how your plan fits with the Bureau’s code of conduct.”
“Fuck that,” Connor said. “I didn’t make a name by playing by the rules. How about you?”
I shrugged.
“Just tell me where to find Theresa Donovan,” Connor said. “I’ll make sure she’s safe and can be brought in when it’s time. Flynn will calm down and let the kid go.”
Officer Barrett didn’t know about Theresa being brought in as a witness. Quirk and Belson had kept a lid on it, as I knew they would.
“If we arrange a meet,” I said, “I’d prefer it wasn’t in Southie. No offense.”
Connor looked at me. He tried to give a confused look. Connor wasn’t much of an actor.
“Looks like you got at least one patrol guy on the team,” I said. “Probably a lot more.”
“Ah, shit,” Connor said. “You’re not from down here. You don’t know how the system works.”
“Try me,” I said.
I heard and felt Hawk’s breathing behind my right shoulder.
“Give me an address, and I’ll make sure the kid goes free.”
“You tell Flynn I want to see Mattie in a very public place,” I said. “When she’s safe, I’ll give you an address.”
Connor laughed. He placed both hands in his suit pockets. He nodded and grinned. “I get Theresa Donovan, and I’ll give the go-ahead to Flynn. Deal?”
“Public place,” I said. “And not in Southie.”
Connor nodded. He headed past us for the door. “Nobody gets out of this world alive, Spense.”
“Again, not so original, Tommy.”
“If you want to monkey-fuck us with Boston police, this
will all go to hell. Jack Flynn will make her disappear. He’s quite talented, you know.”
“Me, too.” Hawk stepped forward. “Hard to prosecute if they can’t find your body.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Connor asked.
“Little girl better not have a hair out of place,” Hawk said. “If she do, there gonna be an empty casket at your wake.”
Connor just laughed and walked away.
60
Kind of a theatrical choice, ain’t it?” Hawk asked.
“I aim to please,” I said.
We stood on the granite steps leading up to the Bunker Hill monument in Charlestown. The battle and monument were actually on Breed’s Hill, but after a couple hundred years, I guess the name had stuck. It was still snowing, dusting the steps, and floating past the glowing lamps by the granite obelisk. Over the winter, snow had accumulated on the top of the piked iron fence.
It was almost eight o’clock, and it had grown very cold and very dark. The waiting was always the toughest part. But when the bad guys set the time, you don’t have much choice. Flynn wanted us tired. He wanted us nervous. Hawk and I were neither.
The lights were on in the brick town houses surrounding the square. Everything seemed very hushed in the snowfall.
A sign for the Freedom Trail announced THE REVOLUTION BEGINS HERE.
“And you tell me how Charlestown is better than Southie.”
“It’s more integrated,” I said.
“Maybe in the projects,” Hawk said.
“And they have Old Ironsides.”
“We good on your witness?”
“Quirk’s got it,” I said. “Connor knows how to find her. But she’ll be surrounded by about twenty of Boston’s finest.”
“Wired?” Hawk said.
“They got more bugs in that place than a bait shop.”
“Bait shop do have lots of bugs.”
“We pull this off, maybe you and I go fishing.”
“‘We’ll take the car and drive all night,’” Hawk said. “‘We’ll get drunk.’”
“Play it, Sam.”
“Yes-suh, Mr. Rick.”
Hawk began to whistle “As Time Goes By.”
“You fish?” I asked. I leaned against the handrail. My hands in my coat pockets. A .38 in my right hand. A .40-caliber strapped under my arm.
