One-Way Ticket (5 page)

“That would be fun.”

“He used to love fishing,” Dalt said. “When he was a kid.”

“I’ll mention it when I talk to him.”

After I disconnected from Dalt, I tried Robert’s number. When he answered, I said, “It’s Brady Coyne. I’d like to buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Coffee, huh? Like when?”

“Like now. Where are you?”

“I just got out of my Russian lit class. I’m taking a couple summer courses, trying to get caught up. What’s up?”

“We need to talk.”

“This really Isn’t a good time,” he said. “Let’s make it next week some time?”

“No,” I said. “Let’s make it now.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “Sounds ominous. This about my father?”

“Yes.”

“Is he all right? Did something else happen?”

“Where can you meet me?”

“Where are you coming from?”

“Copley Square,” I said. “I’ve got my car.”

“Well, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts right here on Comm Ave just before you get to the BU Bridge. Know where I mean?”

“I know it. I’ll be there. Give me fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Is my dad all right?”

“So far,” I said.

I
DISCONNECTED WITH ROBERT AND
called my home number. When Evie didn’t answer, I tried her cell.

“Brady?” she said. She sounded a little breathless.

“Hi, hon. You all right?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “What’s up?”

“You’re not home yet.”

“Almost. Just crossing the Common. I’ll be there in five minutes if I don’t get beheaded by a Frisbee. Sorry I’m a little late. Can’t wait to get out of my bra and pantyhose. Maybe you can help. You got the G’n’Ts all made?”

“No,” I said. “Something came up. I’m not home yet, either, and it’s going to be another hour or two. I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just a client thing. Make yourself a drink, relax. I’ll be there.”

“Brady,” she said, “it’s Friday.”

“I know, babe. Can’t be helped. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I snapped my phone shut, stuck it into my pocket, got into my car, and headed for the Dunkin’ Donuts on Commonwealth Avenue near the BU Bridge. I took the back way out on Huntington Avenue and made a big loop, skirting Kenmore Square, which I knew would be gridlocked with Fenway Park traffic. The game would start in about an hour.

I got lucky and found a car pulling away from a meter on a side street off Commonwealth. I grabbed the slot, got out, locked up, fed quarters into the meter, and walked over to the Dunkin’.

The place was about half full. I spotted Robert Lancaster in his black T-shirt and sunglasses sitting at a table against the wall with two other people. One of them was a dark-skinned Hispanic-looking guy with a mustache and goatee and close-cut black hair. He was wearing a New York Knicks basketball jersey. Number 14. He had muscular arms and thick shoulders. Sitting between the two guys was a pretty blond girl wearing a backwards baseball cap. They were all sipping through straws from tall Styrofoam cups.

I went over and stood beside their table.

“Hey,” said Robert.

“Hey,” I said.

He waved at an empty seat. “Join us.”

I remained standing and looked at the dark guy and the blond girl. She appeared to be about Robert’s age. The other one looked older. “I’m Brady Coyne,” I said.

“Sorry,” said Robert. “These are my friends. Ozzie and Becca.”

I leaned over the table and shook hands with both of them, then turned to Robert. “Reinforcements?”

He frowned. “Huh?”

“We need to talk. Just the two of us. You and me. I’m going to get some coffee. I want your friends gone by the time I get back.”

Ozzie frowned up at me. “Hey, man—”

“Nothing personal,” I said.

“These are my friends,” said Robert. “I don’t have any secrets from them.”

“I do,” I said.

He looked at me for a minute, then shrugged and turned to his friends. “I’ll catch up with you guys later, okay?”

Ozzie and Becca stood up. Ozzie was a big guy, six-three or -four, I guessed. Becca, on the other hand, had the compact body of a gymnast. Mutt and Jeff.

Robert and Ozzie exchanged a complicated handshake, and then Robert hugged Becca and kissed her on the mouth.

I went over to the counter and got a cup of black coffee. When I got back to the table, Ozzie and Becca were gone.

I sat across from Robert. “That Ozzie’s quite a large fellow.”

“He’s on the crew. He trains all the time.” He looked at me through his sunglasses. “What’s this about?”

“Tell me about your friends.”

He shrugged. “Becca’s sort of my girlfriend. She used to be Ozzie’s. We hang out together.”

“You and your girlfriend and her former boyfriend.”

“We’re all cool.”

“You stole Ozzie’s girlfriend and you’re still friends?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“And you figured if your friends were here you wouldn’t have to talk about anything important with me, right?”

“It wasn’t like that.” He looked at me. “So I guess this isn’t just some friendly cup of coffee here, me and my father’s lawyer. You got some information for me?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve got information for me.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Coyne.”

“Take off your sunglasses.”

“Huh? Why?”

I reached across the table and took them off.

The skin around his left eye was the greenish yellow of an old bruise. It was still puffy, and the eye itself was bloodshot.

“How much?” I said.

“How much what?”

“How much do you owe?”

He picked up his sunglasses and put them back on. “How did you know?”

“Something Paulie Russo said.”

“Who’s Paulie Russo?”

“The man you borrowed money from.”

“Look,” said Robert. “I don’t know any Paulie Russo, and I don’t want to talk about this, okay?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not okay. Paulie Russo is a mobster, Robert. A big-time mafioso. He’s Boston’s Tony Soprano, understand?”

“Jesus.” He shook his head. “What did he tell you?”

“He said something like ‘the apple falls straight down.’ He was going for the cliché about the fruit not falling far from the tree.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” I said, “that your father had a gambling problem, and now you do, too. So you got in over your head and they beat you up, huh?”

Robert looked down at the table for a minute. Then he looked up at me and nodded. “Three guys, just like with my father. Same guys, I guess. One of ’em had a big wart or something on his face. They punched me and kicked me, gave me three days to come up with the money.”

“Obviously you didn’t.”

“So they went after my father?” he said. “That’s what that was about?”

“Of course it was. I bet you figured that out all by yourself.”

He looked up at me. “Truthfully, I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“If you ignore it, it’ll go away?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do, Mr. Coyne.”

“It’s not going to go away,” I said. “These people don’t let debts slide. To them, it’s business. They don’t care who you are. They’ll go after your family.”

Robert nodded. “I guess they already did.”

“So it’s time to think about it.”

“I tried to pay them back,” he said. “I did my best. I cleaned out my checking account, and I borrowed from Ozzie and Becca and some of my other friends. I met those guys right here—it was Friday, a week ago today—and I gave them almost two thousand dollars, told them I’d get the rest when I could, they needed to give me some more time. They took the money and said it wasn’t good enough. Said I’d be hearing from them. Next thing I know, my father’s calling me from the emergency room.”

“What did you think was going to happen?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. They’d beat me up again, I guess. I never thought they’d go after my father. I was just trying to figure out how I could get some more money.”

“Did it occur to you to ask your parents? What about your uncle or your grandmother?”

“Jesus, no. That’s the last thing I’d do. Are you serious? After what my family’s been through?” He shook his head. “This is my problem. I’ll deal with it.”

“You’re doing a helluva job so far,” I said. “Tell me how it happened.”

He gave me a crooked half-smile. “Maybe us Lancasters have a gambling gene or something. First my dad, then my cousin, now me. All my life, all I’ve heard is the evils of gambling. You’d think it was heroin or something.” He shrugged. “I didn’t believe it, of course. I started playing poker online my freshman year. You can lose a shitload of money that way, and my credit card got tapped out pretty fast. It was addictive as hell, and you win just often enough to make you think you’re pretty good and can win it back, you know?”

“Online?” I said. “The Internet, you mean?”

Robert looked at me as if I were illiterate, which I pretty much was when it came to computer technology. I used e-mail and knew how to look things up on Google, but I still preferred talking on the telephone and buying things in stores.

“There are, I don’t know, a dozen or more poker games you can get into online,” Robert said. “You sign up, come up with a handle, give ’em your credit card, and you can play. You can play all day and all night. A lot of my friends do that. I know some guys—girls, too, actually—who flunked out because they spent all their time playing online poker, never went to classes.”

“What was your handle?”

“Orphan Eight.” He shrugged. “I was eight when my parents got divorced. I felt like an orphan, you know?”

I nodded.

“Anyway,” he said, “I heard about this live game in Brighton not far from where I live, and it was way better, playing with actual people you can look at, read their tells, figure out who you can bluff. I played there two or three nights a week. They fronted me chips when I didn’t have any money, and I never paid much attention to what I owed them. We played no-limit Texas Hold ’Em. I started playing in that game in the spring of my freshman year, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Two years. Until a couple weeks ago, no one ever said anything about cutting me off or paying them back, so I didn’t worry about it.”

“You didn’t?” I said.

He shrugged. “I didn’t think about it. I just figured I’d end up winning as much as I lost, at least, and it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s the kind of thinking that comes with that gambling gene you mentioned,” I said. “Did you ever think to ask yourself why they made it so easy for you to go into debt to them?”

Robert looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re a college man. Figure it out.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he nodded. “I know they know who I am. That’s how they knew about my father.”

I nodded. “And?”

“You mean my grandmother? You think…?”

I shrugged. “They know who all their suckers are. An obligation, the threat of a scandal… they’re always looking for leverage.”

Robert was shaking his head. “I never thought about that.”

“So they finally cut you off, huh?” I said.

“Wouldn’t even let me in the door. I said, ‘Hey, what the hell is going on?’ And they just said, ‘You better figure it out.’”

“So how much do you owe?”

“About fifty grand, I think.”

“You think?”

He looked down at the table. “At least that.” He shook his head. “I am fucked.” He looked up at me. “What’m I gonna do, Mr. Coyne?”

“Let’s convene a family council,” I said. “We’ll lay it all on the table, get it out in the open, deal with it that way.”

“We?”

“I’ll help.”

He looked at me for a minute. Then he shook his head. “No. I can’t do that.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Any idea is better than that. I’ll figure something out. I don’t need your help. All I need from you is to promise not to tell anybody.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? You’re supposed to keep things people tell you confidential.”

“Clients,” I said. “You’re not my client.”

Robert reached across the table and grabbed my wrist. “I wouldn’t have told you these things if I thought you wouldn’t keep them private between us. Please. Not for me. For my family. It would kill all of them, man.”

“It might kill some of them anyway,” I said. “Especially you. In case you didn’t notice, your old man got the crap kicked out of him the other night.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

I shrugged. “A minute ago you mentioned your cousin. Tell me about him.”

“Jimmy?” Robert shook his head. “He was five years older than me. Uncle Mike and Aunt Kimmie’s only kid. Jimmy was my hero when I was growing up. Amazing athlete, brilliant student, great-looking dude. He was nice to me. Took me fishing, ball games, stuff like that. Taught me how to play chess. Everybody loved Jimmy. Got accepted at MIT, ended up getting involved with a bunch of math geniuses who invented some kind of system to beat the odds at craps. Jimmy tried to tell me about it once, but I didn’t understand. It involved cheating, is all I know. They’d fly out to Vegas just about every weekend, make the rounds of all the casinos. Jimmy used to say the casinos cheated because they always had an edge, so there was nothing wrong with cheating right back at them.” He blew out a breath. “You can figure out how it all worked out.”

“It never works out well in Las Vegas,” I said.

Robert nodded. “One of those MIT guys got beat up so bad he’s in some kind of home hooked up to machines, a vegetable for life. A couple of the others are rumored to be living in London or someplace with fake IDs, afraid to come home.” He hesitated. “No one knows what happened to Jimmy.”

“He disappeared?”

“Uncle Mike thinks he got murdered and they buried him in the desert out there. Aunt Kimmie still believes he’s alive somewhere. They’ve hired private investigators, but they’ve never learned anything. Now and then they hear a rumor, and they hire another PI, but nothing ever comes of it.” He looked at me. “You see why I’m saying it would kill my family?”