A button pushed, and we were saved from becoming a tin for anchovies. Hunter gave us the dignity of worming our way out of the bent and broken Pontiac after he freed our hands. We assessed his work. With a jazz drummer’s syncopation, Hunter had dropped Slim and Poodle, each with one shot. They died standing near the controls to the compactor. While Sal and I removed the duct tape on our mouths, Hunter busied himself with his knife, working the nine-millimeter slugs out of the two corpses. Sal whispered to me, “It’s like your friend enjoys what he’s doing.”
Hunter searched for the spent brass and slipped the casings into a pocket as bloodied relics. He walked about cheerful and bright as a hundred-watt bulb. “Looks like you two have had the Recommended Daily Allowance for excitement today.”
“Something like that,” Sal said as he rubbed his wrists. He surveyed the damage to his car, mumbling something about finding a payphone to find us a ride back to civilization. While he wandered the premises, Hunter walked over to tell me, “I’m planning a party at the Seaport tomorrow night, if you’re interested.”
“Let me guess. Seven pm. Pier four.”
“How did you know?”
“DEA agents. Lusk and Miller. Their source wore a wire. You?”
“Conversation in a bar before someone lit the place up.”
“About that,” I said. “Did the outcome of that discussion do anything to settle the score for you?”
“I wish.”
“The Puerto Ricans didn’t kill Pedro?”
“They played a part, but another party did the job. Get them, and the account is closed.”
“What happened inside that bar, Hunter?”
“The Canadians offered to finance the product. The Puerto Ricans offered to transport it. Prices and percentages were discussed. The Italians wanted in on the action, and then the barbershop quartet showed up.”
“You heard details on a shipment before the firefight?”
“Correct.”
“Cocaine?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“And the man in the street was a liability?”
“Yep.”
“Monosyllabic much? Here’s the hardest question of the day. Did the Company do Pedro and the three police officers?”
“Sure looks like it, don’t it?”
“I guess the red feather was for nothing.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
He met my gaze, his blues versus my gray. We’d been trained to lie, and we could beat a polygraph if we had to do it. He could turn a lie into the truth, the truth into a lie, and twist them both like Chubby Checker. I’d taught Hunter how to lower his heart rate, how to calm himself down while inside hell’s kitchen, but he possessed the hunter’s greatest gift:
Mercy.
He could’ve claimed the right to retaliate for the firefight in Southie, but didn’t. Mr. B would live. If he believed that Mr. B’s criminal enterprises had caused Pedro’s death, then nothing would’ve saved him or his men in Newton. Bonnie and Delilah would’ve woken up to a red harvest.
I called Sergeant Duffy. I was spare as Sam Beckett about details. I named the time and place, and I asked him to do what he could for morale and support. When I had told him the time, I ran late with the hour and minutes so Hunter could have his revenge. All the sergeant had to do was show up and claim the scene for the department, and say it was related to three fallen officers.
The precinct was infested with corruption, so I told him to form his own hat squad, men he could trust. Chief Parker had done it in old LA, back before growers stopped using cyanide to fumigate orange groves, and the Golden State started using it to gas its most depraved citizens.
Sal drove us to Fort Point in a Mercedes-Benz R107. I recognized the car the moment I saw the pagoda hardtop and the large safety bumpers. His roadster, in a rich burgundy red, moved fast despite its heft. He talked about this car with the pride of a newly-minted daddy at the hospital’s nursery. He said the car was good on emissions because of the added catalytic converter. Sal said the car was next year’s model and mentioned one new feature: automatic climate control.
At Fort Point, in the dying sunlight, he pointed to a window in a warehouse and told us to use it as our HQ. He said his uncle had made all the ‘arrangements.’ He didn’t elaborate. He’d done his job and threw me the keys to the place and left.
We accepted on faith that Agents Lusk and Miller were in the vicinity.
Hunter’s and the DEA’s intel converged on a loading dock near Melcher Street. The location was South Boston, Winter Hill Gang territory, and that suggested Jimmy and his friend John were in on this new business in Boston. If that were true, Jimmy was a liar. There was a good chance the business owners of the nearby buildings were giving him a percentage of whatever they moved through their doors, legal or not. Either way, Jimmy had feigned ignorance about drugs and what had gone down at the bar, but no surprise there. He’d steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes.
Hunter and I watched Sal’s car roll away before we acquainted ourselves with our digs.
The Italians used safe houses when they went to war. I had expected a poet’s garret, the barest of bare amenities. The key from Sal opened into what turned out to be a brick-and-beam loft. Where I had expected a worn cot, there was a bed with Egyptian sheets. Instead of a hot plate, there was a gas stove. The walls displayed some framed art. I didn’t recognize the artists, but they weren’t tawdry pinups torn from raunchy magazines. I didn’t check, but I expected a cache of weapons and ammunition in the cupboard.
Hunter opened the door to a refrigerator. He whistled to get my attention. Inside, a meal for two was waiting. A bottle of wine and two glasses stood on the counter, with a corkscrew next to them, in case we wanted one last hurrah. Hunter said, “The Italians may have never won a war, but you have to hand it to them. They have style.”
Hunter’s carry bag bulged with hardware and ammo. He offered me a choice of two shotguns. I chose the one he nicknamed ‘Stakeout.’ It was light, seven pounds empty, and no more than fourteen when loaded. Another nice feature of the Ithaca shotgun was that the spent shells ejected from the bottom as opposed to the right. Hunter noticed my nine mil. He also carried a nine mil, but his preferred weapon this evening was an Israeli Galil rifle, perfect for close combat, and its rear sight worked well at night and for long-range targets. The curved magazine held 50 rounds.
Fort Point Channel separated Boston from South Boston. Here, dark water shimmered as sunlight faded. Seagulls lifted and cried in the air to announce nightfall. Yellowish lights behind the Old North Avenue Bridge acted as headlights in front of a pale purple sky.
The channel had fallen into disrepair. When some of the wharves and piers had rotted out, they were converted into parking lots and scrapyards, like the one in Somerville where we danced with Jimmy and his friend John. Here, it was tall buildings, wide buildings, and alphabet streets. Open a car window at the sight of water and wait for the stench of salt and fish.
We called targeted engagements church service because people would die. Everything about the mission became solemn, and we conserved on everything and anything that required energy, including talking.
Before combat, every man was different during quarantine, that time before we made contact. We’d eat what the enemy ate so we’d smell the same as them. Some men prayed, some became quiet, and some stared off into the distance, ready to accept the heaviness that came with killing. Hunter and I checked and rechecked our equipment.
It was Hunter’s op, so he called it. “Time for church. See you on the other side.”
We would establish our positions and wait.
A mist drifted over the oily water. It didn’t bother me since I’ve waded through endless paddies filled with the living and the dead, both men and animals. The stench from the Boston Harbor I did not mind, since I’ve been acquainted with every odor, human and other.
We waited in the dark, in the silent calm.
I saw the silhouettes of two men, one tall and one short. They both were wearing dark clothes. A small spotlight flashed once from the water. I heard a boat I couldn’t see in the distance. The helmsman had the engine down to a low purr. The sound of a loud motor would echo. The boat neared the pier, and a new man came out of the darkness. Stern lines slapped the deck. The man picked them up to tie off the lines to dock cleats.
The tall and short men approached the boat, its driver, and the man who had tied the lines.
“Change of plan, amigos. We’re taking the shipment.”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Who we are doesn’t concern you,” the tall man said. “Your boss is dead, but the good news is you’re still in business, and we’re your partners.”
The short man pointed at the boat. “How much is on board?”
“Six keys.”
“Stack them on the pier, nice and neat, and in two piles. ¿Me hago entender?”
“Clear as a bell,” the man answered and sputtered directions in fast Spanish to a small shadow on the boat. My heart sank when I saw a kid come forward with some of the merchandise. My finger rested on the trigger ring, and I dug the stock into my shoulder. I didn’t want him caught in any crossfire, even though kids younger than he have tried to kill me. I watched the child follow directions.
“Let’s get a move on. We don’t have all night,” the tall one said.
Hunter emerged from the shadows. He boarded the boat behind the helmsman and the young boy. If there was anyone else on the vessel, he’d silence them with his knife. A minute later, Hunter reappeared and scurried toward one of the buildings. Either there was nobody else on board, or he had planted an explosive.
Hunter disappeared into a building.
He was seeking higher ground with his rifle.
A new voice and a fresh cadre came into view. The brogue was distinctive, was Bostonian, and was Southie. Thin, with the swagger and slicked-back undercut haircut that was easy to mistake for a mohawk but wasn’t, he walked into the frame with several dozen hooligans behind him. My eyes spotted Lusk and Miller, but I turned my attention back to the punks. His friends were carrying topless axe handles, 36 inches of hickory without the headsman’s blade. Coming fast, across the way, was another large group of Winter Hill Gang associates.
The lead dog in this pack barked at the two Puerto Ricans and the kid, “Think you can come here without paying rent?” Seeing the numbers, the suits jumped onto the boat and left the Hispanic men and kid on the dock. Mr. Southie and his band of delinquents approached hard and fast. “I’m talking to you,” he yelled. He had raised his stick when his head exploded.
Hunter was playing sniper.
Men scattered, and I stepped out into the action. One of the crazies ran toward me. I squeezed the trigger. The shot hit him center mass and threw him back. My second blast hit his friend high enough that it decapitated him. I heard the reports of a rifle. Hunter put down three men several feet away from me. I emptied the rest of the shotgun into the wave of flesh headed my way, and then reached for the nine mil.
Rhythmic gunfire rained down from a warehouse window while I worked the crowd.
Snaps, cracks, and flashes like fireworks in the night—and then nothing.
Silence.
Firefights lasted seconds; the scent of gunpowder hung in the air, and the stench stayed with you forever. I heard the boat pulling away. I saw the cut lines and the kid on the deck of the pier. The two adults with him were among the dead. The youngster had flattened himself against the wood. Under a pale moon, I watched the outlines of two men in the boat. They were destined for the open harbor. I was certain they were the pair I’d met in Kenmore Square.
I watched the boat. I heard its engine open up. It sped away, only so far, and exploded. A swirl of orange and red formed a ball, and bits of wood and debris shot up and fell down as fire until the water extinguished it.
“That was for Pedro and three good men,” I said.
Cruisers, cherry lights, flashed against all the brick, and on the water.
I saw Hunter. He raised his hand as if to wave goodbye. Lusk, and Miller walked onto the pier. I turned back to see Hunter, but he was gone. The two DEA agents saw me as I stepped into the shadows, where I listened. Sergeant Duffy’s men appeared.
Lusk stood over the neat stacks of cocaine. “What do we have here?”
Miller looked at the young man. “And who is this?”
Duffy heard the agent. “Looks like a kid who was out for a walk when he came upon Southie pond scum. Isn’t that right, son?” The kid stared off, in a state of shock. Duffy looked down at the cache of cocaine. “I believe drugs fall under the purview of the DEA.”
Lusk asked, “Doesn’t the BPD want its share of the glory?”
“I’m here to review the scum and see which one of them killed three of my men. As for the drugs, someone else can do all the paperwork.”
“You did see the explosion, right?” Miller asked.
“Of course I did, but God knows what chemicals are in the water. Hell, I’d be afraid to light a cigarette down here.”