Deadly Diamonds (24 page)

Julie got back to me in ten minutes with a message that changed my course to a direct line to the courthouse. I dropped Seamus off at an MTA station and made it to Judge DiSilva's chambers in another twenty minutes.

It was well after court hours. It was just the judge and I—no law clerk, no secretary. Exactly what I needed for some delicate maneuvering.

The judge was just hanging up his robe. He waved me to a seat. “What's up, Michael?”

“Just what you don't want to hear, Judge. I want permission to withdraw from representation of Kevin O'Byrne.”

His eyebrows went up. “And the reason?”

“This is delicate. I'm tap-dancing around attorney-client privilege.”

“I take it it's something you don't feel comfortable disclosing.”

“No problem there. I'd be delighted to disclose it to the world. I've just got to get around the privilege.”

“Are you inviting me to ask you something?”

“Yes. If you ask the right question, and I think you're about to, you can order me to answer it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

“I've played this game before, Michael. I believe the question is this: does the information you have concern the health or safety of someone?”

“It most certainly does.”

“And would that someone be you?”

“It most certainly would, Judge.”

“Then I'm ordering you to give me that information.”

“Thank you. I'm formally requesting permission to withdraw as counsel for Kevin O'Byrne on the grounds that I have credible reason to believe that he, and probably his father, just attempted to blow my body into several New England states. If they know I survived it, I believe they'll go for a second attempt until they get it right.”

The judge, even given what he encountered daily in his courtroom, seemed stunned.

“Are you sure, Michael?”

“Sure enough to be sitting here. You know I wouldn't make the request lightly.”

“I know you wouldn't. Does Lex know?”

“Not yet. I'd rather he didn't.”

“I heard he had a heart episode. How is he?”

“Getting stronger. This could give him a setback. I'd like to keep this between us.”

“Of course. I've known you long enough to take you at your word, Michael. Your request to withdraw is granted. We'll notify the district attorney's office of the change of counsel.”

“Thank you, Judge.”

I was up and heading for the door. The judge caught me with some of the tone of concern I get from Mr. Devlin. “Michael, that's a hell of a situation. Do you want to file a complaint? I'll issue a bench warrant right now.”

“Won't help, Judge. He's on the loose. Even I don't know where he is.”

“Damn it. What are you going to do?”

“I'll be all right, Judge. I have some ideas.”

“It sounds feeble, but for the love of God, take care of yourself.”.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I was back in the Franklin Street office in time to catch Julie before she left for the day.

“Michael, is that really you? A personal appearance right here in the office?”

“In the flesh, Julie. Did I miss anything?”

“Oh, let's see. There was that little tantrum I threw this afternoon when one of those miscreants you call clients threatened to sue me personally if
you
don't return his phone call by six o'clock tonight. That was worth watching.”

“I can imagine it. My dear Julie, you are my shield, my fortress against the maddening and suffocating onslaught of the communicating world. What would I do without you?”

“Not well at all. Is that a prelude to an announcement of a substantial raise or just the usual let Julie blow off steam?”

“I'm deciding. I take it you left memos of the important calls and e-mails.”

“In a mound on your desk. You're in the nick of time. You can still see over it.”

“Excellent. Here's the deal. I'm slightly over my head right now in a bit of a mess.”

“Michael, is this the kind of mess that could cause you personal harm?”

“Not a bit of it. I could be researching land titles for the amount of danger involved. Your concern does warm my heart. But, no.”

“Michael?”

“No. Not even worth the telling. Now, here's what I need. Would you go through those memos? Give a courtesy e-mail to anything
below code orange. A thirty-second personal call for the code oranges. Save the code reds for me. Clear?”

“Yes, but—”

“One more thing. Take all the code reds and reclassify them code oranges. Got it?”

“Michael, if you could sit for one hour and listen to your obnoxious clients ream me out. Me! Who am actually here speaking nicely with them!”

“I've decided, Julie.”

“What?”

“You need a substantial raise. Put it in a memo, and put it on my desk.”

“Really. Is that code red or code orange?”

“I'll decide. Now listen. I need both of those ears tuned to this frequency. You mentioned someone who was calling with a rough Italian accent a while ago. Has he called again?”

“Every two hours. In fact, he's about due. I was hoping to be out of here before the next one.”

“I'll take this one. Who does the Caller ID say it is?”

“It doesn't. Just says ‘caller unknown.'”

“Okay, thanks, Julie. You're a peach. That's old-fashioned, but it's a compliment. Before you go, can I give you something for an immediate printout?”

I used the next few minutes to dictate a document that I hoped I'd be needing by that evening. Julie typed it as I spoke and gave me a printout before leaving.

I used my office phone to call the hospital. Mr. Devlin was, according to all accounts, alternating between driving them totally nuts with his demands for release one minute and charming the living crap out of them the next. He was supremely capable of both, but only when he was full of the old “piss and hot sauce,” as my friend, Big Daddy Hightower, was wont to put it. That was a very good sign.

I spoke with Mr. D. and filled him in on the events of the last two days, including the murder of Bob Murphy and the flight of Chuck
Dixon. I gave him the details of my excursion with Burke, mentioning, but passing over lightly, the shotgun blast. He takes precedence even over Julie in the department of personal concern for my well-being.

The icing on the cake was the news of my engagement to Terry O'Brien. I saved it for last. It left him with a smile that I could hear in his voice.

I cut short the good-byes when a light lit on the other phone line. I clicked it on and dropped my voice an octave.

“Yes.”

There was a stunned moment of silence.

“Who the hell is this?”

Julie was right. It sounded like a gorilla in heat. There was no mistaking the gravelly North End accent of Packy Salviti.

“This is an old acquaintance of yours, Mr. Salviti. We last had the pleasure of a chat in Pi Alley. I'll bet a bundle you remember it.”

I was sure we were both recalling his sniveling whining for his life on his knees when Burke produced the hand grenade. The flash-back had the desired effect on his blood pressure.

“Listen, you little bastard. I get hold of you—”

“I thought you'd never ask. I'm going to give you the chance. How do you like that?”

“What're you talkin' about?”

“Your dreams come true. You and I are going to get together and iron out a few things. Only this time on my terms. What do you say? You got the guts for it?”

“Why you little—”

“Mr. Salviti. Packy. How about if I call you ‘Packy'? After all we've been through together.”

“Yeah, call me Packy. Like ‘No. no. Don't do it, Packy.' You little creep. I get my hands on you—”

“I have something else in mind. I've got something for you. You don't know it, but it's the most important thing in your life right now.”

“Yeah, what is it? You got them stones? You bring 'em over here. Maybe you get to live another day.”

“It's actually something you need more than the stones. You don't know it, but your life depends on it. And, Packy, hear this. It's not going to be that way. This time, we meet on my terms.”

“What the hell you talkin' about, your terms? The hell I—”

“Packy, for once in your damn useless, pusillanimous life, listen. You've got a choice. And if you're going to keep that pampered, puckered ass of yours from being chopped up like stew beef, you better make the right choice. Are you tuned in?”

“Who the hell're you threatenin' ?”

“Not me, Packy. Someone you're going to get to know really well if you make the wrong choice. Here it is. We meet on my terms. Both alone. Five o'clock tonight. I'll give it to you then.”

“Just cuz I'm askin', you little punk. What's the other choice?”

“I'll spell it out. You show or you don't show. That's your choice. If you show, alone, I'll give you something that I guarantee is a matter of life or death. For you. You don't show, it goes directly to someone you don't want to meet on your best day.”

“You got somethin' for me, you send it—”

“No, no, no, Packy. I give it to you in person or not at all. I don't give a damn either way. I have ten more seconds to waste on this crap. Decide. You're down to nine.”

There was a break in the blustering from the other end. I could read his mind.
How do I show up with enough firepower to get what he has and then blow him to kingdom come?

I had no problem with that thinking. I just needed him there. With what I had in mind, I figured I could handle the rest.

“Eight, seven, six. Reaching to hang up now, Packy. Five, four, three …”

“All right, all right. Where the hell you want this meeting?”

It was quarter of five when I climbed the marble steps to my favorite eating landmark in the golden city of Boston. I never enter the
mahogany-paneled dining room of the Parker House on School Street without feeling the mantle of historic figures and events settle gently and humblingly on my shoulders.

My favorite table is the one at which Jack Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline, and it's my usual choice. But not today. Today I asked George, the maître d' and an old friend, for a table in a far, secluded corner.

I was reasonably certain that I could read Packy's predictable mind on the phone. As I'd guessed, at five minutes to five, George nodded to me when he escorted two unfamiliar ponderous apes, who could have been right out of the cast of the
The Sopranos
, to a particular table in the center of the room. I had actually prechosen that table in case it played out as I predicted. Good old Packy had never quite mastered the meaning of the word, “alone.” My fervent hope was to enhance his education before the evening ended.

In less than thirty seconds, George escorted a trim, rangy Irish-looking gentleman, well turned out in a conservative suit and tie, to the table I chose directly behind the one occupied by the two Cro-Magnons who were now pawing through the Parker House rolls on their table. I was beginning to have a deep affinity for Seamus Burke.

Right on cue, at five o'clock, George ushered the king of the apes, my dinner date, Packy, to my table. I could see him puff up with smirking confidence when he gave a quick, reassuring glance over at his two-man army at the nearby table.

He gave me a sneering look and plunked his overstuffed sausage of a body into a chair with his back to the wall. I deliberately left that seat vacant to accommodate the life-securing habit of his paranoid existence.

“Mr. Salviti. Packy. How decent of you to favor me with your company for our little meeting. I trust the surroundings are to your taste.”

I loved the irony. The “surroundings” of the room where historic pacts had been forged by statesmen since 1855, and where literary luminaries met for sessions of the renowned Saturday Club, could
not have been more out of sync with the thuggish demeanor and mentality of my dining companion. If the ghosts of such members of the Saturday Club as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of the Supreme Court jurist, and the one for whom Arthur Conan Doyle named his illustrious detective, were taking note of what I dragged against his will into their hallowed confines, it would have rattled their chains.

“What the hell we doin' in this dump?”

“Thank you, Packy. You confirmed what I was just thinking. I'll tell you what we're doing.”

I gave a signal to George, who was quick to appear table side to escort us to a small private dining room. Whatever combustion was about to occur from this unlikely meeting required a good dose of privacy. I rose and signaled the befuddled Packy to follow George.

“The hell is this?”