18

Houston followed Anne, carrying the first cup of precinct coffee he’d had in over a year. When they walked into Dysart’s office, the captain was surprised by their sudden appearance and asked, “How the hell did you get up here? Nobody called up from the desk saying that I had visitors.”

“Desk Sergeant remembers us from the old days,” Bouchard said.

“Sometimes I think that if that sonuvabitch saw Whitey Bolger with a gun, he’d recognize him and just let him sashay up here, too.”

Dysart turned his attention to Bouchard. “And how is my all-time favorite detective doing?” He pointed at Houston with his right thumb. “This degenerate treating you okay?”

Bouchard smiled. “I’m fine, Cap. How’re you doing?”

“Broke my heart when they retired you on medical disability . . .” He again pointed to Houston. “Him, I don’t miss so much.” His craggy face broke out in a smile, and he motioned to the chairs that fronted his desk. “Sit down, guys. Christ, I wish I had you two back. You two were the best closers we had.”

Houston sipped on his coffee and sat quiet while Dysart and Bouchard reminisced. After studying the oil slick that floated on the top of the cup for several seconds, he raised his eyes and stared at his old boss. Things had changed. In the past, Dysart would have performed his ritual of lighting a cigarette, taking one or two drags, and then tossing it out the window. He turned his attention to the windows and grinned when he realized that here at the new police headquarters the windows were sealed and could not be opened.

After several moments, Dysart sensed Houston’s eyes on him and turned to him. “Jesus Christ, Mike, what’s with you? You look like you’re ready to kill something. You still suffering from your little mace exposure?”

Houston shrugged. “Nothing.”

Dysart’s smile belied his words when he said, “Nothing, my ass. I don’t hear from you two for twelve months and then you’re in my face unannounced. You want something all right. So cut to the chase, okay?”

Houston chuckled. “I guess I’m as conspicuous as a ten-dollar whore wearing a thousand-dollar dress.”

“That’s one way of saying it.”

Houston placed his coffee on the edge of the desk and said, “Bill, talk to me about all the missing hookers.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Come on, don’t yank my chain, okay? We go back too far for that.”

Dysart glanced around the room as if trying to ensure they would not be overheard. “Okay, I’ll tell you how things are. We’ve heard about the disappearances. However, to date, not a single whore has shown up, alive or dead, so nobody gives a shit. Come to think of it, the only hooker I’ve seen on Beacon Hill lately is the statue of General Hooker—of course, I can’t speak for Government Center. You’re likely to see anything there.” He chuckled. “You know that’s where the expression hooker came from, right?”

“No, I didn’t,” Bouchard said.

“Yeah, the whores who followed General Hooker’s army around during the Revolutionary War were known as Hooker’s Girls—hence, hookers.”

“Thanks for the history lesson. . . . Now can we get back to the issue at hand? You’re admitting to us that because you have no bodies, the problem gets swept under the table?” she said.

“Shit, Anne, nobody said that. We follow up when they file a missing persons report. I know you two been out of touch for a year, but nothing has changed around here. It’s the same as when you worked for me—I don’t have five or six detectives just sitting on their asses waiting for something to happen. Hell, right now we’re working sixteen cases—half of them homicides. Just how much manpower do you think I’m going to spend looking for whores who go to the powder room and don’t come back?”

“Bill, we’re talking fifty women or more in a three or four year period,” Anne said.

Dysart leaned back. His chair squeaked under his weight. “So call out the fucking National Guard—maybe they got the resources.”

“Have you ever heard of a guy they call the Fisherman?” Houston asked.

“Nope, the waterfront’s full of fishermen though.”

“Very funny. . . . This guy’s not local. We believe he’s from Maine.”

“Well, there you have it, then. Last time I checked, I don’t have jurisdiction up there.”

“That’s it?” Houston said.

“Bring us a body—a Boston body—something for me to go on. Until then, I got enough shit piled up to keep me shoveling for the next six months. Have a good day, Mike.”

Houston stood up and looked at his former boss. Dysart looked as if he were wearing down. The rigors of the job and age were taking more out of him than he had to left give. Still, Dysart’s reaction to their visit irritated him, and he said, “Alright, Bill, we’ll get you something. When we do get it, where do you want it? Is on your desk okay?”

Houston motioned to Anne that they should leave. When he turned, he could almost feel the heat of Dysart’s glare burning into his back. He paused at the door. “Oh, by the way, Jimmy O’Leary is setting up a meet with most of the pimps working the hub. Call me if you want in on it—you never know, it might prove interesting.”

“Who’s to guarantee I’ll get out alive?”

“If Jimmy sets it up, he’ll protect you,” Bouchard said.

“When did you and Jimmy O get so chummy?” Dysart asked her.

“He has his good points,” she replied. “I think you should do it.”

“Now that ought to do wonders for my reputation. Get the fuck outta here.”

_________________

Dysart met Bouchard and Houston outside the warehouse, and they led him in. It looked as if a convention were taking place. The building was empty, and off to the left of center, the large open area was set up like a conference room; folding tables were butted end-to-end and side-to-side to form a six-foot-by-twelve-foot rectangular table. Around the edges sat a group of people the likes of which Houston thought he would never see congregated outside a courtroom or a precinct house.

“I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this. I should have sent one of my sergeants,” Dysart said. “If a reporter ever snapped our pic we’d be in front of a review board by eight tomorrow morning.”

“You’ll be alright. O’Leary set this up,” Houston said.

“For five years now, I’ve let you talk me into situations like this, Mike.”

“And I always get you through them. The fact that a captain showed up will cool things. These people are close to taking things into their own hands. You can rest assured that Jimmy has everything under control.”

“Really? I can’t believe anyone can control this bunch of frigging Apaches.”

“You don’t know Jimmy like I do. They all know that they either toe the line or Jimmy and his people will bust their asses. Let’s get closer.”

They walked through the room, ignoring the stares and malevolent looks from the gathered pimps. Satisfied that they had shown their distaste, the leaders of Boston’s illegitimate sex trade turned their attention to O’Leary, who stood at the head of the table. The room and everyone in it seemed tense, and Houston thought the scene was macabre. Houston saw sweat on Dysart’s brow and thought he looked as if he were wearing lead boots in a minefield—sure signs that the career cop felt uncomfortable if not threatened. Nevertheless, Dysart maintained his cool and otherwise seemed unaffected by the display of distrust and hatred. The three investigators found a convenient spot along the wall and settled back to watch the goings-on.

Houston folded his arms across his chest, stood between Dysart and Bouchard, and leaned against the wall. This, he thought, should be more interesting than watching a monkey try to fuck a football.

“Okay, okay,” O’Leary said without a glance to acknowledge the presence of the three outsiders. “For the next hour or so, let’s put all our differences aside and follow one of the guiding principles of AA. That means who you see here and what you hear here stays here.” He paused, obviously wanting to add emphasis to his words. “Now we’re all in agreement that there’s some serious shit going down, are we not?”

The assembly nodded.

Houston watched the proceedings with renewed interest; he had never seen O’Leary act as a mediator, a facet of the man he would never have thought existed.

“I see the police department is here, too,” O’Leary said. “If we’re going to get to the bottom of this, we need to cooperate and work together.”

“We’re willing to work with you,” Shiloh yelled, the sophisticated veneer of the previous day hidden by his pimp act, “but we ain’t so sure about the five-oh over there.”

Dysart spoke for the first time since he had entered the building. “The Boston Police Department is open to anything you have to say.”

Houston thought he sounded defensive.

“That right?” Shiloh seemed unconvinced. “Then how come for three years we been reportin’ that hoes been disappearing, an’ you guys ain’t done nothing?”

“Let’s be realistic here,” Dysart said, keeping his voice controlled. “The women who . . .” He paused to select the right phrase. “. . . work for you don’t exactly have a stable lifestyle.”

“That don’t mean something ain’t going on,” a pimp in a flashy suit said. “I had four girls disappear, and two of them been in my stable a long time. I think some asshole either snatched them or they’re dead.”

“In three years, we’ve never found a single piece of evidence that leads us to believe anything happened other than they decided on a change of scenery.”

“Change of scenery, my ass.” The pimp leaned forward, his muscular arms folded on the table. “Them hoes disappeared,” he snapped his fingers, “like that. I called people all up and down the East coast—ain’t no one seen them.”

Dysart leaned back. “Do you think if some pimp in New York or DC is working one of your runaway girls he’d tell you? Besides, it isn’t as if you people have a nationwide network—or do you?”

“I know that I told you people about that fish dude in the freezer truck,” Shiloh said. “You ever get a line on him? Seems like every time a hoe vanishes, that truck’s been in the area.”

“We’re looking into the truck,” Dysart said. “But even after we have a BOLO out for any truck meeting the description, our hands are tied without definitive evidence that a crime has occurred. Of one thing we are certain—if he’s a fish wholesaler, he isn’t anyone local.”

O’Leary held his hands up, signaling for the discussion to stop. “Captain,” he said, “it sounds to me as if you’re sayin’ that your department can’t—or won’t—do anything.”

“Not at all. We’re checking out as much as we can. Nevertheless, without an eyewitness or a body, there isn’t a damned thing we can do. Every day, hundreds of trucks come and go on the waterfront—many of them fitting the description we’ve been given. We’ve even checked out the markets in Everett. Thus far, all we have is a vague description of the truck—one time it’s a Peterbilt, the next a Ford. One of your women told us it was a Diamond Reo. Shit, there hasn’t been one of them made in over thirty years. We’ve had reports that it’s blue, yellow, red, and white. We don’t have enough cops to check every truck that comes in and out of the city. I got to have something to go with—a license plate would be nice, but without that my frigging hands are tied.”

“We understand your dilemma,” O’Leary said. “But if you can’t do something, we will.”

“Jimmy, if bodies start turning up like they did in the Latisha Washington situation last year, I’ll do everything in my power to bring you down.”

“You do what you have to do, Captain, and we’ll do what we have to.”

With that, O’Leary closed the meeting.

Outside, Houston, Bouchard, and Dysart watched the pimps disappear into the night. Dysart leaned against his car and smoked a cigarette. The evening was warm, and Dysart rolled his shirt sleeves above his elbows. He waited until the flow of people tapered off, tossed his cigarette away, and said, “Mike, you got to put a muzzle on O’Leary. I can’t have another of his vigilante deals.”

The previous year, the mother of a young girl asked O’Leary to help her find the gang-bangers who had raped and killed her daughter. He resolved the situation with his own unique brand of justice; within days, the cops found the four rapists’ bodies.

“Bill, I got no control over Jimmy. He always does what he wants. I’m sure he feels the BPD isn’t responsive enough to problems in the neighborhood, so he takes things into his own hands. He’s always been that way, and he always will be.”

“I know that sometimes we don’t do a good job in the neighborhoods . . .”

“That’s because there’s too much goddamned politics in the department, Bill. You know that as well as Jimmy and I do.”

“That’s life,” Dysart said. “I don’t like it any more than you, but I can’t have guys like Jimmy holding court with a 9 mm judge presiding.”

Dysart got into his car. He started the engine, rolled down the window, and said, “Mike, be careful, okay? Even though you two only been gone a year, things are different from what they were when you were cops. People are pretty anxious. You were right about one thing . . .” He nodded toward the warehouse. “. . . these people are more paranoid than most. Truthfully, if this meeting was an indicator, they’re scared shitless.” He waved as he drove away.

O’Leary and Winter walked out of the warehouse. O’Leary lit a cigarette and watched the cop drive away. “SOSDD,” he said.

“What?” Bouchard asked.

“Same old shit, different day.”

“Jimmy,” Bouchard said, “Bill Dysart is possibly the most honest and straight cop I’ve ever known. But as he said, he can’t investigate a crime until there’s evidence of one. The powers that be would have him on the carpet within an hour of opening up an investigation.”

“Well,” O’Leary replied, “the powers that be got no hold on me . . .” O’Leary walked away without saying anything else.

“Obviously,” Houston said.

Winter grinned. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. He’ll come around, if not in this lifetime, the next.”

Houston grinned. “My money is on the next lifetime.”