High Stakes

by John F. Dobbyn

  “But won’t they come after us again?”

  “I’m sure they will. But I have to end this for both of us. When I turn the real one over, it has to be on my terms, not theirs.”

  I’m sure that left more questions than I had answers at the moment.

  * * *

  I knew the lead time we had could vanish in an instant depending on how many Russians they had on our trail and where they were staked out. By then, the man on the mountain would have alerted their agents in Sinaia.

  We did the eighty miles to Bucharest in about fifty minutes. We skirted the city limits before dropping down to something approaching the speed limit. The choice from there was between the airports of Belgrade, Serbia, and Sofia, Bulgaria. It was a coin-toss. I chose Sofia for no reason other than wishful intuition.

  We headed south. Terry gave in to exhaustion and slept against my shoulder during the five-hour drive. I drove into the center of Sofia and located the shipment office connected with FedEx. I watched while the agent boxed the violin case with the real Stradivarius as physically secure as possible. It was like a thousand-pound weight off of our shoulders when we left the object in their hands. I left the office almost smiling at the irony. My initial suggestion to Mr. Liu was to ship the violin by public carrier.

  I had two points of vulnerability to the Russians. The violin was one—and it was now beyond my control. The other—the most important—was Terry. I explained everything that had happened from the time I left her at the hotel pool in Sinaia to our reunion in that gondola. Like it or not, and in spite of my promise the day we married to avoid any more life-threatening situations in my practice, I was back into another fine mess, and Terry was totally engulfed with me.

  Rather than agonize over how we got there, I focused on how to cut all ties with the people who continued to threaten our lives. It had to end, or we’d be running for the rest of our lives, with practically no idea of whom we were trying to escape. Hiding was not a solution.

  I convinced Terry that since I’d been in positions like this before, I had some notion of how to climb out of it. It could best be done if I knew she was out of harm’s way.

  After a quick supper in the Sofia Airport, I saw Terry off on a flight to JFK in New York, with a connecting flight to Manchester, New Hampshire. Once she arrived, the plan was for her to rent a car and drive to the tiny town of Milton. A cottage beside the Tri-Echo Lake had been owned by my parents for many years. I had used it for those times when seclusion and peace were the only antidotes to the pressures of criminal trial practice.

  I caught the next plane for Atlanta with a connection to Providence, Rhode Island. There was a chance that the Russian mob had stake-outs around Logan Airport in Boston.

  Before taking off, I dialed the phone number of the one who put this chain of calamities in motion, Mr. Liu. The surprise showed in his voice.

  “Michael. You’re early. I didn’t expect you till Friday. Is everything alright with the … object?”

  “There are several ways I could answer that, Mr. Liu. You and I are going to talk face-to-face. I believe you left a few details out of our last conversation.”

  “What do you mean? Is it alright? Do you have it?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  His voice lowered. His tone took on a sharpness he’d never exposed before. “What does that mean? This is more important than you realize.”

  “So it would seem. I got that impression from your Russian competition.”

  Silence for several seconds. “Did they get their hands on the object?”

  “Not quite. They did however get their hands on my wife and me. I believe you forgot to mention that possibility.”

  “Where are you now, Michael? Where is the object?”

  “The damned thing is a violin. Could you at least be honest enough to call it that? And I have no intention of telling you where I am over the phone. My wife and I are, however, both alive. I’m sure you were about to ask.”

  “Of course. When can I see you, and when can you—”

  “One question at a time. I’ll meet you at nine thirty tomorrow night.”

  “Fine. Shall we meet upstairs in the China Pearl Restaurant?”

  “Not this time. I need someplace more neutral and more public. At nine thirty, I’ll be in Public Garden on the bench by the dock for the swan boats. I suggest you come alone.”

  “Will you have the …”

  “Violin. It’s a Stradivarius violin. If you’d been tiptoeing around it like this last week, I’d at least have been forewarned.”

  “Will you bring the … violin?”

  “Let’s talk. Perhaps then I can decide whose side I’m on.”

  I could hear his voice start to reach a higher pitch just before I hung up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I DROVE A rented car from the airport in Providence, Rhode Island, to a parking lot a few blocks from my office at 77 Franklin Street in Boston. On the elevator to the seventh floor, I could feel the juices of self-confidence welling up more strongly with each passing floor. Just being on home turf made life seem more in control—whether it was or not.

  I made an immediate right turn off the elevator for the corner office. For nearly four years now, it had been the proudest point of my existence to be the junior partner of a man who stood like Gulliver, towering above the many Lilliputians who did battle with him in the courts of Suffolk County. Lex Devlin is a sheltering oak for the defendants he chooses to represent; he is the formidable lion of the defense bar to prosecutors who face him in court; and he is my senior and only partner in the firm of Devlin and Knight—and more to the point, he is the man for whom I would unflinchingly walk off a cliff.

  Mr. D. was due to leave for court, but when he looked up and saw me, I saw the light of a father’s eyes for his returning son. His court date would suffer a delay for our reunion, but there would probably be no repercussions. Judges of both federal and state courts granted him such small concessions for a long and highly honorable career of service to the bar.

  “Michael. You’re home early. I didn’t expect you till Monday. Is everything alright?”

  I gave a sincere smile and an equivocal nod. I took my accustomed seat to the left of his desk, while he had his secretary notify Judge Janet Levy that he was unavoidably detained.

  In terms as short as I could make them, without underplaying their seriousness, I filled in the significant steps that had turned a second honeymoon into a disaster on greased wheels.

  The creases in his forehead grew deeper with each incident I related. “What can we do about this, Michael? Whatever you need.”

  I loved the “we.” No matter how dangerous the situation, he was instantly fully into it on my side.

  “Thank you, Mr. Devlin. Right now, it feels like Terry and I are caught between Scylla and Charybdis.”

  “The Russian mafia and the Chinese mob. Damn. How can I help?”

  “Somehow I have to get us out of the cross fire. Then there’s that violin. I wish I could just toss it up between them like a jump ball.”

  “How do we bring it off?”

  “I have a way to get a line on the cast of characters on the Chinese side. I’ll work on that this morning. But I need to get a handle on the key players on the Russian side.”

  “I see where you’re going. Let me see if I can set something up. Lunch today?”

  “Perfect. The sooner, the better.”

  He grabbed the phone and punched in numbers that bypassed the office staff and went directly to the deputy district attorney, Billy Coyne. Mr. Coyne and Mr. Devlin were like two well-matched gladiators. The innumerable times over many years they had been paired in combat as prosecutor and defense counsel had bred a deep mutual respect and, though they’d never concede it, an abiding affection.

  “Lex. Aren’t you due in court? One of my young assistants was in my office this morning griping about having to face the lion without a whip and a chair. He wanted advice.�
�

  “And you told him what?”

  “Just play it straight. I told him that if he tries bluffing or bull crap, he’ll find himself up against the master of both. That was a compliment, Lex.”

  “And a fine one, coming from a man who must have kissed the Blarney stone twice. Billy, even more than your wit and wisdom, I need some information.”

  “And I take it it’s for your ears only.”

  “And Michael’s. Can you meet us at the Marliave for lunch?”

  “Noon?”

  “Can we say one o’clock? I’m stretching Judge Levy’s calendar as it is.”

  “Done. And, Lex …”

  “What?”

  “Go easy on my young assistant. Leave him some self-respect.”

  “He shall leave the courtroom with his feathers unruffled. I may even let him score a few harmless points for your sake.”

  * * *

  My next check-in on the way down the hall to my office was my faithful, occasionally long-suffering secretary, Julie Benson. In her case, “secretary” covers everything from my irreplaceable right arm to my doting, twenty-four-year-old “mother” figure. On occasion, when I have time to think about it, I dread the day when some Prince Valiant will finally come to his senses and marry her out of my professional life.

  “Michael, why are you back early? Are you alright?”

  “Never better, Julie.”

  “Good. Then here’s the list of the calls you owe. I ranked them in order of the amount of heat coming through the phone. That top one could warm a ski lodge. The rest are semi-rational, for lawyers. Shall I start calling from the top down?”

  “Not yet. Give me about half an hour.”

  I could see her smile fade away. “Don’t worry, Julie. In half an hour I’ll take the heat.”

  I was walking toward my office, but suddenly a thought stopped me cold. “Julie, that one at the top of the list. Did he have an accent?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Russian?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It didn’t make sense. Michael, some of your clients are stranger than the lawyers.”

  “This one’s not a client. Did he leave a message?”

  “Oh yes. He said you must call him at the number I wrote there. It wasn’t a question. He didn’t say it, but I got the strong implication of ‘or else.’ Michael, why do you deal with these people?”

  I wanted to say, “Damn little choice”; but instead, “You have to play the cards you’re dealt, right?”

  “That’s gibberish. Do you actually know that man?”

  I wasn’t sure. The current supply of Russian gangsters seemed inexhaustible. “If he calls back, put him through right away, even if I’m on the phone.”

  I needed the half hour to make a call to a resource I’ve tapped more times than I could count and never come up empty. Harry Wong and I go back to a house wrestling team as sophomores at Harvard College. After college, while I went the law school route, Harry rose from student, through an alphabet of degrees, to resident genius at MIT down the Charles River. The first criminal defense case I had under the guiding hand of Lex Devlin put me back in touch with Harry for information and personal life-risking that put us both in the inner sanctum of the Boston Chinese tong.

  I got him on his cell phone.

  “My dear friend Harry.”

  “My dear friend Michael. Why is it every time we greet each other that way I wind up risking my skinny neck to save some unworthy client of yours? Please tell me this is just social.”

  “Social it is. And just to prove it, I’m inviting you for dinner. My treat. How about James Hook on Atlantic Ave.? We haven’t been there in a while. Six o’clock?”

  “Why not? And this is purely two old friends for a good lobster dinner. Nothing more terrifying, right?”

  “Harry, my friend, what would life be without surprises?”

  “Michael, this sounds like—”

  “Gotta go, Harry. Six o’clock.” Click.

  The phone hardly hit the cradle when I got an intercom buzz from Julie.

  “It’s him, Michael. The Russian accent. He’s creepier than ever. How about if I tell him you’re out of town. No idea when you’re expected?”

  “Put him through, Julie. You can’t outrun the devil.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means put him through. I can handle it. And hang up. No listening in.”

  “Michael, when have I ever—”

  “Every time you think I need protection. Put him on.”

  There was a pause. I heard a click for the connection and waited for the click that meant Julie was not on the line to hear something that would enflame her motherly instinct.

  “Hello. This is Michael Knight.”

  I expected a growling, bombastic Russian voice threatening me, my family, my dog, and everyone I’d met since kindergarten. I was braced for it.

  “Mr. Knight. So nice to reach you in person. I trust you had a pleasant return from my country.”

  The voice was shockingly cordial. It caught me off guard. I did put together the heavy accent with the reference to Romania as “his country.” I remembered hearing while I was there that the breakup of the Soviet Union left a large block of the old Russian guard still in permanent residence.

  “Thank you. You could say the trip had its interesting points.” I was thinking of the old Chinese curse: “May you have an interesting life.” His quiet laugh indicated that he got the point.

  “I’m sorry for any unpleasantness. I hope we can put all of that in the past? You and I have a great deal in common. Shall we concentrate on that? We can bestow on each other more benefits than you realize.”

  One more reassessment. This was not a garden-variety Russian thug. Thug, perhaps, but with composure and some refinement, at least on the surface.

  “You could begin by telling me your name.”

  This time the laugh was heartier. “Of course. You may call me ‘George.’ That will do for now. Michael and George. That’s the beginning of a working relationship.”

  “And, George, what exactly will this relationship be working on?”

  “Ah, directly to the point. I like that. I would think you could guess. There is an object, a musical object. It’s in your possession. The point of our relationship would be to transfer it to our possession, my possession.”

  “In exchange for?”

  “Still to the point. Good. Let your heart dream. You may name your price, Michael, within reason. I’ll be straightforward. I have a very serious need to acquire this object. The price you name may be concomitant with that need.”

  My mind was bouncing between thoughts like a pinball machine. For one, I’d given my word to turn this thing that nobody wanted to call “a violin” over to Mr. Liu. On the other hand, I decided that his duplicity in not mentioning “complications” with the Russian mob had nullified that bond. A second factor that favored giving it to the Russians was my personal ultimate goal of a “normal” life for Terry and me—i.e., no Russian assassin around every corner. On the third hand, if I turned this albatross over to the Russians, Terry and I might incur the fire-breathing dragon of the Chinese mob. No easy out. I needed time.

  “Perhaps you and I should meet, George. Some things are discussed better across a table.”

  “I could not agree more. When?”

  I thought of my list of meetings with Billy Coyne at one, Harry Wong at six, and Mr. Liu at nine thirty. Perhaps the information I’d get from that trio would give me an idea of how to deal with George.

  “How about tomorrow morning?”

  There was a pause. “I’d hoped you’d realize that there is some urgency here. Perhaps this afternoon. No later.”

  “Not possible. Tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock.”

  Another pause. “And where did you have in mind?”

  My mind was racing. Someplace public, someplace w
here a threat could not be carried out with an easy avenue of escape.

  “I’ll be at the Skywalk on top of the Prudential Building tomorrow morning at eleven. I’ll be alone. And you?”

  “Of course. I hope you’ll keep an open mind, Michael.”

  My mind ran back to the scene with Terry at the top of Sinaia Mountain. My thought was, “Open, yes. Unprepared? Never again.”

  I simply said, “Till then.”

  I hung up and dialed the cottage in New Hampshire. Terry caught it on the second ring.

  “Michael, are you alright? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m at the office. How about you?”

  “Good, but worried. They could find you there.”

  “I’ve taken precautions. I’m working on a resolution of this thing. I’ll keep in touch. Meanwhile, you’ll have to settle in there. I’ll let you know as soon as we can both go home. Hopefully, it won’t be too long.”

  We talked a bit, but kept it brief. I knew that the Russians must have known I was in my office. I needed mobility, and I still didn’t know if I could trust the chummy tone of George.

  * * *

  I took the elevator down and walked straight out the door. I hit a good pace in the midst of the midday walkers for the few blocks to the Arch Street Shrine of Saint Anthony. It had been my local drop-in refuge from any number of pressures over the years. In that sidewalk crowd, it was impossible to tell if I was being followed. My instincts told me that I was.

  A few legal favors for the Franciscan Friars over the years had led to a close relationship with Friar Mike Griffin. A number of late-night chats over some good Benedictine brandy gave him an insight into my erratic professional life. He showed no surprise when I asked for an unusual favor.

  Five minutes later, in a friar’s robe with the hood up, I walked up the center aisle of the church and out the front door. I passed two men in the back row who practically had “Russian mob enforcer” tattooed on their foreheads. They glanced at the robe, but showed no sign of recognition.

  The walk to the parking lot where I left the car was actually liberating. People I passed in the friar’s robe mostly smiled or nodded. I almost regretted taking off the robe when I reached the car.