Liars dice, p.17
Liar's Dice, page 17
“What?”
I hung up.
Bill walked into the kitchen, refreshed but unshaven. True to the code of undercover, he exuded the contradiction that came with the assignment. The turtleneck was clean and neutral in color. His jeans democratized him, as in he was not suspicious. The scruff made him appear as rugged and trustworthy as any man in a Ralph Lauren ad. The shoes, a pair of dark Adidas Campus, were casual, comfortable, and ideal if he needed to chase a perp. I asked where he parked his car.
“On the street, but I want answers.”
“I’ll answer your questions inside the car. You do have heat, don’t you?”
“Of course, I have heat. The car is used but not that used.”
“Good, because I don’t want my ass to fall off in this cold. It almost did walking here.”
I told him our destination.
“You really want to stick your head inside the lion’s mouth?”
Bill drifted into the street, his hand holding his keys. I looked to the curb ahead of me and spotted his retired workhorse from Chrysler. Before he could say a word, I imitated Ricardo Montalbán and belted out, “Volare!”
“You had to go and do that, didn’t you? For that, I’ll make you wait for the heat.”
He unlocked his door and started the car before he would unlock the passenger side. Bill sat inside and familiarized himself with his yacht. He checked all the mirrors. He fussed with buttons, knobs, and vents, taking enough time for my bones to feel the frost. He threw the lock and let me in. Once inside, I said, “You’re a cruel man.”
“It’s what you get for singing.”
I closed the door, and we were off. He knew the destination. I ribbed him about his jalopy. We were riding in the most expensive screwup in automotive history. “Of all the cars in all the lots, you picked the one famous for the rusty fender exchange program. Why the hell didn’t you pick another model?” I mimicked Ricardo’s sonorous voice again. “Choose Chrysler Cordoba. Corinthian leather. Isn’t volare Italian for ‘to fly’ because I’m certain it’s Chrysler for recall.”
“Are you done? Because you need to explain to me what the hell you’re thinking. Mr. B lost nine men, thanks to your friend whose name I don’t know.”
“His name is Hunter.”
Bill avoided the busiest streets. It was long stretches of asphalt and a string of city lights, and few pedestrians. Our conversation followed the train of red and green, Stop and Go.
“Redo your math, Bill. Two Canadians who happen to look Italian.”
“Okay, fine. Seven Italians. Three from the Caprice, and the four shooters.”
“The man’s name was Joe Colonna.”
Bill shot me the look of a man who’d mistaken vodka for water. “What?”
“Joey Cologne. The driver of the Chevy Caprice. Joe Colonna was his name.”
Bill counted fingers. “And the Canadians?”
“My guess is they were either Calabrians or Sicilians.”
“Is there a difference?” Bill asked. “It was a bloodbath.”
“No argument there. The question is who was loyal to Mr. B.”
“No,” Bill said. “The question is whether Mr. B knows about Hunter and that you put him up in your apartment.”
“And Mr. B has the bigger problem. Remind me again, where’s this bar located?”
“I told you.” Bill exhaled. “Southie.”
“AKA Winter Hill territory.”
“What are you going to tell the man?”
“I’ll tell him what I told him the last time we spoke. He needs to hide.”
“You told a mafia guy to hide?”
The North End, the home of various dialects, mostly variants of chewed and eaten vowels of farmers from southern Italy, came into view, and we slowed down because the early morning traffic of old ladies and kids, shoppers, and tourists choked the narrow streets.
Bill pulled the car to the side of Prince Street. He didn’t say it, but we both noticed the gauntlet of wiseguys on both sides of the street.
“I think it’s safe to say he’s heard the news,” I said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Loop the block until I come out.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Lancelot
I exited the vehicle and closed the door behind me. None of the faces in the Mediterranean version of the Secret Service were ones I recognized, and four men were standing in front of the door to Mr. B’s club. Whatever details surrounded the dead Italians, whether they were loyal or traitorous, didn’t matter. Word was out on the street that someone had survived the massacre, and it wasn’t the barkeep. He had died behind the bar among all the shattered glass. A civilian taking out made men was unprecedented and equally staggering was his audacity to leave one of their own in the street as a public display.
I spotted a young kid and called him over. “Hey, kid. Do you want to make a fast twenty?”
“My mother says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”
“She’s right. See that door over there, with the four men?”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to tell them Shane Cleary wants to go inside.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to their boss.”
“You’re friends with Mr. B?”
“Yeah, I am. You know him?”
“Who doesn’t?” This kid is ten going on thirty and the male equivalent of Tatum O’Neal in Paper Moon because he says, “You ain’t no cop, are you?”
“No, I’m no lousy cop.” I resorted to the North End talk he’d understand. “You gonna do this thing, or what?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it, but how do I let’em know you’re legit?”
The kid was smart, and he’d made a valid point. I took off my hat and gave him the fedora. “Give this to them and tell them to show it to Mr. B.” I reached into my pocket and peeled off two tens. “I’ll give you half now, and half when you’re done.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I trust you, kid, but I want to make sure I get my hat back.”
I watched the kid walk up to the one of the guards, David to his Goliath. Lips moved, words were exchanged, and the kid pointed to me. I lifted my chin. Another guy who could pass for bulldog on his hind legs took the hat, turned and rapped the wood, and probably said a password from Prohibition before the door opened, and he disappeared inside.
Like Pinto to his payphone, the door opened in less than five minutes.
I paid the kid his second installment and figured I’d collect my hat inside.
I squeezed past the gauntlet and ventured in, where I received some love from Security. It was hands up and down and around the world. Twice.
In the room was more than the usual number of Mr. B’s street crew. Most of the time, it was men sitting at tables counting collections. This time, there were plates of food and unusual camaraderie, the Italian version of the Irish wake. Men huddled and commiserated, speaking Italian. One man, a venerable ancient I’d seen numerous times, was shepherding his younger colleagues, four or five at a time, because he was the self-appointed photographer and historian. I had heard that his criminal activities dated back to the Mustache Petes, the first generation of mafiosi.
The fashion for Italian men in those days was to have mustaches similar to Yosemite Sam. The trend died after Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted in Charlestown State Prison. The prison was razed in the Fifties, and the grounds remained fallow for twenty years until Bunker Hill Community College was built over it.
While I waited, I watched Methuselah cajole four hoods in suits to pose for a group picture. He was commanding them to get closer together, and they did the accordion squeeze in front of the glass behind them. I expected him to say formaggio, but he says focus. “Fok us!”
Tony Two-Times stepped into the room. Dark circles under his eyes said he’d received the call within minutes after the shootout. He stopped me before I went into the private room. “Mr. B is real sore about what went down, so careful with what you say.”
“Thanks, Tony, and I’ll want a word with you before I leave. Any chance you’re in there with me?”
“No, but I’ll be standing in the doorway behind you.”
“Why doesn’t that comfort me?”
“Take it easy. You have nothing to worry about during this sit-down.”
I entered the back room. Mr. B was at a table, an empty dish and espresso cup in front of him. He looked up. “I assume you heard?”
My eyes indicated the hallway to the bathroom where we’d spoken last time. “I have. Shall we?”
“No need. Let them listen. The thing is still a thing, even if it isn’t their thing.”
I squinted because I hadn’t expected him to slip into code that fast, but I caught on and played along. “I’m here about the thing you lost. I found it.”
“Alone or with company?”
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to him. He read the address to Sal and Vanessa’s place in Somerville. I said, “He’d like to talk to you.”
His eyes looked up. “Anything else you’d like to add?”
“Oh, and that baking question you had. There’s no flour involved in the recipe.”
I was running low on metaphors. I’d said ‘flour’ because it was the first thing that had come to mind. Wrong slang. Wrong drug. Flour was to heroin what snow was to cocaine. I was worried I might’ve slipped up because the Feds were onto how heroin was coming into the country in containers of flour to Italian pizzerias, up and down the east coast. Nonetheless, he now knew his nephew wasn’t involved in drugs.
“No flour,” Mr. B said. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”
“I’d like you to reconsider what I suggested to you the last time we spoke.”
His eyes flashed. “I don’t sit anything out, especially not when I lose resources.”
“You remember King Solomon, and not the one in the Bible?”
“King Solomon?” Mr. B said. His eyes narrowed, searching the archives of memory. He came back with a result from the stacks. “Yeah, I do. Tremont Street.”
King Solomon was Boston’s version of Al Capone, a Jewish gangster in Mr. B’s youth. In addition to being a rum runner, he owned the Cocoanut Grove before it burned down, and he met his end at another one of his nightclubs, the Cotton Club on Tremont near Mass. Avenue.
On a cold winter night in ’33, two guys came in the back way, through an alley, while two gunmen walked through the front door. The two hitmen from the alley shot Solomon in the bathroom, like Dutch Schultz at the Palace Chop House in Newark, NJ, two years later. Like The Dutchman, Solomon lingered before he died and, like the Jewish gangster in Jersey, he wouldn’t identify his killers.
“I remember him. Why do you ask?”
“I’m thinking of how his number went down. Sound familiar?”
He didn’t smile, he didn’t nod, but he listened, aware I knew he’d given the order to send the four hitters into the meeting in a Southie bar.
“Speaking of kings, I was thinking of another one you might know.”
“Not in the Bible, I assume,” he answered.
I said, “Familiar with King Arthur?
“Knights of the Round Table, sure. Why?”
“The knights lived by a code. Without chivalry, there would’ve been chaos. Knights had honor, and men of honor need guidance, a framework for conduct, which the chivalric code gave them, but men with swords become restless when they don’t use them, which is why King Arthur would issue challenges to his knights. They would have jousts and tournaments.”
Mr. B held up his hand. “That’s Hollywood. Your point?”
“When Arthur was worried about whether his knights were upholding the integrity of the code, he’d test them another way. Know how?”
Mr. B understood subtext. “He’d send them on a quest.”
“That’s right,” I said. “He’d send them on a journey, often into enemy territory because foreign lands had their own knights. They’d test their prowess. Which brings me to a question for you.”
“About the consequences of entering enemy territory?”
“The answer to that is obvious,” I said. “An observation, if I may. Courts were filled with intrigue, and Camelot was no exception. Lancelot slept with Queen Guinevere, for example. Betrayal is a violation of the code. I’m curious. What do you think of Lancelot?”
“That’s your question? What do I think of Lancelot? Mr. B said.
“No, but answer it anyway.”
“He shouldn’t have done the queen. The real question, please.”
“Question is, who was the most dangerous knight of the Round Table, and why?”
A peal of laughter thundered in the other room, but it didn’t distract us. We were deep into the metaphor, the chessboard maneuvers where the goal was to leave the other player with no more moves for escape. Mr. B was aware of the consequences of entering Winter Hill Gang territory. He had calculated the risk because there was so much more at stake: maintaining his throne, for one, and upholding the rule that dealing in drugs was forbidden. I was working him toward another truth.
I asked again, “Who was the most dangerous knight, and why?”
“Lancelot,” he said. “He was the most dangerous of Arthur’s men because nobody could defeat him, not even Arthur. Does that answer your question?”
“It does, and you’re correct, but there’s one small detail you forgot.”
Mr. B enjoyed the back-and-forth. He grinned. “And what detail is that?”
“Another comment, if I may. Imagine you’re a king, who sent his knights out on a quest, unaware that they would encounter Lancelot.”
“Perhaps Lancelot should not have been there?” Mr. B said.
“Perhaps, he was there on a quest of his own.”
“And what is Arthur supposed do?” The voice lowered; the level of impatience rose. “Is Arthur supposed to send someone onto the field with a white flag while he sits inside his castle?”
“Yes, because it’s a flag of peace, not defeat; otherwise, the kingdom is lost.”
He clenched his jaw. “About that other detail about Lancelot, or did you forget?”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“And the detail?”
“Lancelot was an orphan and raised by fairies, which would have made him someone out of the ordinary experience for the other knights.” I glanced over my shoulder to confirm that Tony was there. “I need to borrow Tony.”
Tony and I talked. I wrote down her name and the address of the law firm. He could ask for her in the lobby, I told him. He asked for a description. I said he couldn’t miss a tall platinum blonde. He asked whether Bonnie would know he was coming to collect her. I told him that it would be a surprise and that it was imperative that she join him. I wanted her sequestered at Mr. B’s home in Newton. She’d be safe there, along with Sal and Vanessa.
I whispered into his ear. “I want the coldest and cleanest nine millimeter in my hands when I see you in Newton.”
“I have a question?” he asked.
“Sure, anything. What is it?”
“What about your cat?”
Chapter Thirty: Shadow Dancing
Like the robbers who exited the Brink’s Armored Car Depot more than a quarter century ago on the same street, I left the club unscathed and with my hat on my head. With perfect timing, Bill stopped the car in front of me outside. I opened the door, hopped in, and we escaped Prince Street under the speed limit and with Andy Gibb’s ‘Shadow Dancing’ on the radio. It wasn’t until the North End was behind us that Bill turned the knob and killed the song before the strings stepped in front of the rhythm section and vocals. I looked out the window at a cold raw sky and experienced a heaviness in black waves that would not subside until I heard Bonnie was safe in Newton.
Hunter wanted revenge for Pedro Gonzalez, and he’d extract it from whomever he thought had played a part in killing his friend, whether it was the mafia from the north, terrorists from the Caribbean, the locals in Winter Hill or in the North End, or the men in suits.
Bill’s fingers gripped the wheel. I could tell he was thinking, processing his thoughts like those punch cards on the steel runners in the opening of Adam-12. Moving. Racing. Taking the curves that came with the ride to their final destination. “Your friend Hunter,” he said. “What do you think is running through his mind?”
“He’s living the life of man on the run.”
“I’d say so. He’s capped mafia guys, and we can’t forget the Puerto Ricans either.”
“And don’t forget our northern neighbors, the Canadians,” I said.
“You know, something bothers me about this whole thing.” I glanced over at Bill and waited. He said, “Did you ever think it through, Shane?”
“Think what through?”
“The possibilities, man. You did your part for Mr. B. You found Sal for him.”
“What are you saying, Bill?”
“Mr. B can sit at home, Hugh Hefner robe on, and drink Chivas Regal, all the while the word is on the street that he wants Hunter dead. Executive privilege. Executive decision.”
“Hunter will manage. He’s agile.”
Bill’s expression changed when he heard me say the word ‘agile.’ Bill understood what it meant in the military. Hunter could adapt to any situation and improvise, which is why Mr. B’s men didn’t stand a chance against him. The lot of them may’ve seen action in World War II, possibly Korea, but they were no psychological or tactical match against Hunter. He’d survive, and they’d die.
I told Bill that I had asked Tony Two-Times to bring Bonnie to Mr. B’s place in Newton.
I also instructed him to return to the scene of the crime in Southie. If my request surprised Bill, he didn’t show it. He looked as preoccupied as an expectant mother counting the seconds between contractions. I asked the question. “What’s on your mind, Bill?”
