CHAPTER 22


Wearing a pair of chino pants and a shortsleeve white shirt I went to call on Mickey Paultz. I had bought the pants a couple of years ago in case someone gave me a pair of Top-Siders and invited me to Dover. The shirt I'd had to buy for this occasion, but it was a business expense-disguise. I was undercover as a deacon. Since deacons didn't go armed that I could see, and since I didn't go unarmed, I'd strapped on a .25 automatic in an ankle holster. A quick draw is not easy with an ankle holster, but it was better than nothing.

Paultz Construction Company was on the southern artery in Quincy, a big sprawling ugly lot full of heavy equipment surrounded by chain link fencing with barbed wire on top, with an office trailer near the front gate. Back in the lot was a big prefab corrugated steel warehouse. I pulled the Ford Escort wagon that I had rented into the lot outside the gate and went through the gate and into the office. If the two sluggers who called on me were there, I'd simply turn around and leave. But I figured they wouldn't be. They didn't belong out front where the customers would see them. I was right. There was a fat woman in black stretch pants and pink blouse manning the typewriter and answering a phone.

When she got through on the phone she looked at me and said, "What do you need?"

"Mr. Paultz," I said.

A long unfiltered cigarette was burning in an ashtray.

"He's busy," she said. The phone rang, she answered, talked, hung up.

"I'm from Mr. Winston," I said. "I have to see Mr. Paultz."

She took a drag on her cigarette, put it down. "I don't know any Winston," she said.

"Ask Mr. Paultz," I said. "He'll want to know."

She shrugged and got up and went through a door into the back half of the trailer. In a moment she came back and said, "Okay, go on in," then she sat down and picked up her cigarette. I went through the open door and closed it behind me.

Mickey Paultz sat in an overstuffed chair with a piece of paisley cloth thrown over it. He looked at me and said, "What's up?"

He was thin with short gray hair and rimless glasses. A kitchen table was next to the chair and on it were two phones and several manila folders.

"Mr. Winston has to see you," I said. "He can't call. He thinks the phones are tapped. There's real trouble he says and wants to meet you in City Hall Plaza near the subway as soon as you can make it."

Paultz's expression didn't change. "Okay," he said.

I waited a minute.

Paultz said, "You want something else?"

A man of few words, I said, "No," and turned and went out.

I drove straight to Boston and parked in front of the precinct station on Sudbury Street by a sign that said POLICE VEHICLES ONLY, grabbed a camera, and hotfooted it across the street to the Kennedy Building. Hawk was there near the funny-looking metal sculpture.

"Winston go for it?" I said.

"Unh-huh." Hawk pointed with his chin across the vast brick plaza in front of City Hall. By the subway kiosk on the corner, Bullard Winston stood glancing at his watch and shifting his weight lightly from one foot to the other as he waited. He was wearing a seersucker suit. I sighted my camera at him and focused through the telephoto lens.

"Paultz coming?" Hawk said.

"I'm not sure," I said. "I told him my story and he said okay and sent me away."

"If he don't come, we gotta think of something else," Hawk said. "Can't pull this gig twice."

"I know." Behind the funny-looking sculpture I kept the camera steady on Winston. That him?" Hawk said.

Paultz got out of a white Chevy sedan that double-parked on Cambridge Street with the motor running.

"Yes," I said. As Paultz came into my viewfinder I snapped pictures of him and Winston talking. They talked for maybe fifteen seconds before Paultz turned and glanced around the plaza. We stepped out from behind the funny-looking sculpture. I kept snapping pictures, Hawk put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Both Winston and Paultz turned and stared. Hawk waved. I had cranked out maybe twenty pictures. I stopped and rewound the film. I took out the roll and slipped it into my pocket. I let the camera hang by its strap from my right hand and Hawk and I began to walk across the plaza toward Paultz and Winston.

Paultz turned and spoke to someone in the Chevy. The doors opened and the two sluggers got out. Hawk was wearing an unconstructed silk tweed summer jacket and he unbuttoned it as we walked across the plaza.

"Oh, to be torn 'tween love and duty," I said, " 'sposin' I lose my fair-haired beauty."

"Those the two that threatened to do you in?" Hawk said.

"Yep."

"Fearful," Hawk said.

We stopped in front of the four men. Winston looked uncertainly at Hawk. His face was narrow with fear. Paultz looked the same as he had in his office. Except taller. Standing he was maybe six four.

"How's the weather up there," I said. Hawk chuckled softly.

Paultz said, "I want the film."

"I don't care what you want, Mickey," I said. "I got pictures of you and Winston together. I know you are washing money through his church, I know you process and distribute heroin out of your warehouse. And I want you to deal with me."

Without a word Winston turned and began to walk rapidly away toward Tremont Street. Hawk looked at me. I shook my head. Winston kept going.

"You give me the film or we take it," Paultz said.

"In City Hall Plaza? A block from Station One?"

Hawk said, "Couldn't take it anyway. Even if we in Siberia."

"Do we talk?" I said.

Paultz looked at me and at Hawk blankly. Then he said, "No," and turned and walked to the white Chevy. The sluggers went too. They got into the car and drove away.

"I think Mickey just told us to stick it," I said.

"I think Mickey know there's more than one way to skin a cat," Hawk said.

"I think he knows that too," I said.

"And you the cat," Hawk said.

Загрузка...