Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery (26 page)

Chapter Seventy-One

It didn’t take a whole lot of genius to figure out where we were headed.

We cruised along Thirty-fourth Street, with Bulger driving carefully so as not to attract attention. The streets were quiet, inside the car, no one said anything.

We crossed through the intersection of First Avenue and continued east to the end of Thirty-fourth. Bulger slowed the Mercedes as we went under the elevated FDR Drive and pulled in between two trailers underneath the roadway. I looked around for another car or any sign of Liz, but there was nothing.

We sat in the dark between the two trailers. There was a sign on the one on the right that said “New York Helicopter.” The one on the left was unmarked. Straight ahead, set out like a stage, was the helipad. It was a rectangular asphalt strip marked with bright yellow paint that divided it into landing squares. It seemed to be no more than forty or fifty feet across to the other side, where low red-and-white caution barriers lined the edge above the East River.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Bulger asked, looking straight ahead to the river. “So peaceful.”

“Let’s go,” Daniels said.

Bulger opened his door, got out, crossed in front of the car, and came around to my door. He opened it and reached in and grabbed me by my suit.

“Hey, easy,” I said. “That’s twice with wrinkling the suit.”

“Believe me, you’re not going to have to worry about dry cleaning anymore,” he said.

Daniels gave me a push from the other side and forced me out of the car. Then he got out and came around to us.

“This all worked so well the first time,” he said, “except Jack floated to the side.”

“Probably because he was so goddamned fat,” Bulger said.

“Or the tides,” Daniels said. “There’s a different moon tonight, so hopefully he’ll get pulled right out into the river.”

“Then it’s a straight shot down into the harbor, and hey, maybe right down under the Verrazano-Narrows,” Bulger said. “And who knows, maybe on to the Jersey shore. How about that? That’s not a bad way to go, huh?” he asked.

“Move,” Daniels said, shoving me, and the three of us started across the helipad.

I didn’t know where Liz was. I didn’t know where Freddie was. What I did know was that I needed a miracle. McConnell needed to be exposed, and now Daniels needed to be exposed. And I’d like to be around to see it all happen.

“So you get kicked out of Harvard,” I said, turning to Daniels as we walked. “And you spin it as the story of a hardworking guy who had to leave school because his family couldn’t afford the tuition.”

“Got it all figured out, don’t you?” he asked.

“But the real story is, you were a drug dealer. A low-level dirt bag.”

Daniels stopped walking, and when he did, we all stopped. Bulger was behind me with his gun jammed in the small of my back. Daniels turned and glared at me.

“What a story,” I said. “The big TV exec everybody admires and fears was a coke dealer.”

Daniels rammed his gun under my chin, and the metal pushed my head back.

“You need to shut up,” he said.

“Just a common criminal,” I said.

He pushed the gun even harder into my chin. “You have any idea what it’s like to have someone hand you a ticket out, and then find out you can’t afford it? Huh, you have any idea what that’s like?”

“Ticket out of where?”

“Out of the shit-hole town I grew up in, you idiot,” he said. His voice was deeper and gravelly, like an ugly, perverted version of Daniels. “You think I’m going back home to dig ditches for forty years? No way. I worked my tail off to get into Harvard, and I was going to stay there. I deserved it.”

“Even if it meant selling drugs?”

“I could give a shit how I got the money. I was doing what I had to do,” he said.

“You were the leader,” I said. “You were the guy who arranged the drug buy. I thought it was McConnell, but it was you.”

He stared back and said nothing, and I knew I was right.

“So how the hell did McConnell get mixed up in it?” I asked.

We stood there for a moment, and he exhaled and relaxed and then lowered the gun. “Buck McConnell was, and remains, a spoiled rich kid,” he said.

“I’ve gathered as much.”

“He comes back in the fall of sophomore year pissed off at Daddy for something and ready to show the old man that he can make his own fortune. That he doesn’t need the family money,” he said.

Bulger ground his gun into my spine and spoke up from behind me. “We’re wasting too much time,” he said.

Daniels ignored him. “Buck wants in on the drug buy. Saw me making money in freshman year, so he knows it’s real,” Daniels said. “And he’s going to be his own man and make his own money.”

“And you figure with his money backing you that you can buy even larger quantities and make even more money,” I said.

“And keep paying my tuition,” he said. “Everybody wins.”

“Until the cops show up,” I said.

“Buck buys his way out of trouble, again. I get thrown out of school, but Buck convinces his old man to have his lawyers get me off. I got lucky and go into broadcasting and manage to do okay, as you may have noticed.”

“What about Barnes? How come no one took care of him?” I asked.

“He was a drug-using loser to begin with,” he said.

“Recreational or addict?”

“There any difference?” he asked. “He was a customer of mine. A punk kid who liked snorting coke and was so smart that he could manage to stay in school while he did.”

“You assumed he’d self-destruct,” I said.

“We figured he’d be dead within a year in prison,” he said.

“Just the three of you knew what happened that night?”

“Others heard rumors, but nobody knew the truth,” he said.

“And it was fine for all these years,” I said.

“Until Jack starts going after IT&E and beating the hell out of McConnell, repeating all the crap about IT&E’s equipment,” he said. “And now Buck has it in his head that he needs to run for president. I wouldn’t trust the man running a coffee shop, let alone the damned country.”

“And then Barnes e-mails Jack saying he has something that can destroy McConnell?” I asked.

“Piece of crap,” Daniels said. “For almost forty years, we all kept our mouths shut. We had it good. Barnes cleaned himself up and was saving the Long Island Sound from tire dumpers. I’m sitting on top of Liberty News. Then the asshole gets so incensed about Buck wanting to be president that he’s going to stop him. He’s going to see to it that Buck McConnell doesn’t get what he wants for the first time in his life.”

“And Marty sees the e-mail from Barnes?” I asked.

“Jack never read a viewer e-mail in his life,” he said. “Marty comes to me in July after Barnes contacted the show. He says there’s some nut promising to take Buck McConnell down.”

“And he has no idea you and McConnell have a history?”

“How would he? I play along, tell him it sounds big, and to let me know every time you hear from him,” Daniels said. “The whole time Marty is hassling me for more money. Just gave him a contract a year ago, but apparently that wasn’t rich enough. I gave him a few bullshit bonuses to make him feel good, and he’s bending over backward to make sure he’s keeping me in the loop on everything, including Barnes.”

Bulger was antsy. “Cal, really, we can’t wait any longer.”

I looked over my shoulder. “Do you mind?” I asked, and he ground his gun in deeper into my back.

Daniels kept going. “I tell McConnell that Barnes has resurfaced. He says I need to get control of the situation. He’s talking to me like I’m one of his fucking employees.”

“Did Jack ever find out about the arrest?”

“He was close. Barnes wanted to meet Jack, and Marty was stringing Barnes along. Then Barnes gets aggressive. Apparently didn’t trust e-mail entirely, so he sends Jack a letter referencing McConnell and a drug arrest forty years ago,” he said. “Jack shows it to Marty, who shows it to me.”

“McConnell know about it?” I asked.

“I told him. I said he needed to get some of his corporate goons to pay a visit to Barnes. Maybe buy him off. If not, then beat the crap out of him to get him to shut up. But instead Buck panics, says it’s too late. He wants Jack silenced for good. And guess who he says is in charge
of it?”

“You,” I said.

“He says, take care of this guy. If Jack exposes me, I expose you. No way he was going to lose his shot at the White House over this.”

“Barnes called Marty that night,” I said.

“He called Marty a bunch of times. He was pushing Marty to set up a meeting with Jack. Give him the story in person. Wanted to do it in secret. Suggested taking one of his crappy boats down here to meet on the East Side.”

“And you knew Marty could only hold Barnes off for so long,” I said.

“McConnell is ready to announce he’s running,” he said. “Barnes knows I run Liberty. At some point he’s going to realize I’m blocking him. The man served time in prison while we walked. He’s been carrying this grudge around for decades. He was going to figure out a way to even the score.”

“Cal,” Bulger snapped, “we need to move. Now.”

“So it was you Jack met over there that night? Not Barnes?” I asked.

Daniels turned and stared out at the blackness over the river and didn’t answer.

“You … you killed Jack,” I said.

Daniels turned back to me and pointed his gun at my chest, and my body tensed.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Buck ordered me to. He sat in the car and watched the whole thing to make sure I did.”

“Was Barnes here?”

“No. It was a setup,” he said. “We had a separate plan for Barnes.”

Bulger took a step to Daniels and tried a new tact, speaking to him in a low voice.

“Cal, look, we really need to finish this, now,” he said.

Daniels looked at Bulger, then at me. “Where’s the girl?” he asked. “I want them going in together.”

“They were supposed to be here by now,” Bulger said. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

Daniels grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the edge.

“Let’s go. Enough bullshitting. We’re out of time, and that means you’re out of time.”

“Cal,” I said, “this isn’t going to solve anything.”

He laughed. “Right. And you’ll keep quiet about all this.”

“I can,” I said.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “You’re a reporter: you get wind of the McConnell story, and a story about one of the top execs in the TV business having been a coke dealer in college, you think all that’s going to stay quiet? I don’t think so.”

“No one has to know,” I said.

“Once people find out I got kicked out of Harvard for dealing drugs, I’d be lucky to get a job in public television,” he said.

He pushed me forward, and Bulger shoved me from behind at the same time. I took a step, then another, and then saw a flash of light from somewhere behind us, back by the entrance to the helipad.

Bulger stuck the gun against the back of my neck like he thought someone was coming to free me. “You’re not moving,” he said.

A car raced straight onto the asphalt of the helipad and parked sideways. The back door opened, and one of the guys who had jumped me at Liberty stepped out. He reached in the car and grabbed someone.

It was Liz.

Chapter Seventy-Two

Liz struggled with the pair of goons as they hustled her across the helipad toward us. She slapped one in the face as he pushed and shoved her, and he slapped her back. I bolted for them, and Bulger came after me, grabbing me from behind as I got to her.

I took a swing at the shorter, fatter guy, and as I did something hit me from behind in the back of the head. It was the hard, sharp blow of a gun. My legs buckled, and I collapsed to my knees from the force of it.

Bulger grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me up.

“Enough,” he said.

I got up slowly and looked at Liz. Her eyes were wide with terror. I wanted to tell her just to hang on, but there was no way I could without these guys hearing me.

Daniels was waiting back at the edge of the helipad by the river and snapping off directions. “Let’s go, get them over here. Everyone in the water,” he said, a weird hint of glee in his voice.

Bulger and his guys had us surrounded and were pushing and prodding. Liz leaned close to me and whispered in my ear. “Sam, where are they?”

She was worried the plan had fallen apart. At this point, so was I. I reached down and grabbed her hand and squeezed.

Daniels noticed it. “That’s sweet. You two want to jump in together holding hands?”

We were at the edge now, and Daniels cleared out of the way. Liz and I were facing the river, and I knew we were out of time. I checked the sky uptown and saw the yellow light of a helicopter against the black sky. It was moving slowly, like it was waiting for a signal. For the first time, I wondered if something was wrong, if there had been a breakdown in communications.

Bulger instructed his guys to get behind us.

“It’s like walking the plank,” one said

The guy behind me snapped off a punch that landed on the side of my head behind my ear and made my head ring.

“That’s for the punch in Jersey,” he said.

Daniels was to my left and waved his gun toward Liz. “I want her in the water first,” he said.

I squeezed Liz’s hand tight. This was a lot closer than it was supposed to be. I pulled in a deep breath and was about to yell for Freddie when I heard tires screech behind us. Then a police siren yelped. There were more sirens closing in. Daniels spun around and looked back.

“Now,” I yelled. “Run, Liz.”

Liz pivoted and spun past the guy behind her. I turned and fired a punch to the face of the one behind me. The other one swung wildly at me and missed, and his momentum carried him straight past me. He flew over the edge, screaming as he hit the water.

Daniels raised his gun at me and fired and I dove to the pavement. A series of rapid pops pierced the air and Daniels screamed. He crumbled to the ground, dropped his gun and grabbed his leg as he screamed in pain.

Bulger took off running south across the landing area as it filled with cops running and yelling behind him. There were more sirens, and the rapid flickering of police lights flooded the area. The thumping of a helicopter grew louder as the chopper sped toward us.

I jumped up in panic and looked for Liz. She was with a cop over by one of the trailers. I saw Freddie with the camera on his shoulder, moving around and shooting the cops handcuffing Bulger, who was facedown on the pavement.

There were police everywhere, a bunch of them standing over Daniels, guns drawn while he clutched his leg and writhed in pain. Another group was leaning over the edge and looking into the river, yelling instructions to the thug who had gone into the water.

Overhead in the sky, the helicopter’s floodlight shone down on the helipad. Through all the movement and activity, Pep walked toward me.

“You guys get stuck in traffic?” I asked.

“How about a little gratitude?” he said. “Maybe a ‘thank you.’”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Better,” Rinaldi said. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

I went to Liz, and she stepped to me and we hugged. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her shirt was ripped at the shoulder. The police lights flickered off her face, and her eyes were tired and moist.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and hugged her. Her head rested on my chest, and her shoulders rose and then fell as she exhaled in relief. Neither one of us said anything. After a moment she stepped back and looked at me.

“It could have been a lot worse,” she said.

“This was bad enough,” I said.

In the flashing lights I could see a bruise under her eye. I touched it lightly with the back of my hand.

“A couple of slaps, but I’ll live,” she said.

I pulled her close and hugged her again.

“One more stop and it’s over,” I said.