The ride from Logan Airport to Boston’s North End was a manageable twenty minutes. Before “The Big Dig,” a construction project aimed at putting the city’s freeways underground, the city was a rush-hour maze with no way out. But with the completion of the most expensive engineering project ever undertaken by man, Boston had once again become a charming big city. The streets were less crowded, the air was cleaner, the city quieter. Sure, Beantown was one major underground accident away from a total transportation hose-up, but for now the Big Dig was finally showing results after years of budget overruns and broken promises. The senator looked at the skyline of Boston, deep in thought. Home. It has its advantages.
A few blocks northeast of Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market lies the North End, Boston’s version of Little Italy. In a city dominated by Irish immigrants, the Italians, backed with guns and pasta, had made their niche. Small Italian shops lined Hanover Street and pockmarked the surrounding neighborhoods. Mom and Pop establishments sold everything from cannoli to ice cream, pasta to seafood, wine to cheese. English was optional, and you got a discount if the owner knew your family or liked your face. Two blocks away, the North Church marked the edge of the cultural enclave and the beginning of Paul Revere’s famous “the British are coming” gallop through Boston and the history books.
As the senator drove past the statue of Paul Revere, he thought about the luxury of having advanced warning. He needed a Paul Revere. Someone to tell him when he was being ambushed. One if by land, two if by sea, three if you are being blackmailed by an unscrupulous sweatshop owner.
The Gelodini family had occupied the corner of Hanover and Prince Streets since the first barrel of tea was thrown overboard into Boston Harbor to protest British-imposed taxes. The Gelodinis came to the country carrying a few suitcases of clothes and a proud lineage of carpenters and bricklayers. Hard workers with big appetites to go with even bigger personalities. The love of food and the propensity for engaging conversation was the impetus for a change to the Gelodinis’s chosen profession. For four generations the hammers and spades had been gathering dust as antiques in the attic, the family tools replaced with spatulas and pasta makers.
Michael Gelodini, a short Italian with a harsh Sicilian-rooted Bostonian accent, gave the senator a firm handshake and led him down a narrow hall and up a flight of stairs to a private dining room in the back of the restaurant.
”Your guest is waiting,” said the current patriarch of the Gelodini family.
“Thank you,” the senator replied.
“I will be taking care of you personally, Senator. Shall I get you a bottle of wine?”
“Please. A decent red.”
“We have a nice 1999 Chianti Classico.”
“Perfect.”
The senator entered the room and Michael Gelodini disappeared. The senator’s guest was seated at one end of table, facing the door. It was a habit that had kept him alive on more than one occasion. Some lessons are learned the hard way, and the scar across the middle of the guest’s neck illustrated the point.
“Senator.”
“DiMarco, I assume,” the senator replied.
“Yes. And that is the first and last time you will address me by name.” His dark soulless eyes combined with his black hair and the scar on his neck to give the impression that the inside of the man matched the intimidating exterior.
Neither man moved to extend the other a handshake. The senator, eyeing a man he would only meet once, pulled out a chair and sat down, sitting diagonally across the table from his guest.
“Nice restaurant. I don’t make it to the North End much. I’m from Southie,” DiMarco said proudly.
“An Italian from Southie.”
“There are plenty of true bloods in Southie. Somebody has to keep tabs on the Irish. You know we have Italian restaurants in Southie, too. Good ones.”
The senator smiled. He liked people from Boston. “This place is discreet without being dangerous, physically or politically. I’m a United States Senator. I can’t risk being seen getting out of a car in Southie or Jamaica Plain or Roxbury. Here, if someone happens to see me, no one will think twice.”
“Whatever. You’re picking up the check.”
Finding DiMarco had taken the senator exactly one phone call to his father. Edward Day III had provided his son, through DNA, with the brains, the looks, and the inherent instinct to survive at all costs. He shared his son’s ambition. He wanted nothing more than to be the father of the President. If his son would only learn how to use a condom.
“Where can I find the individuals in question?” DiMarco asked over a steaming plate of mussels on the table.
“Saipan.”
“Just where the hell is that?”
The senator gave DiMarco a brief geography lesson. Vincent DiMarco listened and nodded.
“You have pictures of these acquaintances of yours?”
“No,” the senator lied. He sure as hell wasn’t about to hand over the pictures he did have.
DiMarco, dark eyes staring at the senator, thought for a moment. “One hundred thousand before I start. Another one hundred thousand when the job is done. Plus fifty thousand for expenses.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I deal in cash, and I don’t start until I receive the first payment. This is the address where you can deliver the money. There is a door on the second floor in the back. Someone will answer. Here is a phone number where you can reach me. Don’t use my name. I am the only one who will answer at that number, so you don’t have to go asking for me. If I don’t answer, don’t leave a message. If I need to contact you, I will do so from a public phone or I will use an untraceable prepaid phone.”
“Agreed,” the senator answered. “It will take me a couple of days to get the cash.”
“Fine. Like I said, I will be waiting. Once I receive the payment, I will start. When I finish, I will contact you and you will deliver the second payment to another address I will identify later.”
“Fine.”
“Now what can you tell me about your acquaintances?”
The senator liked the sound of the word “acquaintance.” “My first acquaintance is a man by the name of Lee Chang, owner of a sweatshop operating under the name Chang Industries. My second acquaintance is a girl named Wei Ling who works at the sweatshop.” The senator pointed to an address from a corner of his old itinerary to the island. “Here’s the address of the sweatshop—it should be easy to find. Saipan is not a big island.”
“Well, nothing is as easy as it sounds. I’ll have to do some surveillance and pick my spot. It’ll take a week. Maybe less, maybe more.”
“The sooner, the better.”
“Any preference?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are a lot of ways to get injured in this world. I mean, I’ll take what I can get as far as the opportunity goes, but I try to accommodate my client’s request.”
Senator Day looked around the empty private dining room as if he expected the FBI to come busting through the door. “I’m not sure what you are saying,” the senator answered coyly. “But if I had a choice of how I would like to die, I would prefer it be an accident.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I think I can rule out the use of a firearm. I’m not about to fly to some foreign country with a gun in my bag.”
“It’s not a foreign country. Saipan is a U.S. territory.”
“Well, just the same. Taking a gun on an airplane, even a gun with a proper license, is not in our best interest.” DiMarco didn’t bother telling the senator that he preferred knives. They did the job, left fewer clues if you took the weapon with you, and they were silent. Every musician has their favorite instrument and DiMarco’s were stainless steel, heavily weighted, razor sharp blades made by an old codger in Toledo, Spain.
The senator nodded and said nothing.
Mr. Gelodini entered with a fresh basket of bread and filled the senator’s wine glass. Vincent DiMarco stood and straightened his jacket.
“Michael, my guest can’t stay for dinner. Would you please see him out?”
“Certainly, sir. Will the senator still be dining with us this evening?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Very well.”
Michael Gelodini led Vincent DiMarco through the kitchen and out the side door to an alley beside the restaurant. The metal door shut and darkness surrounded DiMarco like a comfortable jacket. With quarter of a million dollars on his income horizon, DiMarco looked down the alley in both directions. To the left he could see the lights of Hanover Street silhouetting patrons as they shuffled down the sidewalk. DiMarco turned away from the light and vanished into the night.