The call came late Thursday night. Early Friday morning, really. Fifteen minutes past midnight.
“Maudie” needed a cab at the Trailways Terminal.
According to Sean Boyle, Flaherty handled bus depot and train station runs personally. Any member of the GBA could cover a “Maud” call at a residential address, do routine pickup and delivery work, but only Flaherty answered the bus or train station calls. The stations must be where he did business, trading cash for drugs. That was smart, using buses and trains. What with all the baggage checks at airports these days, a lot of federal agents were locating dope instead of terrorists.
Flaherty wasn’t dealing in Gianelli channels. He must have made his own connection, which wouldn’t have been too hard. A river of dope flows from New York to Boston. Maybe Flaherty saw the whole Green & White scam as some kind of apprenticeship. Maybe he thought after he earned his rep as an independent, he could go to Papa Gianelli and request his rightful place in the family business.
Eugene Devens must have suspected, must have followed him on one of his station runs. How Eugene had lifted the cash, I didn’t know. Why he hadn’t passed it on to the IRA—whom he considered its true owner—I did know. He hadn’t passed it on because he was dead. And whoever had killed him had been dumb enough to do it before he told them where the money was.
I got the call from Gloria at sixteen minutes past midnight. I recognized her voice immediately. She apologized for dialing the wrong number. That was the signal. She’d stalled “Maudie” as agreed, told the woman it would be half an hour or more before a cab could get loose. In half an hour Gloria would put the call on the airwaves.
Unless she heard from me that something had gone drastically wrong.
I dialed the Harvard Square pay phone where Lemon had been staked out for so many nights I was afraid he’d called it quits. But the patience he’d developed from playing statue—plus the salary I was paying him from T.C.’s hoard—kept him faithful. He picked up on the second ring.
“Tom,” I said, as soon as I heard his voice. “Tom, honey, how was the trip?”
“It’s great to be home,” Lemon said. “I missed you, babe.”
Don’t schmaltz it up, kid, I thought.
“I missed you, too,” I said. “How about if I pick you up at the Trailways Terminal? In half an hour? Is that okay? I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me, neither, babe. Look, don’t be late. I don’t want anybody to notice me hanging around.”
“And you’ll go along with this contest thing?” I asked.
“Look, Carlotta,” he said impatiently, “we’ve been through this. I’m not going on any wild-goose chases with you. I’ll be at the bus station in half an hour, and then I don’t know. I might be moving out again tonight.”
“Tonight,” I waited. “But we won’t have any time.”
“Shut up,” he said roughly. I’d described the real Thomas Carlyle to Lemon in enough detail for him to embellish his role. “Just meet me at the Trailways Terminal.”
“The new one,” I said. “On Atlantic Avenue. In half an hour,” I repeated, just in case.
“I’ll be there,” Lemon said. He added as an afterthought, “Love ’ya.”
I cradled the receiver carefully. Now it was up to Lemon and Roz to make the other calls, the cabbies to make speedy deliveries, the cops to act.
T.C. does not like to travel except when he likes to travel. I hadn’t had him in the Toyota since the last time he threw up on the dashboard.
Mooney had insisted.
I grabbed the cat and wrestled a leash attachment onto his collar. He glared at me with wide-eyed disbelief, and exercised his claws. I kept a grip on him, and pretty soon he calmed down.
I took my gun out of my shoulder bag. I thought about leaving it home. I thought about Wispy Beard. I thought about the two thugs who’d roughed up Margaret I jammed it into the waistband of my jeans, at the small of my back. It was uncomfortable.
Just as well. When a gun starts feeling comfortable, I’ll know it’s time to quit.