by Chris Jordan
“So you sent Taylor Gatling’s father to prison.”
“I wish that was all it amounted to. Despite being a con man, or maybe because of it, Taylor was one of the most charming guys I ever met. You couldn’t help but like him. But he was guilty as sin, there was no way around it, and he was eventually sentenced to five years in a federal lockup. Where he could have practiced his tennis with the rest of the embezzlers and tax cheats. Except that on the day that he was supposed to surrender to the federal marshals he shot himself.”
Naomi shakes her head. “How come we didn’t run into that when we researched Taylor Gatling, Jr.?”
Shane shrugs. “Just a guess, but if he’s been as successful as you suggest, he’s probably had as much of it scrubbed as possible. That takes a lot of money and a lot of effort, siccing lawyers on search engines and archives, but it can be done. Plus you were researching the son, not the father.”
“Plus once we found Gatling Security Group, that’s what we researched, not so much the owner,” I chime in, defending Teddy.
“It’s been less than twelve hours, for cryin’ out loud,” says Dane. “Look at it that way, the kid found a lot. He was the one who made the connection, started the ball rolling.”
Naomi is having none of it, and waves me off. “Thank you, Alice, thank you, Dane, but there’s really no excuse. I don’t blame Teddy, I blame myself.”
She turns back to Shane, who looks puzzled at our exchange. “So let me get this right,” she says. “Taylor Gatling, Jr., blames you for his father’s suicide and is taking his revenge? After all those years?”
“Looks that way. Unless someone is framing him by framing me.”
Naomi sighs. “The very thought of that makes my head hurt.”
“Wheels within wheels, Nantz.” Shane grins, as if enlivened by the idea. “Gatling and company have been working on behalf of the so-called intelligence community. Anything is possible.”
Chapter Forty
Walk This Way
“Who scratched your face?” Tolliver wants to know. “Your wife or your girlfriend?”
“Not funny, Glenn.”
“Or maybe it was a threesome. Hey, come to think of it my wife might go for a threesome as long as I wasn’t invited.”
Jack stands up, as if to go.
“C’mon, Jack. You want a beer?”
“Hey, sure. One beer can’t hurt.”
The state police captain has something he wants to impart, supposedly, which is why Jack has agreed to meet his old friend at The Diamondback on Boylston, up the stairs to the rooftop café so Glenn can have a smoke if he wants. The D-back being approximately the least coplike bar in this part of Boston, which means they’re unlikely to be overheard by colleagues. Plus Piggy likes the nachos, and the rules of the arrangement mean that Jack will be picking up the tab.
The rush of rescuing Milton, guns blazing, has gone away, leaving Jack cranky and not in the mood for macho camaraderie, but things are breaking so fast that he can’t risk putting Tolliver off until tomorrow. As his friend returns from the bar with a couple of drafts, Jack tries to put on his game face, get into the swing of things.
“Happy hour,” he says, forcing a grin. “Look at these kids. I’m old enough to be their father.”
“Yeah? Be glad you’re not,” Tolliver says, eyes roving over some of the fair young items who’ve come up to the roof to suck on their long white cigarettes. All bright and giggly in short skirts and makeup, primping and priming for a night at the clubs.
“Nachos on the way,” Jack says.
“Good. Great. Seriously, kid, you look like you’ve been running with the wolves.”
Jack shrugs. “Things are happening.”
“You’re not in violation of any statutes, though, right?”
“Not in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, no.”
Tolliver gives him a look. “I never know when you’re kidding.”
“I’m always kidding, Glenn. Cheers.”
They tap glasses, drink.
“Mr. Baked Alaska, the frozen croak at the Bing murder?” Tolliver says, sucking air through the gap in his teeth. “We made the ID. His prints were in the system.”
“Oh yeah?”
“No surprise, a low-level gangbanger out of Chinatown, goes by the name of Micky Lee. Muscle for a protection racket. Look familiar at all?”
Tolliver hands over a small mug shot. Jack studies and returns it. “No,” he says. “Any connection to Jonny Bing?”
“Not that we can find, no. Bing moved in more rarified circles. He might have known the banger’s boss, but probably not the banger.”
“You think Bing was involved with a protection racket?” says Jack, surprised.
“No, no, I’m just saying. It’s a fairly small circle, the rich, connected Chinese in Boston. Bing knew ’em all, at least socially. Liked to show off, throw shindigs on his fancy boat, appear at all the local Chinese charity dinners. So he could have crossed paths with this particular guy’s boss. We’re looking into it.”
“Good to hear. Whoever killed the little dude, it wasn’t Randall Shane.”
“No? Why not?”
Jack lifts an eyebrow, wondering how much the trooper already knows. “Because when Bing was getting whacked Shane was being tortured by the bad guys.”
“Oh yeah? What bad guys?”
“Yet to be determined. All we have are theories at the moment.”
“Which you can’t discuss.”
Jack shrugs, finishes his beer.
Tolliver scoots his chair closer. “Here’s my theory. Shane knows we have him dead to rights, so he tries to put the frame on Jonny Bing somehow, only it all goes wrong when the boat doesn’t burn.”
“It was more like a ship.”
“Whatever. Just because that dyke lawyer of yours has Tommy Costello all hot and bothered, and persuades him to treat the suspect like royalty and not even take him into proper custody or bring him to court for arraignment, that doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty of doing that weirdo professor, even if he didn’t do Bing.”
“Dyke is an ugly word,” Jack says, dander up.
“Hey, they use it, why can’t I?”
“The way you say it.”
Tolliver looks ever so slightly abashed. “Okay, lesbian or gay or whatever. I’m sorry, no offense intended. I get it, Jack, she’s a friend of yours, but it really takes the cake, our suspect getting a deluxe room with a view instead of a holding cell at the Middlesex Courthouse. All because the D.A. has political ambitions and he’s afraid Naomi Nantz will embarrass him somehow.”
“The D.A. gets it that Shane was most likely framed. The gun, the bloody shirt? You said so yourself, it’s way too perfect.”
“Yeah, I did. But once an arrest is made it should follow the rules.”
“A suspect confined to a hospital bed is hardly against the rules, Glenn. Half the Mafia dons spent years in hospitals, in their silk pajamas, awaiting trial. If you’d seen the guy, okay? They beat the crap out of him, shot him full of some kind of designer truth serum. For a while he thought they drilled a hole in his head, scrambled his brains. He needs to be under a doctor’s care. That would be true even if he was guilty, and he’s not.”
“That’s the point,” the trooper says, truculent. “We never saw him. Cut off at the pass by lawyers. They all stick together no matter what side they’re on.”
“Okay, we can agree on something.”
Tolliver clinks his glass to Jack’s and makes a toast. “Dead lawyers.”
“Dead lawyers.”
They drain their glasses.
Kidder leaves his rental at a metered space on Newbury Street, feeds his quarters in the slot like a good doobie and places the receipt on the dash, as instructed. Sometimes it makes sense to play by the rules. Son of Sam got caught because he failed to pay the meter. Save a dime and spend the rest of your life in a concrete pod? Dumb ass. Not that Kidder is really afraid of the local flatfoots, who arrested tha
t moron Shane, exactly as intended, on evidence so planted it practically sprouted.
Randall Shane being a moron in Kidder’s opinion because he could have made millions but didn’t. What’s wrong with a little reward for your efforts, all the years spent learning your craft? Which is why Kidder left the military and went mercenary, because that’s where the money was—the private sector—and because he was sick of higher-ranking officers treating him like a three-year-old. He still had his bosses—lately just the one—but no one can assign him to the burn detail, where drums of human waste get drenched in diesel fuel and then torched. A stench he can never quite erase from his mind.
First stop, a Starbucks. Love that Mocha Frappuccino, dude. Kidder hums to himself as he stands in line. For some reason Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” is sticking in his brain this evening. A song so freaking ancient that he was barely born when it first came out. Still, when in Rome, or in this case Bean Town.
“Here you are, sir.”
Lost in thought, Kidder looks up to see a chickee holding out the tall plastic cup. Trying out a tentative smile.
“Beautiful,” Kidder says, taking the glass. “You know what they say?”
“What’s that?”
“You ain’t seen nothing ’til you’re down on a muffin,” Kidder intones, staring into her little brown eyes as his mouth finds the straw.
Back on the street he strolls, enjoying the season. Five in the evening with hours left of daylight. Oodles of time to kill.
Kidder laughs.
On the sidewalk a young couple, arm in arm, register a brutal-looking, steel-built man chuckling to himself, and instinctively move away. He gives them a wink— Son of Sam never had such style!—and takes the vacated space with a jaunty sense of entitlement.
“Gimme a kiss,” he says to the shying-away couple. “Like this!”
He heads north on Exeter Street, bringing himself one block closer to the Naomi Nantz residence. Thinking it’s about time he checked it out with his own eyes, instead of relying on images taken by a circling drone.
Street level is always best. You never know when you might want to make a personal visit, arriving unannounced, in the dark of night, with a properly silenced weapon. And before that can happen, he’ll have to find a way in.
Chapter Forty-One
Facts as We Know Them
When the door chime sounds at nine-fifteen I’m in the library, updating the timeline. So far as I’m aware we’re not expecting guests at this hour. Boss lady had declared a pizza night, releasing Mrs. Beasley from her duties. We, that is all those currently in the residence, happily chowed down on slices from Regina’s, picked up curb-side by yours truly, and then called it a day. Milton, understandably uneasy about returning to his home, has been offered a guest room, for which he seemed pleased and grateful. Dane has returned to her own residence, located a few blocks away, and promises to be available at a moment’s notice. Jack called from some bar, sounding more stressed than he usually lets on, and announced he would be returning to Gloucester for the night and would report first thing in the morning. Apparently his thrilling escape from the woods of New Hampshire left him in need of quality time with his current spouse, although he didn’t say so, not in those words. Teddy, dismayed by his failure to discover the now-obvious connection between Randall Shane and Taylor Gatling, Jr., retreated to his bat cave (others might call it a bedroom, but bat cave is more illustrative, believe me) where he’s currently sucking down energy drinks and playing the latest version of “God of War,” which is his form of sulking. No doubt he’ll slay a few thousand adversaries before daylight and return to the real world renewed if not exactly refreshed.
Boss lady, believe it or not, is watching a baseball game. When I left her she had the sound down and was staring rather listlessly at the screen—the Sox struggling in Toronto—obviously lost in her own thoughts.
“I’m missing something,” she said, and refused to elaborate.
Which is why I’d returned to the timeline and my notes, looking to find something that had been overlooked, something that might be useful. No matter how I fiddle and push, and even including the rather tumultuous revelations of the past twenty-four hours, there are still way more unknowns than knowns. By far the most important being the location of Kathleen Mancero and Joey Keener.
Responding to the door chime happens to be one of my many duties. In this particular instance whoever is pushing the button won’t stop, so I’m more than ready to read whoever it is the riot act.
The security camera reveals a tall, middle-aged female with the build of a college linebacker. Unknown to me. For all I know she could be lost, or selling something, or intending to murder us all. So I press the intercom and request that she state her name clearly and into the microphone. “Mon-i-ca Bevins. B-e-v-i-n-s,” she says, spelling it out. “F-B-I. Clear enough? Now open the damn door!”
She really gets pissed when I make her show ID, but it can’t be helped, those are the house rules.
We convene in the library. We being me, Teddy, Naomi and Dane. Our intrepid attorney having arrived in less than five minutes, so she obviously wasn’t fibbing about being at home for the evening. Milton Bean, sound asleep in a guest room, has not been awakened, by instructions of the boss. This could be a need-to-know kind of deal and she’ll make that determination when the facts are in place.
Although neither as tall nor as large of frame as Randall Shane, Monica Bevins is nevertheless imposing in a similar manner, and it doesn’t help that she seems to be in foul temper. She strides around the room as if looking for something to hit, which may explain why Teddy cringes slightly whenever she veers in range.
“First, I want your assurance that what I have to say will not be taped or in any way recorded,” she demands.
“You have it,” Naomi responds instantly.
“If anybody gets wind of this, I’m finished. Ruined. I’d be prosecuted for sure.”
One of boss lady’s best traits is that the more difficult the situation, the more calm she exudes. Maybe it’s a Zen thing, but wherever she gets it from, it works. Faced with Naomi’s utter calm, Bevins’s rage slowly subsides and she eventually begins to circle one of the larger armchairs and finally perches like some great bird of prey, ready to plummet from on high if a target presents itself.
She says, in a calmer tone, “The only reason we can do this at all is because I happen to know this place, this building, is secure from wiretapping. Because you are under surveillance, you know that, right?”
“By your minions and others,” Naomi says. “Therefore it will already be known that you came to this door and entered this residence.”
“I’m aware of that,” Bevins snaps.
“Perhaps you are here to demand answers. In which case your presence is justified.”
Bevins shakes her head. “An assistant director doesn’t do fieldwork, or conduct interviews out of office, or take statements that can’t be confirmed by another agent. We most certainly do not confide details of an ongoing investigation to a private investigator.”
Naomi cocks her head. “Ah, so that’s the dilemma. You need a reason to be here.”
Bevins, looking miserable, nods.
“Perhaps I refused your request for an interview, but agreed to make a statement to you alone, under my own terms,” Naomi suggests, adding, “I do have that sort of reputation.”
Bevins remains skeptical. “What would be the nature of your statement? What can I take back that would hold up?”
Naomi shrugs. “How about this: we know who abducted Randall Shane and why.”
Bevins appears to be shocked. Some of her poised-to-leap strength seems to weaken. “You do?”
“Certainly. The operation to detain and interrogate Randall Shane was ordered if not directly supervised by Taylor Gatling, Jr., under the aegis of his company, Gatling Security Group, and with, we must assume, the direction and approval of his bosses at the Pentagon or Homeland. The specific
agency has not yet been determined by us, but we assume that whoever it is acts under authority of the Patriot Act. Had you waited until tomorrow, this would have been duly reported by Attorney Porter, either to you or to the Agent In Charge.”
Bevins looks thoughtful. “I am the AIC of this particular case,” she points out.
“Which case? The frame Randall Shane case? The missing-child case?”
“The Joseph Keener case. Because of national security, his murder takes precedence over the missing child.”
“Ah,” says Naomi.
“It wasn’t up to me.”
“No, of course it wasn’t,” Naomi says.
“I’m a cog in a very large machine,” Bevins says. “Although that could change tomorrow. Would you really have reported your suspicions about GSG involvement?”
Very carefully Naomi says, “I would never lie about a thing like that. Moreover, I want the FBI involved in the hunt for Joey Keener.”
“So that’s my excuse for being here?”
“Sounds legitimate to me,” says Naomi. “Surely you can make it sound convincing.”
“Maybe I can at that.” The big woman clears her throat. “Can I ask you a favor? Could I get a glass of water?”
Naomi doesn’t have to ask. I leap to my feet and return in flash time with water, ice and glasses for everyone. Teddy had mouthed the words Red Bull as I left the room, but I pretended not to notice, since he’s already shivering from the effects of too much caffeine.
After drinking deeply, Bevins carefully cradles the empty water glass in both hands, as if absorbing the coolness. Apparently resolved to continue, despite whatever legal, moral or personal jeopardy may be involved.