Among Thieves

Chapter Eight

“So, are you, like, dating that guy?”

Sally’s elbows were on the dented metal table, a fried-egg-and-bacon sandwich hanging from her fingers. As Lissa suspected, Finn hadn’t fed the girl any breakfast. There was a diner near the office, and still almost an hour before Sally had to be at school.

“Which guy?” Lissa asked, sipping her coffee, feigning ignorance.

“The guy you kissed. The guy with the fucked-up face.”

“You shouldn’t swear.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m buying you breakfast.”

“Everybody swears.”

“Not at breakfast.”

Sally took a huge bite of her sandwich and yolk dripped down her chin, splattering on the table. She didn’t seem to notice. “So, are you dating him?” Her mouth was full and more yolk trickled down her face.

Lissa pulled a napkin from the dispenser on the table next to the ketchup bottle and put it on the table in front of Sally. The girl picked up the napkin and moved it over next to her plate, careful to keep it as far away as possible from both the egg on the table and the egg on her face. “That’s a personal question,” Lissa said.

“Not really,” Sally argued. “If I asked you when was the last time you guys had sex, or what he was like in bed, that would be a personal question. All I asked was whether or not you were dating.”

Lissa took another napkin from the dispenser and reached over toward Sally, moving the girl’s plate so that she could mop up the egg on the table. She was tempted to go after the girl’s face, but thought better of it. “Are you sure you’re only fourteen?”

“Half the girls in school are pregnant,” Sally said. “It’s not like I don’t know about sex. You want to ask me anything?” She looked up at Lissa through her uneven, razor-cut bangs, a challenge in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Lissa said. “I’m dating him.”

The girl kept looking at her, as if deciding whether to believe her. Finally she lowered her eyes to her sandwich and took another bite. “Cool.”

“So, how long have you lived with your father?” Lissa changed the subject.

“A year,” Sally replied. “Maybe a little less. My mom split. Couldn’t handle the pressure anymore.”

“That must have been hard.”

Sally shrugged. “I don’t know why she waited so long. I mean, why bother putting up with the first thirteen years if she wasn’t going to stick it out, you know? It’s like she waited around for long enough to see what I turned out like, and then took off when she didn’t like what she saw. Pretty fucked up, huh?”

Lissa nodded. “It’s not as unusual as you think, though. And you seem smart enough to know that it had nothing to do with you.”

“Did your parents take off, too?” The look in the girl’s eyes resembled hope.

“Not officially. They didn’t need to. They ignored me instead.”

“That’s like Devon -my father. He lets me stay with him, but that’s about it. He can’t seem to really figure out the whole dad thing, y’know?”

“Do you have any aunts or uncles-grandparents, maybe?” Lissa asked.

“Nope. It’s just the nuclear family for me. As in meltdown.”

Lissa stared at her coffee. “So,” she began carefully, “if your dad ends up going away for some amount of time, do you know where you’ll stay?”

The girl attacked what was left of her sandwich. “Not really. I’ll figure out something, though. I’ve been getting by more or less on my own for a while now.”

She shoveled the last of the yellow-stained English muffin into her mouth. Lissa tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to her. She opened her mouth and took a breath, but no sound came out. She went to try again and Sally looked up at her. For a moment the air between them was charged with expectation, and then the moment was over. Sally picked up the napkin and wiped her chin. “It’s getting late,” she said. “I gotta get to school.”

“Murphy’s dead.”

Finn delivered the news to Devon as soon as he was alone with him inside the tiny visiting room at the Nashua Street Jail.

“Dead?” Devon seemed shocked, and Finn could read nothing from his reaction. “How? When?”

“Murdered. At the Body Shop, looks like on Saturday night. Ugly stuff, too. He was beaten beyond recognition from what they say. Then shot in the head.”

Devon hadn’t even had time to sit. Now he slid slowly into the tiny chair in front of Finn. “Jesus,” he said. He rubbed a hand across his face. “Do they know who did it?”

Finn shook his head. “If they do, the cops aren’t sharing. Not yet, at least.”

“No, I guess they wouldn’t, would they.”

“ Devon, I need to know if this has anything to do with your case.”

“Are you asking if I killed him?”

“Not really. I just don’t like surprises.”

Finn would have expected Devon to be offended or defensive. He wasn’t, though. He just sat there, impassive, his eyes focused on some imaginary point in the distance. “How could I have anything to do with it?” he asked at last. “He’d just given me a job to do. Why would I?”

“He’d just given you a job that landed you in here.”

Devon shook his head. “That wasn’t his fault.”

“So you’ve told me,” Finn said. “It all seems a little coincidental, though-you get busted and send me out to talk to Murphy, and now Murphy’s dead.”

Devon lost the thousand-yard stare and looked at Finn. “I had nothing to do with Murphy’s murder, Finn,” he said.

Finn kept looking at him for another few seconds. “Good enough.” He sat down in the other chair in the room.

“What now?” Devon asked.

“I guess that’s up to you. Murphy was the only lead you gave me. Is there anybody else?”

“Maybe,” Devon said. “You’re not gonna like it, though.”

Finn frowned. “Who?”

“Eddie Ballick.”

“The Fisherman? You’re kidding, right?”

“Ballick was Murphy’s boss. If anyone would know anything, it would be him.”

“Maybe, but so what? What’s Ballick gonna say to me that’s gonna be useful? He’s not gonna incriminate himself just to get you out.”

Devon shook his head. “No. But maybe he’d give up someone else. I been tryin’ to figure out something to give the DA. I give them someone good enough, maybe I can cut a good deal. Maybe even stay outta the joint?”

“I guess that depends on who you could give them. I’m not sure they’re gonna be interested in Ballick tossing them Murphy at this point. They’ll probably feel like justice has already been served as far as he goes.”

“What if we could give them someone more interesting?”

“It’d have to be someone pretty interesting. Who did you have in mind?”

“How about Johnny Gilberacci?”

Finn thought about it. “Play it out for me.”

“I told you,” Devon said, “it was an inside job. Johnny’d been boost-in’ shit from his own store-stealing from his partners-for almost a year, just to keep his legs in one piece. Even that was only enough to keep up with the vig. This job was gonna get him off the whole fuckin’ nut. Murphy and his people were gonna take the merchandise to sell on the street, and the insurance was gonna be split down the middle.”

“So what happens now?” Finn asked. “Given that the whole thing blew up?”

“With Murphy dead, who knows? There’s gonna be a fight over his business, but a lotta shit falls through the cracks. Johnny might come out of this pretty good. In some ways, it’s a pretty good motive for Johnny to kill Murphy, don’t you think?”

Finn laughed. “Murphy wasn’t killed with pinking shears, Devon. You really think Johnny Gilberacci did the kind of damage we’re talking about to Vinny?”

Devon shook his head. “No, probably not. But we can still give him up on the burglary and insurance fraud, right? The murder angle is just a bonus that the cops might want to play with a little.”

Finn let the notion percolate for a moment. “It’s the kind of a case that DAs love,” he admitted. “It’s high-profile, and Johnny hasn’t made many friends in the press, so it’s not likely that he’ll be seen as a sympathetic defendant. It could actually be the kind of a case that some ambitious prosecutor would jump at.”

“That’s what I figured. It could actually get me out of this in the long run.”

Finn shook his head. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. The DA’s office would still want you to do some time, but it could reduce the stretch-if you can actually deliver. Did you ever deal with Gilberacci directly?”

Devon shook his head. “I only talked to Murphy. That’s why we gotta get Eddie Ballick on board. The whole thing swings on him.”

Finn shook his head. “There’s got to be someone else.”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Think harder.”

Devon sighed. “You know how shit works, Finn. Eddie keeps everything under his control. He only deals with his boys-like Murphy-and they only deal with the people who need to know about a particular job. The fewer loose ends, the less chance that the cops can get a clear shot at anybody.”

“They got a clear shot at you.”

“I’m tellin’ you, the only person who might be able to connect the dots straight back to Giberacci would be Ballick. There’s nobody else.”

Finn rubbed his temples. “The Fisherman,” he said. “I’m not really that anxious to have this conversation.”

“You ever meet him?” Devon asked.

Finn nodded. “I did work on a few jobs for him back when I was hustling. Grunt stuff. He probably wouldn’t even remember. Not exactly a warm, fuzzy guy.”

Devon agreed. “No, he’s not. But he’ll remember. He remembers everything.”

“He still down near Quincy?”

“Yeah. At the shack on the water. You couldn’t pry his ass away from there.”

Finn looked at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “Fuck it, why not? We have your arraignment tomorrow, and I need to know what kind of cards we’re holding.”

“Do me a favor,” Devon said.

“You’re about out of favors, Devon.”

“Give me a call when you’re done with him, okay? I wanna hear what he says.”

Finn got up and walked over to the steel door, pressing the button by the side of it to let the guards know that he was ready to leave. The buzzer sounded on the electronic lock on the other door, to let Devon back into the cell block.

“Wait, Finn,” he said before he left the room.

“What?”

“How’s Sally? She okay?”

“Yeah,” Finn replied. “She’s okay. She’s a piece of work. I like her.”

Devon smiled. “She’s a fuckin’ pistol. Hell of a lot smarter than either of her parents. Her mom’s a real fuckup. No one ever gave Sally a chance. Shit, I didn’t even know she existed until a year ago.”

“She seems to be getting by,” Finn said.

“Yeah, getting by,” Devon said. “She’s a survivor, that’s for shit-sure. I should be doin’ better by her than this. With all the crap she’s been through she deserves better than just getting by.”

“We all deserve better than just getting by,” Finn said. “Sometimes, that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Yeah,” Devon said. He was back into the thousand-yard stare. “Sometimes that’s right.”