Momma Lupe, Book 1 in the Ty Connell 'Novella Series. A Mystery/Suspense Thriller. Cooking or killing -- Momma Had Her Funny WAys (4 page)

"O-
kay
," the guy said, and laid his money
on the table. "Let's do it."

Connell laid his bills down and walked the
table, eyeing the shot again from all sides, finally positioning
himself with the cue stick high behind and over the ball. He rammed
the cue down hard and the ball jumped the red and smacked the
black, driving it into the pocket. The cue ball followed dangerous
close to the lip, and then rolled back.

There were a few whistles
and hoots from those watching, but he could see that the Italian
kid was
not
pleased.

But rather than pick up the money, Connell
left it on the side of the table. He knew the guy's name was Tony,
because the others had addressed him as such, so he said, "Don't
worry, Tony. I'm not the kind who gets lucky and runs. I only got
one good shot, and you just saw it."

They played another few games and Tony won
his money back and a little more, which made him a happy guy
again.

It was soon others turn to
play, and Connell and Tony took a table nearby and called for a
couple of beers. Tony was in his late twenties: muscular, handsome,
thick black hair gelled and combed back, and vain. Connell sensed
that he was the kind who wanted you know how just well connected he
was. It turned out he worked at a fitness centre around the corner,
also did some bouncer work in his spare time at a nightclub nearby.
So he was in a position to
hear
things.

Connell had the Herald laid out on the table
and he began flipping through casually, making idle comments. He
worked things around slowly from soccer to music to films to the
hit on that mob guy downtown. There was a follow-up story about it
in that day's paper. Connell stopped at the page.

"Man, they got this guy good, eh?" he said,
tapping the article.

"Now,
that
one was cool," Tony
said.

"Cool?" Connell said, sounding a little
surprised. "They went right into the guy's garage and got him in
his pajamas. That's brutal!"

Tony waved that off.

"Ah, it was just business,"
he said. "Vinnie wasn't a good boy. Matter of fact, he was a
very
bad
boy. You
fool around with the wrong people, that's what you get."

"Did you know this guy?"

"Vinnie? Nah. I just heard he was way out of
line."

Connell didn't comment. He continued to look
over the article.

Tony then leaned forward and
looked both ways before speaking lowly, in a conspiratorial tone.
"You know they made the sucker get down on his knees and beg for
his life. And
then
they shot him," he said, pleased with himself for knowing this
arcane bit of detail.

Connell knew that that hadn't made it into
any of the news reports. It was a holdback. Something only police
and the killers knew.

Connell made a little huff of skepticism. "I
dunno about that. You can't believe everything you hear."

Tony shrugged. If Connell didn't believe him,
he didn't care one way or the other. He leaned back and rested his
arms along the bank of the small booth.

"It says here that it was a pro hit," Connell
said, reading from the article. "You really think they made him
kneel?"

Tony nodded knowingly. "It's all about
revenge, my man."

"What'd he do, sleep with somebody's
wife?"

Tony leaned in and spoke lowly again. "He
tampered with something wasn't his. But it wasn't nobody's wife. It
was business."

"Really? Well, I wouldn't mess with those
guys," Connell said, shaking his head and taking a long drink of
beer.

"This wasn't even wise guys," Tony said,
continuing to lean forward and speak lowly. "This was a crazy old
French bitch ordered this one."

Connell tried not to convey
his suddenly
very
keen interest. He set his beer down as though the statement
barely interested him.

"A woman ordering a hit?" he
said, offhandedly. "Mmm, I doubt
that
." He turned back to the
paper.

Tony smiled.

"You'd be surprised, man.
This old bat's
connected
. And hell has no fury, right?"

Then Tony seemed to realize he'd said enough.
He looked at Connell a little more closely and he decided to zip
it.

"So you want to shoot another game, or what?"
he asked.

Connell glanced at his
watch. "Yeah. Sure," he said. "One more. Then I gotta head to work.
I gotta make the midnight run up to Bar Harbor tonight. Fricking
Wal-Mart.
Man
, I
hate that drive."

He spent another half-hour playing pool and
left the hall.

The next
day at the stationhouse, when Morgan walked in, Connell was already
at his
desk.

"Morning, little brother," Morgan said, and
he looked over quizzically as he hung up his coat, clearly
wondering if Connell'd had any luck on his behalf.

"Well, I had a chance to have a look around
for you," Connell said.

"Unh-huh?"

"I played a bit of pool with an Italian kid
up near the airport. He works at a fitness club up there. Does some
bouncing at a nightclub as well. So he's in a position to hear
things. He claims that word is that the hit on Vinnie wasn't a mob
hit at all."

"Say what?"

"This kid says it was ordered up by a
woman."

Morgan plunked his two hundred and seventy
pounds into the swivel chair, and looked at Connell
skeptically.

"Man, there's only one woman
I know in
this
town
who could call for a hit like that," Morgan said.

Connell nodded. "Momma Lupe."

"Yeah. You know her?"

"Never met the woman. Hardly know anything
about her. But I came across her name a few years back when I was
working that case with the guys up in Revere. The biker case. She's
French-Canadian. Operates out of the south end, I think. Supplies
strippers to biker and mob clubs. I think she’s tight with Veltro
and his mob pals. And that hit on Vinnie? It's her style. Even the
part about Vinnie kneeling. Have him beg for his life. She's nuts.
And sadistic. Vindictive, sadistic, and nuts."

"
Momma Lupe.
Don't that mean crazy or
something in pisano?" Morgan asked.

Connell nodded. "Strictly speaking, it means
she wolf. But the pisanos use it to mean more. A complete mental
case she wolf. A rabid she wolf with pups. Crazy vicious. Crazy
unpredictable. I got the whole story from the Revere guys when I
worked up there."

"And you think this pool hall kid knows what
he's talking about?"

Connell nodded. "I think he's heard
things."

Morgan adopted a thoughtful expression;
mulling something over.

"You really think the mob would let an
outsider weirdo like Momma Lupe call for a hit on one of their own
guys?"

"I was wondering the same
thing myself. I guess it depends what Momesso did. If he crossed
her bad enough —
and
it hit Veltro in the pocket— the guy might have stood aside.
Let Momma take care of business her own way."

Morgan sat up straight in his chair. He
seemed to be suddenly motivated, like a weight off his
shoulders.

"Well, bro, it looks like you might have hit
the mainline. How you feel about trying to pin this down a little
more? I'd feel a whole lot better if I could be sure this ain't mob
business. We might even have a shot at cracking it."

Now that they had a
name,
and
a
face,
and
a sheet,
they at least had someone to zero in on.
If
what Connell had heard was true.
Not that pinning anything on Momma Lupe was going to be easy
either.

"I wouldn't count the case
closed just yet, John," Connell said. "It's still a third party hit
with no witnesses, no weapon and no perp.
Yet
. No bookmaker would give us more
than 50 to 1, even if it
was
Ma behind it. But tell you what, leave it with me
for another day or two."

Connell
went to the CORI site, Criminal Offender Record Information, the
local police-
only portal that archived
police and court records statewide. He typed
Lupanier
and waited. But he got a
surprise —nothing came up.

Really?
Nothing?

He tried again. He type in
the whole name this time:
Isabel
Lupanier
.

Still nothing came up.

Very strange. Especially for
someone as active in an illicit trade as Momma was supposed to be.
Nothing? Police, when they knew they had felons active in their
jurisdiction —not merely active but
growing
their businesses— made it a
point to find ways to charge these people with even the most minor
offences. This to start a sheet so that, at some time down the
road, they could demonstrate a build-up in criminal activity.
Someone like Momma, even if she had moved to the Boston area only
in recent years. You don’t drop into her line of work from another
planet. She supposedly supplied strippers and hookers to strip
clubs all across. To have no sheet at all? How was it possible? But
there it was —none of the usual litany of minor misdemeanors
related to her trade: possession restricted substances, being a
found-in, trafficking in prostitution, soliciting, living off the
avails, running a common bawdy house.

“Not even a traffic ticket?” Connell said
aloud.

He then went to the DMV site, Department of
Motor Vehicles.

Not only did Momma have a clean record there
as well —she wasn’t even registered.

She apparently didn’t own a car and didn’t
drive!

Things weren’t adding up.

Connell went back to the
CORI site. To the Comments section and, off the official record,
there
were
some
interesting notes. Of particular interest were several reports from
different officers from different jurisdictions in recent years
trying to tie Momma to the disappearance of various rivals,
associates, and even girls connected to her operation. But none of
these cases had ever gained enough substance to become charges. So
Momma's record in the State of Massachusetts was clean on the all
counts.

The file did give a current address: a back
street in Mattapan, a low-rent district in the city’s southeast
corner.

Connell, when he was done, was more intrigued
than ever.

He decided to have a closer
look at Momma.
And
her operation.

On Monday
morning Morgan entered the C-11, curious again to know how Connell
had
made out.

“How you makin’ out, brother?” he said.

"Not bad, John. Some news to report."

Morgan sat down and straightened around to
listen.

"I hit half the strip clubs
in the city over the weekend," Connell said and John arched an
eyebrow. Connell knew very well that John’s opinion was that such
places were a blight, were the devil’s work against women and that
they should be leveled, not attended. Connell didn’t disagree, but
he pushed on. “The rumor that Ma has a lock on girls coming in
seems to be true. Half the girls I overheard spoke with French
accents.
Heavy
French accents. Just off the bus from Quebec.”

“You know, Ty, I know that most of the girls
working these clubs are imports from somewhere else, a lot are here
illegally. But I don’t need to hear too many details about these
places.”

“Anyway,” Connell said, pushing ahead again.
“I needed to get a feel for where the scene was at. I also bought a
few dozen beers for my buddy at the B-3, Mattapan District. He
knows Mattapan and he knows Momma and her operation about as well
as anybody does."

Morgan nodded that that sounded promising.
"And …"

"And I found out that Momma runs her
little empire from her home. From her kitchen table. A little place
off Fuller, north of River Street. According to my guy, she runs
card games on Friday nights, which biker and mob guys are known to
show up at. Crazy thing is, again according to my guy, she runs
them like a church social. No smoking, no drinking, no swearing, no
spitting, no cheating, no arguing, and no guns at the table. And
they sit there playing till all hours of the night."

"I don't get it," Morgan said. "Why would
bikers or mob dudes show up to play cards with a wingy old French
bat at a place with rules like that?"

"To stay on the right side of Momma, I
guess."

"Weird."

"And there was one other very interesting
feature about her setup."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Her kitchen is at the front of the house, on
the west side, on Fuller, but looking down a street called Milton
Avenue."

"Uh-huh …"

"Milton runs down and meets Morton
Street which runs to where River and Dorchester meet, the main
crossroads in that part of town. Momma's house is right on the
corner of Fuller and Morton."

Morgan looked confused. “Man. All this
geography. It’s making my head spin.”

Connell pressed on.

"There's a great big picture window with no
drapes or blinds on it and that looks right into Momma's kitchen
from the street —or out to the street from Momma’s kitchen,
whichever way you want to put it. Where Momma and these guys sit
watching the world go by playing cards."