A Scourge of Vipers

by Bruce DeSilva

  “Jesucristo! These are more illegal than marijuana.”

  “But neither should be.”

  “You know I could arrest you for this.”

  “But you’re not going to.”

  “Guess not, but I can’t accept them.”

  “Of course you can’t.”

  “So why did you bring them?”

  “So you could confiscate them in the name of the law.”

  “I see.”

  “Perhaps you should investigate to determine whether they are genuine,” I said. “There are a lot of counterfeit Cubans on the black market, you know.”

  “And I would do that how?”

  “By smoking a few. Maybe twenty-four of them, just to be sure.”

  “There are twenty-five in the box, Mulligan.”

  “Yes, but you are going to ask me to smoke one, too, so that you can avail yourself of my expert opinion.”

  He laughed at that.

  “I won’t tell,” I said. “I promise.”

  The chief grinned, pried open the box, and removed two sticks. I tossed him my cutter. He clipped the ends, stuck one in his jaw, and handed me the other. I bent to give him a light and then set fire to mine.

  “Now this,” he said, “is a damn fine smoke.”

  “The best,” I said. “So what have you got?”

  “When we cut Alfano’s body out of the wreckage, we discovered something interesting in the pocket of his suit jacket.”

  “Oh?”

  “Have a look,” he said, and slid an unsealed letter-size envelope across the desk. “Don’t worry about handling it. It’s already been examined for prints.”

  “And?”

  “Just one partial that belonged to Alfano.”

  I picked it up and checked it over. Except for a couple of dried blood streaks, both sides were blank. Inside was a single sheet of paper. On it was a typewritten list of five names. Nothing more.

  “Recognize them?” he asked.

  “Of course I do. Anyone else seen this?”

  “Just the state police. I figured they should know.”

  “Who did you talk to there?”

  “Captain Parisi.”

  “Good man,” I said. “What do the two of you think it means?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “It’s a Christmas list,” I said.

  “That’s our guess. These five upstanding public servants were about to come into some dirty money.”

  9

  “Let’s just be friends” used to be my least-favorite sentence in the English language, but it was no longer a match for “The managing editor would like a word.” Not even close. As I punched the clock on Wednesday morning, the receptionist said it again.

  I strode into the aquarium and found Twisdale hunched over his computer. His scowl, his furrowed brow, and the coffee stain on his yellow silk tie told me his day had not gotten off to a smashing start.

  “Top o’ the mornin’, Chuckie-boy.”

  The muscles in his jaw clenched, but he decided to let it pass.

  “Have you perused The Ocean State Rag this morning?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Have a look,” he said, swiveling the computer screen toward me.

  I bent down, looked at the story on the screen, and said, “Aw, shit.”

  “I told you not to let us get beat on this. You and your goddamned ethics.”

  “They aren’t all bad,” I said. “That’s why they’re called ethics. You should get some for yourself one of these days.”

  “I ought to suspend you for this.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I would if I could spare you.”

  “I wonder how Mason got hold of this,” I said.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing. Did you tip him off to make me look bad?”

  “I can’t believe you asked me that.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “I don’t need to make you look bad, Chuckie. You manage that all by yourself.”

  “Fuck you. We gotta have something on this in tomorrow’s paper, so get cracking.”

  I turned my back on him and stalked out.

  * * *

  “Ocean State Rag, Mason speaking.”

  “Great story this morning, buddy. How the hell did you dig it up?”

  “Come on, Mulligan. You know better than to ask that.”

  “How about a hint?”

  “You got assigned to chase it, didn’t you?” he said.

  “I did, and I’m nowhere. All my statehouse sources have clammed up.”

  “Even Fiona?”

  “Even her.”

  “Don’t take this wrong, but tough shit.”

  “One more nail in the coffin, huh?”

  “I’m counting on it,” he said. “When the paper goes belly-up, I’ll be the only game in town.”

  “Good plan.”

  “Know what people are calling The Dispatch these days?”

  “What?”

  “The Dispatched.”

  “As in dead,” I said.

  “You got it. Most mornings, there’s not a damned thing in it worth reading. Finally ready to leave the dark side and come work for me?”

  “You still paying slave wages?”

  “For now,” he said, “but in a year or two that’s gonna change. You should get in on the ground floor.”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  “Well, the offer is always open.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “How’s your dad doing?”

  “Better. He was on Zoloft for a while, and it helped. He and my mother took the Albacore out of Newport last week, and they’re cruising somewhere off Bimini right now. Father still thinks The Dispatch was his life. Mother is showing him that it isn’t.”

  “Good for her,” I said.

  I clicked off just as Chuckie stepped out of his office and strutted to the cubicle where Kate Frieden, the kid city hall reporter, was tapping on her keyboard. He puffed out his chest and loomed over her. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but from the pained look on her face it was obvious he was thrashing her publicly. Lomax had never done anything like that. I thought about butting in, but that would have done her more harm than good. Instead, I tugged on my jean jacket and headed for the elevator.

  “Mulligan?” Chuckie shouted. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “To find some news,” I shouted back. “There isn’t any in the office. I’ve looked.”

  * * *

  The state flag that flies atop the Rhode Island statehouse sports a golden anchor on a field of white. The symbol is surrounded by thirteen stars representing the original thirteen colonies. Below them is the state’s motto, “Hope.” There is no evidence that the flag’s designer intended to be ironic.

  Inside, the state Senate’s Health, Education, and Welfare Committee was debating a bill to make fried calamari the official state appetizer. Its sponsor, the honorable senator from Johnston, was getting a grilling.

  “The whole idea is absurd,” the senator from Newport snapped. “How could anything but oysters Rockefeller be considered seriously?” His colleague from Cranston shouted him down, extolling the undeniable virtues of fried mozzarella.

  I leaned against the back wall, marveling at our tax dollars at work but stunned that nobody had the political courage to stand up for chicken wings.

  At eleven A.M., the committee took a ten-minute break, and I followed the majority leader, Ray Tomasso, into the men’s room. I waited until he zipped up and washed his hands, then held my cell phone up to his face. He ignored it and brushed past me.

  “How well do you know this guy?” I asked his Armani-draped back.

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but how can you be sure without looking at the picture?”

  He hesitated, then turned back and took the cell from my hand. I studied his face as he examined the photo, but it
didn’t betray anything.

  “Nope. Don’t recognize him. Who is he?”

  “A guy who died with a briefcase full of cash in his lap and a piece of paper with your name on it in his pocket.”

  “What are you implying, Mulligan?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m just giving you the facts.”

  He leaned against the sink and looked at the photo again.

  “What was his name?”

  “Lucan Alfano. Mean anything to you?”

  “No. I know some Alfanos, but no Lucan. What do you know about him?”

  “Just that he was a bad guy from out of town.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad as it gets.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He was in that plane, the one that hit a house in Warwick last week,” I said. “It was in the paper.”

  “I don’t read the paper.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “How do you keep up with the news?”

  “I get Google alerts on the things that matter to me—legislative news, business stories, sports scores, anything with my name attached to it.”

  He handed the phone back, and I put it in my pocket.

  “So what’s this about, Mulligan?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said, “but I intend to find out.”

  I braced Peter Slater, the Senate minority leader, and Daniel Crowley, the Speaker of the House, in their offices. They were no help either. They both claimed they’d never heard of anyone named Lucan Alfano. From their puzzled looks when they examined his photo, I was inclined to believe them—and for Crowley, that was a first.

  I caught up with Lisa Pichardo, the House minority leader, as she was dashing down a statehouse hallway.

  “Got no time for you now, Mulligan. The GOP caucus is meeting on the budget in five minutes.”

  “So you’ve got five minutes,” I said.

  “We have to do this now?”

  “We do.”

  “Then make it quick.”

  “Take a look at this,” I said, and flashed the photo at her.

  She glanced at it and blanched under her makeup.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  “I think you know.”

  “I’ve never seen this guy in my life.”

  “Really? Because your poker face needs work.”

  She scowled and turned away. I fell into step with her.

  “That pile of cash you were expecting?” I said. “I hope you haven’t already spent it, because it’s sitting in a Warwick Police Department evidence locker.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  I watched her scurry away down a corridor and duck into a meeting room. She’d never even asked the guy’s name. I figured it was because she already knew.

  That left one last name from Alfano’s list—the only one I’d been shocked to see on it.

  10

  That afternoon, I made a round of calls to the NCAA, the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, and Major League Baseball. Their press officers, tipped off by an Associated Press rewrite of the Ocean State Rag story, had their talking points ready. They were nearly identical, full of the same sputtering outrage they had dished in response to Chris Christie’s plan. They’d been peddling the same hypocritical, self-serving bullshit for decades:

  • Legalizing sports betting would irreparably harm the integrity of their games, creating a climate of suspicion about controversial plays, officiating calls, and players’ performances.

  • It would expand the amount of money wagered on games, increasing the temptation to fix results.

  • It would infringe on the leagues’ intellectual property by encouraging gambling operations to use proprietary information including statistics, injury reports, and team logos.

  • Gambling on sports is an addiction that ruins lives, a scourge that should not be condoned by a benevolent state.

  I wrote it up and filed it to the city desk. We were playing catch-up, but at least Chuckie-boy would have something to advance the story Mason had broken.

  A half hour after I turned it in, I was summoned to Twisdale’s office.

  “These guys are so full of shit,” he said.

  “I agree.”

  “Billions of dollars are already being wagered on sports,” he said. “Professional gamblers don’t need any more incentive to fix games.”

  “Of course they don’t.”

  “In fact, legalized gambling would more likely deter game-fixing than encourage it, because the amount being wagered would be public knowledge,” he said. “The Arizona State point-fixing scandal was exposed because somebody bet an obscene amount of money against them legally in Las Vegas, and alarm bells went off.”

  “That’s right. You’re on a roll, Chuckie.”

  He didn’t even stop to growl at me.

  “Gambling is one of the reasons so many people follow sports,” he said. “The NCAA and the pro leagues know that, and they profit handsomely from it. That’s why they don’t object when sports writers cite point spreads. These jerk-offs blackmail cities into spending millions on stadiums by threatening to move their teams out of town, yet they object to state governments sharing the wealth. And by keeping sports betting illegal, they help the Mob stay in business. They and the bookmakers are practically co-conspirators, for godsakes.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” I said.

  “I’ve been reading up.” He snatched a printout of my story from his desktop and tossed it at me. “Your copy tells only one side of the story. Scare up some quotes from people who can call these assholes on their bullshit.”

  “Already on it,” I said. “I should have more for you in an hour or so.”

  “Make it a separate,” he said. “We’ll run the two pieces side by side under a ‘Pros and Cons’ headline.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Before you go, there’s something else we need to discuss.”

  “Oh?”

  “What are you, about six-three?”

  “Six-four, last time I checked,” I said.

  “I hear you were a basketball star at Providence College, is that right?”

  “A star? No way. Mostly I rode the bench.”

  “Do you still play?”

  “Once or twice a week. Pickup games at PC’s Begley Arena or the outdoor courts at Hope High School.”

  “Good. I’ve got an idea I think you’re going to like.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I want you to try out for the Vipers and write a series of first-person human interest stories about the experience.”

  “Oh, hell no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m forty-four years old, Chuckie.”

  “Oh, come on now. It’s not like I’m asking you to make the team. You just have to show up.”

  “Why don’t you do it?” I said. “You’re nearly my height, and you’re twelve years younger.”

  “Because I’ve got a newspaper to run. Besides, basketball was never my sport. I played middle linebacker at Valdosta State.”

  “There are easier ways to get rid of me, Chuckie. You don’t have to try to get me killed.”

  “This is an order, Mulligan. You already refused one assignment last week. It would not be in your best interest to pull that again.”

  * * *

  “He wants you to do what?” Attila the Nun asked.

  “You heard me right the first time.”

  We were drinking beer at a table in Hopes while the governor’s limo, a state trooper at the wheel, lurked just outside the door.

  “Can’t you talk him out of it?”

  “I tried, but he’s got a whim of iron.”

  “This is crazy, Mulligan. You could kill yourself trying to keep up with twenty-year-olds.”

  “Who says I’m going to try to keep up?”

  “Are you in shape?”

  “Do I look
in shape?”

  She thunked her bottle of Bud on the cracked Formica table and looked me up and down, then glanced at the TV over the scarred mahogany bar, where the Celtics were getting run over by the Clippers.

  “Not compared to those guys.”

  “It’s not like I’ll be going up against Blake Griffin,” I said. “My wind is pretty good, and I can still fill it up from the three-point line.”

  “You’ll have to kick the cigars for a while.”

  “Aw, fuck.”

  “What about your knee?” she asked.

  “Hasn’t bothered me much since the surgery.”

  “Sounds like you’re warming to the idea.”

  “I hate it,” I said. “It’s a stupid prank to gin up circulation, but at least it will get me out of the office for a while.”

  I flagged down Annie, the leggy Rhode Island School of Design teaching assistant who moonlighted as a barmaid, and ordered another round.

  “Is this why you wanted to get together tonight?” Fiona asked. “To see if I could talk you out of a heart attack?”

  “No. There’s something else.”

  I slid the cell out of my pocket and called up the photo.

  “Ever seen this guy?”

  “Isn’t that Paulie Walnuts?” she said. “I loved that show.”

  “It does look like him, but no.”

  “So who is it?”

  “A guy named Lucan Alfano.”

  “That sounds familiar, but—” She stared up at the pressed-tin ceiling, searching her memory. “Oh, wait. Isn’t that the Jersey guy who got killed in the plane crash?”

  “Yeah. That the only thing you know about him?”

  “Uh-huh. What’s this about, Mulligan?”

  So I ran down what I knew about Alfano, his briefcase full of cash, and the list found in his pocket.

  “My name was on the list?”

  “It was.”

  “You think the cash was intended for me?”

  “Some of it, anyway. At least that’s how it looks.”

  We sipped our beers in silence and thought about it.

  “Who was he was working for?” she asked. “And what was he supposed to buy with all that money?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “This could be about any one of a number of things,” she said. “We’re putting some big road-construction contracts out to bid this month. The medical association and the hospitals are having fits about our proposed Medicaid cuts. My bill to tighten wetlands protections is going to the floor in a couple of weeks, and the construction industry is livid about it.”