Neon Dragon

by John Dobbyn

  I leaned in for the kill.

  “How well do you know the operation?”

  “I know it. I been around since right after … your client got in it.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything. Our friend wants me to be sure you can handle it. Who are the contacts on campus?”

  He pulled back and looked around.

  “I’m not gonna’ say it out loud.”

  “There’s no one here but us chickens, Abdul. In case you missed the point, this is a quiz. Before I put you in touch with Chinatown, you’ve got to convince me that you’ve got control of the operation. Point one, I want to hear the contacts. Not to make you nervous, but I’m here to grade your paper. You miss one of them, and this interviewer finds another applicant.”

  He looked up at me and started slowly.

  “Over at the gym, there’s Matt Toner.”

  He paused. It could have been to see if it was what I wanted to hear. But there was something in the way he was looking in my eyes for a reaction that set off an alarm. I swung out of the booth.

  “You’re wasting my time, Abdul. You’ll be hearing from whoever I pick. Have a nice life.”

  He jumped, “Whoa, man. I had to test you. I had to find out if you really knew them. Sit down. Gimme a chance.”

  I sat. Abdul was like a well that gives nothing until it’s adequately primed, and then it gushes forth sweet water. He laid out the names and locations of every drug-dealing contact in the operation. As a check, I was glad to hear the two names Barry gave me. I was relieved to hear among the missing the names of Gail Warden and Rasheed Maslin, the two students I had first met in the office of The Point.

  He even laid out the flow of the narcotics from the Chinatown connection through his organization’s distribution to impress me with his grasp of the business. I was impressed.

  I listened without emotion. When he finished, I nodded.

  “You’ve got it, kid. Can you handle a shipment next week?”

  “Yeah. Things’re getting low.”

  “I’ll be in touch. I’ll leave a message at The Point when I want you to contact me. You better get out of here. I’ll wait for a few minutes after you leave.”

  I let him out. He seemed to walk with less bop and more stature. Being an executive had apparently gone to his head.

  When he cleared the door, I checked the recorder in my pocket to see that it was still running. I ran a rewind to check the quality of the recording. It sounded better than a Blue Note CD to me. I also noted that neither Anthony’s nor my name was mentioned from the point where I had set it in motion in my pocket.

  I popped out the cassette and put it in the envelope I brought in my pocket. I addressed the envelope to the president of Harvard University.

  Before I sealed it and dropped it into a Harvard Square mailbox, I slipped a note into the envelope that just said,

  Dear Mr. President:

  Consider this my annual contribution to the Harvard alumni fund.

  28

  I USED MY CELL PHONE to call my number at Bilson, Dawes, which Julie picked up on the third ring. She was sweet as could be until she heard my voice. Then the whispered torrent started.

  “What did you do to that poor girl? She was frightened out of her mind …”

  “Julie …”

  “She could barely eat. I don’t know what you put her through, but if …”

  There was no stopping her. I hung up and redialed. Before she could rev up again, I slipped in a couple of sentences.

  “I didn’t touch her. I saved her. I haven’t got time to explain the whole thing. Someday I’ll tell you. In the meantime, you’re an angel to help her.”

  That got her back on earth.

  “Julie, did Tom Burns call?”

  “Yes. About ten minutes ago.”

  “And said what?”

  “It was weird. He just said, ‘Bingo. Walpole.’ What does that mean?”

  “It means I love you, Julie. I’ll reimburse you for anything you spend on Mei-Li.”

  “Oh, no you won’t.”

  “We’ll talk later. Keep Mei-Li out of sight. Nobody sees her but me. I don’t know if she told you, but there are those whose day would be made by her demise. They’d arrange it if they could find her. Do you understand, Julie?”

  “As much as I understand anything you do lately.”

  “That’s good for the moment. Someday I’ll take a week and fill in the details. Right now understand this: you’re on the side of the good guys. Bye, Julie.”

  I hung up and caught the T to Boston to pick up my car.

  THE RIDE GAVE ME A CHANCE to organize some thoughts into what could only loosely be called a plan. With one exception, which I planned to handle that evening, things seemed to be in place for Mr. Devlin’s game plan for Anthony’s trial. I could have reported back to the firm for some scut work under Whitney Caster or I could take my best shot at something that seemed far more important. It was an easy choice.

  I half walked, half ran from Park Street Station to the federal building. My acquaintances with the staff from my old days in the U.S. Attorney’s office helped breeze me by the assistants to the ears of the man himself.

  Peter Styles had been U.S. Attorney since before I worked in the office. He was straight as a line, and had precious little patience with those who weren’t—particularly those in public office. He was truly the stuff of which prosecutors should be made.

  When I arrived, he was on the fly out of his office to Judge Wyman’s courtroom. I grabbed the arm that was not laden with files and walked him back into his office and closed the door. He looked as if he didn’t know whether to smack me or have me committed.

  Before word one escaped his practically foaming lips, I whispered the words that trumped even the fear of Judge Wyman—“Political corruption that could go as far as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.”

  He knew me well enough to freeze in midtemper. I gave him a rough sketch of what I thought I could deliver and got the commitment from him of a major weapon to carry into battle.

  IT WAS A GOOD HOUR’S DRIVE out to the state maximum security prison in Walpole. From past cases, I was a familiar sight to the guards who handled lawyers’ visits.

  Within ten minutes I was sitting in the visiting room across from the infamous Frank Dolson. According to the guard, he was doing ten years on another arson. There was no denying that the man had carved out a specialty.

  He was a gray-to-white–haired, late-fortyish type, with the kind of prison pallor that suggested that he didn’t spend a lot of time in the yard. He had that slack ease with his surroundings that comes from a collection of years in an institution and a number of years yet to go.

  He didn’t know me from Mahatma Ghandi, but a chance for a trip to the visitors’ room broke up a long afternoon for him. He was in no hurry.

  “Mr. Dolson, my name’s Michael Knight. I’m a lawyer. I work with Lex Devlin.”

  That brought a slow smile. “How’s the old fox?”

  “He could be better. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I need some information.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “I suppose. I need to know about the jury on your first arson trial. I want to know about the fix, if there was one.”

  His eyebrows went up in controlled interest.

  “Let me tell you how I see it, Mr. Dolson. I think someone bought a few years of your time. You agreed to plead guilty to an arson charge to prevent someone else from getting caught. The idea was to plea-bargain for a sentence of a few years, do the time, and come out to a bank account. When they found the bodies in the fire, it turned into a murder charge, which was more than you agreed to. The only way they could get you out of that before you started naming names was to fix the jury. My guess is that you had nothing to do with the actual fix. But you probably knew about it.”

  He leaned back in the chair. He was clearly on his home turf. The grin told me I was on target. The silence
told me I was not even in sight of first base.

  “I’ve got a proposition, Mr. Dolson. It could change your life from this minute on.”

  Nothing. Not a flicker. But he was listening.

  “They hung that jury fix around Lex Devlin’s neck. They never proved anything. The rumor was enough. He’s worn it like a noose for ten years. It took the better part of his life. I think you’re going to do the decent thing. You’re going to give it back to him.”

  The self-amused grin broadened.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Your own self-interest. I can make a phone call to the United States Attorney. He can have you out of here and into the federal witness protection program by tomorrow. It all depends on you.”

  Dolson kept the grin for show, but his eyes got curious.

  “No free lunch, Knight. Never has been, never will be. What’s the price?”

  “Information. Later, testimony. You give the U.S. Attorney the names of the big shots who pulled the strings to fix the jury. It could start the dominoes falling. That’s what the U.S. Attorney wants. Mine’s more personal. I want it made clear that Lex Devlin had nothing to do with it.”

  The grin turned from time-killing amusement to contempt. He leaned across the table with a typical prison whisper.

  “You said I’m going to do the right thing. Let me tell you what I’m gonna do, Mr. Lawyer. I’m gonna do another three years in this joint and go for parole. Then I’m clean. I walk out of here. I got no worries about my back from some big shot I ratted on. Nobody ever touched me with that jury fix. Devlin wants me to rat on someone? Tell him to go to hell.”

  I pushed back from the screen between us and stood up. I took my time buttoning up my topcoat to emphasize the fact that I was leaving and he wasn’t.

  “I don’t think I’ll give Mr. Devlin that message. I hope you’re getting a big kick out of your smug little act, because in a couple of days you may find yourself indicted as an accessory to murder. That jury fix that you agreed to is all part of the arson that turned into homicide. By then I won’t need your testimony. Don’t count on being out of here in three years. I was willing to help you. Let’s see how you make out with the U.S. Attorney when the fan gets a hit.”

  IT FELT LIKE A GOOD exit speech, but I knew I had hit a brick wall. Dolson was still not in a frame of mind to move. He knew a bluff when he heard one.

  When you hit a wall, you’ve got three choices. You can back up and ram the wall, go around the wall, or quit. The last was not an option, so I decided on a combination of the other two.

  I realized that I had tried to move Dolson with a carrot but no stick. It was a new league for me, but the lessons were coming fast. It finally dawned that I needed some serious leverage to get anyone involved in the jury-fix conspiracy to tumble.

  MY NEXT STOP was the court clerk’s office for another look at the transcript of Dolson’s first trial. I remembered the day we had lunch with Mr. Munsey. He said that Dolson had an alibi witness by the name of Gallagher. I ran through the transcript until I found Gallagher’s home address. He lived in a row-house section of Revere. Given the fact that Mr. Munsey pegged him as a low-grade boozer, the chances were good that he was still there.

  I found the house in a neighborhood seven blocks back from the shoreline. From the looks of the peeling paint and overgrown patch of dandelion lawn, he was not on any twelve-step recovery.

  The frazzled, life-worn woman who answered the bell confirmed the fact that it was the residence of her son, Frank Gallagher. She didn’t say it as if she was bragging. It took only two questions to learn that my best bet for finding him would be the Clamshell Bar two blocks toward the ocean. It being somewhat after noon, he was probably there drinking his lunch.

  I hustled the two blocks to get there before he got so deeply into the bottle that he’d deprive me of the pleasure and honor of treating him to his first or fifth drink of the day.

  The bar was dark and long from front to back. The stench of ages of spilled beer and rotgut whiskey stung the nostrils. The ambience was also colored by the fact that it was unaffected by any regard for a smoke-free ordinance.

  Frank Gallagher was easy to spot among the five or six bodies clustered at the bar. He was alone at the far end, perched over two elbows on the bar, contemplating the froth of a half-downed glass of beer. The cutoff T-shirt displayed two arms’ lengths of cheap, mostly faded tattoos.

  I took the stool next to him and tried to judge the degree of glaze in the eyes he turned in my direction. He seemed still to have enough brain cells in focus to have made the trip worthwhile.

  “Hi, Frank. How’s it going?”

  He leaned away from me to get his eyes to focus on this unfamiliar face.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Well, maybe not. We’ve got a mutual friend. Same first name. Frank Dolson.”

  “Hey, you know Frank?”

  He said the name with such admiration that I instantly became an old pal of Dolson’s.

  “That’s right. I just saw him a little while ago. He said to come by and say hello. Told me to buy you a drink on him.”

  The first statement brought a smile, but the part about the drink opened his mouth in a full grin of anticipation.

  “Yeah? Good old Frank.”

  “Yep. But not this stuff.” I pushed back the beer in disgust. “I mean a real drink. Let’s take a bottle over to the table.”

  The grin turned to absolute ecstasy. Life was truly good. It got even better when I said, “Frank, you like good Scotch?”

  His eyes lit up like they were beholding the real Santa Claus. There was sincere enthusiasm in his voice when he said, “Yeah!”

  I would probably have gotten the same reaction with bourbon, vodka, or belly-burner rum. But this was no time to turn cheap. I called the bartender and bought a bottle of Famous Grouse Scotch. I took the bottle and two glasses in one hand and Frank in the other to a table in the back corner.

  Frank was salivating by the time I opened the bottle and poured the first shot. It disappeared in a flash over tonsils that must have thought they were dreaming. He laid the empty shot glass in front of me for more of the same.

  I put the lid on the bottle and said, “Frank, let’s talk.”

  The grin disappeared as he watched the unhappy closing. It was replaced by a look of shock and dismay bordering on anger. Before this caused the end of a budding friendship, I said, “There’s more where that came from, Frank. First I need some information. The faster I get it, the faster the top comes off that bottle. What do you say?”

  He leaned back in the chair. I could see that the Scotch on top of the beer or beers was beginning to take hold.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s go back to the time when you were the alibi witness for Frank Dolson. Frank was charged with burning a building in the South End. You remember that?”

  He looked a little hesitant. I uncapped the bottle and poured half a shot in his glass. It was gone by the time I recapped the bottle.

  “You remember that, Frank?”

  He reached for the bottle. I pulled it away.

  “Not yet, Frank. Time to talk. When we finish, if I get all the information I need, this bottle is yours. Agreed?”

  He looked at me with deep fear of not passing the test and losing the prize.

  “What do you want?”

  “The truth, Frank. You only get the bottle if you tell me the truth.”

  He nodded.

  “You testified that Frank Dolson was with you the night he was supposed to have lit the fire. Was that true?”

  His head rolled a little while he thought.

  “Yeah. That was true. We were in a bar all night.”

  “OK, Frank. Here’s where you earn the bottle. If he was innocent, why did he confess to the burning?”

  Frank put his head down in his hands on the table. I was beginning to think I’d lost him with that last half shot. I tapped his elbow
with the bottle. His head came back up. It turned out he’d been thinking, not sleeping.

  “Frank told me he was gonna make a bundle. Things hadn’t been going so good for him. Then this came along. He was gonna get sixty thousand dollars to take the rap for an arson. He’d get maybe three years and do the time. It was like insurance for the guy that really did the job. The guy was gonna blow the whistle if he got caught.”

  “That’s good, Frank. But Dolson took back his confession when they found bodies, and it became a murder charge. You remember that?”

  “Yeah. That’s why that lawyer wanted me to testify at his trial.”

  “That’s right. But Frank got scared, didn’t he? He threatened the ones who hired him. He said he’d blow the whistle on the whole scheme if they didn’t get him out of the murder charge. Is that right?”

  “Yeah. That’s right. Frank told me he scared them good. They came up with another way to get him out of it.”

  “And that way was?”

  “Frank made them promise to fix the jury.”

  Pay dirt. That was why I’d come to Revere.

  “Now listen, Frank. We’re on the homestretch. You’re this close to that bottle. I want the truth. Did Frank’s lawyer, Lex Devlin, know about the fix?”

  “His lawyer?”

  “That’s right, Frank. Lex Devlin.”

  I held my breath while he rubbed his head and massaged his brain cells. I couldn’t tell if he was looking for a recollection or just the answer that would uncork the bottle.

  “Frank, you only get the bottle if you tell the truth. I’ll know.”

  He looked at me with the most pathetic look I’d ever seen.

  “I need a drink.”

  “I need an answer. You go first.”

  He shook his head and nearly cried.

  “I don’t know. Frank never said one way or the other about the lawyer.”

  Frank’s head was in his hands. For me, it was like I’d gotten a two-base hit when I was inches from putting the ball over the fence for a home run. I thought maybe I could stretch it to a three-bagger.

  “Listen to me, Frank. Last question. Was the district attorney who prosecuted the case in on the jury fix? Did Frank say anything about that?”