The Murder Channel (12 page)

Her forehead creased. “Yes. Why?”

“How did you know I would come here today?”

She frowned and held out her hands, palms up. “That was our agreement, Felix.”

“I said that I would come here when I was released.”

“Oh, I understand. We knew about the accident, of course, and … the shooting. We’ve been covering the story all day. When I heard that you walked away from the crash, I expected you to come here.”

“I don’t like this.”

Something about the setting and the players bothered me. Wendy Pouldice offered me the audience of millions that I wanted, but she was not the woman who touched my arm and talked slowly when we met at the hospital. What she offered now was minutes on a newscast.

“You told me that you wanted to talk about … that day,” she said.

“There’s more.”

She glanced at her watch.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“Felix, a lot of things can happen between now and then.”

Donald pushed himself from his chair.

“Sit down,” I told him.

“I’ll handle this, Donald,” she said. “I want to do this the way I’ve always seen it in my mind,” I said.

Braverman sat down.

“Who told Eddie to poison the birds?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you know Eddie?”

She looked at Braverman, who shrugged.

“I don’t know Eddie,” she said. “Felix, we need to decide what we’re going to do.”

I heard a soft whistle, then a whisper. My head hurt, and my eyes were tired.

“Something isn’t right,” I said.

“You’re safe here,” Pouldice said, her words arriving from a distance.

I pushed open the doors, a buzz in my head, a pain creeping down the back of my neck.

“Felix,” Pouldice said.

I walked to the elevator.

MR. GUZMAN WAS CLOSING HIS SHOP. “FELIX,”
he called as I walked to the exit. “I remembered your name, right?”

“And you are Mr. Guzman.”

He smiled. “Will you be seeing Sable tonight?”

I nodded.

He ducked into his store and emerged with a small bunch of flowers and a paper bag. “I would
only have to throw these away,” he said. “It’s a waste.”

He slipped the bag over the bouquet. “Tell her to put them in water right away.”

“She will like these,” I told him.

He grabbed his broom. “Good night,” he said.

A SCARRED MAHOGANY BAR DIVIDED RIDDLE’S.

On one side, a patron labored over burger and fries. The second, larger area attracted the neighborhood’s serious drinkers.

Blue-gray smoke spiraled from overfilled ashtrays. Conversation was sparse and muffled, and Dennis Day crooned from the jukebox. Riddle’s had ignored the passage of thirty-five years.

It is trite to say that Boston never changes, that the city’s deep cultural rifts just grow deeper and molder with the passage of time. Beantown’s melting pot never did have much of a flame, and no one stirred the ethnic stew. Racial, religious, and ethnic enclaves defined geography and politics. This turf happened to be owned by white, Irish-American, Roman Catholic, clean-shaven males.

Two men sat at the bar nursing whiskey shots and draft chasers. Three more occupied a table and watched a basketball game on a silent TV. J-Cubed—Dermott Fremont—sat with a newspaper,
a mug of Guinness, and a young girl on his lap. The kid’s age was indeterminate—twelve? fifteen?—but she had no business in Riddle’s. She leaned across the table doodling on a placemat.

Behind Fremont the wall was decorated with Vigil’s flag and other memorabilia, all displaying the same logo: black lightning bolts slicing through a black V on a dark blue field. The insignia resembled a bad, oddly shaped bruise.

Neville Waycross positioned himself near the bar. He had been eager to “go to work,” if only in an unofficial capacity. He feigned interest in San Antonio’s dismantling of the Lakers.

I walked to Fremont’s table.

“My name is Lucas Frank.”

He continued to read his newspaper. “You’re not a cop,” he said, and sipped his Guinness.

“I want to find Felix Zrbny before anyone else gets hurt.”

He flipped through the
Herald
sports pages. I sat opposite him.

Fremont glanced at the bar. “Willy, show this gentleman the door.”

There was a brief skirmish at the bar, followed by the sound of glass breaking and a low moan behind me. Waycross told one of the obstreperous patrons under his care to stay put.

The girl pushed away from the table, staring wide-eyed at the front of the bar.

“You’re in deep shit, old man,” Fremont said.

“Willy,” I called. “Bring me a mug of that Guinness.”

I pointed my finger at the kid. “You, child, go home.”

She grabbed her coat and ran.

“Who the fuck you think you are? You’re fuckin’ dead meat.”

“Let me remind you of your first observation, Mr. Fremont. I’m not a cop, which means that I’m not constrained by the rules of criminal procedure. If I want to shoot off your balls with the thirty-eight I have aimed at them, there won’t be any Internal Affairs investigation.”

I pulled back the revolver’s hammer. Fremont heard the click and looked down.

“How should I know where that psycho is?”

“You’ve got vans filled with true believers, armed with everything except pitchforks, looking for him.”

He leaned forward. “If I knew where he was, why would I have to look for him?”

“Something went wrong at the courthouse.”

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem replaced Dennis Day on the jukebox.

“Albie Wilson didn’t get himself killed to make a political statement,” I said.

“Look, I already told the cops I don’t know Wilson, and I don’t know shit about what went down.”

“That’s not what his brother Noonan says.”

Fremont leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know no Noonan.”

I fired the thirty-eight into the floor. Fremont yelped and bounced on his chair. There was another brief disturbance at the bar.

“I never could get into the game of chess,” I said. “The idea of a stalemate disgusts me. There should be a winner and a loser.”

“You’re crazy, old man.”

I fired again.

“Cut that shit out,” Fremont screamed.

I leaned forward and stared into his eyes. “I hate to lose,” I said.

Fremont was a small fish in a large pool, a piece of shit floating in an urban drainage pipe waiting to be flushed out. He oozed control and self-importance, and the half-wits who stood in his shadow worshipped him. From the time I was a kid on the Roxbury streets, I wanted only to bring down people like Dermott Fremont.

“The next time, I take out a kneecap.”

“Albie Wilson acted on his own. It had nothing to do with Vigil. He got his brother to drive him. That’s it.”

“Van just pulled up, Doc,” Waycross said. “Five males.”

“Shoot them,” I said.

Fremont’s eyes flitted from the front window to Waycross and back to me. “You’re bluffing,” he said.

“Willy, where’s my Guinness?” I called.

“Albie misjudged the security. That’s the only way I can figure it. There wasn’t supposed to be any hit, only fireworks. He must’ve panicked.”

This time the disturbance behind me was louder and longer as Waycross disarmed Fremont’s band of merry men and escorted them to a table.

Willy’s hands shook as he placed my mug of Guinness on the table.

“’Tis a fine brew,” I said. “So, what was the second car for?”

Fremont blanched. “What second car?”

He quickly held up his hands. “Don’t fuckin’ shoot,” he said. “Insurance, okay? Albie wanted to know that he had a way out.”

“Who drove the second car?”

“I swear I don’t know.”

I considered what he had told me. It was a start, but not much more than that. Another time, I thought, I would have a more private heart-to-heart with J-Cubed.

“Mr. Fremont, you and I are going to meet again,” I said, pushing myself away from the table. “When that happens, it will be immaterial to me whether you answer my questions, or I blow off your fucking head. Have a pleasant evening.”

WAYCROSS AND I WALKED TO MY RENTED
Ford Explorer.

“Bolton used to say you needed a leash,” he said. “I think a cage might be more appropriate.”

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke,” I said.

Waycross’s laughter was muffled.

“You choking?” I asked him. “Need a whack on the back?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I never thought to ask, Neville. What are you using for a weapon?”

“My service nine. I’ve kept it all these years.”

We stepped into the parking lot, where Danny Kirkland leaned against my car. “Hey, Doc,” he said. “I had to see if you’d come out of Riddle’s alive.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“You’re reinventing the wheel. Have you asked yourself the next question yet? ‘Why shoot up the courthouse?’ If it ain’t a hit, what the fuck is it?”

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“What I’ve been saying right along. I know stuff. You know other stuff. We compare. I save you some steps. You give me the whole story.”

“Move,” I said.

“Will you admit that there’s more to this than Zrbny?”

“I’ll get rid of him,” Waycross said.

“No, Neville,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Let’s not compound our felony.”

Kirkland stepped away from the car. “Good advice, Brother Waycross,” he said.

Waycross and I slipped into the Explorer.

“Might be you gotta dig deeper, Doc,” Kirkland said.

“Kind of you to point that out, Danny,” I said.

“Might be you gotta go back fifteen years.” I slammed the door.

“Neville, I don’t like cities,” I said, guiding the vehicle through the snow. “I concur with my daughter Lane’s assessment that I should not be allowed to roam freely through them. Anything might happen. This time it’s your former boss’s fault. I should be hibernating. I especially do not enjoy cases like this one.”

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“I’m going to drop you off. I’ve got a date with a media mogul.”

“I don’t get to watch?” Waycross asked with a chuckle.

“Ha, now you’ve got the spirit,” I said. “No.”

He was silent, gazing at the snow.

“You enjoyed the confrontation back there,” I said.

He hesitated. “I felt like I was doing something, getting somewhere.”

“You didn’t feel that in the Brotherhood?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Mostly it was like walking through a war zone and not being able to fire back at the snipers. Guess I never lost my cop’s head.”

“What did you do with the anger?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You weren’t drinking, you didn’t return fire, and you stuck with the good-works mission.”

“I seldom get angry,” he said. “That’s never been a problem.”

I CLEARED SECURITY AND RODE THE EXPRESS
elevator to twenty.

Wendy Pouldice had the only apartment on the floor. I stood outside her door with a bag full of the makings of dinner. She answered my knock immediately.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. “You made it through the blizzard.”

“Crab curry?”

“And calisthenics?” she asked with a grin.

“We need to talk.”

She shrugged, and the leer disappeared. “C’mon in, Lucas. I’ve already eaten.”

I gave her the bag. “Freeze it. We’ll do a rain check.”

Braverman lay sprawled on a white sofa. He had graduated from
Bawdy Boston
to
People.

“Later, Donald,” Pouldice said.

The big man climbed from the sofa and let himself out.

“He doesn’t say much,” I observed.

“He’s dependable,” she said, lowering herself into a chair. “Sit.”

I circled a low glass table and sat in a matching chair. “Felix Zrbny,” I said.

“You’re so single-minded, Lucas.”

I shrugged. “Past behavior is still the best indicator of future behavior. Zrbny is dangerous.”

In my years of practice, a patient’s assertion of an intent to change was the least reliable forecaster that she would cease her drinking, or that he would stop abusing his wife and children. Psychological testing was a reasonable sample of a person’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings at the time of test administration. Characterological idiosyncrasies often emerged from an expertly administered and interpreted Thematic Apperception Test, a series of storytelling pictures developed by Henry Murray at Harvard in the 1930s. The trend in psychology, however, was away from projective testing and toward whatever could be measured. The field was counting its way to irrelevance.

Many times in court, I had been asked about the likelihood of a defendant’s repeating the behavior that had brought him before the court. Occasionally I had a response; most often I admitted that I had no idea.

There was no doubt in my mind what the city would be dealing with if we did not get Zrbny off the streets.