“I already got nothing but trouble,” I said. “People are trying to kill me, and they all had guns.”
“Who’s trying to kill you?” Jackie asked.
“I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, but they’re bent on taking me out.” I grabbed the remote and clicked the mute button. “I need a gun for protection, Jackie.”
“Forget about guns.” His eyes darted. “Leave town for a while, go away somewhere. Whatever it is will blow over.”
“Blow over?” I said.
Jackie’s body stiffened. He became cautious, looking at his watch, rubbing his forehead. No eye contact, no Townie warmth. He wanted me out of there, but why? What was going on? I studied him, the set of his jaw, the fear in his eyes, and it came to me. Jackie knew who was after me. I grabbed the remote and clicked off the game.
“A man called me the other day,” I said. “He was a Boston guy, could have been a Townie. I think he was worried about me, because he gave me a warning. He said there was a hit on me.”
Jackie stared out the window.
I continued, “He must have been a friend, because only a friend would warn me of danger.”
“You have lots of friends,” he mumbled.
“This particular friend was plugged in. He knew things that no one else would know. He knew there was a hit on me. Tell me, Jackie, how many people would know there was a hit on me?”
“How should I know?” he said without conviction. “Maybe it was a joke. Maybe the guy was having a little fun at your expense.”
“The next day a man took a shot at me in Holyhood Cemetery. In the middle of the day he fired a gun at me. No, Jackie, it was no joke.”
“Maybe someone from the projects called you,” he said. “You know everybody in the projects. Some of those guys know things.”
“This guy had inside information.” I tried to make eye contact, but Jackie averted my gaze. “I appreciated what he did, by the way. Because the way I see it, he was looking out for me.”
“Then he was a good guy.”
“And then I got a second call.”
“A second call?” Jackie turned and looked at me. “You got a second call?”
“I got two calls, Jackie. The second one came from an Irishman with a heavy brogue. He called to cancel a hit on me.”
“You’re making no sense.” Jackie said, his poker face now gone. “Why would he call you to cancel a hit on you?”
“He didn’t call me intentionally. He called a guy named Mac. Mac shot me at my uncle’s garage. I was wearing a Kevlar vest.”
“Thank God for that.” He sounded genuine.
“Mac and I fought, his gun went off, and now he’s dead. I bet Mac was the shooter at Holyhood Cemetery, too. If the cops can find a bullet at Holyhood, they’ll compare it to the one they got from Mac’s throat.” I now had Jackie’s full attention. “Mac was dead on the ground when his phone rang. I answered it. The man on the other end, the guy with the brogue I was telling you about, said, ‘The hit is off, Mac. Forget about Sparhawk and come home.’”
“That’s what he said?”
“That’s how I knew the guy’s name was Mac. Here’s another thing. Mac had no identification, just like the shooter at the food pantry.”
“Do the police know his name was Mac?” Jackie asked.
“Only you know and I know.”
“We have to talk, Dermot,” Jackie said. “And this talk we’re about to have never took place.”
I nodded.
“You have to let go of this thing. The men you’re up against will stop at nothing.”
“I’m going after them,” I said.
“You don’t want to do that.”
“I need a gun, Jackie.”
“A gun won’t do you any good, because you’re going up against an army, the Irish Republican Army. And they won’t stop ’til they kill you.”
“The Irish Republican Army?” I could hear my voice stammering. “What did I do to them?”
Jackie sighed and grunted. He looked up to the ceiling and shook his elephantine head. He lowered his eyes, looked out the window, and said, “A few years ago an Irishman went to your office, a little guy with a birthmark on his face. He asked you about some museum paintings.”
“I remember him.” I could still picture the runt’s face. “He was a pushy little bastard. I didn’t like him.”
“Well that pushy bastard, as you just called him, is Liam McGrew, a high-ranking IRA soldier. The only reason he didn’t whack you back then was another big shot called him off.” Jackie leaned forward. “The kid you killed at the food pantry was Liam’s grandson Alroy McGrew.”
“Shit.”
“You said it.” Jackie picked up the remote, looked at it, and put it back down. “Liam is dying back there in Belfast and he wants you dead.”
It didn’t seem possible. “Liam ordered his grandson to kill me because I tossed him out of my office?”
“It wasn’t Liam’s idea to have Alroy take a run at you.” Jackie drained his beer. “Alroy overheard Liam ranting about how he wanted to get even with you. The kid decided to do the job himself, probably to impress his grandfather.”
“This is crazy.”
“I need another beer.” Jackie left the room and came back with a frosty.
“What about this guy Mac?” I asked.
“Mac was another IRA soldier.” He reclined on the Lazy-Z-Boy and took a swig. “Two IRA guys are dead because of you.”
“What did I get myself into?” I looked at Jackie’s beer can, ice cold, freshly cracked open. “What about the guy on the Northern Avenue Bridge? Was he IRA, too.”
“What guy on the bridge?” He brought the recliner forward. “Who are you talking about?”
I told Jackie what happened on the bridge. I told him about the man who saved my life, though I didn’t mention Rat T. Kennedy by name. I didn’t tell him about Kenny Bowen, either.
Jackie asked, “Who was the guy that saved you? What was his name?”
“Never mind about him.” I leaned forward and opened my palms. “Now do you see why I need a gun?”
He reclined again and let out a belch.
“Leave town, Dermot. Liam McGrew is a very sick man, practically dead. He’ll be history in a few months.”
“A few months is a long time when someone is trying to kill you,” I said. “Will you give me a gun or not?”
Jackie looked at the black flat-screen. “I’m sorry, Dermot, no gun.”
Something didn’t make sense. “Why did you tell me about Liam McGrew?”
Jackie stared out the window and didn’t answer.
“Come on, Jackie, why did you tell me about Liam?”
“It has to do with Mac,” Jackie said. “I sold a gun to Mac, but I didn’t know he was buying it to kill you. If I knew that, I wouldn’t have sold it to him, and that’s the truth. There are levels of loyalty and sometimes the lines get blurred, but I would never set up a Townie to get killed, not unless he deserved it, and you don’t deserve it. No more questions, Dermot. I can’t say anything else.”
I listened to Jackie, but my mind was elsewhere. It was sorting the information on Liam McGrew. A sketchy picture of the money-fair heist formed in my head, and minutes later the picture became clear. I knew what was going on, not all of it, but enough to get to the bottom of this mess. All I had to do now was triangulate and decipher. Simple, like a blind man solving a Rubik’s Cube in the dark.
II.
The next morning I was sitting in Glooscap’s kitchen reading the newspaper when Buck Louis and Harraseeket Kid came in. I had asked them to meet with me to discuss what I’d learned from Jackie Tracy.
“I’d like to bounce an idea off you guys,” I said.
Kid said, “Let’s hear it.”
Buck rolled forw
ard. “I love this stuff.”
I thought about where to start.
“The kid who shot me at the pantry came from Belfast. His name was Alroy McGrew. The gunman at the garage also came from Belfast. His name was Mac. Alroy and Mac are members of the Irish Republican Army.”
Kid asked, “The guy you killed at the garage was IRA?”
I told them the story about Alroy’s grandfather, Liam McGrew. I recounted Liam’s visit to my office a few years ago, and how I threw him out. Buck and Kid remembered Liam. Having established that, I moved ahead.
“Do you remember Halloran?” I asked.
“Sure, Halloran, the rich guy from Weston,” Buck said.
“The smug bastard you straightened out.” Kid added. “Of course we remember him.”
“I believe that Halloran and Liam McGrew conspired to rob the World’s Fair of Money. Big-time crimes call for big-time planning. You need money to bribe people, you need political clout to manipulate things. Halloran has both.”
Kid countered. “But Halloran doesn’t need money. He’d go to jail if he got caught. Why would a billionaire like Halloran take a risk like that?”
“Because it’s not about the money for Halloran,” I said. “It’s about the power, the thrill. Crime gives Halloran a weird sense of fulfillment.”
Kid asked, “Are you saying that Halloran was the brains behind the museum heist twenty years ago and the money-fair heist last week?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” I said. “We know that Halloran had a part in the museum heist. Remember the painting he bought?”
Kid nodded. “The painting turned out to be a forgery.”
I thought back to the museum case.
“The thieves didn’t know they were selling Halloran a forgery,” I said. “They thought the painting was real.”
Buck said, “Nobody would have thought it was a fake. The painting was stolen from a museum.”
Kid asked, “So, why would Halloran hire Liam again? If Liam conned him once, why would he hire him again?”
“Because Halloran now knows that Liam didn’t con him. He now knows what really happened the night of the museum heist. Halloran also knows the thieves didn’t deliberately sell him a forged painting. He knows because I told him.”
Buck rolled back a foot. “Sounds like you’re guessing.”
“It’s a guess based on facts,” I said.
Kid said, “But it’s still a guess.”
It might have been a guess, but all the pieces fit together.
“Alroy McGrew was Liam’s grandson. Alroy had a $5,000 bill from the money fair. Liam is IRA. Two years ago Liam came to my office and asked about the museum heist, not directly, but that’s what he was asking about. Halloran purchased a painting stolen from the museum from Liam McGrew.”
Buck, sounding incredulous, said, “And from that small coincidence you’ve concluded that Halloran and Liam pulled off the money-fair heist, too?”
“Alroy McGrew was in on the money-fair theft. Nobody is disputing that,” I said. “These two robberies were extraordinary, and although they happened twenty years apart, I am convinced that Halloran engineered both of them. And then he hired Liam McGrew to do the dirty work, execute the robberies.”
We remained silent for a time, and in the silence my own scheme formulated.
“Kid, can you attach a snowplow to the wrecker?” I asked.
“It’s the middle of summer,” he said.
“I know, but can you hook one up?”
“Yeah, but why?”
“If we can spook Halloran into the open, if we can scare him into making a run for it with the money, we can nail him.”
“How?” Kid asked, now sounding interested.
“We can block his driveway with the wrecker and plow,” I said.
Kid shook his head. “No, I mean how can we spook him?”
“Leave that to me,” I said. “If we can block him from bolting, that’s all I need.”
Buck rolled back and forth. “It sounds crazy.”
Kid said, “We’ll ram the son of a bitch head-on.”
“We have to act fast. Get the wrecker ready, Kid.” I thought about what else I wanted for the job. “Can we get a camera mounted on the plow?”
Buck said, “You’ll incriminate yourself filming it.”
“Nothing will end up in court.” I assured them. “We’ll use it against Halloran.”
Kid said, “I know a guy in Southie who can mount a camera on anything. He has all kinds of surveillance equipment.”
“Call him,” I said. “Tell him we’ll make it worth his while. I’ll call Kenny Bowen. We’re going to need him for this to work.”
I called Kenny Bowen and said that I wanted to see him. We agreed on a time and a place. I went out to my car and drove to Cambridge.
III.
Kenny told me to meet him at twelve noon in the recesses of Harvard Stadium, where he trained with former Ivy League trackmen in a makeshift gym. I parked on North Harvard Street, facing the Charles River, and entered the ivied grounds through an open gate. Two young women wearing crimson shorts jogged on the track that circled the football field. They chatted as they trotted, showing no signs of fatigue. I walked under the U-shaped stands and heard a thumping noise in the distance. I followed the sound to a metal door that led underneath the concrete stands and went in.
Crouching into a deep squat with a barbell across his shoulders was Kenny Bowen. He exploded up, his legs driving, his back stable, his neck bulled. The bumper plates thumped with ferocity when he hit the top of the movement. He racked the bar and toweled his shorn head. Kenny was so absorbed in the exercise that he didn’t hear me come in. I cleared my throat.
He turned and said, “Ready for a workout?”
“Not today.” I looked at the drab surroundings. “Nice setup you got here. It makes you feel like, ah–”
“Like a man?”
“That fits.” A single light bulb lit the spartan room, adding to its dungeon charm. “The place is perfect.”
“I’ll give you a key,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Who is Rat T. Kennedy?”
He laughed and shook his shining head.
“Rat T. and I met at the Millrose Games when we were in college. He ran the mile for Northeastern.” Kenny threw the towel to the corner. “Is that why you wanted to see me, to ask about Rat T. Kennedy?”
“A miler.” I laughed. “He chased me down in a second.” I picked up a fifty pound dumbbell and curled it with my right arm. “What happened to the body on the bridge? How come there was nothing in the news?”
“The FBI handled the cadaver,” he said. “The FBI is handing all of it. The press, the investigation, forensics, they have it covered.”
“I guess that explains it.” I dropped the dumbbell and picked it up with my left hand and curled it a few times, talking as I pumped. “I need your help.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that.” Kenny’s Cherokee nose reminded me of Glooscap’s honker. “What do you need?”
“I know how to get the money back,” I said. “And I know who’s trying to kill me. I need your help on both.”
“That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear.” He nodded, seemingly pleased. “My offer still stands. You get half the reward money on everything we recoup.”
The reward money sounded good, but staying alive sounded better. I determined that Kenny Bowen would give me the best chance at staying alive, and at that moment I decided to trust him. My gut told me he was okay.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” I said. “And then I’ll tell you what I intend to do about it.”
I went through everything I knew, and then I told Kenny my plan. He seemed impressed with the info, but less impressed with the plan.
“Tell me
your plan again,” Kenny said. “I think I missed something.”
“I am going to Halloran’s house and ask him to give me the sheets of money.”
“That’s it?” Kenny’s head dropped. “That’s your plan?”
“Yup, that’s my plan.”
“What if Halloran says no?” Kenny said, and then waved his hand. “Let me put it another way. When Halloran says no, what is Plan B?”
“If he says no, I’ll take the money away from him.” I crossed my arms, shrugged, and cracked my neck and shoulders. It felt good to lift a few weights. It felt foreign, too. “That’s where you come in.”
“I’m ready,” Kenny said, now sounding eager. “What do I do?”
“Can you get a search warrant for Halloran’s house?” I asked.
“Based on what?”
“Based on a lie,” I said. “If I swear that I saw the sheets of money in Halloran’s house, can you get a search warrant?”
“You’ll be charged with perjury, obstruction, and who knows what else.” The eagerness left Kenny’s face. “You could end up in prison.”
“Do you want to get the money back or not?” I stepped up to him. “Halloran is nothing more than a crook, a wealthy crook, a serious crook, but a crook. He’ll stop at nothing to keep those sheets. He will cheat, bribe, intimidate, whatever it takes.”
“You make him sound like a mobster.”
“He is a like a mobster, a coward too, and I want to take him down,” I said. “Halloran is connected to the top. That’s why I need you, because you operate on the same level as Halloran.”
“I’m not sure how to take that.”
I moved closer to him, getting in his space. “If you want the money back, if you really want it back, we have to get tough with this clown. We have to bust heads. So I’ll ask again, can you get a search warrant if I swear out an affidavit?”
“Give me a minute to think, will you? You’re coming at me fast.” Kenny picked up a fifty-pound dumbbell and did one-armed presses. On the last rep he dropped the weight to the floor and blew out air. “The probable cause is weak. And even if we got a warrant, Halloran could get it quashed.”
The Revenge of Liam McGrew: A Dermot Sparhawk Mystery Page 12