A Scourge of Vipers (29 page)

“No. My boss never even told me
why
I was being fired. He just ordered me to collect my personal stuff and get out.”

“He offer to hire you back?”

“Yeah. With a raise, too.”

“What did you say?”

“I don't remember. I wasn't exactly sober at the time.”

“But you didn't accept?”

“No.”

“That's good. We can show damages.”

“Huh,” I said. I was warming to the idea.

“I've already done my homework on General Communications Holdings International,” Yolanda said. “Over the last decade, three dozen wrongful termination complaints have been brought against them. Only eleven had merit, and they were all settled out of court.”

“For how much?”

“The amounts varied, but the average was a hundred and forty thousand.”

“Sounds like a lot.”

“It's nowhere near what the legal costs would have been if the cases had gone to trial.”

“How do you know about this?” I asked. “There's no public record of out-of-court settlements.”

“One of my law school classmates used to work for the firm that represents them. He quit a couple of months ago when they didn't come through with the partnership he'd been promised, so he was more than willing to rat them out.”

“You really think I should sue the paper?”

“I do. I'll take the case on a contingency basis.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“The firm gets twenty-five percent if they settle before we file.”

“And if they don't?”

“If we file and they settle before trial, our fee goes up to thirty-five percent.”

“And if they don't settle?”

“They will,” she said.

I took a moment to mull it over.

“I got fired because of Grandison,” I said. “Isn't that a conflict of interest for you?”

“Not anymore. I've informed her that her actions created a conflict with another client and that she will have to seek other representation.”

“Okay, Yolanda. Let's do it. After I collect, will you marry me for my money?”

“My annual salary is four times what you're likely to get.”

“Can I marry you for
your
money?”

“I don't think my money's what you've got your eye on.”

She rose, slipped out of her dress, took me by the hand, and pulled me into the bedroom.

 

46

When I stepped into McCracken's suite in the Turk's Head Building, I observed that Sharise had chosen a very short skirt today. Or maybe it was just a very wide belt. I also saw that the “Shamus Mulligan” nameplate had been mounted on one of the interior office doors.

“Mr. McCracken is expecting you,” Sharise said. “You can go right in.”

He greeted me with his customary bone-crushing handshake, and we seated ourselves on the leather couch. The coffee table had already been set with a fresh pot and all the fixings, and this morning, there were also doughnuts. I snagged a leaking jelly as the P.I. poured us each a cup.

“So,” he said, “when can you start?”

“Look,” I said, “I'm not ready to give up writing just yet. Any chance I could work for you part-time?”

“Full-time would be better, but if that's what it takes to get you started. For now, I'll pay you sixty bucks an hour for the time you put in on each case. How's that sound?”

“Works for me.”

“As an operative of McCracken and Associates, you can work under my P.I. license, but you ought to have your own. Sharise has done the paperwork, so sign the forms on your way out.… Oh, and is it okay if I keep your name on the door?”

“Sure thing. So what's my first case?”

“You know Brian Annunzio?”

“The criminal lawyer?”

“That's the one,” McCracken said. “He's hired us to help prepare the defense for his latest client.”

“What's the charge?”

“The guy's ready to cop to attempted robbery, assault and battery, and possession of an unregistered firearm; but the Providence cops are also looking at him for two murders and for stealing two hundred grand from one of the dead guys.”

I turned and stared at him.

“Are you talking about
Mario
?”

“I am.”

“If Mario can afford Annunzio, he must have Alfano's money stashed somewhere.”

“He claims he doesn't.”

“Then how's he paying the lawyer?”

“Whoosh is footing the bill.”

“You've got to be kidding.”

“I'm not,” McCracken said. “He isn't springing for bail, though. Says he doesn't want the punk running around loose for a while.”

“I'll bet. Are you sure you want
me
on this one? I haven't exactly been getting along with Mario lately.”

“Me either,” McCracken said. “As you may recall, the last time I ran into him I popped him in the nose.”

“Did you tell Annunzio about this?”

“Didn't have to. Mario gave him the whole story.”

“And he still wants us?”

“It's
why
he wants us. We already know the case. Anybody else would be starting from scratch.”

“Have you talked to Mario yet?”

“I have.”

“What's his story?”

“Says he didn't shoot Templeton. Claims he never even heard of the guy.”

“What's he saying about Romeo Alfano?”

“Says he didn't kill him either.”

“Bullshit.”

“The way Mario tells it, he did get pissed off at Alfano.”

“When I spilled the beans about what his boss was really up to?”

“Yeah. After you and I left the hotel room, he told Alfano he was quitting and demanded payment for services rendered. Alfano pulled a gun on him. Said that if Mario had been any good at his job he wouldn't have let us get the drop on him.”

“And then?”

“Mario says he scooped his empty revolver off the floor, turned tail, and beat it out of the hotel. When he heard that Alfano was dead and that the cops thought he'd shot him, he just kept on running.”

“Don't tell me you believe that,” I said.

“Could be the truth,” McCracken said. “The cops ran ballistics on the gun Mario used to pistol-whip Whoosh, and it's not a match to the one that killed Alfano.”

“So they can't tie him to either murder,” I said.

“Not yet, anyway.”

I'd given up cigars during the Vipers tryout, but I was jonesing for one now. I drew two Cohibas from my shirt pocket and clipped the ends. McCracken stuck one in his teeth, and I set fire to it with my torch lighter. Then I got mine going. We smoked in silence until I tapped two inches of white ash into my empty coffee cup.

“Mario's not the only one who had motive and opportunity to kill Alfano,” I said.

“Freitas and Wargart like him for it,” McCracken said, “but I hear they still think it could have been you.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I've been wondering about that. Think the desk clerk saw me leave the hotel with you that day?”

“Could have,” I said. “And if he told the homicide twins—”

“Then they might suspect both of us.”

“You know what I'm thinking?” I said.

“What?”

“That it could have been them
.”

McCracken nodded. “When we left the hotel, the first thing you did is call Wargat. You pointed him and his partner right to that hotel room.”

I took a moment to think it over.

“I called Parisi, too,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“If he was at state police headquarters when he answered his cell, it would have taken him a good forty minutes to get to the hotel,” I said. “In that case, the homicide twins would have beat him to the scene.”

“But was he?”

“I don't know.”

McCracken shook his head. “Parisi's a straight arrow,” he said. “But Wargart and Freitas have been on the pad for years.”

“Really? I hadn't heard that.”

“Oh, fuck yeah. I wouldn't trust those two assholes with their own kids' lunch money.”

*   *   *

That afternoon, the House finally voted on the governor's gambling bill and defeated it by twenty-three votes. It then took up the Republican version, which called for sports gambling to be run by private enterprise, and passed it with a solid majority. The next morning, the House bill passed the Senate with a margin of seventeen votes. Whoever the Alfanos had been working for had gotten something for their money.

That evening, Fiona and I met to commiserate over brews at Hopes.

“The tax on private sports gambling will amount to only six percent of the revenue we could have brought in if the Lottery Commission had been authorized to take the bets,” she said.

“Twelve million a year is better than nothing,” I said.

“You think?”

“You don't?”

“No, I don't,” she said. “We'll have to spend most of the first year's proceeds just to fight the federal lawsuits the NCAA and the professional sports leagues are going to file against the state. Besides, the whole thing is tainted now.”

“By the bribes that got handed out?”

“And by all the super PAC money,” she said. “The way I see it, that's just
legal
bribery.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to veto it.”

“Told anybody else yet?”

“Just you.”

“Mind if I give the story to Mason?”

“So you can rub
The Dispatch
's face in it?”

“Of course.”

“I'm all for that.”

*   *   *

Next morning, I slipped into Mason's office at
The Ocean State Rag
and found him hunched over his computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Give me a sec,” he said, “and I'll be right with you.”

Edward Anthony Mason III was no longer the slim, naive, fresh-faced Columbia University J-School grad I'd met six years earlier when he strode into
The Dispatch
's newsroom. He'd put on a few pounds; I could see it in his face. He'd grown wiser in the ways of the world. And he'd recently gotten engaged to Felicia Freyer, the drop-dead-gorgeous attorney he'd met when we worked the Diggs case together a couple of years back. Once, he'd been a callow, privileged youth who thought the publisher's chair at
The Dispatch
was his birthright. But when the family patriarchs sold the paper out from under him, he hadn't sulked. He'd started his own business, and it was growing. He
was
a publisher now.

He rose from the computer, shook my hand, waved me into a visitor's chair, and settled back down behind his desk.

“So,” he said, “are you ready to start?”

“Sort of.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I've agreed to work part-time for McCracken. I'm thinking maybe I could do the same for you.”

“Figure on trying out both jobs to see which suits you best?”

“Something like that.”

“Reporter or private detective? Interesting life choice.”

“It is.”

“Tell you what. For now, I'll add you to our stringers list and pay you by the piece.”

“Sounds good.”

“You'll be on your own for health insurance, Mulligan.”

“I understand.”

“So, then. Got any story ideas?”

“I already have a scoop for you,” I said. “Show me where to sit, and I'll bang it out.”

 

47

If the homicide twins were guilty of robbery and murder, proving it was going to be a bitch. I didn't know where to start. The next morning, I kicked it around with Joseph for a couple of hours. He wasn't any help.

At noon, I drove to the Omni and cornered the desk clerk who'd been on duty when Romeo Alfano was killed. Had he seen anybody who looked like a cop walk out of the hotel with a briefcase that day? He didn't remember. When I slipped him forty bucks, he still didn't. The concierge was no help either.

The hotel detective was a retired Providence police sergeant named Ferguson Conklin. I found him sitting in a cramped office near the reception desk, his eyes scanning the hotel's surveillance monitors.

“How ya doin', Fergie?”

“Been better. Murder ain't good for business.”

“I assume you've gone over all the video from the day of the murder.”

“Of course I have. Freitas and Wargart did, too.”

“They show anything?”

“Nothing helpful.”

“No intruder sneaking into the murder room before the cops showed up?”

“There aren't any surveillance cameras in the hallways.”

“What? Why not?”

“Our guests value their privacy.”

“But the cameras cover the stairwells and elevators?”

“Of course.”

“Anybody go up to the ninth floor shortly before the cops arrived?”

“Just a couple of the housekeeping staff. And one guy who knew how to avert his face from the cameras. Could have been the killer. Could have just been some guy cheating on his wife. Happens all the time. Of course, the cameras also caught you and McCracken coming down. Wargart and Freitas seemed real interested in that.”

“Did the homicide twins go up before Parisi arrived?”

“I don't remember.”

“Mind if I take a look at the tape?”

“Sorry. The Providence dicks took it with them.”

I went back to my car and tried to think things through. A couple of weeks ago, I was an investigative reporter hell-bent on exposing massive political corruption in the state legislature. Now I'd been reduced to trying to clear a violent punk, and myself, of a murder rap. The sense of mission that had driven me for more than two decades as a journalist was gone, but my new task did come with a sense of urgency.