The Son of John Devlin (22 page)

Boston, he thought as he began to walk as briskly as he could across the plaza, was a place of extremes. In six months the temperature in this very place could easily be ninety degrees higher. He glanced up for a moment as he walked awkwardly, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his camel’s hair overcoat, and looked at Trinity Church, a nineteenth-century work of architectural art, its spires reaching for the sky in the greater glory of God. And there, only feet from where it stood, was the Hancock building, soaring five hundred feet higher, yet the two structures seemed peaceful, even mutually complementary neighbors. In fact, the magnificence of the church was reflected, literally, in the massive glass panels of the skyscraper.

But Boston was a place of extremes in other ways as well, Coakley reflected. It was a city of great beauty and sophistication in some areas, home to great works of art and some of the world’s most brilliant minds. But it was a venal place as well, small and ugly, a place where flashes of violence born of hatred and resentment were not uncommon. It was a place where history mattered. Not just history in the broad sense, not merely the recording of notable civic events, but personal history—alliances, entanglements, betrayals—reaching back for generations.

Coakley bent his head lower as a gust moved across the frigid pavement and then ascended so powerfully that it pushed his head back. The cold brought tears to his eyes, reddened his face, and numbed his toes.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, quickening his step.

The lobby of the Hancock Tower brought relief, with its warmth. Coakley was able to stand up straight and draw a deep breath. He rolled his shoulders and felt his body unclench. Though he unbuttoned his overcoat, he did not remove it, for he could still feel a chill. He cursed silently as he boarded an elevator marked
OBSERVATION DECK
. He hated these things, these flimsy boxes that hurtled straight up into the sky at a frightening speed in a building that had been designed to literally sway in the wind. His ears popped and his chest tightened as the elevator seemed to slow long before they would have reached the top, and the prospect that he would be stuck in this thing rendered him so panic-stricken that for a moment he was unable to catch his breath.

But then the car settled and the doors slid open. He got off and breathed once again, making his way to the observation deck. There were windows on four sides, glass from floor to ceiling offering the most spectacular views of Boston from anything except an aircraft. Coakley preferred to stand back a bit from the windows, and he did so as he sauntered along looking out over the Back Bay. There had been a time, years past, when he’d aspired to live there in one of the nineteenth-century brick mansions with their bow-front windows and old-world charm. He loved the gaslit ambience of the neighborhood, was enamored of the broad, tree-lined walkway
up the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. There were benches and impressive statues of historical figures. And the walkway led all the way down Commonwealth to the Public Garden, where a huge statue of Washington astride a steed guarded the entryway.

Coakley looked out over the Back Bay rooftops, over buildings that averaged only four or five stories high, to the Charles River, winding out toward the west, separating Cambridge and Boston. He looked across the river and saw the buildings of MIT and Harvard. He walked slowly toward the northern side of the building and looked up the coast, toward the North Shore, and then moved to the east side and gazed out across the harbor and toward the airport. There were two massive tankers making their way into port as a British Airways 747 glided in for an effortless landing.

Coakley brought his gaze in closer, moving from the distance toward the inner perimeter of the city, and he saw Mass General Hospital. He thought about Harvard and MIT and Mass General, and it made him feel as though he was in a substantial place, as though this city was a place that mattered, a place where important things happened.

He moved around to the southern side of the building, saw the Boston Medical Center, and suddenly felt a need to account for the medical greatness of the city. He went back to the western side of the building and looked down and saw the Deaconess, Beth Israel, Brigham & Women’s, and Children’s Hospitals.

Children’s Hospital. He tried to count up from the bottom to the seventh floor of Children’s, but he was not sure if he was seeing seven or eight, and picked what he
thought to be seven. He tried to find the window, and thought he had, in fact, zeroed in on the window of the very room where so many years past his son, at age eleven, had drawn his last breath.

J
ack Devlin sat back in his office and looked through the pages once again. The young law student in the police department computer operation had given him the report earlier that afternoon. Jack was captivated by the sequence. He had now established that the late owner of the Blackthorn had made four equal payments, each four months apart, to CrimeStoppers, a charitable organization in name only. It had no other assets and made only one donation—to the Law Enforcement Education Association, another charitable trust. It was clear to Devlin that CrimeStoppers was merely a front. But for what? If there were legitimate contributions being made to charitable organizations, why channel them through a shell?

When he’d been at law school, he learned that the law was often a puzzle and to trust his instincts. As a student of the law, one was often called upon to work one’s way through a maze. Jack thought of it as akin to the mazes children are given as place mats in restaurants. You start at the lower left corner and trace your pencil through the maze, avoiding dead ends, trying to get to the finish. He’d learned as a law student to trust what made instinctive sense to him.

And that was precisely what he was doing now.

It was snowing lightly as dusk settled upon the city. In light snow, Boston’s traffic became unbearable. Combine light snow and slippery conditions with rush hour, and you had something close to gridlock. Jack, however, did not care. He got into his Cherokee and headed out Columbus Avenue toward the Fenway. The two-mile ride took thirty-two minutes. He pulled into Landsdowne Street, which ran behind Fenway Park’s Green Monster. He zipped his parka all the way up, put on a Bruins cap, and walked along Yawkey Way, checking out the names of the bars that lined the street. As he walked he jotted every name in a small notebook. On Yawkey Way alone he listed nine bars. He proceeded up to Brookline Avenue and down into Kenmore Square, continuing to write. Most were relatively small, simple gin mills doing a decent weeknight business but cramming in the crowds on weekends. This area was the heart of the city’s middlebrow bar scene. It lacked the glitter of downtown, but the prices were reasonable, and young people, from college students to singles in their thirties, flocked to the area.

He kept walking, enjoying the brisk air, pleased to be moving along at a steady clip while the traffic was at a near standstill. He followed Commonwealth Avenue into the Back Bay and on to upper Newbury Street, then Boylston. He circled back around to Fenway and, after a ninety-minute walk, reached his car.

Jack drove back to his office and reviewed the list of bars, thirty-seven in all. He then did what he’d been assured he had the authority to do when he received his current assignment: He picked up the telephone and called the commissioner.

Nicholas Sullivan took his call right away.

“You said if I needed anything along the way I could call you,” Jack said.

“What is it?” Sullivan asked.

“I need someone I can go to at the state Department of Revenue,” he said. “I need to be able to go over there and have them do a computer search for me. Can you arrange that?”

Sullivan thought a moment. “Yes,” he said, “definitely. Let me make a call. I’ll get right back to you.”

Six minutes later Sullivan returned his call and gave Jack a name at the Department of Revenue.

“What is it about cops?” Jack wondered aloud. “Why are so many cops other than what they pretend to be?”

Del Rio shrugged. “They go sour,” he said. “It’s not surprising.”

“Sour?”

Del Rio nodded. “It’s all the fault of the patrol cars and their subconscious impact on the minds of children,” he said. “The black and white car.”

Jack frowned.

“Why do I make that assertion?” Del Rio asked. “For this reason: Cops start out thinking that the world is painted in black and white. When they’re little kids they see the patrol car. Black and white. Symbolizes the job for them. Symbolizes the
world
for them. So they think there’s black and there’s white and they choose white. They want to be on the side of good. And so they become cops. Why? Because cops stand up for what’s right. They do good.”

“And then?”

“And then they collide with reality,” Del Rio said. “And it is a rude fucking awakening. Rude.” Del Rio
lowered his gaze and nodded. “Why? Because all of a sudden they’re introduced to an alien concept. And that alien concept is ambiguity. Do you understand the nature of this beast, ambiguity?”

Jack nodded.

“Because ambiguity is the source of sourness in cops,” Del Rio said. “It is the undoing of cops. Why? Why do I say this?”

Del Rio paused, but Jack did not reply.

“I say this because—think about this for a moment—think about this kid who’s thinking all through high school or community college or the service or whatever that he’s going to become a cop to do what is right. And he or she goes through the academy and learns the absolute pure bullshit dished out there, and then this person is placed in a uniform, silver shield on chest, and sent out into the world, lance tucked under arm, to tilt with the great churning windmills that dot the landscape.

“Except the problem is that nobody ever told them they were going to be tilting with windmills. Everyone always said they were gonna do what was right, protect what was good and honorable.

“Now, there are some boys and girls who come through here who think that means keeping the boogies out of nice neighborhoods. And in the right situation they work out beautifully because they really do see the world as black and white, purely black and white. Their approach is keep an eye on the brothers, and if a brother breaks into a nice white home, whack him around and throw him in the can with other brothers.

“Most aren’t from that rudimentary a level within the animal kingdom,” Del Rio continued. “But they are
still thrown by the concept of ambiguity. Because in practice—live, real time on the streets—ambiguity in action is a very slippery, difficult thing to deal with. ’Cause it means there’s sometimes not a clear right and wrong.

“When you show up at a domestic dispute and she’s cryin’ and says he had a few and fuckin’ belted her, and you go to take him in but she says, ‘No, I love him, don’t take him away,’ and you look at your partner and he looks at you and you say to the lady, ‘You sure?’ and she’s sure, and so you leave and later that night, you get another call, same address, and you go back and she’s fuckin’ black and blue from head to toe.… Or worse.

“Did you do the right thing? And then the newspapers get into the act and the politicians, and they think you’re an asshole and you’re lazy and have bad judgment and you’re callous and you really don’t give a fuck about anything except hanging around Dunkin’ Donuts …”

Del Rio sat back and shrugged.

“But in the first couple years, of course, you’re excited and the guys are excited for you and it’s a thrill, your first partner, and patrols, and your first few pinches, I mean, Jesus, it’s a rush, there’s no denying it.

“But then you get into a beef here and there, with some asshole on the street, and they complain, or you work for a fool who thinks it’s a federal offense ’cause you whacked some brother during an arrest, and suddenly it’s not all so hunky-dory.

“And then a few more years pass and you’re doing as many details as you can to make a decent buck and standing in a snowy street in the freezing fucking cold for a few extra bucks and it gets very old very fast.

“And while this is all happening you come to realize that there are rules of procedure and laws that actually
constrain you in some respects as much as they do the real bad guys.

“And so what do you do? You rebel. Like any frustrated adolescent who’s confused and uncertain. And that’s what cops are in some ways, isn’t it, frustrated adolescents? They’re simpleminded, a lot of them. I mean, hey, let’s be truthful, Jack, there are a lot of cops who aren’t too fucking bright. What are the requirements? Not so bad. Anybody can be a cop, really. So anybody
is
a cop.

“And so you find over time that they get sour and they turn inward and they’re pissed off at the world because they didn’t get to do what they were supposed to do, which was make sure the good guys are protected and the bad guys fuckin’ whacked around.”

Del Rio took a deep breath and slouched in his chair.

“And so they go sour,” he said, stretching. “They go sour because what looked for a time like it was black and white turned out to be gray. Because of ambiguity. Because they couldn’t become what they wanted to become.”

Jack considered this. “And the ones who go bad?” he asked.

“They’re justified,” Del Rio said, suddenly animated. “They think it’s cool. It’s okay. It’s okay because they’ve been screwed over. Because everybody pisses on them. Because their pay is too low. The level of respect accorded them is too low. Their fucking self-esteem is too low. And so they make up for it by saying, ‘Fuck it, I’m entitled.’ And they take some dough and then some more, and then more, and they’re hooked. They can’t quit.

“Most of all, though, they do it because they decide in
their own minds that they are the law. They don’t enforce it. They
are
it. So what they decide goes. And what they decide is, ‘Fuck it all, man, I’m taking the dough. Because they can’t pay me enough to live in this fucking sewer that this society really is.’ ”

Jack had never met Del Rio’s girlfriend, Lisa Storer, and Del Rio insisted that he join them for drinks. Jack was running behind and arrived after Lisa and Del Rio had had a couple of rounds.