House Revenge (16 page)

It took all his willpower to stop hitting Ray. He didn't want to kill the man, or more to the point, he didn't want to face the legal consequences of killing him. He got up off Ray, his chest heaving from the exertion of pounding on him.

Now what DeMarco needed to do was stage the scene to match the story he planned to tell the cops. The first thing he did was take the shoestrings out of Ray's tennis shoes and use them—instead of his handy-dandy zip ties—to bind Ray's hands behind his back. Then he walked back to Roy McNulty, who was still unconscious; this was beginning to worry DeMarco. He used his newly acquired pocketknife to cut the zip ties binding Roy's hands and feet, then used Roy's shoestrings to bind his hands because he couldn't leave the zip ties in place. He threw the remnants of the zip ties into the stack of apple crates, then took the sock containing the potato and flung it far into the apple orchard. He didn't want there to be any evidence lying around that his encounter with the McNultys had been premeditated.

He returned to his car and called 911. He told the dispatcher that his car broke down and he'd been attacked by two men with clubs. He said he barely managed to fight them off, and that both men were injured and needed medical attention. When she asked for his location, DeMarco said he didn't know where he was exactly, just that he was on Pine Orchard Road, near the town of Chepachet. He added that he was parked by an abandoned fruit stand and his hood was up.

“Are you hurt?” the dispatcher asked him.

“No. Fortunately. But I was lucky they didn't kill me.” He wanted that statement on tape.

His next call was to Detective Fitzgerald, BPD. “I'm going to need some help. I was just attacked by Roy and Ray McNulty. They followed me out to a place in Rhode Island—”

“Rhode Island?”

“Yeah. Anyway, my rental car broke down—the engine stopped running—and they attacked me. With clubs. I was able to, ah, overpower them, and now they're both tied up.”

“Both of them?”

“Yeah. I already called nine-one-one to report the attack and the cops are on their way. But I don't know who has jurisdiction. I'm near a town called Chepachet. Anyway, I need you to talk to the right cop here in Rhode Island to back up my story that the McNultys were following me in Boston and about their history with Elinore Dobbs and the weapons charge against them.”

“How were you able to beat both of them if they had clubs? Are you some kind of karate guy?”

“I just got lucky. And what difference does it make? I'm the victim here.”

It turned out that the cops in Glocester, Rhode Island, had jurisdiction for Pine Orchard Road. A Glocester patrol car showed up about fifteen minutes after DeMarco called 911, its light bar flashing blue and red. Five minutes later an ambulance belonging to the Glocester fire department arrived at the scene.

The Glocester cop, a young guy no more than twenty-five, took ­DeMarco's statement as the medics attended to the McNultys.

“I was just driving along and my car died and—”

“What's wrong with it,” the cop asked.

“I don't know. It just died on me. What difference does it make? Anyway, I'd just raised the hood to take a look when the McNultys pulled up behind me, so I took off running.”

“You knew your attackers?”

“Yeah. They're bad guys from Boston.”

DeMarco gave the cop the backstory on the McNultys: how they had been hired to harass Elinore Dobbs, how they rigged a wire to cause her to fall down a flight of stairs, then how they were later arrested by the ATF for transporting machine guns with the intention of selling them.

“For some reason,” DeMarco said, “these guys, who by the way are connected to the Providence mob, got it into their heads that I was responsible for their arrest. After they got out on bail, they started following me around Boston. You can verify that with Detective Fitzgerald of the BPD. So tonight, when I drove out here to see a guy—”

“Who did you drive out here to see?” the cop asked.

“You don't need to know his name,” DeMarco said. DeMarco had anticipated this question. Why was he driving around in the sticks of Rhode Island late at night? But he couldn't give the cop the name of a man who didn't exist, a man the cop might want to call to verify DeMarco's story.

“Look,” DeMarco said. “My boss is Congressman John Mahoney.” He figured that tossing out Mahoney's name couldn't hurt. “And he just wanted me to talk to a guy who lives out here. It has to do with a congressional hearing that's coming up. But I can't tell you his name. It's confidential, at least until after the hearing. And what difference does his name make anyway? I was just going to see this guy and my car broke down, and the McNultys attacked me with those clubs you saw.”

The cop looked skeptical. But then skeptical was the way cops usually looked.

“How were you able to beat them both?” the cop asked.

“Well, you see, when I first ran, I hid behind the fruit stand, then I saw that pile of crates, so I ran up and hid behind them. When the McNultys got to the fruit stand, they didn't know which way I'd gone, so one of them went that way, to see if I was hiding by that little shed up there, and the other one ran toward those trees to see if I'd gone that way. Anyway, when the one guy got to the pile of crates, he looked to see if that's where I was hiding, and when he stuck his head around the corner, I hit him.”

“Hit him with what?”

“My fist. What else? I hit him a good one, stunned him, then I hit him again and knocked him out.”

“Huh,” the cop said. Like:
Huh, I'm impressed.
Or maybe it was
: Huh, sounds like bullshit to me.

“Then I started to run back to my car—”

“But you said your car wasn't working.”

“It isn't, but I'd left my cell phone in the cup holder. I was going to grab it and call nine-one-one and then start running down the road to get away, but that's when the other one saw me. He came charging at me with that club he was holding, and we sort of crashed into each other, and when he took a swing at me and missed, I hit him. Hard. Then, well, I guess I just kind of went crazy and started throwing punches and knocked him out. I tied their hands so they couldn't attack me again, and called you guys. I was lucky they didn't kill me.”

“Yeah, I guess,” the cop said. “You're going to have to come back to the station with me.”

“What?” DeMarco said. Like:
How could you possibly doubt my story?

An hour later, DeMarco was still at the Glocester police department.

He was placed in an interrogation room and an older cop, one with sergeant's chevrons on his sleeves, came in and asked him to repeat the story of how he'd been attacked. When the cop asked him if he wanted a lawyer, DeMarco said, “A lawyer? First of all, I am a lawyer, but second, why would I need one? Those assholes attacked me and I just defended myself.”

“It's kind of amazing how your car happened to break down where it did,” the cop said. “I mean, in a spot where you could find a place to hide. The other thing that's kind of amazing is we sent a guy to tow your car back here, and when he tried to start it, it started right up.”

“Well, I don't know what to tell you about that,” DeMarco said. “I was just driving along and it died, like it had run out of gas, but there was plenty of gas in the tank. Maybe the fuel line got plugged up or something. How the hell would I know? I'm not a mechanic. All I know is the car died, and I was just lucky I was able to hide behind those crates. I mean, how was I supposed to know there'd be a bunch of crates there?”

A female cop stuck her head inside the room and said to the sergeant, “Pat, there's a detective from Boston here to see you.”

“Boston?” Pat said.

Twenty minutes later, Fitzgerald came into the interrogation room. He didn't look particularly like a member of law enforcement wearing grape-colored Bermuda shorts and a lime-green polo shirt stretched over his considerable gut. Fitzgerald had been at home when DeMarco called him and he obviously hadn't taken the time to change clothes before driving to Rhode Island.

Fitzgerald didn't say anything for a moment as he stared at DeMarco, then he pointed at a camera mounted high on one wall. “I told them to shut that off.”

“Okay,” DeMarco said.

Fitzgerald paused again before saying, “The cops here know you're not telling them the whole story, but I convinced them that the McNultys are bad guys so they're going to arrest them for assaulting you.”

“Good,” DeMarco said.

“Yeah, but I think you set them up, DeMarco. I think you . . . you
lured
them here. I also think you set them up so they'd get caught with those assault rifles in their van.”

For a moment DeMarco thought about going all Al Pacino on Fitzgerald—an Oscar-winning performance, his face first displaying bewilderment, followed by shock, and finally outrage at Fitzgerald's ridiculous and offensive allegation. But he didn't do that. Instead, he looked into Fitzgerald's bloodshot eyes and said, “So what if I did?”

Fitzgerald started to snap something back, and then he, too, reconsidered his response. He just nodded and said, “Tomorrow I'll call the federal prosecutor who handled their arraignment, tell her they were following you in Boston and then they followed you out of state and attacked you. She'll go talk to the judge, he'll revoke their bail, then a couple of federal marshals will escort them back to Boston.”

“Sounds good to me,” DeMarco said. “How are the McNultys doing, by the way?”

“I don't know. I just know they're not dead or this could be a whole lot worse for you.” Fitzgerald stood up. “You're an operator, DeMarco, and I don't like operators. I'm sorry about what happened to that old lady, but I'll be glad when your ass is out of Boston.”

Roy and Ray McNulty were in the same room, lying in hospital beds with rails on the sides. Their left ankles were handcuffed to the rails. A cop was standing outside their door, flirting with one of the nurses.

They were both awake, and both had headaches. Roy had a concussion and Ray had a bandage across his broken nose and half a dozen stitches over his left eye. Both his eyes were black.

Roy McNulty couldn't remember what had happened to him. His last clear memory was walking toward a stack of old wooden boxes looking for DeMarco, but after that
nothing
until he came to in the emergency room. For the third time—he apparently couldn't remember the first two times—he said to his brother: “What the fuck happened, Ray?”

By the time DeMarco retrieved his car from the Glocester cops and drove back to Boston, it was after one a.m. He tossed his car keys to the valet, handed him a ten-buck tip because he was in an excellent mood, and immediately went to the bar for a celebratory nightcap. Tomorrow it would be time to work on the Sean Callahan problem, which he suspected was going to be a lot more dangerous than dealing with the McNulty brothers.

23

The next morning DeMarco woke up at nine. His ribs were sore from the exertion of beating on the McNultys, but otherwise he felt good. In fact, he felt great. He went to the hotel restaurant and had a big breakfast of bacon, toast, and a vegetable-filled omelet. It occurred to him that about the only time he ate vegetables was when they were in omelets and pizzas—and he wasn't sure that counted.

While waiting for his breakfast to arrive, he decided to check on Elinore to see if her condition had improved. He figured by now that Elinore's daughter would have moved her from Mass General to an assisted-living facility in Portsmouth as she'd said she was going to do. But since he didn't know which facility she might be in, he called Maggie Dolan and asked her to use the interns to find Elinore.

“You're a pain in the ass, DeMarco,” Maggie said.

“And you're an angel, Maggie,” DeMarco said.

He ate his breakfast and read the
Globe
as he waited to hear back from Maggie. He skipped over all the misery on the front page and flipped to the sports section. The Nationals were three games out of first place in the National League East, still in a good position to win the division. The Wizards were getting a seven-foot-two Ukrainian to replace their aging big man, also good.

His phone rang. It was one of Maggie's hotshots, this time a boy. The kid informed him that Elinore was currently in a facility called Glendale in Portsmouth. DeMarco called Glendale and told the woman who answered that he was Ms. Dobbs's nephew. He said that since he lived in Texas, he couldn't just drive over and see her, but his mom had said that Aunt Elinore wasn't doing so good, and he was just calling to check on her.

Whoever answered the phone said she didn't know who Elinore Dobbs was but to give her a moment. Five minutes later a different woman came on the line and said she was the nurse on duty. “I'm just calling to see how Elinore's doing,” DeMarco said, and again explained his fictitious relationship to Elinore, figuring the staff would be more likely to talk to a relative about her medical condition.

“Well, you know,” the nurse said.

Jesus.
“No, I don't know. That's why I'm calling. I know she had a subdural hematoma and it affected her memory but the doctor said she might improve with time.”

“I'm sorry, but she hasn't. She spends most of the day sitting in a chair looking out the window. She's afraid to go outside and when we try to get her to go out, she gets agitated. She's easily confused by simple things like what dessert she would like or what to wear. Her short-term memory is not good at all. She can't remember my name and the other day she didn't remember her daughter's name when her daughter came to visit. All I can tell you is she presents with dementia and so far we don't see any sign of improvement.”

“Aw, jeez,” DeMarco said.

“But it hasn't been that long since her injury, so there's hope,” the nurse said, although to DeMarco it didn't sound as if the nurse was all that hopeful.

DeMarco thanked the nurse and hung up. He now had all the motivation he needed when it came to Sean Callahan.

DeMarco hadn't yet told Mahoney what he'd learned about Sean Callahan's relationship to the former leader of a Mexican drug cartel. He also needed to learn more about Javier Castro, and Mahoney could help in this regard. Naturally when he called Mahoney, Mahoney wasn't available, so he told Mahoney's secretary to have the great man call him as soon as possible.

He returned to his room to wait for Mahoney's call. As he waited, he thought about Castro. A guy like him probably didn't send two morons with fish bats to kill you if you pissed him off. He remembered this one episode of the television show
Breaking Bad,
the show about a high school chemistry teacher who became a meth dealer working for a drug cartel. In the episode, Javier Castro's fictional counterpart cut the head off a DEA informant named Tortuga then glued Tortuga's head to a turtle's shell. The next scene showed the head moving, low to the ground, through desert foliage, as the turtle walked slowly toward the U.S. border, where a passel of confused DEA agents were waiting.

DeMarco did
not
want to end up with his head glued to a turtle's shell.

His cell phone rang. It was Mahoney, and the first words out of his mouth were: “How's Elinore doing?”

“Not good,” DeMarco said, and relayed to Mahoney what the nurse at the assisted-living place had said.

Mahoney's response was: “Son of a bitch.” After a brief pause, he said, “You figure this out, Joe. I'm not going to let Callahan walk away with a smile on his face, and the fifty grand you forced him to cough up to get the McNultys is the equivalent of a parking ticket for a guy like him. A parking ticket isn't good enough. Not for me.”

DeMarco almost told Mahoney then about what had transpired with the McNultys the night before, how the last time he'd seen them they were being carried to an ambulance and would soon be back in jail awaiting trial. Then he decided that wasn't a conversation he wanted to have on a cell phone.

“The reason I called, boss, was to tell you what I learned about Callahan from his ex-wife.” He paused. “One of the investors in Delaney Square is a guy named Javier Castro who ran, or maybe still runs, a Mexican drug cartel.”

“You're shittin' me!” Mahoney said.

“Nope,” DeMarco said, and he relayed the story of how Callahan had met Castro when Callahan and his ex took a vacation to Mexico.

“So what are you thinking?” Mahoney said. “We get Treasury or the DEA involved and use them to prove that Callahan's laundering money for this cartel?”

“No, I think that'll be way too complicated and time consuming, and maybe even futile. I'm guessing Javier Castro is no virgin when it comes to money laundering.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don't know. Yet. But there has to be some way to use this information.”

“Well, you figure it out.”

“I will,” DeMarco said. “But I need to know more about Castro.” The only thing that Adele Tomlin had told him was that Castro was handsome and had lovely manners. DeMarco suspected that you didn't become a kingpin in the drug business by saying please and thank you. “I was hoping you could get someone in the DEA to talk to me about him.”

“Aw, for crying out loud,” Mahoney said, like making a couple of phone calls was going to kill him.

Another hour passed while DeMarco watched morning television talk shows in his room because he couldn't find anything better to watch. How in the hell can people watch this drivel every day, he wondered. His cell phone rang again.

“This is Bill Wilson, San Diego DEA. I was told to give you a call.”

“Thanks. I need some background on Javier Castro.”

“Yeah, that's what I was told. But why?”

“Did the guy who told you to call me tell you to ask questions, or did he tell you to help me because I work for a big shot who can be a major pain in the ass?”

Wilson hesitated. “He told me to help you.”

“Okay, then. What can you tell me about Castro?”

“Right now, as far as we know, Castro's an upstanding citizen. He probably made about a billion dollars dealing drugs—”

“A billion?” DeMarco said. “Really?”

“Last year the Mexican cartels made over twenty-two billion. So do I know for sure that Javier Castro's a billionaire? The answer's no. It's not like his books are open to the public. But I do know that he made a hell of a lot of money and a billion wouldn't be out of line. Anyway, about five years ago, Castro turned his operation over to a cousin, a guy who's a total psycho, and now Castro's completely legit.”

“Yeah, but what kind of guy is he?”

“He ran a drug cartel. What kind of guy do you think he is? He got into the business when he was about seventeen like most of these guys do because his family was poor and he didn't have any education. He probably figured he could either be a drug dealer in Mexico or a strawberry picker in California. So he went to work for a guy named Guerrero, and he did what all the young guys do. He snuck drugs across the border, collected money, protected Guerrero from other cartels, and killed people Guerrero wanted killed. By the time he was twenty-five, he was one of Guerrero's top guys, Guerrero obviously recognizing that he was smarter than most of the mutts who worked for him. Then, when he was thirty-four, he whacked Guerrero and became the guy in charge. We figured in four or five years, someone would come along and whack him, either one of his own people or another cartel. But that's when we learned he was different.”

“Different how?” DeMarco asked.

“Castro is one of those rare drug dealers who asks the question: When is enough enough? He didn't try to expand his empire. He just protected what he had because he figured out that he was making more money than he was ever going to be able to spend. So he formed alliances with the other cartels when he could to avoid turf wars. He didn't allow his guys to massacre people in tourist spots because he knew that would just piss the government off, plus he had investments in the tourist spots. The other thing he did was educate himself. It was too late for him to go back to school so he brought in tutors, learned to speak English, and basically earned an MBA so he could figure out what to do with all his money. Then, very gradually, he backed away from the cartel. He put his cousin in charge, paid off the right politicians so the federales would leave him alone, and became just another wealthy Mexican living off his investments. You asked me what kind of guy he is. Well, I guess I'd say the main thing about him is that he's analytical.”

“Analytical?”

“Yeah. He
thinks
before he does things. He doesn't get emotional. He'll kill somebody if he has to, but only if he has to. He's got an ego but he doesn't allow his ego to make him do stupid things. But I'll tell you one thing. He might not run the cartel anymore, but if you piss him off, he'll cut your heart out.”

“I guess that's better than getting my head glued to a turtle,” ­DeMarco said.

“What?” Wilson said.

DeMarco called Adele Tomlin, the second Mrs. Callahan. “I need to talk to Javier Castro. Do you have any idea where he might be right now?”

“He could be in any number of places. He spends most of his time in Mexico City but he also has property in Veracruz and Oaxaca. And the last time I saw Danielle, she said he was buying a place in Switzerland. But if I had to guess, I'd say he's most likely in Mexico City.”

DeMarco did
not
want to go to Mexico to talk to Javier Castro.

“I was thinking,” DeMarco said. “Since you're such good friends with Danielle, maybe you could call her up and chat with her, see how she's doing, that sort of thing, and find out where her husband is.”

Adele hesitated. “When I told you Javier had invested money in Delaney Square, I'd had a few drinks. Plus, I was pissed at Sean—I'm always pissed at Sean—and wanted to help you find a way to hurt him. But I don't want Javier to know that I talked to you about him. Javier and Danielle are my friends but—”

“Yeah, I understand. Javier's not a guy you'd want to irritate. And Javier will never find out you talked to me. I have connections in the government, Adele, and those people have also talked to me. In fact, I just got off the phone with a DEA agent in San Diego. So do you think you can find out where Javier is right now?”

“Why don't you use your government connections to find him?”

“I could, but that will take time. It'll be easier and faster if you just call his wife.” When Adele didn't respond immediately, DeMarco tried to think of some way to diplomatically say:
Hey, Adele, your ex dropped you for a younger woman and if you want to get back at him, give me a hand here
.

But before he could think of a way to phrase that sentiment differently, Adele said, “Okay, I'll give Danielle a call.”

Forty minutes later Adele called back.

“Javier's in Mexico City, like I thought,” she said. “But guess what? Danielle is coming to New York next week to see her daughter. She just finished some student film project and Danielle's coming to see the show, the screening, whatever you call it. Anyway, she'll be staying with her daughter next week, and I just might go down to see her. I'm glad you asked me to call her.”

DeMarco didn't care where Danielle Castro was going to be next week. It was Javier he needed to talk to.

“Thanks, Adele. Oh, do you happen to have Castro's address in Mexico City?”

“Sure. I send them a Christmas card every year. Hang on a minute. I'll get it. By the way, do you think you might be coming out to the Cape again soon?”

DeMarco now had Javier Castro's address but he really didn't want to travel to Mexico to talk to the man; that would be like walking into a lion's den and poking the lion with a stick. So since he had another card to play with the McNultys, he decided to play it. If the McNultys refused to cooperate, then he'd go see Castro. Maybe.

He called his pal Detective Fitzgerald and like a true pal, Fitzgerald said, “What the hell do you want now?”

“I want to talk to the McNultys. Where are they?”

“The Essex County jail up in Middleton, the same place they put the marathon bomber before his trial.”

“How far is the jail from Boston?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Good. I want to talk to them. Can you arrange that?”

“Why?”

“I want them to testify against Sean Callahan. I want them to admit that he paid them to kill Elinore Dobbs.”

“Why would they do that?” Fitzgerald said. “Right now they're in jail for possessing guns, not attempted murder.”

“But if I can guarantee they'll serve less time on the gun charge, that they'll get immunity for hurting Elinore, and that I'll refuse to testify that they assaulted me in Rhode Island, then maybe they'll be willing to testify against Callahan.”