One-Way Ticket

by William G. Tapply

  Dalt smiled. “He’s a good kid, Brady. Thank God I didn’t fuck him up the way my old man did me.”

  “Something to be proud of,” I said. “Warner seems like an okay guy.”

  He nodded. “Mike’s a good guy. I called, told him where I was, asked him to come get me, and he came. No questions asked.”

  I put my elbows on the table and pushed my face at him. “I can see why there might be things you wouldn’t want Mike and Robert to hear,” I said. “But God damn it, Dalt, you can’t lie to me. I’m your lawyer. We’ve been through all this before. You know it’s all confidential.” I looked hard at him. “So let’s have it. Who do you owe money to, and how much?”

  He blinked at me. “Brady,” he said, “I’m telling you the truth. I promised Jess I’d quit when I asked her to marry me, and I’ve kept my word. I have no idea what those thugs wanted.”

  “Next time they won’t pull their punches,” I said. “You understand that, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “They might kill you.”

  He gave his head a little shake. “Believe me, I understand that.”

  “So don’t fuck with me.”

  “I’m not fucking with you,” he said. “I have no idea what this is all about. That’s why I need you.”

  “They must’ve said something.”

  He shook his head. “They didn’t say much. They had me on the ground, kicking me and grunting and swearing, calling me a fucker and a cocksucker, and I’ve got my arms around my head trying to cover my face, you know? Trying to survive?”

  “They didn’t say anything about money?”

  “It seemed like I was supposed to know what they wanted.”

  “Look,” I said. “You had Robert call me at home, drag me away from my girlfriend and my ball game—why? So you could lie to me? What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t blame you for what you’re thinking,” he said. “But I’m not gambling, Brady, I swear. I don’t owe anybody anything.” He looked down at the tabletop for a moment, then lifted his head and looked into my eyes. “It makes no sense. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m scared, and that’s why I called you. Because you’re my friend and my lawyer, and I couldn’t think of anybody else who could help me.”

  I stared at him. He looked right back at me. His eyes were full of innocence and outrage.

  “What did you tell them at the hospital?” I said.

  “About this?” He touched his face.

  I nodded.

  “I said I fell down some stairs.”

  “They believed you?”

  He shrugged. “They didn’t argue with me. What do they care?”

  “If they knew it was an assault,” I said, “they’d have to report it to the police. Which is what we’re going to do. Right now. We’ll go together. Give them the best descriptions you can. They’ll probably have a good idea who these guys are.”

  “I can’t give them any descriptions. What am I gonna tell them—three guys, one had a wart or something on his face, they attacked me in a parking lot and called me a fucker? They’ll nod and take notes and make me fill out a report, and next thing you know they’ll interrogate me, what I’m into, who I owe money to, and they’ll figure out that I’ve got a history, and just like you, they won’t believe me, and I’ll end up being a suspect instead of a victim. You know that.”

  “We should report it anyway.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t do that,” he said. “No police.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  He shrugged. “My mother, just for one thing. Not to mention my wife.”

  “Your mother the judge.”

  “Yes. Both of them. They’ll believe I’m back into the casino thing again. They’ll assume I’m lying. Getting beat up in a parking lot? Police reports?” He shook his head. “My mother’s a judge. I’ve done enough to her. I can’t do that to her reputation.”

  “You and Jess getting along all right?”

  “Sure. Fine.” He shrugged.

  “Okay. None of my business.” I leaned back in the booth and folded my arms across my chest. “Well, I just ran out of ideas. You don’t want to make a report to the police, you want to lie to your wife and mother, not to mention your lawyer and your son, I don’t know why you even called me, because I don’t know how else to advise you. Get out of town for a while, I guess.”

  “There must be somebody you can talk to,” he said. “You know everybody. Can’t you figure out who these guys are, talk to them, tell them it’s a mistake, make them understand it’s not me they’re after, get it straightened out?”

  I smiled. “I’m just a family lawyer, Dalt. Divorces and estates. That’s about it.”

  “You’ve been involved in lots of other things,” he said.

  “Not by choice,” I said.

  “You’re my friend.”

  I looked up and saw Warner and Robert approaching us. I held up my hand, and they nodded and stopped.

  I leaned across the table. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I will no longer be your lawyer. Or your friend. Understand?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I’m not lying.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. He stared right back at me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll try to get a sit-down with Vincent Russo.”

  “Russo, huh?” said Dalt. “I thought he was—”

  I nodded. “He’s presumably retired. But if somebody orders his goons to beat you up because he thinks you owe him money, if it’s not Russo himself, he’ll know who, because he knows everything. If he can’t tell me what’s going on, you’re on your own, and then you should seriously think about moving to Canada.”

  Dalt gave me a crooked smile. “Canada doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, goons or no goons, except I doubt Jess will go for it. You’ll talk to Russo?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  I waved my hand at Warner and Robert, and they came over and stood beside the booth. “You guys get it all straightened out?” Warner said.

  “We’re working on it,” I said. I looked at Dalt. “So what are you going to tell Jess?”

  “I guess I’ll tell her I got mugged.”

  “That’s not exactly the truth,” I said.

  “Close enough,” he said. He gave Robert and Warner a crooked just-between-us-guys grin. “You shouldn’t lie to your brother-in-law or your son or your lawyer, I know. But your wife’s a different story. You guys’ll back me up, right?”

  They both shrugged.

  On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, we all shook hands. Warner and Dalt turned left to head for the parking garage where Warner had left his car. I turned right to go home, and Robert fell in beside me.

  We walked toward the Common. I assumed Robert was headed for the T station at Park Street.

  “So what’s going to happen?” he said.

  “They got the wrong man,” I said. “I’ll try to get it straightened out.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I hope so,” he said.

  I handed him one of my business cards. “In case you think of something,” I said. “Or just feel like talking. Give me a call.”

  He looked at the card, then stuck it in his pants pocket. “Okay. Thanks.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Robert said, “I hated you for a long time, you know.”

  I turned and looked at him. “Me? Why?”

  “I was just a kid. In my mind it was you who told him to give me up. I hardly ever saw my father.”

  “I was just the lawyer,” I said.

  “I know. It was easier to hate you than to hate him.”

  “And now?”

  He shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t your fault.”

  Three

  ALITTLE BEFORE EIGHT THE next morning, I was sitting at the picnic table with my se
cond mug of coffee and Henry was sitting alertly beside me eyeing the chickadees in the feeders when Evie came out. She had a glass of orange juice in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other. Her auburn hair was brushed glossy and tied back in a loose ponytail with a green silk scarf. She wore an off-white blouse with a slender gold chain at her throat, a narrow blue skirt that didn’t quite make it down to her delicious knees, and high heels that showed off her slim, strong calves.

  I gave her a whistle, and she smiled quickly. “I’m late,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” She sat across from me and took a bite from her bagel.

  “I figured you needed your sleep,” I said. “You were tossing and turning and mumbling all night.”

  She looked up at me. “Sorry I ruined your sleep.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got to run a damn staff meeting at nine. I hate it when I have to rush around in the morning.”

  Evie was an administrator at the Beth-Israel hospital. A big part of her job seemed to be holding meetings.

  “Listen,” I said. “How about we go out to dinner tonight?”

  “How come?”

  I looked at her. “Something bothering you, honey?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “You don’t seem very pleased at the idea of eating out. You didn’t kiss me when you came out just now. You’ve seemed kind of grouchy lately.”

  “You didn’t exactly jump up to kiss me.”

  I reached across the table and gave her cheek a caress. “You’re right,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I know,” she said. “Where do you want to eat?”

  “How about Nola’s?”

  “Huh?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Nola’s Trattoria, you mean? In the North End?”

  I nodded. “We ate there once. You loved their food.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s up, Brady?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nola’s is that Mafia guy’s restaurant. Russo. You took me there because you wanted to talk to him about something. He gave me the creeps, the way he looked at me. He’s got snakey eyes. I think you only brought me there for some kind of disguise or something, so it’d look like you weren’t really there to talk business.”

  “Russo was utterly charmed by you,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I mean. That’s what this is about, right? You want something from him, and you think he’ll be more cooperative if I’m with you.”

  “Anybody would be.”

  She flashed me a quick, sarcastic smile.

  “Come on,” I said. “Lighten up. The food’s good, right?”

  “We can do it,” she said, “but it’d be nice sometime to go out to eat without another agenda, you know? Just you and me?”

  “I do have an agenda tonight,” I said. “You’re right about that. But we’ll still have good food. It’ll be a nice evening. I just have a question for Vincent Russo.”

  “This have something to do with where you went last night instead of coming to bed?”

  I nodded. “It does, yes,” I said. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. I’ll go by myself.”

  “No, no. I’ll go. It’ll be fine.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Shit. Call me a cab, would you? I’ve gotta do my eyes.”

  I spent the morning at the district court in Concord, had lunch with my client at the Concord Inn, and didn’t get to my office in Copley Square until two-thirty that afternoon.

  After Julie gave me my messages and a stack of letters and documents to read and sign, I went into my office and called Dalton Lancaster at his restaurant.

  When he answered, I said, “You got home okay, huh?”

  “Mike dropped me off at my door.”

  “So how are we feeling today?”

  “I can’t speak for you,” he said, “but me, I feel like I got run over by a school bus. Luckily, the doctor gave me a prescription. Percodans. They’re pretty nice.”

  “But you went to work.”

  “I had to get the hell out of the house,” he said. “Jess was driving me crazy.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “Told her I got mugged, like you and I agreed.”

  “I didn’t agree to that,” I said. “I’d never advise you to lie to your wife.”

  “She noticed I was still wearing my watch. She didn’t say anything, but I don’t think she believes me.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “It is a lie.”

  “So what’m I supposed to do?”

  “Avoid parking lots,” I said.

  “You gonna talk to Vincent Russo?”

  “I’ve got a reservation at his restaurant for seven-thirty tonight.”

  “I don’t owe anybody money, Brady.”

  “I’m curious to see what Vinnie Russo’s gonna say about that.”

  The year’s longest day, the summer solstice, was a week away, and at seven o’clock that Wednesday evening in June it was still as bright as noontime on Beacon Hill. A cool easterly breeze was blowing off the ocean and wafting through the city, and Evie and I decided to walk to Nola’s—up the hill on Mt. Vernon Street and down the other side on Bowdoin behind the State House, along Cambridge Street, then past the JFK Federal Building and under the expressway to Hanover Street. It took less than half an hour to stroll from the old Boston Brahmin bricks and cobblestones and antique doorknockers of Beacon Hill to the twisty Italian streets of the North End, redolent of oregano and Parmesan and garlic, where, as the kids say, it was a whole ’nother world.

  Nicholas, who was whatever the Italian equivalent of maître d’ would be called, greeted us inside the door with a quick bow. “Mr. Coyne,” he said, “and Miss Banyon. We are honored. Please, this way.”

  He led us to a table for two by the front window, the only unoccupied seats in the place that I noticed. He pulled out Evie’s chair and held it for her. She smiled up at him over her shoulder as she sat. Nickie was dark and smooth and young and ridiculously handsome in his white shirt and puffy sleeves and gold chain and tight-fitting black pants. A young James Caan, with black curls on his forehead and perfect white teeth and a dimpled chin.

  Vincent Russo once told me that Nickie was his favorite nephew, his sister Estelle’s youngest, a sweet, biddable boy, but not bright enough for the Business, by which he meant his various illegal enterprises, loan sharking among them. So Russo was setting Nickie up at Nola’s, and as soon as the boy learned how to keep the restaurant profitable—and how to cooperate with the various Russo relatives and associates who might need to move money through it and preempt it occasionally for discreet meetings—Uncle Vin would turn ownership over to him.

  Meanwhile, Vincent Russo occupied the office in back. He claimed to be retired from the Business. Maybe so. But I happened to know that the FBI had not removed the surveillance camera that they’d been running from a rented room across the street for the past six years, and they still had a tap on the restaurant telephones, even though they knew that these days everybody did Business on cell phones.

  Of course, Russo had known about the cameras and phone taps from Day One. He would’ve been insulted if they ever removed them.

  Maybe the old man himself was pulling back from the Business, but he was still consorting with Businessmen.

  Nickie told us that our waitperson would be Diane. He gave us menus and a wine list, bowed, smiled at Evie, and oozed away.

  Evie leaned across the table. “He’s astonishingly pretty, isn’t he?” she whispered.

  “Gorgeous,” I said. “Should I be jealous?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  Diane, our waitress, brought us a bottle of expensive Chianti compliments of Mr. Russo. She was quite astonishing herself, in a big-brown-eyed, dimpled-cheeks, short-black-haired, busty sort of way. She wore a low-cut peasant blouse and a narrow midthigh black skirt, and she had not the slightest suggestion of an Italian accent. She tol
d us she’d grown up in Peterborough, New Hampshire, spent two years at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, and was now a junior at Boston College majoring in math.

  Diane uncorked the wine bottle, set the cork on the table by my elbow, and splashed a little Chianti into my glass. I sniffed the cork, stuck my nose into the glass, sniffed and swirled, took a sip, chewed it, and smiled up at her. “Exquisite,” I said. “It begins with a wisecrack and finishes with a grin.”

  Across from me, Evie rolled her eyes at my pantomime. She knew that I didn’t know squat about wine.

  After Diane had poured the wine and left to fetch our antipasti, Evie said, “Okay. It’s a draw. Nickie and Diane. They’re terribly beautiful, both of them, aren’t they?”

  “Mere children,” I said. “In the category of beauty, they are not to be mentioned in the same sentence as Evelyn Banyon.”

  Evie couldn’t hold back her smile. “You’ll be rewarded for that, I promise,” she said. “Wait’ll we get home.”

  “I’m just calling ’em as I see ’em, babe.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You gotta be blind.”

  I reached across the table and touched her hand. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “It’s nice,” she said. “It’s just…” She tilted her head toward the back of the restaurant, indicating Vincent Russo’s office.

  “We’ll go to Hamersley’s next week,” I said, “just you and me, no agenda except wine and food and seduction.”

  She smiled and squeezed my hand. “The seduction part is working already.”

  I squeezed back. “Are you feeling better today?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m fine. Tired, that’s all. Lots of stress at work. It fills my head, keeps me awake.”

  “That’s all?”

  “There should be more?”

  “Have some more wine.”

  An hour later we were sipping our cappuccinos and nibbling from plates of melons and grapes and cheeses when Nickie came over and put two snifters on the table. “Frangelico,” he said with a little bow. “Compliments of Mr. Russo.”

  “I’d like to thank Mr. Russo in person,” I said.

  “I’ll let him know,” said Nickie.

  Five minutes later Nickie returned, this time pushing Vincent Russo in a wheelchair. Russo looked shrunken, as if his suit and shirt were several sizes too big for him. His skin was the pasty white of a man who spent his days and nights under fluorescent lighting.