The Town: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  Frawley nodded, stubborn, nursing his bad mood. The wind up at the top was the stale gust of heat that comes at you when you open an oven. The broken chain there was being bagged, print dust smoking off it like gray pollen. The Globe truck stolen out of South Boston, which they had used to block off the roads leading in, sat on slashed tires atop a flatbed trailer, its green sides dusted as though it had been driven through a sandstorm.

  Frawley stood at the knee-high wooden railing around the parking lot and looked across the highway canyon to the facing road of industry set atop a cliff of blasted stone. A dozen different angles for casing the theater from there.

  They crossed the lot to the armored truck, still parked in the fire lane outside the theater entrance. Something about the yellow police tape offended Frawley and he tore it down himself, saying, “They never even touched the truck.”

  “Went backdoor. Like at Kenmore.”

  “Going out of their way to get the drop on the mark. They could have come at the truck head-on. It’s isolated enough up here—doesn’t get much more isolated. Doable, though messy.”

  Dino patted the can’s side reassuringly as he might a spooked elephant. “They knew better.”

  Frawley watched the police tape slithering across the baking lot. “These guys knew there was more money in the can, had complete control of the situation, and they let it go. Add in the days and weeks of prep, casing the job, following all the players? Decidedly risk-averse. Being super careful.”

  Dino said, “That’s another kind of good for us. They get too careful, too tricky, they’ll screw themselves up.”

  “Yeah,” said Frawley, starting up the stairs to the lobby. “Except, I am through waiting for them to screw up.”

  Entering the theater lobby was a jump from the oven into a refrigerator. The manager had set out bottled water and tubs of popcorn for the cops. They were hoping to reopen in time for the seven-o’clock shows.

  “That older guy, the projectionist, he okay?” asked Frawley.

  “No chest pains,” said Dino. “Just gas.”

  The two guards were sitting on folding chairs with their caps in their hands, going over forms with a rep from Pinnacle. Their fuzzy descriptions told Frawley that the bandits’ intimidation—their knowledge of the men’s home lives—was still working. Neither Harford, who had spent time in both gunmen’s company, nor Washton, into whose ears the radio gunman had issued his instructions, said they would be able to identify the bad guys. The only useful thing Frawley had gleaned from their accounts was the fright makeup, similar to an earlier job he suspected these Brown Bag Bandits of, a co-op bank in Watertown.

  The guards acted like they knew their interview with the boss from Pinnacle was a formality. Both men had allowed themselves to be tailed on the job and followed home after work, enough to get them fired for cause.

  The smell of gunfire lingered in the chilled air. Little numbered orange evidence triangles stood on the carpeted floor, marking where brass cartridge casings from Harford’s gun had been collected. Frawley stood by a Barb Wire cardboard display, looking at the bullet-hole nipples in Pamela Anderson Lee’s vinyl-corseted tits, contrasting that act with the discipline of leaving $1,000 in new, traceable bills sitting on the manager’s desk. It was like the kidnapping after the Morning Glory job: schizo.

  Maybe they’d start spending their money now. Their take was all clean, circulated cash. Frawley turned to remind Dino of this, but Dino was gone. Frawley wondered how long he had been standing there alone, ruminating.

  He saw the manager down by the side door where the robbers had first jumped him. Mr. Kosario was rocking a baby, his wife’s arms tight around his waist. She was a small Latina with straightened, blond hair, wearing a silky blouse and a red leather skirt with a tight hem. A skinny movie-theater manager with a hot little wife, and there stood Special Agent Adam Frawley, still trying to pimp his gold shield to get laid.

  He ducked into one of the empty theaters and took a seat in the dark back row. When he first received the call that afternoon, he hadn’t wanted to report. He wanted to ignore it altogether. I am tired, he told himself, of chasing bank robbers and bad men.

  Now this heist vexed him. Viewed one way, it was a step forward for this crew: a takeover robbery, a broad move beyond banks. Viewed another way, it was a step back: a safe play, shying away from financial institutions. He feared it might be evidence of them cycling down—until he remembered that bad guys like these almost never quit until they’re caught.

  Either way, Frawley needed to move fast.

  He kept going back and forth on Claire Keesey, between raging contempt and white-knight longing. Was she knowingly sleeping with the enemy, or just an unwitting damsel in distress? He stood and faced the blank screen, but try as he might to make a blank screen of his mind, the movie that kept playing there was Claire Keesey inviting MacRay into her home, into her bedroom, in between her legs.

  In the lobby he found Dino looking for him, pointing with his clipboard. “Van on fire, about a mile away. Hosing it off now. Might not be a total loss.”

  FRAWLEY RAN OFF HIS excess adrenaline that night, doing intervals through Charlestown, down the suspects’ streets and past their doors—even all the way out to Elden’s house, in the area they called the Neck. The black-and-orange Monte Carlo SS outside Magloan’s wooden row house on the downslope of Auburn Street still had beer cans tied to the bumper, JUST MARRY’D spelled out in Silly String on the rear window.

  He needed to remind himself how close he was to them. He ran past the Tap on Main Street and thought about getting cleaned up and dropping back Downstairs for a beer. Instead he turned onto Packard Street, past Claire Keesey’s and through the alley behind, looking for inspiration and also MacRay’s beat-to-shit Caprice.

  At home he made a protein shake and microwaved some chicken, eating in front of the Bulls-Sonics NBA Finals. Then he showered, put away some laundry he had stacked up, opened his mail. All of which was a prelude to the night’s main event.

  A pot stash, junkie works, porn mags, fishnets and garters—the sneaker box on the floor of his closet could have held any old shameful fetish, but Frawley’s kick was minicassette-tape dubs of old crime-scene interviews. He wired his Olympus recorder through his stereo receiver, first warming up with a few older teller debriefings from past cases, some Greatest Hits—tellers weeping, reaching out to him for answers, Why me?—just to get his mind in that place. Then with the lights off and the shades down, he lay on the floor and listened as Claire Keesey’s voice filled his room, transporting him back to the Kenmore vault and his desire for justice for her on that day…

  … The one who was sitting next to me. Not next to me… but in the same seat, the same bench, the two of us. The one who blindfolded me. I could tell somehow… he was looking at me…

  27

  NEXT MORNING

  HE HAD PUT UP with the blaring music all night. On his way out of the house, pissed-off first thing in the morning, Doug came down banging on Jem’s door like a cop.

  Nothing. No response. Doug’s pounding was just more bass in the mix.

  He was near the bottom of the stairs when two guys unlocked the inside door. Young guys with clipper haircuts, thick with new muscle, sporting different T-shirts but matching fatigue pants and paratrooper boots. Camo kids who looked like they’d walked straight off the rack of the Somerville Army/Navy Surplus store.

  They entered like they belonged there, the loose pane of glass rattling in the door. Doug thought he recognized them, maybe just from around the Town. Then he remembered—the Tap that night, the two younger guys Jem was talking to in the corner.

  They nodded at him—not friendly, more out of respect of Doug’s size coming off the steps. “Hey, man, ’s’up?” Something like that.

  Said Doug, “Who’re you?”

  “Aw, we’re going up to see—”

  “How the hell’d you get a key?” He was on the landing now, facing them.

&nb
sp; “Jem, man. He gave it to us.” They said it as though Jem’s magic name solved everything.

  “What’s that mean? You live here or something?”

  “Naw, man.” Now they looked at each other like cats, sensing trouble, wondering what to do. “Yo, we got some business with him.”

  “Yo, no you don’t. Not in this house.”

  Another look between them. “Look, man,” said one, coming on confidential, “hey, we know who you are. We know—”

  Doug was on him fast, grabbing him by his T-shirt collar and driving him back up against the door. “Who am I? Huh? What do you know?”

  The loose pane of door glass popped out, shattering on the floor of the dingy vestibule. Doug hadn’t meant to do it, but he didn’t care much either. He shoved the camo kid halfway through the empty frame.

  “Take it easy, man, we just—”

  Krista’s door flew open behind Doug. She came out barefoot in a short black silk Victoria’s Secret robe that was familiar to him. “What the—?” she started to say, but seeing Doug there with the camo kid silenced her.

  Dez appeared behind Krista, rushing to the noise, pulling on a shirt. He saw Doug and paused a moment—then stepped out onto the threshold, ready to back him up.

  The music grew suddenly louder upstairs. “Hey!” Jem was over the railing, looking down at the broken door. He turned and came down a step, wearing a ratty white hotel bathrobe open over smiley-face boxers and sweat socks, coffee mug in hand.

  Krista’s hand pressed against Dez’s chest, and he stepped back against her door.

  “Duggy,” said Jem, coming down two more steps, “what the fuck?”

  Doug released the glaring kid. They went around him to the stairs, seething, starting up toward Jem.

  Doug looked for some explanation, but Jem made a Later face and waved him on with his coffee mug. He started up ahead of the camo kids, then turned and came back down a few steps, seeing the light coming out of Krista’s door. “If that’s my sister, tell her I’m out of underwear here, she could throw in a wash.”

  He turned and followed his pets up onto the landing, the door closing on the music.

  Krista sulked, Dez looking apologetically at Doug.

  Doug turned and walked out the front door, boots crunching glass, getting the fuck away.

  28

  LEADS

  INSIDE THE HANGAR GARAGE of the South Quincy wreck yard, Frawley and Dino examined the charred corpse of a 1995 Dodge Caravan. The heat had blown out all the glass. The rear and middle were hopelessly charred, the front hood buckled up over the fused metal of the engine, but the dash had survived. The steering wheel was warped silly but remained whole.

  “They made some mods to the vehicle,” said Dino, pointing out a blackened strap attached to a clip soldered to the frame along the driver’s door. “Racing harness, in case of a chase. They also replaced the steering wheel—the original had a Club on it and must have got cut. The accelerants were in freezer bags duct-taped to the floor in the rear, which is why the bad burn there.”

  Frawley leaned inside the driver’s window frame. The melted upholstery gave the stinking heap its extra-toxic stench. The steering wheel was plain black with grip grooves and an illegal “suicide” knob clamped on for fast steering.

  “No prints,” said Dino. “The driver guard, Washton, said he saw driving gloves on dinosaur man.”

  Magloan. Frawley fit Coughlin for the quiet one with the clown mustache who shot up the inside of the lobby, MacRay for the talker, the earphone man with the cosmetic burns. “Stolen out of New Hampshire?”

  “Wal-Mart parking lot, week ago Monday.”

  “Handicap plates?”

  “Off a customized Astrovan outside a medical building in Concord, the day after.”

  Frawley went around to the blackened rear of the still-warm car.

  “Little spots of latex there from the disguises, and some shreds of incinerated clothing,” said Dino. “That would be the uniforms, stolen out of a dry cleaner’s in Arlington. That melted box there, that’s the guard’s radio unit.”

  Frawley returned to the front. Something about the warped steering wheel bugged him. “Wheel wasn’t stolen though.”

  “No. Probably new. Pick up a wheel at any auto store anywhere.”

  “You say the dinosaur wore driving gloves?”

  “Right.”

  “The kind with the holes in the knuckles?”

  “Probably so.”

  Frawley pointed. “They print the entire wheel, or just the grips?”

  Dino shrugged. “Long shot, with the flame heat—but good question.”

  “One of the 911 callers from the highway—you remember?”

  “She said they were hitting the horn, getting stragglers out of their way.”

  Frawley mimed it. “He’s fired up, strapped in with a racing harness and a suicide knob, just pulled off a big job, speeding down the highway, hitting his horn…”

  Frawley punched the center of his pretend steering wheel with his fist.

  THEY TURNED IN THEIR loaner hard hats and stood in conference outside the Billerica work site, having just been lied to, lavishly, by Billy Bona. The double whistle went off, which, according to warning signs on the fence, meant a blast was imminent.

  “These guys used a shape charge in the Weymouth armored job, one of the early ones.”

  Dino nodded, crossing his arms and sitting back against the Taurus’s trunk. “Wonder what the arrangement is here. Maybe they got something on this Bona.”

  Frawley squinted up into the sun, promising himself that when this all came down, he would personally deliver Bona his subpoena for aiding and abetting.

  “Problem is,” said Dino, “on paper they were here yesterday.”

  “Yeah. He happened to have their time cards right there with him.”

  “We could go man-to-man here, break down every hard hat on this job, waste a day or two trying to find one who’s ever worked with these two goofs—”

  “Funny how they’re not here today. ‘First day they’ve missed, I can remember,’ Bona says. Lying to a federal agent. The balls on that guy.”

  “Then there’s Elden too, at work all day yesterday, and that one’s verified—”

  “Yup. Boss says yesterday Elden checks in with him before getting in his truck—says he remembers this because the guy’s never once before stopped in to shoot the shit, ask how the kids are, the whole production.”

  “Means he knew it was going down. Maybe there was no falling-out. Not if he’s part of their alibi. And Magloan—let’s face it, he’ll have somebody swearing up and down he was otherwise occupied the whole day. Bottom line is, bogus or not—we got nothing. Not enough to bring anybody in on.”

  “I’m not talking about putting them in a lineup.”

  “It’s not even enough to go around shaking trees,” said Dino. “We start turning the Town upside down over this—even if we ignore Elden and his squeaky-clean record—lawyers will be leaping out of their wing tips crying witch hunt. We don’t have it.”

  “We can get it.”

  “Not enough to haul in these jokers. DA’s office would ball this up and throw it right back at us, and we’d be poisoned for the next time. Where’d you get the authority to check their tax returns for employment anyway?”

  “This MacRay has no credit cards, nothing in his name. His ride, this ’86 Caprice Classic piece of crap, it’s registered to the Coughlin sister who lives on the first floor of their house. I run her—it turns out she’s got seven different cars reg’d to her name, her insurance. One of them’s a high-line Corvette. Fifty dollars says she doesn’t know about any of them.”

  There was a hot crack of thunder, a cannon shot, and Frawley felt the pulse in the ground like a shudder. They could not see the blast but heard the echo riding out, fading away.

  Dino said, “I think we need to go full-court press on this. Bring on some assistance.”

  Frawley watched for ris
ing dust. “No need.”

  “If these tea-pissers are feeling our heat, then we need to go broader, push them harder. Farm out some of this work.”

  “We can push them ourselves.”

  Dino said nothing, meaning Frawley had to turn back to face him.

  “Okay,” said Dino. “Now tell me what the hell is going on here.”

  “What’s going on is, I’m trying to catch some bad guys.”

  “No, I think what’s happening is, you’re taking this thing personally. I can’t figure why, but that is the numskull approach and you’re too clever for that. This is how mistakes get made.”

  “I want to bring this one home ourselves.”

  “Look, Frawl—I can play hard. I’ve been a detective seventeen years, I know how. I don’t particularly mind going to war. All I need is a good reason.”

  “This is no war,” said Frawley, backing off. “Boozo and his crew, they were like a big rock we flipped over, all these other little bottom-feeders wriggling out into the light. MacRay and company, we know who they are and we know where they are. Them squeaking by has gone on long enough.”

  “MacRay?” said Dino. “I thought you liked Coughlin as honcho.”

  “I’m thinking now it’s MacRay.”

  Dino frowned impatiently. “And this is based on?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  Which Frawley regretted saying as soon as it left his lips. Dino slow-crossed his arms, leaning against his car, Frawley waiting for it. “What is this you’re giving me now? Bullshit hunches?”

  “Dino, look. These guys, they’re an insult, an affront. Laughing at us. Now it’s our turn to make them sweat a little. Let’s take a bite out of their day for a change, just to let them know we are but a matter of time.”

  Dino’s cell phone rang. “We get one chance,” he told Frawley. “One.” He went into his car for the phone and stood there with his elbow high, talking fast. He hung up and turned back to Frawley almost disappointed. “Your steering wheel,” he said. “It’s dirty.”