“He’s not a kid. He’s my partner. What he’s about to tell us came at serious risk of his life. His name is ‘Michael.’ Nothing less.”
I may not have moved, but I felt as if I were sitting three inches taller. For the first time since I’ve known him, Mr. Coyne looked at me as if he actually saw me. “What have you got for us, Mr. Knight?”
I had to suppress a grin to think that he actually knew my name—let alone used it. He looked at Mr. D. for mock approval.
“Don’t overdo it, Billy. You’re still old enough to be his grandfather. ‘Michael’ will do.”
With the name game concluded, all eyes were back on me, and the tone could not have been more serious. I knew that Chef John was ensuring our complete privacy, but I still brought it down nearly to a whisper.
“I have the answer you’ve been looking for, Mr. Coyne. It makes complete sense, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Let me have it.”
I knew that what I was about to say needed a boost for credibility. I went through most of the details of my excursion to Mayagüez. Before leaving, I had retrieved the phone from the crack in the sidewalk where I’d stashed it. I showed him the video I’d made on my phone—the Mayagüez police in uniform coming at Nestor and beating him. I explained to Mr. Coyne that the police were corrupt muscle for Chico’s animal-smuggling gang.
I knew I could trust Mr. Coyne with the names of Nestor and the two Brazilians. Out of respect for a promise given, I kept the name of my new-old friend, Ramon Garcia, head of the Nyetas in Boston, off the table.
By the time I got to the message conveyed by Ansuro to Nestor, I had built enough suspense to have Mr. Coyne edging forward in his chair. I sensed that I’d also built the solid base of credibility I needed to get him on board with the only plan that made sense to me.
“This is the piece we were looking for, Mr. Coyne. None of us could understand why Chico Mendosa’s gang, that’s been smuggling and selling wild animals for years, was willing to sell the animals to the insectos and let them take the profits. I can give you the answer now in one word.”
“What?”
“Drugs. Pure, uncut heroin. A hellish massive amount of it. Direct from South America. It’s worth many times the value of the animals once it hits the streets in cities on the east coast—Boston included. It’s enough to flood the current epidemic of heroin addiction.”
Billy Coyne sat back and just breathed while his mind absorbed the unbounded specter of that poison pumped through the veins of his city’s people, from high school on up. The deaths from overdoses alone would be staggering. I knew his mind was also flooded with images of gang massacres and deaths of innocents that would inevitably result from the influx of weapons bought with drug money. I paused until he looked back at me.
“This is how they’re going to do it. They took the cages of animals off the boat from Brazil in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. They trucked them inland to a warehouse out in the country. They re-stuffed the animals into new cages with false bottoms. Every cage holds enough pure heroin to cause more deaths than an open war.”
Mr. Coyne jumped in. “You said it made sense. Why did they get the Italian mafia and the insectos involved?”
“Because the risk has gone up about a hundred times what it was in the animal business. You know yourself, no one takes the trade in wild animals seriously. The chance of being caught smuggling animals is minimal. The customs people at the entry points are open to bribes as long as they’re just harming animals. And no one else cares. Most people don’t even bother to learn about it. And even if they were caught smuggling animals, the penalties are minor fines. Barely a cost of doing business.”
I could see he was thinking a step ahead of me, but I said it anyway. “But if they’re caught smuggling a boatload of pure heroin, there’d be hell to pay. The FBI would be on them like flies. So would the other feds. The DEA. Even the customs people would come down on them. We’d be talking about prison sentences at the top of the spectrum. The feds could even reach their people in Puerto Rico since it’s part of the USA.”
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t tell if he said it to me, or if his mind was running with it alone. I finished the thought anyway.
“That’s why they were willing to get the insectos and the Italian mafia involved. This way, Chico’s gang first makes a profit of nearly two million selling them a shipload of animals. Then they let the insectos use their contacts with the bribed customs people and the animal wholesalers on the mainland. That way, the insectos and mafia take all the risks of smuggling the cages into the mainland without even knowing they contain drugs. If they’re caught, the insectos and mafia people take the fall—and it would be heavy.”
Mr. Coyne was listening, so I stayed on a roll.
“On the other hand, if the smuggling of the cages works like it always has, Chico’s people take the drugs out of the cages, reap a fortune, and Boston and every other city on the East Coast will be torn apart with gang killings and swimming in heroin.”
I stopped there and gave it a chance to sink in. I had filled Mr. D. in on it before. The two of us just watched Billy Coyne with his hands folded in front of him, staring at nothing, with a look on his face that said he felt as if he were carrying the welfare, if not survival, of his city, on his shoulders.
After a minute, I leaned forward and touched his hands. He just looked up at me without words.
“Mr. Coyne, they say, ‘It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow someone some good.’ I think we just got an advantage.”
His expression was somewhere between curiosity and disbelief. His eyes asked the question. It was time to make my pitch.
“Here it is. As long as it was just the animals, it was just me and Nestor and a few others who gave a damn. They had it all their own way. When they made it drugs instead of just animals, they stepped out of their safety zone. I think we can take them down. But I need your help in a big way.”
He looked at Mr. Devlin for some assurance that the one he had always called “the kid” had any claim on believability. Mr. Devlin nodded. I had his attention again.
“I need two things from you, Mr. Coyne. They’re big things, but I need to depend on you to pull it off. If you don’t come through, my neck will be on the chopping block. And that’s not a metaphor.”
“What do you need, kid?” He caught Mr. D’s look. “What do you need, Michael?”
“Two things. Contacts. I need you to set the trap on a tight spring. I’ll explain what I mean in a minute. And it has to be absolutely leakproof. If one name gets out, the obituaries will start piling up. Beginning with mine.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“Money. A lot of it. I’m hoping you can tap into federal money. If this works the way I hope, I’ll get most of it back for you.”
“Why money?”
“I think all of these gangs have gotten themselves in a tight circular bind. The insectos and the mafia owe Chico’s gang another $900,000 for the animals. But so what? Why is that holding up the deal? Why doesn’t Chico’s gang let the insectos have the animals right now? Let them smuggle the animals and the drugs into the mainland. Chico’s gang could make a quick windfall with the drugs. The profit they’d make on those drugs would make the $900,000 due for the animals look like chump change.”
“So what’s the answer?”
“It took me a while. I finally realized that this is probably the first time Chico’s gang has dealt in drugs. They could only buy that amount of drugs directly from one of the big cartels in Central or South America. My guess is that they owe the cartel the $900,000 to finish paying for the drugs. And they can’t welch on that one. The boys in those South American cartels make Chico’s gang look like Cub Scouts.”
Mr. Coyne was nodding in agreement, so I finished it off. “My bet is that Chico’s gang doesn’t have the $900,000 to pay the cartel until they collect it from the insectos and mafia for the animals. And the insectos won’t h
ave the money to pay Chico’s gang until they collect their winnings from the race that they want Victor and Fat Tony Cannucci to fix at Suffolk Downs in the next couple of days.”
I could see by the burning look in his eyes that Mr. Coyne was following every step of what I was talking about. My only fear was that he’d start peppering me with questions about specifically what I was going to do with the money I was asking for. That could lead us into a part of the plan that neither he nor the state or federal government would be anxious to take on as an investment. I knew what was coming as soon as he said the words, “And what are you going to do with the—”
I cut him off in mid-question. “Mr. Coyne, consider this. I’m asking you—actually I’m asking the government—to put up less than a million dollars to save every city on the East Coast from a disaster like none of us have ever seen. I’m putting up my life. Literally. You can confirm that with Mr. Devlin. At this point, I’ve told you everything I can without breaching confidences that I won’t break under any circumstances. That’s the deal.”
We were eye to eye, but he said nothing. It was time to go all in.
“Mr. Coyne, you’ve got one chance to make one hell of an important decision. If you make the wrong choice . . . I may not be alive long enough to give you a second chance. And that’s not Irish dramatics. I need an answer now.”
Mr. Devlin and I both sat counting the seconds. I think the only reason Mr. D. was not vetoing the plan immediately—in spades—was that I hadn’t told him what I had in mind for the evening.
The seconds continued to tick. At some point, Mr. Coyne looked up at Mr. Devlin. “Lex, where the hell did you find this piece of work you call a partner?”
“Actually, he found me. And you can start thanking God right now that he did. The question is, what are you made of, Billy? I’ve always thought it was the same Irish courage that made the Republic. Shall we see? The chips are down. It’s your play.”
I’m sure in my soul that it was Mr. D.’s timely playing of the Irish Republic card that tipped the balance. Whatever it was, Billy nodded, and we were game on.
TWENTY-NINE
BEFORE WE ADJOURNED the dinner, I asked Mr. Coyne where he would be at ten p.m. that evening.
“Where would you like me to be?”
“Your office would be good. Alone, except for a couple of Boston’s finest. Detective level. And two you’d trust with your life—and mine.”
“That can be arranged. Why?”
“I may want to make a personal delivery.”
He nodded, and didn’t press for more on that subject. I was getting the impression that he almost welcomed help in something that was over all of our heads. “Anything else?”
“Just one thing. I need to have my jockey client, Victor Mendosa, able to ride in a couple of days. It’s critical. Can you keep him out of jail?”
He knew I was referring to pressure from his boss, Suffolk County District Attorney Angela Lamb. Given the scent of a headline from a case involving the juicy topic of race fixing, I knew she’d want Victor nabbed, tried, convicted, and put beyond reach faster than even she could say “governor’s office.”
“I’ve kept the indictment on the back burner. She had me present the evidence to the grand jury, but I’ve been dragging my anchor in putting it to a vote on the actual indictment. I keep slipping cases in ahead of it, but I can’t do it forever.”
“You won’t have to. Within the next week, I’ll give her cases that’ll draw headlines that will blow her mind. She’ll be shopping for a governor’s inauguration gown. You can dangle that in front of her. Just don’t be too specific.”
“That will appeal.”
“In the meantime, she has a couple of cops on Victor’s trail. They were at the track the morning after Roberto’s accident. She probably wants him picked up for questioning. Malloy and his partner. You probably know him.”
Mr. Coyne winced. “Not exactly the pride of the force.”
“Can you put a leash on them? Victor has to ride in a day or two. There’s a lot more than a race at stake.”
“I’ll see if I can get them on another assignment.”
He stood and walked to the door. Before he left, he turned and looked in my direction. “Stay out of harm’s way . . . Michael.”
I could almost believe he meant it.
* * *
I went back to my Beacon Street apartment to change into clothes that suited the evening’s agenda. The temperature was in the low fifties, but the thought of what I was about to do brought on chills. I dressed for the chills.
At nine forty-five, I was parked close to Jamaica Pond, on a quiet street that ran behind the once-home of the last politician to build a voting base on personal handshakes and family favors. As I walked past that house on the Jamaicaway and crossed the street to the dark path around the pond, I tried to calm my nerves by focusing on that perennial survivor, James Michael Curley, who actually won an election while serving a sentence in prison for taking an exam for a friend.
I could feel the darkness swallow me up as I walked from dim light to dimmer light along the pond’s edge. I had intentionally mentioned in my last conversation with Ramon Garcia at the El Rey de Lechón restaurant that I’d be meeting with my client, Victor, at a bench in a particular deserted area halfway around the pond. It was a test. After something he’d said, I figured it was the next best thing to sending an engraved invitation to anyone who might want a clean, unobserved shot at ending my existence.
In the almost total darkness, I was approaching a bench that was about thirty feet from the bench I had designated. The termites in my stomach were breeding more rapidly the closer I got to the meeting spot without seeing any sign of the protector promised by Tom Burns. He had never let me down, but the unwelcome thought occurred that, contrary to his proclamations, even Tom is subject to human failure.
Just when my legs were on the verge of convincing the rest of me that the better part of discretion was to let them carry me in the opposite direction, I spotted my salvation. When I got close enough, I saw a form sprawled out prone on that first bench. Even in that dim light, I could distinguish the oversized, torn overcoat and ragged hat that covered the body of an apparently homeless man.
And I thanked God. I knew that Tom had come through. His man was a master of disguise. As I passed, I whispered without looking down, “Marty, I’ll be right there on that next bench.”
I saw a hand come out of the folds of the overcoat to let me know he was fully conscious and tuned in.
With renewed courage, I took a few more steps toward the appointed bench. My eyes were scanning the small area of pathway fifty feet ahead that fell under a weak cone of light from a lamppost on the side.
My feet stopped cold when a dark form passed slowly into the dim light ahead, moving in my direction. I could just make out the outline of a slender figure about six feet tall. Even without more details, my pulse accelerated into triple digits. It nearly doubled again when I saw, or perhaps imagined, a tiny glint of light off what I believed in my heart to be the barrel of a handgun.
I backed up a few steps to get within whispering distance of my guardian on the bench. I forced the words through gritted teeth.
“Marty! This could be showtime! Could we get a little action here?”
I nearly jumped out of my shoes when the hand that had come out of the overcoat tapped me on the knee. I looked down. My knees almost crumbled. The hand was turned palm up. It went with a raspy voice from under the overcoat. “Hey, buddy. I need a drink. Can you spare a couple of bucks?”
The words just about leaped out of me. “Holy crap in spades! This guy really is a bum. Where the hell is Tom’s man?”
I looked back down the path. Even by that dismal light, I could see the hand with a gun pointing in my direction. I started a prayer, and got as far as “My God—”
A voice cut me off. “Knight! Down!”
I dropped like a sack of grain. Two shots split the air.
I thought I could hear the instant whoosh of air followed by two thuds. When I looked back at the shooter, I saw two figures walking toward me in lock step. One was behind the other and seemed to be holding tight to something around the neck of the one in front.
They were about fifteen feet away. I could make out a gurgling sound from the one in front. Over the gurgling, I heard the same commanding voice. “Get up, Knight.”
I was about to obey, when something like a dead weight tumbled over and pinned me to the ground. I struggled my way clear. The man giving commands flashed a light on the fallen bulk. By the time I’d scrambled to my feet, I recognized the panhandler from the bench.
In pushing my way clear, I had touched his chest. My hand came away drenched in a sticky fluid. He had apparently sat up and taken the bullets that were intended for me.
I looked back at the man who had a cord of some kind around the neck of the man in front. He had loosened his grip. He still held him secure, but the gurgling had stopped.
“Marty?”
“Correct. Sorry for the close timing. I could have taken him out sooner, but your specific instructions were to keep him alive.”
I was still panting as if I’d run a hundred yard dash. “Right . . . Well done.”
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Tie his arms, Marty. Do you have a car?”
“I do. Just over there.” He pointed with his chin.
“Good. We need to make a delivery. Let’s go.”
I noticed that instead of using the cord on his arms, Marty produced a pair of handcuffs. It made me wonder about Marty’s background before he became a member of Tom Burns’ finest. I decided not to ask.
Before leaving, I leaned down to the man in the overcoat on the ground by the bench. I felt for a pulse and found that he’d had his last drink on this earth.
The three of us made our way to Marty’s BMW. I took his keys and sat in the driver’s seat. Marty pushed his prisoner into the back seat and sat beside him with a gun planted in his upper ribs.
It was a silent trip to the back of the building that housed Billy Coyne’s office. A call on the cell phone reached Mr. Coyne in his office as promised.
Fatal Odds Page 24