Frame-Up (11 page)

“No. I'll meet you. Same place. This better be worth it.”

I could hear the distinct sound of a rattled cage in the slam of the receiver when Benny hung up.

I dialed Tom Burns's cell phone. He answered, as always, in the hushed baritone of a private detective on his private line.

“It's your favorite client, Tom. How're we doing?”

“I don't know about you, Mikey. I'm doing well.”

“Could you be specific?”

“Your little mouse—”

“That would be Benny.”

“It would indeed. He went directly to a locker in South Station. Do you need the number?”

“I have it. Go ahead.”

“He opened the locker, took out an envelope, looked over his shoulder, and put it in his briefcase.”

“And then?”

“He used his cell phone to make one call. I couldn't hear it. He got his car out of the parking garage on Devonshire and drove to the North End. He parked and went in the front door of Stella Maris, the restaurant on Prince Street. I waited a few minutes and went in like a customer. He was nowhere in sight.”

“Which means either there's a back room or he went out the back door. Let's hope for the back room. If he went out the back door it's because he spotted you on his tail.”

“Mikey, you know that Corvette that you love?”

“I do know it and I do love it. Why?”

“You can bet on there being a back room. Nobody spots me on their tail. Besides, I waited out front. He came out half an hour later. I followed him to his office and then broke it off. I was about to call you.”

“Did anyone else come out of the restaurant?”

“A few customers in and out. Nobody recognizable. I figured you wanted me to stay on Benny.”

“You did the right thing. I'll tell you, I'd give my Bruins season tickets to find out who it was he met with.”

“Not in the cards, Mikey. The moment came and went. It could be anyone in the family. That restaurant is one of the places they do business. I don't see that we'll get another chance.”

“Not to be so sure, Tom. I need you tomorrow. You personally, no hired help. There's going to be a meeting at noon between Benny and Anthony Tedesco. Tedesco owns The Pirate's Den in Revere. I don't know where the meeting'll be. You can follow either one of them to the meeting. You choose.”

“I'll take Benny. I know his habits.”

“Whatever. After the meeting, stick with Benny. He'll be running like a scared rabbit to someone up the food chain. This time I need to know who. Can you do it, Tom?”

“As long as the meter's running, I can get you a picture of Elton John in his Jockey shorts.”

“I believe you could. I'll settle for the report on Benny. Let me or Lex Devlin know as soon as you have something. And would you send the bill for your excellent services to Mr. Devlin? He has a stronger heart.”

Terry O'Brien was ready when I rang. She could not have been more stunning. It was the first time I'd seen her in moonlight, and the gentle rays lit her auburn hair in a way that all but toppled the mental wall I had built between business and dating.

The drive up the North Shore took us past a rocky coastline dotted with occasional white sand inlets. We passed through a succession of seacoast towns that dated back to the colonization of New England. Many of them, such as Marblehead, Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Salem, clung to their historical character as if the past three hundred years occurred somewhere else. I never pass along that route without a refreshment of the spirit.

The spiritual lift on this particular trip was somewhat less effective than unsual. There was a tension that I couldn't quite work out. Terry let her long hair blow freely in the open convertible, and
we talked about everything under the sun except what was on both of our minds. Somehow a seat had been reserved between us for John McKedrick.

At some point, I asked a few questions about John's mental state during that last week of his life, and whether or not he had mentioned any names that she could recall. It all resulted in nothing new, but it lent a certain business purpose to the evening that made me feel a bit more at ease.

We arrived in the heart of Rockport as God was putting the finishing touches on a starlit night that could inspire poetry. We cruised slowly past the tiny sea-themed shops that line all the narrow streets. When we reached the town center, Terry twisted around to face me. She was in navy blue Docker pants and loafers with a pale blue Ralph Lauren shirt that matched the color of her eyes. She looked as if she could have arrived on one of the yachts that docked in Rockport Harbor for a shore dinner.

“Michael, how do you feel about lobster?”

I was stopped for a light, so I could lock eyes with her.

“It's the reason we're here.”

Her grin broadened. “No, I mean, is it a passion?”

I never thought about it that way, but when I did, the answer was yes.

She moved closer without even thinking about it. “And can you go one-on-one with a lobster without instruments?”

It had the ring of a challenge. I was so totally captured by the moment, I would have said yes to one-on-one with a Komodo dragon.

We parked just off the square and started walking up a side street. I followed her lead in the direction away from my original idea of the dining room of the Peg Leg.

The street darkened as it wound away from streetlights toward a cove nestled into the rocky shore. One blue gray, weathered shack stood just shy of the sand's edge. Just inside the open door, a cauldron the size of a skiff was steaming over an open gas fire. The only other object in the room was a glass tank the size of the cauldron. About
fifty of those prehistoric creatures with the claws that excite the taste buds stood in a torrent of bubbling cold saltwater being pumped in and out of the tank.

Terry looked at me with that smile that never seemed to leave her lips. “Trust me?”

I nodded. She leaned over the glass tank and pointed out four pound-and-a-halfers to the sweating, bearded man in a rubber apron. He clutched each one by the hard shell above the legs and shovel passed it into the steaming cauldron.

We stepped outside while the boiling seawater put a glowing red coat on those sublime crustaceans. Within ten minutes a call that was saturated in the flat, North Shore accent brought us back inside. We left with a heavy brown paper bag that was too hot to touch except at the folded top.

The three-quarter moon lit a path to a rocky plateau just above the cove. Terry opened the bag and laid out the four gleaming red creatures. She took a seat on the rock with her legs tucked under her and looked up at me.

“Well, Mr. Lawyer-Man, are you a New Englander or a tourist?”

I answered the challenge by half-reclining with the lobsters between us. Let the games begin.

I let her make the first choice and watched as she began the ritual dissection practiced as an art form by anyone born east of Connecticut.

When I realized that her lobster was in the hands of an artist, I began my own ritual with one of the most succulent specimens I had ever engaged in battle.

When that first lobster was history, we both drew a deep breath and lay back on the warm rock that insulated us against the cool east wind that had come up off the ocean. We had smiles that locked onto each other, and the world of Benny Ignola and Dominic Santangelo and even John McKedrick seemed almost not to exist.

There were long minutes without conversation that would have been difficult with anyone else. I felt as if we were climbing to the top
of a roller coaster for that first plunge into something more than a restrained friendship.

Terry was the first to sit up.

“Are you still in the game?”

I nodded, and we took our leisure in each devouring the second lobster. When that last morsel of claw meat passed into memory, I stretched back and lay against the rock and just let the taste linger. Terry moved over and sat next to me. I could feel her warmth as a shield against the ocean breeze. Both felt pleasant and comforting.

She looked down at me and just nodded. I nodded back, and I think we were both saying, “This is good.”

Maybe too good. I felt stung by a ripple of guilt. John was back between us. She saw it, and I could sense the pain flow from me into her. I sat up, and I wanted to hold her and comfort her and tell her it's all going to be all right. But John was there, and I couldn't do it. She was two inches away from me, but it felt like a mile.

Terry was the first to summon the courage to face it.

“Michael, I want to ask you a question you don't have to answer. It's probably out of line.”

I felt a door slightly open, and every nerve froze with anticipation of what might be on the other side. There was no choosing the moment. This was it. I pushed the door the rest of the way open.

“Nothing's out of line, Terry. Go ahead.”

“Where are we going, Michael? I wouldn't ask, but I think we're at a fork in the road. I don't want to take the wrong road alone.”

I knew what I wanted to say, but I could still feel the ghost of John between us.

“Can I ask you a question I have no right to ask?”

“I wish you would, Michael.”

“Was John in love with you?”

Terry looked away to the bobbing dots of skiffs and sailboats at anchor beyond the cove. When she looked back, the moonlight caught tiny trails of moisture at her eyes. Her voice was soft but clear.

“You're asking the wrong question, Counselor.”

I was at a loss for a moment until I felt a ray of light burst through my mind.

“Were you in love with John?”

The tears had stopped, and she looked at me directly.

“No. Not like that.”

She had broken a barrier, and the rest flowed more easily.

“John and I had been old friends. We got together again just a little while before his death. He was terribly distracted by whatever was going on that last week. He couldn't share any of it with me. I don't know what he had in mind for the future. He never got to tell me. I don't even know if it included me.”

She stopped, and I needed one more answer. I had to know that I wasn't robbing John of something he might have had, for whatever sense that makes. She must have seen the question in my face, because her look said, “Ask it.”

“If it did include you, would you—”

The words caught in my throat, but she answered it anyway.

“No. I didn't feel that way about John.”

For the first moment since I'd seen Terry at John's funeral, I felt free to let John go to his new world. I didn't know what to say, but words turned out not to be a problem. However it happened, we were in each other's arms, and for some reason, the tears of both of us flowed through that first kiss.

We stayed for countless minutes alone on that rock plateau, holding on to each other as if we were really holding onto a gift that had just been given to us. Time suspended, until the moment when I realized that we were not alone.

Whether a twig snapped, or a pebble fell, or whatever, something spun me around to face a shadow the size of a bear at the edge of the rock ten feet behind us. When it climbed onto the rock, it took human form. There was no light on the features, but it just stood there staring.

There was a heavy wheeze in the rapid breath that came from lugging that bulk up the slope.

The best I could do was. “What do you want?”

The voice was guttural and hard.

“You're a smart-ass, aren't you?”

The world we'd left was back like gangbusters. I could see nothing but a shape, but I knew in my bones that it meant to kill us.

“I don't know what your problem is with me, but the girl is out of it. Let her go.”

Through the wheezing I heard, “First you. Then I'll take care of the girl.”

The tone was even more chilling than the words. The hulk moved farther onto the rock, and a tiny beam of light picked up the barrel of a handgun.

It was time to be cool and count options. The first thought was to charge him in the gut. One look at that frame and I realized I'd have better luck moving Mount Rushmore. That left just one option with no time to take a vote.

I grabbed Terry's hand and dove backward off the rock bluff. We spilled through the air for a brief eternity. We hit the packed sand of the beach a dozen feet below with a double thud — first me and then Terry on top of me. I landed flat enough to absorb the impact. Terry came down elbow first and caught me square in the right eye socket. I think it was shear willpower that kept me conscious.

I remembered hearing two shots fired while we were falling. I expected more any second from above.

I pulled Terry as close to the base of the rock as we could huddle. I listened for sounds above to hear which side he might be coming down. There was nothing.

When I knew Terry was able to move, I led her on hands and knees next to the rock. It was fifty-fifty either way, so we went to the left toward a stand of dune grass. I waited for a wisp of cloud to douse the moonlight before we made the scramble into the tall grass. Once we made cover, I left her hidden and worked my way through the grass up the sandy bank. I took a wide sweep in the hopes of coming up behind him.

My right eye was swollen nearly shut from the impact of Terry's elbow. I needed the light of the moon to grope my way up the craggy
rocks. At the same time, I needed to move in darkness as cover against the next shot.

The motion was slow in bursts of climbing, broken by long pauses splayed against the rock when the rays of moonlight through broken clouds would find me out.

At some point, I was overcome with panic at the thought that he might be moving down the bank on the other side of the rock, leaving nothing between him and Terry. It seemed reckless but necessary to scramble to the back of his rock to get a fix on his position and head him off before he could reach her.