I stayed the night. Bill had left. Bonnie slept the martinis off next to me. Her hangover cure would include a breakfast of eggs, sides of hash browns and bacon, and gulps of strong coffee and orange juice. She’d have to swallow my bit of news, straight out of Maverick Street in East Boston, and take it with an adult aspirin. I told her that if her client, Charlie Costa, wanted to avoid the walk around the prison yard at Walpole for several decades, he’d agree to an uncontested divorce. The case of the missing spouse was closed and filed away, in my opinion.
I went downstairs. I imagined at any other address in Newton, the wealthy started their day with a gallant buffet and the choice of newspapers, from the pink sheets of the Financial Times to the sober newsprint of The Boston Globe, and for their amusement, the alternative weekly, The Real Paper, out of Cambridge.
There was none of that here because no matter how many men gathered in one place, the unavoidable happened, and that was the room resembled a locker room, and there were cliques. The junior varsity among Mr. B’s team lingered in one room, which reeked of a cacophony of colognes and cigarette smoke. The starters kept to their own room, and one look at them and you sensed danger. They guarded their words, down to the syllable, and they moved with confidence. They didn’t smoke. They didn’t wear aftershave, not even Vitalis in their hair.
Tony Two-Times called me over and whispered into my ear. “That thing you requested. Follow me.”
We entered another room. He pointed to a lump on the table, a napkin over the body of a handgun. “You mighta seen something similar in the war.”
I moved the napkin and looked at the weapon. The SEALs favored an earlier version of the weapon, along with a light machine-gun I admired, the Stoner 63.
I said, “Looks like a Smith and Wesson 59.”
“This weapon is handmade from functional parts. No serial number is engraved on the frame or receiver. You know what that means.”
“It’s untraceable.”
“It’s a ghost,” Tony said with pride. “The magazine holds fourteen rounds, nine millimeter Parabellum. You know, putting this all together for you, I learned what parabellum means. Are you curious?”
“I already know. Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. Vegetius, a fourth-century Roman writer.”
“You really know how to take the air out of the tires, don’t you?”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Entire package weighs thirty-four ounces loaded.”
My eyes registered something else on the table. “And what’s this next to it?”
“Silencer.”
“A Hush Puppy,” I said.
“A what?”
“It’s what we used to silence sentries or dogs.”
“I like that,” Tony said. “You’re all kinds of secrets, aren’t you, Cleary?”
“Thought I was an open book if anybody bothered to read me.” I tapped his shoulder. “Thanks for picking up Bonnie, and wish you didn’t have to take this forced vacation.”
“This vacation, I don’t mind. Honest. It’s a break from all the social obligations.”
“Social obligations?” I said.
“You have any idea how many weddings and funerals I attend each week? Half the time, I don’t know the people in the room, but I sit at a table, make nice, and I offer an envelope. You never forget the envelope, and don’t get me started on the hellos and goodbyes. Ever since that movie The Godfather, I’ve had to ask myself, how many guys do I have to kiss to get across this room?”
I met with Mr. B again. A small Samsonite was perched on the desk. He gave me the two combinations, one for the left roller and one for the right, as codes to unlock the briefcase. We both lived in the real world and understood a criminal with Hormel beans for brains could open it without the combination or beat it to death like the gorilla in the television commercial.
He said he hoped that I knew what I was doing in this game of Liar’s Dice. It was a game of guesses and bluffs, and there were no ties. Only one player would remain. Mr. B had played his hand and won a battle but risked a war. Some would argue that drugs were inevitable and someone had to profit from the narcotics trade, yet here we were. Southie had rolled the dice, and it was my turn to roll and bid, and I wanted all the dice.
Mr. B said, “A hundred K was his price for the inconvenience.”
“Should I ask for handcuffs? I can handcuff myself to the case, like the spies do in the movies.”
“Our friend in Southie would simply cut your hand off and send it to me, COD.”
I touched the luggage. “And the suitcase?”
“Knowing how cheap Jimmy is, he’ll keep it.”
I glanced at him, at the walls and the bookcase, and noticed a small statue of the Virgin Mary. He’d noticed that my eyes had lingered there. He said, “Knowing my luck, the bastards hid a microphone inside her. Perverse thought, bugging the Virgin Mother.”
“Actually, not a bad idea. Reminds me of a scene in a movie. You play saxophone?”
“If I wanted to torment them, I’d pick up the violin. It’s a godawful instrument when played horribly. What movie had a statue of her?”
“The Conversation. The Virgin Mary makes an appearance in the movie. As for the saxophone, Gene Hackman plays it, and ‘they’ call him. He hears a recording of himself playing a jazz number. He tears up his apartment, but never finds the bug.”
“They?”
“Same folks as the people in town you should worry about.”
“And the Virgin Mary?”
“A symbol in the movie for his loss of faith.”
He looked in the direction of the statue on the shelf. “I kept it because of my mother.”
“She was religious?”
“Are you kidding me? I asked her one time, ‘Ma, why is the statue of St. Jude upside down on the wall.’ She said, ‘Some Saint of the Impossible? When he answers me, I’ll turn him right-side up.’”
“Quite the catechism lesson,” I said. “Sal has the address for the meet?”
“He does. It’s a junkyard in Somerville. On Jimmy’s turf, but what’d you expect?”
“With Jimmy, you never know,” I said. “Not for nothing, I’m glad you and Sal worked it all out. If I come out the other side of this, I may ask you to do something for me.”
“Why don’t you ask me now? I’ve got time on my hands, remember? I’m hiding out from GI Joe.” He smirked. “What kind of favor? Give me an idea in case you don’t come back.”
“Thanks for that vote of confidence. The favor is personal.”
“I’m fine with personal,” Mr. B said, “Let’s hear it.”
“I’ve been drawing a circle around the veteran who died on the Common, and I’ve come up blank. I’m sure you read about him in the paper.”
“Man froze to death. What about him?”
“Long story short is he didn’t freeze to death. He died somewhere else, with water in his lungs, and then he was placed in a freezer before he was relocated. We both know that requires equipment, help, and planning.”
“And you want to know who did it and why.”
I said, “I do, and I have someone looking into a lead. As for why, I think I have a good idea.”
“You mentioned you had a lead.”
“Researching people in a photograph with him.”
“Is it that picture in The Herald?”
“Yes.”
Mr. B patted the side of my arm. “Let me look into it and we’ll discuss this when you return from your adventure with Jimmy.”
I was halfway to the door when Mr. B called out to me. He had a question for me, and he said that I didn’t have to answer it, but he hoped that I would. He asked me if I thought I’d go to Heaven.
I answered him. “Not a chance.”