The Dread Line

by Bruce DeSilva

  I found him stretched out in a snow-white chaise longue beside a swimming pool that was still covered for winter on this toasty April afternoon. His bodyguard, a Coke machine in a pin-striped suit, stood with arms crossed a few yards away. He didn’t say “Have a Coke and a smile.”

  “Mulligan is usually packing, boss. Should I pat him down?”

  “No need, Santo. He’s a friend of ours.”

  Arena was the capo famiglia of the Patriarca crime family—still called that even though the legendary Raymond Loreda Salvatore Patriarca had fled Rhode Island jurisdiction thirty years ago to run the rackets in Hades. When I’d last seen Arena about a year ago, he was a spry seventy-year-old with roped forearms and a healthy-looking tan. Now he looked frail, the pale skin on his face as thin and crinkled as tissue paper. He had a gray wool blanket pulled up to his neck, a clear plastic tube in his nose, and an oxygen tank resting beside him.

  “Beautiful day,” I said.

  “A bit chilly,” he said, “but they say the salt air is good for what ails me.” His voice was at once hoarse and wet, like water seeping through a clogged sewer pipe.

  “Emphysema?”

  “Yeah. It’s been getting worse, so they got me tethered to this fucking tank several hours a day now.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Ah, what can you do? Gettin’ old is a bitch. So how you been, Mulligan? Grasso tells me you got yourself a dog now.”

  “Two of them,” I said. I pulled out a cell phone and showed him some pictures.

  “Handsome beasts,” he said.

  “That they are.”

  “Can I offer you something? Bottled water? Coffee? A glass of wine?”

  “I’m good.”

  “So,” he said, “did you bring the package?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “No? Why the fuck not?”

  “You must have heard by now that we’ve gone legal,” I said.

  “So Grasso’s been telling me. Think I saw somethin’ about it on the news a while back, too.”

  “That means we don’t need your protection anymore,” I said.

  “The hell it does.”

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  Arena coughed, ripped the tube out of his nose, and coughed some more. “You got some fuckin’ balls coming here to tell me this.”

  I didn’t say anything to that, either.

  “Planning to cut Zerilli out, too?” he asked.

  “No way. It’s still his business. I just run it for him.”

  “And he’s okay with you trying to break away from this thing of ours?”

  “I haven’t told him about that part yet.”

  “Well, let me explain the facts of life to you, Mulligan. Going legit don’t mean shit. Lots of legal businesses pay us for protection.”

  “Like the strip club owners you’ve been shaking down?”

  “Among other things, yeah.”

  “They pay because they’re afraid of you,” I said. “I’m not.”

  “No? And to think I had you pegged as a smart guy.”

  “Boss?” the Coke machine said. “Want I should work him over a little? Teach the fucker some manners.”

  “Not just yet, Santo.”

  “Not ever,” I said.

  Santo smirked and pulled open his suit jacket, giving me a look at the pistol in his shoulder holster. I reached behind me, stuck my hand under my shirt tail, and rested it on the semiauto in the small of my back.

  “Jesus!” Arena said. “Cool the fuck down, both of youse. There ain’t gonna be no gunplay. Not here at my fuckin’ house.” He coughed again and slid the tube back in his nose.

  “Mulligan,” Arena said, “take out whatever you got in your waistband, put it down, and step away from it. Santo, you do the same thing.”

  “You sure, boss?”

  “Stop pretending you can think for yourself, and do what I tell you.”

  Santo grimaced, opened his jacket again, and drew out his pistol, holding the butt between his thumb and forefinger. I pulled mine out the same way. Together, we both bent at the knees, laid our weapons on the pool apron, and slowly backed away from them. Never taking his eyes off of me, Santo pulled up a lawn chair and sat beside his boss. I grabbed a matching one and sat across from them.

  “I did you a good turn six years ago, Giuseppe,” I said.

  “When you came to me with proof that Dio and Giordano were behind the arson-for-profit scam that burned up a lot of citizens in Mount Hope,” he said.

  “And informed you that your lawyer, Brady Coyle, was in on it,” I said. “That he was setting you up for a fall on a labor-racketeering charge to get you out of the way because he knew you’d never have sanctioned what they were doing.”

  “I remember. I also seem to recall that those three mokes ended up getting whacked.”

  “They did.”

  “Might be a lesson for you in that, Mulligan.”

  “I get your point.”

  “But you figure I owe you a favor?”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t negotiate at the point of a gun, Mulligan.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “So what do you propose?” Arena asked.

  “From here on out, I’ll give you half of what you’ve been getting every month. But in return, I need you to do something for me.”

  “You mean not send somebody to shoot you?”

  “That, too,” I said. And then I told him what I had in mind.

  47

  The Old State House was already thirty–five years old when the Declaration of Independence was first read from its front steps in 1776. Today, the two-and-a-half-story redbrick Georgian edifice still stands at the head of Washington Square in Newport. I strolled past it, admiring the simple elegance of colonial architect Richard Munday’s design, and climbed the steps of the graceless Florence K. Murray Judicial Complex. Inside, I entered the district court clerk’s office and dug through recent civil filings.

  Marlon Jenks was being sued. According to the complaint, a pair of “new” Husqvarna ride-on power mowers he’d sold to a Wakefield lawn service company were actually rebuilt models. Jenks had denied the complaint, and the case was still pending. But the amount at stake was less than five grand. A little more checking showed that neither Jenks nor his hardware store had ever filed for bankruptcy.

  I drove home, fired up my laptop, checked the three leading credit rating services, and found that his scores were over seven hundred on all of them. If he’d been having money trouble, I couldn’t find any sign of it.

  That afternoon, I drove back to Jamestown and popped into the hardware store. Jenks’s wife, Angie, was behind the counter, ringing up a sale. His teenage sons, Jake and Dougie, were there too, helping out after school by stocking the shelves. On impulse, I grabbed a pointed shovel, a bag of fertilizer, and five azalea bushes and then waited in line behind two other customers to pay for my purchases.

  Afterward, I went back to my place and planted the azaleas beside my back porch. Then I took Brady and Rondo for a run around the property, thought about Marlon Jenks sitting in a holding cell, and wondered what I should do next.

  * * *

  That evening, Buzz Starkey, one of ESPN’s army of NFL reporters, went on the air to trumpet an exclusive: Conner Bowditch was gay—and, as a consequence, he was certain to plunge like a leaky submarine in the upcoming college draft.

  The story, attributed to an unnamed pro scout, was accompanied by a low-quality, thirty-second video of Bowditch emerging from a Providence gay bar with his arm draped over the shoulder of a little man Starkey referred to only as “the star’s longtime companion.” I recognized him right off as Bowditch’s old high school pal, Ricky Santos. The story had the insidious mixture of facts and innuendo that many people would find convincing.

  An hour after it aired, Bowditch called me in a panic.

  “It’s a lie,” he said, “but people are going to believe it. Hell, even Meg
han is looking at me funny and asking me if it’s true. I got reporters phoning me every five minutes with questions about what they call my lifestyle. They’ve started stalking my teammates and my dad already, too. Christ! It’s less than two weeks before the draft, Mr. Mulligan. There’s probably not enough time to erase people’s doubts about this. It’s gonna cost me millions.”

  “Calm down, Conner, and maybe I can help you straighten this out. Tell me what you were doing at that bar.”

  He audibly sucked in a breath and started in. “Sunday night, I met Ricky for a drink at the Stable on Washington Street and—”

  Suddenly, a woman shrieked in the background.

  “Dammit,” Conner growled. “It’s not a meat market, Meghan. It’s a classy place.”

  “So I hear,” I said.

  “We sat at the bar, knocked back a few, and talked about stuff,” Conner said. “How his studies was going. Where I hoped to play next year. Which team was likely to draft me. Every once in a while, a guy came up and asked for my autograph. After a couple of hours, we finished our beers and went home. I mean, I went back to my parents’ house, and he went back to his place. It was all totally innocent.”

  “But someone wants to make it look like it wasn’t,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Conner said. “And I think I know who.”

  48

  McCracken put his phone on speaker, swung his feet onto his desk, and blew a smoke ring. “Good morning, Mr. Eliason. How can we help you today?”

  “Jesus Christ!” Eliason growled. “How can you help me? Is that what you fuckin’ said? We’re paying you two donkeys a ton of money to vet Bowditch, and I gotta find out from Buzz fuckin’ Starkey that the kid’s a closeted gay?”

  “So what if he is?” I said.

  “Are you shittin’ me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “I thought you guys claimed to know football,” Eliason said.

  We didn’t say anything to that.

  “What? You think we’re all fuckin’ bigots up here now?”

  We didn’t say anything to that, either.

  “Well, we’re not,” he said. “I got no problem with the gays. Neither does Coach Belichick. Hell, Robert Kraft is on record that he’d welcome an openly gay player on the Patriots.”

  “Then why are you making a big deal out of this?” McCracken said.

  Now it was Eliason who didn’t have anything to say.

  “Well, here’s what I think,” McCracken said. “The macho culture of NFL locker rooms is intolerant of gay athletes. A bunch of NFL players have made homophobic comments. Jonathan Vilma of the Saints actually tweeted that he’s afraid gay teammates might look at him in the shower.”

  “You never heard any of that crap from a member of the Patriots,” Eliason said.

  “True,” I said, “but I bet some of the guys in your locker room think that way. A gay player would be a distraction, and we all know how much Belichick hates distractions.”

  “Look,” Eliason said, “we’re trying to win football games here. Got our sights on another Super Bowl trophy. You expect us to risk that just to make a statement? You think we should make Bowditch our Jackie Robinson just so Robert Kraft can go down in history as the next Branch Rickey?”

  “I think that would be nice,” I said.

  “Well, it’s not gonna happen.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” I said. “You’re right. It’s not going to happen. But not for the reason you think.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Bowditch isn’t gay.”

  “He’s not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you sure?” Eliason said. “I mean, Starkey’s an asshole, but he usually gets his facts straight.”

  “Not this time,” McCracken said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Remember us telling you that one of the Jets’ scouts, Elliot Crabtree, has been dogging Bowditch?” McCracken said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He concocted the story and got Starkey to fall for it.”

  “What the hell would he do that for?”

  “The Jets will be picking seventh,” McCracken said. “If the story causes Bowditch to fall in the draft …

  “Which it will,” I butted in.

  “Then they can grab him,” McCracken said.

  “Sonovabitch!” Eliason said. “You’re sure Crabtree is behind this?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “He was lurking outside the club when Bowditch strolled out with his arm around a film student named Ricky Santos. They both saw him point his cell phone at them.”

  “Which is where the video came from?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What the hell was Bowditch doing in a gay bar in the first place?” Eliason asked.

  “Having a drink with an old friend.”

  “But why there?”

  “The Stable is Santos’s favorite spot.”

  “This Santos kid is gay?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then how can you be sure that Bowditch isn’t gay, too?”

  “I guess you can never be absolutely sure about that with anybody,” McCracken said. “Nobody had a clue about Dennis Hastert until the former Speaker of the House got caught paying hush money to keep a fifty-year-old dalliance with a male student quiet. But we’ve talked to everybody who knows Bowditch. If he’s in the closet, we can’t find any hint of it.”

  “Okay, then,” Eliason said.

  “And if it turns out that he is gay, so what?” I said.

  “Aw, Christ. Let’s not chew on that bone that again. We’ve got a deal on the table with Jacksonville for the third pick in the draft. If we make it, we can grab Bowditch. The question is, should we pull the trigger?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Probably? That’s not good enough. We’d be giving up a hell of a lot for the kid. We can’t afford to make a mistake.”

  “Well, we’ve still got a few loose ends to tie up,” McCracken said.

  “So you’re saying I should hold off?”

  “Up to you,” McCracken said.

  “Ticktock,” Eliason said. “The Jaguars are itching to trade down, but if we hesitate, they might move the pick to somebody else. And the draft—the fucking dread line—is less than two weeks away.”

  “Understood.”

  * * *

  “So,” McCracken said after we signed off, “think we were right in not telling Eliason about the point shaving?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And not telling him who Conner’s agent is, too. I doubt the Patriots would want to negotiate a deal with that prick.”

  “We’re going to have to tell him eventually.”

  “Sure, but we’ve still got a couple of weeks to make things right. I think it’s time we paid Morris Dunst another visit.”

  “Today’s as good a time as any,” McCracken said.

  “Tomorrow would be better.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to see Mark Gardner at Yolanda’s law firm first.”

  49

  According to the little brass plate on her desk, Dunst’s receptionist, or administrative assistant, or office manager, or executive support associate, or whatever the hell the language vandals were calling the job this week, was named Doris Platt. The fresh flowers on her leather desk blotter and the message on the bouquet of helium balloons bobbing over her head told me that this was her birthday.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have you gentlemen down for this morning,” Ms. Platt said. “Did you have an appointment?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Is Attorney Dunst expecting you?”

  “Not right this minute, but I’m pretty sure he knew he’d be seeing us again.”

  “I’m sorry, but he’s currently out of the office.”

  “Oh, really?” McCracken said.

  “Yes.”

  He circled her des
k, cracked the inner door, peeked inside, and then pulled it closed.

  “As I told you, he’s not in,” she said, her voice colder now.

  “Will he be returning anytime soon?” I asked.

  “I believe it could be several hours.”

  “We’ll wait.”

  We grabbed seats in the waiting area and started flipping through dated magazines again.

  “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in a bar or coffee shop,” Ms. Platt said, the set of her shoulders hinting that she was growing uneasy with our presence.

  “Maybe we could wait in his office,” I said. “That would give us a chance to rifle his files and check his desk for firearms.”

  Ms. Platt’s forced smile said she wasn’t sure if I was kidding. “There are a couple of nearby places I can recommend,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” McCracken said. “I don’t think we’ll have much trouble finding a bar in Boston.”

  “Well, then, give me your business card,” she said. “I’ll give you a call if he is able to squeeze you in today.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, we were sitting in McCracken’s Acura at the corner of Milk and Devonshire, where we had an unobstructed view of both entrances to the building. We were still waiting there at six P.M. when Platt emerged from the front entrance, frowned at a sky that was threatening rain, and strolled down the street to a bus stop.

  “What do you think?” McCracken asked.

  “Could be he got held up on lawyer business,” I said. “More likely she called him, and he decided to duck us.”

  “Want to hang around till dark and then black-bag his office? I checked out the locks on our way out. I could pick them in less than five minutes.”

  I took a few seconds to think about it and then shook my head. “It’s not worth the risk. Chances are he’s got the contracts locked in a safe. A Schlage door lock isn’t much of a challenge for you, but you’re no safecracker.”

  “The contracts might not even be there,” McCracken said. “He could be keeping them at home. Or in a safe deposit box.”