William Rule tightened his tie and slipped into the gray suit jacket that his servant held behind him.
“Will you be needing the car today?” asked the servant, who was also his bodyguard.
“No, Edward. It’s a beautiful day. We’ll walk.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll wait outside.” Edward spoke very softly and seemed slightly backward, but his loyalty to William Rule was unquestioning and he stood at six feet four.
Rule went into the kitchen, where his third wife was sipping coffee. She was sitting by an open window, and the breeze was carrying the smell of salt air through the house. He came up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and kissed her on the back of the neck. She tilted her head back, and he kissed her on the cheek.
“Good morning, Ruley,” she purred.
“Hello, babe,” he said softly. “Have your suit on and have the boat gassed up. I’m taking the afternoon off.”
She rested her head against his chest. “I’ll have champagne on ice.”
Rule laughed. “Not so fast, babe. Champagne next weekend.”
“You’ve waited a long time for this, Ruley.”
“I can wait a little longer before I start poppin’ corks all over town.” He lowered his voice and spoke with mock disappointment. “For today, I’ll have to be happy with poppin’ you in the boat.”
“And that’s too good for you, you son of a bitch.”
Rule laughed merrily and headed for the door. “See you at noon.”
“Ruley,” she said seriously, “stay cool. Don’t let them get to you.”
“I’ve got them by the short hairs, babe. If there’s any gettin’ to be done, I’ll be doin’ it.”
William Rule was thirty years older than his wife. He had picked her out of a Las Vegas chorus line one night when he was in the mood for a brunette, and she had stayed. She was one more symbol of his success, another beautiful possession, like the Lewis Wharf condominium where they lived, the cabin cruiser moored at their front step, the Rolls-Royce, and the Atlantic Avenue offices of William Rule Imports, Inc.
Rule walked out of his building and gazed across the harbor. When he had first come to work on the waterfront in 1938, Lewis Wharf had been a rundown row of warehouses and shipping offices, a remnant of Boston’s former greatness. Today, it was part of the renewed city and the home of some of Boston’s richest citizens.
Life had been good to William Rule in the last twenty-five years, and the sun felt warm on his face. Everything he owned he had earned himself in his climb from the tenements of the South End to the top of the business world. Beneath the Brooks Brothers suit was the body of a longshoreman, and beneath the black toupee were the heavy features of a Slavic immigrant. But his face showed little of his struggle. He had enjoyed success, savoring his women, his boats, and today, his walk across town.
Philip Pratt and Mr. Soames arrived at the home offices of Pratt Industries fifteen minutes before Rule. After the red-eye special from Los Angeles, Pratt needed a shower, a change of clothes, and a cup of coffee. He wanted to appear rested and relaxed when Rule arrived. His father always told him that the key to success in business was “Look your best and imagine that your adversary is dressed in paisley boxer shorts, dirty T-shirt, and nothing more.” Philip Pratt had extended the axiom to every relationship in his life.
As he strolled with Edward across the Public Garden, Rule could admire the Pratt Building on the corner of Arlington Street and Commonwealth Avenue. Five stories of gray sandstone in the French Empire style, one of the first buildings erected in the Back Bay in the 1860s, it was the perfect home for a venerable Boston corporation. From out of that august structure, the tentacles of Pratt Industries spread into electronics, engineering, chemical production, real estate, and entertainment, and William Rule was about to control it all.
The Pratt Industries sign in front of the building was smaller than a doctor’s shingle and so overgrown by shrubbery that it was barely visible from the street. The Pratts seemed to consider themselves too important to attract attention. Typical Yankee stupidity dressed up as good taste, thought Rule, the sort of thing that was bringing him to power.
Miss Alice Allardyce ushered Rule into Philip Pratt’s office. Secretary to Artemus Pratt IV and now to his son, she had been guarding the door since 1932, and, as she told every visitor, very little had changed in the president’s office in the last forty years. Dark mahogany paneling, prints of sea battles and fox hunts, a mammoth desk, oriental carpets, a model of the Gay Head on the mantelpiece, the view of the swan boats down in the Public Garden—they were all the same. Only the portrait of Artemus Pratt IV was new. Rule reminded himself to pull it down the day he moved in.
William Rule and Philip Pratt greeted each other with an artificial warmth that expressed their mutual contempt. Pratt was joined by his cousin Calvin, chief legal counsel and member of the board of Pratt Industries; Christopher Carrington, their nephew and a lawyer in Calvin Pratt’s firm; and Mr. Soames. Miss Allardyce served coffee in bone china, and the gentlemen sat on the leather sofas in front of the fireplace.
“She’s a fine secretary,” said Rule. “Do you think she’ll stick around after the fifteenth?”
“I see no reason why she would want to leave, Mr. Rule.”
Although Philip Pratt’s aristocratic tone always irritated him, Rule resolved not to lose his temper. He considered anger one of his best weapons, but he found greater satisfaction in shattering Philip Pratt’s icy calm. Whenever they met, he tried to orchestrate his performance with that in mind.
“There’s no need for us to be coy, Pratt.” Rule paused carefully and sipped his coffee. “We all know what’s happening.”
“You need a majority of the stockholders to remove us,” said Calvin, a tall, balding man with a Phi Beta Kappa key in his vest pocket.
Rule opened his morocco briefcase and took out a piece of paper. “Which one of you wants to read it?”
Calvin Pratt examined the paper. “It’s a list of proxies.”
Rule settled back and crossed his legs. “And they’re all pledged to me.”
The color drained slowly from Philip Pratt’s face, but his voice remained calm. “We’ve seen those before, Mr. Rule.”
Calvin Pratt smiled. “The names on this list represent only forty-five percent of the voting stock of this corporation, Mr. Rule.”
Philip Pratt relaxed. “Yes, and unless I’ve forgotten my math, that’s not enough.”
“I wouldn’t get too cocky, Pratt. Since that last quarterly statement, you ought to be out sellin’ apples.” Rule held out his coffee cup. “Would you pour?”
“The company will rebound, Mr. Rule. It always does,” said Philip coldly.
Rule filled the cup himself. “The company hasn’t rebounded since 1974. In three years, the stock dropped from forty-eight to thirty-three and an eighth, and you’re still in this office makin’ stupid decisions every time you turn around. It’s not gonna go on much longer.”
“Mr. Rule, as any Wall Street analyst will tell you, a reduction in the price of stock over a long period of time may indicate a positive retrenchment on the part of a corporation that has overextended itself badly, as we did in the late sixties and early seventies.” Calvin Pratt tried to make failure sound like success. He was an excellent lawyer.
“Bullshit!” Rule exploded off the sofa. When he was angry, he had to move. As he crossed the rug, he reminded himself to keep control. He paused at the far side of the room and decided it was time to recite the litany. He turned back to Philip Pratt.
“After the Vietnam War, Pratt Chemicals took a nosedive that hasn’t stopped. Then the Apollo Program ends, NASA says goodbye, and Pratt Engineering and Electronics is as useless as the moon it landed on. You start makin’ computers and components, and when a couple of guys come to you with an idea for a computer game that you rig up to your television set, you tell them to take a running jump. So what happens? They go over to some other company and make millions.” Rule’s Boston accent grew harsh.
Philip Pratt studied his manicure and pretended not to listen. Calvin Pratt played with his Phi Beta Kappa key. Christopher Carrington took notes. Bennett Soames looked out the window.
“And real estate!” Rule continued. “You have six blocks of rundown granite warehouses on the waterfront. Some small-time company wants to buy them. A lot of people, including me, say, ‘Don’t do it, the waterfront’s comin’ back. Look at Quincy Market.’ So you sell the warehouses for next to nothing, just to get rid of the damn city tax bill, and those small-timers buy up half the apartment houses in Boston with the profits. Shall I go on?”
“You’ve made your point quite ably,” said Calvin.
Rule glanced at Christopher Carrington, a handsome patrician in his late twenties. “I’ll tell one more story for the young man. All about the movies.” Rule knew Pratt was especially sensitive about the movie investments. He smiled and approached Carrington, who remained expressionless.
“Your uncle decides he wanted to be in the movie business. Half the members of the board of directors tell him he’s crazy. They say movies are a shaky investment, but he thinks he’s another Charlie Bludhorn and Pratt Industries has all the clout of Gulf and Western. Then, he goes out and buys forty percent of American Center Films, which hasn’t shown a profit since Adolphe Menjou died.” Rule glanced at Pratt. He could see the small vein bulging just below Pratt’s left eye. Now was the time to condescend. “It wasn’t good corporate management, Pratt. If you couldn’t buy a chunk of Universal or Paramount, you shouldn’t have bought at all.”
Philip Pratt was trying not to lose his temper. He walked over to his desk and picked up the Wall Street Journal. “You’ve had your say, Mr. Rule. Thank you and good afternoon. I’m a very busy man.”
“Not for long. After the meeting on June fifteenth, you can take that portrait of your old man and that model ship and your subscription to the Wall Street Journal and be on your way.”
“You can’t remove us without fifty-one percent of the stockholders backing you up,” snapped Calvin Pratt.
Rule paused and looked around the room. The announcement was premature, but he couldn’t resist. “In ten days, I’ll have the six percent, gentlemen. I guarantee it.”
Rule was disappointed in the Pratts’ reaction. He hoped they would beg to negotiate, but they remained silent. He wanted to see them squirm, but they stared at him, as though they were waiting for him to finish his speech.
Paisley boxer shorts and dirty T-shirt. Philip Pratt would not allow himself to lose control. He would not give this crudity any satisfaction. “Thank you very much, Mr. Rule, and good luck in your hunt for stockholders.” Pratt turned to Soames. “Do we have any more appointments this morning, Bennett, or do you think I can sneak in eighteen holes at the Country Club?”
“You’re clear this afternoon,” said Soames crisply.
Calvin Pratt and Christopher Carrington stood.
“I’d better be running,” said Calvin. “I’m due in court in a half an hour.”
Soames picked up the telephone. Carrington began to pack his briefcase. Suddenly, no one was paying attention to William Rule. If he hadn’t been its victim, he would have admired the technique.
“I’ll call the club and get you a starting time,” said Soames.
“Very good.” Pratt busied himself with the newspaper.
William Rule would have the last word. He stepped close to Pratt and peered over the newspaper. “Stick around today,” he said softly, like an old friend giving advice. “Admire the leather and the mahogany and the picture of your old man. Take a few phone calls. Turn a few down. Try to remember what it feels like to run the show. Ten days from now, you’ll have all the time in the world to play golf.”
Philip Pratt lost control. He jumped between Rule and the door. “You listen to me, you ignorant rug merchant. We’ve controlled this company for two hundred years, and we’ll control it for two hundred more.” Pratt’s voice sounded like a bar fight about to happen. “You back out now, or we’ll destroy you. I promise you.”
Rule laughed in Pratt’s face and left. Infuriated, Pratt started after him. He took three steps into the outer office and stopped abruptly.
“Mr. Pratt, this is Edward,” said Miss Allardyce nervously. “He’s Mr. Rule’s butler.”
Edward stood in front of Pratt, and somewhere on the other side of him, Rule was laughing.
“Good day, Mr. Pratt. See you in ten days,” said Rule. “And Miss Allardyce, you make excellent coffee.”
“Thank you, sir.” The old woman was trembling.
Calvin Pratt led Philip back to the office. “We can do without an assault and battery charge right now, Philip. Especially if you’re the one getting assaulted.”
Philip Pratt was the sort who punched people or walls when he lost his temper, but he held back, remembering the broken knuckles from his last tantrum. “That son of a bitch laughed at us. He really thinks he has us.”
“I think he might,” said Calvin. He was five years older than Philip and much more willing to accept the circumstances of his life, which were enviable, regardless of the fate of Pratt Industries. He had a successful law practice, a home in Lexington, a son on the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital and another in Harvard Law School, and he had been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years.
“I suggest,” said Carrington, “that we determine the nine or ten major stockholders most likely to shift allegiance and begin to work on them. Our family has forty percent of the stock. Rule controls forty-five. That leaves fifteen percent uncommitted. We have a lot of convincing to do in ten days.”
“I agree,” added Calvin. “The McCafferty block is wavering. And over at Aldrich and Bradfield, Jeff Hendricks tells me they’re considering a pullout unless things improve. They might decide to throw their portfolio behind Rule just to see what he can do.”
“We can tell all those people that the E. and E. wing has a lock on the NASA Venus program,” said Carrington.
Calvin shook his head. “That’s our big item, but it’s still a year away.”
“Gentlemen,” said Soames, “I think we’re forgetting the most direct way to keep Mr. Rule out of this office.”
Philip Pratt had cooled off. “We haven’t forgotten, Bennett. Rule has given us a deadline, and we’ll meet it. We find that tea set in ten days, he’s finished, and we stay right where we are.”
“We should be proceeding very carefully in this tea-set business, gentlemen,” cautioned Calvin.
“We should be proceeding as businessmen, not treasure hunters,” said Christopher. “We’re being totally unprofessional.”
Philip turned angrily on the young man. “You’re the one who discovered Abigail Pratt’s diaries, Christopher. You led us into this. You have the most to lose if Rule takes over. So do what we ask you.”
“When Abigail Pratt B–tley wrote about the Golden Eagle, she was a crazy old lady filling the pages with daydreams. I’m convinced that the tea set has been found, and William Rule found it.”
“If he did, he’s going to make us look much worse than we do already.” Philip Pratt looked at his father’s portrait. Artemus Pratt IV seemed sated, almost serene, like a man who had just finished a good meal. Philip shook his head in disgust. “The old man would just shit.”
Peter Fallon hadn’t thought of the Golden Eagle, Gravelly Point, or DL in almost twenty-four hours. It was eleven o’clock the next evening when he lurched out of a subway in South Boston and into a quilt of humid air. He needed a shave, he had a black eye, his shirt was filthy, and his pants were torn at both knees. During his ten-minute subway ride from downtown, the first heat wave of the summer had arrived, and that called for a beer.
The Rising Moon, near the union hall on Broadway, was a neighborhood bar with a set of regular drinkers and local drunks who thought of their saloon as a sanctuary, a place for guzzling beer and downing shots, for watching sports on color TV and escaping the wife when she began to nag. It was a narrow, crowded dump, with a row of booths along one wall and a few tables in the middle of the floor. Three fans blew hot air around, and when the Rising Moon didn’t smell like stale beer, it stank of fresh piss.
For some reason, Thursday nights were usually slow. Somebody was asleep at one of the tables. A few regulars sat at the bar and watched glumly as Luis Tiant, in pinstripes, pitched against the Red Sox. Jackie Halloran and Denny Murphy nursed their beers and strained to hear a conversation between two men in the corner booth.
Kenny Gallagher stood behind the bar and swatted flies with a wet rag. A smiling balloon of a man with a whiskey-red complexion that looked permanently sunburned, he had tended bar at the Rising Moon six nights a week for the last eleven years. When he saw Peter Fallon in the doorway, he drew a draft and placed it on the bar. “Right over here, Pete. Sit down and beat the heat with a brew on the house. No Yankee fans or beer farts allowed, but anything else is all right with old Kenny.”
Fallon approached the bar very slowly. “Hi, Kenny.”
Gallagher knew that Fallon was drunk and that Fallons were mean drunks. Whenever he had to handle one of them, he thanked St. Jude that the Fallons didn’t drink too often. “Now, Peter, sit down and relax and tell me what you’ve been up to the last few months.” Gallagher had a smile for everyone, but he genuinely liked Peter. He’d known him since the day he was born.
“Has my brother come in here tonight?” Fallon was in no mood for pleasantries.
Gallagher leaned across the bar and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. If he’d wanted, he could have broken Fallon’s collarbone, but Gallagher was always gentle with children, animals, and drunks. “Sit down, Peter.”
“Where’s my fuckin’ brother?” Fallon pulled away.
“Now don’t let’s have no trouble, Peter,” pleaded Kenny. “Every damn time you come in here, there’s a fight.”
“I’m over here, Peter.” The voice came from the corner booth.
“I want no trouble,” warned Kenny.
The man seated with Danny Fallon moved over, and Peter slid into the booth opposite his brother. The Fallons were both Irish, but there the tribal resemblance ended. Peter, with dark hair and wiry build, was one of the Black Irish, as his father liked to say. Danny, at thirty-two, was the beer-and-potatoes South Boston Harp. His face was weathered from years of outdoor work. His hands were large and callused. His body was solid, and even his gut looked like muscle.
Peter smiled drunkenly at his brother.
Danny didn’t smile back. He was half-drunk himself. “The rah-rah boy from Harvard, all messed up and lookin’ like a goddam rummy. You been on another bender or somethin’?”
Peter continued to smile. He love to hear his brother’s South Boston accent. He imagined the words traveling out of Danny’s throat, stopping in his sinuses to drop off all the r’s, then squirting out into the air. “Why is it that half the guys in Boston sound like they’re holdin’ their nose when they talk, Dan?”
“Cut the shit. I asked you a question. Have you been on another bender?”
Fallon was annoying his brother, and that was the whole purpose of his visit. “I spend most of my life looking through the wrong end of the telescope, Dan. Every so often, I like to see life up close. So I go on a bender. I’ve been drunk, I was almost rolled in the men’s room of Kelleher’s on Summer Street, and now it’s time to go back to work.”
“So I ain’t stoppin’ you. Go back to work. If that’s what you call it, sittin’ in a library all day readin’.”
“Since I spent all my money on Jameson’s and beer, I need twenty-five bucks till the end of the month.” Peter held out his hand.
The little man sitting next to him in the booth began to laugh. In his maroon double-knit suit, Jerry Sheldon looked like a bookie, but tonight he was the mouthpiece for a local loan shark. “Your brother could use twenty-five bucks himself, kid. He could use twenty-five thousand bucks eight or nine times over.”
Danny turned angrily on Sheldon. “You’ve had your earful. Now shut the fuck up and beat it.”
Sheldon squeezed past Peter and headed for the door. “Remember our offer.”
“Fuck the offer,” said Danny.
“Do what you want.”
“I really like your suit,” said Peter.
“Your brother’s a smartass, Danny. Teach him a few manners.” Sheldon left the bar.
For a moment, the brothers stared at each other across the table, each waiting for the other to speak.
As usual, Danny gave up first. “When was the last time you talked to the old man?”
Peter had to think. He didn’t enjoy conversations with his father and tried not to remember them. “A month, maybe.”
“A month.” Danny shook his head. “And you haven’t talked to me since the last time you were in here.”
“The phone works both ways.”
“If you stuck your nose into the family business a little more often, you’d know that Fallon and Son Construction Company is on the ropes.”
“That’s happened before.” Peter seemed unconcerned.
“Not like this time,” said Danny bitterly. “The old man bit off too much, he’s got no place to spit it out, and the fuckin’ creditors are climbin’ down his throat. Things look bad.”
“That’s for fuckin’ sure,” said Jackie Halloran from a nearby table.
“Who asked you?” snapped Danny.
“If your old man goes under, I lose a job, and so do most of the guys who come in this bar.”
“Well, then you can spend your afternoons in here too, so cheer up.”
“Shoot the shit with Jackie later,” cracked Peter. “I’m getting sleepy.”
“Sheldon’s right, Dan. Your brother’s still a smartass,” said Jackie.
“Nobody’s talkin’ to you, Jackie. Watch the ballgame.” Danny turned to Peter, whose disinterested gaze always made him mad. His brother never seemed to care about anything but his history books, his benders, and the undergraduate girls he went through like beers on Gallagher’s bar. “You walk in here stiff drunk, you treat Kenny and Jackie like shit.” Danny lowered his voice. “You insult Sheldon, not that I give a fuck, and you aren’t even upset to find out that we’re up to our asses in debt. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Peter shrugged. “We all got our problems, Danny.” As he spoke, he began to duck. He knew what was coming.
Danny snapped a backhander across the table and caught Peter off the side of the head. Peter tumbled onto the floor, rolled quickly to his feet, and swung. He caught Danny under the chin and almost lifted him out of the booth. Anybody else would be gone for the night, but Danny hit his brother with a shoulder about waist high and the two of them flew halfway across the barroom.
“I told you two, no trouble,” shouted Gallagher, while Halloran, Murphy, and the other regulars got out of the way and watched the fight.
Peter clipped Danny with a left that slammed him against the bar. Danny countered with a right that knocked Peter on his tail and knocked the wind right out of him. Before they wrecked the Rising Moon, Gallagher jumped between them and straight-armed Danny to the bar.
“You stay right where you are, Peter,” he growled. “Every goddam time you come in here, there’s a fight.”
Fallon smiled and leaned back on his elbows. “You can relax, Kenny. It’s all over.”
“Just like that?”
“Once in a while, I need to blow off some steam, Kenny. So I come over to Southie and pick a fight with my brother.”
“Well, stop pickin’ it in here. I’m gettin’ old.” Kenny released Danny.
“Bring us two cold ones.” Danny seemed as relieved as his brother.
“No sir. If you boys want any more to drink tonight, you take it here where I can keep my eye on you.”
The Fallons sat at the bar like a pair of chastened schoolboys, and Kenny drew two drafts.
“I gotta straighten you out,” said Danny. “Every couple of months, you go on a bender and get into a fight. You better watch out, because someday you’re gonna pick a fight in the wrong bar and they’ll carry you home in a plastic bag.”
“I don’t pick fights with anybody but you, and it’s the benders that straighten me out.”
For the next half hour, they sipped their beer and talked about the fortunes of the family company. Fallon and Son was a small contracting outfit that specialized in masonry, carpentry, and plumbing. In the last year, with rising costs and lack of work, they had sunk slowly into debt. Now they owed their creditors $150,000, they were facing bankruptcy, and Jerry Sheldon had offered a short-term solution.
It was midnight when Danny finished the story. The ballgame was over, and most of the regulars had gone home. Jackie Halloran was sitting with the Fallons. Kenny Gallagher was cleaning up.
“I’m sorry that you’re goin’ down the drain, but there isn’t much I can do to help, Dan.” Peter sounded depressed. His drunk was over. He would have to face his work again. “I feel like I’m goin’ down the drain myself.”
“Just come around more often, kid. Tell the old man you’ll do what you can, even if you can’t do anything.”
Peter looked into the bottom of his beer glass and laughed softly. “Then he’ll say, ‘If you want to do somethin’, go to law school.’ ”
Danny placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “He’s on your side, no matter what you think.”
“Always slow on Thursday nights,” said Kenny. “I think I’ll close ’er up and take a few shots myself.”
“You nip all night, Kenny Gallagher,” said Jackie.
“I sip beer. There’s a difference.” Kenny flipped off the neon sign in the window and began to sweep the place out.
A young man of about thirty appeared in the entrance. He was slender, with an angular face, pockmarks, and a receding hairline. Fallon glanced at him briefly and noticed that he was wearing a heavy tweed sportcoat, despite the heat.
“Hey, buddy, we’re closed,” said Gallagher.
“I’m looking for Kenny Gallagher,” said the man.
“You’ve found him, mister.” Kenny approached the man. “What can I do for you?”
Fallon heard a noise like a firecracker going off under a pillow. Kenny Gallagher’s body snapped as though someone had hit him in the stomach, then a patch of red appeared just below Kenny’s left shoulder blade. Two more muffled explosions, another blossom of red. Even at close range, only two of the .22 caliber slugs made it through Kenny’s bulk. The gunman was gone before his victim hit the floor.
The three men at the bar stood in shock until a rush of adrenaline sobered them up. Danny and Jackie went after the gunman. Peter sprang to Kenny’s side and rolled him over. Kenny was dead. There was nothing Fallon could do. He sat back on his heels and cursed softly to himself.
Danny and Jackie returned without a clue. No gunman, no gun, no license number.
“Who the hell would want to kill Kenny Gallagher?” said Jackie.
Peter Fallon spent the night at his brother’s house in South Boston. Danny, his wife Sheila, and their three children lived in a comfortable semidetached house on Pleasure Bay, with a view of the harbor, the container storage facility on Castle Island, and the Columbia Point Housing Project. Peter’s parents, Tom and Maureen Fallon, lived on the other side of the house.
At seven o’clock that morning, little Jimmy Fallon burst into his parents’ room with the morning paper. Daddy and Uncle Peter were on the front page, witnesses to a murder. Jimmy didn’t notice until later that Kenny Gallagher, who always brought him candy, was the victim.
“Jesus Christ,” said Danny at breakfast. “Our pictures and your name.”
Peter looked at the photograph. It showed himself, Danny, and Jackie standing over the shrouded body of Kenny Gallagher. “ ‘Peter Fallon of Cambridge,’ ” he read, “ ‘was in the Rising Moon at the time of the shooting, but he could not provide an accurate description of the gunman.’ That’s because I was drunk.”
“And as far as the cops are concerned, you stay that way. You didn’t see a thing, Peter. That guy gets it in his head that you got a fix on him, he may try to fix you.”
“What do you mean?” Sheila stopped washing dishes for a moment. She was an ex-cheerleader a few pounds on the wrong side of voluptuous.
“He means nothing,” said Peter. “I saw a receding hairline and a tweed coat. There’s no way I could pick him out in a lineup, and it says so right in the article. So relax.”
That afternoon, the Fallons told two detectives what they knew, which wasn’t much, although Danny suggested a motive. He told them that Gallagher had recently begun to book ballgames and races, and he hadn’t been cutting “the big boys” in on the profits.
“He never told us who ‘the big boys’ were,” explained Danny, “but I’m sure you fellas have some idea of who he was talking about.”
The detectives thought Danny’s explanation was sound. The killing had the earmarks of a gangland assassination. The killer worked in the open. He used a .22 caliber pistol, the new gangland signature weapon. And someone had ransacked Kenny’s apartment, probably looking for books and betting receipts.
“This is the sort of murder that’s rarely solved,” said one detective. “We’ve had hundreds of these cases over the years, but frankly, they’re low-priority unless the D.A. has the hots for a few crimefighter headlines. As a rule, as long as they’re killing each other, nobody seems to get too excited.”
“How can you say that?” protested Peter. “Kenny Gallagher was a good man. He was no criminal.”
“Makin’ book is a crime,” said the detective. “I’m not sayin’ we won’t find out who killed your friend, but I’m not too optimistic.”
Philip Pratt read the morning paper with great interest. At noon, he had lunch with Mr. Soames and Christopher Carrington in his office. He showed Soames the photograph of Pratt. “Harrison is certain this is the man?”
“Yes. He claimed he was some sort of graduate student,” said Carrington impatiently. “Not everyone works for Mr. Rule.”
“At the moment, we can’t assume that,” said Soames. “I’ve placed him under surveillance.”
“Ridiculous,” said Carrington.
Soames stared at the young man but said nothing.
“You must admit he’s been all over the place lately,” offered Pratt. “One day he’s worming his way into Searidge, the next night he’s at the scene of a murder in a South Boston dive. He leads a very unusual life. I think it would be fascinating to follow him around, simply to find out what else he does with his time. Who knows what he may stumble onto next?”
“The surveillance shall continue, then?” asked Soames.
“Don’t let the son of a bitch out of your sight.”
Christopher Carrington finished his coffee and left.
In a single apartment overlooking a laundromat in Everett, the man with the pockmarks and the receding hairline read the newspaper. He wondered if he should eliminate the witness. He had never bothered before. Witnesses were always too shocked to describe him, and this guy Fallon was probably no different.
Besides, he killed only for pay. If his employer wanted the witness out of the way, he would know about it.
Jack C. Ferguson found his morning newspaper, as usual, on an abandoned table in Waldorf’s. He dressed in khaki work shirt and shiny pants. He had a barrel chest, a huge head, and a mane of white hair hidden under a Red Sox cap. With a shower and a new set of clothes, he might have looked distinguished, but he smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in months. He drank whatever coffee was in the cup beside the newspaper and left.
He walked down Washington Street beneath the shadow of the elevated, then down a side street toward a row of derelict apartments, half of them burned out, all of them boarded up. He was in the South End, in the deteriorating stretch of buildings between Dover Street and the Cathedral. As he walked, he surveyed the empty wine bottles strewn about, hoping to find a few drops someone had missed, and he glanced over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure that no one was following him. He sneaked down an alley beside the row, then ducked into a cellar door. Inside it was dark and damp, and the sweet charcoal smell of scorched timber mingled with the stench of puke and piss.
He heard something move in the shadows. A switchblade appeared in his hand. He stepped closer. Four rats the size of small dogs scurried away from a body in the corner. Ferguson couldn’t tell if the bum was alive or dead. Better off dead, he thought. Carefully, he approached. It might be a trick. He kicked the body in the ribs. The bum groaned, then rolled over. Ferguson kicked again, harder. No reaction. In that condition, the bum was harmless, and Ferguson left him where he was.
Jack C. Ferguson lived four flights up, in an attic room equipped with a Coleman stove, a gas lamp, and a bed made of newspapers. He had booby-trapped the stairways and strung tin-can alarms in all the hallways. No one could get to him without his knowing it.
He scanned the front page quickly and noticed the report of a murder in South Boston. He cut it out and put it into a shoebox that was filled with clippings, all alphabetically arranged, on every murder committed in Boston in the last seven years. Kenny Gallagher, fifty-six, of South Boston, was the victim. Peter Fallon, twenty-six, of Cambridge, was the witness. He memorized the names and ages of both men, then turned to the sports page.
Peter Fallon spent the afternoon with his mother. She and Kenny were childhood sweethearts, and they had remained close friends through the years. Maureen Fallon was a heavy-set woman with eyes that seemed resigned to the inevitable pain of life, and she accepted Kenny’s death calmly.
“We know neither the day nor the hour,” she said softly, the sound reminding Fallon of whispered prayers in a confessional. “It’s God’s will. Did he make an Act of Contrition?”
“No, Ma.”
“He was a good man. I wouldn’t worry.” She paused for a long time and thought about Kenny.
Fallon marveled at the strength of Irish women in the face of death or unhappiness. Their faith and fatalism sustained them through anything. The men might go to pieces, but the women were like rocks.
“Would you like a cup of tea, Peter?”
“No, Ma. I gotta go.”
“Won’t you stay to see your father?”
“I have a lot of work to do.”
She smiled. “He still loves you, Peter.”
“I know, Ma.” He kissed her on the cheek and went next door.
Peter found Danny in the basement playroom. He was sipping beer and watching Bugs Bunny with his kids. “I’m takin’ off, Dan.”
“Don’t you think you oughta stick around and see the old man? He had some paperwork to do. He’ll be home early.”
“I’m two days behind in my work. I’ll see him at the wake.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll call you when they release the body.”
“You think they’ll find any relatives?”
“Ma was the closest thing Kenny had to a sister. I don’t think there’s anybody else, but they’ll keep the body on ice and make a search. Should be a couple of days.”
“He’ll be ripe enough to split open by then.”
“Let’s hope he’s in the box when he does,” said Danny, and both brothers laughed at the bad joke. “That poor, fat son of a bitch,” blurted Danny, suddenly holding back tears. “I told him there was no future in bookin’ numbers.”
“Danny,” said Peter, just loud enough to be heard over Elmer Fudd, “sometimes I think there’s no future in anything.” Peter headed for the door.
“Hey.” Danny’s voice was stern. “Don’t be talkin’ like that.”
No future in anything. The words rattled through Fallon’s head once more as he opened the door to his apartment. He had lived in three small rooms near Harvard Yard for nearly four years, and his life had not changed appreciably in that time. He still saw the back of Lamont Library from his front windows. He still lived alone, although a girl from the Law School had shared his bed for over a year. He was still telling himself that the place was cheap, convenient, and he might as well stay because he couldn’t find anyplace better.
He thought about going down to the river and taking out a scull for an hour. It was still light, and he could use the exercise to sweat out the last remnants of hangover and get into the mood to write. Fallon rowed every morning, and whenever he had a bad day, he rowed in the afternoon. Without the scull, he knew he’d be on a bender every few days. Rowing was smooth and rhythmic. It helped him to relax. It kept him in condition. But on hot, muggy nights, the Charles River smelled like dead carp. He decided to stay in.
He took a container of yogurt and a can of beer out of the refrigerator. That was his supper.
An hour later, Fallon was trying to say something fresh about Jefferson’s Embargo Act. He studied his notes from the Pratt ledger books of 1808 and searched for a theme. All he could see was Kenny Gallagher’s body jumping involuntarily as the bullets slammed into it. He couldn’t concentrate. He looked through his bookcase for something distracting.
The Day They Burned the White House was a first-person account of the British march on Washington, written by a modern journalist. It was the sort of popular history Fallon never read but people always gave him for Christmas. He opened to the index and ran his finger down the “L” column. Latrobe, Lafitte, Lear, Lee, Lovell. He stopped. Lovell, Dexter, 185. D.L. This is too easy, he thought.
He flipped to page 185 and searched for the name. “… two servants, Dexter Lovell and Thomas Jefferson Grew, disappeared….” Fallon jumped back to the beginning of the paragraph. “The only treasure that Dolley Madison could not save was Paul Revere’s Golden Eagle Tea Set. It disappeared and was never seen again. Two servants, Dexter Lovell and Thomas Jefferson Grew, disappeared along with it. We have often speculated that they made some sort of deal with the British and the work of art is now drunk from regularly in an English country manor where they still think of us as Colonials.”
An incident in Pratt’s life leaped to Fallon’s mind. At a banquet held for President Washington in 1789, Pratt had raised hell because the merchants of Boston had given Washington a Revere tea set called the Golden Eagle. He should have thought of it the moment he saw Dexter Lovell’s note.
Fallon was excited. He realized that the Golden Eagle story was simply an interesting footnote to his dissertation, something to brighten up the dull prose. Like most Yankee shippers who founded fortunes, Pratt smuggled, privateered, and traded opium when he smelled a profit. Acting as a middleman in an art theft wasn’t unusual. Except that the tea set disappeared and, apparently, had never been found. If it was still out there undiscovered, it was worth a great deal of money to the person who found it. If it was in someone’s silver cabinet, its journey would make a great story. Fallon had to know more.
He found Evangeline Carrington’s number in the book.
“Hello.” It was only nine o’clock, but her voice sounded thick, drowsy. In the background, Fleetwood Mac played loudly.
“Is this Evangeline Carrington?”
She turned down the record. “Who is this?”
“Peter Fallon.”
“Who?”
Fallon recounted their meeting and told her he’d like to have lunch with her.
“Why?” she asked abruptly.
“Because I’m interested in your family history and there are a few questions I’d like to ask you.” He decided not to mention the tea set.
“I told you, my brother is the family historian. Talk to him.”
“I intend to, but I’d like to talk with you first.”
Family historians usually knew enough about their ancestors to withhold information that might seem scandalous or potentially profitable to an outsider. Fallon hoped the girl might reveal something unknowingly.
“I don’t see why. I’m not at all interested in the Pratts.”
“Well, I’m also interested in cars, and I really like your Porsche.”
“Then have lunch with my Porsche.”
Fallon tried for wit, but he sounded stupid, and she hung up.
At the Book Cellar, an all-night bookstore on Mt. Auburn Street, Fallon bought a copy of Walter Muir Whitehill’s Boston: A Topographical History. He did not notice that a young man in a dark sweatshirt had followed him on his errand and had written down the title of the book. When Fallon returned to his apartment, the man returned to a black Oldsmobile parked across the street.
Fallon opened his last can of Narragansett and settled in with his book. The man in the Oldsmobile drank coffee and watched Fallon’s windows.
Fallon discovered that Gravelly Point no longer existed, but Whitehill provided a series of old engineering maps which traced its fate.
In 1814, Boston was a peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus called the Neck. On the west side of the peninsula, a square mile of salt marshes and tide flats stretched along the Charles River Basin. Since the area was on the landward, or back, side of the peninsula, it was known as the Back Bay. Gravelly Point was a deserted spit of land that curled into the Back Bay like a fist aimed at the city. The Easterly Channel, which Lovell had mentioned in his note, sliced through the Back Bay and connected to Gravelly Point at the wrist.
Fallon knew that, at high tide, most of the flats were covered in two to three feet of water. He assumed that the Easterly Channel, formed by a stream that flowed into the basin, was several feet deeper. From the map, he could tell that the channel was anywhere from five to twenty-five feet across, and its boundaries were formed by the mean low-tide lines in the bay. When the rest of the Back Bay was mud, there was still water in the Easterly Channel.
The second map showed the area in 1836. A street now crossed Gravelly Point. A mill dam, which regulated the flow of water into the Back Bay, stretched from Sewall’s Point in Brookline to the foot of Beacon Hill. Two railroad lines crossed the marsh. The Public Garden, which did not exist in 1814, now extended west from the city on reclaimed land. The dividing and filling of the Back Bay had begun.
In 1861, the marsh had shrunk by half, new streets stretched toward Gravelly Point, and the Mill Dam had become Beacon Street. By 1888, the marsh was gone. Gravelly Point had been swallowed by the landfill and become part of the Back Bay, Boston’s most exclusive section.
When Fallon thought of the Back Bay, he saw Commonwealth Avenue, broad, tree-lined, graced by some of the finest nineteenth-century architecture in America. Or Copley Square, with Trinity Church on the east, the Public Library on the west, and the windows of the Hancock tower above. Or Symphony Hall. Or First Church of Christ Scientist. Or the Esplanade. But, as he finished his beer and turned out the light, he tried to imagine the Back Bay as it had looked on a September night in 1814.