Neon Dragon mk-1

by John F. Dobbyn

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re pushing them.” He waved vaguely at his face. “This is a warning to you. The girl had to go. She was your contact. Keep pushing, and they’re going to run out of Chinese. Then it’s your turn.”

  I leaned back against the folds of my overcoat.

  “That’s the problem, Harry. I don’t know where to push next. So far all the points have gone to Yale.”

  Harry knew that was shorthand for the bad guys.

  “I’ve got one more witness to see in Chinatown. Maybe I can do it without getting anyone killed.”

  Harry rolled slowly upright. I admired the effort.

  “Who?”

  “What’s the difference? You’re out of the game, buddy. You played well, but I’m putting you on the DL. It’s not your fight.”

  He looked at me with what started as a scowl, but relaxed when it pulled the stitches.

  “It’s more my fight than it is yours.”

  The words were stronger, and as I looked at him, he had a point.

  “The other witness runs a Chinese herbal medicine shop on Tyler Street.”

  Harry shook his head. “Not good.”

  “Why not? I’ve got to do it sooner or later.”

  “Later. Give it a couple of days. They’ll be expecting you now. You’ll be playing into their hands. You won’t get anything now, except maybe hurt.”

  “Really. Any other reason?”

  “Yeah. In a couple of days I’ll go with you. You’d be as lost in Chinatown as I would in Puerto Rico. When’s the trial?”

  “Hasn’t been set yet. The DA’d have it marked up tomorrow if she could. We’ve got a few weeks. I don’t know about you going with me. They don’t seem to value Chinese life. I don’t want to lose you. Thanks-giving’d never be the same.”

  “I’m serious, Mike. It’s my fight. I’ve seen a lot of my friends bend under their power. I’ve always told myself I’m a different kind of Chinese. I’m an MIT Chinese. Different world. It’s the same world, Mike. No more hiding places.”

  I caught a look at the clock. I could just make the Marliave by noon.

  “Gotta run, Harry. Whatever you need, let me know.”

  The last words I heard on the way out the door were, “Call me, Mike. You need me.”

  No argument.

  11

  The Marliave is a tiny but authentic chunk of Rome, ripped out of the eternal city and dropped unspoiled onto a corner of the block between School and Bromfield Streets. The stone steps leading up to the entrance once led to the Royal Gardens when King George’s royal governors were housed a block away.

  Noon was a memory, but a recent memory, by the time I climbed those steps to the entrance.

  The line of customers at the door suffered not gladly my weaving and squeezing my way close to the front of the line. I had a nodding acquaintance with the maitre d’ from past occasions, which was usually good for a smile, a handshake, and a prediction of twenty minutes to the next table.

  I caught his eye and mouthed the words, “Is Mr. Devlin here yet?”

  I think he misunderstood and thought I said the pope was awaiting my arrival. He moved the head-of-the-liners out of my way and led me like the returning son to a small upstairs chamber in the back.

  The room had the same Romanesque charm that pervaded the Marliave. It held one single table at which were gathered Lex Devlin, a dapper little dude of about the same vintage, whom I assumed to be Conrad Munsey, and a third, gaping chair.

  Lex acknowledged my arrival with an eyebrow and a nod toward the chair, which I took as an invitation to join the fun. When he introduced me as “the late Mr. Knight,” I realized that “noon” did not mean “or so, at your convenience.” I was gratified, however, that though he may never use it to my face, he still remembered my name.

  Conrad Munsey, our dinner companion, was another piece of work. Judging from his sitting position, I estimated that he’d come about up to my chin. He had bright eyes and a sharp little moustache. In fact, everything about him, from his salt-and-pepper hair, which looked as if it were trimmed hourly, to his diminutive but perfectly formed body, which he had tucked into a tidy, dark three-piece suit with the correct, conservative tie, bespoke nobody’s fool.

  I sensed comfort and probably more than mutual respect between Mr. Devlin and Mr. Munsey. I remembered Mr. Devlin saying they “go back.”

  I shook hands with Mr. Munsey and received a menu from the waiter. I was about to open it, when a red-haired man of about fifty years swept in from the kitchen and snatched the menus out of the hands of the three of us. Judging from the fine Italian wool of his suit, I figured he was not the busboy.

  “Mr. Devlin, you never need a menu. What do you feel like? A little veal? A little pasta first, maybe a white sauce? You like my antipasto. I’ll fix it myself. What do you think? You leave it to me?”

  I saw the softest side of Lex Devlin I’d ever seen when he smiled and touched our host on the arm.

  “We couldn’t be in better hands, Vincenzo.”

  That widened the smile. Vincenzo gestured to the waiter and mentioned a particularly good vino bianco.

  “Whoa, Vincenzo. No wine for this gentleman and myself. Connie, you suit yourself.”

  I didn’t remember being consulted on the wine refusal, but apparently I was riding shotgun on Mr. Devlin’s wagon. No sweat. If the boss was suggesting that I had two days’ clear-headed work to do that afternoon, he was reading my mind.

  When the room cleared and Vincenzo delicately closed the door to the outside room, Lex leaned across the table.

  “Let’s talk, Connie. There’s a rumbling in the hills. I don’t like it. I wanted to see if you’re picking anything up.”

  Mr. Munsey’s eyes were crackling, and his lips did something that put his moustache at a tilt, but nothing came out.

  Mr. Devlin sat back. “You have no problem with Mr. Knight, Connie. We’re on the same side. He needs to know where the shots are coming from, too. They could blindside either one of us.”

  Munsey took a couple of seconds on that one, but Mr. Devlin’s confidence apparently won out. There was no one else in the room, but Mr. Munsey leaned in a bit before he spoke.

  “Something’s cooking. I’m getting more uncomfortable by the day. I remember the last time, and so do you. What tipped you this time, Lex?”

  “The right honorable Mrs. Lamb. First she wanted to hang Bradley’s fleece on the courthouse door. That was honest ambition. She’d convict Kermit the Frog if it’d get her to the statehouse. That side of her I believed. This morning she calls with an offer of a reduced charge. No headlines. Could even look like a slap in the face to the Chinese community-and every other minority community. And if you read what I think you do, you know that the whole Chinese community is torn up over this murder. That move didn’t come from our Mrs. Lamb, Connie. Her lips were moving, but someone was feeding her the words. If it’s true, I need to know who. I thought maybe those foxy ears of yours might have picked up something in the wind.”

  The moustache curled into a foxy grin.

  “Could be that she heard that the redoubtable Lex Devlin was leading the defense, and she decided to withdraw to safer shoals.”

  Mr. Devlin leaned across the table. Only his eyes were smiling. “Could be that you’re full of enough bovine feces to fertilize Ireland, Mr. Munsey.”

  They were six inches apart. “That would be Northern Ireland, Mr. Devlin. You could handle that rowdy southern province with no help from anyone.”

  For the second time since I’d known him, a smile cracked Mr. Devlin’s lips. “It’s not much of a compliment, Mr. Munsey, but I’ll give it to you anyway. You’re a credit to your race.”

  “I’ll say the same for you, Mr. Devlin. And heaven knows your race needs all the credit it can get.”

  I could be wrong, but as I listened to this verbal tennis match, I could swear that the brogues of these two Boston-bred colonials thickened progressi
vely, one from Dublin, the other from Ulster. It was the arrival of three antipastos in the hands of Vincenzo that called a halt. When the door closed, and the antipastos had been sampled, the smiles were gone.

  “What have you heard, Connie?”

  “Nothing concrete, Lex. Let me tell you what I’ve noticed. The boys have been restless. The morning that indictment came down against young Bradley, there were messages flying between them and little clusters of them meeting in each other’s offices. The tone, you might say, was distinctly jubilant.”

  “I take it that’s not their usual condition. Incidentally, sonny, ‘the boys’ are the esteemed justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, of which our Mr. Munsey has been the chief clerk since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.”

  I nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow.

  “The ‘usual condition’ of the crowd I’m talking about is benign indifference to each other at best. Incidentally, I’m not talking about all of them. It’s mainly Winston, Carter, Fulbright. Masterson and Chambers may be part of it. Carlyle doesn’t show much emotion about anything, but he was in on some of the meetings. The others-Keefe, Samuels, and Reynolds-seemed unaffected. As I say, there was a big mood swing. This is why I tie it to the Bradley business. The morning of the indictment, they were a jolly little play group. Later in the day, when word had it that you were saddling up on the side of young Bradley-I’m serious about this-the mood changed. They were a bunch of tense little puppies. That was yesterday afternoon. I noticed little clusters of meetings erupting all afternoon. What does it mean?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s interesting, Connie. I know your collection of Supreme Judicial conservatives isn’t losing any sleep over the fate of our black defendant or the old Chinese man. Obviously, the focus is Judge Bradley’s chances of joining their club. Does it really shake them that badly?”

  “It’s not so much Bradley himself. They could ignore him like they do Keefe and the rest. It’s whom he’d replace. Fulbright’s pushing eighty, and he appears less and less in chambers. I think his health is more of a problem than he’s telling anyone. That means that if he goes and Bradley replaces him, you’ve got an old-guard conservative out and a confirmed civil rights liberal in. There goes the delicate balance of power, at least on civil rights issues.”

  “Come on, Connie. Do they still care that much about civil rights? What bastions are left to fall? We’ve got legislation on open housing, job discrimination, voting.”

  “And still the most segregated society north of Birmingham. For all of the legislation, how many blacks live in Brookline? How many whites live in Roxbury? If you had a child, would you send him to school in Roxbury?”

  “Granted, and that’s my point. You can’t tell me those tired old men still think they’re saving the world from the rising minorities. Hell, you could pack the court with Bradleys and in ten years Brookline still wouldn’t send their kids to school in Roxbury. It’ll take more than Bradley to change that.”

  Munsey held both palms up. “I’m only telling you what I see. But I’ll tell you two more things.”

  He cut off the discourse while the antipasto plates were cleared and the finest magic I’ve ever seen worked on veal was placed before us. Vincenzo served it personally, and again remembered to close the door behind him. Munsey spoke before a bite of the veal was tasted.

  “You’ve got two facts here. First fact, the boys go into a tizzy when this Bradley business breaks. Then there’s another flurry of activity when the great Lex Devlin comes out of retirement for the defense. Fact two, coincidentally our crusading prosecutor offers a deal of leniency that runs against her personal best interests. Not in character. Can we agree on that?”

  Munsey paused while Mr. Devlin nodded.

  “Which leaves us with the question, is there a connection? And if so, what’s the grip they have on her?”

  “And more to the point, Connie, why would they care enough to pull that kind of string, if in fact they have influence over her to begin with? No, I don’t see it. They may have a rooting interest in who joins their club, but I don’t buy the civil rights angle as anything serious. They’re not that afraid of Judge Bradley.”

  Munsey sat back with his eyebrows raised for dramatic effect.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Devlin, but was it not yourself that called me out of concern over the strange turn of events?”

  “I know, and I appreciate the information, Connie. I don’t think that’s the answer, though. You know, there’s another possibility. We could be looking in the wrong direction. Maybe the DA found a serious hole in her case and dropped back to a charge she thought she could prove. A conviction on a lesser charge would still be better for her than losing the case outright.”

  Munsey dropped his voice a little, and I noticed he was looking right into Mr. Devlin’s eyes.

  “I’ll say just one more thing. The last time I can remember the bees stirring in the hive this way goes back to the Dolson case.”

  I was looking at Mr. Munsey, but I could almost feel the effect of those words on Mr. Devlin. I could tell that Mr. Munsey was taking it in, too.

  “You know yourself, Lex, there was a lot more to that case than ever came to the surface.”

  Mr. Devlin’s voice was quiet and heavy, but not unsure.

  “Let it rest, Connie. There’s no connection. Is that all?”

  “That’s the best I can do, Lex. I’m one of their breed, so they’re happy to have me as chief clerk. But they don’t invite me to sit around the campfire.”

  Lex nodded. “Thanks, Connie. We’ll carry on the war with an eye to our backs.”

  12

  We left the Marliave at about one o’clock. The parting handshakes took place on School Street, with Mr. Munsey walking north toward Tremont Street, Mr. Devlin walking south toward Washington Street and ultimately the office, and me cutting behind Old City Hall, ostensibly to catch the train for Harvard Square to check out Bradley’s friends. Actually, I doubled back and intercepted Mr. Munsey at the top of School Street. He was surprised and not altogether comfortable with the return engagement.

  “Mr. Munsey, I wonder if I could walk along with you a bit.”

  “Public sidewalk, kid.”

  My estimate was right. He came about up to my chin, but self-assurance and the secure knowledge of who he was and who I was gave him another six inches.

  “I think you touched a nerve back there, Mr. Munsey. I know you didn’t want to aggravate it. I can understand. But I’d like to know more about the Dolson case.”

  He registered nothing. We kept walking.

  “There’s a reason, Mr. Munsey. There are two reasons. Like you, I think there’s more to this change of heart by the DA than appears on the surface. It might be critical to Bradley’s case. I get the feeling we’re like little rodents in a maze. We’re running after the cheese without knowing there’s a technician who keeps changing the pattern.”

  I gave him a good gap before he said anything.

  “You said there are two reasons.”

  “Mr. Devlin’s tough, but I think he’s tied up in knots over whatever this Dolson case is about. I guess I care that whatever happened to him before doesn’t happen again. Maybe I could do some intercepting.”

  We reached the coffee shop in the Center Plaza complex without word one. Suddenly he beckoned with his head and turned into the coffee shop. I followed him to a table in the rear of the shop, clear of other customers.

  “Sit down, kid.”

  Age or not, I figured it was time for some ground-standing.

  “Mr. Munsey, I take it when Mr. Devlin calls me ‘sonny.’ But ‘kid’? What do I have to do to get a name?”

  “Earn it! They don’t call him ‘Mr. Devlin’ for his age. It’s respect for the man he made of himself. Sit down, will you, kid?”

  I sat. There are some points even a lawyer doesn’t argue.

  “You want to hear about the
Dolson case. Don’t they talk about it over at Bilson?

  “Never. At least not to the associates.”

  “Good. And you won’t either. You understand me?”

  He seemed to take one more look at me to confirm his decision. When he started, I had to strain to hear the words.

  “This goes back more than ten years. Lex was, as a criminal trial lawyer… the master, the best.”

  “I know. I’ve heard.”

  “You know nothing. You haven’t seen his likes at the bar in the last ten years. Anyway, he took on a client named Dolson. He was a petty hood. He had a few arrests on suspicion of arson, extortion. Couple of misdemeanor convictions. Nothing too serious. This time he’s charged with a major arson, a vacant apartment building down in a run-down section of the South End. The job, if he did it, went bad. The fire spread to the two apartment buildings on either side. They went up like tinder. The clincher was an explosion that brought down most of the building.

  “The police got a tip that Dolson lit the match. They picked him up, and he confessed to the arson. He pleaded guilty at the arraignment.

  “Then it hit the fan. It took a couple of days to plow through the crumbled building. Everyone thought it was vacant. Anyway, they discovered a few bodies under the rubble. Probably street people who got in out of the cold.

  “Now the charge is felony murder. Dolson didn’t want to confess to that, so he reneged on his arson confession. He withdrew his guilty plea and hired Lex.”

  I didn’t want to interrupt, but you never know if you’ll think of the question again.

  “How could a petty hood afford what Mr. Devlin must have been charging?”

  “Well, that was part of the problem. The prosecution showed that a sizable deposit was made in an account set up in Dolson’s name just after the arson. That was part of the prosecution’s case. That, plus an eyewitness who spotted him around the building just before it went up.

  “Dolson came up with an alibi. Another punk named Gallagher. I can’t believe I remember that name after ten years. Anyway, he testified that Dolson was with him. On the other hand, he looked as if he’d testify that he was Jimmy Hoffa if there was a drink in it. Even Lex himself will tell you it was the weakest defense he ever had to present. Dolson came up with some story that he’d been hired to plead guilty to the arson. The money in his account was to take the fall and do a few years in prison for someone else.”