Among Thieves

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kozlowski steered the car northeast, through the quaint brownstones and Newport-styled clapboard town houses going for two million a pop, down along Warren to Chelsea Street, the dividing line that separated one Charlestown from another.

As they pulled down Chelsea and out around onto Terminal, Finn looked across the Little Mystic Channel toward the Newtown Projects. The name might have been appropriate in the sixties, but now it seemed like sarcasm.

Near the end of the road, they came to an open gate. “Pull in here,” Devon said.

Kozlowski pulled in and headed north, toward the water. Two cement structures sat long and flat, running north-south, set nearly flush against the edge of the river. The sign that read “Charlestown Self-Storage” had been repainted, but otherwise the buildings hadn’t changed much in twenty years. “It’s around the back,” Devon said.

Kozlowski followed the path Devon had traveled with Bulger fifteen years before, out around by the water, onto a narrow strip of driveway, then back up into the darkened, narrow alley between the buildings. “Park here,” Devon said, halfway down.

The three of them got out of the car and walked to a door set in the side of the building. A weak bulb protected by a rusted casing screwed into the cement above the steel door threw off barely enough light for them to make their way with confidence.

“You got the keys?” Finn asked.

“Right here,” Devon replied. He pulled out two keys and tried one in the lock. It worked on the first try, and he pushed his way in. Once inside, he reached over to the wall and flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. “Bulb must be out,” he said. “Anybody think to bring a flashlight?”

“Yeah,” Kozlowski said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a slim black-steel flashlight and flipping it on, pointing it down the long narrow corridor.

Finn looked at him. “You’re good.”

“I think shit through.”

“What’s that like?”

“It’s the last one on the left,” Devon said, following the beam of light down the hallway. Once he got to the last door, he grabbed the padlock. “Gimme some light.”

Kozlowski pointed the flashlight at the padlock, and Devon used the second key to pop it open. He removed the lock and leaned down, grabbing the door and sliding it up.

The darkness inside the tiny storage unit was so complete Kozlowski’s flashlight had difficulty penetrating it. The beam crawled into the corners first, covering the parameters of the space, as if Kozlowski expected someone to be hiding within. There was nothing. The cement floors and cinderblock walls were cold and uninviting. Then the beam moved to the center of the room.

It was there. A wooden box that looked solidly constructed, sealed at the corners. “That’s it,” Devon said. No one moved; the three of them stood there looking at it as if it were a treasure that held the secrets of the universe. “You wanna see ’em?”

“We don’t have much time,” Finn said at last. He looked at his wristwatch, but it was too dark for him to make out the time.

“You checked them recently?” Kozlowski asked.

“Yeah,” Devon said. “When I took the pictures and got the paint chips.”

Kozlowski nodded. “Let’s get moving.” He stepped into the storage room and put his hand on the corner of the box. It moved easily, and he looked down at the bottom, his flashlight illuminating the small wheels at the corner of the box. “Handy,” he said. He walked around to the back of the box; Finn and Devon stood on either side. The three of them rolled the box out like pallbearers, paused after it was past the threshold while Devon closed the door and replaced the lock, then continued down the hallway.

Walking slowly so that the narrow container wouldn’t tip, Finn felt as if the walk back down the narrow passageway took forever. As they passed each of the other storage doors in succession, his heart beat a little faster. It was almost as if he believed that one of them might open and someone might jump out. It was absurd, of course, but something about the place gave him an eerie sense of the supernatural.

They got to the end of the hallway and Devon opened the door, holding it ajar with his foot. They all lifted gently to get the wheels over the lip of the entryway, and then they hit the cement outside the building. Finn checked his watch again, this time in the watery light of the lightbulb over the outside of the door. It was after eight-thirty; they still had time. He nodded and they began rolling the box again.

They loaded the box into the giant trunk of the Caprice. As large as it was, they couldn’t close the back fully, and Kozlowski used some rope to tie the lid of the trunk down. It wasn’t perfect, but they only had a short drive back to Finn’s office.

They climbed into the car and pulled out slowly, following the drive between the buildings back toward the river the way they had come. When they reached the corner of the building, Kozlowski began to turn, then jammed hard on the brakes.

There in front of them, blocking the narrow egress, was a white van. It was backed up against the corner of the building, and standing by the side of it was a man with jet-black hair. He was next to the driver’s-side door and there was barely enough room between the van and the low wall that ran along the river for him to stand. Sally was standing in front of him, bound at the ankles and wrists, a piece of duct tape covering her mouth. He was using her as a shield, and he had a gun to her head. He held the gun up and signaled for them to stop. “That’s far enough!” he yelled.

“Slowly,” Sanchez said as Stone pulled the car into the self-storage parking lot at the end of Terminal Street. Their lights were off, so they wouldn’t be spotted. They could see the FBI agents sitting in their car down toward the end of the first building.

“What now?” Stone asked as he pulled the car into a spot where they could maintain a good view of Hewitt and his partner.

“We wait,” she said.

“You serious?”

She looked at him. “You got a better idea?”

Using the GPS to track people had its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, modern technology had become so sophisticated that Hewitt and Porter could pinpoint the location of Kozlowski’s Chevy on the little driveway in between the two buildings. From the GPS mapping, they could see that there was only one way out, so all they had to do was wait, watching the corner of the building, for them to come back around. On the other hand, because they felt secure with the tracking device, they hadn’t felt the need to keep the car in sight. When they showed up at the self-storage on Terminal Street, they were probably three or four minutes behind Finn and Kozlowski, and they had no idea what was happening.

“Should we go around the building?” Hewitt asked. “See what’s going on?”

Porter gnawed at a fingernail. “No,” he said at last.

“We’re blind out here,” Hewitt said.

Porter studied the GPS map. “We go around the building, we’ll be spotted. We stay here, we can see anyone coming out.”

Hewitt looked over at the other agent. “It’s a storage unit. I can only think of one thing they’d be picking up,” he said.

Porter considered this. “Move closer to the corner of the building,” he said. “Be ready to stop anyone coming out.”

No one moved in the Caprice for a moment. They just sat there, staring straight ahead at Sally. Staring at the man. Staring at the gun he was holding to her head. There was no way around the van; it was parked diagonally across the drive, its nose near the riverbank. The doors at the rear of the van were open.

“Fuck,” Finn said.

“Get out of the car! All of you!” the man yelled.

The three of them did as they were told. They were about twenty feet away from the van. “Sally, are you okay?” Devon shouted.

The tape over her mouth prevented an answer. “She’s fine,” Kilbranish said for her. “She won’t stay that way, though, if you don’t do what you’re told.”

“We’re doing this at my office,” Finn said to Kilbranish. His voice sounded petulant, even to him.

“Plans have changed. Take the paintings out and load them in the back of the van.” He was careful as he spoke to keep the girl in front of him, blocking any shot. There was nothing she could do; her limbs were bound.

Finn looked over at Kozlowski. He could tell that his partner was deciding whether to pull out his gun and take the man down. Finn didn’t think the odds were particularly good. Kilbranish sensed the hesitation and pressed the gun harder into Sally’s temple; hard enough to force her head painfully to the side. “Do it now!” he yelled. “Or I swear to Jesus I’ll kill her right here!”

Kozlowski nodded at Finn, and the two of them moved to the back of the car. “It’s gonna be okay,” Devon said to his daughter.

Kilbranish sneered. “Shut up. She wouldn’t be in this if it wasn’t for you.”

“You’re getting what you want,” Devon said. “Just don’t hurt her.”

“Hurry up!”

Kozlowski got the rope holding the trunk closed untied, and he and Finn lifted the box out of the back, setting it down gently on the rollers. They pushed it around to the front of the car.

“Put it in the van,” Kilbranish said. He took the gun away from the girl’s head for a moment and pointed it over her shoulder at Finn and Kozlowski. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Finn and Kozlowski moved the box to the back of the van and hoisted it up, laying it on its side.

“Close the doors,” Kilbranish ordered. He was up toward the front of the van, and as they swung the doors closed, Finn couldn’t have been any more than ten feet away-almost close enough to touch him. He looked up and he caught Sally’s eyes. They didn’t look scared. They looked angry and determined.

“Step back!”

Finn and Kozlowski moved back slowly. Devon hadn’t moved; he remained by the side of the car, looking at his daughter. His hands were extended from his body, as if he was reaching out to her. “You’ve got what you wanted, you let her go now!”

Kilbranish was holding Sally around the neck with his arm, pointing the gun at her head again, holding her up as she leaned precariously with her feet bound together. “Not yet,” Kilbranish said. “I haven’t got everything I want yet. You crossed me.”

“I didn’t,” Devon said. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

Kilbranish shook his head. “You crossed me. If we’d had the paintings, if we’d had the money, the movement would never have died. You killed it. You and yours.”

“Please,” Devon said. “Please give me my daughter back.”

“You want her back?” Kilbranish said. “Then you take her back!” He pushed her hard in the back, not toward Devon, but toward the slurry wall that ran along the edge of the river, falling off on the other side to a deepwater slip at the edge of the pier. With her feet bound, Sally had no way to stop the descent. Her hands shot out in front of her to brace her fall, but it was useless. Her shins hit the wall and her momentum carried her forward, over the edge and into the water.

“No!” Devon screamed. He rushed forward to the spot where Sally had gone in. As he did, Kilbranish was in retreat, headed to the van’s open driver’s-side door. He turned and let loose a volley of gunshots. Finn hit the ground, looking up just in time to see Devon dive into the water.

Kilbranish fired twice more in Finn’s and Kozlowski’s direction, but they were wild efforts, intended more to buy time than to actually hit anything. He jumped into the van; the engine was running, and he hit the gas, kicking up rocks and dust as he peeled out.

Kozlowski took a few running steps after the van, drawing his own gun. “Koz!” Finn shouted. The ex-cop turned around. “Forget him, he’s not our problem! We’ve got to get to Sally and Devon!”

Finn ran to the edge of the river, looking down into the black water. He could see nothing. The wind off the shore churned the river, and he couldn’t even tell for sure where Sally and Devon had gone in. He looked behind him and saw Kozlowski hesitating. “Koz, I need your help!”

“I can’t swim!” Kozlowski yelled back.

“You don’t have to; you need to help us out when I find them!”

Kozlowski took one last look at the back of the van as it sped away. Finn could see that the cop in him wanted to give chase. He’d been a police officer for too long for the instinct to die. After a moment, though, he pulled himself away and ran to the river wall where Finn was standing.

“You better be here when I come up!” Finn told him. Then he jumped into the frigid river without waiting for a response.