The Incumbent

by Brian McGrory

"Like the man says," he told me, "Mr. Markowitz's not here right now."

  It's never easy, this thing called life. Or maybe it's just the journalism part that always seems so tough. I was face-to-face with this goon, so close I could smell the beer and beef jerky on his breath. I was too short of time to be nice and too smart to be rude.

  So I said to him, "Perhaps you could go tell Mr. Markowitz that his friend Jack Flynn is here. We talked on the telephone yesterday, and he invited me to stop in."

  The man, who bore a remarkable resemblance to an ape, if it would ever occur to an ape to dress this bad and hang out at a bar all day, looked me up and down. The synapses in his tiny brain was firing so hard that his whole head looked like it might well explode, all in an attempt to calculate what awful things might happen to him if he approached Sammy Markowitz and announced the presence of a visitor named Jack Flynn.

  Finally the bartender said, "You stay with him, Sal. I'll see if the boss is here."

  A minute later, common sense and patience prevailed as I was led toward the back of the restaurant, where Sammy Markowitz stood to greet me, clasped my hand, and said, "To think, a few years ago I almost had you killed. You've turned out so handsome."

  Understand that this man was a known murderer, someone who, as mob legend had it, once broke an adversary's neck with his bare hands in the middle of a game of bocce, mostly because of one bad roll. He recruited teenagers to a life of crime and suffering. He wrought havoc with his illegal bookmaking, destroying entire families, leading supposed friends to bankruptcy, making them virtual slaves to his organization with high-interest loans.

  And yet, I'll admit, there was something terribly winning about him.

  Perhaps it was his appearance, which, as I've said, was Rickles-like.

  He seemed oddly meek for a guy who struck such fear. He could be self-deprecating. And most of all, he could just be funny, as if he was playing the role of a mob chief in a situation comedy, understanding all the ironies, knowing his own faults, not taking any of it, or himself, all that seriously.

  "My dog thanks you for rethinking your plan," I said. "And so do I."

  We engaged in the typical small talk, about the Celtics and the new Boston mayor and a few reporters who were covering the organized crime beat. He extended sympathies over Katherine's death. His own wife had died of cancer in recent months, and I expressed regret over that.

  Then he said to me, rather unceremoniously, "So what do you want?"

  "Curtis Black," I said, examining his face carefully while I spoke the name. His eyes shifted a little bit, but I couldn't be sure if that counted as a reaction. "I need to find Curtis Black." I paused for half a beat, then added. "This one's important to me."

  He looked at me for a moment, matching my stare, an unlit cigarette dangling on his lower lip. He picked up his lighter off the table, a heavy, gold-plated thing, monogrammed with the letters SG, and lit it, watching the smoke from his first exhale float aimlessly toward the ceiling. Finally, he said to me, in no particular tone of voice,

  "Don't know him."

  "Bullshit," I said, and was about to continue, but he cut me off.

  "Hey, hey, keep that down," he said, a small smile forming at the edges of his lips. "People don't talk to me like that, especially in here."

  "You know him," I said. "And like I said, I don't ask a whole lot from you. You haven't heard from me in three years. But I need you right now. I'm asking for your help."

  I made a mental note that should I keep experiencing this ascending fame, and should I someday have the occasion to write my memoirs for some sort of seven-figure advance, I might well leave this scene out, this pathetic groveling before a known killer.

  Markowitz put one finger up in the air, and one of his goons shot over to the table about a second later. Without ever looking at him, Markowitz said, "Bring me another split." To me: "Why are you asking about him?"

  Truth be known, I couldn't really say, mostly because I didn't quite know yet. In fact, I was hoping he could tell me.

  I said, "He's into something. I'm not 100 percent sure what it is yet, but I know it's something of consequence."

  The man in black returned with a thin bottle of sparkling wine, Best Western, and emptied it into a lowball glass that was sitting in front of Markowitz. He walked away without offering anything to me.

  Markowitz looked unimpressed by the whole scene, his vacant eyes just kind of gazing back at mine. He asked, flat, "What do you know about him already?"

  "Very little."

  And that was the truth. Before I got on the airplane, I had called Dorothy at the Record library and asked her to pull up anything and everything she could find on Curtis Black. She left me a voice mail saying she had only found two short news briefs, both of them from the Record. The first one was about the arrest of Curtis Black and several other men from Boston's North Shore for a 1979 armored car heist in Boston's North End in which a guard was shot and killed. The second one was about their arraignment in U.s. district court. She shipped the stories to my computer file, but I hadn't logged in yet from my laptop.

  I added, "I know he's into armored car robberies, or he was. Beyond that, I don't know much of anything. I wish I knew more, which is why I'm sitting here with you."

  Markowitz simply looked at me, dragging on his cigarette, knocking his knuckles absently, softly, on the scratched surface of the wooden table.

  He said, after what seemed like a forever pause, "He's not around here anymore. I don't know what I can tell you." As I stared at him, Markowitz added, "And you're asking the wrong guy."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You want to know about Curtis Black, you should go ask our federal government. They're the ones who know about him."

  "Because of the charges?" I said, in a half question, half answer, hoping to lead him somewhere, though I'll be damned if I knew where.

  "Because of the charges and everything else," Markowitz said.

  He was cryptic, trying to tell me something without actually saying it, playing a game that wasn't intended to be any fun.

  I asked, "Is Black in jail?"

  Markowitz said, "No, he's not, and that's what you might want to talk to your federal government about."

  "Sammy, come on, I need you on this. What do you mean?"

  To this, I got nothing. "I've gone as far as I can go," he said. And when Markowitz wants to shut down, he shuts down hard, and not even someone of my estimable interviewing skills will be able to sway him to the contrary. I knew I had pushed as far as I could.

  "When I know more," I said, "you mind if I come back at you?"

  He said, "You know where to find me," which was his way of saying I could. "And you know how I work," he added. "I confirm, but I don't provide."

  And I headed for the door. Markowitz had told me to go check with the federal government, so that's exactly what I decided to do next.

  Across the Mystic River from Chelsea, Diego Rodriguez looked resplendent in his Louis suit, standing in his small fifth-floor office in the U.s. district court with the perfect view of the harbor and the distant runways of Logan International Airport.

  We exchanged the type of needling that only old battlefield friends can indulge. We had been involved in a lot of cases together over the years, a lot of good stories, and Rodriguez had proven himself a reliable and informed source.

  "I have a hunch and a hope," I said, cutting to the quick. "My hunch is, you know a thing or two about a former armored car robber named Curtis Black. My hope is you can share it with me."

  No reaction whatsoever. Rodriguez was leaning back in his chair, behind his desk, his legs stretched out before him. I was sitting across his desk in a wing chair, overlooking his remarkable view.

  Diego Rodriguez was a federal prosecutor assigned to many of the most glamorous cases in his office. The fact that he was Hispanic gave him opportunities. The fact that he was good brought him a remarkable track record of victory. For me, he had provi
ded a constant flow of information on cases ranging from Irish gun running to mob surveillance. He never violated his own office, never put a case in jeopardy, but he respected and understood the role of the news media, and he respected and liked me. Ours was, in many ways, a good and beneficial relationship.

  Which is why I was so surprised when he said, simply, "I'm not sure I can help you with this one." He sounded uncharacteristically stiff and slightly embarrassed at his refusal-not defiant, but apologetic. It was a tone that made me take stock before I forged ahead. Still, I had neither the time nor luxury to pull any punches.

  I asked, "Do you know who I'm talking about?"

  Rodriguez reached for a can of Coca-Cola on his desk, took a pull from it, then nodded. Almost as an afterthought, he said, "I know him."

  I told him, "Look, Diego, I need you. This one is important to me.

  This one could be important to a lot more people than just me. Help me out. Please."

  I fell silent. He was silent. There was nothing in the room but the gentle purr of warm air flowing through the vents.

  "I wish I could," he said.

  "You can," I said. "Just like all those other times before. You help, I keep my mouth shut until the hereafter."

  He didn't smile at all. He looked at me and said, "You know the case, right? That armored car hit in the North End. That's all public record, and I assume you've looked it up."

  I breathed a sigh of relief that he had opened up this much. I replied, "I'm vaguely familiar with it, yes, but I haven't gone through the actual trial records or transcripts yet."

  In this business, a shard of information, used correctly, sometimes gets you the entire picture, or at least something reasonably close, so I added, "My understanding is that Mr. Black didn't do any time."

  "This goes a lot deeper than that," he said.

  I was leaning over toward him so far that I could have toppled out of my chair. I was trying to will the information out of his head and into my ears. "How deep?" I asked.

  With that question hanging in the balance, we sat in silence for a stretch. The day outside became a pale glow and was turning the corner toward dark. The only light in Rodriguez's office was from a small lamp on his desk. Neither of us seemed to mind.

  Rodriguez looked like he was about to say something, then hesitated.

  He tapped his Coke can. Then he just shook his head.

  "I can't," he said. That was followed by another long pause. He added, "I'm not trying to play games with you. I am truly sorry. But all I can tell you right now is that you really don't want to be mucking around in this."

  I asked, "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  He simply shook his head again. "Sometimes people change," he said.

  He said that with an odd look on his face, his eyes boring into mine.

  "Sometimes people change, and it's tough to keep up with them."

  Then he stood and added, "I've got to run to court. Just take my word on this. You don't want to push this too far."

  The nice members of the Copley Plaza Hotel's management team saw fit to upgrade me to a suite overlooking Copley Square, specifically the St.

  James Suite. Take my word on one thing only. When the hotel desk clerk assigns you to a room with a name rather than a number, you're going to like where you're going.

  Once upstairs, I took a brief tour of the room, made myself familiar with the contents of the minibar, quickly perused the room service menu, and called down for a hamburger. Then I settled in at the desk and fired up my laptop.

  The stories were sitting in my queue, as promised, the first one headlined "Five North Shore Men Arrested in Fatal North End Wells Fargo Heist." I quickly scanned through, seeing Black's name at the top of the second paragraph, then Rocco Manupelli, who the story described as a rising member of the New England mob. My eyes scanned through the rest of the list of suspects, from Marcio Sanchez to Joe Cox and then to the name that stopped my heart cold: Paul Stemple. Paul Stemple. I knew the name. It rang so familiar in my mind, but I couldn't place it. Paul Stemple. Paul Stemple. I had the feeling I was running down a barren hallway, opening doors into darkened rooms, frantically searching for something that I wasn't even sure was there.

  And then, bang. It was as if someone had flicked the tines of a fork against a fine crystal glass. Paul Stemple. He was the same man who had received the presidential pardon, the man whom I initially intended to ask Hutchins about at Congressional Country Club the day of the assassination attempt. Paul Stemple connected to Curtis Black. Curtis Black connected to the shooting. These seemed to be answers, but the answers were only a prelude to another whole set of questions, this one so much more confusing. I stared at the computer screen until the letters turned fuzzy and seemed to evaporate. At that point, I stared at nothing at all.

  Someone knocked at the door. At first I jumped in surprise, then recalled my call to room service, which now seemed like an eternity ago. Paul Stemple and Curtis Black. I cleared off a spot on the desk for the food tray, pulled the door open, and had begun to say, "Bring it right in here, please," when I saw that the person on my threshold wasn't the waiter, but was none other than my old friend Gus Fitzpatrick. He had a sheepish look on his face, a faint smile that seemed to express some embarrassment over an arrival without prior notice.

  "They told me in the D.c. bureau that you were in Boston for the night.

  I figured you'd be here," he said, still standing in the hall.

  "Gus," I said, "what a welcome sight. For God's sakes, come in."

  We shook hands, the shake turning into a soft embrace. On his way to the couch, he looked around in a mild state of awe at the resplendence of the suite, even whistling softly. "Am I going to have to lay off half my overnight crew so our star reporter can afford to travel in this kind of style?"

  "It's a free upgrade," I said.

  We settled in, he on the couch, me on a soft chair. The walls on the room were painted a regal yellow, the carpeting was a deep shade of red. The fireplace was marble, the window a bay, the art on the wall portraits of people who I had some vague idea I probably should have known, but didn't.

  Gus said, "So you, my friend, are hitting home runs every day of the week. You're knocking this story out of the park. You have any idea how proud I am? You know how proud your father would have been?"

  "Oh, c'mon. Thanks. But the more I find out, the less it is I seem to know. The story is just so-" I paused, looking for the right word.

  My mood was completely colored by the recent, confusing revelation of Paul Stemple. I was getting that feeling of exhaustion again.

  "Elusive. I just can't piece the damned thing together. There's always another part we don't know."

  "From the looks of it, young man, you're on a run. You're finding out things that other reporters aren't getting. Look at you. You've had a couple of interviews with the president over this thing, right? Why are you being so hard on yourself? You're the most important reporter in the country on the most important story of the moment."

  Maybe Gus was right. Maybe not. I wanted to feel good about what he was saying, but all I really felt was tired. The trip to Boston hadn't proven particularly fertile. Markowitz had provided little help, if any at all. Rodriguez had given me even less.

  I said, "Thanks, Gus. I'm really grateful for that. Maybe I'm just too much in the thick of it to step back and appreciate what's going on."

  Another knock at the door. I let the room service waiter in, and he left the tray on the coffee table. Gus declined my offer to split the hamburger-a welcome act of gastronomic altruism so markedly different from my recent experiences back in Washington.

  As I ate, he asked, "So what is it, Jack? Why all this frustration on your part?"

  I chewed on the burger while I pondered the question. "Because," I said when my mouth was empty, "it feels like I should know a lot more.

  Every time I learn something, it usually means there are three other things that don't make se
nse. Everything seems so within reach, but so far out of my reach at the same time."

  He looked at me sympathetically. "You have to take it one step at a time. You can only do what you can do. And you have to be careful."

  That sounded strange to me. "What do you mean, be careful?" I asked as I salted my pile of French fries.

  "Just what I said," he replied, meeting my gaze. "This can be a dangerous business. You know that."

  "Don't I," I said, softly, as much to myself as to him.

  "You're tired, Jack," Gus said. "You're tired and you're frustrated.

  You've done great work. You're about to do even better work. Get some rest. Some good things are going to happen to you."

  He stood up, motioning for me to stay down. I got up anyway. As he walked toward the door, me trailing behind, he asked, "You ever wish you could just completely change your identity and become an entirely different person?"

  It struck me as an odd question at an odd time, but interesting nonetheless. "Right now I do, yeah," I answered.

  "You shouldn't," he said. "You have a great life, young man. You have an even better life in front of you." With that, he squeezed my arm and walked out the door.

  I finished my hamburger in the silence of the suite. Curtis Black and Paul Stemple. What did this bizarre connection mean to the story?

  Curtis Black and Paul Stemple. They are cohorts in a failed armored car heist some two decades ago. They are both charged in the death of a guard. Over twenty years later, the president of the United States is shot.

  I'm told that Curtis Black is somehow key to the shooting, though I have no idea how or why. Mobsters won't talk about him. Neither will federal prosecutors. I am warned not to-what did Rodriguez so unartfully say? — "muck around in this." I can't find Black. He's apparently not in prison. And Stemple, he is for some reason pardoned by this president just before the assassination is attempted. And there is no apparent reason for this pardon. Nothing is overtly explained.

  So what is the connection? Could Black have masterminded the assassination attempt? Could he have been angry over the Stemple pardon and sought revenge in some way? Could he be acting on behalf of another one of the armored car robbers still in jail, someone who was denied a pardon?