Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  "Bullshit, Harry."

  "No, honest to God. Yulin's call and letter came in while I was out of the office. Because the policy's half a million, the claim went down to New York before we even started on it up here." Mullen took another hard drag. "And your friend Brad Winningham spotted the Dani name."

  "How did he do that?"

  "He knew somebody went to law school with the girl's uncle. I guess everybody at the school knew about the guy changing his name because of the family connection."

  "Look, Harry, why didn't you tip me to this when I came to see you Tuesday afternoon?"

  "Because I didn't know, John. I swear."

  "How come you didn't know then but you did know by last night?"

  "Yesterday afternoon, I — Jeez, John. Let me go back, go through it from the top, okay?"

  I exhaled. "Okay."

  Mullen mashed out the cigarette. "The claim comes in with the Dani name on it, nothing about 'Danucci.' It gets sent to New York. Winningham sees it, makes the connection, then tells me over the phone to assign the investigation to you. Get me?"

  "You gave it to me without knowing about the Danuccis being involved."

  "Right, right. I get the call from Winningham, I figure, he's trying to be a nice guy for once. I owed you, John. What you taught me here, what you said for me when they booted you out. I figured this'd be a good way to pay you back a little."

  "So you didn't look the gift horse in the mouth."

  "Right."

  "So what happened to change things?"

  Mullen closed his eyes and chewed the inside of his cheek. Then he seemed to talk to the desk. "Winningham called me yesterday. Said he was going on vacation. Said he wanted to tie up a few loose ends first."

  "Like me."

  Harry looked up. "Yeah. Yeah, like you. He asks me, ‘You give that case to Cuddy yet?' and I say, 'Yes, Mr. Winningham.' And he says, 'He working on it yet?' And I say, 'You bet he is.' And then he says, 'You hear back from him yet?' and I go, 'No, Mr. Winningham, but I just gave him the file yesterday.' And the shit says, 'Well, don't hold your breath, Mullen! And I stop. Then I say, 'What do you mean?' And he says, 'You ever heard of the Danucci family?' And I say, ‘Like in the mob stories, you mean?' And Winningham just laughs, John. The son of a bitch just laughs at me."

  I watched Mullen. "He told you not to tell me, right?"

  Harry looked away, out his window toward the Burger King.

  "Yeah, but fuck him."

  I watched my old friend some more, tried not to see his little kid with the goofy smile.

  Harry said, "Besides, another month, it won't mean anything anyway."

  "Why not?"

  Mullen stabbed at the pack of Marlboros. "Another month, I'm gone."

  "They caught you?"

  He looked at me like I wasn't speaking the mother tongue.

  "What?"

  I inclined my head toward the ashtray. "The company policy on smoking. They caught you?"

  "Oh." Harry acted like he wanted to laugh, but just couldn't find the right muscles. "No. Jeez, that's right. I was so worried about that the last time I saw you. No, John. They're folding us up."

  "They're what?"

  "They're closing the office. That was one of the other 'loose ends' Winningham wanted to tie up before he hit the beach.

  Seems some MBAs didn't have anything better to do down in New York, they punched me and my people into the computer and found out they could save a dime, folding us up and doing all the regional investigating with free-lancers out of Boston or Portland or Providence."

  "You're kidding?"

  Mullen's face told me he wasn't. "So, you want to punt this Dani/Danucci thing, it doesn't matter. You want to stay with it, I'll let you know when to start sending your reports to New York."

  I let out a breath and sat back in the chair as Harry lit his cigarette. I couldn't see how leaving the case for Empire would take me out of Mau Tim's death as far as the Danuccis were concerned. At Homicide, Holt wouldn't be any help, and Murphy couldn't be any help. Right now, being with Empire was a justification, maybe even a buffer.

  Then I noticed the little kid in the photo again. "Harry, what are you going to do?"

  He blew smoke from his nostrils. "Check with some guys I know, dust off the résumé." He tried to smile. "They still call it that, right?"

  "I'll keep my ears open for you."

  "Thanks, John."

  "I hear about something, I'll let you know."

  "Good, thanks."

  As we stood and shook hands, I couldn't decide whose hail words sounded more hollow.

  * * *

  I had left the Prelude in the condo space for my walk over to Empire. After seeing Harry Mullen, I walked back to the condo and tried to call Brad Winningham in New York. His secretary advised me he would not be available for a week. I told her I'd like to see him then and she told me that he'd be very busy upon his return. I said that was all right, I'd be happy even if I had to wait to see him. When she asked for my name, I told her "John F. Danucci." She said she'd put me in the book but couldn't promise anything. I told her I was sure that Mr. Winningham would think that she'd done the right thing. I went down to my car and headed toward the Boston Herald, one of the two big newspapers in town. I wanted more background information on the Danucci angle, and there was one reporter I was pretty sure could help me.

  * * *

  "You notice it, don't you?"

  I said, "Notice what, Mo?"

  "Notice what. Notice what's different."

  I looked around Mo Katzen's office. The old typewriter was still on the stand next to his desk, Mo detesting the concept of computerization. The avalanche of papers, both documents and sandwich covers, was still on top of his desk. Mo himself sat behind the desk, wavy white hair on his head and a dead cigar in his mouth. He still wore the vest and pants of a three-piece suit, the jacket to which I'd never seen on him in all the years I'd known him.

  No visible changes. "Sorry, Mo."

  "Christ, some detective you are. This." He reached up to his left ear and pulled out a tiny, flesh-colored lump of plastic.

  "This little bugger."

  I took the other chair. "A hearing aid?"

  "Finally. Can you believe it? A few years past my prime, and I got to wear one of these things."

  Mo's prime may have passed recently, but he was never going to see seventy again. "How long have you had it?"

  "Couple weeks now. My wife and I are at this banquet thing back in March, and we're sitting around this big round table, like for poker. This guy I never met before is asking me some kind of cockamamy question from across the table and I'm answering him and then my wife starts elbowing me in the ribs, telling me I'm 'not replying in the context of the question.' "Can you believe that?"

  "Hard to believe about you, Mo."

  "Damn straight. Anyway, this happens like two or three more times in the course of the evening, and my wife is just about to file papers on me, so I tell her, 'All right already, I'll go see my doctor.' And she tells me, 'You need an audiologist.' And — I gotta admit — I say 'A what?' And she smiles this superior smile of hers, and she doesn't have to tell me 'I told you so' before she makes an appointment for me.

  "So, all right, I go to this audiologist guy. Only instead of an office like a doctor, it looks like an appliance store. But, she made the appointment, I go in anyway. The guy asks me some questions, takes some kind of a 'reading' he calls it, then pokes around in my ears with this thing, looks like a miner's pick with a light on it. He says to me, 'Well, Mr. Katzen, no trouble with your wax,' like I've been to the dentist and he tells me I've been flossing right. So then he puts me in this sound booth with keys, but not like a piano."

  "Like a recording studio, Mo."

  "What?"

  "Like — "

  "Just a second." Mo put the aid back into his ear. "Like a . . . ?"

  "Like a recording studio?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Like that. Except
instead of earphones, I'm wearing this stethoscope thing. And he beeps me up and over the cowshed, both ears. Then he says I hear the low tones okay, but not the high ones. So now I get to sit in this chair and he pours a moulage of like wax in my ear, with a wick in it. He lets the wax harden, which is not the greatest feeling in the world, I'll tell you.

  "Then, maybe ten minutes later, he pulls the wax plug out of my ear by the wick. Then he puts it on the side to harden some more while he asks me questions. He tells me he'll mail the little plug out to some company and my aid will come back in like three to six weeks."

  "So now you have a custom-made hearing aid."

  "Yeah. Only they don't tell you some things. Like the little bugger's custom-made for only one ear, not the other. My case, it's the left, but guess what?"

  "What, Mo?"

  "My left is the ear I use for answering the phone. Guess what else."

  This could take a while. "What, Mo?"

  "The thing's murder if you put the receiver to that ear. The habit of a lifetime, John, and I'm supposed to change it now?"

  "That's a tough one, Mo."

  "Huh. Tell me about it. Another thing. The little bugger costs like a thousand dollars, and I'm not completely covered by insurance."

  "How come?"

  "Because it's not from an accident. Can you believe that? I tell the guy, ‘What, you can't see your way clear to reimburse me for all the years I've been on this planet?"

  "I'll bet that shut him up."

  "Yeah. Yeah, it did. I got to admit, though, it is a clever piece of machinery. I mean, it's got this little wheel, you can adjust it for noise, even while you're wearing it. The audiologist says to me, 'Mr. Katzen, you can even turn it off completely, should say a motorcycle start up next to you.' And I say to him, 'Doctor' — I don't know, is he a doctor, but I figure, it doesn't hurt to be polite, right? — 'Doctor, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but my Wild One days are behind me, you know?' "

  "Good comeback, Mo. I — "

  "So then he tells me the battery lasts six months and the aid itself is built for a lifetime. He says, 'It's got the Manhattan Project in it.' And I say, 'Great, my age, I have to have an atomic bomb in my ear,' and he says, 'No, Mr. Katzen, the Manhattan Circuit,' and that's when I realize, John, I got to have the thing."

  "I think you're right, Mo. Listen, I wonder if--"

  " 'Course, the little bugger does have its drawbacks. I told you about the phone business?"

  "Yes, Mo."

  "Well, it's no picnic riding in the car, either. Oh, it closes out the engine noise just fine, but you put the directional signal on'? Because it's inside the cabin with you, the thing sounds like a Mongol gong. Also, if it falls out or you can't remember where you put it, there's a homing device inside, makes this sound to let you know where it is. But, surprise, surprise, guess what?"

  "You can't hear it."

  "On the button, John. On the button. You need a hearing aid to start with, how're you supposed to find the little bugger from a homing sound you can't hear without the little bugger in your ear?"

  "Speaking of finding things, Mo."

  "What?"

  "I said, speaking — "

  "I heard you, John. You're sitting not four feet away from me, right?"

  "Right, Mo."

  "No need to repeat things, right?"

  "Right, Mo."

  "So, what'd you come over here for. Spit it Out."

  I took a breath. "I'm working on a case. It involves somebody I'd like to talk with you about."

  "Who?"

  "Thomas Danucci."

  "Thomas . . . Tommy the Temper?"

  "Yes."

  Mo shook his head, fired up the dead cigar with a war memorial lighter. "John" — puff — "I don't think" — puff-puff — "working on a case" — puff-puff-puff — "involving Tommy Danucci is such a great idea."

  "I'm inclined to agree with you. But I'm already in it, and for a lot of reasons, it's easier to keep going than to bail out."

  "Your decision." Mo blew a smoke ring. "Tommy Danucci, Tommy Danucci. One of the last of the old ones, John. The ones who made their bones before the war — WWII, I mean. He stayed in the background, always the gentleman, I heard. Like he ran one of those Renaissance city-states with the Borgias and whatever."

  "Do you know much about his family?"

  "You mean his relatives or his organization?"

  "Good point. Start with his organization."

  "He came up through the Buccola crowd, late thirties. Heard a little bit about him, here and there during the war. Loan-sharking, barbooth games, something with the Teamsters. Nothing unusual. Then around the early sixties, he really hit his stride with the sharking. You were still in school then, John, but Boston started getting a reputation"

  "What kind of reputation?"

  "As a place where deadbeats got beat dead."

  "Catchy."

  "Yeah, I'm sure Tommy intended it that way. He wasn't all that big, but boy he was tough. And blind to the pain if he was in a fight. I have this friend who's Italian — grew up with me in Chelsea. My friend says he saw the Temper take a knife in the shoulder from a deadbeat when Tommy was doing some collection work in the old days. Knife and all, my friend says Tommy was able to punch the guy senseless."

  "Danucci still in the rackets?"

  Mo shucked some ash from the cigar. "Who can say? Those guys, I assume they got the equivalent of profit-sharing after they retire, even if they're not still active. Seems to me I heard Tommy had a heart attack a few years back, not much since."

  "How about his relatives?"

  "Tommy married a little late as I recall. Beauty from the old country, real ethnic name. Couple of sons, but I think one went to Vietnam like you, and the other . . . I don't know, doctor or lawyer, maybe?"

  So far things checked out pretty well. "There's an obituary I'd like to see, if I could."

  "Obit?" Mo's brow furrowed. "John, the hell you got yourself into here?"

  "Between us?"

  "You mean off the record?"

  "I mean between us, Mo."

  A glacial sigh. "Okay. My word on it."

  I told him about what happened with Mau Tim Dani when I was out of town.

  Mo fumed. "Well, I'll tell you, John, I wasn't the fuck out of town and I don't remember anything about it. Hold on a second." He picked up his phone, pushed a button, and hit three numbers. Then he cursed, pushed another button, and hit three more. He rasped at whoever answered, and whoever answered read him something. Mo asked whether there were any accompanying pieces, and he cursed some more, then hung up without saying thank you.

  "Well, John. It seems your Mau Tim Dani died on a Friday night, and being only murder number forty-seven in a year that ought to break the record set last year, which should surprise nobody, there was a story without a victim's name in the Saturday paper. A follow-up with 'Dani' but not 'Danucci' got pushed to page sixteen of Sunday's, and then nothing but 'Dani' in the obit. Nobody else ran this, print or broadcast?"

  "I don't know."

  Mo sucked on the resumed-dead stogie. "It's possible Tommy still has enough juice to get people to sit on something like this, John. I wouldn't have bet on it, this day and age, but it's just barely possible. So I have some advice, you can take it from a man needs a hearing aid in his head."

  "Say it, Mo."

  "Tread softly, John. Muffle the drums and tread very, very softly through the jungle."

  * * *

  "What are you doing back here?"

  "Nice to see you, too, Lieutenant?

  "Cuddy, what?"

  "I was driving home and a parking space opened up across the street. I figured it might be an omen."

  Robert Murphy reached for a sheaf of phone messages on the corner of his desk and started riffling through them. Finding the one he was looking for, he held it up to the light from the window behind him. "Says here, 'John Cuddy called. He is going for a ride with Primo Zuppone.' "

&nb
sp; "He likes you to pronounce it 'Zoo-po-ny.' "

  "You take a ride with a wiseguy, you're lucky the M.E. didn't have to pronounce you."

  "How did you know he was connected?"

  "His name's cropped up over the years."

  "In what kinds of cases?"

  "Various gentlemen we've pulled out of the harbor."

  Lovely. "I thought maybe you looked him up special."

  Murphy made the phone message waffle in the air. "Account of this?"

  "Made me feel safer, thinking you were watching out for me."

  "Cuddy, the fuck you into?"

  "I can't tell you."

  He put down the slip of paper. "Why not?"

  "The other name there."

  Murphy looked back at the phone message. "Harry Mullen?"

  "Right."

  "Who's Mullen?"

  "He's with the insurance company I used to work for."

  A memory worked its way across Murphy's forehead and jumped for its life. "Not Holt's case."

  "That's why I can't tell you."

  Murphy closed his eyes. "Get out."

  "If Holt screws up, I want you to haunt him for me."

  "Cuddy, you screw up with the Danucci family, you'll be able to haunt him yourself. Now — "

  I got out.

  -14-

  OSCAR PURIEFOYIS ADDRESS ON BOYLSTON WAS PAST MASS AVE, almost to the Fenway. Inside the glass entrance door, a mailbox on the wall had its lock staved in and his name over it. I climbed four flights of stairs past a palm reader, a discount travel agency, a total health consultant, and a CPA before I reached Puriefoy's studio door. I knocked, and a deep bass voice said, "Yeah?"

  Inside the room, a teddy-bear black man was on his knees, bending over a set of toy railroad cars on a black velvet blanket. The cars were made from blocks and dowls of wood, all enameled in primary colors. The man consulted what looked like a polaroid photo, then used the thumb on his large hand to nudge the caboose a quarter of an inch.

  There were bright umbrella lights over the cars and a camera on a tripod, but from there any comparison to the studio where I'd met Sinead Fagan was unflattering. Puriefoy's place was maybe four hundred square feet, with only a door to a half bath and no windows. Exposed pipes wended through the original stamped tin ceiling, which itself looked fifty years the worse for wear. The wallpaper curled over the chipped and gouged wainscoting, painted an uneven white. A couple of plastic chairs and two TV trays were the furnishings.