Authors: George V. Higgins
“No, I always figured the reason she stopped workin’ was because her husband, some reason or other, decided he didn’t want her around the place, guys like Nino comin’ in. By then our friend Dom was around sixty-five, slowin’ down some, but his young wife was still goin’ strong. Could be some trouble there, he wasn’t careful—if there hadn’t been trouble already. But if she didn’t see them and they didn’t see her, then maybe bad things wouldn’t happen. At least that’s how I looked at it.
“Then a year or two after that, Nino got grabbed. Furthermore, Nino got grabbed down in
Quincy, Fore River
, Dominic Frolio’s old stompin’ grounds—where he knew every cop onna force. And even
more
furthermore, Nino got grabbed for possession of heroin, and the big time too, this was—half a kilo.
“Now this, well, I didn’t know. Wasn’t sure. Nino always was headstrong, and I did know him to moonlight a little with blow, even though I told him a lot of times not to, takin’ chances he didn’t need to. But he thought he was a swinger, and the swingers used coke, and so that’s what he’d do, he’d snort coke.
Never anything else, and like most people who use coke, if he had some he’d sell you a little. But never the half-kilo range. And I never knew him to use heroin, much less to deal any that shit. So ever since then I always sort of wondered, ‘Was Nino set up? And if he was, who might’ve done that?’ ” McKeach laughed. “Always did have a suspicious mind. And—liked to speak well of the dead.”
After the conference McKeach lingered for a few private words with Cistaro. Cistaro agreed Farrier and Stoat would appreciate being tipped off about Crawford’s enterprise, after he’d repaid his loan. “But not too soon,” Cistaro said. “Queers might figure something out. Make the feds hold off a couple months or so.” McKeach agreed.
When he reached the steps outside, Naughton had gotten out of Rascob’s car and the two of them were talking about the Celtics. McKeach paused at the foot of the steps and cleared his throat. They fell silent and looked his way. “Nice night, guys,” McKeach said.
“Very nice night,” Rascob said, “but I got a big day tomorrow—should be using it for sleeping.” He turned toward his car, and as Naughton moved aside, McKeach gave him the thumbs-up sign. By then in the driver’s seat, Rascob saw the signal, and saw Naughton’s nod as well. Rascob looked down at the ignition and turned the key.
A
S
THE
DARKNESS
BEGAN
TO
GIVE
way to the edge of a pale reddish dawn at the tops of the black woods to the southeast, McKeach in the blue Bonneville Brougham came southbound off the West Roxbury Parkway into the rotary and turned off at the second right, pulling up the slope of the floodlighted parking lot at the entrance of the brightly lit White Hen Pantry twenty-four-hour store at 4:58
A.M.
Todd Naughton in a dark-blue satin New England Patriots windbreaker and blue jeans came out of the store immediately into the predawn chill, carrying a white paper bag with a drawing of a chicken on it, yanking the right front door open and sliding onto the seat, pulling the door shut as McKeach turned down the slope and accelerated out of it onto the VFW Parkway eastbound.
Officer Andrew Ramona, his Boston Police Department silver-and-blue Ford cruiser parked in the next space, sat in the passenger seat of Officer Owen Hennigan’s BPD K-9 Unit cruiser with his cardboard cup of coffee in his left hand and his right arm hanging out the window. He did that so as to enjoy his Marlboro with his coffee without altering the atmosphere inside the cruiser. Hennigan’s one-hundred-and-fourteen-pound black-and-tan German shepherd, Good Herman, lying watchfully in
the rear seat behind the black steel grille, disliked tobacco smoke. He ignored its lingering aroma on smokers’ breath and clothing. He seemed not to notice it at home with Janet Hennigan, who smoked, and disregarded smokers on the street when he was being exercised, toileted or working, but in the cruiser he reacted to it violently, barking and thrashing heavily enough to shake the vehicle anytime he smelled it in the passenger compartment.
Ramona, pulling his head back in the window after exhaling a deep drag, nodded to indicate McKeach’s Pontiac as it left the parking lot, said—“Wuddun ’at the ever-popular Arthur McKeon?”
Hennigan behind the wheel sipped coffee through the hole in the plastic lid and nodded. “That’s who it was all right—hims
elf
, the
McKeach.
”
“In a helluva hurry there, too,” Ramona said. “Didn’t even have time to notice us, give a friendly wave. Kind of rude of him, I think. Think it’s because who he’s meeting? Didn’t want us to notice him, doin’ that?”
“Doin’ what?” Hennigan said, drinking coffee.
“Pickin’ up Naughton, the super’s kid,” Ramona said. “Didn’t want us see him doin’ that?”
“Who?” Hennigan said.
“McKeach, damnit,” Ramona said. “Pickin’ up Naughton’s kid. Terry … Teddy … something like that. Toby.”
“If you’re talkin’ about Superintendent Naughton’s youngest son,” Hennigan said, “his name’s Todd. Follgwin’ at last in his daddy’s footsteps—just got into the next class, the academy.”
“Then what’s he doin’ with McKeach?” Ramona said.
“Who?” Hennigan said.
“Todd Naughton,
who
,” Ramona said. “What’s the matter with you, Owen? You know who I’m talkin’. Todd Naughton just
got inna car with McKeach and off they went, like a jailbreak inna movies—roarin’ off. What’s he’s doin’, doin’
that
, he’s gonna be a policeman?”
“Arthur McKeon’s his uncle,” Hennigan said.
“McKeach is the super’s
brother
?” Ramona said. “What’re you tellin’ me, Owen? Super’s mother had two different
husbands
?”
Hennigan sighed. “No, Andrew,” he said, “I’m not tellin’ you that. Arthur McKeon has a brother named
Peter
McKeon. Runs a private security company. Night watchmen, gatekeepers and guards. Watchguard Security. Fairly good service, too, everything I’ve heard. Keep an eye on your stuff and if someone tries to steal it, they call the real cops and get outta the way. Can’t ask for much more’n that, for several hundred bucks a month plus a good-sized tip at Christmas.
“Peter McKeon’s wife’s name’s Marybeth. I dunno now what her maiden name was, but she has a sister, Caroline. Caroline’s married to Emmett Naughton—so she is Todd Naughton’s mother. Marybeth is his aunt and Peter’s his uncle by marriage, and I guess that makes Arthur one too. Or so everyone seems to think. I myself? Do not
give
a
shit.
”
“Well, then,” Ramona said, forgetting the backseat occupant and bringing the Marlboro in for a last drag, exhaling it billowing through his nose. The shepherd was on his feet at once, barking furiously and springing repeatedly against the steel grille, causing the front seat to judder and lurch.
“Jesus
Christ
, Andrew,” Hennigan said, putting his coffee on the dash, then grabbing the wheel and using it for leverage to turn around in the seat, “now look what you did. Get
down
, Herman, damn dog you, get
down.
” The dog looked at him reproachfully. “
No
,” Hennigan said, “now goddamn you,
sit. Down.
” The dog backed off and sat down again, looking pleased with himself, still expecting a reward, and Hennigan said, “Yeah,
that’s better there, settle down.” He turned to Ramona. “And as for you, Andrew, get rid of that friggin’
butt
, for Christ sake, ’fore Good Herman kills us both here.”
Ramona lifted his right hand outside the cruiser and used his right thumb and middle finger to snap the filtered stub in a high arc out over the parking lot. “Oh-
kay
,” Hennigan said, subsiding behind the wheel and taking his coffee cup off the dashboard, “now we also got
that
put behind us. You got any other problems now? Or can we now finish our coffees and maybe then go back to work?”
“Well, I’d still like to know what the Naughton kid’s doing ridin’ off with McKeach,” Ramona said. He drained his coffee.
“Andrew,” Hennigan said, “like I been tryin’ to make you see, but you didn’t seem to get it, here is some free advice now, with the warts still on it—if you ever expect to get a promotion you oughta learn now is what Naughton’s kid does with his Uncle Arthur’s a subject to stay away from. It’s not police business—it’s family.”
A
T
F
AULKNER
H
OSPITAL
M
C
K
EACH
turned left off Centre Street and drove up the hill into the parking lot behind the hospital, choosing a space off to the left, turning down the volume on the radio as the announcer said “… some were taking as an indication that the Fed might soon raise interest …” He and Naughton got out of the car as soon as he had it in Park. Naughton came around the front of the Brougham and slid in behind the wheel.
McKeach in his black tanker jacket over a grey sweatshirt and jeans went around the back and got into the right rear seat. He unzipped the jacket but did not remove it; he pulled an army multicolored camouflage field jacket up from the left footwell and put it on over the tanker jacket. Then he pulled a black wool watch cap out of the footwell and put that on. There was a
medium-sized dark green nylon duffel bag with black webbing straps and reinforced handles on the seat. He unzipped it and felt around in it until he located a small square bottle of Esteé Lauder water-soluble taupe make-up base, a packet of premoistened Kleenex and a sandwich-size Ziploc plastic freezer bag.
Naughton leaned toward the right front footwell where he’d put the White Hen bag between his feet. “Wancher coffee back there with you?” he said.
“No,” McKeach said, “coffee after. Don’t wanna hafta take a leak, I got this thing goin’ on.” He opened the Kleenex and put it on top of the bag. He opened the bottle. Holding the cap between the little finger and ring finger of his right hand, he poured a quantity of the make-up into the palm of his left hand. He put the open bottle and cap down on the floor of the footwell. Splaying his right forefinger away from the others he dabbed his right middle and ring fingers into the make-up base and applied it to his forehead, cheeks, nose and ears. Then he used some of the Kleenex to remove the make-up from his hands. He put the soiled Kleenex into the plastic bag. He reached down into the footwell and brought up the make-up bottle and cap. He capped the bottle and put it in the freezer bag. He put that in the footwell.
He groped in the bag again until he found a pair of unlined grey leather work gloves. The forefinger of the right one had been cut off halfway down. He drew the gloves on, rolling back the cuff of the one on his left hand so that he could see his Seiko quartz watch. It read 5:19. He leaned forward over the back of the front seat. Naughton without being asked adjusted the rearview mirror so that McKeach could see his face, now reddish brown, reflected in it. He nodded and slid back on the seat. He clasped his gloved hands together.
“Okay,” he said, “now what you do is take a left outta here on Centre Street and go down the rotary, the Arborway. And you
take the Arborway and you go all the way up it ’til you get the turnaround, Jamaica Pond. And you
take
the left the turnaround, and then right after you come outta it you take a right, this’d be your first right after it, and that is Parkman Drive, all right? Goes allah way around the pond on the other side there, the Jamaicaway, and comes out on Perkins Street. And there you take a right, all right? A right on Perkins, and you drive down it nice an’ slow. Very pretty ’long there now, really startin’ look like spring, grass’s comin’ up, cherry trees just bloomed along there couple weeks ago, rain washed ’em all away—allah ducks ’n’ geese’re back onna pond again, ready for another summer, though I guess a lot of them’ve got so they never leave now, go south for the winter. Winters must be gettin’ warmer, like they say—or else the ducks’re gettin’ tougher. Still seems funny, though.
“Anyway, when we get where I wanna be, which I have got it all picked out, I’ll tell you ‘Stop,’ and you do that an’ let me out, and I’ll go down there inna trees, all right? You with me now so far here?”
Naughton nodded. “Okay then,” McKeach said. “Now you wait there for a minute, maybe, after I go down there, and you really keep your eyes peeled—still with me now on this?” Naughton nodded. McKeach patted his right shoulder. “Good. And when I get where I’m goin’, things go the way I want, I’ll get myself all squnched down in there where the banks’ve all eroded out, and just situate myself in there. And then when I have done that, then what I am gonna do is, I have got my little flashlight with me and I’m gonna blink it once. And so you’ll be watchin’ for that. Just once, and first ask you if you seen it and then if you say that you did, may ask you if before you saw it you knew where I was.”
“I don’t …” Naughton said. “How’m I gonna … ?”
“Right,” McKeach said. “How you gonna hear me when I’m askin’ you—that it? Exactly right. Well, now, if you look right under there.” He came forward on the edge of the rear seat now with his right arm over the back cushion of the front seat, pointing the ungloved index finger down toward the front of the seat. “If you put your hand down there and feel around under the driver’s seat there, behind where your feet are, there’s a walkie-talkie that I put there. Take it out, all right? And hold it up.”
Naughton did as he was told, holding up a black Apelco three-watt VHF radio.
“Okay,” McKeach said, “and, now you do know how to use it, am I right?”
“Sure, push-to-talk here,” Naughton said, pressing the button on the left side. “Turn it on up on the top here.” He turned the first knob on the top of the radio and it hissed loudly. “And then you got the squelch here”—Naughton turned the inner knob so that the hiss first disappeared entirely and then came up low and steady—“and that means you’re ready, someone calls. And then when you wanna answer, push here to talk.”
“Okay, good,” McKeach said. “Channel nineteen’s what we’re goin’ to be usin’. You know how to do that, get the channel that you want?”