The Undertaker

by Brown, William

  “Hey.” I got to my feet and laid my hand on her shoulder. “You won.”

  Eyes wild, she spun around and would have kicked me too if I hadn't backed up. For that instant, I wasn't certain she recognized me and I wanted no part of those size-six feet or those delicate little fists. I raised my hands in mock surrender and smiled. “Sandy, remember me? I'm on your side.”

  Finally, she blinked and looked down at the unconscious goon. “Jeez!” she giggled with an embarrassed smile. “Did I do that?”

  “It must have been something he said.” I bent over and felt around the dark alley, trying to find his pistol. My fingertips skimmed across the rough concrete, knowing it had to be there somewhere. Finally, I felt the barrel in one of the deep ruts. Picking it up, I brushed the dirt off and slipped it into the waistband of my pants, as she stepped behind the line of cans and rattled around back there in the dark. She let lose with an angry moan as she came out cradling her broken camera in her hands.

  “Look what you did!” She glared at me accusingly.

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You threw me back there.”

  “The guy had a gun. He was shooting at us, remember? I'll buy you a new one.”

  She didn't seem to make the connection or care about it. “I don't want a new one,” she mumbled and began to cry.

  “Sandy, come on. It's only a camera,” I said, immediately realizing that was a big mistake. “I'll buy you another one, I promise! We gotta get out of here.”

  She looked at the broken camera and then placed it gently, almost reverently, in her shoulder bag. “You owe me!”

  I bent down and rifled through the goon's pockets. I found his wallet and a spare magazine of bullets for his pistol. I opened the wallet and pulled out a thick stack of fresh one-hundred dollar bills, several thousand dollars worth, which I jammed in my pocket. Any contribution to our cause was appreciated. I also found a Massachusetts Driver's License bearing the name Anthony Grigiatto and his photo, but what I did not find was a badge or government ID. Well, at least he wasn't a fed or a local cop.

  Sandy came up behind me, trying to brush the dirt off her new clothes. “Who is he?” she asked as she looked down at the muscular goon. He was wearing an open collar silk shirt, gold chains around his neck, and Italian loafers. She looked at the driver's license. “Grigiatto? Look at him — he's a miniature Gino Parini. Gotta be Mafia. Bet they call him “Griggs”, or “fat Tony” or something. I told you Gino would come after us.”

  “We don't know that. The guy could be local help working for Tinkerton.”

  “What if Parini knows about the spreadsheets and the flash drives?”

  “How could he?” I asked, just as confused as she was. “We need to call Hardin. He's right, we need to go in.” I walked over to the dark spot between two garages where the goon had been hiding in the shadows. I found a small, two-way radio propped against the window ledge. “It doesn't look like he's alone, either.”

  I picked up the radio and pushed the microphone button. “Ey,” I mumbled, sounding like the goon. “You dere?”

  “Yah. What's wit dose two? You see where dey went?”

  “Nah. Nuttin’.”

  “Well fuckin' stay awake next time.”

  I grabbed her by one hand and the radio in the other, and took off running.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Don't crush a da grapes…

  The faster we got away from Doug's townhouse and lost ourselves in a big crowd, the safer I'd feel. When we reached the first cross street, we geared down to a quick, huddled walk and turned south toward Commonwealth Avenue and the Mall. No sense attracting any more attention. We crossed the westbound lanes and entered the park, then turned east toward downtown. The curving walkways, bushes, and tall canopy of trees might be lovely on a bright sunny day, but on a dark, wet night with the town full of bad guys, every shadow was a threat I didn't want to deal with.

  “Tell me something,” I asked Sandy as we hurried away. “All that flashing-feet karate stuff? Between beautician school, photography classes, and your graduate degree in auto theft, how did you have time to get a black belt?”

  “After I threw Eddie out, I developed an intense desire to kick guys. I switched over to The North Avenue Tae-Kwan-Do and Karate School, because they let me do that without going to jail. You'd be amazed how fast you can work your way up to black belt when all you want to do is smash somebody.”

  “I'll bet you won Miss Congeniality, too?” I said as I sprinted away.

  “No, the Class Clown,” she answered, narrowly missing the back of my head.

  I kept the goon's radio turned on as we headed east. It was a standard Motorola model with no special markings, none of the usual “Property of U. S. Government” warnings, and no Boston Police Department bar codes or inventory numbers. So far, their channel was dead quiet. Not a squawk. Not a peep. No one came on for a communication or time check. In fact, Sandy and I were almost back to Arlington, the busy north-south street and a half-mile away, before we heard anything. Then, all hell broke loose.

  They must have found the goon or he must have finally gotten up and found them, because we heard a quick staccato of half-coherent messages over the radio. It was hard to tell how many people or cars were involved, but I had been in the Army. From the language they used, these were not police calls or calls from any other government agency I had ever heard of. There was no standard radio procedure, no call signs, and no unit designations, only angry grunts, swearing, threats, and a lot of chatter. They were not the Boston Police Department. They were not the FBI, the DEA, the CIA, or any of the other flavors in the Federal law enforcement alphabet soup either. But whoever they were, they were too late.

  We crossed Arlington, where the Commonwealth Mall ended, and hurried on into the Public Garden, the western third of the Boston Common. A quarter mile in, along a curving walkway around the lake, we came to a park bench and a trashcan sitting under the dim light of a decorative Victorian street lamp. The can had one of those black plastic liner bags inside. I dug all the way to the bottom, but all I found was newspapers and old beer bottles.

  Sandy stood there watching me “What are you looking for?” she finally asked.

  “Some string or something,” I said in frustration. “If I can tie down the transmit button on the radio, we can block the frequency and completely screw up their communication for a while.” I looked up at her and said, “See? I get some good ideas, and I didn't even go to Catholic Schools or know Bobby McNally.”

  She gave me a pitying look, reached into the trashcan, and pulled out the whole bag. In ten seconds flat, she had dumped the trash back into the can, ripped the thick top strip off the bag, and tied it around the radio. She found a large pebble on the ground and slipped it under the plastic, forcing the transmit button down and open the frequency.

  “Engineers. What would you do without me?” She raised the radio to her lips and spoke into the open mike in a sexy, throaty voice. “You boys out there in radio land, ya'll have a nice night now, you hear.” She then set the radio in the bottom of the can. But as she straightened up, she got a good look at her clothes and at mine. “Yuck. Rolling around in that alley wasn't such a good idea, was it? Look at us.” Her new mall clothes from Toledo were covered with mud and food stains and mine weren't much better. Neither were our hands and her arms and legs. “We're not going to get very far looking like this.”

  “You're right,” I answered glumly. I looked at my watch. It was almost 9:00 PM and the stores would be closing. I pulled out my street map and opened it up in the small cone of light beneath the ornate Victorian street lamp. They might be cute on a bright summer day when the Public Garden was probably full of tourists, but they weren't worth squat when you needed some light. I didn't like being in a big city park after dark like this, but the walkways through the Common were the shortest route back downtown. Besides, the goon's pals couldn't follow us in here in their cars.

  As I
tucked the map away, I remembered the goon's automatic. I pulled it out of my belt, carefully wiped my fingerprints off, and dropped it in the nearest storm sewer grate.

  “That might have come in handy, you know.”

  “No. All it would have done is give them an excuse to shoot. I can't take that risk.”

  “You mean with me along now, don't you?”

  I made no reply. “Let's keep moving,” was all I said. I took her hand and we crossed Charles Street and entered the Common.

  “Why don't we find a place to hide here in Boston? It's a big city. You said you have some friends. It shouldn't be too hard to disappear for a while.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “No, not after Tinkerton brought in locals. They know the ground a whole lot better than we do and it will only put more people in danger.”

  “Where then?”

  “Washington. Hardin. He's the only one who might listen to us, and who has the clout to bring Tinkerton down. But I have a plan B. We pass through New York on the way to Washington. Santorini's lawyer is there, that guy Billingham, remember?”

  “B for Billingham? Gee, that's original.”

  “This whole thing is about the Witness Protection Program, right? That means the Mafia is still holding the missing pieces. They have all the whys.”

  “What makes you think Billingham will talk to you?”

  “I don't,” I smiled. “But something tells me they'd like to poke a stick in Tinkerton's eye as much as we would.”

  The dark walkways that wound through the Common eventually brought us to Tremont and Park Streets at the far southeast corner of the park, where we saw another of those round, white signs with the big blue “T” on it. We hung back and circled the station, but I saw no one loitering around the front entrance. No two-way radios. No jackets with too many bulges. So we pushed on through the double doors and took the steep flight of stairs down. This was Park Street, one of the T's main line crossings. We slipped into the restrooms and washed off the worst of the mud, then met near the ticket booths in front of a colorful route map of the city.

  I studied the big map and ran my finger across the subway routes. “We could take the Red Line to the South Railroad Station and maybe catch the Amtrak to New York.”

  “The train? You're becoming a one-trick pony.”

  “One trick? I thought you complemented me for my inventiveness.”

  “Good one! And, bite my tongue, yes I did, more like a stallion than pony, as I recall,” she smiled. “But your ego aside, we've got to do something about these clothes. I brushed some of the loose mud off, but we can't go anywhere looking like this.”

  We continued east through the Common until we reached Tremont, then took the smaller side streets southeast past the Old South Meeting house until we saw the big gray façade of South Station in the distance. It was another of those huge, old granite caverns dating to the 1920's, built for the era of long-distance train travel. From two blocks away, I saw Boston cop cars parked all around the station at odd angles, doors open, with cops standing around smoking and laughing. Other police cars were racing by on Atlantic Avenue with their flashers on.

  “Looks like they caught on to our train thing,” Sandy said. “How sad.”

  “Yeah, I was looking forward to getting you into the upper bunk this time.”

  “The upper? That has a much higher Degree of Difficulty.”

  “Yeah, but anybody can get laid in a lower. Been there, done that.”

  She looked me up and down and smiled. “I'm liking this. You've been with me three days now, and you're actually developing a budding sense of humor. Not much of one yet, but keep on trying. I have hope for you yet.”

  We turned around and found one of the darker side streets, heading north and east and away from the South Station. “Okay, what's the new plan,” she asked.

  “I'm putting the final touches on it as we speak.”

  “You don't have a clue, do you?”

  “Nope, but I will.”

  We walked on past the Old State House, trying to blend into the evening crowd around the restaurants, bars, and shops near the Quincy and North Markets and Faneuil Hall. We continued under the elevated I-93 into the North End and on into Little Italy. This was old Boston and residential. We walked up Salem, with her arm around my waist and my arm around her shoulders, wandering the back streets until I saw what I was looking for –- a brightly lit self-service laundromat.

  “You think we can stand around in our underwear waiting for the clothes to dry?” Sandy poked me. “I'm game if you are, but we might be noticed.”

  “Well, I might be.”

  “Talbott, you must love bruises, don't you?”

  “No offence meant, ma'am.”

  “Don't you know, petite women don't like being teased about sizes and physical inadequacies? Especially by someone who took so much delight from them just a few short hours ago,” she said, as her right claw dug a painful inch into my side.

  The laundromat was painted stark, institutional white and it was lit as bright as day. The only customer was a dumpy, older woman in a housedress who sat in a chair in front of the washers, knitting. She had three large, empty laundry baskets on the floor, and a half-dozen tall stacks of clothes on the table in front of her. Behind her there was another load thumping around in a drier.

  We walked up to the woman arm in arm and I gave her my friendliest, most pathetic smile. “Pardon me; I wonder if you could help us out?”

  She looked at us and our clothes and the dried mud smeared on Sandy's legs and probably thought we were homeless. “I ain't got no money, Mister,” she said.

  “Money isn't our problem,” Sandy said as she looked down at our muddy clothes. “We were walking in the Common and got chased by some kids, some muggers. We got away, but we took a tumble down a big hill. Look at us,” she laughed. “I am humiliated.”

  “Yeah, humiliated. I can see that,” the woman looked at her, still wondering.

  “If I take her home like this,” I added. “Her old man will kill me.”

  “Yeah, I got girls. I'd kill you too,” the woman said, starting to laugh. “So, what do you want? You want to use a washer?”

  I looked at the piles of clothes on the table. “I've got a better idea. That's your kids stuff, right? How old are they?”

  The woman frowned. “I got five — three girls and two boys, sixteen to twenty-four, and my husband Theo. You can add him to that list too. But why do you care?”

  “Are any of them about our sizes?” Sandy asked.

  The woman looked us both over, up and down. “Yeah. Maybe. Why?”

  I pulled out the money I had taken from the goon's wallet and peeled off three crisp, new one-hundred dollar bills. “How about you sell us some of your kid's stuff — we'll pay double what you paid for them — and you can have our dirty clothes. It's all new. Deal?”

  The woman plucked the three hundred from my fingers, and tucked it into her bra. “Lena's Clothes Emporium is now open for business, Mister. Show me what you want.”

  It took less than a minute to pick out some jeans and a maroon pullover shirt for me and some faded blue jeans and a dark-blue MIT sweatshirt for Sandy. None of it was exactly our size, but it was close and that would be good enough to get us out of town. I even got her to trade her kid's nylon windbreaker for my gray herringbone sports coat plus ten dollars to have it dry cleaned.

  We slipped into the restrooms to wash up and change. When I came out, Lena was standing by the washing machine pushing our stuff in, adding the soap. I waited by the restroom door for Sandy. When she came out, I noticed there was a pay phone on the back wall. “I'm going to call Billingham.”

  “At this hour? You don't think he's still there, do you?”

  “No, but I can leave him a message and that might start him thinking.” I dialed Area 212 Information and asked for the phone number of Steiner, Ernst, and Billingham. Before they shunted me off to the computer, I even got the NYNEX
operator to give me the firm's address, not a small task when you are dealing with trained, phone company, customer service representative. Through years of illegal lab experiments, secret in-breeding, drugs, chemicals, and electro-shock therapy, call centers had elevated rude and dumb to near-Darwinian perfection.

  When they connected me to the law firm's phone number, I found myself trapped in one of those multi-layered answering machines that let me dial the first four letters of the last name of whomever it was I was foolish enough to be calling. I punched B-I-L-L and after the Beep, I said, “Charlie? This is Peter Talbott. A mutual friend, Gino Parini, told me you had Jimmy's ear. To be perfectly frank, I need some help. I'm in the City and I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can get together and talk things over. Ciao. Who loves ya, Baby?”

  “You had to say that, didn't you?” I smiled, embarrassed. “But what did calling him accomplish?” Sandy asked.

  “Well, now we know he's real and that he hangs his hat there. And now he knows I'm real too.”

  We turned and walked out the front door. “Thanks, Lena,” I waved.

  “Hey, Mister, she's a cute little thing. Next time you get her dirty, you come back here and see old Lena.” She waved.

  We walked back to Hanover along the dark, twisting neighborhood streets of the North End. Many of the city's long-time produce distributors were located here, and the smells of fresh fish, bakery goods, flowers, and vegetables from their warehouses filled the damp, night air. In the evening, after the city's normally brutal traffic faded away, the streets and parking areas around the warehouses were packed with delivery trucks loading for their late-night runs into a three-state area around Boston.