Boston Cream

CHAPTER 35

We had arranged to meet Frank and Victor in the lobby of a hotel called the Dorchester in South Boston. They had a coffee shop there Frank liked. We were a few blocks away when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I had missed a call that had gone to voice mail. It was David’s father.

His first word was, “Jonah,” and that was as far as he got before he had to clear his throat. “This is Ron Fine calling on Monday. Jonah, Mike Gianelli just called. He said David was found yesterday on a beach somewhere outside the city. Somebody shot him. Killed him. Gianelli said he can’t get in touch with you. That you had checked out of your hotel. Please tell me you’re still working on this. Call Gianelli. Maybe he’d tell you things as a fellow professional he didn’t want to tell me.”

Oh, yeah. I was a real professional. Leading David’s killer right to him. Hiding behind his corpse as more bullets tore into it.

“I’m getting on the first flight down there,” he said. “To see about claiming the body. Gianelli said there might have to be an autopsy, but you know for an Orthodox family, that’s not acceptable.” He paused to clear his throat again and said, “I’ll try you again when I know my flight. Maybe you’ll pick me up at Logan? To be honest, I don’t know if I’m up to driving around. I was hoping Micah might come with me but I can’t find him either … Please call me as soon as you can. Tell me what you’re doing. Where you’re staying. Whether they’ll catch the people who … who did this …”

And then his voice trailed off and he hung up.

I closed the phone just as we got to the hotel.

“Jonah,” Ryan said.

“What?”

“Before we meet Frank and Victor, you might want to wipe your eyes.”

We settled in a corner where two small sofas faced each other across a round glass coffee table. We passed the camera to them, allowing them to scroll through the images without comment from us. When Frank got to one frame, he elbowed Victor, who looked in closer and grinned.

“The smoker?” I asked.

“Yeah. Too bad we didn’t get a sniper’s gun too,” Frank said. “Could drop that guy with no more sound than a twig snapping.”

“A silenced pistol up close will do it,” Ryan said.

“If we can get close. Do you know how the team arrives?” Frank asked. “How many different cars? How many different times the gate will open?”

“That’s in Stayner’s notes.” I flipped through the sheets he had filled out. “Right here. The anesthesiologist will arrive first, around eight-thirty, because his set-up takes the longest. Then the operating nurse and scrub nurse usually arrive together in one car, about nine. The assistant surgeon comes in his own car because he lives in Newton, also around nine-thirty. Dr. Stayner himself, not much before ten. He likes the patient out when he arrives so there’s no danger of him being recognized by someone in his social circle.”

“Four possible opportunities to slip in,” Ryan said. “One man each time they open the gate out front.”

“Five,” I said. “The McConnells are coming too.”

“So we jog in behind the cars?” Victor said. “Get done up in blackface and blend into the night?”

“We might be able to slip through the hoarding somewhere,” Ryan said. “Pick our spots based on the camera placements we’ve seen.”

“The other possibility,” I said, “is we get a man into the trunk of Stayner’s car. He can slip out first chance he gets.”

“Why Stayner’s?” Frank asked.

“Because he’ll be the last one in. Everyone else will be impatient to go.”

“Then what?”

“Here’s what I’ve been thinking. One of us dresses up like one of the surgical team. The gown, the mask, all of it. Then we pull a switch and our guy gets in with a gun. Leads the attack from the inside.”

“Pull a switch how?”

“I’m still working on that.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “Five opportunities to get in. And hopefully one to get out.”

“Six,” Ryan said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“We didn’t count the donor. The guy they can’t start the party without.”

“His name is George Riklitis,” Stayner said over the phone. “Aged forty-seven, five-foot-nine, one hundred and eighty pounds. A day labourer, according to his file, something to do with patios. Excellent health except for chronic back pain, which is immaterial to his suitability as a donor but explains the need for money. I’m told he has brought more children into the world than he can presently afford and jumped at Daggett’s offer.”

“Who’s met him so far?”

“Carol-Ann made the initial contact. I’m not sure who presented the actual offer. Once he accepted it, he reported to one of the hospital affiliates outside the city for further testing.”

“But Daggett would have seen him face to face.”

“Probably.”

“When is Riklitis supposed to arrive?”

“Around a quarter to nine. Before the McConnells, at any rate. We don’t want them meeting at that point. It could overwhelm one of the parties emotionally. He’ll settle in, the nurses will prep him and put him under just as I arrive,” Stayner said.

“Would he have an overnight bag?”

“Yes. They go straight from Halladay’s to the recovery facility so we tell them to bring a few days’ worth of things.”

“Do Daggett’s men ever search these bags or frisk a donor?”

“No. Why?”

“Because Mr. Riklitis will be bringing a gun in.”

“He what? Has he agreed to this?”

“No,” I said. “But neither have you and you’re bringing one too.”

Stayner sputtered, spat and swore at the idea of bringing a gun in with his gear, but I told him there was no point in arguing. No one was asking him to fire it. He just had to bring it in and stash it in a location to be determined. I kept at him until he acquiesced.

Then it was time to go to work on Frank.

“Admit it,” I said. “You look more like a Riklitis than any of us do.”

“You’re still fucking nuts.”

“You’re the closest to his age and size.”

“I don’t care if I’m his identical twin, go fuck yourself. I’m not doing it.”

“Don’t make me say this,” Victor said.

“I’ll kill you if you agree with him,” Frank said. “Flat out kill you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what? You agree?”

“I agree having a guy inside from the start gives us an edge.”

“And?”

“And it might be easier for you to go in that way than, you know, slipping through the hoarding or running in behind a car.”

“What are you saying, Victor? You saying I put on weight?”

“You don’t exactly slip anymore, Frank. It’s more like you barge.”

“All right, now I’m back to killing you.”

Brothers.

“Just give it some thought,” I said. “If you could get in there with a gun, find Jenn and give us the word, it could all be over in a minute.”

“Yeah, it won’t be you they’re shaving.”

“Stayner would tell the team members at the right time. If necessary, they can stall. Fake an anesthesiology breakdown. We’d make sure you never went under. And Stayner will have a second gun in his gear as backup, in case you have to ditch the one you have.”

“Daggett knows Riklitis. He’ll know I’m not the guy.”

“That’s if he shows up,” I said. I knew in my heart he’d be there for Jenn’s surgery but getting Frank to buy into this was hard enough as it was.

“He’ll be there,” Frank said. “And didn’t Stayner say the donor goes under before he gets there? That throws off the whole trunk scenario.”

“We’ll get him to come in early. Time everything to go off around nine-thirty. I can get Stayner to tell the others to come early too.” My own excitement was starting to build as I began thinking this might actually work.

“Didn’t you tell the congressman you’d wait until after the surgery?” Frank asked me. His protests were getting weaker; I had him.

“I said we might, if it gave us the advantage. But we can’t wait. This is our shot and we have to take it. What do you say, Frank?”

“Can I bring the pump gun in?”

“Only if you can fit it under a gown,” Victor said.

We took the Charger to a nearby mall and split up in search of what we needed: plain black track suits, balaclavas, thin gloves, gym bags, black shoe polish, a crowbar. Prepaid cellphones from Circuit City. When we were back in the car, we divvied up the goods so each of us had what he needed for the night.

Ryan and I headed back to our new hotel to check in. I needed some time with him to go over the finer points of the plan. Sometimes two voices were easier to bring into harmony than four.

Frank and Victor left to visit the East Boston home of George Riklitis and impress upon him that if he showed up tonight, it would be as a cadaver donor, not a live one. And to borrow his car, which was the make and model the guards would be expecting.

We were coming up Massachusetts Avenue, just crossing Columbus, when I heard an engine kick into a higher gear behind us and saw a van swinging out to pass me on the left. Its side door was open and a gun barrel was sticking out. As soon as the front end came level with our rear, I swung the wheel hard and clipped his bumper. The van lurched to the left, almost hitting a southbound car, then veered back into its lane and kept coming. I floored it, wishing now we had the hemi-V8 engine Ryan had wanted.

Ryan levered his seat back so he could scramble into the rear. He kept his head down and Glock up as he lowered the rear window, leaned his arm out and fired out of it. The van braked and went into my blind spot momentarily. Then I could see it again in the rear.

“Hang on,” I yelled, and spun the wheel right, sending us sliding through the intersection. Half a dozen horns blared in concert as I corrected the skid and took off eastbound.

“They make the turn?” I yelled.

“Just now.”

I had the bigger engine but it wasn’t like we were on a highway; it gave us no real advantage. There were cars in front of me doing moderate speeds-maybe ten miles over the limit. We were screaming along twice as fast with the van on our heels. Ryan leaned out the window and fired again, then ducked back in.

“You hitting anything?”

“Old ladies in crosswalks.”

“Use the shotgun.”

“We’ll go fucking deaf in here.”

“I don’t care,” I yelled. “Get them off our tail.”

He racked the shotgun and was bringing it to bear out the window when I saw brake lights going on in front of me in the lineup for a red light. I hit my own brakes and Ryan flew forward between the headrests. His head slammed into the back of mine, sending pain shooting straight through to my eyes. I kept my foot down hard, looking for a turn I could make. There was none. The van was coming up closer behind us.

“He’s going to hit us,” Ryan said.

“The fuck he is!” I waited as he grew closer in my mirror, shifted my eyes to the opposing traffic, then hit the gas as I spun the wheel to the left. As I cut sharply across the westbound lanes, the van crashed into the rear of the car that had been in front of me. I saw the driver’s door start to open so I braked and threw it into reverse and slammed the Charger’s rear end into the driver’s side, staving in his door. Then I put it back in drive and leapt ahead of the oncoming cars into a fierce, fuck-all-of-you kind of U-turn. I got a full brass section of horns in reply, plus a clutch of Boston middle fingers, ignored them and wrenched the wheel and floored it the other way, watching in my rearview as a man yanked away at the door of the van, having no luck opening it.

“You okay?” I asked Ryan.

“I’m the one should be asking you. You bleeding?”

I touched the back of my head. The pain was immediate but there was no broken skin or blood. “No. An icepack and two gelcaps and I’ll be fine.”

“Usually not my own fucking head I crack.”

I turned south off Albany onto Southampton Street and parked. We got out of the car and checked the damage. Another rental car, another crumpled rear end. I knelt down and checked the underside for a transponder.

“Anything?” Ryan said.

“No.”

“At least there are no bullet holes in the car.”

“When that’s the best thing you can say, you know you’re pretty well fucked.”

We got back in and took a circuitous route back to the hotel.

“Man, Daggett played me,” I said. “He had me so focused on tonight, I didn’t think he’d try to hit us today.”

“Let’s see who plays who in the end.”

“Think we should change hotels again? In case they know where we’re going.”

“Fuck that,” Ryan said. “I’m tired and I’m armed and I’m in a mood like I got PMS. If I was them, I’d leave me alone right now.”