Tommy the Temper Danucci gave his abrupt nod, like I would do what he wanted whether I promised him or not.
Thirteen
WHEN PRIMO ZUPPONE DROPPED me off at the condo, he remembered to give me both my gun and the Wim Mertens tape. I put the cassette into a pocket of my raincoat.
Upstairs, there were two messages on my telephone machine. The same two were on my office answering service when I checked in with it. The first was from Harry Mullen, asking me to call him about the Dani case. I decided to handle that instead with a face-to-face, the next morning at his office. The other message was from Nancy, asking me to call her at home.
“Hello?”
“Nance, it’s John.”
“Oh, John.” A gap, as though I’d woken her up. “Can you come over?”
“Now?”
“Please.”
“Sure. Anything the—”
“When you get here.”
“Twenty minutes.”
There was something in her voice, something I didn’t recognize right away. Then I remembered her note between the salt and pepper that morning. She was taking Renfield to the vet’s, and I was supposed to have called her. Shit.
I made the drive shaving five minutes off the twenty.
Nancy met me at the downstairs door to her building. She was wearing an old New England School of Law sweatshirt, jeans, and no makeup. Unless you counted the red nose.
Nancy Meagher, Assistant District Attorney for the County of Suffolk, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was stiff as a fish.
She said, “Don’t say anything. Just c’mon up.”
I followed her, bracing myself at each step to break her fall if she went over backwards. As we passed the Lynches’ landing, Drew and I exchanged nods. On the third floor, Nancy had to grope through the pockets of her jeans before finding the key to her place.
The kitchen table was cleared except for a single short tumbler and a half-empty liter of Stolichnaya. I suppose you could have said the bottle was half-full, but things didn’t look that optimistic.
“Nance—”
Her right hand rose in a stop sign, then flapped down to her side. She crossed to the sink, steadying herself with her left palm on the porcelain while reaching up to the cabinet for another glass. After two tries, she managed to snag one.
Nancy crossed back, put the new tumbler on the table, and poured three fingers of rough justice into each glass before handing me the new one. “I don’t want to be the only in-need-brit … in-e-briate in this conversation.”
I accepted the glass, thinking that was the tone I hadn’t recognized in her voice over the phone. I’d seen her drinking before, but never drunk.
She downed half her booze, took a breath, and downed the rest.
I just nipped at mine, covering the tumbler with my hand to mask how much was left. “What do you say we go into the living room and talk about it?”
Nancy turned, taking the bottle by the neck and caroming past me toward the front of the apartment. At the couch, she yanked two cushions onto the floor, plunking herself into one of them. I took the other.
She started to pour herself another drink, stopped, and set the bottle and glass heavily on the rug. “I’m gonna be real sick, right?”
“If that bottle started the evening intact.”
A nod. “When?”
“You eat anything?”
A shake.
“Then pretty soon and pretty bad.”
“Before that happens …” She suppressed a belch. “… I have something to say. Renfield’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna take a while, but he’s gonna be okay.”
“Nancy, I’m sorry—”
The stop sign again. “Wasn’t you. Wasn’t your fault, I mean. And wasn’t his hip, either. The vet said he has a congenial … congenital problem with his back legs. I can’t remember the science name, but it’s like his kneecaps aren’t in the right place, so he has to have an operation to put them back. Where they should be. So it wasn’t your fault. It would have happened sometime, when he jumped off a chair or down a step or …” She waved the last phrase away.
“If Renfield’s going to be okay, then why the bottle?”
Nancy flapped both hands in her lap. “They called me at the office and told me he should have the operation or else be … put to sleep, and I guess I just realized how … fragile everything could be. When I’m with you, I’m fine. When you’re not here, and Renfield is, I’m fine. But when I got home tonight, and he wasn’t here, and no word back from you, I just realized how lonely it was to be alone.”
“Nance—”
The stop sign came up halfway. “John, this isn’t easy for me. I’m trying to tell you something, okay?”
“Okay.”
“When I first started seeing you, I said to myself, ‘Girl, this could be the one.’ But then I realized that you have your life, and your job, and that’s fine. That’s fine, really, because I have my life and my job, too.” Her right hand slashed through the air. “Even steven. But I just realized tonight that the main reason I got Renfield from the animal shelter in the first place is that …”
Something churned inside her, and I started hoping that this wasn’t going to be a much longer speech.
“… is that I needed company when we weren’t together. Once I got used to having you around, I needed somebody around when you weren’t.”
“Like Renfield.”
Nancy pointed at me. “Exactly.”
“When can you pick him up?”
“That’s the other thing. They have to keep him till Friday afternoon. ’Cause of the anestex … anesthesia. They have to keep an eye on him when he wakes up. But I have to leave for Dallas that morning for my talk, and I can’t…”
Her voice quavered, and I got up on my knees and hugged her. “I can pick him up, no sweat.”
She started to cry quietly. “But I can’t even be—”
“Nancy, don’t worry, okay? I’ll pick him up, and he’ll be fine.”
She nodded into my shoulder, and I felt something else move inside her.
“Nance, why don’t we get you into the bathroom?”
“Good … idea.”
We just made it.
Nancy got out of bed Thursday morning on the strength of a quart of ice water and three Excedrin. After I dropped her at the courthouse, I drove to the condo space and decided to run to clear my own head toward seeing Harry Mullen.
It had been a few weeks since I’d done the Boston marathon, but most of the ill effects were gone. My right toenail, which had turned black, began growing out instead of falling off. My side, where I’d taken a bullet in the little pocket of fat above the hip bone, healed over nicely, just a livid mark on the love handle.
I still had the endurance the training had given me, but I expected that would evaporate over the next few months. In just a cotton turtleneck and shorts, I crossed Storrow Drive on the Fairfield Street pedestrian ramp, heading upriver on the macadam path. They were still repairing the Mass Ave Bridge, the orange cement trucks looking like ladybugs on a branch. It seemed as though they’d been repairing the bridge since I’d started high school.
Nearing Boston University, I passed over the painted outlines of several bodies, limbs akimbo. I think the outlines were supposed to represent some people killed during a coup in Chile. The paint certainly wasn’t the work of a crime scene techie. The police use removable tape or washable chalk so as not to terrify the tourists any longer than necessary.
I made the turn for home at the Harvard Square Bridge, thinking that it had been my first training run for the marathon and remembering how much trouble I’d had with it five months earlier. Then my mind shifted to confronting Harry Mullen over what he’d gotten me into, and I picked up my pace considerably on the way back.
He looked miserable even before he saw me in his doorway.
“Jeez, John, nobody told me you were here.”
I gestured behind me. “There was nobody out he
re to ask. Where’s the staff?”
Mullen motioned me in. He pulled a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, and I reflexively closed the door.
Harry lit up without handing me a towel or setting up his electronic box. There was even an ashtray on his desk, five dead butts already in it. “You got my message on your tape there?”
“I got it. Of course, the Danuccis delivered their message a little sooner.”
Mullen flinched, took a deep drag, and blew it out like a fire-eater. “I want to explain this, John.”
“I want to hear it.”
Harry waited for me to take the visitor’s chair. No more comfortable than last time.
He said, “First, I swear to you, I didn’t know a thing about the Danucci side of it.”
“Bullshit, Harry.”
“No, honest to God. Yulin’s call and letter came in while I was out of the office. Because the policy’s half a million, the claim went down to New York before we even started on it up here.” Mullen took another hard drag. “And your friend Brad Winningham spotted the Dani name.”
“How did he do that?”
“He knew somebody went to law school with the girl’s uncle. I guess everybody at the school knew about the guy changing his name because of the family connection.”
“Look, Harry, why didn’t you tip me to this when I came to see you Tuesday afternoon?”
“Because I didn’t know, John. I swear.”
“How come you didn’t know then but you did know by last night?”
“Yesterday afternoon, I—Jeez, John. Let me go back, go through it from the top, okay?”
I exhaled. “Okay.”
Mullen mashed out the cigarette. “The claim comes in with the Dani name on it, nothing about ‘Danucci.’ It gets sent to New York. Winningham sees it, makes the connection, then tells me over the phone to assign the investigation to you. Get me?”
“You gave it to me without knowing about the Danuccis being involved.”
“Right, right. I get the call from Winningham, I figure, he’s trying to be a nice guy for once. I owed you, John. What you taught me here, what you said for me when they booted you out. I figured this’d be a good way to pay you back a little.”
“So you didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth.”
“Right.”
“So what happened to change things?” Mullen closed his eyes and chewed the inside of his cheek. Then he seemed to talk to the desk. “Winningham called me yesterday. Said he was going on vacation. Said he wanted to tie up a few loose ends first.”
“Like me.”
Harry looked up. “Yeah. Yeah, like you. He asks me, ‘You give that case to Cuddy yet?’ and I say, ‘Yes, Mr. Winningham.’ And he says, ‘He working on it yet?’ And I say, ‘You bet he is.’ And then he says, ‘You hear back from him yet?’ and I go, ‘No, Mr. Winningham, but I just gave him the file yesterday.’ And the shit says, ‘Well, don’t hold your breath, Mullen.’ And I stop. Then I say, ‘What do you mean?’ And he says, ‘You ever heard of the Danucci family?’ And I say, ‘Like in the mob stories, you mean?’ And Winningham just laughs, John. The son of a bitch just laughs at me.”
I watched Mullen. “He told you not to tell me, right?”
Harry looked away, out his window toward the Burger King. “Yeah, but fuck him.”
I watched my old friend some more, tried not to see his little kid with the goofy smile.
Harry said, “Besides, another month, it won’t mean anything anyway.”
“Why not?”
Mullen stabbed at the pack of Marlboros. “Another month, I’m gone.”
“They caught you?”
He looked at me like I wasn’t speaking the mother tongue. “What?”
I inclined my head toward the ashtray. “The company policy on smoking. They caught you?”
“Oh.” Harry acted like he wanted to laugh, but just couldn’t find the right muscles. “No. Jeez, that’s right. I was so worried about that the last time I saw you. No, John. They’re folding us up.”
“They’re what?”
“They’re closing the office. That was one of the other ‘loose ends’ Winningham wanted to tie up before he hit the beach. Seems some MBAs didn’t have anything better to do down in New York, they punched me and my people into the computer and found out they could save a dime, folding us up and doing all the regional investigating with free-lancers out of Boston or Portland or Providence.”
“You’re kidding?”
Mullen’s face told me he wasn’t. “So, you want to punt this Dani/Danucci thing, it doesn’t matter. You want to stay with it, I’ll let you know when to start sending your reports to New York.”
I let out a breath and sat back in the chair as Harry lit his cigarette. I couldn’t see how leaving the case for Empire would take me out of Mau Tim’s death as far as the Danuccis were concerned. At Homicide, Holt wouldn’t be any help, and Murphy couldn’t be any help. Right now, being with Empire was a justification, maybe even a buffer.
Then I noticed the little kid in the photo again. “Harry, what are you going to do?”
He blew smoke from his nostrils. “Check with some guys I know, dust off the resume.” He tried to smile. “They still call it that, right?”
“I’ll keep my ears open for you.”
“Thanks, John.”
“I hear about something, I’ll let you know.”
“Good, thanks.”
As we stood and shook hands, I couldn’t decide whose hail words sounded more hollow.
I had left the Prelude in the condo space for my walk over to Empire. After seeing Harry Mullen, I walked back to the condo and tried to call Brad Winningham in New York. His secretary advised me he would not be available for a week. I told her I’d like to see him then and she told me that he’d be very busy upon his return. I said that was all right, I’d be happy even if I had to wait to see him. When she asked for my name, I told her “John F. Danucci.” She said she’d put me in the book but couldn’t promise anything. I told her I was sure that Mr. Winningham would think that she’d done the right thing.
I went down to my car and headed toward the Boston Herald, one of the two big newspapers in town. I wanted more background information on the Danucci angle, and there was one reporter I was pretty sure could help me.
“You notice it, don’t you?”
I said, “Notice what, Mo?”
“Notice what. Notice what’s different.”
I looked around Mo Katzen’s office. The old typewriter was still on the stand next to his desk, Mo detesting the concept of computerization. The avalanche of papers, both documents and sandwich covers, was still on top of his desk. Mo himself sat behind the desk, wavy white hair on his head and a dead cigar in his mouth. He still wore the vest and pants of a three-piece suit, the jacket to which I’d never seen on him in all the years I’d known him.
No visible changes. “Sorry, Mo.”
“Christ, some detective you are. This.” He reached up to his left ear and pulled out a tiny, flesh-colored lump of plastic. “This little bugger.”
I took the other chair. “A hearing aid?”
“Finally. Can you believe it? A few years past my prime, and I got to wear one of these things.”
Mo’s prime may have passed recently, but he was never going to see seventy again. “How long have you had it?”
“Couple weeks now. My wife and I are at this banquet thing back in March, and we’re sitting around this big round table, like for poker. This guy I never met before is asking me some kind of cockamamy question from across the table and I’m answering him and then my wife starts elbowing me in the ribs, telling me I’m ‘not replying in the context of the question.’ Can you believe that?”
“Hard to believe about you, Mo.”
“Damn straight. Anyway, this happens like two or three more times in the course of the evening, and my wife is just about to file papers on me, so I tell her, ‘All right already, I’ll go see my d
octor.’ And she tells me, ‘You need an audiologist.’ And—I gotta admit—I say ‘A what?’ And she smiles this superior smile of hers, and she doesn’t have to tell me ‘I told you so’ before she makes an appointment for me.
“So, all right, I go to this audiologist guy. Only instead of an office like a doctor, it looks like an appliance store. But, she made the appointment, I go in anyway. The guy asks me some questions, takes some kind of a ‘reading’ he calls it, then pokes around in my ears with this thing, looks like a miner’s pick with a light on it. He says to me, ‘Well, Mr. Katzen, no trouble with your wax,’ like I’ve been to the dentist and he tells me I’ve been flossing right. So then he puts me in this sound booth with keys, but not like a piano.”
“Like a recording studio, Mo.”
“What?”
“Like—”
“Just a second.” Mo put the aid back into his ear. “Like a … ?”
“Like a recording studio?”
“Yeah, yeah. Like that. Except instead of earphones, I’m wearing this stethoscope thing. And he beeps me up and over the cowshed, both ears. Then he says I hear the low tones okay, but not the high ones. So now I get to sit in this chair and he pours a moulage of like wax in my ear, with a wick in it. He lets the wax harden, which is not the greatest feeling in the world, I’ll tell you.
“Then, maybe ten minutes later, he pulls the wax plug out of my ear by the wick. Then he puts it on the side to harden some more while he asks me questions. He tells me he’ll mail the little plug out to some company and my aid will come back in like three to six weeks.”
“So now you have a custom-made hearing aid.”
“Yeah. Only they don’t tell you some things. Like the little bugger’s custom-made for only one ear, not the other. My case, it’s the left, but guess what?”
“What, Mo?”
“My left is the ear I use for answering the phone. Guess what else.”
This could take a while. “What, Mo?”
“The thing’s murder if you put the receiver to that ear. The habit of a lifetime, John, and I’m supposed to change it now?”
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