I needed to call Bill, and the first phone available to me was blue, in public, and Out of Order. I walked a block and located a red phone booth. I worked myself around the folding doors that’d gone arthritic into the shape of a stubborn W. I dropped some change, listened to the chimes with each coin. My finger wheeled the circuit of numbers. I checked my watch.
There was a fifty-fifty chance of him asleep or awake. He was on vacation, though not by choice. I had to remind myself that Bill was a bachelor and heartbreaker about town. He had the endurance of a Greek god for recreation and loved his men to look as if they’d descended from Mount Olympus. A groggy voice said, “You want a report at this hour?”
“It shouldn’t take long over the phone.”
“Oh no, you don’t get off that easy, not after the hell you’ve put me through.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on over, and be sure to bring breakfast with you.”
Before I could let some humor fly, he’d hung up the receiver harder than I’d put the boot on the kid’s neck. Buying breakfast seemed like an easy penance. I needed to find what Bostonians considered the essentials of life before a snowstorm hit: eggs, bread, and milk. If the spa didn’t have more of his Yuban coffee, then he’d have to suck it up with my substitute. Like the men in the squad room in Barney Miller used to Detective Nick Yemana’s coffee, every cop learned to tolerate an awful cup o’ sludge.
I found a Mom and Pop, the kind of convenience store in every neighborhood that had the man’s name first on the sign over the door and catered to the locals. Each store was as unique as its zip code. You’d expect a store in the Italian section of town to have fresh bread, a small deli counter for lunch meats, and an assortment of dried pasta on the shelves. You paid a little extra for the luxury of being able to walk from your apartment to the place in your sweatpants and for the owner behind the counter to recognize your face and call you by name.
I called Bill out of respect and did not show up unannounced. Cops were antsy about answering doors. With the recent homicides of three police officers and his successful bust, Bill had every reason to visit the door with his service revolver drawn. Wrong person at the door, and it’d be a case of Serpico, of a cop taking a bullet in the face.
My request to tail Hunter was a tax on our friendship. Cop or civilian, surveillance was tedious work, and it came with the wear and tear of sitting on your duff for hours on end. Your list of Dislikes became longer than the list of Likes. Your ass went numb, and your legs went stiff.
One guy I toured with chewed gum. He gnawed on Big Red. All night long.
He blew bubbles and popped them. He worked his cud with his mouth open and cracked his gum. A nurse doing that in front of her patients would sound like a hooker negotiating tricks. Then there was the smell, the scent of Big Red itself. People associate cinnamon with apple pie, the warmth, and comfort of the holidays, but I associate it with dynamite after the explosion. Cinnamon, like cordite, lingered in the air for hours.
I rang his bell. He answered the door the way I had greeted Tony Two-Times, his service piece in his hand. I guided myself and the brown bag into the kitchen while he holstered his Service-Six. I’d taken off my coat and draped it on the back of one of his chairs. He ran his hand through a knot of dark hair and rubbed an eye with the same paw.
I commented on the glamour. “You look like how I feel. Bad night of sleep?”
“What night? I was watching your guy.”
I unpacked the bags, started on preparing breakfast. Bill opened the cupboard for his coffee. I see a new can of joe, in the color of the Italian flag. Medaglia d’Oro. Espresso. Next, there’s a steel stovetop maker in his hands. He took the lid to the coffee off and located a spoon in a drawer. He unscrewed the coffeemaker and filled the lower portion with water at the sink. He assembled the espresso maker and placed it on the burner. I watched him with interest. The last time I’d seen coffee and steel together, it was an electric percolator.
“You have one of those?” I said.
Bill looked down. “A Bialetti. Sure, don’t you?”
I said nothing as I familiarized myself with his cookware and stovetop. I fed the toaster bread. “What does he do during the day?”
“Nothing. He wakes up late and starts his day after twelve.”
“Ever think he’s on vacation, like you?”
“When he went out, it was weird.”
“Weird how?” I asked while I cracked eggs. Before he said anything else, I pointed to the bowl. “Scrambled eggs, okay? Or did you want French toast?”
“Scrambled is fine, but use the rubber spatula and make sure to take the eggs off the heat. That way, they are creamier. Stir, and don’t whisk. There’s some crème fraîche in the fridge.”
I stared at him. He relented. “Scrambled eggs your way is fine. Honest.”
“Thanks. You were saying.”
“Where was I?”
“Weird.”
I worked the eggs and made a mental note to consult Julia Child about crème fraîche because I’d never heard of it and eggs together. Bill’s culinary expertise might score me some points with Bonnie without me having to enroll in the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The two slices of toast popped, and I pressed the lever down on two more victims.
‘Weird’ to Bill was that Hunter had not visited any of the tourist traps. No culture stops, such as the MFA or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. No history tours, such as the Freedom Trail with a docent in period costume. No pilgrimage to Charlestown Navy Yard to visit Old Ironsides, or summiting the hill to visit the Bunker Hill Monument and see the battlefield or learn that Bunker Hill was also called Breed’s Hill.
The toaster popped, and I removed the last two slices and buttered all of them gently. I’d made myself a small plate of eggs so Bill wouldn’t feel self-conscious eating alone. I asked him, “Where did he go then?”
“Chinatown. Leather District. Revere.”
“In that order?” I asked.
“That’s what I said.”
“Strange.”
“Strange is right. What does the sequence tell you?”
“Chinatown. Leather District. Revere?”
Bill was no Archie Bunker, and I wasn’t Michael Stivic by a long shot, but there were times when Bill made me feel like a meathead. “I’m drawing a blank, Bill. What are you telling me?”
“He moves around the city like someone who studied it. Chinatown is within walking distance of your apartment. Ditto for the Leather District if ambitious and need the exercise. But Revere requires knowledge of the transit system, and this guy covered territory in record time on his first day, when the usual tourist takes an hour to read a map and figure out how to get from point A to B on the T. He moves with a purpose, Shane.”
“Okay, you convinced me, but what’s his purpose?”
Bill rose from his seat to refuel his thimble of coffee. I asked him if I could try some. He said ‘sure’ and found a demitasse cup for me. I looked at the little cup and tiny saucer. “Awful small amount of coffee, don’t you think?”
“It’s strong, trust me.”
“Do I use sugar?”
“I don’t. I’m trying to stay away from everything white.”
“Is that some kind of race joke?” I turned my head to the counter. “You ate white bread.”
He looked at the loaf of Wonder bread. “But you toasted it, so it isn’t white anymore.”
I shook my head. Bill explained he was avoiding all refined and processed foods. He said he read about a new wholesome diet. “Eat and live healthy.”
“Says the man who ate a plate of eggs.”
“Eggs are good for you now.” Bill reached for a pack of Marlboros and his lighter.
“But you’re okay with Philip Morris?”
“Don’t rush me. I’m a work in progress.”
I heard the click of his Bic. He toasted the end of his cig to a dull orange. I moved an ashtray closer to him.
He tapped the start of some ash. “What do those three places have in common?”
He had me. I was stumped. “Haven’t a clue.”
“It’s not obvious, I’ll admit it, but Revere was what brought the puzzle pieces together.”
“Revere?”
“You must’ve gone to Revere as a kid, right?”
“Who hasn’t? Why?”
He raised the lit cigarette as I took my first taste of unleaded espresso. I did a Tony Two-Times, made a face, and pulled my head back. “This is rocket fuel.”
“I told you it packed a punch.”
“You drink this, and smoke those? I’m surprised you haven’t had a coronary.”
“Focus, Shane. What else is in Revere?”
“Food, girls, a good time, and the amusement park until it burned down.”
“But, it’s the mittle of fakkin’ winta in Revere now.”
I stared at him. The accent was over the top, emphatic, but Bill was trying to make a point. He was ready to drop the detective’s shield on me. I was focused on the summer season. The place was dead as a ghost town during the winter.
Revere was the first public beach in the US, and it was famous for its three-mile stretch of restaurants, roller skate rinks, and arcade games all along a boardwalk. People came from all over to ride any one of the three famous rollercoasters when the weather turned hot, humid, and sticky. Revere was respite by the water. The one blight in its seaside history was a riot in 1920 when sailors, marines, and army soldiers mixed it up with the cops.
Bill spelled it out. “What’s the neighborhood north of the clam shack like?”
“Italian, why? You saying he’s looking for a guy, a connection?”
Bill shook his head. “Real question is this, what’s about a mile south of the clam shack?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a while.”
“Blacks and Puerto Ricans. There’s a small enclave of Puerto Ricans in the Leather District and Chinatown. You sorta have to look for them, but they are there, and your guy found them.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“He’s looking for information.”
“He didn’t make you, did he?”
“No. He didn’t see me. I was within earshot, inside a car, inhaling my own vapors.” Bill held up his cigarette to make his point. “I watched him. He spoke Spanish fast and was friendly with his new friends.” Bill shifted in his chair. “I don’t know the language, but these eyes told me something.” He did the V with his fingers and pointed to his pair of blues. “I observed a guy who could jive good enough with the locals that they didn’t treat him like a gringo. This guy was like camouflage, Shane. He blended into the scene around him.”
“He knows Spanish, so what?”
I reminded Bill the language was the fastest-growing language in the country.
“More coffee?”
“God, no. Follow him at night?”
“I did.”
“What did he do at night?”
“Visited a BoB.”
Unless he had named the establishment—which he didn’t—anyone who heard Bill say ‘BoB’ would have made the honest mistake of assuming he was talking about a Bank of Boston, possibly taking out cash from an automatic teller machine, but at night, in most Boston neighborhoods, especially the ones that saw action, a BoB was a bar, as in Bucket of Blood because of the inevitable fights and bloodshed.
Beer flowed until someone insulted the Bostonian trinity of Bruins, Celtics, or Red Sox. Fights almost never occurred over some late-hour lass because people would sooner believe in leprechauns before they believed in a woman’s virtue. Few women frequented BoBs, and the few who did were as hard and tough as Maverick.
I said, “Nothing wrong with a drink. Did he go to the same place?”
“Two nights in a row, and I’ll bet he’ll go there tonight.”
“It’s a pattern,” I said.
“Same place. Same time. Same bat channel, but here’s the kick in the pants.”
Bill sat back, took his time to crank the suspense, and savor his espresso.
I told him, “Lay it on me.”
“The first night, he met with three Puerto Ricans.”
“C’mon, Bill. How do you know they’re Puerto Ricans?”
“You think I’m gonna tell you they all look alike. If you must know, one of them had a tattoo of a rosary around his neck, the beads the color of the Puerto Rican flag, and a kerchief in his ass pocket, same colors as the flag.”
“See these three in Revere, or elsewhere?”
“No, my money is on whoever he’d met in Chinatown, the Leather District, or in Revere put him in touch with these three he met two nights in a row.”
Hunter had made contact. I said to myself, “Two nights in a row?”
“Yeah, and there’s another kicker.”
“I thought the kicker was three Puerto Ricans two nights in a row?”
“Nope, it’s the BoB and its location, but I have a question for you, Shane Cleary. If the bar were in Dorchester or Roxbury, and three Puerto Ricans walked in at night, what would happen?”
“They’d get thrown out on their ass, and that’s if they were lucky.”
“If they were lucky, is right. What if a complete stranger walked into a Southie bar with three Puerto Ricans two nights in a row, and nothing happened? It gets your attention, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“Thought it would. While the hamster turns the wheel inside your head, I’d like to bring some unrelated news I heard through the grapevine to your attention. It was end of watch for another cop, and guess how he clocked out.”
“I already heard, Bill.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
“What did you hear?” Bill asked.
“Same MO as the first two, except he wasn’t wearing a vest. You?”
“Heard all three deaths will hit the news later today.”
“Six o’clock news?”
“It’s what I heard. Everyone is baffled, Shane. All three men were stand-up guys. Citations up the yin-yang, and not a complaint in their jackets. Not one, between the three of them.”
“I’d look for a case or a collar they shared in common.”
I rose from my chair and, put the carton of eggs into the fridge, the bread in the bread box, and started in on rinsing the dishes, but Bill stopped me and said he’d do his own dishes. He thanked me for breakfast and said without my asking that he would follow Hunter tonight. He was curious whether there’d be a third meet in the Southie bar.
As I put on my jacket, Bill told me he knew Hunter was former military. He could tell from the way he walked and how his eyes assessed people and cased places. Not that it was a bad thing. It came second nature to veterans. I’d said Hunter was a friend, but Bill didn’t ask whether we’d been in the same unit or not.
In the hallway, I saw his Six inside the holster on the table where he collected his mail. I said I’d call him in the morning. I touched the revolver and reminded him of my advice about dealing with Hunter.
“I know, Shane. Don’t engage him. Whatever happens, don’t engage him.”
I smiled, nodded, and left.
Hunter. Three Puerto Ricans. One Irish bar.
Two possibilities came to mind, and both were as fatal as the Ace of Spades.