Frames Per Second (31 page)

“Names,” she said, sliding out the video grab picture that Ben had taken inside McGuire’s office. “Do you know either of these guys?”

Deegan stared at the photo. Ben watched his eyes widen slightly and then he sat back, relaxed, and took another long swallow of beer. “So what about the money?”

She said, “I know who this is.” She pointed to the red-haired man.

Ben looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

“Like you’ve been sharing a hundred percent,” she said.

She returned her attention to Deegan and pointed to the man next to McGuire. “But if you can identify this guy, I’ll even top what Mister Moneybags here spent on you last time. Fifty.’’

“Oh, I like this girl,” Deegan said, chuckling. “That’s how to treat an informant.” He jerked his thumb over at Ben. “This camera geek didn’t know what was right. I was too under the weather to argue last time.”

“He tries hard,” she said. She pulled out a fifty and put it on the table, her hand on top.

“Simple fifty,” Deegan said. “Know of him, don’t know him personally. Bill Taves. Worked for Pratt Construction. You know who Pratt was?”

Ben said. “A scandal, right?”

“Uh-huh. Bobby Pratt I knew since we were kids. He was a local success story. Construction sites all over Boston first, then all over the country.”

“He was legit?” Ben asked.

“Who can tell? He always looked that way. Good kid, one of those altar boys that guys like me used to torture in high school. Him, he was a little too tough for that, though. He had a rep for being fair with his workers, a rep for trying to steer clear of Bulger, and after him, Pat Clooney. But in the past couple of years, Billy Taves went to work for him.” Deegan touched the back of Sarah’s hand as if they were old friends. She failed to let go of the money.

Deegan grimaced. “OK, I’d say the one job Pratt was most famous for people think he was a crook. The one where that bridge in New York collapsed. The one that dropped a half dozen cars into the drink, what? Last February? Not one of the people made it out alive. Fifteen people killed in all, men, women, and three kids.”

Ben remembered the name then. He had been in Bosnia when it broke, but he remembered the tail end of it. Big story. Big scandal. Repair work on the bridge had been done so shoddily as to weaken it further. Materials that were purchased were never actually delivered or installed. Inspectors paid off.

And Pratt, facing criminal charges, disappeared. His car was found at the airport, his suitcases were gone. But his wife and kids were left crying that he would never have abandoned them. The newspapers speculated openly that he might be dead.

“Wasn’t Taves hurt on this?” Ben asked.

“You kidding? He was a ‘consultant’ who managed to come up with all sorts of memos and witnesses where he had stated his concerns about the project and was able to cast himself as the expert that Pratt brushed aside while stuffing his pockets.”

“And here Taves is now, sitting down with McGuire.”

Sarah nodded. “And with Teddy Stockard, one of the biggest wannabe contractors on the Greater Harbor project.”

“Huh. Jimbo’s playing with high stakes. That traffic jam out on the expressway you went through to get here is part of the Greater Harbor project. Ripping up the whole damn highway, replacing it with wider roads, new tunnel, the works. Burning up money by the truckload.”

“And here is McGuire acting as host to Stockard,” Ben said.

Deegan looked at the picture more closely and shook his head. “Nah. Not host. See the way he’s sitting there? See the way these guys are looking at him?” Deegan held up the pint bottle. “I’ll bet you a fifth of this that he’s the boss. He’s finally turning out just the way his uncle wanted him to turn out … and not a minute too soon.”

“Meaning?” Ben asked.

“Meaning I opened my ears about any rumors about Jimbo since the last time you came around. There’s whispers about one of their soldiers, guy by the name of Dawson. He was killed. Burned alive. You hear about that?”

“Sounds familiar,” Ben said.

“Well, rumor is Jimbo had something to do with it, and that it was the last straw with Uncle Pat. Everybody’s looking at Jimbo now, see if he’s going to grow up or disappoint the old man one more time. And looking at Uncle Pat to see if he’ll keep his word or just keep bailing out little Jimbo.”

“What do you think?” Ben asked.

“That’s something I wouldn’t even risk a beer on,” Deegan said. “Too close to tell.”

Sarah and Ben looked at each other, and then she pushed over the fifty.

“One other thing,” Ben said, taking a twenty out of his wallet.

“Aw, haven’t you learned anything?” Deegan said.

“Just a simple introduction to save us some time. Should be nothing for a guy like you who’s been here on the water all your life.”

“What’s that?”

“A boat,” Ben said. “We’re going to need a boat.”

CHAPTER 36

SARAH LOOKED AT HER WATCH AS SHE AND BEN LEFT DEEGAN’S apartment. “We’ve got time. What do you say we chase some paper?”

“Exactly what paper would we be chasing?”
 

She shaded her eyes and looked at him. “Sounds like Jimbo has moved into the big leagues. Greater Harbor contracts aren’t that easy to come by at the level he seems to be working, right?”
 

Ben nodded.

“My experience,” she said, “is that deals like that are almost always made on a political level.”
 

“Ah,” he said.
 

“We’ll see.”

Even though Ben drove them to the Old Courthouse building in Government Center, Sarah immediately assumed the lead when they reached the fifth floor. The Registry of Deeds. The ceilings were high, painted a light blue. Maybe thirty or forty people milled about the big room, talking freely as they pulled bound copies of computer printouts off the shelves. In the center a half-dozen clerks stood behind a waist-high desk, dealing with questions. An enormous American flag hung over the desk.

“Same the world over,” Sarah said. “Let’s see if we get lucky.” She quickly stepped in behind a woman who working at one of the few computers on the side of the central desk. After a few minutes, she left, and Sarah stepped up. “Let’s see if we get a hit on Cheever’s name.”

“I’m confused.”

“Sure you are. Paper is not your thing.”

“How does tracking real estate link us into Greater Harbor contracts?”

“Oh, naive one. First off, these are public records, so we might as well take a look. And real estate is McGuire’s area of expertise, right?”

“Supposedly.”

“And … there’s a long tradition of bumping up politicians’ war chests with real estate purchases … buy a politician’s property for a whole lot more than it’s worth, and you’ve given your guy a lump of cash he can put into the bank. Don’t you remember the story about Kennedy selling his Virginia property to the Japanese that way?”

“Vaguely.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder at Ben, and wrinkled her nose. “Liar. If there’s no visual interest you don’t pay attention.”

Her fingers moved rapidly over the keys and records flashed up. “OK, we search Cheever’s name for the past year.”

Ben gave her the address on Beacon Street.

“Hah,” she said. “There we go. He sold it. Three point three million.”

She quickly did a comparison of similar-sized buildings within four blocks. “Hmm… . It’s hard to say for sure whether his building was simply in better shape than the others—but he clearly did the best of any of them, by a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar margin.”

“But he still lives there.”

“So, maybe he made an arrangement. Leased it back or something. Let’s search this buyer, Conant Holding Group, and see what else they bought.”

She jotted down reference numbers for three purchases that Conant Holding had made in the past year within the Boston area in addition to Cheever’s town house. “Here, you find two, I’ll find two.” She went through the stacks and selected two bound photocopies of deeds. It took him a few minutes longer to find his copies; by then she had already looked through the deeds on her desk.

“OK, let’s see what you’ve got here.” She flipped quickly to the deeds, tracing through each of them with her forefinger.

“What are you looking for?” Ben asked.

“Not sure. But …”

Ben looked over her shoulder. Mostly it was legal gobbledygook to him. On the surface, anyhow, the three purchases seemed to be commercial properties; Cheever’s was the only residential. The same bank held all of the mortgages.

She stood straight. “Here we go. See on this one how they qualified ‘Conant Holding Group, right here? ‘G.H. Corp.’ “

“Uh-huh.”

Sarah hurried back to the computer. She typed in “G.H. Corporation,” and waited as two more records became available. On the second one, she inhaled sharply.

G.H. Corporation stood for “Goodhue Holding Corporation.”

She grinned triumphantly, “We’ve made contact, Houston. It looks like Goodhue purchased Cheever’s town house with corporate funds.”

“Can we find the broker on this?” Ben touched the monitor.

“Not here,” she said. “But I can get that from the mortgage company with a little luck. And with a little more, I bet we’ll find that after a few twists and turns, it’ll lead back to Jimbo McGuire, real estate consultant, Atlantic Avenue, Boston.”

“I guess this is as good a time as any to grovel for a favor,” Sarah said, as they were leaving the building. “Do some more of the research Lucien should’ve done on Cheever.”

“From who?”

“My
Washington Post
reporter friend. Ex-friend. Chas Greer. You remember that one relationship I told you I had? Four wasted months for the both of us?”

“I still hate him.”

“Well then, walk around the block.” She took out her phone and said, “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll stay here.”

He stood at the top of the escalator of the big semicircular Center Plaza, and watched her make the call.

It took a few minutes, but she got through to him. Her body was tense even though her voice was friendly. “Chas … it’s Sarah …”

Ben took the escalator down. Suddenly he didn’t want to see her do her act with an ex-lover.

After a few minutes, she came riding down after him.

Her shoulders were relaxed now, and she was smiling. “Good news. Chas is engaged and has forgiven me for dumping him.”

Ben smiled. “That is good news.”

“And, he was just the guy to talk to about your friend Senator Cheever and the New England Software Foundation.”

Ben waited.

“He said that if
he
were Teri Wheeler at the NESF, he would be very unhappy with the senator’s performance—on software related issues. The man has made virtually no significant legislation or concessions in that area.”

“No?” Ben cocked his head. “Let me guess.” He pointed at the expressway behind them, the stalled traffic on the elevated highway.

“That’s right,” she said. “Cheever heads the Greater Harbor committee. He’s the man you have to convince if you want a big, lucrative contract.”

On the way to the boat, Ben pulled a sudden left toward the Design Center.

“What’s this?” Sarah said.

“Old warehouse that’s been converted into individual studios. Artists, ad agencies, few photographers that I know.”

“That’s fascinating, Ben. Why are we here now?”

“You’re not the only one with old friends. I want to see a photographer. Leonard Penn. One who learned how to make serious money.”

“And?”

“And one who’s taken Goodhue’s portrait more than a few times. One who knows him better than me.”

“OK, so he’s taken the man’s picture. What will he be able to tell us?”

“Don’t know,” Ben said. “But some of these photographers are pretty insightful guys, you know.”

She looked at her watch. “Long as he can be that way in no more than ten minutes.”

Leonard was in the middle of a shoot.

There were motorcycles all over his studio. High performance bikes, classic hogs, and mopeds. Bright lights flooded a small stage where two male models in business suits each sat on a motorcycle. One bike was a powerful BMW racer with clip-on handlebars and an integrated fairing. The other was a hopelessly dated-looking Triumph tricked out with a long extension fork, lots of chrome, swastika mirrors. An assistant was working with the first model to attach a monofilament line to his tie to pull it back as if it were flying in the breeze. A makeup woman in tight jeans worked with the second biker’s helmet to make it look as if it had been blown askew by the wind stream of the first bike. The model on the second bike kept working on his own expression, apparently striving for indignant confusion.