Blood in the Water

by Jack Flynn

  He lingered for a moment, and then looked at his phone, and suddenly he was somewhere else. She saw the change in his face. He had been warm and tender and vulnerable talking to her, but now that was gone. Now he was rock steady, and all sense that he could have mercy or pity or love was gone from his expression. For the first time, she had an understanding of why so many seemed so afraid of him. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave the house until I say it’s OK to.’

  She stared at him, not fully comprehending. ‘I’m just supposed to stay here?’

  ‘For now.’ He nodded.

  ‘I have a life!’ she protested.

  ‘Aye, you do,’ he said. ‘I intend to keep it that way.’ He nodded again and walked past her and out the kitchen door.

  Thirty-Two

  Cormack’s hands gripped the steering wheel as he guided the car through the streets of Southie. He needed to focus. T’phong Soh was a worthy adversary – a dangerous, smart, ambitious young man with a solid cadre of men behind him and the will and ruthlessness to follow through on his plan to take over Boston Harbor. If Cormack wasn’t mentally engaged, this young man would kill him, he knew.

  And yet his focus was elsewhere right now. One simple phrase echoed in his mind, and he seemed unable to stop it.

  I’m going to be a grandfather.

  He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about that. He still thought of himself as too young to be a grandfather. Even with the ravages of age, and the injuries he’d sustained recently, he still felt young and strong and virile.

  He was also concerned for Diamond. She was only nineteen, and while there were plenty of young girls in the neighborhood who got knocked up and had kids when they were young, he’d always hoped that Diamond would choose a different path – go to school, get a good job, become a professional. She was always at the top of her class, and she had more street sense than almost anyone he knew.

  That was why, he knew, her child would be special. And that thought made his heart swell with pride. She would be a great mother, even at her young age, and she would love and protect her child better than anyone had ever protected her. He felt guilty as he thought back on how she had been forced to live her childhood – without any real stability or continuity. It was a miracle that she had turned out as well as she had. He blamed himself for all that she had gone through, and he vowed that his grandchild would never have to go through the same sorts of things.

  In the end, he thought, maybe that was the answer. She was a smart, capable young woman, and she knew what was right for her. He had to trust her judgment, and make sure that she knew that he would be there to help her, whether the father of the child was there or not.

  But in order to do that, Cormack had to make sure that he stayed alive. He’d be no good to Diamond or her child if he was dead, which meant – again – that he had to focus. He had to make sure that he got to Soh before Soh got to him. That was why he had to meet Kit Steele.

  He’d been surprised when she called and told him that she had information for him. She knew he was going to war, and he could no longer abide by their original agreement that he would refrain from violence. She’d made clear at the hospital that she could no longer be involved with him if he was going back to his old ways. He wondered what had changed her mind.

  Ultimately, he didn’t care. He wanted to see her, more than he felt comfortable admitting. It was possible that she had information that would be truly useful to him. But even if not, he would still have gone to see her. She was the first person since Diamond’s mother that he had felt real passion for, even if he refused to acknowledge it.

  They met at the usual place – a small motel just over the Quincy border, past UMass. Boston on the McGrath highway. He could never go to her apartment or office, for obvious reasons. Nor could she ever be seen at his house or at the union. So this dingy spot with yellowing lace curtains and wood paneling had become their hideaway.

  He paid for the room inside the office. The kid behind the counter didn’t look at him; he just took the money and passed over the key. Cormack suspected he’d learned that his life would be easier if he could plausibly deny recognizing anyone who rented the rooms. It was not the kind of place where reputable business people stayed, or where families vacationed. Cormack took the key without comment, and headed back out into the parking lot, down the row of doors to the one that matched the number on the key.

  He was nervous, he realized with surprise, as he waited in the room. The curtains on the windows were drawn, the shades pulled down. He turned on the light, but all it could muster was an antique glow. He went to the bathroom and ran the water, splashed some on his face. He was running a towel over his cheeks when he heard the door open.

  ‘Cormack?’

  He put the towel in the sink and walked back into the bedroom. ‘I was surprised to hear from you,’ he said, standing in the bathroom doorway.

  She nodded. ‘I was a little surprised I called,’ she admitted.

  ‘You know our deal is off.’ Cormack didn’t move. He just looked at her. She was a striking woman, but her eyes looked weary, and it made him sad for her. ‘There’s nothing I can do about that. The war came to me; I didn’t go looking for it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What do we have to talk about, then?’

  ‘Soh.’

  ‘What about him?’

  Kit took a manila folder out of her bag and laid it on the bureau. ‘This is the latest intel we have on him. It’s enlightening.’

  Cormack looked at the folder on the bureau, then back at Kit. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It says that he’s branching out.’

  Cormack gave a grunt. ‘That’s why he’s coming after me.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not just that he’s expanding his control over the harbor,’ she said. ‘He’s expanding worldwide. He’s got connections in both Southeast Asia and in the Middle East. He’s making a move to become the largest heroin importer on both coasts. His goal is to control the operations both here and in San Diego, where the drugs will be coming in.’

  ‘Ambitious.’

  ‘Very,’ Kit nodded.

  ‘I can’t imagine that Soh’s superiors in MS-13 will be too happy to hear that his loyalties have been compromised. Pineda is supposed to run the organization throughout the US. Every cell has some autonomy, but they all pay the organization, and a move this big is going to upset the power structure.’

  ‘It’s not clear that Pineda knows yet. And by the time he finds out, it may be too late for him to do anything about it. Soh may be too powerful by then. If he manages to get control of both harbors and the heroin starts flowing, he’ll have enough money to control an army. A well-armed one at that.’

  ‘Better that Soh’s stopped now, then,’ Cormack noted.

  She nodded. ‘For everyone.’

  ‘That’s why you’re willing to keep feeding me information, even though you know what’s coming?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not just that,’ she said.

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘There are rumors that Javier Carpio is in Boston, and that he’s helping Soh. It makes me wonder.’

  Cormack let that sink in for a moment. ‘You think his brother’s part of the deal?’

  ‘It occurred to me,’ Kit said. ‘Why else would Javier come all this way from El Salvador?’ She shook his head. ‘I think he’s using Soh and his men to try to break Vincente out of prison.’ Her expression hardened. ‘I am not going to let that happen. I don’t care what I have to do to make sure it doesn’t.’

  ‘Is there anything in the file that will help me?’

  She nodded. ‘You won’t get to him right now, he’s got too many people around him. But there’s another you may be able to get to. Juan Suarez. He’s Soh’s right hand. All the information is in here. You get to him, and you’ll find out what Soh is planning.’

  ‘So you’ll turn a blind eye on my war against Soh as long as it means
he can’t help break Carpio out,’ Cormack said. ‘Federal agents have gone to jail for less.’

  Her gaze remained hard. ‘I’m not turning a blind eye toward anything. Both of my eyes are wide open and seeing fine. If I go to jail, then I go to jail, but I will not let Vincente Carpio loose on the American public again. I’d rather sit in a cell with a clean conscience than walk the streets with the knowledge that there was something I could have done and I didn’t do it.’

  He held her stare for a long moment before he spoke again. ‘Keeping him in prison means that much to you?’

  She dropped her eyes to the floor. ‘When my son and my husband …’ she began, but her voice caught in her throat. ‘I promised that I would do anything I could to prevent anyone from ever going through what I went through. It’s what I’ve dedicated my life to. And I’ve failed. I caught him once, and he escaped and eight more people died.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I went down to Nantasket beach yesterday and walked along the water. It’s where we used to go every summer. I was so cold.’

  ‘Coldest winter in history so far,’ Cormack said.

  ‘I’m not talking about the weather,’ Kit said. She looked back up at him. ‘I’m talking about me. It was our spot, so familiar to me it could be my home. But I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel him. The wind blew through me like I wasn’t even there – like I didn’t even fucking exist.’ A tear ran down her cheek. ‘That’s what they took from me.’ She shook her head. ‘They took everything.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She turned away from him. ‘I don’t talk about it.’

  ‘Maybe you should.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s too much to think about.’

  ‘Maybe if you talk about it, you’ll be able to let go of it finally.’

  ‘I’ll never let go of it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I remember the lights,’ she began. ‘They were swirling … red and blue and white … so bright. They were there, in front of the house, and I couldn’t figure out what they could possibly be doing there. It didn’t make sense. There were so many cars. So many lights.’

  ‘The police?’

  She nodded. ‘And ambulances. I don’t even know why they were there. Neither one of them was going to the hospital.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There had been a fight at the school a week before. One of the kids involved in the fight was being recruited by MS-13. Dillon pulled him off another kid, and held him back. The kid fought to get loose, but Dillon was a big, athletic guy, and he manhandled the kid pretty easily. He didn’t hurt him – not really. Maybe a bruise or two from being held, but nothing serious. I guess the kid felt like he had been disrespected. He was in the final part of his initiation, and the last thing he had to do was carry out a murder. He chose Dillon.’

  Cormack leaned in, wordlessly encouraging her to go on.

  ‘It was the day of my last law school exam. I was looking forward to a break with Dillon and Ollie, my son. He’d just turned six. We were going to go to the beach the next day. Everything was perfect.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She shook her head, as though she might be able to dislodge the memories that crawled through her brain. ‘There were so many police cars and ambulances,’ she said. ‘It didn’t make any sense, but I knew, somehow that it was bad. It was written on the faces of the detectives. They weren’t just dead. If they’d just been dead, their faces wouldn’t have been so white – so drained of patience for the horrors that human beings are capable of. They wouldn’t let me into the house. They said it was too terrible.’

  ‘Machetes,’ Cormack said quietly under his breath. It was the weapon of choice for MS-13 when carrying out revenge killings.

  Kit nodded. She could feel the wave of memories cresting the parapets of her defenses. ‘They were hacked to death. The coroner estimated that it took at least a half hour for them to do the damage they did. I never even got to say goodbye to my son. There wasn’t enough left to say goodbye to. I never got to see him. And I never went back into that house. There was nothing left for me. They arrested the kid, and sent him to prison, but there were others who had helped him. Others who held my husband down and made him watch as they hacked our boy to death.’

  ‘That’s why you went into the FBI.’

  ‘I didn’t have anything to care about after that. At least here, I feel like I’m helping to make sure no one else ever has to go through what I went through. It’s the only point to my existence. And every time I put one of these assholes away, I think to myself, Maybe this is one of the bastards who killed Ollie and Dillon. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.’

  ‘How’s that working for you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Keeps me off the streets. Keeps me from putting a gun in my mouth.’

  ‘It’s the brutality that’s brought it all back,’ Cormack said. ‘Carpio’s brutality – that’s what you can’t let go of.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. All I’m sure of is that I will not let him escape. I can’t. He’s never going to do what he’s done to anyone else. I’ll deal with the devil if I have to, but he’s never going to taste freedom again.’

  Cormack stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Even if you keep Carpio locked up, it won’t bring them back,’ he said.

  She leaned against him, and he took her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his back. ‘I want to feel something again,’ she said into his chest. Her voice was hoarse and muffled, but he could hear the pain in it.

  He leaned his head down and found her cheek, kissed it softly. He could taste the saline in her tears. It was a new experience. She lifted her head and her lips met his, and the feeling was exquisite. He had work to do, and he should leave to get to it, he knew. And yet he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her so lost and empty.

  He kissed her harder and knew that the work would have to wait just a bit.

  Thirty-Three

  ‘Does your father suspect anything?’

  ‘About us?’ Diamond held her phone tight to her ear, glancing furtively into the other room, where her new bodyguard was sitting. She’d needed to talk to Buddy after her encounter with her father. Her decision was made now, and she knew there was no going back. The only thing left was to tell Buddy and see how he would react. ‘He’s got other things on his mind,’ she said. That was another reason she’d needed to talk to Buddy. She’d always viewed her father as an indestructible force of nature. He was always in control of everything around him, and she’d never seem him nervous or concerned. It was clear, though, that he was now. The thought that anything could genuinely threaten Cormack made her question so much about her world. Talking to Buddy helped to restore some normalcy to her reality.

  ‘That’s good,’ Buddy said. ‘If he ever found out about me, he’d kill me.’

  ‘He’s not that bad.’

  ‘No?’ Buddy laughed. ‘I think you underestimate how protective he feels about you. Any way you look at it, it’s better if he doesn’t know.’

  ‘He has to find out at some point,’ she said, testing the waters.

  ‘Why?’

  It wasn’t the response she was looking for. ‘Because I’m not going to creep around in the shadows for the rest of my life. If we’re going to be together, we’ve got to figure out a way for him to be OK with it.’

  ‘Your father controls the entire harbor. He decides what he’s OK with. You and me don’t have any say in that.’

  She was frustrated that Buddy didn’t seem to be budging. That frustration bred anger, but she knew that anger wouldn’t advance the discussion. She decided to take a different approach. ‘Do you remember the first time?’ she asked.

  He was quiet for a second. ‘Yeah,’ he said at last. ‘Of course I do. I remember everything about that night.’

  ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Is this a test?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s a test. You better not fail.’

  He gave
a soft, low chuckle. ‘This summer. The last week of July. It was as hot then as it is cold now. It started at Lucky ‘O’s,’ he said.

  She gasped. ‘Oh, my God, you fucking failed! It was at the Horseman!’

  He chuckled harder. ‘No, that was where we first met,’ he said. ‘It started at Lucky ‘O’s.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You were there with that friend of yours, the one with the bright red hair … what’s her name?’

  ‘That’s Jess.’

  ‘Right, Jess. You were there with her before you went to the Horseman.’

  ‘Yeah, we were. It was lame there, though. Too crowded to move around. But you weren’t there.’

  ‘I was. That was where I first saw you. You were leaning against the wall, swaying to the music with this look on your face. It was part boredom and part disgust. I remember guys kept coming up to you, and you kept blowing them off. But there was something about you that I couldn’t stop staring at. I was with Nate and a couple of the other guys, and he couldn’t figure out what had gotten into me. There were these three girls at the bar and we were hitting on them. Or maybe they were hitting on us, I don’t know, but after I saw you I couldn’t keep the conversation going.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘I’m not. And then you left. You and Jess nodded to each other, and you were out the door. I couldn’t resist, so I followed you. You went over to the Horseman, and I went in after you. I stood at the far end of the bar, just watching you for a while. I was trying to figure out a way to meet you without coming off as a sleazeball. I’d almost given up when that other guy showed up.’

  ‘Chris,’ Diamond said, remembering. ‘My asshole ex-boyfriend.’

  ‘Chris, your asshole ex-boyfriend,’ Buddy agreed. ‘Thank God for Chris, your asshole ex-boyfriend.’

  ‘He was so drunk that night, and so pissed at me, he couldn’t leave it alone. I wanted to kill him.’

  ‘He wanted to kill you, too, clearly. When he started screaming at you, I just reacted. I couldn’t stand to see anyone treat you that way.’