Ace Is Wild (8 page)

“You want to think about your future, Pierce. Boston’ll be a cold city for someone dense enough to piss off the Mafia and the mob, too. My boys’re lookin’ kindly on you at the moment, seein’ as you’re removin’ a thorn from our side—”

“Your boys? You must be talking about the handful of thugs who steal cars and terrorize little old ladies for you, because there’s no way the mob families will line up behind one leader. Too many egos.”

Flynn held his gaze a moment, then laughed. “Things change, Boyo. You’d best keep that in mind.” He glanced over at Patrice, smile gone, the sparkle in his Irish blue eyes turned to a hard glitter. “Your friend is waitin’ for you.”

“Still no love lost, I see.” Patrice’s maiden name was Flynn; Joe was her uncle. And Bobby, her brother, had been the reason Daniel had almost died seven years before.

Patrice had lined up on the side of law and order, not taking an active enough part to testify against her own brother, but trying to make amends for the fact that it was Bobby’s bullets that had narrowly missed Daniel’s heart and shattered the bone in his left thigh. It might as well have been Patrice who’d shot him, she took it that personally.

Any other family would have modeled their behavior after hers. Patrice’s family labeled her a traitor.

Daniel hadn’t been any happier to have her hovering over him day and night. He’d been in pain all of the time, and pissed off about everything. It had been awkward to have a constant reminder of the unwanted detour his life was taking. It had been even worse the day word came down that Bobby Flynn had died, victim of a jailhouse execution, less than two years into a life stretch. By then, Daniel had given up trying to kick Patrice Hanlon out of his life. By then, she’d become the closest thing he had to a friend.

It still didn’t sit easy on Daniel, but he couldn’t avoid the label—and it was better than the one Patrice wanted.

“She’s got balls showing up here, I’ll give her that,” Joe said. “Best watch who you socialize with, Counselor.”

“I’ll take that as a threat.”

Joe measured him for a moment, then boomed out another laugh and walked away, slapping backs, shaking hands, looking for all the world like a man running for office.

Judging by what he’d said, he was, but there wouldn’t be campaign speeches and polls in this kind of election, and anyone stupid enough to vote “no” wouldn’t live to fill out a ballot. If Flynn was successful in uniting the Irish mob, God help the city of Boston.

“Who was that?” Vivi wanted to know.

Daniel let his head drop to his chest. “Just when I managed to forget you were here.”

“It looked like he was threatening you,” she said, still in one-track-mind mode.

“And you’re wondering if he tried to have me killed the other night.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Joe Flynn doesn’t want me dead. As long as I’m prosecuting Tony Sappresi, this is probably the safest place I can be in the city.”

She didn’t look convinced, and she wasn’t getting his point.

“So you can go home. Unless you want to answer some questions.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are we back to that again?”

“Yeah, and we’ll keep coming back to it until you tell me how you knew there’d be a murder attempt two nights ago.”

“I told you already. No matter how many times you ask the question the answer is going to be the same.”

Impressions and visions, she meant, probably with a little bit of Grandma thrown into the mix. Daniel would have rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t sure how to take her anymore. If she’d wanted him to believe her, she would have come up with a more convincing line than “the spirits told me,” because that sounded crazy, and she didn’t seem crazy—most of the time. But if she was crazy, she’d probably be hearing voices and think they were real when they told her he was about to be killed, and she’d be crazy enough to try to warn him. But that would mean she wasn’t crazy because the voices were right about the murder attempt . . .

“I’m sorry I asked,” he said, his head beginning to hurt from trying to squeeze an ounce of logic out of a sea of insanity.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

“And I told you to go home, but you’re still hanging around. I’d say that makes us even.” He turned to find that the dragon at the door had switched to hostess mode. She was waiting patiently for him, a menu in her hand, new respect in her attitude. She probably wasn’t the only one in the place to have noted Joe Flynn’s warm greeting. And Daniel wasn’t above taking advantage of it—in a strictly limited capacity.

“Miss Hanlon is right this way, Mr. Pierce,” she said. “Will this young lady be joining you?”

“No.” Daniel took the menu from her, and added, “I can find my own way.”

“I guess I’ll need a table for one then,” Vivi said.

Daniel stopped, turning back to the hostess. “She’s Russian,” he said, and had the satisfaction of watching the dragon show her claws again, the Russian mob being even more hated by the Irish mob than the Italians.

By the time he made it to Patrice’s table, a quick but thorough check of the place showed him Vivi had been evicted. Something told him he hadn’t seen the last of her, and it wasn’t coming from the spirit world. Sure, there was a voice in his head, but it was the voice of experience. The really fatalistic voice of experience.

COHAN’S WASN’T VERY BIG, BUT THEN FEW OF THE REALLY good, family-owned pubs in South Boston were. The front wall of the place consisted of windows, clear glass, curtainless, unadorned by expensive hand-lettering. Why waste the money when it was only a matter of time before someone got tossed through them? The inside was just as lackluster, one big room with the bar and kitchen at one end and the restrooms at the other. In between were tables crowded almost on top of one another, all of them occupied, the bar two-deep in serious drinkers.

The atmosphere grew murky away from the windows, a stew of dim lighting and smoke haze, not to mention a cacophony consisting of music, televised baseball, and heated conversation that involved violence on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Cohan’s served Irish food, Irish whiskey, and Irish politics. Before the uneasy peace on the Auld Sod, they’d have collected gun money for the IRA. Nowadays it was charity for the war orphans and widows left behind. It was the sort of place Daniel would’ve met an informant or chased a suspect into.

Patrice Hanlon was a paradox, at once clearly a member of this community with her auburn hair, creamy skin, and blue eyes. A closer study marked her as an outsider, clothing and shoes costing more than most of these people made in a week. She sat alone at a table for four, on the side with the banquette built against the wall. That left the seat across from her, or the seat beside her. Daniel hated having his back to the room. The alternative was worse than death.

“Patrice,” he said, bending to give her a kiss on the cheek before he sat opposite her.

She covered her disappointment with a bright smile. “They’re wondering if you’re carrying. Or if you’re my lawyer.”

Daniel glanced around, noting the absence of conversation nearby, and the presence of speculation. “It’s the suit.” He shifted slightly, enough to let his jacket gape open and prove to the other diners that he wasn’t armed. “I came straight from work.”

“Even though you didn’t want to.”

“I shouldn’t be here, and neither should you.” He’d tried to explain that to her on the phone, but she’d been insistent. Since he knew firsthand just how stubborn she could be, he’d given in to the inevitable. That didn’t mean they had to be there any longer than necessary.

“We’re perfectly safe here,” she said.

“You’ve been away for a long time.”

“I still consider this my home, even though I wanted more.”

And she’d gotten it. Married into it, rather briefly as she’d been widowed less than two years in. She’d decided to stay in that other world at first, and then she hadn’t really had a choice . . .

“You’re thinking of Bobby, aren’t you?” She closed the menu, placing it just so on the table. “I could tell by the pity.”

“It’s not pity, it’s regret. If I’d handled the situation differently, he never would have gotten a shot at me to begin with.”

“You didn’t have a choice. Neither did I. Bobby chose, and the rest of us had to react accordingly.”

Not quite true, Daniel thought. He’d stumbled upon Bobby Flynn dealing to the neighborhood kids. He should have backed off, he should have let local law enforcement handle the situation. Instead he’d blundered in, determined to save at least a couple of youngsters from drug addiction. All he’d done was get himself shot and help Bobby Flynn graduate from small-time dealing to attempted murder. He’d ruined his own career, and ultimately he’d gotten Bobby killed.

“So . . . You haven’t asked me why I was so determined to keep our date tonight.” Patrice waited a beat, smiling at his reaction. “Your virtue is safe from me.”

“My virtue is long gone.”

“That’s even better.”

Okay, now he was beginning to get uncomfortable. “You were about to explain why we’re here.”

“You already met him,” she said.

Daniel followed her gaze to the bar, where Joe Flynn was standing a group of men to a round of beers.

“He’s moving to unite the mob,” Patrice said, leaning forward to keep her voice down. “I thought you’d want to know, considering what happened the other night.”

“Flynn said as much to me a few minutes ago,” Daniel told her, “but I don’t see what it has to do with the other night.”

“Taking out an assistant U.S. attorney would buy a lot of street credibility.”

“Owning one would be better, especially one who used to be an FBI agent. That’s if he can even pull off a coup like uniting the mob, which I doubt.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Patrice said, sitting back in her seat. “He’s making big promises. Some of the families are listening.”

“Shit,” Daniel said and would have apologized if he hadn’t said it under his breath.

“He’s talking about stepping into the void that’ll be left when you put Tony Sappresi in jail.”

This time Daniel kept his one-syllable reaction to himself. “I’m sure the Mafia has already decided how they’re going to fill that void.” Which, if Flynn got what he wanted, meant Boston was going to suffer a crime wave that would make the eighties seem like a grade-school dodge ball tournament. Most of the casualties would come from the ranks of organized crime, but a whole lot of innocent citizens could get caught in the line of fire.

“Isn’t that the woman from the other night?”

“Huh?” Daniel focused on Patrice’s face again, then twisted around to see what she was looking at. And there, peering in the front window of the pub, was Vivi. “Yeah,” he said, facing forward again, even though he knew Patrice would be smirking at him. Instead, she laughed softly.

“What?” he asked her.

“Dinner theater. You’re just full of surprises tonight, Daniel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I like it.”

“Great.” He opened the menu, ignoring the tingle that told him Vivi was still staring at his back. “I’ll memorize some Marx Brothers for next time.”

Chapter 6

“HEY THERE, GORGEOUS, HOW’S ABOUT HAVING A
drink with me?”

“No.”

“Dinner?”

“No.”

“Well, if you’re not hungry, and you’re not thirsty . . .”

Vivi straightened up and turned around. “How about you go inside and get a sticky note, or a Magic Marker, or a bunch of half-cooked pasta, anything you can use to spell out the word
NO
in big letters on my back so I won’t have to say it to another annoying . . . man,” she finished, because “drunken Irishman,” which was what she really wanted to say, would have gotten her yet more attention, but of a far worse variety.

The man held up his hands, palms out, backed slowly away, and said, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, luv, I was only askin’.”

Him and about a dozen other guys. But at least this one hadn’t wanted to know the going rate.

The blue jeans and plain white tank that had looked casual and unremarkable in her mirror at home seemed to be acting like a “for sale” sign. True, the hem of the T-shirt and the waistband of the jeans didn’t exactly come into contact, and both were fairly form-fitting, but no tighter than any other woman’s in the vicinity, so why did she get singled out for hooker status . . . Okay, she knew the answer to that, but she wasn’t blaming herself for this. She was blaming Daniel Pierce.