The Dread Line Read online

  “You remember what music you were playing?” Wargart asked.

  “It was either them or Metallica. I play their shit all the time.”

  “Did you see a white Honda Accord parked on the street when you exited the store?” Freitas asked.

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “The car was shot up with a large-bore handgun,” Wargart said. “A forty-four magnum Smith and Wesson revolver was registered in your name just last week.”

  “Is that a question?” Gardner said.

  “Where’s the gun now?” Wargart asked.

  “Lost or stolen.”

  “Have you reported it stolen?”

  “Not yet. I just noticed it was missing. I’m hoping it will turn up.”

  “Bullshit,” Wargart said.

  “A black Toyota RAV4 was observed fleeing the scene,” Freitas said. “You drive one of those, don’t you, Mulligan?”

  “There are lots of them on the road.”

  With that, the detectives rose and stomped out of the room again.

  “No way they’ve got the plate number,” I said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  I pulled out a cell phone and punched in the number for my source at the state crime lab. “It’s Mulligan. Did you run ballistics on the slugs from a Honda Accord involved in a shooting on Hope Street Monday night?”

  “Yeah. Five slugs from a large caliber handgun, but that’s all I can tell you. They shattered when they smashed into the engine block.”

  “So there’s no way to make a comparison?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, darn. Thanks, Henry.”

  “Gee,” Joseph said. “I just remembered where I put my Smith and Wesson.”

  A half hour later, Wargart and Freitas filed back in and wordlessly cut Joseph loose.

  * * *

  “Let’s celebrate at Hopes,” I said as I followed Joseph and Gardner down the police station’s salt-strewn front steps. “The drinks are on me.”

  “I’m afraid I must decline,” Gardner said. “I’m needed back at the office.”

  “It’s already past eight P.M.”

  “Such is the life of a law firm associate.”

  Joseph and I both thanked Gardner and shook his hand. He turned away, but then he spun back to face us.

  “Mr. Mulligan?”

  “Um?”

  “Did you really install a video camera in the clock?”

  “Of course not.”

  Gardner gave me a high five and strode down the street with a bounce in his step.

  31

  I was nursing my second beer and Joseph was on his fourth when Stevie Wonder’s “Golden Lady,” my ringtone for Yolanda, started playing on the phone I reserved for personal calls.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “Did Gardner get Joseph sprung?”

  “He did. Smart guy. You ought to promote him.”

  “Good to hear. Need anything else?”

  “We’re set.”

  “Okay. Gotta run. I’ll call late tonight so we can talk dirty.”

  Joseph drained his bottle and signaled for another. “Today was a fuckin’ blast,” he said.

  “Except for the beating you took.”

  “Except for that, yeah.”

  “Think we can both stay out of trouble for a while? I don’t need any more drama right now.”

  “Maybe not,” he said.

  “Oh-oh. Now what?”

  “Have you talked to Arena yet?”

  “What about?”

  “He’s expecting his taste at the end of the month,” Joseph said. “Now that we’re legal, we got no reason to pay the prick.”

  “Oh, shit. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You should have.”

  “You’re right. I’ve been distracted lately. Got a lot on my plate.”

  “Want me to talk to him?”

  “Oh, hell, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a delicate situation, Joseph, and you don’t do tact.”

  “I’m supposed to deliver his package on Friday. Can you talk to him before then?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  “For now, keep paying him. I’ll let you know when I get it worked out.”

  32

  I was sitting on the floor with Brady and Rondo, their tails slapping time to the latest album by Tommy Castro and the Painkillers, when one of my burner phones interrupted with the haunting theme from The Godfather, my ringtone for organized crime sources.

  “Mulligan.”

  “Don’t say my name, but do you recognize the voice?”

  “I do.”

  “I just got a phone call you might find interesting.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Was from a guy who’s in my line of work. He had a question concerning that thing you came to see me about.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not something we should talk about on the phone,” he said.

  “Your place in an hour?”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  * * *

  I parked at the curb on Allens Avenue, strolled under the three brass balls, and stepped into the pawnshop. The clerk with the sleeve tattoos must have been expecting me, because he didn’t say a word as I walked past him and entered the warehouse. The cases of Crown Royal were gone now, replaced with enough Johnny Walker Black to poison every liver from Newport to Woonsocket. The refrigerator in the blue suit was at his post in front of Carmine Grasso’s frosted office door.

  “There’s a handgun in a shoulder holster under my left arm,” I said, and assumed the position.

  He shoved a paw inside my bomber jacket, extracted the Kel-Tec, shoved it in his waistband, and patted me down. When he was satisfied, he opened the office door and waved me in.

  Grasso’s knee joints cracked audibly as he rose from behind his ebony desk to shake my hand.

  “You’re fuckin’ late.”

  “Traffic.”

  “Where’s that big dog of yours?”

  “Home crushing a beef bone.”

  “Too bad. I wish you’d brought him. That’s one handsome beast.”

  He pointed me to a leather easy chair, dropped into a matching one, and plopped his feet on a coffee table fanned with magazines—Whiskey Advocate, National Jeweler, and Guns & Ammo.

  “That fifteen percent finder’s fee for the stolen jewelry,” he said. “It’s still on the table?”

  “It is.”

  His eyes stayed dead, but his lips cracked into what might have been a smile. “The call I told you about? Was from a guy up in Boston who specializes in fencing high-end rocks.”

  “Max Barber?”

  “Good guess.”

  “And?”

  “And he tells me a story. Seems that yesterday, a young guy from Rhode Island comes to his office unannounced. Flashes a few cell phone pictures of what he’s got. Asks would Barber be interested in buying. Barber recognizes the loot right off.”

  “From the press photos of the Cargill heist?”

  “I guess so, yeah.”

  “He told you this why?”

  “He says he knows the young guy but hadn’t seen him in two or three years. Doesn’t know what he’s been into lately. Asks if I can vouch for him. I say, ‘What’s his name?’ He says he don’t want to do this on the phone. Asks can I take a run up to Boston. I tell him no can do, but that I’ll send one of my boys.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You.”

  “I’m not one of your boys, Carmine.”

  “Yeah, but he don’t know that. Already gave him your name.”

  “If he googles it, he won’t like what he finds.”

  “Just told him ‘Mulligan.’ Didn’t give him your first name.”

  “Okay, then. Tell him to expect me tomorrow morning.”

  “Will do. I’ll text you the ad
dress. And Mulligan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If this pans out, make damned sure I get my fuckin’ money.”

  “About that,” I said. “I’m thinking we should split it down the middle.”

  “No fuckin’ way.… But you oughta get a little sometin’ for your trouble. How ’bout a ninety/ten split?”

  “Make mine thirty percent, and you’ve got a deal.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Done.”

  Grasso’s laugh was mirthless, the sound of an asthmatic dog. “You seen them three brass balls out front the shop?”

  “Sure.”

  “You ain’t got three, but you got a pair, Mulligan. I’ll give you that.”

  Then he rose and shook my hand. Guys like Grasso think everyone is crooked. No way he would have trusted me if I hadn’t asked for a cut.

  * * *

  Max Barber operated out of a four-story brownstone in Boston’s fashionable Back Bay. I circled the block for a half hour before a parking spot opened up, the head of the meter poking through the top of a soot-smeared snowbank. I fed in some quarters and climbed the stone front steps.

  There was nothing to indicate that the house was a place of business, just a brass street number hanging discreetly beside a windowless steel door that could be opened from the outside if you rammed it with a Sherman tank. I didn’t have one, so I rang the bell.

  I heard footsteps and sensed someone peering at me through the peephole. Then the door swung open, and a little bald man with a pencil mustache looked me up and down.

  “State your name,” he said.

  “Mulligan.”

  “Ah, yes. You were expected. Please step this way.”

  He led me down a gleaming marble-floored hallway and stopped at the foot of a curving staircase. “Second floor. Third door on your left.”

  I climbed the stairs, walked down a hall lined with oil paintings, and tried the door. It was locked. I knocked, and a man in a blue pin-striped suit opened it and invited me in. He was built like the refrigerator who guarded Grasso’s office. The wiseguys must have a secret factory that spits them out.

  “Mulligan?”

  “That’s my name.”

  “Carrying?”

  “Not just now.” I raised my arms so he could pat me down.

  “Sit.”

  I made myself comfortable on a sofa with blue-and-green flowered upholstery, and he sat opposite me in a matching chair. He stared at me. Ten minutes later, he was still doing it.

  “So, how about those Patriots?”

  Silence.

  “I hear we’re in for rain this afternoon.”

  Nothing.

  “Want to see some pictures of my dogs?”

  Still nothing. Either I hadn’t hit on the right subject, or he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. I looked around the room for something to read. I didn’t see anything.

  The Frigidaire stared at me some more. After a half hour, an inner door floated open, and a long cool woman in a black dress, the kind the Hollies had sung about, beckoned me.

  “This way, please, Mr. Mulligan.”

  I stepped in expecting to meet Max Barber. Instead, I found myself in another waiting room. It held a couch, two easy chairs, and a desk with nothing on it but a laptop and a pair of pink-rimmed eyeglasses. The woman pointed me to a chair, slid behind the desk, stuck the glasses on her nose, and began to type.

  I fidgeted for fifteen minutes until the phone console on the desk beeped. She picked up, said, “Mr. Barber will see you now,” and pointed to an arched doorway behind her.

  I entered a fussy room with polished mahogany paneling, a ten-foot ceiling, a slick hardwood floor, and a buff-and-red oriental rug. The furnishings—overstuffed Victorian sofa and chairs, Tiffany-style lamps, and a large cherrywood desk—looked British, antique, and expensive. The desk was placed in front of a bay window that overlooked snow-choked Marlborough Street. It held a laptop, a green-shaded banker’s lamp, a clothbound ledger, and a jeweler’s loupe.

  The man behind the desk looked to be in his fifties, with a slight paunch, piercing blue eyes, and a mane of coiffed silver hair. He shot French cuffs from the sleeves of a tailored gray suit and pursed his lips. He did not get up to shake my hand. He simply pointed to a chair in front of the desk and said, “Please be seated.”

  I did.

  “So, tell me, Mr. Mulligan. How’s business down in Providence?”

  “Booming. Liquor and electronics come in one door and fly out the other.”

  “I never liked dealing in such merchandise,” he said. “It requires a warehouse, forklifts, trucks, at least a half-dozen employees. An operation like that? It’s too easy for the authorities to locate.” The accent was Boston. Not working-class Boston, I thought. More Harvard than Southie. But there was something off about it.

  “Oh, the cops know where it is,” I said. “They come by every month with their hands out.”

  “If things are as you say, Carmine must be pleased.”

  “You’d think so, but the man is never satisfied.”

  “Greed will do that to a man.”

  “As we both know firsthand.”

  “Indeed. Did you happen to observe the security cameras in the hallways on your way in?”

  I nodded. “Saw the one concealed in the outside light by the front door, too.”

  “I’d like you to view a bit of video we captured a couple of days ago,” he said. He tapped a key on his laptop and spun the screen toward me. “Do you recognize this man?”

  “I do.”

  “What dealings has he had with the organization you represent?”

  “None, as far as I know.”

  “Carmine never purchased anything from him?” The accent sounded practiced, as if he’d learned it for a role in a bad movie about the Kennedys.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said, “but if you like, I can doublecheck when I get back to Providence.”

  “What else can you tell me about this man?”

  “He manages a boat shop on the island of Jamestown.”

  “He’s just the manager? He doesn’t own it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A legitimate business?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Is he known to the police?”

  “He doesn’t have a criminal record, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “But should he?”

  “If he’s broken any laws before, I haven’t heard about it.”

  “Do you think he possesses the wherewithal to have planned the job at the bank?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The stones to walk into the vault with a gun?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Is it possible that he could be a police informant?”

  “I haven’t heard anything to suggest that. Truth is, there’s not much to inform about on Jamestown. It’s a quiet little town.”

  “Until recently,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Barber propped his elbows on the desk and fiddled with the diamond cuff link on his left wrist. “So the bottom line is that you are unable to vouch for his reliability?”

  The l sound. That’s what was off. I casually pulled out my phone, glanced at it as if checking for messages, set it to record, and returned it to my shirt pocket.

  “I can’t swear that he’s reliable,” I said, “but I’m not telling you he isn’t.”

  “I see. In that case, I believe I shall have to decline his proposition. He could be attempting to set me up, and I can’t afford to take the risk.” His th was odd, too.

  “Maybe so,” I said. “But if you were going to buy the swag from him, you’d tell me the same thing.”

  “Mr. Mulligan, our business is concluded.”

  “Just one last thing. May I ask where you grew up?”

  “Why, right here in Boston.”

  Mr. Barber, I thought, that’s the second time you lied to me.

  33
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  I ate an early dinner at JM Curley, a restaurant just off the Boston Common, and then headed home in a rainstorm. As I crossed into Providence on route I-95, I spotted a tail. A silver Toyota Camry this time, two men in the front seats.

  Were Barber’s people following me? More likely, it was McNulty and Vargas again. I turned east toward Massachusetts, shook them in a tangle of country roads in Seekonk and Rehoboth, and got back to Jamestown in time to give Brady and Rondo their dinner.

  Then I sat at the kitchen table, fired up my laptop, and googled experts on accents. There was one at Brown University, a tenured linguistics professor named Chapman with six academic books to his credit and a listed phone number.

  I explained that I was a private detective working on a case, that I wasn’t at liberty to disclose the details, but that I needed his help. “Can you tell what country someone is from by listening to the way he speaks English?”

  “Possibly,” he said. “It depends on a number of factors including how old he was when he left his native country and how much effort, if any, he has put into acquiring one of the regional American accents.”

  “May I have your e-mail address? I’d like to send you a short recording.”

  “How short?”

  “Just four or five sentences.”

  “That may not be enough of a sample, Mr. Mulligan, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

  I thanked him and shot off the e-mail. Twenty minutes later, he called back.

  “The speaker has made a determined effort to master Boston Brahmin, the regional accent associated with upper-class Bostonians. However, it is apparent to me that he lived elsewhere in his youth, at least into his early teens and perhaps into adulthood. For one thing, he struggles a bit with the short i sound, sometimes getting it right and sometimes not. He pronounced the word ‘in’ correctly, but the word risk sounded a bit like ‘reesk.’ He also has difficulty with the letter l, the sound in ‘decline’ and ‘concluded’ formed by pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth instead of his front teeth. I also noticed that his pronunciation of the word ‘that’ has a hint of the letter z in it, coming out halfway between ‘that’ and ‘zat.’ The anomalies are slight, barely detectible to the trained ear, but they are definitely present.”

  “And what does this tell you?”