Authors: George V. Higgins
Spring with a second consecutive warm day was becoming serious around Boston and the sunlight through the window beside Farrier’s desk in the southeast corner of the office caused him to yawn and fight off dozing. It reflected at the same time blindingly off the clear plastic cover of the top volume of the eleven transcripts stacked on the desk to his right, and glared on the white paper in front of him. He squinted and blinked behind his black-framed glasses. During those few moments Hinchey looked on, delaying interruption; Farrier, trying not to fall asleep, without lifting his gaze from the page irritably shook his head twice and rubbed his forehead with his right hand once, each time as the reels continued to turn, then having to catch himself hurriedly and turn a page, unaware of Hinchey’s scrutiny.
Outside, traffic on both sides of Route I was light but the driver of a southbound American Medical Response ambulance traveling unimpeded in the passing lane at about the normal speed of 45 miles an hour used his emergency lights and blipped his whooping French-police, horn-and-siren combination to freeze crossing traffic at the intersection just north of the McClatchy Building so that he could run the red light showing in his direction. The noise was abrupt and shrill enough to penetrate Farrier’s concentration. Without looking up he poised his left hand over the switch panel on the recorder; when the pen in his right hand reached the foot of the page he was reading he pushed the pause button on the recorder. Then he flipped the transcript face down and picked up the coffee mug, bringing it to his mouth for a deep draft. Dropping the pen he pushed back with his feet from the desk, using his right hand to lift off the earphones
and put them on the desk. He shook his head, blinking several times, and said “
Ahhhhh
,” before focusing on Hinchey. “You, ah,
rang
?” he said, yawning and putting the mug down down before stretching both arms straight up above his head.
“Got something I think you’d better hear,” Hinchey said, concern showing on his face.
“
Ahh-awp
,” Farrier said, closing his mouth quickly and jerking his thumb toward the stacks of boxed audiotapes next to the Ampex on his desk, then making a sweeping gesture to comprehend the stacked transcripts as well. “Already goin’ deaf ’n’ blind, stuff on my
own
desk I got in front of me to get through, and you want me to listen to
yours
? Gimme a fuckin’
break
, willya? Don’t make me do everything for you.”
“It’s not that … I already done this once,” Hinchey said. “I just ——”
“Look,” Farrier said, “if you’re now findin’ you really can’t understand what the hell they’re sayin’, I know I said ‘deadline, unbreakable deadline, no exceptions for no one’; that anything that you wanted enhancement on, it hadda go in by a certain date. And I also know that date’s gone by. Went by two weeks ago, almost three. But I already bent that rule, three tapes for Taylor and four for MacIntyre, decided they now didn’t think the tapes they had matched the transcripts, and as much of a pain in the ass as it is gettin’ those prima donna ‘oh-we’re-so-overworked’ technicians down in Maryland, wherever the hell they are, ramped up again, I’d a damn sight rather get
them
pissed off
now
’n have a jury down the line a year from now, these cases ever do get tried, sayin’ to the judge and prosecutor, ‘
Hey
, these tapes aren’t sayin’ what these transcripts say they say—these guys aren’t
guilty.
’
“No, that we definitely do not want. So if you got one you now find you’re not sure you know what’s on it, I’ll bend the rule again to help
you
out. But you should’ve—”
“Jack,” Hinchey said, “this tape’s
been
enhanced. It’s as clear as gin. No trouble at all understanding what the guys on it’re sayin’—none at all. That isn’t what’s botherin’ me.”
“Well then what the hell is it?” Farrier said. “Not sure who they are? It’s
dated
, for Christ sake—cross-check and find out who the hell was in there that day, that night, when the tape was made. Except the fire escape, only one door goin’ inna the place; get the logs out and check who went through it and didn’t come out, had to’ve been in there while the tape was being made. Gotta be one of those people talkin’ on it. And if that doesn’t do it then look at the stinkin’ video—that’ll
show
you who went inside that night. Cross-check it again that way.”
He snorted. “Have some confidence in yourself, Bobby, willya? You know what you’re doin’. You’re no flamin’ rookie; you’re an experienced agent. If you think it’s this and you don’t think it’s that, then the chances are that it
is this.
Don’t ask me to double-check you—I got gangs of work of my own. Figure out for yourself what it means.”
“Jack,” Hinchey said, “this one wasn’t all that garbled to begin with, that it really needed the enhancement. You want the truth, I think I probably could’ve told you who it was and pretty much what they’re saying before I packed it up to be sent down. More a case of didn’t
wanna
know ’n didn’t. Anyway, now I do know for sure who it is, who’s talking. I know what they’re saying. Know what they
mean
, too—no doubt at all. So why do I want you to hear it? Because I dunno what to do with it. Well, I do know, but I also know if I do it, you’ll come right out of your
tree
at me.”
He paused to let Farrier reply, but Farrier sat silently gazing at him. Then he swallowed and frowned and brought his chair back up to his desk, picking up his earphones with his right hand and unplugging them from the recorder with his left. He held the plug out toward Hinchey. “Hike your Ampex over this
way, toward me here, this side of your desk, see if the cord’ll reach, willyah?”
The cord was long enough to allow Farrier to audit the tape from his own chair, using the auxiliary jack on Hinchey’s Ampex. Hinchey, watching the footage counter, said “Three-forty-nine. Gotta run her back here little over two hundred feet. One-thirty-seven’s about where it begins. What you hafta hear.” He pushed the rewind button. He put on the headset again, leaving his left ear uncovered. Farrier left his right ear uncovered. “You say we know who’s in there,” Farrier said.
“Right,” Hinchey said. “This’s one of the earliest usable ones, twenty-fourth of September. We’ve now been in there seven weeks, this’s toward the end of the seventh, a Thursday night. You remember back in August, all the trouble that we’d had, interference—couldn’t figure out where it was coming from?”
“I was on vacation, August,” Farrier said. “Lucas was still here then, running things in my place.”
“Well, there was a lot of heavy static,” Hinchey said. “Turned out it was the exhaust fan inna bakery next door that was makin’ it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Farrier said. “Viviano, something.”
“Right,” Hinchey said. “Finally figured it out. Had to be the baker hadn’t oiled his exhaust fan. So one night Viviano broke there and did it for him, changed the frequency just enough so the static disappeared.”
“And when Lucas found out he was
pissed
,” Farrier said. “Oh, yeah—he got pissed off
again
, he’s tellin’
me
about it. Found out Carl not only didn’t get permission ’fore he did it, also stole six cannolies, his way out.”
“Right,” Hinchey said. “Pissed off that he just went ahead and did it, on his own without permission; more pissed off when he finds out, the cannolies, and then even
more
pissed off when he asks how come he did it. ‘Well,’ says Carl, like this all
makes perfectly good sense, ‘they make really good cannolies. So, if we find out the fan
wasn’t
what was doin’ it; oilin’ it
didn’t
fix the interference, then that way, me comin’ back at least with the cannolies, trip wouldn’t be a total loss.’ ”
“Right,” Farrier said, chuckling. “Lucas told me it’s three days before he could even speak to Carl, and then … ’member how high his voice’d get when he got excited? Just tellin’ me about it, he’s
screamin
’. ’ “You fuckin’
idiot
,” I said.’ How he asked him, what if the bakery people comin’ in there in the morning, what if they’d noticed the cannolies’re missing from the day-olds tray?
“ ‘Not sayin’ these’re Nobel Prize winners, runnin’ ah fuckin’
bakery
, but they weren’t gonna think somebody’s
cat
got in and ate ’em—they’d’ve been smart enough to figure out someone broke in. And since nobody breaks in a bakery just to steal cannolies, and they got to know who’s next door, wouldn’t’ve taken them very long to figure out
why
someone must’ve broken in, and it wasn’t for cannolies. And then mention it to nice Mister Rizzo next door, next time he comes in for coffee. And he would’ve had the place swept and found our installations, and that would’ve fuckin’
creased
it. Put the whole fuckin’
mission
inna fuckin’
toilet
, and God only knows how much hard work, how many people, right inna crapper along with it. Never get even
near
Carlo Rizzo’s operation again—maybe even get somebody
killed
, Carlo and them ever found out who gave us probable cause, and for
what
? A half-dozen stale
sweet rolls
? You
asshole.
’ ”
“Right,” Hinchey said, laughing. “You’d’ve been there. It was even better. Viviano listens to his whole tirade, and then when it looks like he’s finally finished tells him obviously they
didn’t
notice the cannolies missin’, and if the fan interference comes back so he hasta go in again, re-oil the fan, this time he’s gettin’ a
pie.
”
Watching the footage meter, Hinchey said, “I thought Lucas was gonna
shit
, have a
heart
attack or something, he’s so mad. Never seen a man so mad. Ah, there we are.” He shut off the
rewind. “Okay,” he said, “one-thirty-seven. Right about here’s where it starts. You’ll recognize Carlo’s best official
capo
voice of course, all low ’n’ growly, and Tommy Cavicchi’s. And Bacciochi’s, plus Tullio; he’s the Medford cop who dropped in now and then, see if Mister Rizzo needed him do anything. Strictly off duty, of course. Some cops an’ firemen moonlight paintin’ houses, puttin’ decks in? Heavy liftin’? Tullio don’t think so. He’d rather do his moonlightin’ for the Mob, get information from the Registry computer or the Criminal Information one at Public Safety. Little dirt on anybody Mister Rizzo didn’t like. He’s the one with the giggle, does all the laughin’, little piece of shit. And of course, our pal Cistaro’s voice which you’ll recognize, hearin’ it so many times.”
“Tell you what, you cue me,” Farrier said. “Just pause it when you hear it comin’ up to something that you think is real important, tell me who’s talkin’ next.”
“Right,” Hinchey said, “and I will do that. But Cistaro—it’s him especially, I think you got to listen to. Some of what he’s got to say here … I dunno, Jack, like I say, what we do about this. Not really that sure where it could take us—an’ pretty sure, it comes to that, we don’t really wanna go there. But then maybe we’ve got no choice.”
Farrier sighed. “Well,” he said, “no help for it now. Let’s find out what we’re dealin’ with. Let the games begin.”
Hinchey pushed the play button.
“
Yeah, but what I always wonder, what I never understood, you know?
” Hinchey mouthed, “Carlo.” Farrier nodded. “
An’ this’s goin’ back a long time now I’m talkin’, maybe twenty, thirty years. Before there even is a
capo
here, an’ the man you hafta see, and talk to … if you are a made guy now, and there’s something you want to do, well, it’s still Nunzio, all right? Still him you hafta go to.
”
“Nunzio Dinapola,” Farrier said, musing. Hinchey hit the pause button. “This’s how it used to be—players changed; game
stayed the same. What I am to Carlo, Al DeMarco was to Nunzio. Except Al didn’t have Title Three or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to hang Nunzio with, like we do to hang Carlo. Changed the whole game, that one rule. We nail Carlo, my guess is he’ll turn out to be like the last dinosaur or something. Last of the red-hot Ginzos. Last whale, only no one to protect him. I’m the last Captain Ahab.” He smirked. “Almost makes me feel sentimental—brings a tear to my eye.” He motioned to restart the tape.
“
All that time ago
,” the voice on it said, “
Nunzio, he is still a
sotto capo,
but he is the man in charge of the family’s interests in this town, and he wanted you, you know, to become one of us, and join him, and you would not do this.
” Someone coughed. “
You would never join him. Us. You know what he said of you? No? ‘The Cistaro boy,’ he’d say, ‘Guillermo’s boy, Cistaro, he’s a fine young man. Nicolo. He should be with us, Carlo, you and me, you know? In this thing of ours we have. You see him from time to time. You are close to him in age. Say something to him. He would listen, maybe, to you. Make him understand, you know, how this is important—the Family is important. Not just we are important to him, but that he is important to us, too. So that we are united and it is in this way we draw strength from one another. We are a smaller number here, not the same as Providence, where men of our heritage are many more than all the others, than the Irish, the police. So, even more important here, we unite with one another, stand against those who are against us, make them see that we are strong and take care of one another. You should tell him this, Carlo—you can make him understand.’
“
He was sure of this, and I could not.
”
Cistaro’s recorded voice was firm, assured. Hinchey mouthed the name; Farrier nodded.
“
Well, but he knew the reason. Should’ve known it anyway. I told it you enough times, you were doing like he said, after me again
to join. Christ, there was a while there, Gallaghers and Rocky, Rocco, goin’ at it left an’ right, I was just back from the service, ’tween Girolamo and his people, an’ you and Nunzio, you’re … both your organizations’re after me at once? Jesus, it was awful. Had me feelin’ like I must’ve been turned into, Christ I dunno what, Marilyn Monroe or something. ‘Oooh, hee hee, I must be pretty—everybody wants me.
’ ”