FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EBOOK EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2012
Copyright © 2000 by George V. Higgins
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in the United States by Harcourt, Inc., New York, in 2000.
Vintage Crime is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Many of the places mentioned in this book are real. None of the characters is. There are, I believe, actual people who have done, and said, some of the things that the characters do, and say. It is a story, and I try to make my stories credible. If the reader finds some resemblance of its characters to persons now living or dead, then perhaps it is a good story. But it is still a story, and that is all–I made it up. –GVH
Cover design by Cardon Phillip Webb
eISBN: 978-0-345-80468-6
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1_r1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
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
Epilogue
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
1
“DERELICT,” NAUGHTON’S KID HAD SAID to Rascob on the evening of the third Tuesday in March at the Getty station, collecting $31.50 for an oil change and two new filters he said the old grey Lincoln Town Car badly needed. “Air and oil both,” he said. “Took a chance and did it. Old ones’re both shot. Air filter looked like a gorilla wiped his arse with it. Oil filter—rollah toilet paper, brand new. Saved ’em, case you wanna see them—show you both of them, you like.”
“Take your word,” Rascob said. “Damn thing’s gotta run.”
“Didn’t think you’d mind,” Naughton’s kid said. He’d finished in the top fifteen percent on the police exam and was waiting out the next list of appointments to the academy.
“Oh-kay,” Rascob said. “Gonna hafta get a new one. But the Uncle likes it. Know how he is.”
“Long’s ah radio works,” the Naughton kid said, laughing. “ ‘Don’t care ah fuckin’ thing looks like—runs anna radio works.’ ”
“Right,” Rascob said. “Radio. So—I’m covered. The radio works—it runs. Work McKeach, drive his kindah of car.”
“Inconspicuous,” McKeach had said. “Only way to travel. Al Castle says, way things’re goin’, Supreme Court, everything, pretty soon a bad excuse to stop you’ll be enough. Then if they find somethin’, courts’re gonna let ’em have it. Know your car, guys aren’t with us—know what we’re doin’, too. So, they know what you got in it. Give ’em half a chance, drag you down and search, knowin’ what they’re gonna find? And then when they find it, put your ass in jail? Not if you got half a brain. All you gotta do is tell ’em, ‘Hey, I didn’t put it in there. Didn’t know I had it—don’t belong to me.’ Won’t lay a glove on you.
“What they’ll do’s keep the money. ‘Unclaimed propty.’ No one claims it for a year? Forfeit to the state. I go in and say ‘It’s mine,’ I go to the jug.”
“Best thing can happen, we lose a lotta dough. Worst thing—they figure out some way to tie it to me. Don’t like either thing. Make sure everything works. Turn signals. Brake lights—bulb above the license plate. And whatever you do, don’t go over the speed limit. Nothin’—give ’em nothin’—that way you should be all right.”
Rascob tried his best to be on time for his weekly meetings with Dominic Frolio. Dominic was his last appointment of the morning, but meeting him took patience—and at least twenty-five minutes. Dominic joined him no less than eight minutes after he arrived and he would not hurry business. “Rushin’ does no good,” McKeach said. It still made Rascob nervous; one January morning the trunk of the Town Car had held more than $817,000 in cash. The New England Pats had had a bad Sunday, losing the AFC Championship to the Denver Broncos; the Boston books’d done well.
When Rascob had started meeting Dominic, in the early eighties, the house on the corner of Apthorp Street had been a neat and modest white five-room bungalow with green trim, a screened sun porch added on the front. Genevieve had been making noises about moving to a larger place, a better neighborhood.
Dominic said he wouldn’t. He and Genevieve had lived there since he went to work as a spot welder at the shipyard. “Endah World War Two—forty years ago. Yard’s really busy then. Anyone who wanted, wasn’t dead, could make a buck. Everybody building boats. Naturally—most the merchant fleet got sunk.”
Then the shipyard went under. His job went away. “Anyway, my back was shot, killin’ me by then, workin’ onna stagin’.” But he had the Beachside, at the traffic lights. “So it was okay. Made it good. Took up my time, you know? Kept me occupied.”
In the Beachside he ran the action that Brian G. had watched over years before for a fee and McKeach now kept provisioned and protected, as he protected the old grey Town Car full of currency on its way into Boston and the back room at Flynn’s Spa, Beer & Wine, Superette, at Old Colony and B.
“Once they knew who you were with: that was all they hadda know. No one bothered you. Safe’s you’d ah been in your dear mother’s arms.”
Things stayed the same after Brian G. went down and McKeach took over. So Frolio could say now, as he did: “Nothing bad’s ever happened, me and Jenny, we bought that fuckin’ house. It’s a lucky house, I think. Didn’t know it when I bought it but I think that’s what it is.”
Jenny did not share his contented trust. After every hurricane season and severe winter she had to replace the azaleas killed by the salt water, muttering forebodings that some day the roaring storms would wash them and the house away. He did not listen. He never left the protection of it until he had made as sure as possible that it was safe to go outside.
“Always try to take a piss, ’fore I go out. That way I don’t hafta look around, find a place to take a leak, ten minutes after I been out. An’ naturally I never leave it—any morning, whatsoever—’til I’ve had a good shit for myself.” Then he put on his cap and jacket, regardless of the season. On very hot days in August he didn’t zip the jacket. On very humid mornings, he sometimes wore the Bermuda shorts he put on before he went to sit outside on his green-and-yellow aluminum folding lawn chair in the early afternoons.
“Take a little sun, you know? Don’t believe that cancer stuff, sun is bad for you. Father always liked the sun—he died, he’s ninety-two. What happened, all a sudden? Now it’s bad for us? Everybody’s trynah scare us. I figure it can’t hurt.”
Leaving the house on the mornings Rascob came, Dominic would pick up the same small, dark-blue canvas gym bag with black plastic handles Rascob had noticed the first day McKeach had introduced them. One day, several years later, Rascob mentioned to Dominic that the bag had lasted well, and Dominic had said, “All my things do. They should. I’m not hard on stuff.” The last minute-plus was for walking out to meet Rascob.
Fourteen years had passed since Nino Giunta went to what was then MCI Walpole with twenty-to-life in front of him, and Rascob succeeded him as Dominic’s contact. Thirteen and a half had passed since the first and last time Rascob had suggested that Dominic forget
the eight-minute delay.
“Yeah,” Dominic said. “Never did like Nino. Most guys I’ve done business with, I have got along with good. Four of them so far, you’ve lasted the longest—and that’s not even counting you. The three before Nino, and then him. And then you.
“When something’s happened to them—they got careless, trusted someone they shouldn’t’ve; did something they’re not sure of? Then they hadda go away? Or they just disappeared, during all the trouble here? I been, you know, sorry for them. Hoped whatever happened to them, not … too bad. They didn’t have much pain. Nothing I could do—’cept wish they’d been more careful. But still, I did feel sorry. Bad they hadda go away.
“Nino I did not. Very careless man. Loud about it, too. ‘Look at me, everyone, oh ho, I’m the big cheese inna thing. Everybody kiss my ass. I’m a great big city man.’ Full of the big talk. Now Nino’s in Walpole—I’m right? Will be a long time. Don’t wanna be there with him. Always figured him for trouble. Never liked the guy.”
In the rearview mirror this March day Rascob saw the grey aluminum storm door open at the front of the first-floor front room with the picture windows that had been the screened-in porch before Jenny’s compromise conversion. Dominic emerged and shut the door securely with both hands, the right one on the knob and the left, holding the gym bag, pushing on the wood above it. Those who live in the wind respect it.
Dominic disappeared from the mirror when he reached the right rear quarter panel of the Lincoln. Rascob sighed and slouched, reaching forward with his right hand to shut off the ignition and remove his keys from the lock, then unlatching his seatbelt. Dominic appeared at the right front window, bending only slightly to peer in, raising his bushy grey-black eyebrows under the visor of his black leather cap, rapping with the knuckles of his right hand. Rascob nodded and slipped the seatbelt over his shoulder, in the same movement opening his door and getting out. By the time he had the door closed, Dominic had sidled around to the driver’s side through the narrow space Rascob had left between the seawall and the front bumper, shifting the bag to his right hand and steadying himself with his left on the warm hood. He left three hand prints that would remain visible in the obliquely angled afternoon light of late winter until the next downpour.
Rascob went to the back of the car and used the key to open the trunk. Inside there was a black ballistic nylon duffel bag. Rascob reached in with both hands and unzipped it. It contained several brown paper bags with hand-written figures in green or black Magic Marker. Dominic put the gym bag into the trunk and unzipped it. He removed four brown paper bags with numerals hand written on them in blue Magic Marker and put them in the suitcase. He stepped back with the gym bag and Rascob closed the duffel. Increasing to $147,800 the running total for that day he kept in his head, for the amusement of learning later from his actual count how accurate his quick mental tallies had been, Rascob stepped back and slammed the trunk shut. He returned to the driver’s door, ready to use the ignition key. “You want to leave the bag?” he said.
“I think so, Max,” Frolio said. “Cold today. Forgot my gloves again.” He opened the left rear door and put the bag inside on the seat. He closed the door and put his hands into his pockets. Rascob locked the car. “Nice tah see you. Should take a little walk. Clears the lungs out. And—things to talk about.”
“Dom,” Rascob said, nodding once, “by all means. Always look forward to it.”
They went north along the seawall until they came to a flight of four cement steps with green iron railings leading up to the platform at the top. To the right a flight of five more cement steps led down to the beach. Dominic went first, clenching the railings with his liver-spotted hands, assisting his leg muscles with his forearms.
Rascob had once asked McKeach how old Frolio was. McKeach shrugged.
“Dunno,” he said. “Brian G.’s his original rabbi—unless it was Moses. He’s where he is when Brian got whacked, same place he is today. Doin’ the exact same thing, same way he does today. Knows from nothin’, anything that’s going on. Ask him something and he’ll tell you, he just owns ah liquor store. All that’s on his mind. Already’d been doing it for years back when I first run up against him. How many? Dunno. How old he’s then? When he got started? Who brought him in? Dunno that either. Didn’t ask him. See, by then I’m over thirty and I knew a couple things. Things you didn’t fuck with; you just hadda deal with—unless you liked a lotta grief. And so that was what you did. He was one of them, so you dealt with him.
“Not the only one. Lot of guys to deal with. Same kind of position. Never really heard about them—how they wanted it. Never looking to move up in anything, never lookin’ to branch out. And also never took a bust. Not really that involved in things—what’s goin’ on in town, pickin’ sides or anything. Just trynah stay in business, you know?
“For them the war was an inconvenience. Same as ‘The power’s out. Fuckin’ Edison fucked up, house’s dark, and now fuck, it’s gettin’ cold—no way to make coffee.’ People dyin’? Brian G. goin’ down, Rocco, all kinds of guys—to guys like Dominic it was all an inconvenience. Didn’t care who controlled things.
“ ‘Just gettah damn thing fixed, all right?’ All they cared about back then; all they care about today. Doesn’t matter how it comes out, far as they’re concerned—work with anybody. Will, too. Sit tight ’til it’s over with—that was all was on their minds.
“So I decide I oughta have a talk with Nick. Go and see the Frogman, all right? We always been all right. Find out which way he’s leaning; what he thought that we could do.
“First I call. Those days, hadda be careful. Someone doesn’t know you’re comin’ and then he looks up and sees you? Might get the wrong idea. Could get dangerous, things got straightened out. So, I go and sit down with him. Back room down the Lamplight. And we talk, you know? Saw things the same way I did. This was something we could do, try to get things straightened out. Middle sixties, this was.
“An’ that’s all it was, all right? Not like you may’ve heard some guys, we just come in, took over. Wasn’t what we had in mind—all came afterwards. No, it was just—we would see what we could do. Sort of date it all from then.
“By then Dominic’s gotta be pushin’ eighty. Hasta be eighty, now. Bastard doesn’t look it. Tougher’n a pail of nails. Hate to be the guy who stiffs him. Dom takes care himself.”
Brown kelp and bleached-out cardboard packaging washed ashore by the severest winter storms lay against the base of the seawall. Ragged lines of weeds and rubbish marked off the beach at intervals of about a yard leading down to the clean dark sand exposed beyond the high-water mark. A faded white sign with red lettering still attached to the broken end of one white post warned that diving and shellfishing were hazardous and therefore prohibited. Idly, as he had each week since he had first seen the sign, Rascob wondered who would have wanted to wade in water too polluted for safe swimming.
“Things’re too good,” Dominic said after they had walked about forty yards north of the steps. Ahead of them a woman in a blue hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants with white piping sat red-faced and breathing heavily on an overturned brown milk crate, staring out on the bay. To the north beyond her the Boston skyline rose indistinctly silver in a light haze, the sunlight approaching midday flat on the glass towers. At intervals of about two minutes big jets disturbed the air around them, then roared past, descending on their right.
“President’s got problems,” Frolio said. “Nobody gives a shit. Everybody’s all got work, much work’s least they need. Bringing paychecks home. That’s what they care about—should, too. Things’re good for them, their families. That’s why it doesn’t matter, what he does, this one or the other one. Wife catches him again? Still stands up for him. She knows—all know—long’s she does this for him, he’s her fuckin’ employee. Must do what she says. President, United States. Slave to his pecker.”
Rascob did not say anything. Frolio said: “No women, ever, on the job. That’
s where he went wrong. Cannot mix pussy and work. Women stay home, take care of babies.
“All this equality and shit, we hear all the time? Absolutely for it. Known a lot more smart women’n smart men. And I’ve known a lot more men—you know what that means. Only two women I have known who made big trouble for themselves by not thinking before they did something with sex, and that is all. Many men? Can’t count ’em. So that is why it is my rule—no women onna job I run.
“There’s a woman inna building, matter how ugly she is, some man will lose his head. His woman’ll find out. Then you will have trouble.”
“I see,” Rascob said, not seeing at all.
“Ford,” Dominic said. “Charlie Ford.”
“Yes,” Rascob said, “the builder? Excellent prospect, I should think. He needs financing?”
“Not him, no,” Frolio said, “unfortunately. For him I would say Yes, at once. A good man, old Charlie Ford. This his son, young Charlie Ford. He came to me. I didn’t go to him. He was the only one.”
“Well, even so,” Rascob said, “he should be enough to do it, if what he’s got is big enough.… Which wouldn’t be unusual, in that kind of thing. And even if he couldn’t use the whole of it, you know, two-forty or three hundred, well, we could live with that. The other sixty, someplace else—it wouldn’t be that hard.”
“He asked me for a million six,” Frolio said. “He asked me, could we do that.”
Rascob whistled. “Quite a lot,” he said, “but still, it would be doable, I think—he still reliable?”
“Has been before,” Frolio said. “Not that he has that much himself that he can get it from, but if a deal went bad for him, he could make it good. The thing is that the first time it was a little thing, a small matter of forty large for a little union problem. And the other time we did some business with him, the much larger matter. He was doing something else. That time for the fishing boat, taking guns someplace—Ireland, I believe.
“Gut said No. Too many people; sentiment involved. Bad combination, sentiment and money. Coast Guard … we were lucky. Buyers paid—advance. Two anna quarter. Young Charlie’s father would’ve covered him, the nature of that deal, if the money hadn’t been there.
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