A Scourge of Vipers Page 8

  Parisi tended to be tight-lipped with the press, usually taking at least five seconds, and often more, to frame cautious responses to my questions. I’d learned to wait him out.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You’re still driving that piece of crap?”

  “Stop it,” I said. “You’re eroding Secretariat’s self-esteem.”

  “Only women and assholes name their cars.”

  “You left out vigilant watchdogs of the fourth estate.”

  “Like I said. Assholes.”

  “So how’s the Alfano investigation going?” I asked.

  Five seconds, and then, “What Alfano investigation?”

  “The one about him offering bribes to public officials.”

  Another pause. “Bribes? Where’d you hear that?”

  “Some of the people who talked to you have been talking to me.”

  Five seconds again, and then, “Alfano’s dead.”

  “I know that. It was in the paper.”

  “So any investigation, and I’m not confirming there was one, would be dead now, too.”

  “You’re not curious about who he was working for?”

  Ten seconds this time. “Do you know?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “If you find out, be sure to let me know,” he said, and started to roll up his window.

  “Hold on,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Besides the five names on Alfano’s list, did he offer bribes to anyone else?”

  Five seconds. “What list?”

  “The one Oscar Hernandez showed you.”

  Ten seconds. “Off the record?”

  “Sure.”

  “If such a list exists, and I’m not confirming that it does, there could be reason to suspect it is not complete.”

  “How incomplete is it?”

  Five seconds. “Hard to say.”

  “Come on, Captain. Give me something to go on.”

  Twelve seconds this time. “I don’t know what I don’t know. Could be a lot of others. Could be just one or two.”

  “Meaning there’s at least one more for sure?”

  Five seconds. “If I were in your position, that would be my assumption.”

  Parisi wasn’t giving me much to go on, but I was betting this meant McCracken’s client, whose name was not on the list, had taken the P.I.’s advice and called the state police.

  “Can you lighten up and give me the damned names?”

  There was no delay this time.

  “Get that broken headlight fixed,” he said, “or next time I’m going to give you a ticket. Oh, and when you see Hernandez, tell him I said he’s got a big fucking mouth.”

  With that, he cranked the ignition and peeled out of the lot.

  Not bad for Parisi, I thought. He’d tossed me a morsel and suggested there might be a next time.

  I was on my way back to Providence when the cell phone played my ringtone for Chuckie-boy. I ignored it. He kept calling. Finally, I pulled over in a KFC parking lot and picked up.

  “Mulligan.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “At the doctor. I’ve had a relapse. Looks like I came back to work too soon.”

  “Bullshit. Get your butt back here right now.”

  “I don’t think so, Chuckie. The doc says I need to go home and lie down. You don’t want me too weak to try out for the Vipers on Saturday, do you?”

  “I’m going to need a doctor’s note.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  Doc Israel was a fan. A few months back, he’d given me a short stack of his stationery for just such eventualities.

  14

  The men in mismatched T–shirts and basketball shorts lined up single file along the sideline so Coach Derrick Martin and his two assistants could look us over. By my headcount, there were sixty-two of us, and we were mostly a sorry lot.

  There was Ruben Mendoza, a twenty-five-year-old Providence playground legend with what looked like needle tracks on his arms. And Butch Bowditch, a slow-footed center who’d packed on twenty pounds of fat since his graduation from Brown University two years ago. And Chris Sears, an All–Big East shooting guard who’d been cut from the PC squad last December after getting caught stealing laptops from dorm rooms for the third time. And the unfortunately named Freddie Krueger, a former URI power forward who might have been drafted in the second round two years ago if he hadn’t torn his ACL to shreds in a snowboarding accident. And Marvin Benton, a dazzling former PC point guard who’d been ignored in last year’s draft because he was only five foot eight. And twenty-year-old Keenan Jefferson, so dominating at Hope High that he was being compared to Kevin Durant until he dropped out two years ago to marry his pregnant girlfriend and take a job slinging burgers.

  Earlier, as I laced my Nike All Stars, I watched Krueger strap a brace on his surgically repaired knee while Sears prowled the overcrowded locker room and talked trash.

  “You ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of has-beens and never-weres. I’m gonna burn the lot of ya.” Then he spotted me and snarled, “And what the fuck are you doin’ here, grandpa?”

  I grinned, peeled off my white T-shirt, and printed “GRANDPA” on the back with a Sharpie. I still figured the tryout was a sham, but I wished all of them but Sears good luck. Jefferson, the kid who’d tried to do the right thing by his girl, was the one I’d be rooting for the hardest.

  As we stood on the sidelines, I stared up at 12,993 empty seats and remembered how, on those rare occasions when I got off the bench for PC, every one of them had been filled.

  Coach Martin and his two assistants were strutting down the line like drill sergeants now, giving each of us the once-over. When they reached me, Martin smirked and said, “I hear they’re calling you grandpa.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I kinda like it.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go on home, old-timer? Maybe fix yourself some warm milk and take a nap?”

  The others laughed. I joined in. Then I broke the line, ambled over to the two carts that held the basketballs, picked one up, squared myself to the basket, and swished a thirty-foot jump shot.

  “Beginner’s luck,” Sears growled.

  I smiled and kept shooting until I emptied both carts. Sixteen of twenty hit nothing but net.

  “Great form,” Martin said. “Any of you other wannabes think you can match that? No? Okay then. Break off into groups of five for suicides. Six times down and back.”

  A basketball court is ninety-four feet long. Six times down and back meant a sprint of more than eleven hundred feet. I finished next to last in my group, well ahead of Bowditch, who jogged the last two laps. I was winded and drenched in sweat, but not bending over and gasping for breath like some of the others.

  When we were done, the coaches lined us up again, asked Bowditch, Mendoza, and sixteen others to take one step forward, and told them to go home.

  We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon on standard basketball drills: the four-spot fast break shooting drill, the elbow shooting drill, the post feed/spot up drill, and the wing screen. The guys who’d played college ball mostly did okay. The unschooled playground legends struggled.

  Shortly after one P.M., they lined us up on the sidelines again, told another twenty-four that they were done, and asked the remaining twenty of us, including Sears, Krueger, Benton, and Jefferson, to come back the following Saturday.

  As the exhausted winners and losers trudged to the locker room, I pulled Martin aside.

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Because the fix is in. The ownership is desperate for publicity, so you were gonna stick no matter what. Now that I’ve seen what you can do, I might have kept you around anyway. You’re slow, you can’t jump, and you couldn’t guard Danny DeVito if he played in a wheelchair. But your shooting form reminds me of Ray Allen. Think you can teach the rest of these clowns the proper way to stick a jump shot?”

  15

  “Fiona? It’s Mulligan.�
�

  “Huh? What time is it?”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock Sunday morning. Why aren’t you in church?”

  “I attended midnight mass.”

  “Are you alert enough to answer a question, or should I call back?”

  “Give me a sec.”

  I heard her drop the phone and rustle around for half a minute. Then she was back.

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Remember telling me that a couple of committee chairmen knew about the gambling bill before the news leaked?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Guys who weren’t on Alfano’s list?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Phil Templeton and Joseph Longo.” Templeton, I knew, was the chairman of the House Corporations Committee, and Longo headed the Senate Finance Committee. “They’re my point men on this,” Fiona was saying. “I’m counting on them to line up support, make the necessary horse trades, and count the votes so we can drive the bill through the legislature.”

  “I need to talk to them.”

  “About what?”

  “Alfano.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he might have tried to bribe them, too.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “No.”

  “The legislature is in recess now,” she said, “but you can find Longo at home in Bristol or in his office at Bayside Construction.”

  “What about Templeton?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got something I need to run by him; but his cell goes straight to voice mail, and he’s not answering his home phone either.”

  “He’s a bachelor, isn’t he?”

  “He’s gay.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” I said.

  “He’s not exactly in the closet,” Fiona said, “but he’s private about his personal life. Far as I know, he lives alone.”

  “Any idea at all where he might be?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, I parked Secretariat at the curb outside McCracken’s condo and punched his number into my cell phone.

  “Hey, Mulligan. What’s up?”

  “It’s a glorious spring afternoon. How about taking a drive with me?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To visit your client—the one you advised to go to the state police about Alfano.”

  “You figured out who it is?”

  “I’ve got it narrowed down to two, and I’m right outside.”

  “Aw, hell. Sit tight. I’ll be right out.”

  Five minutes later, he lumbered through his front door in a Red Sox T-shirt and cap that matched my own and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “It’s Longo or Templeton,” I said. “You could save us both time by telling me which one.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m a still stickler for client confidentiality.”

  I smirked and cranked the ignition. Secretariat sputtered to life and galloped south on Route 114.

  “Any news about the airport surveillance video yet?” I asked.

  “No, but I might have something for you later this week.”

  Longo lived in a McMansion in Bristol Highlands, a fashionable neighborhood that abuts Colt State Park. He answered the door in a sky-blue Nike sweatsuit, looked me up and down, and growled, “Oh my God, it’s the press!” Then he laughed heartily, ushered us in, and said, “And who might this be? Your photographer?”

  I made the introductions. From the looks on their faces as they shook hands, I was pretty sure Longo and McCracken hadn’t met before.

  “So, what brings you two out here on a Sunday afternoon?” Longo asked.

  “The gambling bill,” I said.

  “Sorry. Can’t help you with that. I don’t mean to be uncooperative, but anything I might say on that subject would be premature. The governor hasn’t even sent it to the legislature yet.”

  “I understand that,” I said, “but perhaps you can tell me if you recognize this man.”

  I showed him the photo on my cell phone. He studied it for a moment, frowned, and said, “Please come this way.”

  He led us down a gleaming, porcelain-tiled hallway that emptied into a sunny family room with a view of a tulip bed and a kidney-shaped swimming pool. He waved us into a black leather sofa, turned the sound down on a seventy-two-inch flatscreen tuned to the Red Sox–Orioles game, and seated himself across from us in a matching recliner.

  “I take it you already know something about this, or you wouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “The scuttlebutt around town is that you’ve got a high-ranking source at state police headquarters. Is that where you’re getting your information?”

  Parisi hadn’t told me much, but I figured it was best to let Longo think otherwise.

  “You told the state cops about Lucan Alfano’s bribe offer,” I bluffed. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Lucan Alfano?” he said.

  “The man in the photo.”

  “The greasy bastard didn’t give me his name.”

  “But you recognized the picture?”

  Longo hesitated. “Can we go off the record?” he asked.

  “If you insist.”

  “I do.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “In that case, yeah.”

  “He offered you a bribe to hold up the gambling bill until the governor agrees to turn sports betting over to private enterprise. Is that right?”

  “He did.”

  “Did he specify who he had in mind to run things?” McCracken asked.

  “He did not. He said he’d let me know who to throw my weight behind when the time came.”

  “Can you confirm the amount of the bribe offer?” I asked.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars. But if the people he represented got the contract, he’d slip me another twenty-five on the back end.”

  “How did he approach you?” McCracken asked.

  “He walked into my company unannounced and placed several bundles of bills on my desk.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “He told me what the money was for and threatened me when I declined to accept it.”

  “How did he word the threat, exactly?” McCracken asked.

  “He said things would go badly for me if I didn’t agree to his proposition.”

  “Clever,” the P.I. said. “It could be explained away as a warning that things could go badly politically.”

  “Yes, but I’m sure that’s not how he meant it,” Longo said. “From his tone of voice and the look on his face, I took it as a threat to do bodily harm.”

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “I told him to leave, and I called the state police. I spoke to someone in the detective division. I forget the name. But a couple of hours later, Captain Parisi arrived to take my statement.”

  “Are you aware of anyone else getting similar bribe offers?” I asked.

  “No, but I have my suspicions.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “A few weeks after I met with—what was that name again? Albano?”

  “Alfano.”

  “A few weeks later—it was after that website broke the news about the bill—a couple of legislators who initially voiced support for the governor changed their positions. Suddenly they were insisting that sports gambling should be privatized.”

  “Can you tell me their names?” I asked.

  “I’d rather not. They could have had legitimate reasons for changing their minds. I’m not one to publicly cast aspersions that I can’t prove.”

  “Did you tell Parisi about your suspicions?” I asked.

  “Somewhat hesitantly, but yes. It seemed to me it was something he should look into.”

  With that, we thanked him, and he led us to the door.

  “He was helpful,” McCracken sai
d as we settled into the Bronco.

  “He was.”

  “So I guess we’re going to go see my client now, huh?” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “Fine,” he said, “but can we grab an early dinner first?”

  We drove back north on 114 and stopped at Jack’s on Child Street in Warren for clam chowder, littlenecks, and beverages. As one Killian’s led to another, and then to several more, the conversation turned to my possible future as a McCracken & Associates operative. By the time McCracken ponied up for the tab, the sun was setting, and a steady rain had begun to fall.

  * * *

  Phil Templeton lived in a raised ranch on Pace Court in Lincoln, just a few miles from the North Central State Airport. I parked the Bronco in a turnaround at the end of the cul-de-sac and took a moment to study the dark house. Then I fetched my flashlight from the glove box, and together McCracken and I splashed up the flagstone walk.

  McCracken rang the bell, then spotted jimmy marks on the front door. He nudged it open with his shoe, and we stepped into the foyer.

  “Mr. Templeton?” he called out. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

  We crept down a short hallway, and I swept the flashlight beam over the living room. The coffee table had been knocked over. Shards from a broken carafe and a shattered wineglass or two sparkled against a red stain on the hardwood floor.

  “Blood?” I asked.

  McCracken dropped to one knee, slid a cheap ballpoint from his pocket, and scraped the end of it against the stain. Then he raised the pen to his nose and sniffed.

  “Wine, I think.”

  He rose and slid the Glock from his shoulder holster. I tugged the Kel-Tec from my waistband. Together, we prowled the house.

  The other six rooms were dark and empty. Upstairs, we found Templeton’s home office, a computer humming on his keyhole desk. McCracken pulled on a pair of latex gloves and tapped a key. The screen came to life. He took several minutes to search the legislator’s e-mail but found nothing of interest.