Frame-Up (12 page)

The in-and-out cloud cover helped in a way, but I was mostly moving blindly. Every few steps I seemed to run into an unexpected jutting of rock that would tear skin from an arm or leg. I tried to stifle any involuntary noises, but at one point I fell headlong across a face of jagged rock. The sound was out of me before I could squelch it.

I had lost the cover of silence, so there was no point in stealth. I stood upright and ran the last short quarter-circle to come up behind him. I was sure I'd be walking into open gunfire, but there was no other way.

When I reached the back edge of the rock, I was astounded to see the shape of him still stretched out on the rock ahead of me. He had the gun in his right hand, and he was focused on the stretch of beach below. I had no idea why he had hadn't fired at the sound I made when I fell. Maybe he was too locked onto the beach below, or he just couldn't hear. Whatever the reason, I rode the hope that he had no idea that I was behind him.

The cloud moved, and the cold light of the moon covered the three of us. If Terry moved, he'd have her in his sights. She had no way of knowing what was going on above her. That meant she could get up and become a running target at any moment.

Time was not on my side, and neither was my size against a human tank with a gun. The only things I had going for me were speed and surprise.

I felt around the ground behind me until my hand touched a
dead branch the size of a baseball bat. It was not much against what sounded like a thirty-eight, but under the circumstances, it seemed to come from my guardian angel.

I was no Navy SEAL, but much as I hated it, what had to be done, had to be done. I took a silent deep breath and counted. When I hit three, I drove like a linebacker on a blitz. My right foot slipped and I wound up driving my right knee into the rock. The pain forced a sharp sound out of my lungs that he couldn't miss. Before he could spin his bulk around with the gun, I put every ounce of energy into my left leg and dove the six feet to the target. My body hit the solid mass of his body, and I swung the club at his head with everything I had left. I could hear the shatter of wood and bone. I rolled off of him and held my breath. He lay still and cold.

I took a few seconds to let the pain in my knee stop screaming. There was no motion beside me. I called Terry, and she scrambled up to the rock beside me.

We made our way back to the Rockport Police Headquarters. I explained what had happened, and two officers followed us back to the rock ledge. As we approached it, I half expected to find nothing there. Either he'd have crawled away or it was just a nightmare to begin with.

No such luck. The officers went out ahead on the rock and scanned the body with their flashlights. They bent down and checked it over from head to foot before one of them came back to where I was standing. He called me aside and spoke in a low tone.

“Mr. Knight, this didn't happen the way you said it did.”

I wasn't sure I understood his meaning.

“Why would I lie? I told you I probably killed him. He fired two shots at us. The gun was still in his hand. He was waiting for us to move.”

The officer took me up toward the front of the rock.

“In the first place, Mr. Knight, his gun hasn't been fired. In the second place, you didn't kill him, at least not the way you said.”

My look of confusion and silence said it all. He took me closer.

“Look at this.”

He shined the flashlight on the gaping wound in the back of his head where my club had crushed his skull. Oddly enough, there was practically no bleeding from the open hole. He lowered the beam of his flashlight to the back of the dead man. The light picked up two clear bullet holes in the center of his back between his shoulder blades.

“My bet is the coroner'll find that he was dead sometime before you hit him.”

I sat down on the rock to try to pull the pieces together. Who could have fired the two shots that saved our lives? I was too tired to think. I heard the voice of the officer bringing me back.

“Mr. Knight, I'd like you to see if you could identify him.”

He rolled the body slightly and shone the light on his face. I went numb when I realized I was looking at the fireplug-shaped gangster I had taken off of his watch at South Station.

I woke up the next morning with one eye swollen completely shut. It was the color of a rare tuna steak. Terry's elbow had the clout of a weapon of mass destruction.

As I shaved, I swapped questions with the Cyclops in the mirror. How did the fireplug identify me, let alone find me? Bigger question — who was pushing his buttons, and whoever it was, why me? Whatever happened to that wonderful old adage, “The lawyer always goes home”? Biggest question of all — what was the button pusher's next surprise?

Through all of those disturbing negative questions, one positive question popped up. How did I acquire a protector kind enough to put two slugs into the fireplug where they'd do Terry and me the most good, and at the same time — no small matter — save me the whipping I'd be taking from my conscience for taking a human life.

It was nine-thirty a.m. I decided to reach Mr. Devlin by phone at his apartment before he left for Sunday Mass. He filled me in on his meeting the previous day with our client Peter. Since most of the world was under the salubrious assumption that Peter was dead, and his actual whereabouts were kept to a need-to-know circle, which, for the moment, did not include me, all contact was through Mr. D.

As I imagined, his meeting netted a goose egg. Peter could have been a great deal more helpful if he had actually been guilty of bombing John's car. As it was, he knew less than we did.

When Mr. D.'s news ran out, it was my turn. He asked about what I was now willing to admit was an actual date the night before.
I could hear a paternalistic grin in his voice when he asked. He was like a parent waiting up till I came home.

The grin dropped when I told him about diving off a rock to avoid a double murder accented by a likely rape, bullets flying from heaven knows where, and the smashing of an already dead gorilla's skull like a piñata.

“My God in heaven, Michael, can't you go on a simple date like anyone else? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, fine, Mr. Devlin.”

“And the girl?”

“Terry was all right when I left her last night. I had Tom Burns put a man outside her apartment just in case. I'm going to call her right now. I'm certain he was after me, but I want to be sure she didn't get sucked into the game.”

“That must have been one hell of a first date. Michael, this game is getting out of hand. We need to reestablish the rules. I want a meeting with Santangelo.”

“I want to be there.”

“Let's make it noon.”

“Monsignor Ryan's church?”

“I'll set it up.”

Our unlikely little foursome — Mr. Devlin, Monsignor Ryan, Mr. Santangelo, and myself — gathered in Monsignor Ryan's study. This time, the burning discontent was on our side. Mr. D. had me recount the events of the past couple of days, with heavy emphasis on the attack the previous night by the fireplug from South Station. My left eye, which was practically glowing in the dark, gave a nice emphasis to the story.

I covered the facts and left the follow-up to Mr. D.

“This crap must cease, Dominic. I'll do everything I can for Peter, but I'm not going to lose this boy over it.”

I don't know about the others, but I heard the word “boy” as carrying a lot of the word “son.” I'd begun to believe against all odds
that Mr. Devlin had actually begun thinking of me that way, whether consciously or not. That conceit so filled my heart that, right or wrong, I knew I'd never let go of it.

I watched the lines deepen on Santangelo's face. I'm sure he took Mr. Devlin's meaning, but something far deeper and more personal seemed to be weighing on him. I'm sure he saw the threat to me as an equal threat to his own life, and perhaps more to the heart, the life of his son. But there seemed to be something even beyond that.

“Who is this man, Dominic? You heard Michael's description. Is he one of yours?”

Mr. Santangelo spoke quietly. He measured his words carefully. He seemed to be suppressing pain rather than the truth.

“Yes. As you say, one of mine.”

“Why, Dominic? I know it wasn't under your orders.”

Mr. Santangelo just waved his hand as if the very thought was an impossibility. We all knew that he owed us more than that, so we waited. We gave him long seconds that dragged into a minute to get control of what he must have been thinking.

When Mr. Santangelo spoke, it was muted by what appeared to be deep sorrow.

“This man … How do I explain? Vito Respa. He was also like a son in a different way.”

Mr. D. started to speak, but Mr. Santangelo held up a hand.

“Please, Lex. It's important that I say this.”

Mr. D. nodded and gave him the silence he wanted.

“I have to go back. My grandfather was a very powerful man in his region of Sicily. He had workers for his property, and he also had soldiers for protection from his enemies. This man, Vito Respa, was the son of one of his workers. Vito was, what can I say? mentally slow.

“About fifteen years ago, there was a rape of a young girl in my grandfather's village. My grandfather's enemies spread the word that Vito had done it. He was arrested. These enemies spread the word that my grandfather would buy Vito's freedom. One thing led to
another and a mob formed in the square. You have to understand the Sicilian's pride, especially in matters of dishonoring a daughter of their town. With the help of a few inciters, the mob was ready to storm the jail and take Vito.

“My grandfather was home alone when he heard about it. He went to the town square, this little old man on a cane. He climbed up on the platform, and everything went quiet. I heard this from people who were there.

“Picture this old man facing that mob alone. He never raised his voice. He never made an open threat. He just raised his cane and one by one he pointed at each of the men in the mob and spoke his name. ‘Aldo Baldini, Antonio Presotti,' and so on. That's all. One by one they went away. When they were all gone, he went home.

“Vito watched it from the jail cell. When he was tried, he was acquitted because there was no evidence. About a year later, they found the real rapist and got a confession.

“But from the day of that mob, Vito lived by unquestioning devotion to my grandfather. When he got out of jail, my grandfather was afraid that an assassin might come after him, so he sent him to America and asked me to look after him. I did, for the last fifteen years. He was as loyal to me as he was to my grandfather.”

“What did he do for you, Dominic?”

“Odd jobs. Whatever he was capable of.”

“Like murder.”

“Never! He was never part of the business.”

“Would he have killed if you'd asked him?”

Mr. Santangelo dropped his head and his voice.

“Yes. I'm sure of it.”

“And someone took advantage of that loyalty.”

Mr. Santangelo looked at me. “I'm sure that when he went after Michael, in his heart, he believed he was doing it for me. I hope you know, Michael, that he wasn't.”

I could only nod in recognition of his sincerity.

“Then who do you supp—”

“Wait a minute, Lex. I want to say this.” He looked directly at me. “Michael, I know this doesn't mean much under the circumstances, but he would never have dishonored that girl.” He shook his head to emphasize it. “Never.”

It was hard to break the silence, but there was more business on the table. Mr. Devlin picked it up.

“Who's behind it, Dominic?”

“That's for me to find out and deal with. I clean my own house.”

Mr. D. and I reacted at the same instant, but he was in a position to act on it. He was on his feet.

“Not this time, Dominic. Not this time. Your type of house-cleaning could leave us with bodies and no live sources of information. I want every threat to Michael found out and cut off. Someone killed your friend Vito while he was attacking Michael. We have no idea who or why. This goes beyond your so-called family. We work together on this, or you find another lawyer for Peter.”

Before Santangelo could react, I felt my cell phone vibrate. I saw that it was Tom Burns, so I stepped outside the room and took the call. Tom had followed Benny Ignola to the meeting I had brought about with Tony Tedesco. They met on a bench on Boston Common. Tom could see Tedesco doing the talking, and from the hand motions, he seemed to be describing someone — most likely the dude in the blue suit from The Pirate's Den. At some point, Benny got the picture and blew up. He turned crimson. He began shouting with accompanying gestures. Tom couldn't make out the words until Benny turned and steamed off. His last invective, with expletives deleted, was “And keep your mouth shut!”

“What's our Benny up to now?”

“Benny's in his car. I'm tailing him. I saw him make a call on his cell phone. I'll bet my fee he's heading for the Stella Maris Restaurant for a meeting. I want to put a man at the restaurant before he gets there to see who goes in and goes to the back room. I don't want to be an hour late again.”

“Good idea, Tom. Do it.”

“I already did it, Mike. My man is there having lunch right now. He knows the players by sight. I'll call you as soon as I get something.”

“Do it by text. I'll be in a meeting.”

I went back into the study. The discussion was still going on. Mr. D. looked over at me, and I gave him a “sit tight” signal and mouthed the words, “Tom Burns.”

Five minutes later, I got the vibration signal from my cell phone and flipped it open. I nearly choked when I read the two words Tom sent.

I held the phone over for Mr. D. to read the words. I gave him a look that said, “You're the quarterback. You call it.”