Prince of Thieves

by Chuck Hogan

  43

  The Florist

  GLOANSY REALIZED WHAT THE Florist's walk-in cooler reminded him of: a vault. The small-room-within-a-room thing, and the thick butcher door with the locking clasp, and the quiet inside. But with flowers in bunches on the shelves instead of stacks of bundled cash.

  Why a flower shop? Gloansy wondered that now for the first time. Why not a smoke shop or a deli or something? The Main Street shop had always been there, with Fergie always running it. Probably he had taken the store from someone as part of a long-ago debt, and then-- maybe with just the touch of his hand-- transformed it into the ugliest flower shop ever. Petals had to be brown and wrinkled like bottom-of-the-bag potato chips before he would yank a $2 rose from a display pot. The vase water was never freshened, scummy and black-green like the harbor, and it was the only flower shop anywhere with plastic vines and silk plants in the display window.

  Fergie did good parade business around Bunker Hill Day. He did some winner's circles on featured horse races over at Suffolk Downs, the wreaths they used for big-purse runs. It was bragged around that sometimes Fergie mailed the bill to the winning horse's owner the day before the race. Funerals, he did a lot of. Death, Fergie had a knack for. It followed him around in place of his lost conscience, his two sons gone, one of them a casualty of the dust he peddled, and his daughter gunned down in an ambush meant for the other. And always Fergie survived, coming back here to his workroom and wiring up his wreaths. Spools of ribbon hung in tongues of black and gold off his workbench: DAUGHTER; MOTHER; WIFE; SON.

  They sat on small folding chairs with padded seats like mourners at a graveside burial, the four of them facing Fergie. Rare to get within spitting distance of Fergus Coln. He was mostly a recluse now, either bona fide paranoid or maybe just letting the legend that was The Florist feed on itself. The Code of Silence trials had all but wiped out every one of his contemporaries, but still he soldiered on. He lived somewhere near the old armory, but supposedly kept crash pads all over Town, constantly moving, like a fugitive king.

  He was also known as Fucked-Up Fergie, because that's what his face was, totally fucked-up, thanks to early careers as both a wrestler-- some of his bouts were televised in the late 1950s-- and as a prizefighter on the Revere and Brockton circuits. His nose was wrong, his eyes doggy and tired, his skin waxy like fake fruit. His lips were so thin they were nonexistent, and his tiny cauliflower ears were things a child would draw in crayon. As they used to say about him, in his days as a mob enforcer: some hearts he stopped with just his reputation and his face. His hands were messed up too, crooked fingers looking like each row of knuckles had been separately slammed in a drawer, his nails flat and silver like coins.

  Always there was this guy with him, keg-chested Rusty, supposedly an IRA or ex-IRA gunner who couldn't go back home. Rusty had fading white hair, pale Irish skin, and liked to wear dark running suits like he was on vacation. In other words, there was nothing red about Rusty, nothing to support the name. Unless he was "rusty" because he was a little slow. Guy never talked. A zombie following Fergie everywhere-- except inside the cooler on that warm afternoon, a big nod of respect to the crew. Paranoid Fergie never met with anybody alone.

  He sat before them in his little chair like a fighter in the corner between late-round bells. His legs were fanned wide, as though daring somebody to kick him in the balls. He wore a grease-stained white tank, black uniform-type pants, and a scally cap turned backward over his rearranged face.

  Usually if you did see Fergie around Town, you recognized him first by the tight sweatshirts he always wore, the hood string drawn around his head, shadowing his face. It was no coincidence that Jem had cribbed Fergie's look that day. Jem also flattered Fergie in the fucked-up-face department, his nose and cheek still pasted in gauze, his left eye full of blood, lips cut and swollen.

  Duggy sat on the other side of Gloansy, silent. He had been so sullen since their fight, you would have thought he had been the one who took the beating.

  It was Doug's pride getting pummeled here. Gloansy knew how Doug was about the Florist. Fergie had some young muscle in the store when they came in, project kids in camo pants, and Doug had almost gotten into it with them too.

  But being all together again, that was what counted. Doug and Jem had reached a sort of unspoken cease-fire. In fact, the one to watch here was Dez: sitting on the other side of Duggy, staring full-out at warlord Fergie, the guy who maybe-- "maybe" in the Town sense-- offed his father. Gloansy had to hand it to him. He couldn't believe that Dez had come at all.

  "He looks like me now," said Fergie, nodding at Jem. His voice was clipped and raspy. "A little rumpus, eh?" He looked back and forth between Jem and Duggy, aging muscle hanging off his arms like rope. "Coupla stitches between brothers, it's good. Healthy. Clears the air."

  Jem shrugged. Doug had no reaction that Gloansy could see.

  "This room is clean, by the way, and that's guaranteed. Nobody comes in here without me, ever, and I got one of them mercury switch things to tell me if anyone tampers with the lock. So we can all talk free."

  He reached for a cut daffodil, twirling it in his hand, then dipped the rounded pads of his fingertips into the petals and brought pollen to his nostrils, leaving a smear on his upper lip the color of sulfur. Guy was some kind of pervert of nature.

  "This's been a long time coming," he said. "Wondered when you boys were finally gonna come round."

  "Yeah," said Jem out of the side of his mouth. "Well, we been working hard. Sorta proving ourselves worthy."

  A lift of Fergie's mangled chin passed for a smile. "I see your fathers' faces in each and every one a you." He ended with a look at Dez, Dez staring back hard. "Reminds me I'm still in the ring after all these years. Still on my feet. Gloves up, taking on all comers. And still ahead on points."

  Jem said, "We're guys you want in your corner. Old enough to know the Town as it was, young enough to do something about putting it back that way."

  Gloansy stayed attentive but blank-faced, the kid who didn't want to get called on.

  "You're good thieves," said Fergie. "But these ten percent tributes to me." He shrugged like it pained him. "Ten percent is what you throw after a waiter you don't like. What is that? I'm not liked?"

  Funny to see Jem squirm. Doug had his arms crossed now and Gloansy didn't think he was going to speak at all. He was going to let Jem do all the work.

  Fergie went on, "But I been tracking you four. You've put together a good little run here. And I like your style. You're quiet, you keep your business close. Last crew I had got careless. Fucked up a good thing. You four, you're a crew that's been together awhile. What are you looking for from me?"

  "We're looking to make a mark," said Jem. "We think we earned our shot at something big."

  Fergie laid the stem across his lap and patted clean his hands. "Funny thing, fate. Because as long as it took you boys to hitch up your pants and come knocking at my door like men-- this turns out to be good timing. Very good timing. Because I happen to be sitting on something here, something that's got to fall soon. And big it is. Big enough only for the best. I got someone on the inside, someone who owes me something."

  Jem nodded. "We're interested."

  "'Course you are. Who's not interested in something like that? But are you committed? Because you got to pay to play here, that is how we work. Blue-print fee just for me talking about things. That's on top of my percent of the take, and it's a big bite. But this is nothing you could get anywhere near without my inside. Do it right and there'll be plenty left over."

  "What's the buy-in?"

  "Normal job, average weight-- between fifty and seventy-five large, up front."

  Jem nodded, waiting. "And for this one?"

  "This one is twice as much, easy."

  Gloansy tried not to react, sitting up and mashing his hands together. One-fifty? Had he heard that right? Divided by four?

  Fergie said, "Yo-yo's looking at me like you ain't got
the money. Don't forget my little ten percent duke tells me what you been taking these years. And don't think I farm these out 'cause I can't do them myself. I put on guys like you because it's your specialty. I hire professionals. Because I'm generous, I like to spread it around Town for the good of all. You come here telling me you're ready for the big time? Well, this thing is bigger than Boozo ever saw from me, and it's all right here, right now, this moment."

  Gloansy glanced at Jem, then at Doug, who hadn't moved, and then at Dez, who hadn't moved either. Then Gloansy regretted having moved himself.

  "Who knows?" said Fergie to all this silence and not moving. "Maybe you're not as ready as you think you are." He picked the daffodil up off his lap again and Gloansy wondered how his touch alone hadn't shriveled the thing already. "This flower. Who owns it? Me, right? No. I don't own it. It's not mine, I didn't create it. Somebody somewhere, who knows who, pulled it outta the ground. Those who take. Versus those who can't hold. Someone tries to take this flower from me without payment, they're gonna get the ultimate lesson in this. 'Cause I will catch them and take something from them instead. A hand. A foot. Your hand, your foot-- you think it belongs to you, think you own it? Your life?" He waited, though they all knew better than to answer. "Not if I can take it away. Not if you can't hold on to it." He twirled the flower in his fingers, then tossed it to the floor between them. "I'm a taker, that's my thing. Why else you come to me, right? Not cause I'm so pretty. You boys need to figure this out. Are you wanters or are you takers?"

  It was Duggy who said, "We'll buy the job."

  Gloansy turned to look at him, as did Dez. A shock, hearing him speak-- never mind him saying yes to the Florist. Jem, Gloansy noticed, didn't look at all.

  "For a hundred large, even," added Doug, cutting short Fergie's approving nod. "Twenty-five each. If it's as good as you say, and you haven't thrown it to nobody else yet, that means you got nobody else to throw it to."

  Fergie's stare reminded Gloansy of his late father-- God rest-- and the looks the man could give, eyes that said, Remember that you are here before me today only because I did not kill you yesterday-- and that what you do right now will determine whether you will be here before me again tomorrow.

  But Fergie had met his match, or at least the first mirror he had ever faced that didn't automatically crack. No one could reach Doug now, and a shadow of nervousness flashed across Fergie's mangled face like that of a passing crow.

  "With the balls of his father," Fergie said ultimately, reasserting himself with a kinglike nod. "I'm gonna make a present of this and give you your price. A onetime introductory offer."

  He sat back grandly, but it was in the air now like the steam of their breath: Fergie the Florist had bent to the will of another.

  "We won't let you down," said Jem.

  "No, you won't," said Fergie. "Till now, you been like altar boys dipping into the Sunday collection. But this thing I'm talking about here, this ain't no parish church, boyos. This is a fucking Roman cathedral."

  44

  Depot

  FRAWLEY AND DINO STALLED for time at the water bubbler until the fat black kid lugged his backpack into the classroom and the last hallway door closed. They were on the top floor of one of the buildings of Bunker Hill Community College, erected on the site of the long-closed prison.

  The door at the end of the hall read: Radiation Lab Do Not Enter.

  A guy dressed like a graduate student answered Frawley's knock, opening the door just wide enough to show his eyeglasses and the soul patch clinging to his bottom lip. "Hey," said Agent Grantin, recognizing Frawley, admitting him and Dino and shutting the door.

  A second agent was under headphones near the windows. Dino put his fist to his own nose and said, "Whoa, Mary."

  Grantin nodded. "One of you guys please tell my partner, Billy Drift, here, not to eat falafel during a surv in a room with no working windows."

  Agent Drift pulled his headphones down and sheepishly stood out of one of the student desks. "I said I was sorry, man. It just didn't agree with me."

  The room was tight and empty except for scattered student desks and a blond wood table. On the table was a Nagra tape recorder, a computer and a color printer, a cell phone charging, and a video monitor wired to a tripod camera aimed out of an east-facing window. The hi-res monitor showed people crossing in front of the Florist's Main Street shop.

  Frawley looked out the window, taking a moment to orient himself and locate the camera's line of sight, finding the Bunker Hill Mall and the cemetery and looking west from there. He introduced Dino to the Organized Crime agents.

  "We're running twelve-hour revolving shifts here with a pair from the DEA," said Grantin, pulling off the glasses and the soul patch, his masterful disguise. "I was going through some of their cuts from the past few days-- and that time you came down to ask about the Florist, those pictures you brought, your bank jackers? I think we got them."

  He handed over four time-coded video captures printed on photo paper. The first one Frawley recognized immediately as Magloan, in profile, entering the front door with a second man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, his face bandaged.

  "It's them," Frawley said, passing the picture to Dino.

  The next image was from two minutes later: Elden wearing a ballcap, one hand in his pocket, the other on the doorknob, turning to check the street behind him.

  The last one was of MacRay, six minutes after Elden, a one-quarter profile of him entering the store. Just enough of his face was visible for grand jury identification.

  "A sit with the Florist," said Frawley. "For how long?"

  "Twenty minutes or so. They all left separately-- it's on tape somewhere but I didn't have time to hard-copy it."

  Dino handed the cuts back to Frawley. "Bandage man?" Dino said.

  "Coughlin, must be," said Frawley, remembering MacRay's swollen hands, but unable to share this insight with Dino. He sorted through some other captures of unsuspecting shoppers. "How well are you guys in his shop?"

  "Not good. We're there, but he runs this Irish music nonstop. Picked up nothing on your team but the bell jingling over the door and Heyhowyadoing. I was hoping maybe you were on them better, could help us."

  Frawley nodded. "We're on their vehicles. Eyes, but not ears. This town-- it's impossible."

  "Yeah," said Drift, motioning to the window and their panorama of the Boston face of Charlestown. "Look at us up here."

  "We got bumper beacons on all four of their cars, sparing the special-ops guys tails and survs. We did manage to wire up a T-4 in Magloan's car, but he rides alone and plays that JAM'N 94.5 crap all day."

  "Worse than that," said Dino, "he sings along."

  "We're on their phones, but they don't use them for anything. They're wise because one of them works for Nynex-- though we did stick a transponder beacon on his phone company truck."

  "Well," said Grantin, looking out over the Town, "something's up."

  Frawley pulled out a cut showing Krista Coughlin in shorts, a strap-shouldered tank, and flip-flops, pushing her canopied stroller into the shop. "What's the Florist been up to recently?"

  "The usual. He keeps hanging in there. The whole diva gangster thing."

  "When are you guys going to take him down?"

  Grantin shrugged. "When someone in his organization cracks. He's the only one of the old guard left. Guy's a full-time freak. DEA wants him even worse than we do."

  Frawley held up the photos. "Can I keep these?"

  "Hey, with our compliments."

  * * *

  FRAWLEY HAD TO GO to the Boston Field Office at One Center Plaza to find out that the judge had thrown out his second request, made through the U.S. attorney's Major Crime Unit, for Title Three taps and surv warrants on Claire Keesey's Charlestown condominium. The judge cited insufficient evidence, ruling again that she could not be reasonably considered a suspect in the Kenmore Square armed robbery.

  Back inside the tech room, Frawley waited with Di
no while a computer program swallowed up longitude and latitude GPS coordinates from the bumper beacon transponders and spit the information back out to them in the form of street addresses and connect-the-dots grid maps.

  "What's this?" said Dino. "MacRay actually went to work two days ago?"

  At least he had driven up to the Bonafide Demolition site in Billerica and parked there for eight hours. Then that night, and the next morning and again in the evening, he did circuits around the shark fin of Allston, parking for long stretches in the vicinity of Cambridge Street, near the Conrail yards. Cross-checking showed Magloan spending time in that area as well, and Elden's work truck cooping there for an hour or so at midday.