Watertown—the next morning
“The bank refuses to cooperate without a warrant,” Dryfus told Jenkins. “We’re not looking at that account. Or any other without the paper. They did say there’s been no reported theft in any of their accounts during the past forty-eight hours.”
“None?”
“No.” Dryfus shook his head. “We must have scared him into shutting down.”
“Or laying low.”
“It’s not that they’re being uncooperative,” said Dryfus. “They’re just sticking to procedure. Covering their asses. . . . How’s Johnny?”
“He, uh, he’s doing a lot better.”
“Without his legs?”
“He’s got, uh, prosthetics.”
“Like the blade runner things?”
“No, these are, they look like real legs.”
“I’ve been meaning to go over there.”
Jenkins understood. He’d had to force himself this last visit: it was tough seeing Johnny, even if the doctors said he was recovering at a remarkable pace.
“We have to figure out a way to get this guy,” Jenkins said. “For Johnny.”
“Sure.”
The look on Dryfus’s face suggested just the opposite of what his response implied—the incident that had claimed Johnny’s legs was not connected. Boston PD had already made an arrest.
And his brother, James?
This isn’t a personal thing. This isn’t a personal thing. And you have no evidence tying them together.
I’ll get it, god damn it. I’ll get it.
“Boss?” Dryfus had a concerned look on his face.
“Just thinking,” confessed Jenkins.
“We can’t get a subpoena?”
Not without saying who it’s aimed at, Jenkins thought. And that will kill it. Even assuming they could get it, which was a stretch.
“We need more evidence,” said Jenkins. “We have to just keep plugging away. We’ll dig into this Tolevi character, see who his connections are, what he does with the mob, everything. Something will come up.”
“He’s got a kid,” said Dryfus. “Raising her himself. His wife died of cancer when she was like three or something.”
“That’s nice. I’ll nominate him for father of the year. Right after we put him in jail.”
The information that Tolevi had a daughter—and Jenkins’s flip remark—haunted him later in the day. Not because he didn’t think a father could be a criminal: there were plenty of examples of that.
What bothered him was the fact that he kept thinking of different ways he might use the girl to get information on her father. And even for him that ought to be out of bounds.
Jenkins had worked for the Bureau for some sixteen years. Like just about every other newly minted agent, he’d started out as a strict by-the-book guy, unstintingly self-righteous—so much so that if he could go back in time and confront his younger self, he would slap him across the face, then throttle some sense into him.
Experience had erased both the self-righteousness and his approach to solving crimes. But that was not to say that he believed that the end justified the means. If he had long ago stopped being an Eliot Ness wannabe, still he believed in observing the broad rules of justice and procedure. He wouldn’t plant evidence, for example. And he wouldn’t harass children.
Yet since he took this case—no, since his brother died—reality had appeared starker than ever. The guys in the white suits were losing the fight to the guys in the black suits. Why? Because they had to follow procedures that made no sense.
The best among them—his brother, Johnny Givens—followed their impulses to do good. Where did that leave them? Dead or crippled.
And yet . . . if there were no rules, where did that leave anyone? Where did that leave society? There were too few people like Massina, altruistic do-gooders who acted generously, righteously, under any circumstances.
I need to solve this case somehow, Jenkins told himself.
I’ll talk to the girl, but I’ll be careful about it.