Killers (4 page)

“You know, I've still never figured out who you were working for that time.”

“Maybe I was just trying to help you.”

“Please, Jack, I was born at night, but not last night.”

“A line you got from me, by the way.”

“Let's not start up again with what I ‘got' from you.”

I hung up and sat at my kitchen table for a few minutes. Then I got going. There were places to go, politicians to slime.

*   *   *

My next task was dropping off a copy of a police report on a ten-year-old drunk-driving arrest in the South End. The driver was now a first-term state senator from Worcester, a confirmed bachelor as they used to say.

In Massachusetts if you're arrested for OUI you have to tell the cops where you had your last drink, which in the solon's case was a gay bar called the Ramrod Room. The guy must have really been legless to give that up. Most times they come up with some tourist trap in Quincy Market rather than rat out their neighborhood joint, or a gay bar, or the place where they hook up with their gal pal. But the guy was a state legislator, which greatly increased the odds that he was below average in every way. The smallest caucus at the State House is the Mensa caucus.

This one was going to a reporter from Katy's old newspaper, the
Herald
. I'd shopped it to her first, for old-times' sake. But I knew she'd never bite. She said it was homophobic, and that there was only one person who I could have gotten it from—a friend of mine, an old-time Boston city councilor named Slip Crowley. He'd called a guy who'd called a guy.…

“I thought Slip was your friend too,” I told her.

“I don't have friends,” she said. “I'm a journalist.”

What did the old boss of Columbia Pictures, Sam Cohn, supposedly say about Doris Day? I knew her before she was a virgin.

 

3

JUST SAY NO

I hate having anything to do with drugs. I'm serious about that, I really am. I mention this because most people think that if you're in the rackets these days, you're automatically a drug dealer. Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I wish it was like the old days, but nobody cares anymore about the afternoon card at Wonderland, or wouldn't, even if dog racing were still legal in Massachusetts, which it isn't.

It come out of the Mystic Projects in Somerville, and half my family is or has been, mostly is, on drugs. Mainly Oxys these days, but if they can't get the prescription “opiods,” they'll go with the real thing, and I don't mean coke. Heroin, not religion, is the opiate of the masses. The other half of my family are drunks, except for the ones who are both junkies and drunks.

I was a pain in the ass when I was growing up, not having a brother or even an older cousin who could back me up when I got in a jam, and when you live in public housing, life is nothing but one jam after another. Don't get me wrong, I had family, but they were always either nodding off or passed out just when I needed someone watching my back. Maybe in the long run it was good for me, because when you're on your own from the start you learn pretty quickly not to let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.

Another thing I learned early on was that it was probably a good thing for me to lay off the sauce. Never touch the stuff myself. Except of course for the occasional wee small taste of the creature, say a morning Budweiser at Lupo's. But only if I'm buying for a cop or two.

Even though I'm basically a teetotaler, I have to be into the business of drugs, because otherwise I couldn't survive in my line of work, which is the rackets. If I'm not at least shaking down every dealer who's operating in my territory, somebody else will be. And it won't be long before whoever's shaking them down will have more money than me, a lot more. And if they have more money than me, they can buy more protection from the cops, and more guns, and pretty soon I'm not around anymore, in more ways than one.

That is of course a rationalization, but it's also reality. When I was a kid, pot was a new thing, just like the state Lottery. The state kept coming up with new games—scratch tickets, Powerball, Keno. And the wiseguys kept coming up with new drugs—pot sprayed with angel dust, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, the “synthetic opiates” and now Mollys.

The amount of money wiseguys like me could generate from illegal gambling dwindled away to practically nothing beyond the NFL, while at the same time a new, even bigger source of income materialized. Some politician once said, “I seen my opportunities and I took 'em.” That's what I did with drugs, and if I hadn't taken 'em, my opportunities I mean, somebody else would have.

So I'm into drugs, I admit it. I never get near the actual product, wouldn't think of handling it myself. Neither do the guys who answer directly to me—my buffers. They just handle the dough, to make sure I get my end before they get their end. But my buffers have other guys, tough guys, and they make sure nobody's freelancing. Whenever my guys find a new dealer operating in my territory, they tell him he has to join the organization. That's rule number one. Rule number two is, they have to buy the shit from me—I mean, from my guys. I repeat, for the record I don't sell drugs. Can't stand 'em. Hate drug dealers. Ask anybody, ask Sally.…

Sometimes, in the beginning, when I was setting up my drug operation, the local dealers getting shaken down would come to me and tell me that so-and-so was leaning on them and could I do anything for them? Of course they couldn't admit what they were into because of my own well-advertised loathing of drugs.

So I worked out a routine. I'd tell them, hey, those guys that're after you, they're my friends, and if you got a problem with them, you'll just have to deal with it.

At least that's what I always said to the marijuana dealers. One day a guy came to see me, because some bad guys were looking for him, and he said he needed protection. Naturally he didn't know the bad guys were working for me. So we took a walk up the hill, just the two of us, and he admitted to me he was dealing cocaine. He explained how the business was set up, how much dough he was making, how much easier it was than moving bales of crappy sticks-and-stems low-grade marijuana that the customers were always bitching about. Until I took that walk, I had no idea how much money was involved in Class B controlled substances, but this guy was making more money than me. So I introduced this coke dealer to my buffers, and he taught them the cocaine business.

Afterward, I told the kid he was out. He was from the neighborhood, but he wasn't a wiseguy. He'd never taken a pinch, let alone done a bit. He wasn't capable. He'd moved into cocaine from a rock band. Sorry, kid, but those are not the credentials I am looking for. I want guys who've done time, who are as paranoid as I am. Sally wants intelligent tough guys, which I'm all in favor of, but if you give me a choice between intelligent and paranoid, I'll take paranoid, although sometimes I think if you're not paranoid, in any line of work, how intelligent can you possibly be?

Anyway, I couldn't be sure this kid would stand up. Nothing personal; I wasn't going to kill him or anything like that. I gave him $20,000 severance and told him to screw—excuse me, I had one of my buffers tell him to screw. He knew better than to squawk. Lives in Florida now, I hear.

So I've got everybody organized, and nobody sells in my territory unless they are either buying from or at least paying off my guys, by which I mean me. My dealers know that if they hear about anybody freelancing, they should let us know, and we will straighten them out. You have to walk a fine line—you want to impress upon these guys the necessity of playing ball with us—me. But conversely you don't want to scare them so much they run away. That's how you lose a nice little revenue stream.

Sally Curto likewise claims he doesn't go near the shit. I tell him the same thing he tells me. We both know we're lying to each other but some things you have to keep off the record. We're partners, which means I'm also supposed to play by LCN rules, or at least pretend to, just like Sally and everybody else In Town does.

And now my In Town partner had asked me to handle a piece of business for him.

My plan was to make the rounds of what the
Globe
once called my “far-flung criminal empire.” As always, I would be dropping in on them unannounced. I'm not much into scheduling sit-downs. Too many bad things can happen, like getting yourself set up for a hit. When somebody calls me and says he needs to meet me, I always say, “You know, I'm sure we'll bump into each other someplace.” I'm like the Beach Boys, I get around. There are exceptions—Sally Curto, for one. If he calls, I meet him, wherever, whenever. But most of my guys, I don't want 'em to get in the habit of loitering in any of my places, the garage in Roxbury, my little dive in Allston, or the place where I spend most of my time, my bar on Broadway on Winter Hill, the Alibi.

Before I, ahem, acquired it, the Alibi was named the Gaelic Club, a name I found totally unacceptable. Do I really have to explain why? Plus, I don't go in much for all that Irish shit anyway. The Alibi just sounds more American.

Except for the ones who actually work there, like my manager Hobart, I discourage my guys from hanging out there. If you're loitering in the Alibi, you're not out making money. You're drinking my beer, on the arm. And if you're not out making money, you don't have anything to kick up to me, so what good are you?

Upstairs from the Alibi, I have my own “club.” It's just an office, but I call it a club. You get to a certain level in the rackets, you're expected to have a social club. I invite guys upstairs to the club and they're scared shitless, don't ask me why. I try to be very sociable up there, not to mention everywhere else. But maybe my reputation precedes me, as they say. I have the whole building swept for bugs twice a week. The Somerville cops appreciate the work. My hourly rate's better than their paid details.

A couple of years ago I decided I needed a “hide,” a place to stash cash and guns and other miscellaneous items. I hired a slimy old guy from Chelsea who does work for all the wiseguys—Marty Hide we call him. Marty Hide also builds hides on car doors, which come in handy if you're a convicted felon who can't legally carry a gun. The hide in my upstairs club is bigger than most—I had Marty Hide build a little freezer into it. It's got something in it that I've been saving for a special occasion. Maybe sometime I'll tell you about it.

Speaking of Marty Hide, after coming back to Somerville from Lupo's, I decided to switch cars. If Sally's hunch was right that there was something fishy about this hit, I wanted to be prepared. So I dropped the BMW off at one of our garages on the top of Winter Hill and took out my black Escalade. Years ago, during the Charlestown war, Marty Hide had built a compartment in the front door, big enough for one of my fully automatic HK MP7 “personal defense weapons,” which I prefer to use for offense. Marty did a beautiful job on the door, and I'm surprised more guys don't have them built in. If someone's coming up on you fast on the street, a revolver's not going to do you much good. A PDW, on the other hand …

Anyway, this morning I was on the road in my Escalade, looking for information about last night's stick-up. It was early, but sometimes my guys show up before noon. The first place I hit was a small grocery store in Somerville, Magoun Square. It was mainly a gambling drop. The guy hadn't even heard about the hit but he did have an envelope for me, which I pocketed without counting. He was always good for the money; his store was too close to the Alibi for him to even think about skimming.

My second stop was a social club on Cambridge Street in East Cambridge. Used to be mainly gambling, now drugs—pills mostly. The windows were all boarded up, otherwise the metrosexual new Bostonians in the neighborhood would be wandering in, looking for local color like this was the set of
The Departed
or
The Town.
I banged on the heavy door and finally a red-faced guy with a potbelly opened it. He was holding a sixteen-ounce can of Milwaukee's Best in his hand.

“Little early, maybe, Mustard?” I asked him. My Budweiser at Lupo's didn't count. That was business, and I'm the boss.

“Hair o' the dog, Bench, hair o' the dog.”

I regarded him more closely. I noticed his gut protruding over his belt even more than usual. The medical term I believe would be “distended.” What made Milwaukee famous had made a loser out of Mustard.

I considered briefly whether to inquire, then decided that, as the
CEO
, I had every right to ask about an underling's health.

“You don't look so hot, Mustard,” I said. “What's with the stomach there?”

“I got a problem, Bench.”

“I hope it's not what I think it is,” I said.

“It is,” he said. “You been warnin' me for years, now it's finally happened. Cirrhosis.”

I didn't know what to say, but I knew what to think. I was going to have to get a new guy in here, sooner rather than later. Poor Mustard. He'd always been in the Alcohol Hall of Fame, but now he'd passed the pint of no return. He was going out, the hard way. Maybe his brother could take over, but I had my doubts, because alcoholism runs in families. It sure runs in mine. I told Mustard I'd do whatever I could for him, up to a point. He understood.

Mustard had an envelope for me too, smaller, not good considering how many Oxys and Percs these guys moved. I made a mental note not to promote Mustard's brother. Alcoholism is genetic, but it can skip one sibling while striking down another. However, if one brother steals, guaranteed everybody else in the family does too. No need to do any scientific research on that. The empirical evidence is beyond dispute.

I must have hit six or seven of my places, mostly on this side of the river, but a couple more in Brighton and West Roxbury. I kept asking the same questions over and over, about stick-up guys, about who'd gotten out of prison recently and who was flashing cash or talking about scores or had suddenly gone into the loan sharking business. I kept getting the same answers, or non-answers. The guys I talked to didn't know anything, which was no surprise, because they tend to give stick-up artists as wide a berth as possible, especially those who think they can get away with sticking up Sally Curto's games. My crews have a motto, and it comes from the top: