Prince of Thieves

by Chuck Hogan

  "I try to tear you down in my head. Nothing against you-- just reducing my expectations. Suffering through the breakup without even... is that crazy?"

  "No," she said. "No, I know all about that."

  He felt himself puddling on the sofa. "I'm sorry for showing up like this. It's stupid. I'll leave whenever you want me to."

  She thought about that, then held out her hand for the towel as though the time to go was now-- then threw the towel over his head and went at his hair vigorously with both hands. When she was done, she dropped down onto the sofa next to him, him pulling the towel down around his neck.

  She said, "I saw your picture yesterday."

  That stopped him cold. The light smile on her face baffled him.

  "God, you look stricken," she said. "It wasn't that bad of a picture. On the wall at the Boys and Girls Club. You playing hockey."

  Doug had imagined mug shots, surveillance photos. "Jesus. Right."

  "A local hall of fame they have there."

  Now he was squirming. "Please."

  "It was a Bruins uniform you had on."

  "Providence Bruins. Like minor leagues."

  "You were drafted? You played professional hockey?"

  "There was a time, yes."

  She waited. "And?"

  He was feeling her air-conditioning now, his shirt and pants going cold. "It didn't work out."

  She read the disappointment on his face. "Well-- you gave it your all, right?"

  "Actually, it was worse than that. I got kicked out. I got into a fight with another guy on my own team."

  She was almost smiling. "On your own team?"

  "This guy was better than me. I can say that now. Not much better... but I had never faced that before, someone with stronger natural skills. He was a shooter, all finesse, and sort of expected me to run interference for him. Me to take the hits and the penalties, him to get the shots on goal and the glory. And the coach supported this, everything about the team geared toward grooming this guy for his pro debut. What ignited me that day, I don't remember. An accumulation of things. Both teams tried to pull me off him. I don't even think he'd ever been in a hockey fight before in his life. The only shot he got in on me was as they were dragging me back. Kicked me with his skate."

  She reached for the scar that split his left eyebrow. "Is that how you got...?"

  "Yeah. Marked for life."

  He remembered showing up hungover for practice the next day, and the coach coming up to him in the locker room, telling him not to lace up. Then the long walk upstairs to the general manager's office, his agent waiting inside. The office windows looked down over the ice, and Doug watched the team practice as the GM waved around an unlit Tiparillo and berated him. Dollars and sense-- how much Doug had cost the franchise, how little sense he had shown. And still, they weren't shit-canning him completely. Take some time off, get your fucking head on straight, kid. Keep up with your workouts and stay out of trouble. They would have taken him back in a couple of months. But Doug returned home pissed off, back in the Town with a will to self-destruct. Getting loaded with Jem, pulling the nail-gun job. His agent wrote him a letter, something about the possibility of starting over in Hungary or Poland or somewhere. Doug never even called the guy back.

  Good, he thought, all this flashing through his head with Claire sitting right there next to him. Remember it all. Don't blow this shot too.

  "You know," she said, "when I first opened the door, I thought you'd been drinking."

  Doug smiled, sad but determined, thinking of the wedding toast near-miss and shaking his head. "Not drinking. Thinking."

  "I thought maybe you thought you were showing up here for a booty call."

  "Ha!" he snorted. "How could you even... oh, man. No. I mean, unless you're into it."

  Not even a courtesy chuckle. He was only 70 percent joking, but her eyes effectively told the other 30 percent to take a hike. "What did you come here for?" she asked.

  The difficulty of that question sat Doug back. "This wedding reception I left? It was more like a farewell party. My own."

  She nodded without understanding, needing more.

  "Let me ask you this," he said. "Am I your boyfriend?"

  She smiled at the word. " 'Boyfriend?' I haven't had a boyfriend since sixth grade."

  "Am I your guy? Could I be?"

  "I don't know." She didn't flinch, eyes near and unblinking. "Could you?"

  The question hung in the air between them, her eyes inviting him to close the gap. He did-- kissing her for as long as he could hold his breath-- then he sat back, his question answered. "That's what I came here for."

  24

  The Surv

  ON A SURV, MURPHY'S LAW reigns: forgetting your camera is the only way to guarantee that something photo-worthy will happen.

  Tailing Desmond Elden that drizzling Sunday afternoon brought them to St. Francis de Sales at the top of the real Bunker Hill (the famous monument actually stood atop Breed's Hill; Dino assured Frawley it was a long story) for a May wedding, with Magloan, the car thief, apparently the groom. Frawley decided against risking entry, waiting curbside with Dino until it was over, then falling in with the attendees making their way down to the Joseph P. Kennedy Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a stand-alone brick building located at the foot of the hill, behind the Foodmaster.

  Dino stayed parked out on School Street until the last of the stragglers arrived, then crept into the parking lot, tucking his Taurus in deep next to a pale blue Escort with a photographer's name spelled out in gold stickers on the side window. From there they had a decent side view of the entrance, wipers clearing away the drizzle once every fifteen seconds or so. Beyond the VFW post, the city stood high and wide, looming like a wall.

  Dino said, "They say rain is good luck for a wedding."

  "You had hail, I take it."

  "Worst drought in fifty years. When are you gonna get busy, get yourself some wedded bliss?"

  "When I can afford it."

  Frawley had spoken to Claire Keesey a few times since their pre-date, once setting plans, to meet for drinks at the Rattlesnake, but the late-afternoon robbing of an Abington bank-- a crackhead counter-jumper so junkie-sick and nervous he'd puked on his own gun-- forced Frawley to cancel on her at the last minute. Judging by her remarks, it seemed that the piano mover was out of the picture.

  The wipers slicked the rain-smeared windshield clean, Frawley watching a guy in black exit the post, jogging down the front steps to the street without umbrella or coat.

  "Your generation," said Dino, smiling. "So cautious. So afraid of marriage. But then somebody suggests skydiving, and everyone's fighting over parachutes."

  Frawley said, "Dean, hit these wipers again."

  Dino did. Frawley saw the guy in the tuxedo, now halfway across the street, turned and talking to a jacketless guy standing outside the door.

  "That's MacRay," said Frawley.

  "Which? On the road?"

  "I think. And the other one, that's Coughlin."

  Dino rolled down his window but the rain drowned out the conversation. It didn't look like an argument, but it didn't look like See ya soon either. MacRay continued away across the street, Coughlin watching him a few moments before ducking back inside.

  "What do you think?" said Dino.

  Frawley watched MacRay cut into the mall parking lot outside the 99 Restaurant, shoulders hunched against the rain. "Don't know. Home is that way." He pointed to the hill behind them.

  "Could be just ducking out for a Certs. What are we doing here, anyway? It's not like they're gonna knock over their own wedding reception."

  Frawley was pulling on his red rain shell. "You take off, Dean. I'll jump here."

  "Sure now?"

  "Navy yard's in that general direction anyway, so I'll see where he goes, then get home myself."

  "No argument from me," said Dino.

  Frawley stood out of the Taurus-- rain always looks harder than it feels-- and j
ogged toward the mall parking lot, wishing it was Coughlin he was following, reading the pale-eyed bumper as the likely ringleader. MacRay was hard to miss in his tuxedo, and Frawley stayed well back, following him across the lot to the next street, climbing a side road past the skating rink.

  Near the five-street junction, Frawley felt something happening. He sensed a convergence but pushed it aside until he neared Packard Street and alarms started ringing in his head. Still it was too much to accept, even as MacRay stopped outside one of the doors. Frawley watched from the corner, unable to tell from that angle which building was Claire Keesey's.

  He felt a lift when MacRay changed his mind, starting away-- but MacRay was only pacing, and Frawley watched from the corner, standing under a down-spout, roof runoff pattering his shoulders.

  MacRay ran up the stoop again and pressed the bell. The door opened. Words were exchanged, MacRay was invited inside, and the door closed.

  Frawley splashed up the sidewalk and climbed the same three stone steps, finding the bell buttons, noticing immediately the one that was wet. The name next to it read KEESEY, C.

  He went blind for a minute, standing there. She had invited MacRay inside-- one of the thieves who had knocked over her bank and taken her for a ride. And Frawley had cleared her. He had excluded her, beyond a doubt. He had been trying to date her.

  Had they scammed him? Was he being outfoxed by these scumbags? Had she-- of all of them-- fucked him over good?

  The piano mover.

  If the door opened now, they would see him there, standing before them. And he wanted that. He wanted them to see him, wanted them to know that he knew, that he had seen them together. And then--

  And then he didn't want that at all.

  * * *

  THE GOLD ALPHABET STICKERS applied to the second-story window of the Brighton row-house apartment read GARY GEORGE PHOTOGRAPHY, and below that, smaller, PROFESSIONAL PORTRAITS-- HEADSHOTS-- GLAMOUR.

  Frawley reached inside the wrought-iron cage over the basement apartment window to rap on the glass. Through it, he had an odd, God's-eye perspective looking down into a living room, where an Indian guy was curled up on a sofa in lounging pants and a T-shirt, cuddling with his lady friend in front of a soccer match on TV. They spooked at Frawley's badge, the guy leaping off the sofa and buzzing Frawley inside.

  The tile floor of the lobby was cracked but clean. The soccer fan padded up the stairs alone, barefoot, nervous. "You're all set, I just needed a buzz in," Frawley told him, displaying the creds again and shooing him back downstairs.

  Frawley climbed to the second floor, finding the door with the business name on it, again in mailbox letter stickers unevenly spaced. He knocked and heard soft footsteps coming up on the other side.

  Frawley held his credentials over the peephole. "FBI, open up."

  The door yielded two inches, the length of a security chain. The photographer's skin was shiny and buffed, like he'd been scrubbing it all evening. "Is this a joke-- "

  Frawley shoved open the door, shoulder lowered, the chain snapping, the doorknob banging, the links ching ing across hardwood like spilled dimes.

  The photographer staggered backward, stunned. He wore a short, blue, terry-cloth bathrobe with nothing underneath it. Frawley knew there was nothing underneath it because the shock of jerking back from the door had caused the robe to fall open.

  Frawley straightened, the door having suffered for his anger. "Close your robe, Gary."

  Gary George closed his robe. "You can't come in here without a search warrant."

  "I can't collect evidence without a search warrant," said Frawley, closing the door. "But generally all I need to get in anywhere is this"-- he showed him his creds-- "and this"-- he flapped open his jacket to show him the SIG-Sauer shoulder piece. "That's usually enough."

  Gold hair slicked back with mousse during the day now flopped dryly around Gary George's face, drooping weedily to his cheeks. He double-knotted his robe. Frawley smelled incense.

  "I'm having a bad day today, Gary," Frawley told him, "a real bad day. I'm warning you in advance so that you know not to make it any worse. You worked a wedding in Charlestown this afternoon. How did you know those people?"

  "I don't."

  "Who hired you?"

  "I came with the flowers."

  "You came with the flowers."

  "Mainly as a favor to someone."

  Frawley's realization nearly made him step back. "Fergie the Florist?"

  Gary George's silence was a yes.

  "Fergus Coln, Charlestown gangster and drug dealer? Hell of a guy to be doing favors for, Gary." Frawley stepped close, checking Gary George's pupils. "You loaded right now?"

  He was too stoned to be properly defiant. "I might be."

  "The photographs you took today-- I want them. Group shots of the wedding party. Anybody in a tuxedo. I will pay you for the prints, maybe even throw in a buck or two for the busted door chain if things go smoothly. Do we have a deal?"

  Gary George thought about it, nodded.

  "Excellent decision, Gary. So far, so good. What do you have, one of those bathroom darkrooms?"

  Frawley paced among the mood lighting and beaded doorways and velvet slipcovers, waiting while Gary George worked. On one wall was a giant studio portrait of a model wearing a bobbed black wig, long beads, and a flapper dress, and, of course, the model was Gary George himself. Frawley found four sticks of incense smoldering in the kitchen and threw one after another out of the window into the rain. His anger built again as he thought of MacRay lounging at Claire Keesey's, while Frawley waited on a doped cross-dresser in a ladies' beach cover-up.

  "What?" asked Frawley, when Gary George emerged from the bathroom at the half-hour mark, empty-handed.

  "Taking a little cigarette break."

  Frawley shoved him back inside the bathroom and shut the door.

  When it opened again, Gary George held dripping prints with rubber-thumbed tongs. Frawley studied one group shot posed around a table, the bride and groom in back, the wedding party in chairs before them. He recognized Elden on the far right, and beady-eyed Coughlin near the middle, a beer bottle half-hidden next to his leg. But no MacRay. Nor was he in any of the others.

  "The big guy," said Frawley. "Kind of thick-nosed, buzzed hair."

  "This is it for tuxedos. They weren't very into the whole portrait thing."

  Frawley checked the image again. The woman in a slinky black dress, darkly blond, bad-girl hot, had to be Coughlin's sister, the one living in the house with him and MacRay. She had Coughlin eyes.

  "Maybe he's on the video," suggested Gary George.

  Frawley turned and stared until Gary George started moving.

  Back through the doorway beads, out in the main room, Frawley snatched the videocamera out of Gary George's hand, ejecting the unlabeled VHS tape himself.

  "I'll need that back," said Gary George.

  Frawley kept a twenty and threw down the rest of his wallet money on a lace-draped sewing table. "Tell anyone about this, Gary, and I will return with a narcotics warrant and a thick pair of gloves and tear this place apart. Understood?"

  Gary George picked through the bills. "This is only like thirty-seven dollars."

  But Frawley was already through the door and moving down the hall to the cracked stairs, thinking only, MacRay, MacRay, MacRay...

  Part III

  Bad

  25. Popcorn

  26. Inside the Tape

  27. Next Morning

  28. Leads

  29. Roundup

  30. Buy You Something

  31. Keyed

  32. Rink

  33. Billy T.

  34. Definitely Good Night

  35. Dust

  36. Wire

  37. A Beating and a Meeting

  25

  Popcorn

  THE MANAGER, CIDRO KOSARIO, drove a dusty blue Cressida with a failing muffler. He parked in his usual spot on the west side of The Braintree 10, unfo
lding reflective silver sun shields over his dash and rear ledge before locking the car and twirling his keys around his finger as he ambled to the side door. He slid the key into the lock, and Doug stepped out from behind the trash pen.