The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (36 page)

"All Johnny Robinson's personal effects went to
Sam, except for the stuff his sister took. It's all at Dependable, or
Sam's apartment."

"Okay; I'll get in
touch with Sam. Meet me at Brian's office at six tonight. I think I
know where the hot item is."

* * *

"Okay, sport, strut your stuff," said Brian
Hannon, leaning back in his armchair. He glanced over at Joe, who was
lighting a Benson 8c Hedges 100 with the new gold-and-blue lighter. A
look of confusion crossed Brian's face.

"Hey, that lighter looks different, Joe. Not as
fruity. What happened?"

"This is a new one. Classier."

"Where'd you get it?"

"I got it, if you must know, from a Mafia
chieftain."

"No, really."

"
Let's talk about something else. C'mon, Doc,
I'm getting starved. Sam's late, but tell us anyway. Where the hell's
this filmstrip?"

I laid Inspector James Bell's Smith 8: Wesson on the
desk, and next to it a new, unsharpened pencil. I explained that I'd
gotten the idea while fitting the barrel of my tooth extractor around
an old lady's molar. They weren't impressed. I handed Brian the
revolver and asked him to check it out. This he did in standard
fashion by swinging out the cylinder, which was empty, and looking
down the chambers as he spun it on its crane arm. Then, the cylinder
still out, he looked down the muzzle of the barrel and handed it to
Joe, who repeated the procedure, then stuck his thumbnail under the
barrel throat so the light would reflect off it up through the tube.

"Empty," he said, handing it back. "I
don't have a screwdriver to take off the grips or sideplate. I assume
that's what you're going to do."

"
No," I said, taking the pencil and
inserting it into the barrel. I pushed it down carefully. The coiled
celluloid sprang out of the barrel throat like a jack-in-the-box, and
there was the film-strip on the desk.

"Sure looked clean to me," said Joe.

"That's because the film was rolled emulsion
side out, leaving the inside of the roll shiny-slick. When you roll
up the film this way and stick it in the muzzle end, which is nearest
the viewer's eye, he's got to be looking very closely to see it. In
regular room light, like this, it's just about invisible."

"Hmmm. And Johnny put Santuccio's film there?
You sure?"

"Just about positive. He was carrying it the day
he was killed. From his phone message to me it's clear he knew he was
being tailed . . . and he knew why, too. He didn't leave it at the
office, or in his car. Those places were searched thoroughly by
DeLucca and you guys. It wasn't in his apartment. Not only was the
place searched several times, but the killers nailed him as soon as
he o walked in. I thought for a while it was tucked away somewhere on
his apartment's porch, or in the stairway hall going up to his place.
But I was wrong. All I got out of that expedition was two broken
heads: mine and Brian's."

"Tell me about it," the chief growled.
"Although I admit this is kinda clever, Doc. Now it'll be even
better if you're right."

"Where else can it be? He didn't put it in his
shoe. Joe, your men checked his clothes. He didn't mail it to
himself; we've watched his mail. He wanted it ready to deliver. But
I'll tell you something else: this is my second experimental
filmstrip. The first one disintegrated. When you put a roll of film
inside the business end of a thirty-eight, there's nothing left of it
after you touch the gun off'. It shreds and burns into vapor."

"
When we found Johnny's body up in Lowell, Mary
noticed that the carrying strap of his sidearm was unfastened."

"Uh-huh. Which meant that if indeed the film was
in there, Johnny knew he could both conceal the evidence and destroy
it immediately if he had to."

"Sounds too good to be true," said Brian as
he swiveled in his chair and watched a red Buick Regal swerve into
the CPD lot I beneath his window.

Well, it was. Too good to be true, that is. As for
the film negatives which should have been tucked neatly, invisibly,
into the barrel of Johnny Robinson's S&W model ten, they weren?
They weren't hidden in his little leg pistol either. They also
weren't in any of the clothes and shoes that were in the cardboard
carton that Sam hauled into the office with him.

"Well close, but no cigar," said Brian,
drumming his fingers on the desk. "Sorry to have brought you all
the way out here, Sam."

I cussed. Sam folded up his dead partner's clothes
and placed all the belongings neatly back into the carton.

"My guess is Johnny ditched the stuff somewhere
on his way home, at some drop, intending to return to the drop later
Friday night or Saturday morning when the heat was off and retrieve
it. Of course he never got the chance."

Following this bit of deduction, which seemed
plausible, we called the Lucky Seven tavern again, just to make sure
nobody there had seen Johnny that day, or whether indeed a letter,
package, or message had arrived there with his name on it. The answer
was no.

"I'm back to first base," I said.

"Wrong, Doc. You're back in the dugout,"
said Joe. "Now Brian and I have some paperwork to do for the
DeLucca thing. It's just routine and will take about an hour. Let's
meet afterwards in case there are some last-minute questions."

"Yeah," said Brian, "minor things like
dumdum bullets and breaking and entering?

"Mary and I are going to buy Sam a big dinner at
Yangtze River. Brian, seeing's how I accidentally banged up your
head, I think I owe you one too. Why don't the three of us wait for
you two at our place?"

They said it was the first good news they'd had all
day. So Sam and I left. At home Mary set a blood-rare round steak
down in front of Sam's big pooch. Turns out he is not a fussy eater.

"It's the least we could do for him, Sam,"
she said. "And now Charlie, you want to show Sam his present
from us, since we're still alive?"

It was sitting behind the little tool shed with a
canvas cover over it. A new Honda CX-500, with full fairing and a
special platform for Popeye covered with thick acrylic carpeting in
silver-gray, which matched the bike. Sam rubbed his hands over the
satin finish of the tank, the brightwork of the cylinder casings, the
flat black of the cockpit instrument panel. He was speechless. The
big dog at his side sniffed the machine and waggled his fat butt.

"She's quiet as a graveyard, Sam; I took her for
a little spin yesterday. With this you won't give away your position
to the enemy."

He and the dog walked in silence around the bike.
Something looked different about the dog. I couldn't figure out what
it was. We had drinks on the terrace. Sam couldn't seem to take his
eyes off the bike. We let our doggies out of their runs and watched
tensely as they approached the big bull mastiff, who was reclining
sedately on the flagstones, digesting twenty ounces of steak. Danny,
the yellow Lab, approached growling with a lot of braggadocio. Popeye
looked at him through slit eyes over a wide mouth, bored. What was
different about Popeye?

After fifteen minutes of bluffing and retreating,
charging and dodging, the four dogs reached a truce and began to
play.

"I know what's different about our friend,"
I said at last. "He's got a new harness on."

"Oh yeah," said Sam, taking the set of keys
Mary handed him. "He got that last week; I threw the old one
out. Doc, I've had a drink, but you think it's all right if I take it
down the end of the drive and back?"

"Sure. But watch it— you've got about twice
the power of your old bike, and a shaft drive too. It'll feel
different."

Sam started the bike, eased it off its stand, and
purred down the gravel drive slowly. He scarcely made a sound. He
came back grinning from ear to ear.

"Doc, Mary," he said, "I just don't
feel right about taking it without paying you. It's so nice and I
just feel—"

"Cut it, Sam," snapped Mary. "It's
really quite simple: if you hadn't been here, risking your own life,
we'd be in the ground now. So let's not hear any more about it."
She went inside to freshen up our drinks, and I patted the huge dog
and scratched his ears. Popeye was used to all of us by now. The new
harness he wore was about the scale of those used on Budweiser draft
horses.

"This doesn't look new," I said. "It
looks bigger and better than his old collar, but it's not new."

"Naw. It was Tommy's. It's heavyy-duty and cost
Johnny a bundle to have it made, as I remember. So instead of
throwing it out like I did Susie's, I kep' it. Makes him easier to
control; he's got plenty a power."

"
And Johnny had it custom-made?"

"Um-hmmm. Can't buy those."

"Take it off a minute. I may want to get some
made for our dogs."

Mary brought the drinks and said she wondered what
was taking Joe and Brian so long. She and Sam sipped and talked and
played with the dogs. I turned the big harness over and over in my
hands. The strap that held the lead ring was three inches wide and
very heavy, with a lot of coarse stitching done in heavy welting
twine. Strong enough even for a dog who could smash through doors.

A car door slammed out front and we heard low
chuckles and guffaws coming to us on the cool evening air.

"Out here you guys!" yelled Mary, and the
footsteps approached. I was fiddling with a rivet snap on the
underside of the big leather strap. The men came around the corner,
smoking. They oooh'd and ah'd the new Honda, and ordered drinks. Mary
went, and came back with a mineral water for Brian and a Campari for
Joe. We all toasted Sam. Then Popeye. We settled back in the redwood
lawn furniture.

"Well," groaned Brian tiredly, "so
what else is new?"

"This," I said, leaning forward with the
leather harness in my hands. I had unsnapped the rivet fastener,
which held the folded-back leather upper in place on the underside of
the wide top strap. Unfolding this flap revealed another one, done in
thin, fine leather, underneath. Snaking my index finger down inside,
I realized it concealed a slip wider than a matchbook that ran the
length of the big strap. It was like a money-belt slip, only bigger.
I felt something in there. I pulled at it, and it slid. Soon we were
all staring at the yellowish glow of manila paper. A thin envelope,
whose flap I peeled back. Another envelope inside. Glassine. The old
heart was thumping away now like a pile driver. I could feel my pulse
in my neck. I slid out the gray glassine envelope and looked in.
Inside was the slick, smoky-gray sheen of photo film.

"It appears we've just found the hot item,"
I said.

"Hot damn!" said Sam.

Carefully, I pulled out the filmstrip. Four frames.
One of them was a picture photo. The other three appeared to be
documents of some kind. I slid the strip back into its casing and
stood up.

"I could perhaps make a silly joke and suggest
that this could wait till after dinner, but I know where that would
get me. Besides, two good men were killed because of this little
strip of celluloid. Shall we?" I walked toward the kitchen door,
and the little ragtag procession followed close at my heels.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The darkroom hadn't been totally restored since the
burglary, but it was certainly operational enough to run some big
prints from the negatives. It was obvious to me immediately that the
film was not old. If the shots were of old things, then they were
copies, and probably made within the past five or ten years. After
running a test strip I made a big print of each negative on
sixteen-by-twenty-inch Brovira paper. I put the prints into fresh
developer, then stop-bath, and then fixed them. We tried to decipher
them in the dim illumination of the safelight but couldn't. Then I
took them from the fixer and put them in the wash tray. I had to
stack them to fit, so we could only see one print at a time. I lit up
the room. The five of us crowded around the wash tank when I was
finished. We looked down at the first of the four big sheets that lay
stacked underwater when I turned on the light. Well, it was hot all
right. It was so hot I'm surprised the wash water didn't start to
simmer. Here's what we saw:

The first print was a photograph of an old letter,
written in longhand and without letterhead, to Frederick Katzmann,
the prosecuting attorney. It was from John Vahey, the attorney for
the defense who was later replaced by Fred Moore and finally by
William Thompson. It was Vahey who told Bartolomeo Vanzetti not to
take the witness stand in his own defense for the first crime he was
tried for: the attempted holdup of the White Shoe factory in
December1919. Vahey told Vanzetti, an accomplished orator, that to
speak in his own defense would only prejudice the judge and jury
against him. Wishing to cooperate, Vanzetti finally agreed. His
failure to speak on his own behalf was later mentioned— twice— by
Governor Fuller as the single most incriminating piece of evidence in
the entire trial. Apparently his special commission agreed with him,
and as a result they supported the earlier convictions of the Dedham
courtroom. The letter proved beyond any reasonable doubt