Deadly Diamonds (19 page)

“That scumbag, Napolitano. He told me what he'd do to my wife. My little daughter. He said he'd kill 'em. I didn't want to hurt Father Ryan. I had no choice.”

The sobs came in full force now. I held him back so he could look in my eyes. “Listen to me, Finn. I said I'd help you. I will. Right now. But I need one more thing. Did they tell you why they made you do it?”

His breathing was coming in short gasps, but the sobbing had stopped. I could see him thinking. I believed him when he said they never told him why.

“Okay, Finn. Just sit there.”

I walked to the empty bar and sat on the last stool. I made two fast calls. The first was a speed dial to Tom Burns. “Tommy. Guess who. I've got yet another one for you. This could be more dangerous. Same address on Pearl Street in Charlestown. The man, his wife, and daughter. I'm working to get them into federal protection. That thug you followed, Napolitano. He and his crowd have a vested interest in seeing he doesn't get there. What do you recommend?”

“Are any of that mob at the house now, Mikey?”

I checked with Finn. “Casey says not right now. They come and go.”

“Tell him to go home. I'll put a perimeter of protection around the house.”

“Good. How soon?”

“Ten minutes.”

“What would I do without you, Tom?”

“Not well lately, Mikey.”

The second call was to the District Attorney's Office. When Mary Cornelius answered, I asked if she recognized my voice. She said yes. I stopped her before she could mention my name.

“Mary, I need you to connect me to Billy Coyne's private line. No one else hears this conversation. And no names. Understood?”

She was enough onto the game to know that I meant no word to the Wicked Witch of the East. Billy Coyne was on the line in ten seconds.

“I'm assuming this is not just boyish dramatics, kid.”

“Judge for yourself, Mr. Coyne. Are you alone?”

“Just me and the King of Sweden.”

“Then tell the king to get the hell out of there. I need you to take this seriously, Mr. Coyne. Do you think you can do that?”

He must have caught my tone. “Go ahead, kid. What is it?”

“Listen to this. This is a recording of a conversation I had about two minutes ago with your star and only witness against Father Ryan. It's legitimate. Take it seriously. Then we'll talk.”

I played the recording I'd made of my conversation with Finn on my never-leave-home-without-it pocket recorder. The tear-filled words of Finn poured through the cell phone. You could not fabricate the sincerity of the voice. When it finished, I was back on the line.

“That's your case against Father Ryan, Mr. Coyne. Now, do I have your attention?”

There was a slight pause before a taut voice came through the phone.

“Damn it! I knew it. I thought that accusation stunk to high heaven. I wished we could have let it rest till I could check it out.”

“I know, Mr. Coyne. She smelled blood and went for a quick kill. The question is, what now?”

“I'll check it out. If it's what it seems, I'll move to kill the indictment before it goes public. Then I'll go after Napolitano. Get that recording to my office, pronto.”

“In due time, Mr. Coyne. There's something more pressing. Can we agree you owe me a big one?”

“Don't press your luck, kid. I said I'll check it out.”

“This is not pressing my luck. This is saving three lives. If word gets to Napolitano or Salviti that their fish is off the hook, Casey and his wife and daughter have been promised a death sentence. Casey's with me now. I'll be taking him to his home. Tom Burns's boys can protect them for a while, but I've got to get them into federal witness protection. He'll testify against Napolitano. That could lead to Salviti on federal racketeering charges. That should have the U.S. Attorney salivating. Can you move fast?”

“I'm ahead of you, kid. I've got the U.S. Attorney on the other line. Just sit there.”

I held the line for thirty seconds before Mr. Coyne was back on the line.

“Tell Casey to go home and stay there with his family. There'll be a United Parcel Service truck at his front door in fifteen minutes. A man in a UPS uniform'll come to the door. Tell them to come out with him and get into the truck. You got that?”

“I got it. Go easy on him, Mr. Coyne. He's brittle.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Two messages needed delivery at warp speed. The first was to Cardinal Ferrigan with no intermediate relays. One word of my connection with Mr. Devlin got me an instant pass into the inner sanctum.

The relief in the cardinal's eyes when I played the tape of Finn's heartfelt words made it easy to ask him to take immediate and un-publicized action to reinstate Father Ryan. There was actually no need to ask.

“You have no idea what this means to me, Michael. I get the idea Matt Ryan's one of the best on our team.”

“If not
the
best.”

“I'll get in touch with him right away.”

I thought he might be in a mood to grant a personal favor. It had been a week of mostly losses. My psyche felt a selfish desire for a shot of jubilation. “If it's all the same, could you let me give him the word?”

The cardinal saw it in my eyes. “You've earned it, Michael. Tell him I'll be in touch. I might even have a promotion in mind for him.”

We said our good-byes, but when I reached the door, I had to get rid of one small nagging thought before leaving. “If I could, Cardinal Ferrigan. You might give it a lot of thought before promoting Father Ryan. Especially if it took him out of Sacred Heart parish. You should see him down there. You'd think it was the Lord Himself holding those people's lives together.”

“That's high praise, Michael.”

“It was intended to be.”

I left him smiling. “I won't do anything hasty.”

The spiritual bounce I was anticipating from passing the word confidentially directly to Father Ryan was underestimated. I left the parish house on a temporary, but invigorating, cloud of faith in the joy of life. It carried me right through a drop-in to see how my senior partner was recuperating.

He had the staff of the hospital hopping to provide him with whatever he needed to function in what had become his out-of-the-office office. The head nurse explained that it was the only way they could keep him from pulling out tubes and getting back into the legal fray.

His secretary, the faithful Lois Drury, made two visits a day to take dictation and relay phone messages. She told me it was the only way she could screen the usual daily messages from cantankerous opposing counsel that would have sent his blood pressure through the top of the machine. In other words, he was rapidly getting back to normal.

Nothing in the entire realm of medical science could have done for his heart and soul what my news about the reinstatement of Father Ryan did for him. He glowed. He even seemed content at last to let the rest of the legal world's skirmishes struggle along without him while he got his physical act together.

When the good news had been conveyed and savored, we closed the door of his room for privacy. We rambled through possible reasons as to why the Italian mob took such an invasive interest in the life of his friend, Father Ryan. There was no question in either of our minds that it was tied to whatever shenanigans our vanishing client, Kevin O'Byrne, was up to. That connection would call for some delicate probing into areas I could have lived a contented lifetime without facing.

Just before I left, Mr. D. got a call from his old friend, Dominic Santangelo, the former don of the Boston Mafia family. I had filled Father Ryan in on Mr. D's heart condition without giving the details of what had triggered it. He had apparently passed the word to the third musketeer.

Father Ryan called at about the same time. We were able to make it a three-way conference call with the speakerphone on.

“Lex, what happened?”

“Dom, I'm good. Getting better every minute. In fact, pretty
damn
good for the number of courtroom wars this old ticker's been through.”

“Tell me the truth. Did anyone I might have reason to know cause this?”

The tone was spiked with elements of a Sicilian hair-trigger sense of retribution. Mr. D. deflected it with a nonanswer. “This has been building for years, Dom. Heart attacks are endemic to trial lawyers. It's not the first. Did you hear about Matt?”

“Thank God, Lex. Matt says your Michael pulled off some of the old Devlin magic.”

Mr. D. looked over at me with a grin that ran deep. “Michael's capable of pulling off his own magic. We can all thank God.”

“And we do,” the voice of Father Ryan added.

Mr. D. signaled me to be sure the door was closed tight.

“Dom, we still can't figure out the connection of this business of Matt with the boys in the North End. Any word?”

The voice became quiet. “My friend, who's there with you?”

“Only Michael. I have a secure line. What is it, Dom?”

“I've been in touch with Mr. P. Are we clear?”

We knew he was referring to Antonio Pesta, the “reputed,” as the newspapers say to cover their legally vulnerable posteriors, successor godfather of the Boston Mafia family.

“We're clear.”

“This is delicate, Lex. I had to burn more bridges than you could know when I kept my promise to you and Matt to start a new life. No regrets, but I was fortunate to be permitted to live. Most of them did not want to make that concession.”

“What held them back?”

“Two things. I was the don of a family. Rule One. They needed permission of the dons of the other families to take my life. I've done
favors over the years. The short of it is, the other dons wouldn't give the permission.”

“You said two things. What was the other?”

“The man of whom we speak, Mr. P., is my godchild. I was his godfather in two senses, you might say. When he succeeded me as don, he kept tight reins on his capos and his consigliere in regard to me. There was a time some years ago, just before I took over, when his life was forfeited by a previous don to settle a dispute with another family. When I took over, I put myself between him and an execution. He never forgot. Is your Michael there?”

“He's right here, Dom.”

“You see, Michael. Even among those of us you consider savages without consciences, there is loyalty. Honor of a sort.”

“Nothing is black and white is it, Mr. Santangelo?”

“I think your young partner is beginning to open his mind, Lex.”

I added, “You're truly an education to me, Mr. Santangelo.”

He laughed, and then the tone turned serious.

“This stays between us. In spite of what I just said, I tell you this literally at risk of my life. Is that understood?”

We all chimed in in agreement.

“The man of whom we spoke shared a confidence with me. This can never be spoken of again in any way whatsoever. It's a matter of the utmost trust. I reemphasize that.”

We all sensed the thin line of conscience Mr. Santangelo was walking. We again voiced our commitment to silence.

“This man we're talking about, he recently discovered disloyalty in one of his capos. Apparently this capo had ambitions he kept to himself. Ambitions of the sort that could put him in a position to take control of the family.”

“Can you say what it was, Dom?”

“I'm getting there, Lex. This is difficult.”

“I understand.

“This man, Mr. P., had the loyalty of one of the soldiers in the ranks of this capo. The soldier came to Mr. P. with the information that his capo had conspired to do business with his enemy.”

“What business?”

“Diamonds. Smuggled diamonds taken from a mine in Africa, in Sierra Leone, held by some rebels.”

“How could he make contact with these people?”

“By dealing with the Irish. The Irish have been our enemy in this city since before I was born. The group he dealt with in Ireland is a splinter group of the IRA. This capo apparently made it known he was in the market for these things they call ‘blood diamonds.' Someone in the IRA arranged for him to buy a quantity of these diamonds a week or so ago in Dublin. He brought them back here to resell them at a large profit.”

“To whom?”

“He'd been buying them from someone in Ireland. Then this deal came along with the capo for diamonds of a higher quality than he'd ever seen before. O'Byrne apparently has connections with diamond merchants somewhere in Europe to get these blood diamonds into the flow of the legal ones.”

“I'm beginning to see the connection. Go ahead, Dom.”

“This capo, the traitor, was Salvatore Barone. When the disloyalty was discovered, steps were taken by Mr. P. to deal with it. Barone died, you might remember, in the manner of a traitor. His body was found in the trunk of his own car by your client, the boy, Kevin O'Byrne.”