Among Thieves (23 page)

He headed back to the gallery. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

The Irishman was standing over a small electronic device on the floor. He kicked it hard, and the alarm skipped a beat. He
kicked it a second time, harder, and the plastic casing smashed, the alarm dying instantly. “It’s internal,” the Irishman
said. “To keep the museum visitors from knocking the painting. It’s not hooked into the system.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Aye. I’m sure.”

“How sure?”

The two men looked at each other, and Devon could see the shadow of doubt in the Irishman’s eyes. “I’m sure,” he said again.

“We got to get out of here,” Devon said.

“We’re finishing the job.”

“Fine. Then finish it fuckin’ quickly.”

The Irishman’s eyes narrowed in anger, but it wasn’t directed at Devon. He nodded. “Quickly. Give me a hand.”

The two of them lifted that seascape off its hanger and set it down on the floor. The Irishman pulled out a straight blade;
he clearly wasn’t going to waste time dismantling the frame. He stuck the point of the blade into the canvas at the edge of
the frame. With four quick, brutal cuts he freed it, leaving behind a small frame of canvas that had once been a part of the
masterpiece. He rolled it up and placed it with the pile of the other works. He pulled two cloth bags out of his jacket. He
opened one and slipped the paintings into it. He tossed the second to Devon. “Put those into this,” he said, nodding to the
drawings Devon had taken from the gallery on the other side of the museum.

“These are mine,” Devon said.

“I’ll deal with that with your boss,” the Irishman said. “Put them in.”

Devon took the bag and did as he was told. No point in arguing; Bulger would make the final call. He took the eagle out of
his pocket and slipped that in as well.

“One more, downstairs,” the Irishman said. “Let’s go.”

Devon followed him. As he headed out of the room, he grabbed a small Oriental-looking vase from a display and slipped it into
the bag. The Irishman gave him a lethal look, but said nothing. Devon didn’t care anymore.

They headed downstairs. “I’ll get the last one,” the Irishman said, consulting his list and the hand-drawn map of the museum’s
layout. “You go to the security office and make sure the alarm hasn’t been tripped.”

“I thought you said you were sure about the alarm?”

“I am. Check it out anyway.”

Devon frowned, but headed back to the security office. It made no sense; if an external alarm had been tripped, then they
were doomed either way. Checking on it wasn’t going to do any good. He was in the office before it occurred to him that the
Irishman might have sent him off to prevent him from lifting any more artwork.

The Irishman was only gone for a few minutes. Devon had just finished looking over the electronics on the security desk when
he walked in carrying a painting of an effete man in a top hat. It was still framed. “Any problems?” he asked.

“None that I can see,” Devon replied. “How the fuck should I know?”

The Irishman nodded and went to work on the frame. It took only a few moments before he had effectively dismantled the thing
and was pulling the canvas off the remnants. He rolled the work up and slipped it into his bag.

“That’s it?” Devon asked.

“That’s it.”

“Okay, let’s get out of here.”

They headed back to the door where the guard had buzzed them in earlier that evening. “You ready?” Devon asked.

The Irishman frowned. “Shite,” he said. “I forgot something.”

“What?” Devon said.

“The security tapes,” the Irishman replied.

“You kidding?”

The Irishman handed his bag to Devon. “Go. I’ll be right there. If you’re not in the car when I get there, I’ll kill you.
Slowly.” He was gone before Devon could argue.

Devon shook his head. The next two minutes would be dangerous. A man walking out of a museum at two-thirty in the morning
carrying a couple of sacks would draw attention, police hat or not. He opened the door and walked out into the darkness.

There was no one on the street; not that Devon was looking. A key to getting away cleanly was to act as if there were nothing
unusual about your behavior. He reached the small, beat-up car still parked on the street and opened the hatchback, putting
the two bags in and closing the door. He climbed into the front seat, put the key in the ignition and waited. It felt as if
he were lying naked on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

It took only a moment for the Irishman to show up. He got into the car. “Drive,” he said. Devon didn’t need any encouragement.

“Did you get the tapes?” Devon asked.

The Irishman nodded. “I took care of it.” He held up three VHS cassettes.

Something in the way he responded sent fear through Devon. “You didn’t go back for the guards, did you?”

“I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said.

“Jesus Christ,” Devon said. “If you killed them, we’re fucked.”

“I went back for the tapes,” the Irishman said again. He looked at Devon, and Devon took his eyes off the road for just an
instant to look back at him. He was impossible to read. The man’s eyes betrayed nothing. Devon turned his attention back to
the road and directed the car through the streets of the city, back to Southie. He was eager to be done with the Irishman.

The next day the newspapers reported that the guards had been found alive. They were lucky, Devon knew. To the Irishman, there
was little difference between retrieving a security tape and putting a bullet in a man’s head. Both were operational issues
and nothing more. Devon prayed he would never see the man again.

Finn met Kozlowski and Lissa at the Green Dragon pub. It was tucked back into a maze of tiny streets off Congress, in the
ancient part of the city, back behind the Union Oyster House. It had been established in the 1700s, and the Sons of Liberty
had once met behind the same door that still swung from the rusted hinges out onto the street corner. The décor could have
been handed down through the years, for all the modern style it captured. The stone floors kept the place cool, even as the
sun started warming up the city at midday. A new stereo system and the small stage for three-man bands on the weekends were
the only nods to the passage of time the place would admit.

Finn took a table at the back of the place and waited. Kozlowski and Lissa arrived five minutes later. They ordered some coffee,
and Finn relayed Devon’s story. The other two sat listening, sipping their coffee, without interruption, for over fifteen
minutes. It was a record.

When Finn finished, he looked at them. They looked back. “Well?” he said.

“Holy shit,” Lissa said.

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Yeah. You call us here and tell us our client was responsible for the biggest art theft in history? Sorry, ‘Holy shit’ is
all I’ve got for the moment.”

Finn looked at Kozlowski. “What about you?”

“I’m with her,” he said. “Holy shit.”

“I need a little help here.”

“Where are the paintings now?” Kozlowski asked.

“Devon doesn’t know. They took them back to Southie and gave them to Bulger. Devon’s understanding was that the Irish guy
paid Bulger for the paintings, and they were smuggled back to Ireland.”

“Why’d the Irish guy come back now?” Lissa asked. “It’s been almost twenty years, for Christ’s sake.”

“Nobody seems to know. Apparently the guy isn’t entirely right in the head.”

“Nobody who did Vinny Murphy the way he was done is right in the head,” Kozlowski said. “What’s Devon gonna do now?”

“He doesn’t know,” Finn answered. “He’s still trying to figure all this out. All he knows is that he’s safer in jail than
out on the street. The way he figures it, if the guy thinks he knows something, he can’t just have him killed. He needs a
face-to-face to get any information he thinks Devon’s got.”

“Like what he had with Murphy and Ballick,” Kozlowski said.

“Exactly. If he wants to find out anything useful, he actually has to get Devon alone to talk to him—torture him if necessary.
As long as Devon’s in jail, that can’t happen, so for the moment that’s where he wants to stay.”

“Who cares what Devon’s gonna do,” Lissa interjected. “What are we gonna do?”

The two men looked at her. Finn said, “Stone and Sanchez want to talk to us about Ballick’s death. I’m not lying to the cops,
so we’ve got to stall.”

“We can’t bring them in on this art theft thing?” Kozlowski asked.

Finn shook his head. “No. Devon won’t let us.”

“He won’t let us?”

“He won’t. He’s afraid that he’ll be prosecuted for the theft.”

“Seems like he should be more worried about this Irish guy,” Kozlowski said.

“What if we could cut a deal with the cops?” Lissa suggested. “He tells them what they need to know, and there’s no prosecution?
They might be willing to go for it.”

“They might—if he could produce the paintings. Unfortunately he can’t, so I doubt there’d be much interest. Besides, it’s
not just the cops Devon’s worried about. Bulger’s still on the run.”

“Are you serious?” Kozlowski said. “Bulger’s been on the run for fifteen years. There’s no way he’s gonna show up here in
Boston. Not for anything.”

“Probably not,” Finn admitted. “But that’s Devon’s call. All I know is that he’s not gonna let us bring the cops in. And if
he won’t let us, then we’re under a legal obligation to keep the information to ourselves. We can work on him over time to
get him to change his mind, but for now we don’t have any options.”

“So what do we tell Sanchez and Stone?” Kozlowski asked. “We can’t tell them anything?”

“Like I said, we stall. Anything we can tell them about this is covered by attorney-client privilege. If Devon’s right about
the man who killed Ballick, then the whole thing ties back to a crime committed by our client. If we talk about it, we breach
the privilege.”

“Great,” Kozlowski said. “Stalling cops ain’t the easiest thing to do in the world. I know; I was one, remember?”

“You got any better ideas?” Neither Kozlowski nor Lissa said anything. “Good. I guess that’s everything for now.”

“Not everything,” Lissa said. “What happens to Sally?”

Finn looked at her. “She stays with me for now.”

“Jesus, Finn, this is insane,” Kozlowski said.

“What other option is there? There’s nowhere else to take her at this point.”

“How about the Department of Social Services?” Kozlowski offered.

“No way,” Finn responded. “We’re not putting the state in charge of her. I’ve been there; I know what can happen.”

“We should never have gotten involved in the first place,” Lissa said.

“Maybe not. But now we’re involved, and I’m not gonna let you push her off into the system. That’s a sure recipe for disaster.
Have you seen her? She’d skip out of foster care in a heartbeat, and then we’re responsible for putting her on the street.”

Kozlowski shook his head. “We’re not responsible for anything that happens in her life. We’re not her parents.”

“Like I said, that was before we were involved.”

Kozlowski looked at Lissa. “You believe this?”

She took a deep breath. “I do. And I agree with it.”

Kozlowski said nothing for a moment or two. He sat there, sipping his coffee. “Well, I guess I’m overruled, aren’t I? Seems
to be my goddamned destiny.”

Sean Broadark stood on the street corner near the safe house in Quincy. He held his cell phone to his ear. It was strange;
the house itself was quaint, if somewhat in need of attention. Inside, it had the feel of a lower-middle-class summer retreat.
But when he stepped out the front door, there was nothing but cement as far as he could see. It made the house seem sad and
out of place, like a country orphan in a big city.

“There’s one more, he says,” Broadark said into the phone. “He’s in jail.” He listened for a few moments as the response came
back. “I don’t know, right now we’re sitting around on our arses.” He listened some more. “I give it another couple of days;
no more than three. After that, we’re wasting time.” A bird flew overhead as the conversation continued, searching in vain
for a tree or a soft spot on which to land. “He won’t.” The bird circled; Broadark thought it was looking at him. “I’ll take
care of it.”

He clicked off the phone, put it in his pocket, and turned back toward the house. Looking around him, he could see why so
many of his countrymen had come to Boston when they left Ireland: it wasn’t so different from their homeland. Like Belfast,
it had a subdued urban feel to it, as if it was struggling against the notion that it was a city at all. Only recently had
the Emerald Isle begun truly dragging itself into the modern world, allowing itself to flow with the trend it had resisted
for so long. It was a good thing in many ways, he supposed. The modernization of the country, particularly in the area of
computer software development, had brought more jobs, more money, and more stability to a land that had been without those
things for so long. With them, though, came a complacency that many in the movement detested. Creature comforts, many said,
robbed the people of their will to fight for those things most important. A man with nothing is willing to risk it all; a
man with something to protect is far more likely to shrink from a confrontation.