House Revenge (19 page)

26

Castro dispatched four men—and one woman—to Boston. The person in charge was the woman: Maria Vasquez, la Leona.

Castro suspected that Maria Vasquez had a genius-level IQ. She'd been born dirt poor in a barrio in Mexico City, the fifth of six children, and by the time she was sixteen she was the mistress to a Mexico City politician. With her looks, and lacking a decent education and family connections, that should have been her fate: to either be a prostitute or a mistress to some wealthy man, and by the time she was fifty she would be discarded and forced to do whatever cast-off mistresses without money did.

But Maria Vasquez was much too bright to allow that to happen to her. She dumped the politician when she was eighteen and deliberately set her sights on José Luis Guerrero—the man who ran the drug cartel that employed Javier Castro, and who Castro later killed to assume command. She became Guerrero's mistress but Guerrero—and Castro had always admired him for this—was a man who recognized talent when he saw it. He'd recognized Javier Castro's talent and he recognized Maria Vasquez's. She soon became one of Guerrero's principal advisers and when Guerrero tired of her sexually, he began to use her to plan and execute operations for him. After Castro took control, he used her too, and now his cousin, Paulo, was using her. After one particularly complex operation where Maria dispatched a heavily protected federal police captain who'd become an annoyance, Paulo—one of the least poetic men that Castro knew—said, “She was like a lioness taking down a gazelle.” From that point forward she became la Leona—the Lioness. The woman was brilliant—and Castro couldn't help but wonder where her talents would take her in the future.

Three of Maria's men were now watching Sean Callahan, and Maria and the fourth man were watching DeMarco. Callahan's movements were unpredictable. He had an office on Exeter Street, not far from Copley Plaza, and he spent some time there but he also attended meetings at the offices of lawyers and architects and bankers; he visited the Delaney Street project and another project that was nearing completion in Quincy; he played golf one afternoon with three other men. Each day he returned to his mansion on Beacon Hill around seven p.m., and three out of the four nights Castro's people were watching him, he and his lovely young wife went out to dinner or attended some social function. One important and salient fact was that the people who worked for Callahan in the office on Exeter Street always left the office before seven p.m.

DeMarco's movements were, in some ways, more predicable than Callahan's. He appeared to have nothing to do in Boston so he spent his days entertaining himself: walking around the city, sitting by the hotel pool reading novels, going to a theater to watch a show. One day he went to Fenway to watch the Red Sox play in a day game. But every evening he would stop in some bar, either the one at the Park Plaza or one within walking distance of his hotel, and have several drinks and eat dinner before he returned to his room.

To make sure DeMarco stayed in Boston, Castro called him once and told him that things were moving forward but that he needed a little more time.

“It's obviously complicated,” Castro said. “My lawyers have drawn up papers for Callahan to sign with regard to his withdrawal as an active participant in Delaney Square. He won't want to sign the documents, of course, but he will. Nonetheless, the documents need to be bulletproof, as you Americans say, and they can't allow him any wiggle room to sue or renege on the agreement or take any other sort of legal action at a later date.”

“Yeah, I understand,” DeMarco said. “But why do I have to be here?”

“I'm not sure you do at this point,” Castro said, “but I think I'll have this wrapped up in the next two days, and until then I'd appreciate it if you would stand by. Let me remind you again that you're the one who's asked for my assistance in this matter, so I would think that you'd want to stay until our business is concluded.”

“Yeah, okay, but just a couple more days. Then I'm out of here.”

DeMarco was going out of his mind with boredom. If he was in Boston of his own choosing, he might have viewed his time there as a vacation and enjoyed himself. But he wasn't in Boston by choice and the ongoing heat wave was brutal and he'd seen enough of Boston over the years that he didn't have any great desire to explore the city. He attended another Red Sox game—once again paying an exorbitant amount for a shitty ticket in the cheap seats—but other than that, he just milled around, reading, taking walks, and watching whatever was on television.

He thought about driving up to Portsmouth to see Elinore. Portsmouth was only about two hours away—but he was afraid to leave Boston in case Castro actually needed him for something. The other thing, if he was really being honest about it, was that he didn't really want to see Elinore if she hadn't improved since the last time he saw her; that was just too depressing. He did call Elinore's daughter to inquire how her mother was doing, but she told him it was none of his business and not to call again. How in the world did such a lovely person as Elinore Dobbs end up with such a bitch for a daughter?

It occurred to him that he'd forgotten all about the other thing that he was supposed to be handling for Mahoney: Congressman Sims and his possibly bogus Purple Heart. So he called Emma to see if she'd made any progress. The first thing she said to him was: “Are you okay?”

The last time he'd spoken to her, he'd just had the tar whaled out of him by the McNultys.

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

“What's happening with those guys who attacked you?”

“They had an unfortunate run-in with the law. They were caught with a boxful of assault rifles and are now sitting in a jail cell.” He decided to leave out the part where he put the McNultys in the hospital.

“I see,” Emma said. She knew DeMarco well enough to know that it wasn't simple bad luck that had befallen the McNultys.

“I just called,” DeMarco said, “to see if you'd made any headway regarding Sims.”

“Yeah, I did and it's not good. I won't bore you with all the details but I got Neil involved,” Emma said.

Neil was an incredibly annoying fellow who was nimble and dangerous when his pudgy fingers were on the keyboard of a computer. If the details of your personal life were stored inside some server, Neil could gain access to them.

“To make a long story short,” Emma said, “Neil located an ex-marine named Pat Howard. Howard was one of the few marines sleeping inside the barracks in Lebanon that morning who survived when the bombs went off. According to a couple of sources that Neil found, Sims saved Howard's life.

“When I talked to Howard, I pretended to be a reporter doing a story on congressmen who'd served in the corps. I told him that I'd learned that Congressman Sims had saved his life, and Howard said that was true. He said Sims slithered through a narrow tunnel in the debris, pushed concrete off Howard, and pulled him free even though Sims knew the building was unstable and he could be killed himself.”

“That sounds pretty damn valorous to me,” DeMarco said.

“I'm not finished,” Emma said. “When I asked Howard if he could remember if Sims's right leg was injured, he said yes it was. Even though this happened over thirty years ago, Howard could remember everything that happened that day. In fact, Howard said Sims cut both his legs badly on jagged pieces of rebar dragging him out from under the rubble. But he said Sims cut his legs dragging him
out
; his legs weren't cut before he went in to save Howard.”

“Then maybe Sims isn't lying about the Purple Heart,” DeMarco said. “He may have been lying about getting stabbed by a piece of flying glass but—”

“I think he's lying,” Emma said. “Like I told you before, there's no record of him getting a Heart, and the marines do a better job than the other services with regard to medal record keeping. The other thing is, in order to qualify for a Purple Heart the injury has to be as a
direct
result of enemy action. If Sims had been injured by flying glass when the barracks was bombed, he would have qualified. But injuring himself saving Howard's life means he wasn't, at least technically, injured by the enemy. Although I have to admit it's sort of a gray area, and if he'd been given the Heart I doubt anyone would have questioned the decision.

“Anyway, I asked Howard if he knew if Sims had received a Purple Heart and he said, ‘I know he's got one, and he sure as hell deserves it.' But Howard wasn't aware of a formal citation or an award ceremony. So I don't know what else to tell you, Joe. I suspect Sims is lying but I can't prove it.”

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah, it's a shame. I think what happened is Sims figured he deserved a medal for saving Howard's life and being injured while doing so, but all he got was the general unit citation for serving in Lebanon. So I think when he ran for Congress, he punched up his service record to impress the voters.”

DeMarco didn't say anything for a moment, then said, “Okay. I'll tell Mahoney.” He wasn't looking forward to that conversation.

“Why don't I talk to Mahoney, Joe? I've got the details on Sims. Plus, this is one time where Mahoney's actually trying to do the right thing.”

Mahoney knew that Emma helped DeMarco occasionally—­although he didn't usually like it when she did because she was impossible to control. In this case, however, Mahoney and Emma shouldn't be at odds with each other. At least DeMarco hoped not.

“Thanks,” DeMarco said. “I appreciate it.” And he did; he wasn't anxious to give Mahoney any more bad news.

Now all he had to do was wait for Castro to deal with Callahan so he could get the hell out of Boston.

27

Maria Vasquez called Javier Castro.

“I think we should act tomorrow,” she said. “DeMarco's a sure thing, but when it comes to Callahan, I'm going to have to improvise. What I'm saying is I'll have to look for some opportunity after noon when he's alone, and then we'll take him. Then we'll have to hold him until DeMarco is where I want him to be. If an opportunity doesn't present itself tomorrow, then we'll try again the next day.”

“What if Callahan's reported missing?” Castro asked. “I'm sure he has things scheduled in the afternoon, and someone will begin looking for him.”

“That won't be a problem. We'll make him call whoever he's supposed to be with and give some excuse for why he can't make his appointments.”

“Okay,” Castro finally said.

He didn't like improvising—but in the end, Callahan made it easy for them.

Sean Callahan was sitting in his office, glad that fucking phone call was over with. It was seven thirty p.m. and he was tired and wanted to go home. Thank God Rachel didn't have anything planned for tonight, so he could just kick back and relax. That was one problem with having such a young wife: sometimes she just wore his old ass out.

He was still in his office because he'd had to talk to a man in Japan, where it was eight a.m. The man was thinking about investing in a project that was still in the pie-in-the-sky stage, and he had money to burn. The problem was the guy thought he could speak English, so instead of using an interpreter, he insisted on speaking himself, which just about drove Sean crazy. He couldn't understand about every other word the guy said, and kept having to ask him to repeat himself.

But other than the irritation of having to talk to the Japanese investor, things were going well and he had no complaints. He'd stopped by Delaney Square earlier in the day, and now that Elinore Dobbs was out of his hair, things were moving forward and the project was almost back on schedule. The only thing he felt bad about was the McNultys. What on earth had possessed those dumb shits to get involved with selling machine guns? Their lawyer had called him about a week ago, saying the brothers wanted to see him, and he'd told the lawyer that he would but wasn't sure when he'd have time to drive up to the Essex County jail. He really didn't want to talk to them but he thought it might be a good idea; they were such maniacs he didn't want to get on their bad side.

He heard the phone ring in the outer office and thought maybe it was Rachel calling to ask where he was, although Rachel usually sent him text messages when she wanted to bug him. He hit the lighted button on his phone and said, “Hello.”

“Oh, Mr. Callahan, I didn't mean to disturb you. I was calling to speak to your secretary about scheduling a meeting for next week.”

“She's not here,” Callahan said. “I'm here by myself and you really need to talk to her about scheduling anything. My calendar's on her computer.” Actually, his calendar was in his phone but he didn't feel like dealing with this right now.

“I'll call back tomorrow,” the man said.

Callahan wondered where the guy was from—he had an accent—and what meeting he was talking about. Whatever. It was time to go.

He turned out the lights and walked out the door, checking to make sure it was locked. As he was walking down the hall, he noticed three young guys standing by the elevator. They looked Hispanic and were hard-looking SOBs but they were all wearing suits and ties. They didn't look like gangbangers, or anything like that. He wondered who they'd been meeting with in the building. There were a couple lawyers on this floor; maybe they were here to see one of them.

He reached the elevator, nodded at the three men, then noticed the
DOWN
button wasn't pushed. Why hadn't they pushed the button? Then he found out.

One of the men took out a silenced automatic pistol and pointed it at his chest. “Mr. Callahan, we're going to return to your office. If you do anything foolish, I'll kill you.”

He realized then that the guy speaking was the same guy who'd just called asking to speak to his secretary. Who the hell were these people?

They walked back to his office and the man with the gun told him to unlock the door. As he was doing so, Sean said, “I don't keep any money here in my office. But I have about five hundred in my wallet, and credit cards, of course.”

The man just prodded him in the back with the gun and said, “Go to your office.”

He was told to sit in the chair behind his desk, then the man with the gun said, “Now call your wife and tell her you're going to be very late. Put the phone in speaker mode. If you say anything to alarm your wife, we'll kill you, then go to your house on Beacon Street and rape your wife before we kill her.”

“Jesus. What do you guys want?”

“Make the call.”

He hit the
SPEAKER
button on the phone and punched in Rachel's cell phone number. When she answered, he said, “Uh, hi, it's me. I'm going to be pretty late tonight.”

“Why? What's going on?”

Sean couldn't help but notice that she didn't sound all that disappointed that he was going to be late.

“I'm supposed to talk to a guy in Japan and he's late calling here.”

“At this time of night?” she said.

“It's morning in Japan. Anyway, the guy's been delayed and I need to wait for his call, then after I talk to him I may need to go see one of my lawyers. So I'll be late.”

“Okay,” Rachel said. “I'll see you when I see you.”

He started to say I love you, but she'd already hung up.

DeMarco changed into a pair of dress slacks for dinner and a nice short-sleeved blue shirt that he thought matched his eyes. He'd been wearing shorts and a T-shirt all day because of the heat but decided to dress up a bit for dinner, as he wasn't sure where he planned to go. He'd have a drink in the hotel bar and chat with the bartender—a kid named Sam who he was getting to know way too well—about where he might dine this evening.

The lounge in the Park Plaza hotel was a rather funky place, but DeMarco had grown used to it. There was a dark bar with enough high-backed stools for a dozen drinkers—which was normal enough—but in the seating area were low tables surrounded by armchairs patterned with cloth resembling a giraffe's hide. The oddest thing was the photos: large photos of models who—based on the women's hairstyles—looked like they might be from the late fifties or early sixties. The men in the photos wore suits with narrow ties and fedoras and carried umbrellas and had dark-framed Clark Kent glasses. The most striking photo was of a pretty brunette with a Jackie Kennedy hairdo wearing a hat, a polka-dot dress, high heels, and holding two Hula-Hoops in her white-gloved hands. DeMarco wondered if the Hula-Hoops were supposed to be symbolic of something.

He took a seat at the bar and Sam—a young stud who looked like a serious weightlifter—came over to take his order. Sam had so many muscles in his neck it made his head look particularly small; it made DeMarco think of the Michael Keaton character in
Beetlejuice
whose head was shrunk by a witch doctor.

“Your usual?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, why not,” DeMarco said.

Sam brought him a Stoli martini with a lemon twist, and said, “So how was your day?”

DeMarco figured Sam didn't want to hear him bitch about Boston and the heat and the fact he had an asshole for a boss, so he said, “Great.”

DeMarco toasted the photo of the lady with the Hula-Hoops, and was just taking the first sip of his martini when he heard a woman standing next to him say, “Janet, you do this all the time. Why do you do this? We make plans and then that jerk calls and you drop everything and run to him. He's never going to leave his wife, and you know it!” There was a brief pause, and she said, “No, Janet, I don't want to hear it. Good-bye.”

As she was talking she'd taken a seat on the barstool next to DeMarco and dropped a large purse on the bar that landed with a thump like it contained a bowling ball. DeMarco turned to look at her, initially irritated she was talking so loud and practically in his ear—and then he saw what she looked like.
Wow!

She was absolutely gorgeous. She was probably thirty-five, about five foot six and built: heavy breasts pressing against the thin material of a white sleeveless blouse and slim, tanned legs emerging from a black skirt that was halfway up her thighs when she was sitting. She had honey-colored blond hair that reached her shoulders and a complexion that also made him think of honey.

She turned to DeMarco, looking exasperated, and said, “My sister. She was supposed to meet me here for a drink and we were going to have dinner together, and then she stands me up. She's going out with this married guy and . . . Oh, never mind. I'm sorry.” Then she looked around and said, “Does this place have a bartender? I need a drink.”

DeMarco saw Sam and waved like crazy. He did not want this woman to leave. “Hey, Sam! Sam!”

Sam ambled over and DeMarco said, “This lady desperately needs a drink.”

“What would you like, miss?” Sam said.

“I'll have a vodka gimlet.”

“And it's on me, Sam,” DeMarco said. “She's having a bad day, and it's the least I can do.”

“Oh, you don't have to do that,” she said, touching DeMarco's forearm with a soft, warm hand.

“I'm Joe,” he said.

“Maria,” she said.

Maria said that she did marketing for a pharmaceutical company. DeMarco and Emma had once had a nearly fatal experience investigating a pharmaceutical company, and he consequently did not hold the industry in high esteem. But Maria could have said that she euthanized parakeets for a living and he would have forgiven her. He'd thought her eyes were brown, but it turned out they were more green than brown, and she had the most perfect lips he'd ever seen.

He told her he was a lawyer, and although he lived in D.C., he was in Boston all the time—
all
the time—on business. When she asked what kind of law he practiced he said he didn't exactly practice law; he was more of a political troubleshooter. She seemed suitably impressed—and God knows he would have done handstands to impress her.

They finished their drinks and he said, “I was just about to go out to dinner. There's an Italian place a couple blocks from here. I've been there before and it's good. I was thinking since your sister stood you up . . .”

“I'd love to,” she said, again touching his forearm. “Let me just go touch up my makeup.”

She didn't need makeup.

“I'll meet you in the lobby in five minutes,” she said.

He waited two minutes and walked out to the lobby and a couple minutes later she was coming toward him, like a vision on high heels. God, what a body she had. She took his arm and as they walked toward the door, he felt a little pinch in his right arm, the arm she was holding.

“Ow,” he said.

“Is something wrong?” she said.

“No, I just felt something.” They proceeded toward the lobby doors and he noticed he was feeling lightheaded. He didn't understand it; he'd only had one drink. He took a few more steps and his legs started to feel rubbery and he felt like he was about to pass out. “I think I need to sit . . .”

The last thing he remembered was two men standing next to him—he didn't know where Maria had gone—and they were supporting him, helping him walk toward the door.