The Killer Sex Game (A Frank Boff Mystery) (30 page)

As soon as Boff got home, he walked into the kitchen, where his wife was busy cooking on the stove.

“Sit down, honey,” he said.

Jenny turned from the pot she was stirring. “Is this going to be
more
bad news?”

He pulled out a kitchen chair for her and one for himself. After lowering the heat on the pot, Jenny sat down.

“Jenny,” he began, “I want you to know where all my important papers are. Most are in the apartment, some are in a safety deposit box. I’ll give you the key for the box.”

She let out a weary sigh. “So your life
is
in danger again.”

“Well, it could be.”

“This is the
third time
in less than two years your life has been threatened. Frank, when is this going to end?”

“Yes, it
is
the third time in less than two years. And do you know why? All three instances came as a result of me either taking on a pro bono case at your request or returning a favor I owed a cop. The common thread is that I’ve been working
against
the scumbags, not
for
them.”

“Don’t you go laying this on me, Frank Boff! You don’t
have
to do pro bono work. Just tell me you don’t want to, and I’ll never ask you again.”

He shook his head. “If I did, I’d be disappointing you. Which is something I never want to do.”

“Well, you know I’ve asked you to do pro bono for your own good. But of course you don’t see it that way.” She frowned and shook her head. “You’ll never get into heaven with me if you keep getting all these criminals acquitted.”

“I know, honey. I know. What can I say?”

“That you’ll stop defending criminals you know are guilty. Which of course you won’t. As far as
this
case is concerned, at least promise me you’ll hire someone to watch out for you.”

He nodded. “When the time comes, I’ll call in Pete Wallachi.”

“And you’ll wear your Kevlar vest, right?”

“Yes.”

Jenny got up, went to the refrigerator, took out a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and a bottle of Stolichnaya from the freezer. With her back to him, she put ice in a glass, mixed the vodka with the juice, took a quick hit, and then whipped around.

“Okay, tell me where the damn papers are!”

After dinner, Boff took a cab to meet with Wallachi in front of the Barnes & Noble on the
Upper West Side. On the way, he thought about the position he had placed himself in. Carl was right, of course. This
was
a dangerous game he was playing. Besides, he didn’t feel good about dragging Bruno into this. And he hated what the likely outcome would be for his friend. Was he going too far this time? Then he thought about the bomb under his car. If he hadn’t had the detector, Jenny would be a widow now and his kids fatherless. It was Emilio who had crossed way over the line, and he had no compunctions about joining him there. Cullen said he did things like this because he was a vindictive sonofabitch. Boff smiled in spite of himself. Well, to an extent that was true. But it was not that simple. The judicial system was a complete joke. Seventy percent of the indicted felons he helped get acquitted were guilty as sin. Bottom line, he didn’t want to take a chance on Emilio finding a high-powered lawyer and walking.

Wallachi was drinking a cup of Starbucks coffee in front of the bookstore when Boff arrived. The investigator handed a second cup of coffee to him. 

“Let’s take a walk,” Boff said as he pulled the lid off the coffee and threw it into the gutter. As they headed north on Broadway, he explained to Wallachi the scenario he had set in motion. His friend said nothing until he was done.

“So what is you want from me?” Wallachi finally asked.

“Do you have any cop friends?”

“A few. Why?”

“When the time is right, I’m going to need two reliable guys who are willing to do some moonlighting for you.”

“And what do I tell them the assignment is?”

“Just say you have a client who needs protection. And you don’t trust any of your men to get the job done as well as they could.”

“What is it you think these cops can do for you that I, or any of my ops, can’t?”

“When the time comes,” Boff replied, “the cops will know without me telling them.”

Wallachi didn’t look too happy about that explanation. “For chrissake, Frank, I can’t work in the dark.”

“Let’s turn around.”

On the way back, Boff laid out his entire end-game scenario. When he was done, all his friend could do was shake his head.

“That’s nuts, Frank. There are
so many things that could go wrong. Why don’t you just let the D.A. handle this?”

“Do I really need to answer that question?”

Wallachi shot him a sour look. “You know, Frank, some criminals actually do go to jail.”

“Not the ones I defend.”

“Do you have Kevlar?”

“Yes.”

“When did you buy it?”

“About eight years ago. I was defending some mope accused of murdering a cop, and I got death threats.”

“Eight years? Well, I suggest you buy a new one. The latest models protect more parts of your body.”

“I’ll buy one tomorrow.”

When they reached the book store, Boff finished his coffee, crushed the cup, and tossed it into the gutter. Then he put one hand on his friend’s arm. “Pete, can I ask you not to bring Manny numbnuts along?”

Wallachi shook off Boff’s hand. “Oh, sure, you can ask. But the boy needs to learn. So, yeah, he’ll still be part of our team.”

“Well, if the damn kid gets me killed, I’m going to blame you.”

“If you get killed, my friend, the only person to blame will be you.”

The next day Baumgartner phoned Boff with an upbeat progress report.

I called Emilio in for questioning
.

“Good. Did you leak it?”

Very reluctantly, but, yes, I did. To the
Daily News
. I also met with the FBI for help on the off-shore thing and in putting pressure on Bruno’s businesses.

“Great work.”

What about you? What are you doing to push this along? I sure as hell hope it’s not something illegal.

“I have another call coming in, Carl. Gotta take it. Bye.”

It came as no surprise to Boff that, later in the day, he received a call from Emilio.

We need to talk,
the mobster’s son said
. White Horse Tavern. In an hour.

Parking was difficult near the tavern in the
West Village, so Boff splurged on a cab. He could have gotten there faster by subway, but knowing that so many people in the world wanted him dead, he had a bit of a phobia about being underground.

The White Horse was the first bar Boff had gone to in college. It had opened its doors back in
eighteen-eighty as a longshoreman’s bar, but when the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas became a regular patron, the tavern gained some cachet among the Bohemian set, especially in the Fifties. The place still had its old-world look and was one of the few taverns in New York that accepted only cash.

Boff found Emilio standing at the bar drinking a mug of beer.

“Let’s take a table,” the mobster’s son said.

They went into the first of two back rooms and found a small table in front of a four-by-six-foot blowup of Dylan Thomas standing at the White Horse bar drinking from a foaming mug.

A waitress walked over to them as they sat down.

“I’ll take a cola with lime,” Boff said.

“Another mug of the house ale for me.”

Emilio waited for the waitress to leave, then, “I got called in for questioning by the D.A. today.”

Boff said nothing.

“Did you have something to do with that?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because the assistant D.A. I talked to seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the same kind of things I told you. In confidence, I might add.”

Boff shook his head. “There isn’t a D.A. in the city I’d give the time of day to, let alone information on a case.”

After the waitress delivered their drinks, Emilio leaned toward Boff. “Look, you can deny it all you want,” he said, “but I know you had a hand in tipping off the D.A. Didn’t you tell me you had no interest in hurting me?”

Boff took a healthy drink of his Pepsi before answering. “At the time I didn’t have any interest in hurting you. That’s because I believed Alicia was the one who hired the hit man.”

“And you think differently
now?”

“Correct. Your father told me he never introduced Alicia to any of his friends. So Alicia didn’t know any mobsters. Which was not what you told me. By process of elimination, that means
you
were the one who contracted the hits.”

Emilio leaned back and glared at him. “Is that what you told the D.A.?”

“As I said before, I didn’t talk to the D.A.”

Emilio pointed a finger at him. “My father wouldn’t be happy if he found out what you did.” When Boff didn’t respond, he took a good tug on his beer, then said, “Are you wearing a wire, Frank?”

“Not at all. You wanna search me? We can go in the bathroom.”

Emilio studied Boff’s eyes. “That won’t be necessary,” he finally said. “Alicia’s dead, so there’s nobody left who could finger me. Not even you, because you don’t have any hard evidence.” After a pause, he added, “Why can’t you just let this thing go and return to defending scumbags?”

“Why? Because some people sent by you tossed my apartment, gave my kid a concussion,
and
wired a bomb to my car ignition.”

Emilio nodded, as if suddenly getting the point. “I get it,” he said. “This is personal for you. Is that it?”

Boff squeezed more lime into his Pepsi and dropped it in the glass. After taking another drink, he stared back at the banker without saying anything.

“I asked you,” Emilio said in a cold voice, “is this personal for you? It’s a simple question.”

Boff took another drink.

Pounding the table with his fist, Emilio almost shouted, “Dammit, Frank, everything was going good until you interfered.”

Now Boff smiled. “If things were going so good, how come you had to kill six people?”

Emilio glanced around to see if anybody had heard what Boff had said, then turned back and lowered his voice. “I
meant
that I was getting my life back in order. The escort service was helping me recoup money I lost speculating on the market.”

He sucked down the last of his beer. Although he looked really angry, he spread his hands and made his voice sound casual. “Frank. Frank. Things don’t have to be this way between us. I could pay you some cash and feed you a few stock tips.”

At this Boff let out a derisive laugh. “I’ve got plenty of money. And considering the way you and your compatriots almost bankrupted Wall Street, I’ll pass on your so-called stock wisdom.”

“Don’t make me call my pop in on this.”

“If you tried to, you’d have to use some strong evidence to convince him that I was involved in the D.A.’s decision to call you in. Evidence, my friend, you don’t have. Failing that, I suppose you could just shoot me yourself. If you had the balls. Which I seriously doubt.”

He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Emilio’s. “You know what you are? You’re the privileged son of a rich man. You were handed everything and accomplished nothing. Your sole contribution to the world has consisted of encouraging gullible people to go heavily into debt, the weight of which wiped many of them out and nearly collapsed the economy.” He leaned back, as if he were relaxing. “You should’ve gone into your father’s business. At least then I’d be talking to a real man.”

A smile suddenly creased Emilio’s face. “I see your game, Frank. You’re trying to goad me into doing something that would expose me to risk. Well it won’t work, pal. I’m free and clear of any ties to the service, and my bank account is practically brimming over. As for the service, I’m already in the process of shutting it down.”

A young man and a woman holding hands walked over to look at the photo of the famous poet. The guy pointed to Thomas. “That’s Dylan Thomas,” he said. “He died here at the bar.”

Boff turned to him. “Actually, that’s not true. Dylan Thomas drank here. Then he went home and became ill. A few days later he died of pneumonia.”

The young man frowned. “How do you know that?”

“I’m a literary historian.”

After giving the so-called expert a sour look, he took his girl into the bar’s second back room. Boff and Emilio watched them go.

“Why’d you show the kid up?” Emilio asked.

“He was wrong. I like to get things right.”

“Yeah. Is that what you think you’re doing with me?”

When Boff didn’t answer, he signaled for the waitress
, asked for the check, and stood up.

“This was an interesting conversation, Frank.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Despite your reputation, you’re in over your head.”

“I’m good at treading water.”

When the waitress handed Emilio the check, he put some cash on the table, then leaned down close to Boff and whispered, “Even good swimmers have been known to drown.”