Nick reached into his overnight bag, fished out a T-shirt, and slipped it on before he exited the car, overnight bag in hand. Upon entering the air-conditioned lobby, he checked out everything and everyone. Looking behind the hotel’s front desk, he made sure that there was a small white envelope in the key box for Room 371. Then he casually altered his course in the direction of the coffee shop. The place was packed with an early lunch crowd, but he found a seat at a vacant window table, which afforded a perfect view of both the lobby and the lot. When the waitress came by, he ordered a Coke.
From his table, Nick watched the battleship gray Mercedes as it entered the parking lot and cautiously circled the area twice before it came to rest in an empty spot by the hotel entrance. The Mercedes’s windows were tinted, so Nick couldn’t see inside, but soon his eyes focused upon Millard Wilcox and Norton Lightman, who were emerging from the vehicle. Wilcox was a tall, handsome man in his midthirties, with wavy black hair and a Mediterranean complexion. Though Lightman may have been about the same age, he was a striking contrast to his companion; he had an overhanging gut, an accumulation of fat under his chin, and he wore a preposterous red bow tie.
Nick’s eyes tracked the two men into the lobby where they requested the key to Room 371, which was registered to a Mr. MacAllister Brown.
“Right away, Mr. Brown.” The smiling clerk turned toward the key boxes where Lightman caught sight of the small white envelope.
When the clerk handed Lightman the envelope, Lightman ripped it open. Inside was an unsigned typewritten note: “Minor changes necessary. No problems. Will explain later. Go to the phone booth across the street from the Main Street CVS. Repeat, no problems.”
Nick sipped his Coke as he watched Lightman pass the note to Wilcox before the men left the lobby. They returned to the Mercedes and sped off. Nick paid for his drink, then strolled briskly back to his Volkswagen and started it up. He gunned the car over a familiar back-road shortcut that quickly took him to the rear of the CVS. He entered the store, then walked toward the windows at the front of the store.
When Nick saw the big Mercedes approaching, he waited until it nestled close to the empty phone booth across the street before he dialed a number on his cell phone. Nick watched Lightman leave the car and approach the phone booth; there, the man picked up the receiver, looked at it suspiciously, then answered, “Yeah?”
“I’ll see you at the Berkshire Motel. Room 63 is booked under the same name as before, MacAllister Brown. I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes.”
“What the fuck is up?”
“No problems. Save your questions,” Nick replied, then hung up.
The Berkshire was a no-frills establishment, one of the few in the region. A few minutes after Lightman and Wilcox made their way to Room 63 on the motel’s second floor, there was a knock on the door. Wilcox sprang from the plastic chair where he had parked his beefy body. He thumped across the room and yanked the door open, revealing Nick Corcell.
“May I come in?” Nick waited until Lightman waved him forward with an impatient gesture. After Nick entered, Wilcox closed the door and moved behind him. Nick stopped a few feet away from Lightman. “You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked.
“What the fuck is this? What’s going on?” Lightman whispered.
“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on. You said you had something to show me. That’s why I’m here, to see what it is.”
Lightman gave Nick a long, searching look, then glanced questioningly around the room. “How come we’re here instead of the other place?” he asked.
“What other place?” queried Nick.
Lightman’s jaw tightened. He centered Nick in the crosshairs of a cold, threatening stare. “Are you crazy? What kind of game is this, kid?”
“Game? I don’t know what you’re talking about, mister.”
A look of understanding flashed in Lightman’s eyes. “Oh, he thinks we’re wired. Isn’t that right, kid?” he asked.
“Son of a bitch,” Wilcox said and laughed.
The tension seemed to drain from Lightman. “Relax, kid. If anyone in here is wearing a bug, it’s you.” Listening to his own words, Lightman seemed to tense up again. “What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“No bugs,” Nick said with a shrug. He tossed his overnight bag to Lightman. “Take a look.”
Lightman caught the canvas bag, looked inside, and found only a change of clothes and a bottle of aftershave. “O.K., kid,” he hissed. “Explain. Get to the fucking point.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” Nick said. “May I see what you said you wanted to give me?”
Lightman nodded to Wilcox. The pudgy man laid his briefcase on the bed and opened it to reveal stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
Nick looked down at the money, then up at Lightman. He smiled.
Lightman did not return the smile. “Now, have you got something for us?” he asked.
Nick studied the two men at length before he answered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I better get outta here.” He turned abruptly and headed for the door.
“Hey, wait a fucking minute,” said Lightman. Nick opened the door, made as if to step through it, then suddenly stopped. He looked down—there was a package in the doorway. He spun around to face Lightman and Wilcox.
“It looks like a package has been left here for you. Want me to bring it in?”
“Sure,” Lightman answered.
Nick picked up the package, closed the door, and reentered the room. He handed the package to Lightman. They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Lightman gestured to the money lying on the bed in the open briefcase.
“Why don’t you check the package to see if it’s exactly what you were expecting.”
Lightman and Wilcox huddled over their package to make sure the six pounds of pure cocaine they were paying for was all there. Meanwhile, Nick counted twenty stacks of hundred dollar bills. When he was done counting, Nick dumped the money into his canvas bag.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for being so generous.”
Lightman extended his hand to Nick. “You’re a pretty strange kid. But I guess a guy can’t be too careful, can he?”
Nick took his hand. “Whatever you say, mister. Whatever you say.” He turned to the door, slinging the bag over his shoulder.
“Maybe we’ll see you again, if the price is right,” Lightman called out.
Nick looked back at him. “Maybe,” he answered. Then he opened the door and was gone.
In the quiet, empty hallway, Nick could taste his own fear; he could smell it, too. As he started toward the stairwell, his awareness of his surroundings heightened. Entering the stairwell, he began to sweat. When he reached a first floor hallway, he saw a maid carrying linens and towels into an empty room; an elderly couple hobbled past him. Nick continued briskly along the hallway until he reached Room 21. He knocked lightly.
Frankie Naples, a wired and wiry young man in his midtwenties, opened the door just enough to let Nick slide in, then slammed it shut. Inside, Frankie turned from the door to face Nick. “Everything go okay?” he asked.
“Smooth,” Nick replied, then moved quickly to the bed.
“Great. Fucking great. You did good, kid.” Frankie watched Nick unzip his bag and dump the hundred thousand dollars onto the bed.
“It’s all there. I checked it. You check it again; then I’m outta here.”
Frankie, a courier for a sophisticated Boston-based narcotics syndicate, grabbed a stack of bills and started counting while Nick glanced at his watch. His job was nearly done. From here, according to the plan, Frankie would take the money to Boston where it would be processed, stored, and eventually shipped out of the country to be washed.
“It’s all here,” Frankie finally said.
“Good,” Nick replied, and the men shook hands.
“See ya.” Nick broke for the door.
“Where you heading?” asked Frankie.
“Gonna pass by school, pick up so
me clothes, then pop down to Manhattan to hang out for a day or two.”
“Ain’t you graduating this week?”
“Yeah. In three days.”
“Then what?”
“College, eventually. Look, Frankie, I gotta split. Don’t break the speed limit going back with that stuff.”
A half-hour later, at his dorm room, Nick was packing his carryall bag when he heard the hallway phone. A half-minute later, he heard a voice call out: “Nick Corcell, phone for you. Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” Nick yelled back. “Who is it?”
“Some guy named Albert Masterson wants to talk to you.”
A shiver ran through Nick as he walked down the hallway and picked up the phone. He knew that name. “Hello?” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Hi there, Nick, this is Police Chief Masterson again. Remember me?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“I’m calling to ask you to come down to our offices. Mr. and Mrs. Caine are coming up from Connecticut with their daughter, Priscilla. The last time we talked, you offered to speak on her behalf. Would you mind?”
“Oh, no, be glad to. What time?”
“Soon as you can. They should be here any minute.”
The hardest part of the day seemed to be over for Nick. He had already done his part in defending Priscilla, and at this point, most of what he was doing was listening. The chief was continuing to drone on and on as Priscilla reached out to touch Nick’s hand. He turned to her. She looked into his eyes and he smiled.
“Mr. Whitcombe,” the chief said as he faced the portly lawyer, “would you care to add anything to what’s been said here?”
“Well, Chief, as you know, I’ve known this young lady from the day she was born,” he began.
Priscilla scowled. It wouldn’t take much more of this bullshit to make her throw up, she thought. She hoped Whitcombe would choke on his words. But Whitcombe’s remarks were not the snot-nosed flattery she had anticipated. The lawyer was critical in the same tough, honest way that her father usually was. He ripped her to pieces, but only in those areas where she knew she deserved it.
“Priscilla thinks she knows a great deal more than she, in fact, does. Her parents are somewhat of a disappointment to her, since she’s convinced that they don’t know nearly as much as she does. It’s a typical teenage assessment; she’s spoiled, but not rotten. Not yet. There are strong, steady hands on the parental controls still. And they will continue to guide Priscilla with loving concern and with respect. Priscilla is not a bad person, Chief. She’s a pain in the butt a lot of the time and a little too selfish and self-centered at other times. My call on Priscilla Caine is that she’s a good kid with lots of room for improvement.”
“Thank you, Mr. Whitcombe.” Chief Masterson rose from his seat. “I thank you all for coming in. We will be in touch when we decide whether we will be going forward with the charges.”
Cecilia and Montaro shook hands with Chief Masterson. Then Priscilla stood and did the same. Whitcombe followed her and Nick followed Whitcombe.
The chief pumped Nick’s hand firmly. “Where’re you parked, Nick?” he asked.
“Out back,” Nick said.
“Good. I’ll walk you to your car. There’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“O.K.” Nick turned to Priscilla, who was waiting in the doorway, and waved. “I’ll talk to you later, Prissy.”
Priscilla waved to him, then followed her parents and Whitcombe out of the chief’s office. The chief watched them go, then closed the door.
Turning to face Nick, he said, “I wanted to tell you this in private, Nick. You don’t need to worry about Priscilla being pregnant. Her parents had her checked. She just missed her period for whatever reason. That’s all. No pregnancy. I know you’re glad to hear those words.”
“I sure am,” Nick said sheepishly.
“Come on, we’ll go this way to your car.”
Chief Masterson led Nick from his office through a rear door that opened into a back hallway. The two men walked until Chief Masterson suddenly stopped in front of a closed door. “Let’s just stop in here for a second.” He opened the door and gestured for Nick to enter.
When Nick saw who was in the room, he gasped. There, seated at a table before him, were Norton Lightman and Millard Wilcox. Between them was Frankie Naples. Spread out on the table was the hundred thousand dollars he had turned over to Frankie less than an hour and a half earlier.
“I’m sure you know these gentlemen. Business acquaintances of yours, aren’t they?” the chief asked Nick.
Nick stared at Lightman’s and Wilcox’s detective badges, then lowered his eyes to meet those of the young man seated at the table like trapped prey. He saw only panic and resignation in the eyes of the once feisty bundle of energy he knew to be Frankie Naples.
“Sit down, son.” Chief Masterson indicated the unoccupied chair beside Frankie and Nick numbly obeyed. When he was seated, the chief continued. “Read him his rights, Joe.”
Dazed, Nick Corcell suddenly thought he could see everything clearly. He thought he had been so clever and careful, but it had all been a setup, probably even the words he had spoken on behalf of Priscilla Caine. No one would press any charges against her; society protected rich bitches like that girl, and working class folk like him always paid the price.
Nick listened to Detective Joseph Delconsini, the man Nick knew as Norton Lightman, monotone the familiar words that he had heard so often on TV procedurals—you have the right to remain silent; anything you say or do can and will be held against you. When the detective finished, Masterson sighed deeply, then spoke. “So, my babies, with time off for good behavior, each of you will be locked away for no less than ten years. By the time you get out of the slammer, the world will have passed you by.” He glanced at Nick. “College will have passed you by, son. You will probably spend the rest of your miserable life on the dung heap of society, eating shit. Which is, as far as I’m concerned, exactly where you belong.”
The ring of a wall phone interrupted him. Detective Howard McGraw, who had been known to Nick as Millard Wilcox, stepped over to the phone. “Yeah,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Yeah. Right. O.K.” He jerked the receiver toward Masterson. “For you, Chief.”
Masterson scurried across the room, grabbed the receiver from McGraw’s hand, and growled into it. “Yeah? All right, we’ll be right there.” He hung up, looked at his detectives, and made his way to the door. “We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Masterson told Nick and Frankie. “Don’t get any ideas about walking out the back door. It’s locked. As you probably know, you’re entitled to one phone call. Think about how you want to use it.”
Masterson followed his detectives out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Bullshit. It’s all bullshit,” Frankie blurted out when they were gone.
“What is?” Nick asked weakly.
“That phone call. Them leaving the room. It’s all bullshit. They want to make a deal. That’s what they’re fishing for. But they want us to ask for it.”
“What kind of deal, man?” Nick asked anxiously.
“They want our guys in Boston,” Frankie told him lowering his voice.
Nick noticed that his hands had begun to shake.
“We could do it. We could walk out of here like nothing ever happened,” Frankie said. “I can take this money on to Boston just like I’m supposed to.”
Nick nodded his head in the direction the cops had gone. “And what do they get?”
“They get you and me, a couple of scratchers, working on the inside for them.”
“How do you know?” Nick asked.
“I can smell it. Sometimes you know things without seeing or hearing ’em. Sometimes you gotta rely on your other senses, kid,” said Frankie. “The question is how bad do you want to stay out of the warehouse? We’ve got a shot we play our cards right.”
“Our cards?” Nick thought. He considered the Caines an
d their pretty Westport mansion and he considered his mom and her husband’s two-bedroom apartment in South Boston. He thought of Priscilla who would be going off to college in a couple of years, and he thought of himself in prison.
“What would I have to do?” he asked.
Montaro Caine was behind the wheel of his Mercedes, speeding along Route 7, joining the rapid flow of vehicles rushing toward Connecticut. Cecilia, who was never comfortable on highways, kept her eyes focused on the speedometer. But she waited until the car was traveling well above the speed limit before she offered a gentle reminder.
“Better late than never, honey. Get us home in one piece, O.K.?”
Caine’s foot eased up on the gas pedal as he briefly glanced over to his wife. “Sorry,” he said with a distant smile.
Silence fell as Caine found his mind had already drifted many, many miles away from the Berkshires; he was thinking of coins and Fitzer Corporation and Matthew Perch and of all those other roles he had to play when he wasn’t being father and husband, responsibilities that he didn’t always know how to shoulder properly. As always, he would have to rely on the example set by his grandfather, whose ninety-ninth birthday was rapidly approaching; how much longer could Montaro rely on the wisdom of P. L. Caine, he wondered. At least a few more years, he hoped. So lost in his own thoughts was he that when he paused to glance down at the dashboard clock, he realized that nearly an hour had passed since they had left Stockbridge. He looked up into the rearview mirror and saw his daughter’s reflection.
“Priscilla,” he said. She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze in the mirror. “That’s the last you’ll see of Nick Corcell.” Her father spoke in the no-nonsense tone Priscilla had learned early in life never to challenge. “I’m sorry. Your mother and I will do everything we can to help you ride this through, but you won’t be seeing Nick again.”
Tears instantly welled up in Priscilla’s eyes. She felt a rage against her parents, wanted to lash out at them. Cecilia half turned in her seat to look at her enraged child and reached out to her, but Priscilla ignored the gesture. “That really sucks, Daddy. I mean that really fucking sucks!” she blurted out, before collapsing into sobs.
Montaro Caine: A Novel Page 24