Dark Horse

by Rory Flynn

  25

  “THINK HE’LL SHOW UP?” Esther pulls her burgundy trench coat around her to ward off the cold and looks out toward Castle Island, its long boardwalk empty.

  “He’ll be here,” Harkness says.

  “How do you know?”

  “Lattimore’s curious,” Harkness says. “Always wants to know everything. Particularly when it’s about him.”

  “That why we’re out here on the ocean, Harky? On a freaking frozen day.” Patrick nods toward the long curve of beige sand and the empty parking lot, infamous from dozens of Mob stakeouts and grainy surveillance photos, now lunar and grim. “Because he’ll be curious?”

  “That and it’s about the most unlikely place to have a meeting ever.” They huddle a little closer on the park bench, breathing steam. Harkness points up at a telephone pole. “The neighborhood association bought crappy cameras. None of them work anymore. So we’re off the grid.”

  “We’re going to be off to the hospital in about ten more minutes.” Patrick shivers. The pigeon-gray sky spits out tiny sparks of snow, carried sideways by the cold wind.

  “This is how revolutions start,” Esther says. “Three people on a bench, going up against the Man.”

  “Ain’t we supposed to have a bomb or something?” Patrick says.

  “We do.” Harkness holds up the blue binder.

  Esther presses closer to them as they wait on the bench.

  “Don’t be getting too friendly, girl.” Patrick tries to edge away. “Really.”

  “I’m not,” Esther says, voice shaking. “This coat’s vintage pleather. Looks good, but it’s about as warm as a shower curtain.”

  “Then why you wearin’ it?”

  “Seemed like the right coat for a climactic showdown by the ocean.”

  “That’s what we’re having today, is it?”

  “Yeah,” Harkness says. “That’s what we’re having today.”

  “There he is.” Esther points to the black SUV speeding down Columbia Road. It skids to a halt and Commissioner Lattimore climbs out, wearing a heavy black parka with a fur-lined hood.

  They stand and watch as he strides toward them.

  “He looks pissed,” Patrick says.

  Esther stares. “But his coat looks really, really warm.”

  “I told the car to wait for ten minutes,” Lattimore says in lieu of hello. “So start talking.”

  Harkness nods at Esther to begin their pitch. “As you know, everything about Dark Horse is wrong, sir,” she says. “It’s brown when it ought to be white. It’s pure when it looks like black tar. It’s packaged in glassine envelopes that stamp collectors use, not in bags. And its logo isn’t a crappy rubber stamp. It looks like a graphic designer came up with it.” The last two details came from Glenn, who spent a few months “battling the poppy,” as he put it, during a rough patch.

  “That’s what you people got?” Lattimore says. “I came to a frozen beach in Southie to hear stuff I already know?”

  “There’s more,” Patrick says, picking up the narrative. “When the Manchester Group started clearing out the Lower South End last spring, some goons dropped off about three kilos of Dark Horse at the apartment of Levon Ashmont and told him they’d front it to him. He can set the price, sell it, and they’d be back to split the money. Weird deal, but lucrative. He moves some of it through his dealers, and a bunch of people overdose. Right before the Lower South End floods, the goons come back and ask for the rest of the junk. They don’t care about the money. They just know it’s a good time to get rid of the evidence. He won’t give it to them. They kill Ashmont with a heavy shot of Dark Horse.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Lattimore says. “Dealers OD all the time.”

  “This one was clean,” Harkness says. “I made a mistake when we were in his apartment. Didn’t look close enough, just assumed he overdosed—but it was a homicide.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “His nephew,” Harkness says.

  “Why do we care about Dark Horse still?” Lattimore runs his fingers through his gray hair, turned wild by the cold wind.

  “Because the Manchester Group is getting away with murder,” Harkness says.

  “Then get real evidence and build a case against them,” Lattimore says. “That’s what we do.”

  “We’ve got evidence, and sources.” Harkness holds up the binder. “But there are . . . complications.”

  “Such as.”

  Patrick counts them off on his gloved fingers. “We got some information from an illegal wiretap down at lockup. Harky stole Frankie Getler’s phone to get the goods on the Manchester Group. And I hacked their e-mail server.”

  “Frankie Getler,” Lattimore says, shaking his head slowly. “That guy’s batshit crazy.”

  “But his phone ain’t,” Patrick says. “And all the other facts we got in this case are solid too, but they came from shaky sources. A musician who dealt Dark Horse, a guy named Jimmy Jazz who’s probably a pimp, and Jennet Townsend, who’s running the wanderer movement. All of ’em got plenty of priors.”

  “The Manchester Group’s lawyers will gut them,” Harkness adds.

  “So pull in the DA’s office.”

  “No way,” Harkness says. “The DA lives in one of the Manchester Group’s luxury apartment towers. From what we can tell, he hasn’t paid rent for four years. Then there are the Harbormasters. They’re all over this too—Fayerwether, the mayor. We have lists and e-mails that take this all the way to the mayor’s office.”

  Lattimore puts out his hand. “Your gun, Harkness. Now. And your badge.”

  “Hey, hang on a second,” Patrick says.

  Esther’s eyes open wide.

  “Our job is to fight drugs, not the mayor,” he says. “I told you not to mess with the Harbormasters and you went against my direct orders. You’re relieved of duty effective immediately, Harkness. Gun and badge, now.”

  In the cold silence that follows, the only sounds are distant seagulls and the jangle of Harkness taking off his gun belt and badge and handing them to Lattimore, who turns and walks toward the idling SUV.

  Harkness pauses, like a roadside bomber waiting for the exact second to hit the detonator.

  As Lattimore opens the door to the SUV, Harkness takes a step forward and shouts, “O’Mara’s appointing Lieutenant Ted Landers commissioner of the BPD in January.”

  All eyes are on Lattimore, waiting.

  Lattimore stops moving, one foot in the SUV, the other on the pavement. He stands frozen for what seems like an eternity, then steps back out and slams the door.

  He’s stalking toward them again, expensive black parka flying in the wind.

  Then Lattimore stands in front of them, Harkness’s gear still in his hands. “What did you say?”

  “Neil Burch told me that O’Mara was going to announce Landers’s appointment as commissioner in January. He’s disbanding Narco-Intel and firing us all.” Harkness skips the part about Burch promising to save his job.

  “That’s complete bullshit.”

  Harkness hands him his iPhone and a set of earbuds. “Listen for yourself,” he says. “I wore a wire to the meeting.”

  Lattimore puts the earbuds in and Harkness presses PLAY on the screen. He listens for a few seconds, and then his eyes open wide and his mouth curdles into a lipless grimace.

  “I knew O’Mara might replace me,” he says. “But not this soon. And not with Lieutenant Landline.” He rips the earbuds out and hands the iPhone back to Harkness, followed by his gun belt and badge.

  “Excellent job, Harkness. You’re back on the force.” Lattimore turns to Patrick. “And you, Detective Fitzgerald, leak that report far and wide.”

  Patrick steps closer. “So what’s the plan, sir?”

  Lattimore puts one hand on Esther’s shoulder and the other on Patrick’s. “We’re going to go after the head of the snake, Officers—Mayor Michael O’Mara. Strike that. Former mayor Michael O’Mara. We’re going to destro
y him.” He pauses. “Or go down trying.”

  Lattimore’s SUV is just a tiny black dot far down Columbia Road. Harkness, Patrick, and Esther shiver in the cold and watch it disappear.

  “Well, that was fun,” Esther says.

  “Nice nail, Harky,” Patrick says. “Textbook. Somebody oughta do a case study.”

  At Narco-Intel, the nail is the incendiary, derailing piece of evidence delivered to the jury or leaked to the media at precisely the right time.

  The toxic chemicals in the defendant’s meth lab killed a litter of kittens.

  The assault victim, a photographer, will never be able to see again.

  Part of an undigested human ear was found in the psychopathic dealer’s stomach.

  The nail.

  “And how’d you manage to get a wire into that meeting, Harky? Thought Burch was all high-tech and crazy about security?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I wrote out what Burch and I said during the meeting and reenacted it with my brother, George. He’s really good with voices.”

  “What if Lattimore figured out it was fake?”

  “You know how it goes with evidence,” Harkness says. “People believe what they want to believe.”

  “Shit, man,” Patrick says. “For a straight shooter, you are one twisted motherfucker.”

  “Contradictions make the man,” Harkness says, dredging up another piece of dark wisdom from his father’s bottomless well.

  26

  SAM REED TOSSES his menu on the table between them. “I’m thinking the breakfast sandwich with egg whites and no meat may be the least deadly thing here.” An incongruous collection of autographed photos stare down from the yellow wall—Ronald Reagan, Mike Dukakis, Tip O’Neill, Barney Frank, Mitt Romney, Martha Coakley. Everybody eats at the Fill-A-Buster.

  “Smart call,” Harkness says. “Not a good time for a cardiac event.” The Beacon Hill diner empties out between breakfast and lunch. They’re alone except for the fry cooks.

  They’re sitting at a wobbly table near the window at a place where politicians go to look like they’re of the people and where neighborhood characters hang out because they are the people—underemployed and low on cash. It serves the kind of food middle-aged men like to eat when their wives aren’t around—bacon and eggs, hamburgers, souvlaki, gyros, Greek salads piled with feta.

  They order and wait.

  “I got to say, Eddy, it’s really good to see you again. Been a while.” Reed smiles, runs his fingers through his sandy hair, cut short and neat.

  “You too, Sam.” Harkness first met Reed as a rookie patrolling the Lower South End. Reed was a committed community organizer at the time, then the district’s much-beloved city councilor, and then a popular but failed candidate for mayor, edged out by O’Mara’s coalition.

  “Things have been pretty terrible in the old neighborhood.” Reed shakes his head. “We’ve got whole blocks still waiting for basic services.”

  “What about the big redevelopment project?”

  “You know how slowly these things go, Eddy. The Urban Redevelopment Council presents its plan. There’s a lot of discussion and debate. I can’t see it going anywhere fast.”

  Harkness says nothing. Even after just a few minutes with Reed, he can tell he’s encased in a thick cocoon of denial.

  “Just politics as usual—lots of talk and in the end, no action,” Reed says. “My job is to make sure that my constituents are protected. And the mayor’s people have assured me that they are.”

  “Really?” Harkness gives Reed a diagnostic stare. His fatal flaw is so obvious, it might as well be a sputtering roadside flare. Professional dispassion, the quality that makes Reed seem so levelheaded during city council meetings, isn’t working for him in the middle of a crisis.

  The waiter delivers their lunches. Harkness pushes his falafel plate aside. “Sam, the Manchester Group is about to swallow up your entire district,” he says. “Do you have any idea what they’re up to?”

  “Manchester Group? They’re real estate developers, right?”

  Harkness squelches the urge to shake Reed by the shoulders. “Yeah, and the Nazis were political activists.”

  “That’s a bit incendiary, isn’t it?”

  “Sam, your district, and your entire base, is about to get dismantled. I think a little incendiary talk might be okay right about now.”

  “Fair enough,” he says, nodding. “I appreciate your candor. I can take it.”

  “How about this?” Harkness leans forward. “The Manchester Group brought Dark Horse to your neighborhood.”

  “What?”

  “It’s deadly heroin disguised as ordinary heroin. Like the Trojan Horse of the opioid wars.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To make the area look dangerous and drug-infested,” Harkness says. “Albrecht Square is one of the city’s jewels. Manchester Group wants it. And they’re about to get it.”

  Reed’s face darkens. Now it’s his turn to push aside his plate.

  “Do you know how many people died from Dark Horse?”

  “No,” Reed says.

  “Twenty-six so far, most in your district.”

  “But this was before the flood, right?”

  “Pretty much,” Harkness says. “Then Dark Horse stopped, because the flood was the best windfall O’Mara’s colleagues could ever have hoped for. And they most definitely used it. That’s what politicians do, right? Take advantage of every opportunity?”

  “That’s a fair assessment.”

  “The Manchester Group is about to destroy you, Sam. Unless you do something to stop it.”

  “Eddy, this is all really disturbing to me,” he says.

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” Harkness says. “I’d be glad to show you the evidence, anytime. Then let’s talk—and try to fix it.”

  “Fix what?”

  “The leadership.”

  Reed shakes his head. “You have no idea how politics works. I don’t have the votes to take down O’Mara. Couldn’t beat him last fall and I still can’t. Once the mayor’s in office, there isn’t a lot you can do about it.”

  “There are some tactics,” Harkness says. “But not the kind you’re used to.”

  “Like?”

  “Enforced transparency,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “We turn into whistleblowers and expose them all—the Manchester Group, the mayor’s office, and the Harbormasters,” Harkness says.

  Reed holds up both hands. “Whoa, do not mess with the Harbormasters.”

  Finally, some emotion, Harkness thinks. “Why not?”

  “Do you know who they are? Rumor has it that they were behind the destruction of the West End. And came up with forced busing in the 1970s. Once they get wind of what you’re up to, you’ll find out just how fast the city can turn really cold and dark.”

  “It’s already cold and dark.”

  “Look, truth be told, the Harbormasters brought me down,” Reed says. “They threw their weight behind O’Mara during the general election and he won. I had no idea what was going on. They’re cold-hearted power brokers, Eddy. And if they decide to, they’ll crush you.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “What are you asking me to do, Eddy? Start a war with the mayor? The Harbormasters? I definitely don’t want to be part of that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what you’re trying to do probably won’t work,” Reed says. “It’s almost impossible to get rid of a sitting mayor. They couldn’t even throw Mayor Curley out of office when he was in prison. A recall takes years, if we could make it happen at all.”

  “So what do you propose?”

  “I’d rather keep O’Mara in office for three more years and let the people really see what he’s all about. Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself, as they say. Then beat him in the next election by a landslide with an I-told-you-so campaign. That s
eems like a much more viable option than attacking him head-on.”

  “Shrewd, very shrewd.” Harkness smiles, tosses a couple of twenties on the table for food they didn’t touch, and reaches for his black overcoat. “There just may be a politician somewhere under all that nice.”

  27

  “WELCOME HOME,” Harkness says as they pull into the unshoveled driveway on Oaktree Court. They look out at the barny McMansion, big as a minor prep school, its many gables dark in the dreary winter afternoon.

  “Could be yours,” Candace says. “Price is dropping.”

  The last time he saw the place, Harkness was helping Candace close it up after her father died. An architectural Frankenstein, the house is so charmless that the Nagog Home Team couldn’t move it no matter how many apple pies they baked in the kitchen.

  “It’s so huge, eventually some investment guy will buy it,” says Harkness.

  “I’ll be right back.” Candace gets out and opens the back door so carefully that May doesn’t even stir in her car seat. “You wait here with Sleepyhead.”

  Candace lifts up the turkey platter and carries it toward the house. Nora’s making Thanksgiving dinner right now in her kitchen. But Candace got up early to roast another turkey to drop off for the anonymous wanderers staying in her house.

  Last night’s snow left a dusting of white on the driveway, now marked with dozens of footsteps. As Harkness wonders just how many wanderers are in the former Hammond family home, Candace comes running back. She slips and falls, rises to run again. Harkness shuts off the car and steps out, glances back to make sure May’s asleep, then locks the doors behind him.

  “Eddy, you’ve got to stop them.” Candace is breathing heavily and the beatific smile of someone delivering a carefully prepared holiday meal is gone, replaced by righteous fury. “You’re not going to believe it.”

  Harkness takes her arm and they walk down the icy walkway. As they open the front door and step inside, cindery wood smoke and the feral scent of too many unwashed people in a close space wraps around them like a thrift-shop overcoat. A dark chandelier hangs crookedly in the main room, and the weak afternoon light has already faded. Harkness can make out the forlorn Thanksgiving platter sitting on the cluttered kitchen counter.