He left his car in an alley, skirted the rear of a derelict tenement house, and entered a small cinder-block building by the back door. The place was a private social club. The only people at the bar were two off-duty firemen talking baseball. He sat at a wall table, and the waitress took her time coming over to him. She was red-haired and green-eyed and the mother of seven. “How you doing?” he asked and glided a hand beneath her bottom.
“You get away with murder, d’you know that?” she said sullenly.
“What’s the matter, you mad?”
“You haven’t shown your face here in a month.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I can imagine. You want a beer?”
“I want a beer,” he said, “and I want a frank, lots of mustard. Any sauerkraut? Put some of that in too.”
When she returned with his order, she sat down with him. The frank was sloppy with mustard. The bun was loaded with sauerkraut. With a minimum of bites he finished it off while she smoked a cigarette. “How’s your hubby?” he asked, in need of a napkin, which she pushed at him.
“Find him a job,” she said. “That would do a whole hell of a lot for me.”
“I could find him twenty jobs, he wouldn’t keep one of ’em. He’s a lush.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I’ll send him a note. Where does he take his mail? Detox center?”
“Don’t be nasty.”
He downed his beer and used another napkin. “You busy?”
“Doesn’t look that way,” she said with a shrug, and he grinned.
“You want to?”
“It’s up to you.”
They got up from the table, moved to the rear, and climbed the stairs to a narrow room that contained a neatly made-up army cot. A Currier and Ives adorned one wall, Norman Rockwell another. He looked at his watch and said, “I haven’t got that much time.”
She kicked off her shoes, skinned away her white pantyhose, and lay on the cot. Her toenails were painted pink, and he traced a finger over them, his only frivolity. He didn’t make love to her; he jackhammered her. Afterward, she was slow to get up and even slower to make herself decent.
“How was it?” he asked, getting himself together.
“I wish the hell you wouldn’t ask me that each and every time. One of these days I’m going to tell you and end a perfectly good friendship.”
“Friendship, hell,” he said. “C’mere.”
She stepped forward, and he tucked a twenty-dollar bill into her frayed bra.
With an added sense of himself, he left the club by the same door he had come in. In the harsh, bright sunlight his step turned cautious, and he scanned every window of the abandoned tenement house before passing it. He entered the alley from a different direction, falling into a semicrouch, knowing the obvious spot where anyone might be waiting for him. The man had his back to him, but he recognized him at once.
“You fucker,” he said.
Officer Hunkins twisted around with a .38 revolver in his hand but never got a chance to fire it. Scatamacchia shot him with his own weapon, the magnum.
• • •
Rita O’Dea was a surprise visitor to the real estate office. She nodded to Victor Scandura, who was sitting with his glasses off, and gave her brother a heavy, wet kiss half on his mouth, which embarrassed him. She had on a flouncy yellow sundress and a lacquered straw hat. She took the hat off and dropped it on her brother’s desk. “Would you mind, Victor? I’d like to talk to Tony in private.”
Scandura did not move until he got the signal, almost imperceptible, from Anthony Gardella, who then viewed his sister with infinite patience. She drew up a chair and sat in it with her large legs crossed.
“Do I look happy, Tony? I know I do. I’ll tell you why in a minute. First I want to talk business,” she announced, and he regarded her warily. “I was talking to Rizzo,” she said. “He tells me you’re not going to sell G&B.”
“I was thinking of it,” Gardella said in a casual manner, “but the heat’s off it now. And Rizzo’s negotiated some pretty big contracts. Better we keep it.”
“Tony, G&B’s my company, isn’t it? I mean, mostly mine. You said it was.”
“It is,” he said. “I just make sure things go right.”
Her face came forward. “Tony, I’d like to run it straight from now on.”
“We run it straight, we don’t stay in business. You know that, or at least I thought you did. What’s the matter, Rita?”
“I want to know where we’re dumping the waste now.”
His eyes rested carefully upon her. “A place way up in New Hampshire, so far up the people only speak French, but they understand dollars. They lead our trucks into woods with dirt roads that come out to gravel pits. That’s where we unload the poison, hurts nobody.”
“People up there drink out of wells, Tony.”
“Not where we dump. Nobody lives anywhere near it.”
She shook her head. “The stuff doesn’t just stay in the ground. It travels.”
“Nobody’s dying up there.”
“Not yet.” Her eyes clouded. “Kids are dying of cancer in Woburn. You must’ve seen it on TV.”
“Woburn’s got nothing to do with me. You come in here saying you’re happy and then hit me with this. You want to explain?”
“It’s simple,” she said in a voice charged with a sense of occasion, celebration. “I’m concerned about children, little babies. I’m going to have one.” His stare was disbelieving, his silence somber. “Actually Sara Dillon’s having it,” she explained, “but it’s going to be mine.”
He was no longer looking at her. He spun a pencil around on his desk, as if from a need to gain time. He straightened slips of paper filled with figures.
“Tony, I deserve it.”
“There could be trouble.”
“There won’t be. I swear.”
“Can I talk you out of it?”
“Tony, please!”
Something in her voice made him lift his eyes. He got up from his chair and held his arms out to her.
• • •
When Russell Thurston returned to his office from the cafeteria, he found Christopher Wade waiting for him. Wade was leaning against a spare desk, a large envelope under his arm, and staring straight at a wall. “I’ll take that,” Thurston said, freeing the envelope, which contained a report of Wade’s activities and a tape of his meeting with Senator Matchett. “I should’ve had this at nine o’clock.”
“I slept late. Very late.”
“And you should’ve sent Danley or Dane over with it. You’re bending the rules.”
“I didn’t know we went by any,” Wade said, and followed Thurston into the cubicle, closing the door behind him. Thurston gave him a backward look.
“Do we have something to discuss?”
“Jane Gardella,” Wade said, poising himself behind a chair and gripping the top of it, as if for support. His breathing was barely detectable. “Tell me about her.”
Thurston carefully read Wade’s face and leisurely seated himself. “I can see you know. She told you. I figured she would in time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Maybe it amused me not to.” Thurston reached behind for an accordion-pleated file folder. “Would you like to read about her? Her code name’s Honey.”
“I want you to tell me.”
“You do, do you? Your arms are shaking. Why?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Wade said grimly.
“Okay,” Thurston said. “You relax. You sit down.”
Wade stayed as he was, his eyes squarely on Thurston. He seemed to be seeing the man for the first time, as if before he’d been only a voice.
“We recruited her when she was Jane Denig and a flight attendant working the Florida run and Gardella was a regular passenger. That was the year he was setting up his Florida operation with his cousin Sal Nardozza. It was also the year he lost his wife. I heard he cried
like a baby. That surprised me. I didn’t know those people felt things like us. Anyway, he was a lonely man, and Honey was — is, of course — a good-looking woman. I suppose you could call her beautiful. Would you call her beautiful, Wade?”
“Yes,” said Wade, “I’d call her beautiful.”
“Gardella was interested in her, we saw that right away. He always went out of his way to talk to her. She had something going with her pilot boyfriend, a guy named Charlie, up to his ears in debt. They used to hide dope on the plane, run it up to Boston. We knew all this, you see, but Gardella didn’t. I talked the narcs into busting them and then letting me have them. It worked perfectly. I mean, what could go wrong? You want me to continue?”
“Yes,” Wade said. “Continue.”
“My proposition to her was her boyfriend would walk and she’d work for me, nurture Gardella’s interest, get something going. Do you know what my code name was during all this? Cupid!” The word popped out of Thurston’s mouth like a cork from a bottle. He seemed delighted with himself. “When she first told me he wanted to marry her, I didn’t believe it. I thought she had flipped out. But they were in love with each other, can you imagine that?”
“Yes,” Wade said. “I can imagine it.”
“There was a while I didn’t know which way she’d go. A couple of times she went hysterical on me, threatened to blow it all. The possibility of a crisis,” Thurston recalled with excitement, “was constant.”
“I get the impression you liked it.”
“Loved it. No sense lying to a smart fellow like you.”
“It’s blood sport. If Gardella ever finds out, he’ll kill her. He won’t have a choice.”
“Nobody’s safe in this world. If a car doesn’t get you, cancer will.”
Wade’s stare was stony. “I don’t want her to die.”
“Of course you don’t. It’d be a shame if she did, so we’ll all do what we can to prevent it.”
“I’m going to protect her.”
“You protect her all you want, so long as you don’t tip your hand. I’ve worked too hard on this to watch Gardella walk away.”
“Then I’d better warn you, I’ve got feelings for her.”
“You think I don’t know that?” There was a flatness in Thurston’s smile, a deadness in the way he sat at his desk. “You’ve got a muscle in your pants, why shouldn’t she arouse you?”
“It’s more than that.”
Thurston flexed his jaw before he spoke. “I don’t doubt it for a minute. And I appreciate the irony of it, but I’m busy.” He made a movement toward papers on his desk. “See you later, Wade.”
“I’ve a feeling,” said Wade, “we might see each other in hell.”
• • •
Two police officers arrived in a beat-up van. The one driving quietly backed it into the alley, stopping a few feet away from Deputy Superintendent Scatamacchia’s unmarked car. They hopped out quickly and yanked open the rear doors of the van. Scatamacchia flung open the trunk of his car, in which lay the body of Officer Hunkins.
“Get rid of it. I don’t care where or how, but get rid of it.”
The two officers, struggling, lifted the body out and deposited it in the back of the van. Swiftly they shut the doors.
Scatamacchia said, “His car’s around the corner. Get rid of that too — take it to a chop shop.”
Twenty minutes later he swerved off the central artery and left his car on Commercial Street. Passing tourists and children with balloons, he hiked to the end of one of the wharves and, when no one was looking, reluctantly dropped the magnum into Boston Harbor.
When he returned to his office in the Area D station, he picked up the phone and called the bookie at the dry cleaning shop. “How’d Laura’s Boy do?” he asked.
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Scat. It paid twelve to one.”
“It ain’t luck,” Scatamacchia said. “It’s instinct.”
21
INSIDE A CAMBRIDGE HEALTH CLUB, Russell Thurston came off the handball court breathing hard, sweating profusely, and scowling. He grabbed a bottle of spring water out of his locker and took a long swig. His opponent, a rangy young man who had beaten him decisively, said, “You don’t like to lose, do you?”
“That’s exactly right,” Thurston said, putting the bottle back and pulling off his sodden T-shirt. “It’s not my style.”
“It’s just a game.”
“That’s what makes it so important,” Thurston said cryptically. “Give me another couple of days, I’ll beat you.”
The young man grinned. “Want to put money on it?”
“You could lose, kid.”
“I’m faster.”
“I’ve got better reflexes,” Thurston said and looked at the young man squarely. “You’re a Harvard boy, aren’t you? You’ve got the world by the balls. I hope you realize it.”
“You make me want to apologize.”
“You’d be a jerk if you did. Just learn when and how to squeeze, you’ll never go wrong.”
They pattered into the shower room. A woman in a white smock looked in on them and smiled. Thurston asked her whether she had towels, and she brought in two. “Either of you going to want me later?” she asked, and the young man shook his head.
Thurston said, “Probably.”
Moments later he bent his head under a hot needle spray, as hot as he could bear, to the point where he felt afire. Then, gradually, while lifting his face, he cooled it. By the time he dropped his hand from the dial, the water was ice-cold, and he was benumbed.
“How the hell can you do that?” the young man asked.
“You have to be special.”
The woman in the smock was waiting in an adjoining room. Without a word, he stretched out on a padded table for a body rub. She oiled her palms and went to work. “You’ve got nice muscles,” she said professionally, “almost as nice as the kid’s.”
“When I was his age,” Thurston murmured, “you couldn’t have compared us.”
“Jesus,” she quipped. “You must’ve been Superman.”
He disdained to reply.
When she finished she slipped a pillow under his head and he closed his eyes. “Wake me in twenty minutes,” he said.
• • •
Ty O’Dea took a taxi home. The driver had to wake him. He responded at once, blue eyes popping out of a scarlet face, and paid the fare with a balled-up bill. He walked precisely up the brick path and swung his arms just so. As he was searching for his key, the front door flew open and Sara Dillon pulled him inside. Her mouth quivered. “Damn it, Ty. Don’t do this to me!”
“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m perfectly all right.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, gripping his arm. “You’re loaded. How can we talk?”
“What are we supposed to talk about?”
“Her. Us.” She shut the door and pushed him deeper into the house. “The baby. She’s not getting it.”
“Shhh,” he said, his eyes rolling.
“It’s all right, we’re alone,” she said, but he was not totally convinced. Apprehensively, he looked one way and then another, as if expecting Rita O’Dea to pounce upon them. Sara Dillon said, “You have a decision to make.”
“I’ve already decided.” He gathered up one of her hands in his and kissed it. “I love you. The baby’s ours.”
“What’s talking, Ty? The booze or you?”
“Me.”
“Then we’ll pack up and leave now. Just leave.”
“It’s not that easy,” he said sadly, “believe me.”
“Then what do we do?”
“I have a plan,” he said, and seemed to shudder. “Let me work it out.”
• • •
The day turned hot, temperatures creeping well into the nineties, the humidity oppressive. Christopher Wade stayed in his air-conditioned office in the Saltonstall Building. He read newspapers, Sports Illustrated, and two-thirds of a spy novel about a professiona
l assassin who didn’t know whether he was working for the CIA or for a confederation of American corporations. The telephone rang periodically, once at length, but he never answered it. Midafternoon, he went into his inner office and napped for an hour on his sleeping bag. He woke when he heard agents Danley and Dane banging out reports that were not for him but for Thurston. When one of them looked in on him, he said, “Put in your report that you found your boss sleeping.”
After they left he washed his face in the sink and slicked his hair back with wet hands. He did not quite know what to do with himself. He considered leaving for the day but did not want to face the heat. He returned to the novel and identified with the protagonist. As he was ending a chapter, the outer door opened and a woman walked in. It was his wife.
“I tried phoning, but there was no answer,” she said as he rose to greet her. She was wearing a simple shirtdress, a part of it damp. “Don’t you even have a secretary?” she asked, and he shook his head. Her eyes roamed. “This doesn’t seem like your place. It doesn’t seem … worked in.”
He drew a chair for her, but she did not want to sit. She had come to tell him something and wanted to do it fast. He was not sure he wanted to hear it.
“I’d like to sell the house, Chris. Do you mind?”
He minded very much, but his expression did not change. “Where will you live?” he asked, his eyes dwelling on her. She was distant, enigmatic, no longer someone he knew.
“I’d like to get away for a while,” she said. “Probably California. It’ll be a whole new world for me,” she added, and he felt a growing chill.
“How will you support yourself?”
“No matter where I go, I’ll find a job, Chris. I know that much about myself now.”
“You’re a whole new woman.”
“Not quite.”
“Why do you want to leave?”
“You’re still too much of a shadow over me, Chris. What you do — and I don’t even know what it is anymore — comes at me.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“It’s not important,” she said, standing inflexible. They gazed at each other without expression.
Sweetheart Page 21