Killers

by Howie Carr

  He stared straight ahead and nodded without saying a word. He didn’t like being spoken to this way.

  “I mean it,” I said.

  38

  IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

  I was lucky I had this casino piece of business because otherwise, I was rolling nothing but snake eyes. Sure, I was getting business from my regular customers, the long-time incumbents, the real hacks. A lot of them had primary opponents, but I’d noticed a disquieting trend. The people trying to take them out tended to be older, over sixty, sometimes closer to seventy. Historically, the kind of people who usually ran for the legislature against incumbent reps were younger. They were small businessmen, third-rate lawyers, town hacks, mamas’ boys living at home, empty-nest housewives.

  But those were the people pulling up stakes in Massachusetts and fleeing. When you get your future hacks calling it quits and heading south to Florida or Tennessee, one of those no-income-tax states, you know you’ve got a long-term problem, and the problem is you just can’t make a living here anymore, period, unless you work for the government.

  These political hacks I work for, they’ve really wrecked the state.

  Which is a long way of saying I needed more jobs, and beggars can’t be choosers.

  Still, I had a bad feeling about this guy I was meeting. Not so much bad as despondent. I couldn’t imagine he was a paying customer. I’d been referred to him by another of my former clients, a state rep from Norfolk County, which meant he used to live in Boston. He told me a guy he knew was getting a divorce, and needed some sneaky stuff done.

  I met the guy in my office at J.J. Foley’s and bought him a beer. Then I started in on my usual spiel about no-fault divorce, about how a guy is always screwed one way or the other. How if she catches you with a gal pal, you owe her a million bucks. And if you catch her with a boy toy, you owe her a million bucks.

  Then I asked him if he knew why divorces were so expensive. He didn’t.

  “Because they’re worth it,” I said.

  He was better dressed than I’d expected. Sometimes, when guys are out of the house, they start to get sloppy. Collars fray, pants don’t get pressed. The clothes don’t fit as well. They put on weight, or lose it. Depends on how much they drink, which depends on how many nights they’re out hitting on nineteen-year-olds, which depends on how much money the lawyers and the ex have or haven’t sucked out of them yet.

  This guy’s name was Kevin.

  “I want to get the bitch,” he said, and I tried to remind him that if she catches you with—but he waved me off.

  “I wanna take her off the board,” he said.

  “I don’t do hits,” I said. “And if you want a little free advice, don’t even talk to anybody else about shit like that.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t mean ‘hit’ like that. I just want her to lose the kids. I could give a shit less about her. I just want my kids.”

  I nodded. Guys never get the kids. Co-custody is as big a farce as no-fault. He had obviously figured that out.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” he said. “I want you to plant cocaine in her car, and then call the cops.”

  “No way,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.

  “I’ll pay you a grand. For ten minutes’ work. I’ll even supply the coke.” He was reaching into his coat pocket before I shook my head and he stopped.

  “Why don’t you save yourself a grand and plant it yourself?” I asked him.

  “What if I get caught?”

  “You know, that was exactly the same question I was asking myself.”

  “I heard you were good.”

  “The key to being good is not doing stupid stuff, and this is as dumb as it gets.”

  “I don’t get it, I offer you good money for an easy job, and you’re not interested.”

  I sighed and looked him in the eye for a few seconds before I spoke again. “Let’s say she gets busted, and she’s all hysterical, and she calls you to bail her out, and one thing leads to another, and there’s this great big reconciliation between the two of you, and don’t tell me it can’t happen. So eventually there’s some, what did they used to call it, pillow talk, and you tell her what you did, that you had the coke planted on her.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t you? I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. So let’s just operate on the assumption that you would eventually tell her what you’d done, and when you do, she says I can’t believe you would hire somebody to do something like that to me, the mother of your children. And you tell her, you know, honey, you’re right, I was way out of line doing this, and I’m going to get you out of this jam you’re in, this coke-possession charge. And how do you suppose you’d do that, get her out of it, I mean?”

  “Turn you in?”

  “Bingo.” I didn’t even mention the fact that he probably wanted me to plant the shit in some mall parking lot somewhere, one of those places that are totally covered by surveillance cameras now.

  “You won’t do it?” he asked.

  “I won’t do it,” I said.

  “Do you know anybody who will?” he asked.

  “Find yourself somebody who won’t think it through, or can’t.” I paused. “I’d suggest maybe a junkie.”

  “A junkie?” he said. “You want me to give a bag of cocaine to a junkie?”

  “You begin to see the problem with your plan now?” I said. “If I were you, I’d try to make up with her. Like I said, it’s a lot cheaper.”

  I stood up and walked back to my car. Inside, I dialed Bench McCarthy’s number.

  “I’m going back to that place this afternoon,” I said. “Any interest?”

  “Can’t make it,” he said. “Call me if you hear anything. Gotta run.”

  “Want me to pick up your stuff if I can?” I asked.

  “Don’t take any chances,” Bench said. “I think we can surmise who has the other one there.”

  “Good point, I think you should just take a write-off.”

  “I think I will,” he said.

  39

  THE LOCAL CONSTABULARY

  I couldn’t talk to him, I was in the Alibi, and it was full of cops from Somerville and Boston. I’d gotten tired of lying on top of the bed in Medford, listening to the same stories over and over on the all-news radio station. I knew I had to talk to the cops eventually, so I just drove back to Somerville and waited for some apprentice rat in the neighborhood to drop a dime to 911. I always talk to the cops, at least the Somerville cops. I’m a local boy made good. Or is it bad?

  The cops didn’t want to be here, unless it was lunch hour and they were drinking free booze, or heading down into the basement for an on-the-arm shopping spree. But they had to be here—they had their own shooting to “investigate,” plus it was police protocol to accompany their fellow flatfeet from Boston. I personally didn’t think I’d gone overboard last night, and neither did the cops, when you got right down to it. Those guys had been trying to kill me. No civilians got taken out. It was all very clean, both here and in Roxbury. But they had a warrant.

  I was standing near the Alibi’s front door, my arms crossed. A couple of the plainclothes Boston detectives were questioning me, and the uniform Somerville guys were prowling around in the back, and down in the cellar, in case I’d left any of the murder weapons in plain view.

  “So you weren’t here last night?” one of the Boston plainclothes cops asked me. His name was Evans. He had a bad comb-over and his clothes were threadbare and cheap, even by cop standards.

  “For the third, maybe fourth time, no, I wasn’t. I didn’t feel so hot, so I went home early.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Last night, I think I spent the night on Sparhawk Street,” I lied. “In Brighton.”

  “Boston?”

  “Last time I checked it was. I send the property tax check to City Hall, if that’s what you mean. Always check the box to give an ex
tra dollar to the mayor’s college scholarship fund too. He’s a helluva guy, Mumbles. Sorry he’s leaving. And I like to help the youth of America, even if they’re not from America anymore, most of them.”

  “What are you, a wise guy?” Evans said.

  “I never thought so, but the papers say different.”

  One of the Somerville guys, Captain McKenna, stepped between me and the Boston guy, Evans.

  “C’mon, Evans, you got nothing on this guy and you know it.”

  Evans shot him a withering glare. “I don’t need you to tell me anything.”

  “We’re just here to assist,” McKenna said calmly.

  “Thanks for the ‘assistance,’” Evans said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Five people killed last night, in front of this guy’s hangouts.”

  “Businesses,” I corrected. “I’m a businessman.”

  “Nice business you got here,” said Evans. “Same business as those dead guys. Between Somerville and Boston, we found two revolvers, three machine guns and four sawed-off shotguns and approximately two hundred rounds of ammunition in the two cars. What do you suppose they needed that much firepower for?”

  “You’d have to ask them,” I said, and Evans stared right back at me.

  “You wiseguys think you’re so tough,” he said. “But the other guy never gets a chance to fire back at you, do they? You kill ’em in cold blood, as far as I can see.”

  I looked over at McKenna, to see if he wanted to correct the record, but he just lowered his eyes and stared at the floor.

  “Captain Evans,” I said, “I got shot at just the other night, right outside this door here.”

  “So I heard,” he said. “And a few days earlier you killed the two guys who were firing at you further up on Broadway.”

  I looked at him carefully. He wasn’t as dumb as I’d thought he was. He was trying to get me all hot and bothered enough to admit to shooting the guys at the top of the hill. A real long shot, but he got points for trying.

  “I don’t know what happened there in Ball Square, only what I saw on TV.”

  “I’ll bet,” he said.

  I made a mental note to myself to make myself some more friends on the BPD. You know what I mean by friends. In Roxbury, I had a few uniforms from B-2 on the pad, but that was more for on-street parking outside the garage—keeping the meter maids at bay—as well as the occasional “tip” to the building inspectors from City Hall. But a few envelopes at Christmas don’t even begin to cover handling a drive-by machine-gun shooting.

  “Where’d you say you spent the night again last night?” Evans asked.

  “Sparhawk Street, Brighton,” I repeated, yet again.

  “Anybody with you?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  Evans glanced over at McKenna, who spoke up. “Answer the question, Bench.”

  “My girlfriend, Patty.”

  The Boston cop looked over at McKenna. “You know her?”

  “If he says she was there, she was there.”

  “You mean, she’ll say she was there.” Evans really didn’t like me. This was not an act. “How old is she?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Nineteen,” he repeated, “and you’re what, forty-five?”

  “Forty-four, thanks for asking.”

  “How’d you meet her?” he asked.

  “Babysitting,” I said.

  40

  … NEVER NOD WHEN YOU CAN WINK

  I really didn’t hold out a lot of hope that I was going to get anything more out of the bug at B.B. Bennigan’s. For all I knew, either management or the feds had already found it, and yanked it out. It was about 3:30 when I parked in the alley around back from the barroom. I thought about going in and checking it, but the bartender might recognize me. Didn’t seem worth the risk. Who knew who was in there now? Somebody might be waiting for me.

  I halfheartedly turned on the receiver, and much to my surprise I picked up the sound of muffled voices, from nearby booths. I’d gotten lucky. I had batteries enough too, so I settled in for a wait until—knock on wood—the senator and, if I was really lucky, the commissioner arrived. A meter maid came by a half hour or so later, but she lost interest in her quota from City Hall after I gave her forty bucks. It was cheaper than a ticket, and I could put it on my cheat sheet.

  Around 4:30, I heard a voice clearly ordering drinks. VO and water. It was the senator. He ordered two, which meant the commissioner was on the way. He arrived about five minutes later.

  “I got the letter today,” the commissioner said.

  “The letter?”

  “The target letter.” He sounded exasperated. “From the grand jury.”

  “I thought they’d told you you were okay,” said Donuts.

  “I thought they did too. You can’t trust these motherfuckers.”

  They continued on in that maudlin vein for a couple of minutes, the commissioner bemoaning his fate, the senator futilely trying to change the subject. He wasn’t getting indicted, so why should he care about anybody else? I could have told him, he was playing with fire now. The commissioner would soon be needing someone to trade up, and the next Senate president would make a nice catch for the G-men, much more impressive than a crooked commissioner appointed by a lame duck governor. The more I listened to Donuts, the dumber I realized he was. Whoever he was working for, Donuts was so eager to please them that he wasn’t thinking straight, which involves looking out for number one.

  “Listen,” Donuts said, “my people still want some results.”

  “Christ, Denis, I gotta handle this other thing? I gotta get a lawyer, a real lawyer.”

  “You need money for a lawyer, and the best way to get money is to fucking finish the job.”

  “Finish the job? You wanted some bodies; well, you got some bodies now. Them guys aren’t as over the hill as we thought they were. Two of them that got killed were my guys.”

  “Two fewer witnesses against you. Look on the bright side.”

  “Easy for you to say.” He paused. “I got another problem too. That guy, the one that’s been feeding us the info on Sally, he says we still owe him. And you know what his end is: we have to take out either Sally or the other guy.”

  Name, please, I need a name. But there was silence. I would have bet that the commissioner was doing the math in his head—how many years would he have to do if he reeled in Mr. President? Could a suspended sentence still be in the cards? House arrest?

  “That’s one guy I guess we can’t afford to cross,” Donuts said. “You said on the phone that he’d come up with a plan.”

  “I don’t like talking here, I don’t trust this place after what happened. Let’s go outside.”

  Oh, let’s not and say we did.

  “What if they got a wire in here?” the commissioner asked.

  “Are you fuckin’ soft? You got a target letter today. I oughta be worrying about you.”

  Crooks starting to turn on one another. Who could have ever predicted this?

  Donuts said, “Do you have a plan, or do I have to find somebody else?”

  I could hear the commissioner chuckle, but not happily. “Good luck with that,” he said. “And thanks for your sympathy. But anyway, yeah, I do have a plan.” He paused for a second. I was on the edge of my seat. So was the senator, I presumed. “I had to get some real shooters this time. Cost me a bundle too.”

  “Put it on my tab.”

  “Damn right I will. Anyway, you know Sally’s got a son, the kid’s about half a retard, to keep him busy his father bought him a gas station down on Cambridge Street, back side of the hill, about two blocks from MGH. You know the place?”

  “Wrong side of the hill,” the senator said, archly.

  “Whatever, the kid parks every day in the alley behind the place, leaves around five, I don’t know where he goes, it ain’t important, because he ain’t going anywhere tonight. These guys I brought in, they ice-picked one of his tires, they’re watching, waiting for him to
come out. When he’s on his back jacking up the tire, they shoot him.”

  “We need the old man, not his nitwit kid. Besides, it’s a gas station, he’ll have one of his guys change the tires.”

  “Listen to me—all we need is ten seconds. We don’t kill him, we just wound him, grab him, hold him down and shoot him in the kneecaps, that’s what I told them to do. It’s two blocks from Mass General, that’s where they’ll take him. They’ll call the old man, and he’ll come running. You know the circular drive there, that’s the emergency entrance. When Sally jumps out of the car, we’re waiting for him.”

  “At Mass General? You’re gonna plug Sally Curto right there at the hospital?”

  “Is there a better place? You wanted headlines, this’ll get you some headlines. Ted McGee can go crazy in the paper. Crime out of control, brazen gangsters, one of the greatest hospitals in the world—”

  “How you gonna know when Sally gets to MGH?”

  “Leave that to me, okay?”

  I listened a couple more minutes, but they had downshifted into innocuous conversation, innocuous to me anyway. I’m sure the commissioner was worried about his target letter, but he’d have to find himself a quarter and call somebody who cared.

  I had to find Bench McCarthy real fast.

  41

  JASON TAKES ONE FOR THE TEAM

  I got to the garage in Roxbury around five. As I’d anticipated, the District 2 uniforms assigned to the “crime scene” weren’t giving us nearly as much attitude as the plainclothesmen from headquarters. The uniforms had been around with the local detectives in the morning before I arrived, and now Rocco was going to have to refill the beer machine.

  “Boy, boss, them guys sure know how to drink,” he said.

  “As long as they pay,” I said. That was my own little joke, cops paying.

  “One of ’em wanted to know when you was gonna put ’Gansett back in there.”

  I laughed. “Must have been an old-timer. A detective, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Who else remembers ’Gansett? I heard that’s what Wimpy used to stock the cooler with when he owned this place.”