Seventeen
I HEARD A LITTLE YIP at the back door. I opened it and let Henry in. He glared at me, then padded down the hallway to my den.
“What?” I said. “You think I forgot about you?”
He kept going.
It was a little after four in the morning. I’d been up all night, and between the pot of coffee I’d drunk before driving to the bridge over the Merrimack River and the adrenaline that was still crackling in my brain, it didn’t look like I’d get to sleep anytime soon.
The sun would rise in less than two hours. That would make it an official all-nighter.
I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since law school, unless you wanted to count midnight-to-dawn striped-bass fishing adventures with J. W. Jackson on Martha’s Vineyard. J. W. and I had done that a few times. In the summer on the right kind of tide, your best chance of catching a big striper happens in the dark.
I loaded up the electric coffeemaker, switched it on, and went into the den to reconcile with Henry
He was curled on his bed in the corner with his back to me and his nose touching his stubby tail. When I went over to him, he rolled up his eyes, looked back at me, then closed them.
I knelt beside him. “Hey,” I said. “Look at me.”
He opened his eyes again.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I scratched his forehead. “I was gone for a long time. It was nighttime, and you thought I’d never be back. Even though I always come back, I know that’s how you think. You miss Evie, huh?”
Henry was searching my eyes, the way dogs do. They know that the words men speak are less trustworthy than what comes through their eyes.
“I miss her, too,” I said.
Henry sighed and rolled onto his back with his legs sticking up in the air. This was his way of saying, “Oh, okay. Despite all your shortcomings, I still love you. You may rub my belly.”
I sat on the floor and rubbed his belly.
It was the darkest time of the night and Evie was not snoozing upstairs. The house felt empty and hollow, and so did I.
The shrill of a siren dragged me up from the dark pit of a dreamless sleep. I was lying on the daybed in my den. Henry was curled up beside me with his back pressed against my hip.
The siren blasted again, and I identified it as the ringing of the telephone on my desk.
I opened my eyes. Pewter gray light filtered in from the window and fuzzed the shadows in the room. Soon the sun would rise.
I looked at the wall clock. It was 5:47.
I pushed myself to my feet, went over to my desk, and picked up the phone. I cleared my throat and said, “Yes?”
“Mr. Coyne?” It was the same voice, disguised and echoey.
“Yes,” I said again.
“One moment.”
I waited.
Then: “Brady?” It was Robert. His voice sounded scratchy and shaky.
“Robert,” I said. “It’s good to hear your voice, man. Are you all right?”
“I’m okay. They—”
“All right, Mr. Coyne,” said the other voice. “You’ll be hearing from us.”
“Wait,” I said. “Listen—”
But then there was a click, and we were disconnected.
I hit the redial button.
Nothing happened. All I got was a dial tone.
I pressed the message button on the phone and looked at the little display screen. “Unknown caller,” it said.
I expected no less. They were probably using a prepaid cell phone, too.
Well, anyway, Robert was alive, at least. That was good news.
The question was, how much longer did he have?
I called Dalt at his mother’s house. It rang several times before his sleepy voice mumbled, “H’lo?”
“It’s Brady,” I said. “I wanted you to know that I just talked with Robert.”
“Oh, my God,” he said. “He’s all right?”
“He sounded fine,” I said, exaggerating a bit. “We’re going to get him back.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good news. Thanks, man.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Took a pill.” He yawned into the phone. “All set. G’night.”
I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep again, so I poured myself a mug of coffee, and Henry and I went out to the backyard and watched the sun come up.
I sipped my coffee while the finches and sparrows and nuthatches came flitting and flocking at the feeders and worst-case scenarios came darting and swirling in my brain.
I went back into the house a little after seven, fed Henry his breakfast, and refilled my coffee mug. When Henry finished eating—he’s perpetually starved, poor dog, and it never takes him more than a few minutes to inhale his breakfast—we went back outside, where I tried to persuade my muddled, overtired brain to do some linear thinking for a change, without much luck.
At eight I called my office voice mail and told Julie that I wouldn’t be coming to the office and she should reschedule whatever she had lined up for me today.
A little while later I remembered that Evie had called. It wouldn’t yet be six in the morning at Ed Banyon’s houseboat in Sausalito. Too early to call her.
It was Wednesday. Today Evie was taking her father to the hospital. By tomorrow, presumably, they would know his fate.
Another mug of coffee later I took a shower, got dressed, ate an English muffin with peanut butter, drank a glass of orange juice, said good-bye to Henry, and got into my car. I drove through the Boston streets to the North End, where I turned onto Salem Street, then onto the side street, and cut into the back alley where Paulie Russo had his office.
I parked my car beside the Dumpster, climbed up onto the loading platform, and banged on the door.
I waited a few minutes, than pounded on it again, harder, with the side of my fist.
No one opened it. I heard no movement behind it.
I moved out to the end of the loading platform and looked up. There were two windows on the brick wall over the door. I figured those windows opened to Paulie Russo’s second-floor office.
“Hey, Paulie,” I yelled up at the windows. “I want to talk with you. Let me in. I’m not going away until we talk.”
A few minutes later the door opened. The goon with the mole on his face, the one who had punched me in the kidneys on the plaza outside the Boston Scrod, was standing there. He jerked his chin at me, gesturing for me to enter. “Awright,” he said in his growly voice. “Come on. Mr. Russo says it’s okay.”
I went over to the door. Mole-face stepped aside and held the door open, and I walked past him into the storeroom.
The door closed behind us, and then the flat of his hand pushed between my shoulder blades and slammed me against the wall. If I hadn’t managed to get my hands out in front of me, my nose would have been mashed.
“Don’t fuckin’ move,” he said, and he patted me down.
When his hands slid up along the insides of my legs, I had to stifle an overpowering impulse to turn around and kick him in the balls. I owed him that.
“Okay,” he said. “Go on up.”
I climbed the steep flight of stairs. Mole-face came along right behind me.
When we got to the top, he knocked on the door with one knuckle.
“Yeah, come in.” Paulie’s voice from inside.
The goon opened the door and stood back.
I went in.
Paulie was seated behind his desk. When he saw me, he stood up, came around, and held out his hand to me. “A surprise, Mr. Coyne. You want some espresso?”
I ignored his hand. “No.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“You didn’t?”
He frowned. “Not unless you had some money with you I didn’t.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Paulie,” I said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, as you know, and I’m pretty grouchy, so don’t bullshit me, okay?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what t
he fuck you’re talking about, Mr. Coyne.”
I jerked my head back at the thug with the mole, who was standing there with his back against the door. “I want to talk, you and me, just the two of us.”
Paulie looked at me for a minute, then nodded. He lifted his eyes to his goon. “You frisk him?”
“’Course,” said Mole-face.
“You sure he ain’t wired?”
The thug pushed himself away from the wall and came over to where I was standing. He hooked his forefinger inside the top of my shirt and yanked it down. Buttons went flying, and my chest was bared. He pulled my shirt open and turned me so I was facing Paulie.
“Okay?” he said.
“Good,” said Paulie. “Now get outta here and close the fuckin’ door behind you.”
After Mole-face left and the door closed, Paulie went back behind his desk and sat down. “Sorry about your shirt,” he said. He picked up a tiny cup, lifted it to his lips with his pinkie finger curled, took a noisy sip, then put it down. “Come on, Mr. Coyne. Have a cup. Excellent espresso.”
I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
He waved at a chair. “Have a seat, at least.”
I sat in the chair.
“Okay, Mr. Coyne.” He put his elbows on his desk and leaned toward me. “Here we are. The two of us. Just you and me, man to man. No witnesses. No wires. No threats. No bullshit, right? So what the fuck do you want?”
“For one thing,” I said, “I want you to stop ordering that thug of yours”—I jerked my head toward the door where the guy with the mole had just exited—“to accost me in public places and punch me in the kidneys. It hurt like hell. Knocked me down with all those people there. It was embarrassing, and anyway, it’s the opposite of a good way to persuade me to cooperate. Makes me stubborn and crabby.”
“Huh?” He frowned. “Kidney punch?”
I nodded.
“You saying Louie did that to you?”
“If that’s the name of that guy who just let me in, yeah. Him.”
Paulie narrowed his eyes at me. “No bullshit?”
“Ah, come off it, Paulie.”
“He wasn’t supposed to do that, Mr. Coyne. What can I say? I apologize for him. It ain’t right, and I’ll take care of it. It won’t happen again.” He cocked his head and looked at me. “That’s not why you’re here, though, I bet.”
“Come on, Paulie. You’re still with the bullshit. You know why I’m here. Let’s get this thing taken care of.”
“Fine by me,” he said. “You got money for me, we’re all set.”
“Me?” I said. “No. You’ve got your money. Now I want Robert Lancaster.”
Russo was shaking his head. “You’re making riddles, Mr. Coyne. The judge, she took herself off our case, and that fuckin’ kid, Lancaster, there, he owes me about fifty K, him or his old man, I don’t care which, and they ain’t paid me, and if you didn’t come here to take care of that, I don’t know why we’re even talking,”
“You trying to tell me you didn’t kidnap him?”
“Kidnap who? The fuck you talking about?”
“Robert Lancaster.”
Paulie laughed. “Jesus Christ. You telling me somebody kidnapped the kid?”
“I’ve done everything your way,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. Let the boy go.”
Paulie Russo was shaking his head and looking hard into my eyes.
“So far,” I said, “no police, just like you said. I would’ve brought them in, but Robert’s father and mother and grandmother all said no, do it exactly the way he says. We’ll pay the money, they said. All they want is to get their boy back. Okay, fine. You got all the money you asked for, and you said twenty-four hours. So I just want you to know that if I don’t have him back in good health by midnight tonight, I’m bringing the FBI into it.”
Russo was silent for a long minute. Then he said, “That’s what you came here to tell me? You came to my office this morning to threaten me with the FBI because somebody kidnapped Robert Lancaster?”
“And you want me to believe that it’s not you?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’m fuckin’ telling you it’s not me.”
“I thought you had some honor, Paulie. I’m disappointed that we can’t discuss this truthfully, just the two of us, man to man, and arrive at an agreement.”
“We are discussing it man to man,” he said. “So, okay. Man to man, I’m telling you. I don’t know where that kid is, and I just want my fuckin’ money.”
I raised both of my hands and showed him my palms. “Fine,” I said. “Play it that way. I’ve told you what I wanted to tell you. You’ve got till midnight. If I don’t have him back by then, you might as well kill him, because the feds are going to be all over you either way.” I stood up and went to the door.
“Mr. Coyne,” he said, “wait a minute.”
I stopped and turned around.
Paulie came over to me. He put his hand on my arm.
I looked at it.
He took away his hand. “What’ve I got to do to convince you?” he said.
“There’s nothing you can say,” I said. “I don’t believe you. You’re a criminal. You lie. You have no honor. You’re nothing like your father. I’m very disappointed.” I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
“You’re wrong about that,” said Paulie.
“Return Robert Lancaster unharmed,” I said. “Then I’ll believe you.”
Louie, the thug with the mole, was standing there outside the door. I brushed past him and went down the stairs and out onto the landing platform, where one of Paulie Russo’s other goons was standing with his hands clasped behind his back looking up at the sky.
He turned his head and nodded to me.
I ignored him.
I got into my car, backed out of the alley, and headed home.
It hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped it would. I figured I’d probably done more harm than good.
When I got home, I tried to call Evie’s cell phone and got her voice mail. I guessed that by now she was in the hospital with her father, where cell phones are supposed to be turned off.
“It’s me, babe,” I said after the beep. “I’m really sorry I missed your call last night. I’d love to talk with you. My thoughts are with you and Ed today. Please call when you can and tell me how things are going. I miss you. Henry sends his love. So do I.”
Then I went into my office, collapsed on my daybed, and fell into a dark, disturbing sleep.
The ringing of my telephone woke me up in the middle of a confusing dream. By the time I realized where I was and groped my way over to my desk, the ringing had stopped. The digital display on the telephone showed Dalt and Jess Lancaster’s home phone number, and the message light was blinking.
It was ten minutes of five. I’d slept the afternoon away, and I felt worse than before I went to sleep. My thoughts were jumbled and fuzzy, still mixed up with disturbing dream images that I couldn’t pin down, and I had a hangover-type throbbing headache behind my eyes.
I dialed my password for my voice mail. One message. “Brady, it’s Dalt. What’s going on? We haven’t heard from you all day. I’m having horrible thoughts. Please call me.”
I bumbled out to the kitchen and made a fresh pot of coffee. Then I went into the bathroom, took off my T-shirt, filled the sink with cold water, and immersed my face in it. I splashed water on my chest. I wet my fingers and combed them through my hair. I held a wet washcloth against my eyes.
After a few minutes of that, I felt a little better.
When I got back to the kitchen, the coffee was ready. I poured myself a mugful and grabbed the portable kitchen phone, and Henry and I went out to the patio.
I drank half of the mug of coffee before I called Dalt.
“I tried to call you a few minutes ago,” he said. “I’m going crazy here. We all are.”
“I understand,” I said. “Of course you are. You’ve got to hang in there. I don’t have any news
. I would’ve told you. Far as I know, Robert’s all right. We’ll be hearing from the people who have him.”
“Every minute that goes by…”
“I know what you’re feeling. So listen. I was going to call you anyway. I want to have a meeting of the minds. You, me, Jess, Teresa, and Adrienne.”
“Sure,” he said. “The minds. Ha. Okay.” He hesitated. “You got an agenda?”
“I want you all to know what I know,” I said. “I don’t want to have to repeat myself, and I want to be sure everybody hears it exactly the same way. And I also want all of you to know what each of you knows. No secrets, no misperceptions, no nuances. Then we can try to identify our options and decide together how we want to proceed.”
“No secrets, huh?”
“This is no time for secrets, Dalt.”
He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “You’re talking about going to the police, huh?”
“That’s one option,” I said. “We need to reconsider it, think about it seriously. Plus, I want to clear the air, make sure we’re all on the same page.”
Dalt paused. Then he said, “Well, yeah, okay. You’re right. We should do that.”
“You set it up,” I said. “Make it happen. Be sure Teresa’s there. This is her son we’re talking about. Make it seven o’clock at my house.”
He hesitated. “I’ve never actually been to your house.”
“Mt. Vernon Street,” I said. “It’s the next left off Charles after Pinckney. Just before you get to Beacon.”
“I know where Mt. Vernon is,” said Dalt.
“I’m halfway up the hill on the right. Number 77. My green BMW will be parked right in front, and I’ll leave the porch light on.”
“Maybe it would be easier to do it at my house, or my mother’s. Driving into the city, parking…”
“Residents-only parking on my street after six o’clock,” I said. “There will be plenty of spaces at seven. Or are you worried about getting a ticket?”
He laughed quickly.
“My house,” I said, “because I don’t want to be away from my telephone.”
“For when they call again,” he said.
“For if they call again.”
Eighteen
AROUND QUARTER OF SEVEN, even though it hadn’t begun to grow dark outside, I turned on the porch light, and Henry and I went out and sat on the front steps. I brought a can of Coke. I still hadn’t recovered from my all-nighter. My body craved caffeine.
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