Killers

by Howie Carr

Still wearing gloves, I quickly disassembled the AR-15, then had Hobart pull down a side street with another abandoned warehouse. I put the gun in an old canvas bag, zipped it up and threw it into the doorway. Then we headed back to the Expressway south, got off at Gallivan Boulevard and as we crossed over the Fore River bridge into Quincy, I took Beezo’s hand out of the bag and tossed it into the water.

  As Hobart turned around in the rotary on the Quincy side of the bridge, I took out one of my throw-down cell phones, called 911 and told the cops about the bag that had been dropped in the doorway. I didn’t want any concerned citizens of color or otherwise stumbling across the gun and later using it for something I wouldn’t approve of, like sticking up one of Sally’s gambling offices. As we crossed the bridge back into Dorchester, I hurled the phone into the water.

  * * *

  I had a pretty good idea what was going to be leading the eleven o’clock news tonight. It’d been a while since I’d topped the local TV news.

  “Let’s go back to Somerville,” I told Hobart. “I think I’m going to take a vacation for a couple of days.”

  36

  “BOSTON IS A KILLING GROUND”

  I sat down with Slip Crowley at J.J. Foley’s around nine, but I had actually arrived there much earlier, as soon as I’d gotten back to Boston from my meeting in Dedham with O’Mara. I didn’t figure on getting any visits from the cops, but in case anybody had seen me with Bench McCarthy over the last couple of days, I wanted an alibi for the whole evening. I made sure to buy a round for the house as soon as I arrived, so if necessary I would have two or three cops to speak up for me, all that I’d need.

  In the meantime, I was shooting the breeze with Slip in the Berkeley Room.

  “I got an e-mail today,” I said, and he nodded, without interest. “You know what it said.”

  “You’re going to tell me, right?” Slip said.

  “It said, Albert Crowley has sent you a message on LinkedIn.”

  “What?” he said. “What the fuck is LinkedIn?”

  “I was gonna ask you the same question,” I said. “Actually, I know what it is, it’s some kind of business website, supposed to keep you in touch with the other young Jaycee types, shit like that. I was just wondering, how’d you decide to get onto LinkedIn?”

  “I got this intern, good-looking kid from Emerson, about twenty years old, she tells me, I gotta get into social media. I have no idea what she’s talking about. She tells me, all her friends are on Facebook. Everybody ‘friends’ each other. I told her, anybody wants to ‘friend’ me, they can ‘friend’ me a C-note at my next time at Anthony’s.”

  I laughed.

  “So did you accept my message?” Slip asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “Only message I ever get from my ‘friends’ is, can you lend me a C-note?”

  Slip took a long sip of his 7&7. “You know, I can’t even remember how I ever got along without a cell phone. Them fucking phone booths reeking of piss and junkies breaking into the change boxes—remember? It’s fucking great not to have to worry about that shit anymore. Then e-mails came along. I hated them at first, but I actually don’t mind them anymore either. It’s quicker than a letter, plus I don’t have to talk to those cocksucker reporters anymore. Even the Globe can’t misquote an e-mail. But anything beyond that—texting, twittering—”

  “Tweeting,” I said.

  “Twittering, tweeting, it’s for twits, okay. What do they say—TMI?”

  “Too much information,” I said. “That’s very good, Slip.”

  I looked at my watch. It was almost ten. I got up and walked over to the widescreen HD TV set. There was a little panel built underneath the set where the Foleys kept the remote control. I grabbed it, switched to Channel 25 and turned up the sound.

  Slip looked at me, puzzled. “Since when did you start worrying about whether or not you have to take an umbrella with you in the morning?”

  “Just watch,” I said, and then the news came on.

  “Tonight,” said Maria Stephanos, the anchor cupcake, looking simply smashing in her boots, “Boston is a killing ground.”

  Slip leaned forward. Unlike the weather, he’d need to be able to offer an opinion on this at City Hall tomorrow. They first went to Somerville. Usual B-roll of police tape, uniforms, detectives, blue lights flashing, ambulances and EMTs—the same old same old.

  The liveshot reporter, a blonde who looked and dressed like she’d come to work directly from her high school prom, said, “Police said the killer or killers apparently shot out the traffic signals with the same type of rifle that was recovered from the roof, a Bushmaster .223. Police found three men dead in and around the car, as well as a large cache of weapons and ammunition in the Toyota, which had been stolen in Malden two days earlier. The massacre occurred about two blocks from the Alibi bar, an alleged organized-crime hangout on Broadway that was the scene of a drive-by shooting just two days ago. According to police sources, the Alibi serves as the headquarters of a reputed gangland chieftain whom Somerville and State Police are describing tonight as a ‘person of interest.’ Less than an hour after the first nine-one-one call in Somerville, another bloody shoot-out erupted in Roxbury, where Biff Buffington is reporting live—”

  “Biff Buffington!” Slip sneered. “Are you kidding me? That guy’s so light he carries rolls of dimes in his coat pocket for ballast so he doesn’t blow away in a stiff wind.”

  “Shhhh,” I said. “I want to hear this.”

  “Maria,” the wide-eyed reporter said, his voice cracking, “Boston police are baffled tonight by a second one-sided shoot-out in Roxbury—”

  This time it was a slow-moving car with someone firing a machine gun into another vehicle that had just parked in front of a garage frequented by the same unnamed “gangland chieftain.” One of the three men in the parked car had survived the initial blast and jumped out of the car, but was then immediately cut down by a sniper apparently firing from the roof of the building across the street. He was reported to be on life support at Boston Medical Center with a bullet wound to the head.

  Boston police had recovered the long rifle, but there appeared to be no fingerprints on it, just a pair of gloves next to it on the roof. Police sources told the reporter they doubted the owner of the weapon used in the roof shooting was in possession of an FID.

  “As in the Somerville shooting, the Roxbury death car was found to be full of weapons, all fully loaded. Police said the vehicle had been reported stolen from a Peabody mall two days ago.”

  Slip shook his head. “I grew up three blocks from there. St. Patrick’s parish.”

  “If you see St. Pat, tell him the snakes are back,” I said, motioning to one of the young Foleys for another round.

  I kept watching, but the rest of it was mostly speculation. Channel 25’s crack investigative reporter, who looked like Clark Kent, had put on his best tam o’shanter and trench coat, and was quoting some more unnamed sources to the effect that the gang war had really heated up now. So much so that Clark Kent had decided to stay put in Channel 25’s safe suburban studios in Dedham.

  Finally it was time for the weather, so I turned down the sound, walked back over to our table and took a long gulp from my new beer.

  “I’d like to know who was in them two cars,” Slip said.

  “Remember that place I had you pull the Licensing Board records on?” I asked.

  “Santo’s?” he said.

  “Now they call it the Python.”

  “Well, if they’re from the Python, and there’s six of ’em shot, five dead, I’m going to say the over-under on the number of EBT cards they’ll recover is fourteen.”

  “I’ll take the over,” I said.

  My cell phone rang. I looked down at the number—the main line of the Globe.

  “You’ve heard what happened tonight, right?” Katy asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been in the Christian Science Reading Room with Mary Baker Eddy all evening.”
>
  “Cut the bullshit, Sonny,” she said. “I know who that woman who was with you today was—Bench McCarthy’s girlfriend.”

  “I believe he pronounces it McCar-tee,” I said. “The ‘h’ is silent, unless you’re a Protestant.”

  “I don’t have time for one of your runarounds, Jack. I lost my temper today; I admit it. I apologize for hitting you.”

  “You kicked me too, remember?”

  “I apologize for kicking you too,” she said, although I got the distinct impression she wasn’t sincere. “But now that I know who the girl was, I know you must know plenty, and you’re going to tell me all about it.”

  “I accept your apology, apologies.”

  Slip silently mouthed “Katy?” and I nodded. He stood up and waved a dismissive good-bye, muttering something under his breath about “Little Miss Muffet.” He figured it would be a while before I was free, and I figured he was right.

  “Maybe you forgot,” she said, “I was with you that night at Fenway when we saw the probation commissioner in Donuts Donahue’s seats?”

  “And that has to do with me how?”

  “Two of the people shot to death tonight were probation officers. Suspended probation officers. With their cons—their clients, whatever you call them. What were the cons doing with crooked P.O.s in stolen cars loaded to the roof with guns?”

  “That kind of question is above my pay grade.” I tried to keep my voice steady. Five or six was a lot to take out at once. And the fact that some of them were cops, sort of, even if they were dirty, was going to make the story that much bigger.

  “For starters, you could tell me how you and Bench McCarthy’s girlfriend”—she pronounced the name properly this time—“happened to be sitting in the booth in front of the senator’s, a couple of hours before this happens.”

  “How do you know that this woman, this—I know her as Donna, by the way—how do you know that she’s Bench McCarthy’s girlfriend.”

  “The FBI takes surveillance photos of guys like him, as you well know. They got about a million of him and Sally Curto at Castle Island—no sound, but a lot of pictures, and video. They also got some in Somerville of McCarthy with a girl who looks a lot like—what did you say her name was?”

  “Angela.”

  “I thought you said it was Donna.”

  “Donnaangela,” I said. “You know how the Italians do it. Combine the first names of the two grandmothers.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that. Anyway, her name, as if you didn’t know, is Patty. I think that’s how you introduced her, but I was so angry with you at that moment that I’m not sure now, and neither is Sandy. So I’m asking you now, were you at B.B. Bennigan’s this afternoon with Patty Lamonica? Somerville High dropout. FYI, as if you didn’t know, she’s practically been living with Bench for three or four years now.”

  “You don’t say,” I said.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “Liar,” Katy said, not even trying to hide her disdain. “She’s nineteen! You do the math.”

  I ignored that. She only cared about one thing right now—her story.

  “There’s something else here that doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “Do tell,” I said.

  “Enough with the hick affectations too,” she snapped, then lowered her voice to the traditional reporter’s I-know-something-you-don’t-know tone. It was something I’d become very familiar with during the time we were an item.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she said, “but there’s something very strange about that Somerville shooting.”

  I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Well?” I finally said.

  “Just wanted to see if you were still awake,” she said. “The State Police already ran the prints on the gun that was used in Somerville. They found it on the roof of a building at the corner of Broadway and the McGrath/O’Brien Highway. And you’ll never guess whose fingerprints are all over it.”

  “Jimmy Hoffa’s?”

  “Close, actually. Remember Beezo Watson?”

  “No shit! He’s been dead for, what, three years?”

  “Not dead, missing.”

  “Dead,” I corrected her.

  “So how did he shoot those guys tonight?”

  That “fact” left me speechless for a moment. Bench McCarthy was good, even better than I’d thought.

  “What do the cops think?” I asked her.

  “About Beezo? They figure they’ll catch up to him later, if he’s really surfaced. The working thesis is that Bench has somebody in this East Boston gang, and they tipped him.”

  Good. That was a theory I could live with.

  “But how does Beezo fit into this?” I asked. “I thought he and Bench hated each other.”

  She again ignored me. She was working out her own theory, and she just needed somebody to bounce it off, somebody not named Chauncey or Josh, the two most popular male names in the Globe newsroom.

  “What I’m wondering,” she said, “is whether somebody dropped a wire somewhere. See, I remember seeing the probation commissioner in the senator’s seats at Fenway. They’re cousins. And now you have probation officers, dirty ones, in this gang, or crew, or whatever you’d call it. And then I recall, I saw my old friend Jack just this afternoon at Donuts’ favorite bar with Bench McCarthy’s girlfriend. Coincidence?”

  “Two problems with your theory,” I said. “Number one, everybody knows Donuts has his office swept for bugs every week by the State Police. And number two, you just told me Beezo Watson’s prints are all over the gun.”

  “Oh, please. That’s obviously a red herring. The Westies down in New York used to do the same thing. They’d chop off the other guy’s hand, freeze it and save it for a future moment just like this.”

  “They really did that?” I asked her in surprise.

  “Jack, the booze is destroying your brain cells. Don’t you remember, I read that in one of your true-crime books,” she said. “Remember how you told me I should read some and I might learn something?”

  “Since when did you ever do what I told you to do?”

  Katy is so good-looking that sometimes, usually to my detriment, I forget how smart she is.

  “But how do you put a wire into his office?” I continued, trying to deflect attention away from B.B. Bennigan’s. “Someone told me he had motion detectors put in.”

  “Maybe they dropped a wire somewhere else.” She paused for a second. I probably should have said something, but I couldn’t think of any witty repartee.

  “You still haven’t told me,” she said, “how it is that this afternoon you happen to be in the same bar Donuts frequents and you’re with Bench’s jailbait, Patty Lamonica or Donnaangela or whatever you’re claiming her name is. And don’t tell me you had to find a new gin mill because they were painting Foley’s. Could be it was you who put in the wire. It wouldn’t be the first time you planted a bug.”

  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” I said. “Massachusetts is a two-party state.” Meaning everyone has to know they’re being recorded or it’s against the law. “So you see, it couldn’t be me who did it, if anybody did that, because I would never do anything that wasn’t strictly legal.”

  She laughed out loud at that.

  “You’re good at wires,” she said. “I can testify to that.”

  “Katy,” I said, “you know how much I hate that word ‘testify.’”

  “Do you prefer the word ‘attest’? Because I can ‘attest’ to your prowess. With wires, I mean. But the more I consider it, if you’re sitting there with a hot babe, maybe you were the decoy, so to speak, while someone else dropped the bug in.”

  “Is that another one of your theories?”

  “Could be. Were you the decoy?”

  “If I was, then who planted the bug, again assuming there was such a thing?”

  “That’s the sixty-four-
thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” she said. “But I’m reading the jacket on McCarthy, and it says he’s a master electrician. Took all the courses when he was doing that eighteen months for contempt at Lewisburg. Says he’s even got a license from the Board of Registration. Bet he works fast too.”

  “He worked fast tonight, if you can believe the news stories.”

  “Oh, you don’t believe them?”

  “I’m one of those innocent-until-proven-guilty sticklers. You may remember, Katy, I had my own photo finish with a grand jury. Turned out to be much ado about nothing.”

  “Turned out, the feds couldn’t prove it, is what you mean.”

  “Like I said, there was nothing to it.”

  “I think either you or McCarthy put a bug in B.B. Bennigan’s, and because of it, five people are dead, maybe six.”

  “And how many would be dead if they’d shot up the Alibi and Bench’s garage in Roxbury?”

  “You don’t get to decide who lives or dies. That’s not your call. Or Bench McCarthy’s.”

  “No, it’s not, but it’s not the decision of some crooked hacks and illegal aliens either, is it?” I paused. “You know what you should do? You should call the majority leader right now and ask him if he and the commissioner sat in that booth today and discussed sending over a couple of cars full of gunners to Somerville and Roxbury to take out Bench McCarthy and his gang. That’d give you all the confirmation you need to run your story.”

  “How’d you like it if I put in my story that you and Bench McCarthy’s teenage girlfriend were seen in Senator Denis Donahue’s favorite watering hole on Tremont Street two hours before the carnage started?”

  “That’s not even a good bluff,” I said. “So what if you saw me with somebody, how does that connect the senator, or me for that matter, to the shootings?”

  “I saw the probation commissioner in Donuts’ box seats at Fenway Park, and two suspended P.O.s were killed tonight.”

  “And who else was sitting with the commissioner in those seats? The future Pulitzer Prize winner, Ted McGee. You want to drag him into this too? And then there’s the fact that I’m sure some people saw you with me at Fenway that same night. So using your guilt-by-association standards, you must be mixed up in this too, if I am.”