Killers

by Howie Carr

  “A little of this, a little of that. Drugs, truck hijackings, he fronts money for guys just out of the can. He likes armored cars, at least if somebody else is going in with the gun and the mask. Heard he also made a bundle when that bank in Braintree was burglarized a couple of years ago. He got a piece of it, a big piece. Plus he’s got a couple of bars and a garage in Roxbury, although that’s mostly a clubhouse from what I hear.”

  “How do you know all this, Reilly?” Westridge asked, and Tom Taylor cut in:

  “His brother’s a wiseguy, Mr. Westridge.” He smiled at me; he was supposed to be the expert, and after my soliloquy he needed to reestablish his bona fides. “Isn’t that right, Jack?”

  Westridge ignored that. He just wanted information. So I figured I should answer his question.

  “My brother’s doing a bit—a sentence—up at Devens. Federal time. I told you, Bench likes to front jobs. He likes buffers. He set up a score my brother was supposed to be the driver on, a truck hijacking. Somebody tipped the cops.”

  “Your brother couldn’t make a deal?”

  I smiled wanly. “Not if he wanted to keep breathing.”

  It was Taylor’s turn to lean forward. “I brought a few surveillance photos along, Mr. Westridge, so you can see what the two of them look like.” He passed a manila folder over to Westridge, who studied the pictures carefully. Even though this gang war or whatever it was represented a major headache for him and his company, you could tell he loved this Mob stuff.

  “So the little fat guy—that’s Sally?” Taylor nodded. “My God, he looks like Danny DeVito.… And the younger, taller guy beside him in the windbreaker is …

  “Bench McCarthy,” Taylor said.

  “Doesn’t really seem to look like a gangster,” Westridge said, “not that I have a lot of experience.… Who’s the hulking guy walking behind them? Now he does look like a Mafia thug.”

  “That’s Philip Imbruglia,” Taylor said. “The late Philip Imbruglia. He’s the guy that got blown up this afternoon. He runs—ran—Sally’s street rackets. They called him ‘Hole in the Head,’ because, as you might surmise, he survived getting shot in the head way back when.”

  Westridge nodded gravely and took a gulp of his drink. This was as much anthropology as it was governmental relations.

  “Look at the next picture,” Taylor said, and Westridge did. I leaned over to get a peek at it myself. It was several guys and a few cops standing around a compact car at night. They were outside a three-decker; it looked like Dorchester or Southie. In the driver’s seat was the body of a man with his head thrown back, eyes wide open, his jaw slack. In his forehead you could see a gaping exit wound.

  Westridge recoiled slightly, then looked at Taylor.

  “Did Bench do this?” he asked.

  Taylor nodded. “It’s what the police call a ‘cold case.’”

  “I’m just trying to get the lay of the land here,” Westridge said. “What’s the current relationship between the Mafia and Bench? Mr. Reilly?”

  “My understanding is that Bench doesn’t have to kick up anything to Sally. He’s the only one around here who doesn’t. In return, I guess you could say he remains on call, if Sally needs him.”

  “You mean for contracts?” Westridge asked, using the movie lingo. I nodded.

  “If Bench is so smart,” Westridge said, “why doesn’t he move the gambling to Aruba or someplace and get out of the spotlight? If he stays around here, he’s bound to make a mistake.”

  “No doubt,” I agreed. “But he hasn’t made one yet. Not since he was a kid.”

  The old lobbyist Caulfield leaned forward across his desk to look at me. He had a wan smile on his face now. I was making him look good. I was the guy he’d brought to the table who knew more than Westridge’s FBI agent. Points for Caulfield. But now it was time for the lobbyist to put in his own considerably more than two cents.

  “Look,” Caulfield said to me, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that we don’t really care if they all kill each other off, but this is queering the whole casino deal, and our client has already got millions invested. We’ll do anything within reason to stop the bloodshed.”

  “That’s very commendable of you, I’m sure,” I said.

  “Are you being fresh with me, young man?” Kevin Caulfield said.

  “No, sir,” I lied. “I just think there’s something you ought to understand before we go any further.”

  “And what is that, Mr. Reilly?”

  “Well, I’m not sure anybody really knows who’s been bumping off Sally’s guys.”

  “Surely it must be this Bench McCarthy,” Caulfield harrumphed, “trying to complete his hostile takeover of the Mob.”

  “That’s the way they’d write it in a movie script, I guess, but sometimes it’s not that cut and dried,” I said. “I don’t know much right now, but I made a few calls before I came over here. And I can tell you that Bench has been moving around the city all day, asking questions. He wouldn’t be operating so openly if he’d just started a gang war with Sally. And if he’d started the war, he probably wouldn’t need to be asking all these questions. Although I suppose he could just be doing it for show. They’re pretty devious, these guys, especially when they’re lining somebody up.”

  Clay Westridge said, “If he was behind these murders, he’d have gone ‘to the mattresses,’ is that what you’re saying?” He was a gangster movie buff, no doubt about it. Assuming this could all be straightened out, it would make interesting cocktail party chatter in suburban Houston someday.

  “Do you know either of these hoodlums?” Caulfield said. “Could you make an overture to them for us?”

  “Sally I’ve met a couple times.”

  I didn’t mention how, which was when I was at City Hall, picking up what you might call contributions for the old mayor. Like Sally, Bench was a cash contributor. His main base of operations was in Somerville, but he had the taproom in Allston and the garage in Roxbury, so he had to do the right thing by us if he didn’t want any trouble, and of course he didn’t. So Bench had our guys from ISD—Inspectional Services—on his pad. And their boss, the mayor, who was also my boss, insisted on his end. That was my job, collections. Everybody, not just gangsters, needs a buffer, and I was the mayor’s. Plus, there was the familial connection to my dim-bulb brother Marty.

  “I’d recognize Bench on the street, and I’ve had, uh, dealings with him a couple of times too, but I doubt he’d remember me.”

  “Well, then, could your brother make the approach?” Clay Westridge said.

  “His brother is in prison, remember,” Tom Taylor reminded him.

  Westridge took a deep breath. This was not the kind of problem they brainstormed in the four-year program at the Harvard Law School/Business School, or maybe he went to SMU. I glanced over at the three of them. They all looked glum, probably wondering how they would be judged by the home office if I was the best link to organized crime that they could come up with. The old man’s annual $100,000 retainer was on the line, maybe even the $300,000 salary of the vice president, governmental relations.

  It had all seemed so neat and clean forty-eight hours ago. They had the governor, a lame duck, ready to sign anything in return for a couple of directorships down the road. They had the Senate president, preparing to run for governor, a race he would almost certainly lose. But until the primary, the Senate president would still need, first, cash, and after he was beaten and a lame duck, he’d likewise need the same thing the lame-duck governor was looking for: a golden parachute and a soft landing. The House speaker represented the district where Westridge’s casino would be built, so he didn’t need to be paid—not as much, anyway. Westridge and Caulfield were getting the hometown discount from Mistah Speakah, although eventually he’d get his end too.

  But now all their scheming and dreaming was unraveling, and they couldn’t believe it. They were at the mercy, apparently, of thugs. Blue-collar thugs, as opposed to white-collar thugs like the
mselves.

  “Sir,” I said to the old man, “may I inquire, just what sort of approach were you thinking of making to these parties?”

  “To be blunt, I want to offer them cash to declare a truce, or armistice, or whatever, until the casino bill is signed into law by the governor.” He looked over at Clay Westridge. “I know you can’t say anything, you represent a publicly traded corporation, but this is what your firm has hired me to handle discreetly.”

  Westridge stared straight ahead. How would he ever be able to explain this to his board?

  I said to Caulfield, very respectfully, “Do you really think it’s wise, sir, to offer to pay them off before you’ve even gotten the bill passed, let alone broken ground on the casino? I mean, the only possible conclusion they can draw from such an offer is that they can shake you down at will whenever they want.”

  The old man nodded. He was calling the shots now, not Westridge. “Of course you’re correct, but we’ll just have to deal with that problem when it arises. I know you spend a lot of time up here on the Hill, but do you have any idea how long we’ve been trying to get this casino bill passed? We can’t let some penny-ante racketeers sabotage the deal at the last moment.”

  The lobbyists always say “the Hill,” and everybody else says “the State House.” They seem to think saying “the Hill” makes them sound more connected. I think it makes them sound like poseurs, like if you’re from D.C. saying “this town.” I looked over at the three of them.

  “You have to understand, if this really is a ‘war,’ I’m not sure you could stop it with any amount of money, but even if you could, who would you pay it to? Sally Curto’s people got killed, and he’s got Bench McCarthy out looking for who did it. If there really is a third party here, and I’m guessing maybe there is, then they can’t quit until they find out who’s doing this, because otherwise, they could be next.” I paused and looked at Westridge. “Do you know what the word ‘capable’ means?”

  “Why of course, it’s—”

  “No, I mean the wiseguys’ definition. Capable means people who are able—capable—of killing somebody else, and getting away with it. Guys like Sally and Bench, they have to figure out who’s ‘capable’ of doing this to them. They can’t let this go on, because any crew this capable, they could kill them too.”

  Caulfield cleared his ancient raspy throat. “So what you’re telling me, Mr. Reilly, is that you don’t believe this really is a gang war?”

  “Not at all, Mr. Caulfield. I just suspect, and that’s all it is at this point, a suspicion, that this is not exactly the gang war you may think it is. Somebody else may be involved here, we just don’t know who it is, and obviously Sally Curto and Bench McCarthy don’t know either, or they wouldn’t be beating the bushes like they are.”

  “Whoever’s involved,” Caulfield said, “we need this so-called war stopped. Do you want the job, Mr. Reilly?”

  “I do,” I said. “I’m just telling you up front, I’m not sure anything can stop this right now, until Bench figures out who’s doing this and deals with it.”

  Kevin Caulfield took a puff on his cigar and glanced over at Taylor.

  “What’s your considered opinion, Mr. Taylor?”

  “I think Reilly is possibly on to something. There’s no record of any recent bad blood between these two organizations.”

  “That’s my whole point,” I said. “And that may be why it does have something to do with your casino bill. Apparently somebody’s trying to sink this thing, I have no idea who, and neither do you, or you wouldn’t have asked me to come here.”

  Terry Caulfield reappeared in the office doorway with one of the decanters and asked if anyone needed a refill. After we all shook our heads, Caulfield turned again to me.

  “Mr. Reilly, it strikes me that you seem to think that figuring out this conundrum comes down not so much to Mr. Curto, but to his younger Irish associate. Am I correct?”

  “Let me put it this way,” I said. “I only know these people because of my brother, or mostly because of my brother.” I glanced over at Westridge. “He’s a half-assed wiseguy, a hanger-on. Lotta guys like my brother around. Most of the time they’re just burping and farting, that and bragging. Taking credit for shit, pardon my French, that they know absolutely nothing about except what they read in the newspapers. There are guys in the can, believe it or not, doing time for crimes they didn’t commit, but wanted everybody to think they did, so they bragged about it when they were drunk or high, and got picked up on a wire.”

  I paused to give them time to feel superior to ham-and-eggers like my brother.

  “The point is,” I finally said, “Bench isn’t like that. As I said, he’s a throwback. The reason he was in Norfolk when he stabbed that black guy for Sally is because even when he was a teenager, the cops knew he was trouble. When he was seventeen he shot a bookie in Medford. A contract hit at seventeen. The cops never could pin that one on him, so they ‘liked’ him for a hijacking and lugged him.”

  “He didn’t kill him, though, did he?” said Taylor, glancing down at Bench’s file. “The bookie, I mean.”

  “Bookie was wearing a Kevlar vest,” I said. “Bench was shooting like they teach you in firearms class. Aim for the body, easier to hit. He’s never made that mistake again. He learned that in the can, from Sally and the boys. Now he’s a head man.”

  I smiled at my little pun. But Clay Westridge, the casino vice president, no longer seemed amused by my stories. “Now I know how your brother knows him, but how do you know this ‘Bench’? Please, be specific.”

  But before I could answer, Kevin Caulfield spoke up. “I believe I can explain, Mr. Westridge, and please correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Reilly. Mr. Reilly here used to work for the mayor of Boston, Mr. Westridge. The former mayor. As did my own son, Terry, whom you just met. And one of Mr. Reilly’s duties was serving as a liaison, shall we say—”

  “Mr. Caulfield is being diplomatic,” I said, looking at Westridge. “What I was, in addition to being the mayor’s driver, was a bagman, and his go-to guy at the State House, among other things. Point is, guys like Bench and Sally, if they don’t want any trouble from City Hall, they have to pay all up and down the line. From the district police captain all the way up to the man in Parkman House. That’s who I represented, the mayor. It’s just overhead to these guys, like hiring a lobbyist in the state capital of whatever state you’re trying to put a casino in.”

  Caulfield felt compelled to cut in again, lest his mark think he’d brought some kind of crooked cop to the table. “Mr. Westridge, what Mr. Reilly is saying is that he’s more familiar with collecting money from Mr. McCarthy than giving it to him.”

  “So you do know him, you’re not just somebody’s brother?” The vice president didn’t care how I knew him. He just wanted someone to make the connection. He wanted to protect his $2 million investment. Who could blame him?

  He said: “You’ve spoken to him?”

  I nodded. “Would he recognize me if I walked into his bar? Maybe. It’s been five years. He wouldn’t ask me how my family was, but he might know who I am. Might.”

  “Then I think you’re the guy we want to make the approach, Mr. Reilly,” Westridge said.

  “Mr. Westridge,” I said, “I don’t know how things work anywhere else, but around here, you don’t just walk into a wiseguy’s barroom with $100,000 in cash. Let me see if I can make some kind of approach to Bench—I’m not promising you anything, but first let me see if I can get the lay of the land. I mean, for all we know, he could have already found the guys who did this, and if he did, then there won’t be any more trouble, at least from them.”

  “You think that’s possible?” the vice president said.

  “Probably not, but it’s worth a drive to Somerville. Now let’s talk about my rates. I charge three thousand dollars a day.”

  I held my breath, but they didn’t bat an eye.

  Caulfield said dryly, “Your price has gone up.”


  I left soon after, with my instructions to reach out to Bench McCarthy. Terry Caulfield, who’d been listening in, walked me to the door while the others continued their deliberations.

  “Three grand!” he whispered. “You’ve come a long way from City Hall.”

  “Not far enough,” I said.

  5

  WHAT’S YOURS IS OURS

  I bought the Alibi about five years ago. I’d worked there off and on since I was a kid. That’s where I met my first wiseguys, selling six-packs of cold long-neck Narragansetts out the side door for six dollars on Sundays, back when Massachusetts still had blue laws. On Sundays, the Paul Revere Liquor Mart up the hill was closed. They had the coldest beer in town, that’s what their neon sign said.

  The Gaelic Club, as the Alibi was then called, was right around the corner from the old Brinks armored-car barn. They’d moved it out of the North End after the original Brinks job back in 1950. The guards were always dropping in after their shifts, getting bombed and swapping stories. The old owner never took advantage of the situation; he was just into reading Irish history and shit like that. By the time he decided to return to the Auld Sod, I was moving up in the element, and I fronted the money to a local wannabe to buy it. Even in Somerville, convicted felons aren’t allowed to own barrooms, or at least they can’t be the owners of record.

  Once I took over, I made sure a few of my guys were always around, buying drinks for the armored-car drivers. We had broads for them too, if they were interested. And they could bet all they wanted, but unlike the women, they had to pay if they lost on their bets. We collected on those tabs. And if they didn’t have the dough to pay off, well, we could always work something out.

  Open under new management, the Alibi was the friendliest damn bar in town—at least if you drove an armored car for Brinks.

  Some cops believe we use guards inside on armored-car robberies, but that gets messy, because they always fold under pressure. So you have to take them out. Maybe you shoot ’em in the head as you’re leaving the scene, in which case you have to clip the second guard too. And shooting civilians—which is what guards are, because they sure as hell aren’t cops—is not good policy.