by Chuck Hogan
Dino said, "Cambridge Street? Christ. What is that, Dunbar?"
"Nope," said Frawley, reaching for his jacket. "Magellan."
* * *
WHERE DO ARMORED TRUCKS go at night, and where do they issue from in the morning? Unassuming buildings tucked behind high-security fences and electronic gates, deep inside industrial parks or hidden among office-building complexes-- the locations of which are the most closely guarded secrets in the armored-carrier industry. Inside, under video-surveillance systems that rival those of most casinos, cashiers in pocketless smocks work in glass-walled counting rooms, tallying, sorting by denomination, stacking, and strapping hundreds of thousands of dollars each night, in currency notes and coins.
For example, on December 27, 1992, thieves looted a windowless office building in an industrial section of Brooklyn, New York, making off with $8.2 million-- and leaving behind $24 million they were physically unable to carry.
Set back from the southern side of Cambridge Street before the road crossed the Charles River into Cambridge, in the shadow of the elevated Mass Turnpike, stood a two-story building with no name, surrounded by twin twelve-foot-high chain-link fences topped with concertina wire. That side of the road was barren, lacking even a sidewalk, and the building looked like a modest storage facility gone belly-up.
The electronic gate at the rear of the armored-truck depot was hidden from the street. Frawley could just see it from the dusty lot, holding down his tie as cars whipped past.
"Not one exit," said Dino, pointing his clipboard at the Pike. "Not two exits. Three big exits, all within an eighth of a mile of where we stand."
Frawley squinted, blasted by sand and grit. "Firepower needed for this. Stepping out of profile."
"So is going to the Florist though. Must have somebody on the inside."
"That's an angle for us. But I don't want to tip our hand either." Frawley looked at the cameras on the corners of the roof. "You said MacRay went to work, right?"
"You think explosives? Think they're going to blow their way in?"
"Or else put up a hell of a diversion."
Frawley had not filed a 302 summarizing his meeting with MacRay. He didn't want that part of the official record, at least not yet. He had, however, filed a Confidential Informant report, Form 209, on Krista Coughlin, getting her assigned a six-digit snitch code in order to cover himself and the investigation, in case she did come through with anything. Such as, when exactly MacRay and company were planning on taking down the Magellan Armored Depot.
A black 4X4 ran up on the shoulder, Frawley and Dino stepping back, squinting into the dust cloud as a cop-type in a security uniform climbed out. He wore a badge and an ID tag, but nothing that read Magellan.
"Guys lost?" he said, coming up on them cordial but firm. "Help you with something?"
Frawley didn't badge him. He had no way of knowing who might be the inside man. "No thanks," he said. "We were just on our way."
45
Ballpark Figure
MOST PEOPLE-- INCLUDING MOST bank robbers-- think that getting at the money is the toughest part of heisting, when in fact it is the getaway that separates the pros from the cons.
Doug climbed inside the Nynex truck at the corner of Boylston and Park, wearing a work shirt of Dez's, rapping fists with the Monsignor.
"Got the hotel room?" said Dez.
"It's a palace."
"How long you gonna stay?"
"Long as it takes. Registered under 'Charles.' "
" 'Charles?' "
"As in 'Charles Town' "
"Ah."
Doug checked the mirrors for tails. "You put in for next Tuesday off?"
"Personal day, all set. But this decoy shit's a lot of work."
"Tell that to the G. You switched trucks, I hope."
"Bleeding radiator-- damn the luck. Here. Buckle this on."
Doug clasped around his waist a leather lineman's belt just like Dez's, with a red-orange plastic phone-company handset on a wire holster loop.
Dez double-parked prominently on Yawkey Way, right across from the Gate D entrance, stepping out with his work-order clipboard and yanking open the back of the truck. He loaded Doug up with a pile of equipment, then they crossed the road and commiserated with the red-shirted gate girl about the heat. She consulted her clipboard. "Are you on the work list?"
"Should be," said Dez. "I know you're on mine. I just go where I'm told."
Her red shirt meant ballpark staff, not security. "This is about the...?"
"System upgrades. All I'm here for now is to check things out, save us time on job day by making sure we bring everything we need. Something about everything having to be done over the next West Coast road trip. Twenty minutes, tops."
"Could I just see your work ID?"
Dez showed her. She looked it over and filled out a work pass for him.
Doug made a show of struggling under his load as she finished. "My trainee," said Dez.
"That's okay," she said, filling out a second pass without asking for Doug's ID.
The caves and tunnels beneath the Fenway stands, the concession area, was where the oldest park in Major League Baseball showed its age. Food-service workers wheeled racks of bagged hot-dog rolls to the stalls, already loading up for that night's game. A blue shirt met them at the doors to an elevator, a recent college graduate, his security ID hanging on a shoelace around his neck, handset radio on his belt. He was short, wide with machine-pumped muscle, and Dez flashed him the passes.
"Where to, guys?"
Dez said, "Ah, press box, I'm told."
The blue shirt stepped aboard the elevator and pressed five. Doug stood between black-and-white photographs of prewar Ted Williams leaning on a bat and a beaming, Triple Crown-winning Carl Yastrzemski.
Dez said, "Guess this ain't gonna be the year, huh?"
Blue shirt said, "Nope, doesn't look like it."
When the elevator stopped, Dez said, "Anyone ever ridden in this thing with you and not said those basic words?"
Blue shirt said, "You pretty much nailed it."
The doors opened on the sunny flat of an outdoor pedestrian ramp, the blue shirt leading them inside glass doors past an unmanned security desk, past back-to-back cafeterias-- one for park employees, one for media-- and down along a white hallway of doors open to broadcast booths. The end of the hall doglegged wide into two tiers of long counters, both of them print-media booths, resembling nothing so much as the old grandstand at Suffolk Downs. The glass wall looked out from just left of home plate, over the infield diamond of June-green grass, the cocoa base paths and warning track, thirty-four thousand tiny-ass seats, and the city of glass and steel beyond.
"Field of screams," said Dez, unloading Doug.
They made a show of walking around and plugging things in, thumping on walls, the blue shirt lasting maybe three minutes. "Say, you guys good here for a while?"
"Yeah, sure," said Dez, busy.
"I'll be back, couple of minutes."
Dez waved without looking. "Take your time."
When the footsteps faded, Dez slipped a radio wire into his ear, scanning for ballpark security frequencies. Doug affixed his work pass to his sweat-dampened shirt and nodded to Dez, starting quickly back out to the hallway, holding down his flopping telephone handset as he returned to the outdoor ramp.
Doug walked down one floor, nodding to the white-aproned food service workers on their break, entering the first open door and finding himself inside the glass-enclosed 600 Club. He strode through it like he owned the place, passing only a carpet cleaner and a bar back, crossing behind the stadium seats and their fishbowl view of the park. An escalator brought him down one more floor to a concourse running high above the third-base seats, and he made his way down through the grandstand and loge boxes, ducking into the first ramp.
Busy red-shirted Fenway employees passed him underneath the stands without much of a look. With the ballpark quiet and the concessions shuttered, Doug fe
lt like he was back in his demo crew days-- doing a basement sweep of a condemned building ahead of the wrecking ball. The angled stone floor was a skateboarder's wet dream, the iron stanchions hoisting up the park like the corroding girders boosting the interstate over the Town.
Doug passed behind Gate D, the red-shirted gate girl sitting out on the sidewalk, drinking from a bottle of water with her back to him. He passed a broad souvenir booth locked up like an old newspaper stand, eyeing the open red door beyond it. A sign on the inside face said Employees Only. Doug passed it with a long, careful glance, seeing a short hallway inside, leading to a second door with a square, one-way window.
This was the money room. Game time always found a member of Boston's finest working a detail outside it, but right now there were only cameras. According to the Florist's inside squeal, the security work scheduled for the long road trip included surveillance upgrades, meaning the park's central monitoring network would be dark for a few days. This was the reason for the job's narrow timeline.
The money room door was protected by an electronic keypad lock. Doug had the combination, but no intention of using it. He meant to grab the haul while it was on its way from the money room to the can, all packaged and ready to go.
The snag there was that the cash pickup went down inside the closed park. The can was admitted through the ambulance bay door on Van Ness Street and loaded inside at the first aid station. That meant the job had to fall right there underneath the stands.
He walked the tunnel between the money room door and the first aid station-- park-wise, it matched up parallel with the distance between home plate and the edge of the outfield grass beyond first base-- a brick-walled, advertisement-filled passageway with a low, slanting roof. Along this route the couriers wheeled the cash on a motorized handcart. Once loaded, the ambulance bay door opened again and the truck departed, making no other jumps before returning to the Provident Armored depot in Kendall Square.
Doug lingered at the empty first aid area-- just a kiosk inside the bay-- eyeing the distance between iron girders, seeing how much floor space they'd have. Then he doubled back to the money room, checking the sight lines. He was stalling there, worrying about them becoming trapped inside the park, when the door opened.
Doug turned and started away fast, back down the low tunnel toward the first aid station, making like he'd taken a wrong turn. A voice called to him, but he did not stop, fiddling busily with the handset on his belt.
The voice called to him again, loud in the tunnel, enough to attract more attention. Doug stopped just a few paces from the first aid station, half-turning, still trying to shield his face from view.
"Help you?" said the man, coming along behind him. A blue-shirt security guy, thin-haired and well-tanned, his radio still on his belt.
"Nope, all set," said Doug, still fooling with his handset. "Little lost in here."
"Hold up a minute."
The security guy came up, looked Doug over, his pass, his lineman's belt and boots. The guy was older, in his fifties. Maybe head of security. "Come on with me."
He continued past Doug, and Doug followed, weighing his options. They turned left through the first ramp, out into the open air, walking along the field boxes in the lower stands down to the Red Sox dugout behind first base. Next to the dugout was a short door open to the field. The grounds crew was in the outfield spraying down grass and raking the warning track.
"This what you were looking for?" said the security guy.
He wore a knowing smile, and Doug realized then this guy was trying to do him a solid. Give him a thrill, one working man to another. At Doug's hesitation, the guy said, "Unless you throw a baseball ninety miles an hour, or hit one thrown that fast, this is your only chance to get out there."
Doug started onto the foul-territory dirt with the cautious first step of a ship passenger arriving on land. He crossed the grass, avoiding the freshly laid foul line as superstitious managers do, moving onto the infield. He paused before the pitcher's mound, then walked up onto it, standing just shy of the rubber.
He looked toward home plate with a bolt of fan vertigo. He found the press box high to his right, Dez standing in the wide viewing window, watching him, smiling in tribute, probably thinking, Duggy working the old magic, talking his way out onto the field.
Doug looked out at the dinged tin of the Green Monster, then over it to the Citgo sign looming above Kenmore Square. The sight of that sign would forever kick him with a sense of failure, and of loss-- the bank job, Claire-- the city a boneyard of memories to him now, another good reason to walk away.
He crossed back to the home team's dugout like a pitcher headed for the showers. The security guy was leaning against the backs of the first row of seats, arms crossed, enjoying the gift more than the recipient had. "Still remember my first step out there."
"Hey, thanks," mumbled Doug, concerned about the guy remembering his face now. Doug watched him close the little door to the field, saw the guy's small, jeweled pinkie ring. He noticed the care the guy put into his fingernails, and the warm Florida vacation tan of his skin. Head of security, thought Doug, putting it together.
"You like to gamble?" Doug asked him.
The guy shrugged, a personal question but not too intrusive. "Here and there. Ponies mostly. Why?"
"How much you into the Florist for?"
The crash of the guy's face. From lighthearted generosity to dead-eyed fear. He looked around, said quietly, "You're not supposed to have any contact with me."
"Don't vary your routine next Monday morning," Doug told him. "Not one iota."
The guy glanced at the grounds crew, the empty stands behind him. "I was not to be approached."
"The cops're going to approach you. They'll be approaching everyone, after. You ready to sit for a lie detector?"
The guy stared at Doug: a proud man in a panic, in deep debt to the Florist, nothing left to bargain with except his life. He turned and walked off underneath the stands, and Doug saw, as clear as the seams on a Wakefield knuckler, that the Florist would off this guy as soon as the job was done.
* * *
ROOM 224 WAS IN the rear center of the block-deep, two-story Howard Johnson Hotel. With no direct sun and no cheerful amenities-- just a humming TV, a mismatched chair and table, a stiff, yarny rug, a phone-booth shower, and a creaky double bed-- the second-floor room was a suicide's dream. Doug drew open the stiff, ratty curtain on a patchwork window with one pane tinted rose-- and looked out across Van Ness Street to the southern exterior brick wall of Fenway Park.
Fenway resembled a factory on that side, a long block of red brick and steel with small square windows made of glass as opaque as blocks of ice. Six old bay doors were widely spaced along the length of the wall, each painted green, all unlabeled except the one directly across the street from Doug's window, the last before the canvas-lined fence of the players' parking lot. Beneath a candle lamp with a red warning bulb, small, stenciled white letters on the green door read AMBULANCE.
Doug changed out of Dez's shirt and went right back outside again, crossing Boylston Street against the traffic, the hotel equidistant between the ballpark and the Fenway Gardens.
He walked slowly to her gate. The vitality of the summer flowers stood in stark contrast to the cut stems that littered the Florist's cooler tomb. Weeds were beginning to sprout in the neglected flower beds. Doug looked at the impatiens planted near his buried stash, ragged and thirsty and threatened by encroaching spearmint, wondering when she would return.
* * *
DOUG SPENT THE EVENING in the suicide room, watching the park's comings and goings before game time. The red bulb lit up two hours before the first pitch, the door rising and the ambulance backing carefully inside. Every bay door lifted in the eighth inning, the crowd soon flooding out onto Van Ness after a satisfying win, slow to disperse. The ambulance pulled away around the same time as the last of the players drove off in their Blazers and Infinitis, the red lamp going dark.
The light towers above the park faded out a half hour later, and then it was just the homeless trawling for cans, pushing their shopping carts to nowhere.
* * *
THAT NIGHT HE DREAMED he was crushed beneath the rear wheels of an armored truck, twelve tons cutting him in half. But it was not Frank G. removing his fireman's helmet to take Doug's hand-- it was the bank sleuth, Frawley, his federal eyes smiling.
* * *
A HORN BLAST FROM a passing truck woke him that morning-- lying across the made bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes. He checked the clock, got up to take a piss, then pulled a chair to the window and waited.