Silent Night: A Spenser Holiday Novel (11 page)

I
CALLED QUIRK,
who wasn’t in. I got transferred to Belson, who was.

“Frank, I need help.”

I told him about Slide’s beating and Jackie’s disappearance, about Alvarez and the machinations surrounding Street Business.

“What I’m not hearing in all this, Spenser,” he said, “is the magic word ‘homicide.’ That’s what we do in this department. Why don’t you just call for a patrol car to roll by and mop up your mess.”

“I’ve got a missing person and possible homicide,” I said. “And I need help from someone I trust. A patrol unit is going to call in Child Protective Services, and this place will get shut down. I need someone to stabilize and sit on the place for a few hours, until I get another piece of it resolved. I need time until I can figure out how to keep Street Business in business.”

“So you need me to babysit a house filled with juvenile delinquents while you figure out how to keep an essentially illegal business in play? We have real work to do, Spenser.”

“I need to protect another client,” I said. I gave him a brief summary of Carmen and Alvarez. I told him about Healy and the Fed and state investigations. “And so help me, Frank, if I need to shoot someone so you’ve got a homicide to get you down here, I’ll do it.”

Belson sighed. “Okay, Spenser.”

I gave him the address.

“Curtis Street?” he said. “Is that by St. Bart’s?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a few blocks away.”

“My kid sister knows the priest down there. Said the Mass at her wedding. I’m blanking on the name, but he seemed like a regular guy.”

“Ahearn?” I said.

“Yeah, that could be it. Ahearn. They do a lot of work with kids at St. Bart’s. I’ll send a squad car down there, too.”

Father Ahearn arrived at Street Business in about ten minutes, along with ten guys who had to be the world’s most intimidating chapter of the Knights of Columbus. A patrol car pulled up, and Belson followed right behind in his unmarked Crown. Martin Quirk was with him.

“I called Marty,” Belson said. “He’s got more juice than I do.”

Quirk was dressed in a navy-blue blazer with a light blue button-down shirt and bright red sweater vest and gray slacks. His red tie had a small Christmas-tree print. He looked clean-shaven and fresh as a spring morning.

“Left my grandkid’s Christmas pageant for this, Spenser,” said Quirk. “Make it worth my time.”

“Sorry, Marty. It’s important.”

Quirk nodded. “Frank filled me in.” He nodded to Hawk and Vinnie. “We’ll hold down the fort here. We never saw you. Now go.”

We headed for Weston, Hawk riding shotgun and Vinnie in the backseat. We had just hit the Mass Pike when my cell phone rang. It was Susan.

“Spenser,” she said. “We have a problem. Slide is missing.”

I
WAS IN THE ROOM
while the doctor examined him,” Susan said. “They had to take him for X-rays of his ribs to see if any were broken. They brought him back to the room and we waited. You know how it is. Emergency room. Holidays. Slide was pretty antsy, and I tried to distract him, but conversation with eleven-year-olds is not in my résumé.”

“How did he get away?”

“After what seemed hours, but was probably half an hour, the doctor came back with the X-rays and said there were no broken ribs. She gave Slide a couple of Tylenol to take before bedtime if he ached too much.

“She said he could get dressed and we could leave and he was a fortunate young man not to be more seriously hurt. I went into the bathroom for a moment, while Slide went behind the screen to get his pants and shirt on.

“When I came out, he was gone. In thirty seconds. I ran out in the hallway and looked up and down it. Not a sign of him.”

“Any reason to think someone grabbed him?”

“No,” Susan said. “There was no one around in the hallway, and I ran out to the lobby and asked the desk nurse if she had seen Slide and she said yes she had and he had been alone. He had headed for the main exit. One good thing. He’s fine except for some really deep bruises.”

“Okay,” I said. “He probably heard me say Carmen was in danger. I’ll bet he’s trying to work his way to Weston, same as we are. We’ll look out for him. Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” Susan said. “The road out there is not a place for a kid right now. I’m going to drive toward Weston and see if I can find him.”

“He’s a tough kid, Susan. I don’t want you mixed up in what’s going on out here. He’s found his way by himself out to Carmen a lot of times before. I’ll call you the minute I can.”

W
E CAUGHT UP
with Healy in the parking lot of a Bruegger’s bagel shop on Center Street in Weston. He was in an unmarked state police cruiser, with the engine running. I pulled in to the space to his left. Hawk rolled down his window. The darkness had started to gather, but I could see someone sitting in the passenger seat next to Healy.

“Nice touch, picking a place with bagels,” said Healy. He stared straight ahead. “Got some good news, Spenser. Boston PD located your friend Joachim Alvarez. Somebody dumped him at the emergency room at Beth Israel about an hour ago.”

“And?”

“He’s beaten up pretty bad. But he’ll live.”

“Well, that’s something,” I said. “Were you able to scare up any help for this operation?”

Healy snorted. “You wouldn’t know by looking around, but there are about twenty pairs of federal and state eyes on us right now.”

Healy looked over at his passenger. “This is Special Agent Goldberg of the FBI. He insisted on joining me, even though it could blow the cover off the entire fucking operation. He wants to make clear that this is a federal matter and he’s in charge.”

He stared straight ahead again. “Goldberg, the driver is Spenser. The other two guys don’t exist and you never saw them. I miss anything?”

Goldberg cleared his throat. “Exigent circumstances, Spenser. We haven’t had time to map this out precisely. We don’t have a warrant. We’ll need some reason to go on Alvarez’s property.”

“So there needs to be some emergency, some threat to human life.”

“Exactly,” said Goldberg. “We’ll be waiting at several points just off the property line. Something happens, we need a pretext to go in. A gunshot, broken glass, loud shouts, something. We don’t hear anything, you’re on your own.”

“Got it.”

“Give him this.” Goldberg handed Healy a small walkie-talkie. Healy passed to it Hawk.

“Worst case,” Goldberg said. “Call us.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I won’t be reporting in every five minutes. It stays off unless I turn it on. I don’t want to be discovered because you feel the need to check on us at the wrong time.”

“Spenser, we’re improvising here. When you do that, a lot can go wrong in a hurry. The whole thing can turn to shit pretty quick. Do you understand?”

Healy sighed. “He understands, Goldberg. You pretty much just described his entire career.”

Healy and Goldberg told us where the FBI and state troopers would be staging. It was quarter past six when we backed out of the parking lot and headed off to Alvarez’s farm.

H
EAVY CLOUDS CONCEALED
the moon. The thermometer inside the car read 18 degrees. Better out than in. Days-old snow banked the sides of the road.

We parked alongside the long driveway and extinguished the headlights.

“How do we play it?” Vinnie said.

“We sneak up to the house and wait,” I said. “Watch for sentries and try to count the guns on-site tonight.”

“You think the fireworks start right away?” Hawk said.

“No,” I said. “He probably waits until dinner or after, when all the guests are settled and relaxed. If he needs to stage this to make it look like he’s a victim, he needs this to be a nice, normal party, until it’s not.”

“Once it starts, how we gonna stop things from the outside?” Vinnie said. I looked at Vinnie in the rearview mirror. He was testing the action on his Glock.

“We wait until dinner. Cocktails will most likely be in the living room to the left of the front door. It has big picture windows on the front and side. A big archway leads from there into the dining room. That has French doors to the deck on the back of the house. When the guests move to the dining room, Hawk and I go in and cover the archway and the door to the kitchen. Vinnie, you stay outside and cover the French doors. Keep your eyes on Carmen. Hawk and I will deal with anything else.”

Vinnie nodded.

“And when something start to happen, we move in,” said Hawk.

“Any idea what the something might be?” Vinnie said.

“No,” I said. “My guess is a robbery. Healy thinks Alvarez will try to stage his own kidnapping—he disappears, and Carmen gets killed in the crossfire. All we think we know is that Alvarez needs to look like the victim.”

“Think the guests are in on this?” Hawk said.

“Probably not all of them. Carmen said she doesn’t know everyone invited, but some are social acquaintances Alvarez isn’t particularly close to. He likely needs some authentic guests to sell this to the police afterward,” I said.

I waited a moment. Then, “Game time.”

I had switched off the overhead light. We left the car in darkness and walked back up the road along the tree line to the driveway.

Cars were arriving, mostly limousines, letting out women in furs and men in evening clothes. There was a man in livery opening the car doors and a butler opening and closing the large front door. The pillars were festooned with fir garlands, the door frame draped with boughs. A huge wreath with a red velvet bow was hung in the center.

From our vantage point on the driveway we were able to see the Great Hall each time the butler opened the door. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the polished floor glowed.

“My, my,” Hawk said. “How the rich folk live.”

“So
Masterpiece Theatre
,” I said.

“You did say handguns only,” Vinnie asked.

“Yes. And no shooting if we can help it. We want to get Carmen out of there and leave Alvarez for the Feds. No need to do more.”

“And Slide, if he show up,” said Hawk.

“There is that,” I said.

We spread out and made our way to the house. No guards were visible. No more cars came. We could see the guests in a room to the left of the Great Hall, drinking their martinis. I looked at my watch. Ten after seven. I looked back up and saw that the room was emptying out and guests were headed for the dining room. Vinnie moved into position around the back of the house. Hawk and I stayed by the windows to the dining room and watched. The cold and the tension pressed sharply up against me.

The dining room was ornately decorated, with a large oval table in the center. Sixteen guests were seated around it. The walls were covered with textured rose-colored fabric. There were two heavy silver candelabras on the table, each with eight candles. Each place was set with four crystal goblets, and tiers of silverware. Alvarez sat at one end of the table, resplendent in black tie and tails, flanked by two women with expensive faces talking animatedly across him. He was trying to look interested.

Carmen sat at the other end of the table. She glowed in an emerald-green gown, tastefully low cut. She wore diamond drop earrings that swung when she moved her head. There was no trace of the Carmen I knew, the tomboy who bit her fingernails and served tennis balls like bullets. I watched her talk to the man on her right and then after a few minutes turn to the man on her left. She laughed at their jokes and talked to them with ease.

I looked at the guests at the table, remembering that they might not all be guests. Everyone looked prosperous and slightly dowdy, as befitting old Boston money.
Which one of these is not like the others,
I thought. My gaze picked up on a youngish couple near Carmen’s end of the table. They were in their forties, and they definitely did not fit the mold. Maybe it was the designer clothes, his five-hundred-dollar haircut, and what appeared to be her inability to make conversation with the distinguished older man next to her. They had to be plants.

Hawk slid back to my side. I signaled him and wordlessly pointed out the faux guests. He nodded.

We waited. I could hear footsteps followed by low Spanish-speaking voices coming from the front of the house, and moved down the side of the house to take a look. There were five of them, wearing kerchiefs for masks. Three of them had rifles and two had pistols.

Hawk had moved up behind me.

“Some militia,” Hawk muttered. “Deer hunting.”

They trooped inside. We drew our guns and followed in behind them. They marched directly through the Great Hall and the parlor and into the dining room, and pointed their weapons at the stunned and by this time tipsy guests. We stayed back, at the edge of the parlor, waiting for Vinnie to appear outside the French doors on the other side of the dining room.

One of the women guests giggled. One of the intruders walked over and slapped her across the face. She screamed. The rest of the guests froze, and the room fell silent. Two of the men held canvas bags and went from guest to guest demanding money and jewelry. Everyone complied except Alvarez. He stood and bellowed, “Who are you? Stop this immediately!” His protests had the air of summer-stock theater.

I saw movement outside and hoped it was Vinnie. Another woman screamed as one of the masked men yanked off her necklace. Just then two men dressed like restaurant captains appeared in the entry with guns. “Drop your weapons,” they shouted at the robbers. The men with the rifles threw their weapons on the floor, while the two with pistols stood motionless on either side of the archway.

“Here we go,” Hawk said. He stepped through the archway and put his gun against the neck of the closest gunman. I darted back out to the Great Hall and into the kitchen. The kitchen staff was busy preparing plates when I entered. I put my finger to my lips and waved my gun at them. They froze. I pushed through the door to the dining room just as Vinnie kicked in the French doors and entered, his Glock drawn. The guests were silent with terror. Hawk had moved with his man along the side of the wall, facing the table and the windows and with a clear view of the archway. “Everyone drop their guns or we shoot. Your choice,” I said. The guards were holding their guns on the masked men as well.

Alvarez was trembling. He looked baffled.

“Spenser? What in the world is this?”

For a moment, the air was tight and nothing happened. And then everything happened at once.

One of the restaurant captains raised his pistol and pointed it at Carmen. Vinnie turned and shot him in the chest. The captain crumpled to the floor in front of Alvarez. The man I had pegged as a plant reached under the tablecloth. I saw the glitter of the candlelight on his gun as he trained it on Carmen.

“Carmen!” Slide appeared in the archway and let out a piercing scream.

Before I could shoot, Carmen grabbed a knife from the table and flicked it at the seated assassin. It struck his chest and sent him toppling backward.

The other captain lowered into a crouch and fired at Slide. Hawk pushed his prisoner into the gunman on the other side of the archway, grabbed Slide and yanked him to the floor. Hawk pulled Slide toward him and covered him with his body.

Vinnie shot the second captain in the face, then swung his weapon toward the two gunmen heaped at the right of the archway.

Alvarez reached for the gun dropped by the first captain. I put my foot on the gun and my .44 against his forehead.

“I’ll say this for you, Juan,” I said. “You throw a hell of a party.”

In a moment the room was swarming with state police and guys in flak jackets with automatic weapons. Healy walked through the kitchen.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” I said.

“We came in as soon as we heard the scream,” he said. “It sounded like you.” He looked around.

“Good thing we got here before you shot everybody. Nice to have some witnesses survive, in case we want to bring someone to trial.”

Slide had scrambled over to Carmen, who held him in a tight hug. Hawk stood as Healy and I approached.

In a single move, Healy palmed Hawk’s gun from the floor. His voice was low and even when he spoke.

“You hit anyone with this?” he said to Hawk.

Hawk shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

Healy continued to look at Hawk, but his next question was for me.

“I assume you’ve got a permit for your piece?”

“You know I do,” I said. “Do you want to see it.”

“No,” Healy said. He scratched at his chin.

“Kind of foolish of you, Spenser,” he said, “to let this man walk into a situation like this without a weapon.” He handed me Hawk’s gun. I dropped it in my pocket. “I’m going to have to put that in my report.”

He nodded at Hawk. Hawk nodded back. Healy turned and walked away.

We surveyed the room. The surviving gunmen were being handcuffed, and stretchers were being brought in for the less fortunate. The guests were being questioned, and the bags of loot were being examined and inventoried. A female trooper was speaking with Carmen and Slide, who continued to cling to each other. Healy and a group of men in suits and FBI flak jackets were gathered around a handcuffed Alvarez, who was staring at the chandelier above the table.

Vinnie had vanished.