The Nominee

Thirty-Four

Saturday, April 28

BOSTON’S COMBAT ZONE ISN’Twhat it used to be, which believe me, is very good news, because it used to be the seediest half dozen square blocks in all of New England — grimy streets lined with decidedly downscale strip clubs, porn theaters with sticky floors, and $2 peep shows with strung out whores begging through glass walls for $5 tips.

At two A.M. on a Saturday morning, with the rest of the city in its Puritan-induced slumber, the urine-stained streets of the zone were jammed with traffic, mostly with cars from the suburbs carrying a lone male driver on a journey one part hedonistic and two parts pathetic. Step into an alley, any alley, and you could get yourself a $20 hooker in mesh nylons and a chunk of crack. Just hope to hell that the hooker is a woman and the crack is actually some relative of cocaine, and hope even more that you can get yourself out of that alley alive.

No more, or at least not as much. These days, a glittering Ritz-Carlton Hotel looms some forty stories overhead, aside a second tower chock full of million dollar condominiums with extraordinary views over the historic Boston Common, the Public Garden, and the Charles River beyond.

The strip bars are mostly gone, but for one new upscale club and an inexplicable little holdout, The Glass Slipper, situated on a side alley where few people ever think to go. A better name for the joint might be The Orthopedic Shoe, given the age of the — ahem — girls who test their limited skills at the art of exotic dancing there. The movie houses have been boarded up or converted into Chinese restaurants and small groceries. If the streets are jammed late at night, it’s usually with couples coming into the neighborhood for some pork fried rice or chicken lo mein.

But like anything else in life, there are a few people who don’t understand that the party’s over and the rest of the world has gone home or moved on. Guys with mullet haircuts and Igloo coolers filled with cans of Budweiser still roll through the zone at any odd hour, because that’s where they heard they were supposed to go. They are easy prey with easy money, looking for a few minutes of oral sex and a sniff of cocaine. Maybe someday they, too, will be able to let the 90s go. But for now, they make life that much better for the likes of Eric Glass.

Mongillo and I arrived at the corner of Essex and Harrison streets at about 9:15 on Saturday morning, fresh from our flight into Logan Airport, though fresh isn’t a word I’d use to describe either the neighborhood or my current state. We could have split up, but until I got my police protection back, Mongillo didn’t want to leave my side, and I wasn’t about to push him away. No, he wasn’t likely to scare off any would-be killer, but just the fact that he would serve as a witness might. Besides, that stunt with Elizabeth aside, I liked the guy, and life was better with him around.

We got out of the cab in a stream of sunshine and took a long, skeptical look around us. There were condom wrappers in the gutter. My eyes drifted toward a discarded hypodermic needle balanced on the grate of the storm drain. Trash floated by in the spring breeze. A homeless man wrapped in the remnant of a commercial rug staggered toward us, but just kept walking by, repeating to himself, “The cock-sucking ozone’s going to kill me.”

Mongillo took a long, hard sniff at the air, his considerable nose pointing up toward a robin’s egg blue sky, and exclaimed, “Ah, the smell of commerce.”

Actually, the smell was of urine, but that’s okay. I dialed a cell phone number, and within a few minutes, a gleaming Lincoln Continental with heavily tinted windows pulled up to the curb. The driver and front seat passenger, two thugs in ill-fitting black suits, both stepped from the idling car and silently approached us. To the more cynical among us, this may have appeared to be a good old-fashioned rubout. To me and Mongillo, it’s a way to make a living.

The men patted us down in absolute quiet, then the larger of them — tough as that distinction was to make — knocked once on the rear car window and said, “It’s okay, boss.” The door opened, and Vinny and I slid in next to a gentleman named Sammy Markowitz.

A word about Sammy: dangerous. Here’s another: criminal. And some more: ruthless, conniving, depraved. But hey, he returns my calls, so I like him. Cops like to say that when you’re trying to bust the devil, you don’t rely on saints for inside information. For reporters, it’s much the same deal.

Sammy, truth is, was an old source of mine, the provider of key information for a series of stories many years before that led to the indictment of a dozen cops in the city of Chelsea and the recall of the mayor. A little more than two years ago, he gave me key information while I uncovered a major Washington scandal. In Massachusetts, and seemingly in the nation, if there was crime, Sammy Markowitz’s sticky fingers were somehow on it.

He was short and bald with a few day’s worth of haphazard growth on his face, a clone of Don Rickles if Rickles wasn’t quite as handsome as he is. He spent his days sitting in the back booth of his appropriately named Chelsea cocktail lounge, The Pigpen, playing gin rummy, sipping Great Western Champagne, and counting the day’s receipts of one of the largest, most efficient bookmaking operations in America.

“Jack,” he said, giving me an awkward hug, “I want you to know, you’re becoming like another son to me, and if you call me at the last minute again in urgent need of help, I’m going to have you killed, just like you were my son.”

I laughed. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do at these moments, though I’ve never really been sure. I introduced him to Vinny, who gave me a strange, sidelong glance.

Sammy said to Mongillo, “I’ve got a fat daughter, a big pig of a woman. I should set you two up.”

Vinny didn’t reply. I cleared my throat and said, “I wish I bedded all the women that Vinny does.”

Sammy looked at me and said, “I don’t like to be seen out here with you, you know? The cops are looking for you. There was a hired hitman looking for you. Christ, a guy could get hurt just being near you.”

He handed me a manila envelope, looked up into my eyes and said, “This is what you need. Now listen to Sammy. Be careful now. And come by and see me sometime. We might be able to help each other out.”

Maybe, or maybe not. Before I could decide, or even thank him, the back door opened again and the goon beckoned us outside. Vinny struggled out, and I followed. The door slammed shut, the goon got in the front and the car sped away, a glint and a gleam in the springtime sun.

I tore open the envelope and looked at two pictures, one a computer printout of a mugshot of Eric Glass, the other an apparent surveillance shot of Glass. He was an oddly good-looking guy, with light black skin, deep set eyes, his hair done in cornrows. The accompanying printout said he was five feet ten inches tall, 165 pounds, with brown eyes.

Also in the package was a photograph of an equally handsome guy, with short wiry hair, a chiseled black face, and a police uniform on — Michael Sweeney.

I had many questions to answer on this day, but one thing I’ve learned in this business is that it doesn’t do any good to try to answer all of them at once. So here I was trying to find out what went wrong in that drug raid five years ago. Did Robert Fitzgerald publish a lie, and if so, what and why? What drove Hank Sweeney to abandon his retirement, risk his life, and come to my side?

With the aforementioned pictures in hand, Mongillo and I walked into a fabric store that fronted the corner. The signs on the dirty windows were written in both English and Chinese, the English ones reading, “Best selection in Boston,” and “Buy ten yards, two free.”

As the two of us walked into the shop, the door hit a bell and two startled elderly Chinese women turned and looked at us from behind a counter. One of them, no more than four feet six inches tall, came walking around the counter, right up to us, and said, “May I help you?”

I showed her the picture of Eric Glass and said in a voice that was entirely too loud, “Have you seen this man?” She held the sheet for a moment, brought it over to her friend, and exchanged words in Chinese. Well, I think they were Chinese, but how was I supposed to know? The store, by the way, was crammed full of enormous rolls of fabrics in every possible stripe, check, plaid, and solid color, not to mention other assorted patterns that included Thai elephants and what Martha Stewart might call “Meadow Flowers.” This last one seemed to hold a certain appeal to Mongillo, because as I was following the shop-keeper to the counter, my compatriot had unspooled some of the fabric, held it across his large trunk, and said, “My next suit.”

“Your next suit,” I replied, “is going to be all white, with arm restraints.”

The tiny Chinese woman came up to me, handed me the sheet, and said, “We no see.”

How do you saylie in Cantonese?

I thanked them and led Mongillo to the door. We walked a block toward Boston Common and stopped at a morose looking bar with red paint peeling from the door and a dingy sign above proclaiming, “Something Fishy,” followed by, in smaller letters, “Ladies invited.” How nice. I’d have to remember to tell Elizabeth about it the next time we happened to cross paths.

We pushed the door open and went in. The stench of stale smoke hit us in the nose like a heavyweight champion’s fist. I mean, there are West Virginia coal miners who would get sick in this place. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark and my olfactory systems to come back from their hyper-defensive mode, but when I did, I found myself looking at an establishment that might as well have been the set for the bar scene inStar Wars.

The bartender was, I don’t know, coming along eighty years old, a toothless afterthought of a man with a shoulder holster that displayed a Colt.45—and I don’t mean the malt liquor. The room was long and narrow, taken up almost entirely by the bar. The first two stools closest to us were occupied by a pair of overweight transvestites in miniskirts that didn’t — in fact, couldn’t — cover nearly enough. They were smoking stout cigars, gulping Bud Light from the bottle, nattering on about a guy named Stork they both wanted to bed.

I heard Mongillo whisper to himself, “Holy shit. I don’t even think I’d get a drink here.” I heard the bartender say in a shrill voice, “Help you boys?”

“Two Buds,” I replied. I don’t think I’d drunk a beer this early in the morning since Paul Newman Day at Wesleyan College. You know, Paul Newman Day. The entire day, from the moment you wake up until the second you pass out, is dedicated to drinking a case of beer while going about your daily routine. In some parts, like my old college campus, it’s considered a high holiday, at least when I was there.

“Glasses?”

Oh God, please no. “No thanks, they come in one.”

One of the transvestites thought that was pretty funny, turned around and said in a gruff voice, “Hey sailor, not only do you have a sense of humor, but you’re really cute.”

I had the feeling that I had mistakenly wandered into the employee lounge at a circus freak show.

“Naw, you should see me when I’m out to sea,” I replied. I don’t even know what I meant, but now both transvestites were doubled over in laughter. They turned completely around in their stools to face us, and when one of them saw Mongillo, (s)he exclaimed, “Whoa there, you’d be quite a little handful.”

I quickly scanned the bar, which looked like a regular Ellis Island of the depraved — blacks, whites, Indians, Hispanics, Chinese, mostly unshaven, huddled over cheap drinks made from watered-down rail liquor, barely talking to one another. It’s worth stressing that it wasn’t yet ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. Country clubs all over the region were packed with white, middle-aged, upper-class men giddy at the prospect of a round of springtime golf. Yogi Bear cartoons filled television sets all across the land. And here, free drinks for all my friends, as Mickey Rourke once said. Well, not free, but that’s not the point.

“Buy you a drink?” one of the transvestites asked, the one, I might add, with the slightly less hairy legs.

“I just did,” I replied.

They even thought that was funny. I was starting to think that this wasn’t such a bad place, that maybe the University Club was overrated. Then Mongillo struck without warning. He pulled the envelope from my hand, showed them the picture, and said,

“You people know where I can find my friend, Glass?”

Their expressions quickly changed as they eyed the picture, then Mongillo, then me. The one with the hairier legs and the deeper voice asked, “You lawmen?”

“Only in bed, only with the right implements,” I replied. The other one stifled a guffaw. I said, “I’m not. I’m just looking for a favor, and the guy in the picture is the only one I know who can give it to me.”

“Well, don’t tell him I told you this, but walk to the far end of the bar. He’s almost always back there, on the end stool, sipping brandy and counting the night’s receipts.”

“Probably figuring out what his tax vulnerability is,” I said, kind of casual, not wanting to look overeager and spook anyone.

The less hairy one couldn’t contain his laughing now. He slapped a hand, polished fingernails and all, on his friend’s shoulder and said, “Tax vulnerability. Get it?” I turned to Mongillo and said, “Let’s go.”

The two of us walked along the back mirrored wall — why, by the way, would an establishment like this, with the patrons that it has, want so many mirrors? — to the far end of the bar, where we saw nothing more than an empty stool with a mostly empty snifter glass. Mongillo put his nose up to it and proclaimed, “Drambuie.”

We weren’t there but ten seconds when a nearby door to what the people of the University Club would call the men’s lounge, but the clientele here probably describe as the shitter, popped open, and out stepped a handsome black guy dressed in a crewneck sweater and a pair of khakis looking like he was about to head to theology class at Harvard.

I was so surprised I exclaimed, “Glass?” Mongillo hit me in the small of the back, but too late. Glass whirled toward me, put his hand up under his sweater like he was about to pull out a gun, and said, “Who wants to know.” It’s an old line, but a good one.

I said, “Jack Flynn. I’m a reporter for theRecord. This is Vinny Mongillo, another reporter. We’re doing a story. We need your help.”

“I don’t deal with no fucking reporters anymore.” For the uninitiated, the wordanymore was the most interesting one in that sentence. Then he said, “Glass don’t deal with anyone he don’t want to deal with.”

I said quickly, “Sir, we need your help. Could you just hear us out for a minute. You don’t want to help at that point, you just tell us. We’ll go away. But I don’t want you to say no until you know what the hell I’m asking.”

He gave me an angry sidelong glance as he sat down at the bar, emptied his snifter, and hollered to the bartender, “Another Drambuie here, old-timer.” The bartender, who apparently had no love lost for the charming Mr. Glass, wasn’t exactly going to set a record getting down to him, but eventually he did, with a fresh drink.

Glass sat with his elbows on the bar facing away from Mongillo and me. We stood over either one of his shoulders. Every once in a while, someone would come by and slam the door to the shitter. When the toilet was flushed, the sound was so loud, so intense, you had the feeling of being in a Caribbean resort during a September hurricane.

“Remember a police raid five or six years back?” I asked. “Cops go to an apartment house in Mattapan. They knock down the outside door. They race inside and slam down the door of the wrong apartment. A minister dies, a cop dies. It’s a disaster.”

He didn’t react, which I think was better than a denial. I think. So I said, “You were the police informant.”

He swerved around on his stool, his fists clenched and his eyes white with anger. “I’ve never been a fucking police informant in my whole fucking life, you little puke. Get out of my fucking face before I shoot you in the balls.”

Mongillo, God bless him, stepped forward, closer. I said, “Look, we’re not here to argue over whether you were the police informant. We have the documents right here”—I waved the handy manila envelope—“that show that you were. If there’s any question, I’d be glad to pass it down the bar and everyone can take a vote.”

He continued to look at me, raging but quiet. I continued, “What we want to know is, did you tell your handler the drugs were in Apartment 11 or in Apartment 12?”

His rage turned to incredulity. He stared at me and said, “Even if I was an informant, which I’m not, you expect me to remember this all these years later, which apartment I sent them to?”

A valid point. Mongillo’s phone rang and he stepped away to answer it. I shook my head and said, “It’s easy. Do you remember at the time thinking that they went to the wrong place, or the place you told them to go?”

Now he shook his head. His rage had subsided. He said, “I’m not telling you I was even an informant. I’m just a guy trying to earn a living. You’re not going to get anything out of me.”

“The cop, your handler, might have been framed. His mother killed herself. His father’s in mourning. I’m trying to figure out whether you gave him wrong information, whether you gave him right information and he made a mistake, or whether you gave him right information and someone else in the department screwed it up.”

He sipped on his Drambuie. The toilet flushed and I all but pulled a copy of that day’sTraveler off the bar and covered my head.

“The cop, your handler, is dead,” I said. “His memory may have been violated. His family is ruined. You are the only sliver of hope.” As I said this, I reached into the envelope and pulled out the second photograph, the one of Officer Michael Sweeney. I looked him flat in the face and said, “Not often enough can any of us give anyone hope. You can, to this guy’s father.”

He looked at the photograph out of the corner of his eye, then turned fully to face it. “Never seen him,” he muttered.

“He was your handler,” I said.

He quickly responded, “I said, never seen him.”

I shook my head in resignation and slid the picture back into the envelope. Glass kept staring at me, surprisingly so. Rather than look relieved that this annoyance was retreating from his life, he seemed to appear interested for the first time in this brief conversation. He said, “You don’t get it. I never seen that guy before.”

I replied, “No, I do get it. You don’t want to help. Fuck it. We’re out of here.”

Now he stared straight into my eyes. “I am helping. Your records say I was the snitch. You’re saying this guy was the handler. I’m saying I never seen that guy.”

Ding, ding, ding. Dawn breaks over Marblehead. Put it however you want. I asked, “Who would the handler have seen?”

My new friend, Glass, smiled a wry little smile and turned toward the bar. But rather than ignore me, he pointed to the front page of theTraveler that had been sitting there, and on the front page there was a small headshot of Boston Police Commissioner John Leavitt.

“Him.”

“You worked with the commissioner?”

“Back then, he was a superintendent, the head of narcs and detectives. We had what you might call a relationship. I gave him information. He gave me money and room to run a business.”

I looked him long and hard in the eyes. His gaze didn’t waiver from mine.

“Did you tell him the right apartment.”

“Oh, I absolutely told him the right apartment. He messed up. And a month after he messed up, he got himself promoted to commissioner.”

“Thank you,” I said. And without notice, I turned around, smacked Mongillo on the shoulder with the back of my hand, and mouthed the words, “I’ll call you later.” He was still on the phone as I bolted out the door.

And with that, all of life seemed to turn into one giant sleight of hand.