23

The next morning DeMarco woke up at nine. His ribs were sore from the exertion of beating on the McNultys, but otherwise he felt good. In fact, he felt great. He went to the hotel restaurant and had a big breakfast of bacon, toast, and a vegetable-filled omelet. It occurred to him that about the only time he ate vegetables was when they were in omelets and pizzas—and he wasn’t sure that counted.

While waiting for his breakfast to arrive, he decided to check on Elinore to see if her condition had improved. He figured by now that Elinore’s daughter would have moved her from Mass General to an assisted-living facility in Portsmouth as she’d said she was going to do. But since he didn’t know which facility she might be in, he called Maggie Dolan and asked her to use the interns to find Elinore.

“You’re a pain in the ass, DeMarco,” Maggie said.

“And you’re an angel, Maggie,” DeMarco said.

He ate his breakfast and read the Globe as he waited to hear back from Maggie. He skipped over all the misery on the front page and flipped to the sports section. The Nationals were three games out of first place in the National League East, still in a good position to win the division. The Wizards were getting a seven-foot-two Ukrainian to replace their aging big man, also good.

His phone rang. It was one of Maggie’s hotshots, this time a boy. The kid informed him that Elinore was currently in a facility called Glendale in Portsmouth. DeMarco called Glendale and told the woman who answered that he was Ms. Dobbs’s nephew. He said that since he lived in Texas, he couldn’t just drive over and see her, but his mom had said that Aunt Elinore wasn’t doing so good, and he was just calling to check on her.

Whoever answered the phone said she didn’t know who Elinore Dobbs was but to give her a moment. Five minutes later a different woman came on the line and said she was the nurse on duty. “I’m just calling to see how Elinore’s doing,” DeMarco said, and again explained his fictitious relationship to Elinore, figuring the staff would be more likely to talk to a relative about her medical condition.

“Well, you know,” the nurse said.

Jesus. “No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling. I know she had a subdural hematoma and it affected her memory but the doctor said she might improve with time.”

“I’m sorry, but she hasn’t. She spends most of the day sitting in a chair looking out the window. She’s afraid to go outside and when we try to get her to go out, she gets agitated. She’s easily confused by simple things like what dessert she would like or what to wear. Her short-term memory is not good at all. She can’t remember my name and the other day she didn’t remember her daughter’s name when her daughter came to visit. All I can tell you is she presents with dementia and so far we don’t see any sign of improvement.”

“Aw, jeez,” DeMarco said.

“But it hasn’t been that long since her injury, so there’s hope,” the nurse said, although to DeMarco it didn’t sound as if the nurse was all that hopeful.

DeMarco thanked the nurse and hung up. He now had all the motivation he needed when it came to Sean Callahan.

DeMarco hadn’t yet told Mahoney what he’d learned about Sean Callahan’s relationship to the former leader of a Mexican drug cartel. He also needed to learn more about Javier Castro, and Mahoney could help in this regard. Naturally when he called Mahoney, Mahoney wasn’t available, so he told Mahoney’s secretary to have the great man call him as soon as possible.

He returned to his room to wait for Mahoney’s call. As he waited, he thought about Castro. A guy like him probably didn’t send two morons with fish bats to kill you if you pissed him off. He remembered this one episode of the television show Breaking Bad, the show about a high school chemistry teacher who became a meth dealer working for a drug cartel. In the episode, Javier Castro’s fictional counterpart cut the head off a DEA informant named Tortuga then glued Tortuga’s head to a turtle’s shell. The next scene showed the head moving, low to the ground, through desert foliage, as the turtle walked slowly toward the U.S. border, where a passel of confused DEA agents were waiting.

DeMarco did not want to end up with his head glued to a turtle’s shell.

His cell phone rang. It was Mahoney, and the first words out of his mouth were: “How’s Elinore doing?”

“Not good,” DeMarco said, and relayed to Mahoney what the nurse at the assisted-living place had said.

Mahoney’s response was: “Son of a bitch.” After a brief pause, he said, “You figure this out, Joe. I’m not going to let Callahan walk away with a smile on his face, and the fifty grand you forced him to cough up to get the McNultys is the equivalent of a parking ticket for a guy like him. A parking ticket isn’t good enough. Not for me.”

DeMarco almost told Mahoney then about what had transpired with the McNultys the night before, how the last time he’d seen them they were being carried to an ambulance and would soon be back in jail awaiting trial. Then he decided that wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have on a cell phone.

“The reason I called, boss, was to tell you what I learned about Callahan from his ex-wife.” He paused. “One of the investors in Delaney Square is a guy named Javier Castro who ran, or maybe still runs, a Mexican drug cartel.”

“You’re shittin’ me!” Mahoney said.

“Nope,” DeMarco said, and he relayed the story of how Callahan had met Castro when Callahan and his ex took a vacation to Mexico.

“So what are you thinking?” Mahoney said. “We get Treasury or the DEA involved and use them to prove that Callahan’s laundering money for this cartel?”

“No, I think that’ll be way too complicated and time consuming, and maybe even futile. I’m guessing Javier Castro is no virgin when it comes to money laundering.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But there has to be some way to use this information.”

“Well, you figure it out.”

“I will,” DeMarco said. “But I need to know more about Castro.” The only thing that Adele Tomlin had told him was that Castro was handsome and had lovely manners. DeMarco suspected that you didn’t become a kingpin in the drug business by saying please and thank you. “I was hoping you could get someone in the DEA to talk to me about him.”

“Aw, for crying out loud,” Mahoney said, like making a couple of phone calls was going to kill him.

Another hour passed while DeMarco watched morning television talk shows in his room because he couldn’t find anything better to watch. How in the hell can people watch this drivel every day, he wondered. His cell phone rang again.

“This is Bill Wilson, San Diego DEA. I was told to give you a call.”

“Thanks. I need some background on Javier Castro.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was told. But why?”

“Did the guy who told you to call me tell you to ask questions, or did he tell you to help me because I work for a big shot who can be a major pain in the ass?”

Wilson hesitated. “He told me to help you.”

“Okay, then. What can you tell me about Castro?”

“Right now, as far as we know, Castro’s an upstanding citizen. He probably made about a billion dollars dealing drugs—”

“A billion?” DeMarco said. “Really?”

“Last year the Mexican cartels made over twenty-two billion. So do I know for sure that Javier Castro’s a billionaire? The answer’s no. It’s not like his books are open to the public. But I do know that he made a hell of a lot of money and a billion wouldn’t be out of line. Anyway, about five years ago, Castro turned his operation over to a cousin, a guy who’s a total psycho, and now Castro’s completely legit.”

“Yeah, but what kind of guy is he?”

“He ran a drug cartel. What kind of guy do you think he is? He got into the business when he was about seventeen like most of these guys do because his family was poor and he didn’t have any education. He probably figured he could either be a drug dealer in Mexico or a strawberry picker in California. So he went to work for a guy named Guerrero, and he did what all the young guys do. He snuck drugs across the border, collected money, protected Guerrero from other cartels, and killed people Guerrero wanted killed. By the time he was twenty-five, he was one of Guerrero’s top guys, Guerrero obviously recognizing that he was smarter than most of the mutts who worked for him. Then, when he was thirty-four, he whacked Guerrero and became the guy in charge. We figured in four or five years, someone would come along and whack him, either one of his own people or another cartel. But that’s when we learned he was different.”

“Different how?” DeMarco asked.

“Castro is one of those rare drug dealers who asks the question: When is enough enough? He didn’t try to expand his empire. He just protected what he had because he figured out that he was making more money than he was ever going to be able to spend. So he formed alliances with the other cartels when he could to avoid turf wars. He didn’t allow his guys to massacre people in tourist spots because he knew that would just piss the government off, plus he had investments in the tourist spots. The other thing he did was educate himself. It was too late for him to go back to school so he brought in tutors, learned to speak English, and basically earned an MBA so he could figure out what to do with all his money. Then, very gradually, he backed away from the cartel. He put his cousin in charge, paid off the right politicians so the federales would leave him alone, and became just another wealthy Mexican living off his investments. You asked me what kind of guy he is. Well, I guess I’d say the main thing about him is that he’s analytical.”

“Analytical?”

“Yeah. He thinks before he does things. He doesn’t get emotional. He’ll kill somebody if he has to, but only if he has to. He’s got an ego but he doesn’t allow his ego to make him do stupid things. But I’ll tell you one thing. He might not run the cartel anymore, but if you piss him off, he’ll cut your heart out.”

“I guess that’s better than getting my head glued to a turtle,” ­DeMarco said.

“What?” Wilson said.

DeMarco called Adele Tomlin, the second Mrs. Callahan. “I need to talk to Javier Castro. Do you have any idea where he might be right now?”

“He could be in any number of places. He spends most of his time in Mexico City but he also has property in Veracruz and Oaxaca. And the last time I saw Danielle, she said he was buying a place in Switzerland. But if I had to guess, I’d say he’s most likely in Mexico City.”

DeMarco did not want to go to Mexico to talk to Javier Castro.

“I was thinking,” DeMarco said. “Since you’re such good friends with Danielle, maybe you could call her up and chat with her, see how she’s doing, that sort of thing, and find out where her husband is.”

Adele hesitated. “When I told you Javier had invested money in Delaney Square, I’d had a few drinks. Plus, I was pissed at Sean—I’m always pissed at Sean—and wanted to help you find a way to hurt him. But I don’t want Javier to know that I talked to you about him. Javier and Danielle are my friends but—”

“Yeah, I understand. Javier’s not a guy you’d want to irritate. And Javier will never find out you talked to me. I have connections in the government, Adele, and those people have also talked to me. In fact, I just got off the phone with a DEA agent in San Diego. So do you think you can find out where Javier is right now?”

“Why don’t you use your government connections to find him?”

“I could, but that will take time. It’ll be easier and faster if you just call his wife.” When Adele didn’t respond immediately, DeMarco tried to think of some way to diplomatically say: Hey, Adele, your ex dropped you for a younger woman and if you want to get back at him, give me a hand here.

But before he could think of a way to phrase that sentiment differently, Adele said, “Okay, I’ll give Danielle a call.”

Forty minutes later Adele called back.

“Javier’s in Mexico City, like I thought,” she said. “But guess what? Danielle is coming to New York next week to see her daughter. She just finished some student film project and Danielle’s coming to see the show, the screening, whatever you call it. Anyway, she’ll be staying with her daughter next week, and I just might go down to see her. I’m glad you asked me to call her.”

DeMarco didn’t care where Danielle Castro was going to be next week. It was Javier he needed to talk to.

“Thanks, Adele. Oh, do you happen to have Castro’s address in Mexico City?”

“Sure. I send them a Christmas card every year. Hang on a minute. I’ll get it. By the way, do you think you might be coming out to the Cape again soon?”

DeMarco now had Javier Castro’s address but he really didn’t want to travel to Mexico to talk to the man; that would be like walking into a lion’s den and poking the lion with a stick. So since he had another card to play with the McNultys, he decided to play it. If the McNultys refused to cooperate, then he’d go see Castro. Maybe.

He called his pal Detective Fitzgerald and like a true pal, Fitzgerald said, “What the hell do you want now?”

“I want to talk to the McNultys. Where are they?”

“The Essex County jail up in Middleton, the same place they put the marathon bomber before his trial.”

“How far is the jail from Boston?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Good. I want to talk to them. Can you arrange that?”

“Why?”

“I want them to testify against Sean Callahan. I want them to admit that he paid them to kill Elinore Dobbs.”

“Why would they do that?” Fitzgerald said. “Right now they’re in jail for possessing guns, not attempted murder.”

“But if I can guarantee they’ll serve less time on the gun charge, that they’ll get immunity for hurting Elinore, and that I’ll refuse to testify that they assaulted me in Rhode Island, then maybe they’ll be willing to testify against Callahan.”

“Do you have the authority to make that kind of deal? I mean, did I miss the part where you became a federal prosecutor?”

“No, you didn’t miss that part. But I know a guy who might be able to get the Justice Department to cooperate.”

“Yeah, I know you do. The only reason I’m even talking to you is because of the guy you know.”

“So can you set it up so I can meet with them?”

“Yeah, all right, I’ll make a call,” Fitzgerald said, sounding just like Mahoney, like a phone call was going to break his back.

DeMarco met with the McNultys in an interview room at the Essex County jail. They were wearing white T-shirts, blue jeans, and flip-flops. To his delight, they looked like somebody had beaten the shit out of them, Ray looking much worse than Roy, and much worse than DeMarco had looked after they stomped him in the parking garage. Both of his eyes were black, and he had a bandage over his nose and stitches on his forehead. With the two black eyes, he looked like an angry, not-too-bright raccoon. Roy didn’t have any visible marks on him—DeMarco had hit him on top of the head and on the chin—but his eyes looked glazed and he seemed to be having a hard time focusing. To DeMarco’s relief, they were handcuffed and the handcuffs were attached to big eyebolts in the center of a table and the table was anchored to the floor with more bolts.

“What do you want?” Ray McNulty said. “If we didn’t have these cuffs on we’d beat you to death.”

“You saw how well that worked out for you last time,” DeMarco said.

“Fuck you,” Roy said.

“What do you want?” Ray said again.

“I got a deal for you,” DeMarco said. “I want you to testify that Sean Callahan paid you to kill Elinore Dobbs.”

“We didn’t have anything to do with that old broad getting hurt.”

“Ray, you’re going to get at least ten years in prison for the assault weapons charge. Then you’re also going to be convicted for trying to kill me in Rhode Island, which means even more time. Do you think Sean Callahan would do that kind of time for you?”

“We ain’t rats,” Roy said.

“If we admitted we had anything to do with that old bitch,” Ray said, “the government will pile an attempted murder charge on top of the weapons charge. And as for us assaulting you, it’s just your word against ours. You think we’re stupid?”

“Yeah, I do think you’re stupid because you’re not listening to me. If you’ll agree to testify against Callahan, I’ll work out a deal for you so you get immunity for what you did to Elinore, I won’t testify against you for assaulting me in Rhode Island, and you’ll get less time for the weapons charge. You’re not going to get off scot-free but instead of doing ten years, maybe you’ll do five.”

“We ain’t rats,” Roy said again, which so far had been his only contribution to the conversation. DeMarco may have hit Roy too hard with his potato sap.

“Are you shitting me?” DeMarco said. “You think you’re Mafia guys who took some kind of omertà oath? Well, I got news for you. Even Mafia guys don’t believe in omertà. They all rat each other out.”

“We ain’t rattin’ anyone out,” Roy said. “And we don’t trust your slick ass.”

DeMarco certainly couldn’t blame them for not trusting him.

“We’re going to do our time,” Ray said, “and when we get out, we’re going to hunt you down and kill you.”

This was hopeless.

DeMarco drove back to Boston, still unable to believe that the ­McNultys wouldn’t take the deal. They were stubborn, stupid fools but for God knows what reason loyal to Callahan. Or maybe it wasn’t loyalty. Maybe they just didn’t trust him like Roy had said, and thought he was playing them in some way. Whatever the case, he was now going to have to go to Mexico to meet with Javier Castro. He could call the guy, but he didn’t think a phone call would have the same impact as a face-to-face meeting. But going to Mexico . . .

DeMarco’s impression of Mexico was that the country was lawless. The police were either corrupt or incompetent, and the drug cartels appeared to act with total impunity. He didn’t know how many articles he’d read about cartels slaughtering anyone who opposed them, no matter who they were. The last major atrocity he’d read about concerned forty-three college students who’d disappeared, and it took the Mexican cops months to figure out that their bodies had been incinerated by one of the cartels for reasons that never made any sense. How hard would it be to make one American disappear?

DeMarco made a reservation on Delta that left Boston at six the next morning and would arrive in Mexico City about noon. To find a hotel, he looked up the address Adele Tomlin had given him for Castro on Google Maps, and made a reservation at a nearby Marriott. The helpful elves at Google also informed him that Castro lived in an upscale area of Mexico City called Polanco in the Miguel Hidalgo borough, and that some of the wealthiest families in the city lived there.

Travel arrangements complete, he went to the lobby, copied down the number of one of the pay phones there, then called Mahoney. He was surprised when Mahoney answered his cell phone. He expected he’d need to leave a message and then have to wait around until Mahoney called him back.

“You need to go find a pay phone,” DeMarco said, not knowing how long that would take. The disappearance of pay phones in the last few years made this sort of skullduggery more difficult. “I need to tell you something and I don’t want to do it over a cell phone. Call me at this number,” he said, and read him off the number of the hotel pay phone. He thought it pretty unlikely that anyone would be monitoring Mahoney’s phones, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Mahoney, with a minimal amount of complaining, agreed and fifteen minutes later called DeMarco back.

“I’m planning to fly to Mexico tomorrow to meet with Javier Castro.”

“Why would you do that?” Mahoney said.

“I’m going to threaten him with the fearsome might of the U.S. government if he doesn’t help me screw Sean Callahan.” Then DeMarco explained what he had in mind and when he was finished, Mahoney said, “You think it’s a good idea, blackmailing a guy who used to run a drug cartel?”

“No, I think it’s a really bad idea but you’re the one who said that forcing fifty grand out of Callahan to set up the McNultys wasn’t good enough. You said, and I quote, that it was like giving him a parking ticket. So if Castro does what I want, Callahan’s not getting a parking ticket. He’s going to go bankrupt.”

“Yeah, but still,” Mahoney said. “You remember, just a year ago, some cartel kidnapped a DEA undercover down there? They flayed all the skin off him before they killed him. Those people are nuts.”

That was just what he needed to hear. “So what do you want me to do?” DeMarco said. “Give Callahan a pass for what he did to Elinore and let him make however many millions he’s going to make off Delaney Square?”

“No,” Mahoney said. “I’m just saying you better be careful down there.”

Ya think?

“I will, but I doubt Castro’s going to do anything to a guy who works for an American congressman,” DeMarco said, although he wasn’t really sure that was true. “But that’s one of the reasons I called you. If you don’t hear from me in a couple of days . . . Well, call somebody.”

After talking to Mahoney, he decided to go have an expensive steak dinner in the hotel dining room. He couldn’t help but think of it as the last meal for a condemned man. Following dinner, which was excellent, he headed over to the bar to have a nightcap or two. Or three. He took a seat at the bar and looked around, and lo and behold, there was a woman there who looked like the actress Amy Adams.

DeMarco would never have admitted it to anyone, but he had a thing for Amy Adams. She had one of those sweet, virginal faces and early in her career she’d played the enchanted princess and the plucky but pure girl next door. But as Amy grew older—she was about forty now—she started taking parts that showed off her edgy sexy side, which DeMarco liked.

There was a romance writers’ convention taking place at the hotel. He’d seen a sign in the lobby when he got back from visiting the ­McNultys, and on the sign were photos of a couple of authors he’d never heard of. DeMarco had never read a romance novel in his life, but he’d seen the ripped-bodice book jackets and figured a romance writer’s head would be filled with sexual fantasies. Or maybe better than fantasies, actual hands-on experience the writer could draw upon.

The woman he was looking at had long red hair, like Amy’s hair in that movie where she played a con man’s hot mistress. She was sitting at a table with three other women and DeMarco assumed they were all romance writers. The other women were frumpy-looking, overweight, and in their fifties or sixties, and DeMarco was fairly sure they all relied on strong imaginations when it came to their books rather than recent sexual experience. But the Amy look-alike . . . She was cute—short and curvy. She’d noticed DeMarco looking at her, made eye contact with him, and flashed him a smile—which made DeMarco think here was this writer, far from home, in a setting where she could go a little wild, and maybe do some hands-on research on him.

As DeMarco was trying to devise a way to separate Amy from her friends, she again looked over at him, then nudged the woman sitting next to her, a hefty lady in her fifties with long gray hair and no makeup. The other woman looked at DeMarco, said something to Amy, then both women rose from the table where they were sitting and walked toward him.

“Hi, my name is Madeline Cummings,” Amy said. “And this is my writing partner, Janice Brooks. We wondered if you’d allow us to take your picture.”

“My picture?” DeMarco said.

“Yes. I know this is going to sound odd, but there’s this villain in the book we’re currently writing and when I saw your face, I said to myself: That’s Bruno! Our villain! You see, it really helps us capture the characters in our books, particularly the main ones, if we have an actual person in mind. So would you mind, terribly, if I took your picture?”

“I’ve got the face of your villain?” DeMarco said.

“Well, yes. I mean, you’re sort of hard-looking,” Madeline said.

“Sort of gangster-looking,” Janice said.

“Sort of menacing,” Madeline said.

“Sort of brutal,” Janice said.

“Brutal?” DeMarco said.

“No offense intended,” Madeline said. “I’m sure you’re a very nice man but you have this face that . . . Well, you’re our Bruno.”

Come to think of it, up close, she didn’t look so much like Amy Adams. In fact, she didn’t look at all like Amy Adams. Her eyes were too close together and her nose was kind of fat.

“Uh, sure, snap away,” DeMarco said.

Madeline—definitely not Amy—framed DeMarco’s face in her smart phone, took a picture. Then she said, “Just one more,” and took another.

“Thank you so, so much,” Madeline said.

“No problem,” DeMarco said.

They went back to their table and DeMarco looked at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. What a bunch of bullshit. He didn’t look “menacing,” whatever the hell that meant, and he sure as hell didn’t look brutal. He decided to go find another bar to drink in, someplace not filled with a bunch of screwball writers. Then tomorrow he’d fly to Mexico and threaten a guy who used to run a drug cartel.