Killers

by Howie Carr

  “Wimpy Bennett.” Rocco said it wistfully. “You got a mighty early start, boss. Especially for a guy who ain’t even from Roxbury.”

  “Wherever I am,” I said, “is Roxbury.”

  I walked back to my office. Just outside, some of the boys were playing hearts. I like that, at least they aren’t on their fucking iPhones or some such waste of time. I’m old-fashioned that way. I asked Peppa if I could see him alone, and he turned his hand over to one of the younger guys, an Italian from Hyde Park. I closed the door behind him and turned on WBZ, the all-news radio station. It’s always harder to pick up voices if there are more of them in the room, instead of music.

  He sat down across from me and I pushed the humidor across the desk and offered him a cigar. He shook his head.

  “Nice piece of work last night,” I said.

  “That’s what Uncle Sam trained me for,” he said.

  “How come you didn’t put in your twenty years?” I asked.

  “You pay better,” he said.

  Just then my cell phone rang. I looked at the number. For a second it didn’t ring a bell, but then it did. The private dick. No introductions, the way it should be. Just start talking.

  “Does Sally have a son with a gas station?”

  I sat straight up. “What about it?”

  “They’re gonna shoot the kid, and then when the old man goes to MGH, they’re gonna hit him as he goes in.”

  I stood up. I was already trying to figure out the quickest way into the city.

  “Who are the shooters?”

  “I don’t know. The commish said he had to pay a lot more for them.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “I’m just telling you what I heard on that thing. One other thing. Donuts asked him, how’s he gonna know when Sally gets there, and the commish said, ‘Leave that to me.’ What’s that mean?”

  I thought of all the people who might be driving him. It could be any of them. Sally had become a Mafia Macbeth, those he moved moved only in command, nothing in love. I’d never trusted any of them. I couldn’t prove anything, but I had to let Sally know what he was walking into.

  “You got a piece with you?” I asked Reilly. “Just say yes or no.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get down to the hospital and hang around the emergency room?”

  “There’s gonna be at least two of them and only one of me.” He didn’t sound scared, he was just figuring the odds in his own head.

  “Is it a throw-down?”

  “It’s registered,” he said.

  I decided to change the subject.

  “They always got hospital cops there, you know, making sure nobody blocks the emergency lanes for the ambulances. These shooters are going to stick out like sore thumbs. Once you make ’em, you can tell the cops they’re packing.”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded doubtful. Again, not scared exactly, just dubious. Probably figured the rent-a-cops wouldn’t give a shit. They might roust him instead of the shooters. He would know better than me how they would react, being one of them. Come to think of it, one night about a month ago, I was coming out of Ox Kennedy’s taproom in Quincy Market when I saw a gangbanger aimlessly wandering around with a knife in his hand. A plunging knife, the kind that you wear like brass knuckles, only you’ve got a three or four-inch blade in your palm. Push daggers, they call them. Only good for one thing, stabbing somebody. You have to understand that the fucking knife people are crazier than gun nuts. The reason they carry knives is they’re so far gone they can’t get a gun permit. Those knife people scare the shit out of me. You never want to get shanked, believe me.

  Anyway, this night at Quincy Market, I saw a cop and told him about the gangbanger with the knife. He gave me a dirty look.

  “What the fuck you want me to do?” he said.

  Reilly said, “You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking.”

  “Think fast,” he said. “Why don’t you call him? You must have his cell phone.”

  “I do, but he’s got a big mouth—that’s off the record.” Why was I worried about dissing Sally? Odds were he’d be dead within the hour, unless I could figure something out. I asked Reilly, “You wouldn’t happen to have a ski mask in your car, would you?”

  “No, I only rob banks on Thursdays. Listen, I’m leaving right now for MGH. I’ll try to stop the car when they come in and get him outta the car and we’ll make a run for it. That’s all I can do.”

  He’d be lucky to pull it off, and he knew it. He needed backup.

  “How soon can you get here?” Reilly asked. “Where are you?”

  “Roxbury,” I said. “Listen, you gotta watch it when you approach the car. His driver has to be the finger man. He’ll be armed for sure. You come walking up to the car and he’ll cap you and then deliver Sally right up to the door. I know Sally. He’ll figure you had the contract.”

  I hated talking so openly on the phone like this, but what alternative did I have?

  “What kind of car’s he got?” Reilly asked. I liked that he hadn’t asked any follow-up questions about getting shot.

  “A white Cadillac Escalade. Unless he’s in the Lincoln Town Car, dark blue.”

  “You really can’t call him?”

  “Nah, he sits in the front seat. The driver’ll make the play for sure if I call.”

  “How about texting him?” he asked.

  “Sally? Are you kidding? Look, I gotta get going. Keep in touch, but watch the driver.”

  “Is Sally carrying?” he asked, reasonably.

  “Doubtful,” I said. Yes, he’d been packing at Hole in the Head’s wake, but other than that, I hadn’t seen him armed since about 1992.

  I got up and walked over to the corner of the room and opened up a floor hide that dated back to the Wimpy Bennett days. Marty Hide was working steady even in those days. He was what you’d call a survivor. I threw off a greasy old blanket and picked up an AR-15. God, I love the AR-15. It’s basically a stripped-down M-16, thirty copper-jacketed rounds per clip, great for a bank robbery, a small massacre or just plain going out in a hail of bullets, à la Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. I wasn’t planning on checking out today, so I loaded it quickly, covered it with the blanket and put it under my arm. Peppa watched me, but he didn’t ask any questions. I’d trained him well. Finally I walked out to my car, threw the gun on the front seat and started the engine.

  I had a bad feeling I wasn’t going to get to Mass General in time.

  42

  SCRAMBLED EGGS

  By the time I got to the gas station, the hit on Sally’s son had already gone down. At least there were enough cop cars around to indicate something serious had happened. But no ambulances—they must have already taken him to MGH. I could see the back alley where they’d shot him. It was teeming with plainclothes cops. I wondered if the shooting had been recorded by any surveillance cameras.

  There are so many goddamn surveillance cameras these days, everywhere you go, and not just in the cities either. I wondered how many videos of the famous old gangland hits would have ended up as video on the late news if someone tried them today.

  I parked next to a fire hydrant in front of the branch library on Cambridge Street and crossed first the street and then the police line at the gas station, flashing my old BPD badge. As soon as I made sure Sally’s kid had survived and was on his way to the hospital, I called Bench.

  “The kid’s alive,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m just crossing Mass Ave. Can you hang on ’til I get there?”

  I told him I’d do my best. I pulled out and headed back down Cambridge Street towards Mass General. I didn’t want my car anywhere near the hospital entrance, so I parked in a bus stop two blocks south of MGH on Cambridge Street.

  If it got towed, so be it.

  I reached around into the backseat and rummaged through all sorts of crap. I used to keep the Olds relatively neat when I was going out with Katy, but since w
e’d broken up, I’d fallen back into my old habits. Yellowing newspapers, fast-food bags, Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts cups … Patty had had every right to complain. Finally I found what I was looking for—a navy blue ski mask. I pulled it down low over my forehead. I’d figured it was there all along, but I didn’t want Bench pissed at me if I’d lost it somewhere along the line.

  Then I reached into the glove compartment and found a cheap old pair of sunglasses I’d bought at the Walmart on Route 9 in Framingham on a surveillance job a year or two earlier. That was the best I could do for disguises, but it would have to do. Gloves would have been nice too, in case I had to open the door to Sally’s Town Car, but I didn’t have time. I made sure I had my “disguise” on before I got out, just so the cameras wouldn’t catch a before shot of me. But I couldn’t be sure another one hadn’t already caught me inside the car, checking out my new look in the rearview mirror and making sure I had the safety off my .38.

  I got out of the car as casually as possible for a guy in May wearing a ski mask and sunglasses. I locked the car and then began walking toward the hospital. Another thing it would have been nice to have: a phone booth to duck into, somewhere I could stand and not stick out like a sore thumb, but when was the last time you saw a phone booth? I finally found a mailbox to lean against, right on Cambridge Street, on the same side of the street as the hospital, about a block east.

  If Sally’s car was coming from the North End, I’d be able to see it a few blocks away. If Sally wasn’t driving, which I assumed he wasn’t, I was going to jerk open the front door, gun drawn, and tell Sally to get out. If he were in the backseat, which Bench had said he wouldn’t be, I’d still tell him to get out.

  Once I did that … well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the driver. I wouldn’t even know his name. But I didn’t have any time to ponder my decision, because I saw the Town Car about two blocks away. If it was the wrong Lincoln, someone was going to get a surprise, but there was nothing else I could do.

  I continued leaning against the mailbox until the Lincoln got closer, and finally stopped at the traffic light just before the hospital entrance. The fire station was across the street, but it wasn’t quite warm enough yet to have the hero jakes sitting out front.

  I stalked toward the car as I removed my gun from my pocket. I grabbed the front door handle. It wasn’t locked. Sally looked petrified as I opened the door, gun in hand, wearing a ski mask.

  “Sally, out,” I said, waving the gun at the driver as I addressed him. “You, keep going, right to the hospital, and wait for us there.”

  “I’m not getting out,” Sally said.

  “You better,” I said, putting the gun to his head. “Bench sent me.”

  “Bench?” he said, in surprise.

  “C’mon, we ain’t got much time.” I grabbed him by his arm—very flabby, I noticed. “And you, driver, don’t try to be a fucking hero. Just keep driving to the emergency room entrance.”

  Sally looked back as he stepped out of the car. “Do like he says, Eggs.”

  “Throw your gun out,” I told him.

  He had it under his left leg. First he slowly told me where it was, and then what he was going to do with it.

  “Very good, Eggs,” I said. Obviously Eggs didn’t want his brains scrambled. Now he was holding the gun gingerly, by its grip, with his fingertips. “Throw it out, away from the car. And then drive straight to the emergency entrance.”

  Then I pulled Sally out of the car. I kept a good grip on his arm and started walking him very fast back up Cambridge Street toward City Hall.

  “Shake a leg, Sally, they were going to put you on the spot back there.”

  “At the hospital?” he said. He was already starting to get winded.

  I was walking fast too, but I took time to turn back around for a moment. Eggs, whoever he was, had not followed instructions. He was backing the Town Car out so fast onto Cambridge Street that he slammed into a bus that was heading past MGH toward the river. Eggs jumped out of the wrecked car and started running and then I saw why—two swarthy guys, automatic pistols drawn, were running toward the car. They were closing in fast on the Lincoln Town Car.

  “Don’t look now, Sally, but your car’s about to get air-conditioned.”

  The first shots hit the Lincoln, and Sally and I both took off running. Then there was more shooting. Seemed like a lot of shots for a simple hit, especially considering nobody was even in the vehicle. But I didn’t feel like establishing my eyewitness status, and neither did Sally. We were going uphill now, and Sally was panting even more. But I wanted to make it to the alley next to the North End branch library, which would put us out of the line of fire.

  When we turned into the alley, I stashed the gun back in my coat, ripped off my mask and sunglasses and threw them down. We took off running. I thought we were going to make it, but suddenly I heard the voice behind me.

  “FBI,” a voice yelled. “Halt, drop the gun.”

  Sally grunted. He wasn’t sure. I was, though. If they’d been wiseguys they just would have shot us without any TV theatrics. When I skidded to a halt and put up my hands, Sally did the same.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves, motherfuckers!” the guy said, and I ventured a glance back at him. He was a kid, about twenty-eight, and he was wearing one of those blue FBI jackets.

  “Both of you, on the ground with your arms out.” Both of us followed instructions. He said you, not “youse.” Now I was positive he wasn’t a wiseguy.

  43

  AN EXECUTIVE DECISION

  I was driving down Cambridge Street just in time to see Reilly and Sally cut into the alley. Then I saw the FBI agents following in after them, guns drawn. Both those guys have been around; I figured they weren’t going to do anything stupid. I knew I wasn’t going to. There was no way I was going to stop to vouch for my pals, not with that AR-15 under my coat on the front seat.

  Up ahead, Cambridge Street in front of MGH was already blocked off. Sally’s Lincoln was up on the median strip, its back end demolished by the collision with the T bus. I saw Benny Eggs spread-eagled on the ground, his hands flex-cuffed behind his back.

  On the other side of the car were a couple of perforated bodies. They looked brown, or tanned. Them, I didn’t care about. But Benny Eggs? Now I knew who was trying to whack Sally. It was Benny Eggs’ boss, Blinky Marzilli. Benny didn’t have brains or ambition enough for something like this, delivering the boss to a gangland assassination in front of a million witnesses. I wondered if it had dawned on Benny yet that he was supposed to go out with Sally, not to mention the two killers. The FBI had been listening in, just like we had. They had the hospital staked out too.

  What a clean sweep it would have been, Sally gone and everyone who knew anything about the hit gone too. Sometimes, though, dear Blinky, the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are next on the Hit Parade.

  I made a U-turn and doubled back around through the West End and went around the Leverett Circle and past the Science Museum and Lechmere Station and onto the McGrath-O’Brien highway.

  Somerville, my hometown. I parked in back of the Alibi, walked in and told Hobart to get me another boiler from the top of the hill and a sawed-off shotgun, and that I’d be waiting for him around back in fifteen minutes.

  I knew what I had to do. I should have done it long before it got to this point. But Sally had said no. Well, now Sally was out of commission for at least the next few hours, and I was going to have to make an executive decision in his stead.

  I sat down in a booth, picked up a burner cell phone and started making calls. I needed to get an address for Blinky.

  44

  ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL FUCKIN’ GUY

  They took us back to FBI headquarters at One Center Plaza, and questioned us, separately of course, for more than six hours. Same questions, over and over again. In the three-block drive from where they grabbed and cuffed us, up the hill to FBI headquarters in Pemberton Square, I decided
I would rely on the “gag” defense. It was all a big joke, a gag, me pointing a gun on Sally and dragging him out of the car.

  “You pulled this gag just after his son had gotten shot?” an agent asked me.

  “How the hell did I know?”

  “Did you know your gun was loaded and the safety was off when you pointed it at him,” he said.

  “It’s gotta be realistic for the gag to work.”

  “I think I’m gonna gag,” the agent said.

  I found out later, Sally gave them the same general routine. He didn’t put it across as well, I’m sure, probably because he was still frantic about his son, at least for the first couple of hours, until they let him make a phone call to find out he was going to survive.

  They asked Sally if he knew me.

  “Of course I know him,” Sally said. “He’s a beautiful fucking guy.”

  “If you know him, what’s his name?”

  “Mack,” he said. “I call him Mack.”

  “Do you know your driver’s in custody. Ben Cristofaro.”

  “Is that his name? I always meant to ask him.”

  “The guys that were going to shoot you, they were from New York. Do you have any idea why they would want you dead?”

  “You’d have to ask them,” Sally said.

  They didn’t tell us then, but they’d also arrested the commissioner and Donuts a couple of hours after we were taken into custody. So that was the feds’ mike under the table. They’d heard the same conversation I had, they’d gotten to MGH a little late, just in time to take out the shooters. Now they had the senator and the commish not just on racketeering and conspiracy, but also for murder. And in one of the shooters’ cars, they’d discovered a couple of grenades, each one of which is, as Bench McCarthy never tires of pointing out, a weapon of infernal destruction and thus another thirty years on and after. Tough break, especially for the man whose word was his bond, Donuts Donahue.

  The feds cut me loose just before midnight. I took the elevator to the ground floor of One Center Plaza. My car was about three blocks away on Cambridge Street and I started walking toward it, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been towed. Now I was less worried about feds, or shooters, than I was about the City of Boston’s Traffic and Parking Department. As I walked, I called Katy Bemis on her cell phone. She’d been trying to reach me all night. Of course she had.