Playmates

34

I spent the next day on the phone. I talked three or four times to Maguire in Brooklyn, and then twice to a guy from the New York Federal Attorney's office, a guy named Jennerette.

"Why don't you nail him for the gambling thing up there?" Jennerette said, "if it's so air tight."

"Because I'm trying to protect the player," I said.

"So why not let Deegan walk. He keeps quiet, you keep quiet?"

"Couple of reasons," I said.

I'd already gone through them with Maguire and with the commander of the Brooklyn robbery squad.

"He's walking around loose, with only the player to finger him, he might find it more sensible to ace the player. Also another kid died in this deal, kid named Danny Davis. I figure somebody has to pay dues for that."

"What's this kid Davis to you?" Jennerette said.

"Nothing," I said. "But somebody owes something for him; and I don't want the other kid to see Deegan walk away from this looking like a stand up guy."

"Witness protection isn't like doing time," Jennerette said.

"That's not it," I said. "I want my kid to see Deegan rat on his buddies."

There was silence on the phone.

"You want us to help you cover up a crime, so you can give some kid an object lesson?"

"You bet," I said.

Again silence on the phone.

"Why not try to get Deegan on the murder of this kid Davis?" Jennerette said.

"Expose my client," I said. "I'm trying to save this kid. He's got a future if I can save him."

"Mr. Fucking Rogers," Jennerette said.

"You get several guys that are better off the streets. Brooklyn cleans up a robbery that's been making them look bad. Witness Protection gets the chance to hang out with Bobby Deegan, always a treat. Who knows what you may find out once you get Deegan talking. Guy's a connected guy. You could end up on `Nightline.' "

"Boss will end up on `Nightline,' " Jennerette said. "Hold on a minute."

I could hear the phone being put down on the desk and the faint sounds of office noise: voices, other phones ringing, the tap, occasionally, of high-heeled shoes. There was maybe five minutes of this and then Jennerette came back on the phone.

"Okay," he said. "Deegan turns, and gives us the OTB job, we'll give him immunity and protection. If," Jennerette paused for the "if" to sink in, "he delivers quality."

"But of course," I said.

"We'll be the judge of what's quality," he said.

"The rest of the crew in the OTB robbery," I said. "Is that quality?"

"Yes," Jennerette said.

"I'll get back to you," I said. We hung up.

I went down to the alley back of my building and got my car and headed for Newton. It was nearly four in the afternoon and traffic was beginning to clog things. Boston was never meant for automobiles. The streets wound in the downtown section like cattle trails without any reasonable pattern and even in Back Bay, where the grid system had been applied when the old bay was filled in in the nineteenth century, the scale was too limited for automobiles in large number. In New York they drove faster, but for simple difficulty in getting from one part of town to another, Boston was, on a scale of ten, ten.

Storrow Drive would be standing still at this time. And so would the Mass. Pike. Shrewdly, I stayed off both and went straight out Commonwealth. So did everyone else. I hit every red light, and got to Newton at five thirty-five. Bobby and Madelaine were having cocktails. There was a pitcher of martinis on the coffee table. No one offered me one.

"Brooklyn will go for it," I told Deegan.

He was sitting in a Barcalounger wearing a white cotton sweater over a crimson polo shirt, collar up. His acid-washed jeans were carefully ironed and his Top-Siders were new.

"You turn on the OTB thing and they give you immunity and protection."

"And you?" he said. Madelaine sat on the foot of the Barcalounger, near his ankles, her left hand resting on his knee, sipping a martini from a thick lowball glass. She had her shoes off but otherwise looked as if she'd just come from work in a gray wrap-around dress.

"Me? You don't mention Dwayne, and he and I don't mention you," I said. "Nobody ever fixed a Taft game."

"What happens about Davis?"

"I got no control over that," I said. "But if there's no gambling case, I don't know how they'll make you for Davis."

"Danny Davis?" Madelaine said.

Deegan made a shushing motion with his hand.

"What about Danny?" Madelaine said. "Bobby, did you..."

"Put a lid on it, Madelaine. How do you know this guy hasn't got a wire?"

Madelaine looked as if she'd bitten into a sawdust donut. Her mouth shut and stayed shut.

"He's not going down for it," I said, "but Bobby had Danny Davis killed. Tried to have Dwayne killed. If he were going down for it you'd probably be an accessory to murder."

"I never . . ." she said, and that's as far as she got. Deegan leaned forward and grabbed her arm and yanked her over, so that she was sprawled on top of him on the lounger. With his face against hers, and his lips actually touching her lips, he said, "Shut up, you understand that? Shut your fucking trap."

I could see by the whiteness of his knuckles that he was squeezing her arm hard. She squirmed, pulling at his fingers.

"You understand?" he said again in a hoarse voice, holding her head in place with his left hand.

"Yes," she whispered, and he let her go. She got up abruptly and went and stood near the fireplace rubbing her arm where he'd squeezed it.

"You say what you want," Deegan said to me calmly. "I'm not saying anything at all about any murder stuff, that's not part of this deal. I had nothing to do with any murders."

"I'm not wired, Bobby," I said. "And I just wanted Madelaine to know who she was sleeping with. But for the record the deal doesn't include any murders."

"Fine," Deegan said. "Who do I talk to?"

"I'll set it up," I said. "You'll be here?"

"Right here," Deegan said.