Rogue Island

by Bruce DeSilva

  I watched as Bruccola’s body was lowered into the same ground that held H. P. Lovecraft, Thomas Wilson Dorr, Theodore Francis Green, and Major Sullivan Ballou. I was surprised they didn’t get up and move to a better neighborhood.

  But for Rhode Island’s grieving criminal class, Swan Point Cemetery had been the place to be and be seen this morning. It was the social event of the season.

  * * *

  “We gave the old man a hell of a send-off,” Giordano said.

  “You did. And I won fifty bucks in the running newsroom pool on next prominent Rhode Islander to get his ticket to hell punched.”

  “In that case, the drinks are on you.”

  He flagged down a waitress and ordered Maker’s Mark straight up. I ordered another club soda, and he made a face.

  “Ulcer,” I said.

  Giordano’s eyes got big as he tried to imagine life in Rhode Island without the solace of whiskey. He called the waitress back and asked her to make his a double.

  “So what happens now?” I said.

  “With what?”

  “Succession. Arena’s the obvious choice, but he’s going down on that federal labor-racketeering rap. Last time there was a power vacuum in Providence, wiseguys were found stuffed in car trunks at the airport and floaters clogged the river for a year before Bruccola took over.”

  “Man, you’re talking thirty years ago. Shit like that don’t happen no more. Goombahs like Arena and Grasso and Zerilli are too old for that mess. Younger guys like me and Johnny Dio and ‘Cadillac Frank,’ we got business degrees from PC and Boston College. I’m a real estate developer, Johnny’s in construction, Frankie sells cars. We don’t shoot people no more.”

  “How about garroting them with piano wire or caving their heads in with lead pipes?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So those are the contenders, you, Dio, and Cadillac Frank?”

  “Me? No way, pal. I cleared a million five from my business last year. I don’t need the money, I don’t need the headaches, and I don’t need the heat.”

  A kid with a bag of newspapers shuffled in and made the rounds of the tables. Giordano tossed him some coins, glanced at the headline—POLS PAY RESPECTS TO DEAD MOB BOSS—and slapped the paper down on table.

  “Jesus Christ, Mulligan. This ain’t no way to make a living. How about you and me find a nice piece of land, put up some condos?”

  “I promised my mother I wouldn’t sell out till I’m forty,” I said, “so let’s talk about this again in October.”

  “Still not tired of life at the bottom of the heap?”

  “The money sucks, but you meet a better class of people.”

  “Like government clerks? I hear you been at the secretary of state’s office checking out the owners of the buildings that burned down in Mount Hope.”

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “A clerk I know. Also hear you’ve been snooping around the neighborhood at night.”

  “How’d you hear about that?”

  “A cop I know.”

  He took a pull from his drink, slipped a Partagás from his jacket pocket, and snipped the end with a silver cigar cutter. The ban on smoking in public accommodations was still hung up in committee, cheating him out of an opportunity to flout it. I leaned over and gave him a light with the Colibri.

  “Nice,” he said. “Get that from Whoosh?”

  “Could be.”

  He drew on the cigar and blew a cloud of fragrant blue smoke in the general direction of a frowning matron. “Tell you what, Mulligan. You did me a good turn last year, keeping my nephew’s drunk-driving bust out of the paper. He’s doing great, by the way, majoring in business at URI, running the campus sports book for Whoosh, clearing two grand a week. So you done a good thing there. Let me do you a favor now. Stop wasting your time in Mount Hope, and I’ll toss you something better.”

  “Like what?”

  “Manhole covers.”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s one of them big journalism prizes in it for you, Mulligan, a nice plaque you can hang on the wall of that dump on America Street. Think it over, and call me if you’re interested.”

  Before I could ask how he knew where I lived or what the hell he was talking about, the mob lightweight hauled himself to his feet and lumbered toward the elevators. I almost felt sorry for him. It must be hard having Godfather dreams that never come true.

  On the TV above the bar, Tim Wakefield chucked knuckleballs at a diluted spring-training lineup. In my mind, I could still see him trudging off the mound after giving up a walk-off home run to Aaron Fucking Boone in the 2003 ALCS. Of all the ways the Red Sox had found to lose to the Yankees over the years, that one was the most heartbreaking. Two World Series championships in the last five years had not erased the memory. All over New England, fans still grieved the loss like a death in the family.

  I sipped my club soda and looked out the window. It was getting dark. The Independent Man, Rhode Island’s state symbol, gleamed in his spot of golden light atop the statehouse dome. I chuckled, remembering the time they hauled the grand old statue down and lent it to the Warwick Mall to lure Christmas shoppers.

  Beside the dome, the state flag, featuring an anchor and the motto Hope, drooped in the rain. If we were true to ourselves, we’d haul that sucker down and run up the Jolly Roger.

  29

  It was well past midnight when I heard the dead bolt snap and footfalls scrape the linoleum.

  “Veronica?”

  “Sorry. I was trying not to wake you.”

  But the grin on her face when I clicked on the bedside lamp said she wasn’t all that sorry. “Had to make some last-minute adds to the latest Arena story for the city edition,” she said, tossing a fresh newspaper on the bed.

  I wanted to strip her naked, pull her under the covers, and cradle her in my arms. She wanted me to read what she’d written, and there would be no nude canoodling until I’d done just that.

  Under her byline, another page-one exclusive, this time with verbatim grand-jury testimony from the laborers’ union state president implicating Arena in an elaborate plan to embezzle three million from the union treasury. On the jump, a quote from Arena’s lawyer, Brady Coyle:

  Grand-jury proceedings are secret by law. Whoever is responsible for leaking this testimony to the press is in violation of federal statutes and should be prosecuted. While I can offer no proof about who is behind these leaks, they benefit the prosecution in that they tend to poison the jury pool against my innocent client. For the newspaper to print this material would be both outrageous and irresponsible.

  “Guess you pissed him off,” I said.

  “Brady? Nah. He’s just blowing smoke to impress his client. He’s really a sweetie.”

  “Sweetie”? I’d heard Brady Coyle called a lot of things: Arrogant. Contemptuous. A prick. But never sweetie. I don’t think I’d ever been called sweetie. I felt a twinge in my gut. Probably just the pepperoni pizza I’d recklessly wolfed at Casserta’s.

  “You know something, Veronica? I’ve been cultivating sources on both sides of the law for eighteen years, and I’ve never persuaded anyone to leak me grand-jury testimony. How the hell are you doing it?”

  “Sorry, baby. Sharing your bed is one thing. Sharing my source is another thing altogether.”

  I was trying to think of a comeback when she stripped to her panties and slipped under the covers, her hip nudging my erection. Eleven more days till the test results. Sometimes eleven days is a long, long time—15,840 minutes, to be exact.

  I could hear the clock ticking.

  30

  In the morning I found an empty space right in front of the newspaper office. A red Providence Police Department “Out of Order” hood had been tugged over the head of the meter. Free parking? Must be my lucky day.

  A postal box brimming with press releases waited for me on my office chair. Apparently I’d done something to piss off Lomax again. What? No idea.

&n
bsp; I made a show of sorting through them for a few minutes, intending to toss the whole batch, when one envelope caught my eye. It was from the Rhode Island Economic Development Council, and on it was a picture of Mr. Potato Head in his moustache-and-glasses incarnation. I couldn’t resist tearing that one open. Inside was this:

  MR. POTATO HEAD STATUES TO “CROP UP”

  STATEWIDE TO PROMOTE TRAVEL

  TO THE OCEAN STATE!

  Hasbro, which makes Mr. Potato Head right here in Little Rhody, is teaming up with the Rhode Island Economic Development Council to promote the state as an ideal location for a family vacation! The promotion will include full-color ads in national magazines, a toll-free number to call for a free Family Fun Vacation Kit, and a bumper crop of six-foot-tall Mr. Potato Head statues that will sprout up at visitor attractions all over the state. Keep your eyes peeled! We anticipate increased excitement as each new Mr. Potato Head statue is unveiled.

  The promotion, the state’s economic development director concluded, was “not half baked!” Oh, really? I banged out four hundred words, along with a table listing the locations where the spuds would be “sprouting up.” For Little Rhody’s teen vandals, it was “news you can use.”

  That done, I checked my computer messages and learned why I was being spanked. Coyle had called Lomax to complain about my attire at the funeral. Said it showed a lack of respect.

  Damn right.

  The opening lick of “Smoke on the Water” rumbled from the jean jacket draped over the back of my chair. I pulled my cell from the inside pocket and flipped it open.

  “We caught the chink,” a familiar voice said. “Get your butt over here fast, and maybe you can have a few words with the asshole before the cops snatch him up.”

  31

  I rode the elevator down to the lobby and ran smack into Thanks-Dad, arriving for work fashionably late in full It Happened One Night regalia.

  “Where we going?” he said.

  “I’m going out. You’re going to your desk.”

  I brushed by him, banged through the front door, and sprinted across the street. A red newspaper delivery truck blasted its horn at me, its brakes squealing. I snatched the “Out of Order” hood off the meter, figuring it would come in handy, and climbed in behind the wheel. Before I could snap the lock on the passenger-side door, Mason popped it open and slid in.

  No time to argue. Leaning on the horn, I ran the red at the foot of Fountain Street, roared past city hall, and sped across the Providence River. Mason’s manicured fingers dug into Secretariat’s armrest.

  “Another fire?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  Three Providence police cruisers, blue lights slashing the storefront, were parked diagonal to the curb, blocking most of the street in front of Zerilli’s. Braking to a stop, I saw a uniformed patrolman slap a beefy paw on top of Mr. Rapture’s head and shove it down, bulling him into the backseat of one of the cruisers. The cops took off, sirens shrieking.

  “Shit!”

  I grabbed the cell, caught Veronica at her desk, and told her to find a photographer and get over to the police station, which was just a block from the paper.

  “If you hurry,” I said, “you can be there in time for the perp walk.”

  Mason threw me a puzzled look.

  “Don’t you want the byline?”

  “Fuck it. Let Veronica have it.”

  I’d get a description of the arrest from Zerilli and feed it to her later, but there was no need to rush now. I pulled away from the curb, cruised north on Doyle, and pulled into a space in front of the chop shop.

  “Wait in the car, Thanks-Dad.”

  Mike Deegan was inside, watching a worker in paint-splattered overalls spray a new black identity on a burgundy Chrysler Sebring convertible.

  “Been expecting you,” he said. “Toss me the keys, leave your ride out front, and come back in an hour.”

  I collected Mason and headed back to Zerilli’s, a short, sunny walk down a cracked sidewalk. The sooty mush in the gutter was all that remained of a hard Rhode Island winter.

  The brass bell over the door tinkled as I pushed it open and walked into the market with Thanks-Dad.

  “Where the hell you been?” Zerilli said. “You missed the whole fuckin’ show.”

  He was standing by the register, not quite looking like himself with his suit pants on. He snatched a blue Bic disposable, lit a Lucky, and returned the lighter to the display rack.

  “Should we adjourn to your office, Whoosh?”

  “Nah! Just spilled the whole story to the cops, so I don’t have anything to say what your lapdog can’t hear.”

  “My name is Edward,” the lapdog said, extending his hand.

  Zerilli ignored it.

  “ ’Bout eleven o’clock this mornin’,” he said, “just as the Budweiser guy finishes stocking the cooler, I glance down from my office window, and what the fuck do I see? The chink we been lookin’ for all over the fuckin’ neighborhood waltzing into my store big as life.”

  “Do something useful,” I told Mason. “Pull out your notepad and take notes.”

  “Couple of the DiMaggios—Gunther Hawes and Whimpy Bennett—work just up the street at Deegan’s, so I ring ’em up, tell ’em to haul ass over here. Then I come out, see if I can stall him. Asshole pokes around the store, then heads to the counter with a Penthouse and a six-pack of Michelob. Asks the girl for a deck of Marlboros, then spies the Colibri display behind the counter, says he wants to see one. You can tell by his face he likes the feel of it in his hand—probably thinkin’ about using it to burn somethin’ down.

  “Hawes and Bennett walk in carryin’ Louisville Sluggers they grabbed off the display rack out front the fuckin’ store. Asshole pays for his goods, lighter included, heads for the door, sees my boys standin’ in front of it. Asshole says Excuse me, tries to push past them. Hawes gives him a little tap, and he topples over into the Cheez Doodles rack. My boys stand over him with their bats, and he gets this scared-shitless look.

  “That’s when he yells somethin’ really fuckin’ funny in his dumb-ass chink accent. He says, ‘Hep! Caw duh porice!’ ”

  Mason winced and looked up from his notepad. “He wanted you to call the police?”

  “So I did,” Zerilli said. “Sorry I fucked it up, Mulligan. Shoulda called you first.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Officer Whoosh.”

  “Fuck you. I told you before, that ain’t funny.”

  “Call Veronica,” I told Thanks-Dad, “and read her your notes.”

  I took a corned-beef sandwich and an ice tea from the cooler and found a seat at a little round table under the awning out front. A few minutes later, Mason sat down across from me with a bag of chips and a Coke.

  “Reach Veronica?”

  “I did.”

  “Give her all the quotes?”

  “Yeah. She asked if I had one Lomax would print, one without the words fuck, shit, or asshole in it. I told her she’s going to have to paraphrase.”

  “Give her all the details?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The part about the asshole buying the lighter?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The part about the Marlboros and the Penthouse?”

  “I didn’t think that was important.”

  “The part about Cheez Doodles spilled all over the floor by the door?”

  “Didn’t think that was important either.”

  “You can’t write a good story without details, Thanks-Dad. Call her back, and this time give her all of it.”

  While he was making the call, I tossed my sandwich wrapper in the barrel by the door and walked back into the store. Zerilli was bent over, scooping Cheez Doodles packages from the scuffed tile floor.

  “Hey, Whoosh. How’d the asshole pay for his purchases?”

  “Credit card.”

  “Visa? Discover? MasterCard?”

  “Sheila!” Whoosh shouted to the clerk. “What k
inda plastic did the asshole use?”

  “Visa.”

  “Great.” I said. “Gimme the number.”

  * * *

  Secretariat was right where I left him in front of the chop shop. As we walked up, Deegan popped out of the garage and threw me the keys.

  “You’re all set,” he said. “Sorry for your trouble.”

  As I pulled away from the curb, I pushed the play button. The opening guitar lick of Tommy Castro’s “Mammer-Jammer,” the first cut on the CD that was in the player when it was ripped from the dash, screeched from the speakers.

  Mason’s hands went to his ears. “Would you mind turning that down?”

  I reached over and turned it up.

  A moment later, a battle of the bands ensued as Deep Purple broke in with “Smoke on the Water.” I punched the CD player off and flipped the cell open.

  “You!

  fucking!

  bastard!”

  “Sorry, Dorcas, but I don’t have time to chat right now.”

  As my favorite philosopher, Kinky Friedman, once said, “In the sky of every love affair are little tickets to hell, falling like confetti from the stars.”

  I found a space in front of the welfare building just down the street from the paper and yanked the “Out of Order” hood over the head of the parking meter. I didn’t see the humor in it, but Mason thought it was hilarious. Princes never fully appreciate the survival tactics of their serfs. He was still giggling like a schoolgirl three minutes later as we stepped off the elevator into the newsroom.

  I was reading a computer printout of Veronica’s unedited copy about the arrest when Lomax walked up. “Good they finally caught the bastard,” he said.

  It didn’t feel right, but I just nodded.

  “It’s a court story now, so from here on out it belongs to Veronica. Time to get cracking on that cadaver-dogs story.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  I decided to keep operating on the assumption he was kidding. If the Sassy/Sugar affair hadn’t soured him on doggy features, nothing ever would.