The Son of John Devlin (31 page)

Jack looked at Del Rio. “Make sense so far?”

“Keep going,” Del Rio said.

“So those two trends coincide with the third trend,” Jack continued. “What I call the growing respectability of the dealers. The move toward the mainstream. The effort to portray themselves as businesspeople rather than criminals. Do they kill people? Not so much anymore, though sometimes. No, the new ones try to keep it clean and simple. Move a product people want for a decent price and make a nice profit. Don’t go overboard. But the key is, to make money, you have to be in business, and you can’t be in business from prison. So you do whatever you have to do to stay in business, and if that means strategic partnerships, then so be it.”

“Strategic partnerships,” Del Rio said, repeating the phrase.

“Strategic partnerships are the result of the convergence of the three trends,” Jack said. “You have corruption manifest destiny. That is, an ever escalating level of corruption. You add to that the vacuum created by the rapid demise of organized crime plus the growing respectability of dealers, and you have a combustible situation. You have the perfect alignment for a level of corruption the likes of which have never before been seen on the department. Because just as the level escalates—meaning people within the department are looking for new frontiers, new opportunities—just as that happens, it becomes clear that organized crime is all but dead and buried. Not a factor, not happening. Then, voilà, along come the most respectable kind of dealers possible—businessmen in Paul Stewart suits. We’ll do a deal, a nice deal, a respectable product. We’ll deal to the better classes, we won’t have Puerto Ricans knifing Haitians shooting Colombians. We’ll stay clean
and quiet and everybody makes a tidy profit and goes home happy.”

Jack stood staring down at Del Rio, who stared back.

Jack spoke in a quiet voice, a near whisper. “How am I doing?”

Del Rio got up from the bench and looked out over Beacon Street. He stuffed his hands inside the pockets of his black leather jacket and hunched his shoulders. He stared down at the ground as he took a few steps away, then turned back.

“You’re not as fucking smart as you think you are, Jackie,” he said. “You underestimated just how smart these people are. And how fucking ruthless they are. You don’t know.”

Del Rio stopped in his tracks and raised his right hand, holding up one finger: “Del Rio’s law of crime, numero uno: The only really successful criminals are completely and utterly without conscience. Because conscience is what trips people up. Fucks them up in the head. Produces remorse and the desire—the need—to talk. To talk to someone who talks to someone who talks to someone, and pretty soon someone is sitting on the witness stand in federal court opposite you and you are at the defense table and you are fucked for thirty years because you had a conscience. Not even much of one, just a sliver of conscience.

“While the guy with none is in Boca sitting by the pool, a piña colada in one hand and as much pussy as you’d ever want to have.”

Del Rio’s face suddenly grew dark and he glared at Jack. “These people have no conscience at all,” Del Rio said. “None whatsoever. They have come together through the years and done deal after deal and no one
has laid a glove on them and no one will lay a glove on them because they are smart and they don’t leave any witnesses.”

Del Rio shut his eyes for a moment, his face creased in pain for the briefest flash.

“And the mistake you’re making, Jack, is that you think you’ve got them. You think you’re about to put the hammer on them.” Del Rio shook his head sadly from side to side. “Sorry, bucko, but it ain’t gonna be. ’Cause they got you a lot better than you got them.”

Jack seemed puzzled.

“You wired, Jack?” Del Rio asked.

Jack shook his head. He extended his arms to the sides as though about to be frisked. “Go ahead,” he said to Del Rio.

Del Rio shook his head and turned away, ashamed. “No, Jesus, Jack, I trust you. Fuck.” He looked off into the distance, across the frog pond. Men and women in wool overcoats and down parkas hurried through. Del Rio saw the Christmas lights come on in the Common.

“They’ve got to lance the boil,” Del Rio said. “They know there’s pressure from the feds. They know the heat is on, and they know something has to happen. They let you have Moloney. They could have headed that off but they didn’t. They wanted to show progress. They saw you coming a long time ago, Jack. And they’ve waited and waited and been patient because they knew that you’d try and set them up. And now they’ve turned the tables.

“It’s just like years ago, Jack. They needed a scapegoat then and they need one now. They set your old man up to take the fall, and he took it, and now they’re doing the same thing to you.”

Del Rio shut his eyes again, ever so briefly. “What happened to the father happens to the son,” he said.

Jack shook his head, dismissing the idea. “But it’s not going to happen,” he said softly.

“It’s already happening, Jack,” Del Rio said. “It’s been set in motion. And it’s too fucking late for you to do anything about it.”

Del Rio’s face was now flushed with anger. He was furious that Devlin had put himself in this position.

“When the papers get ahold of this, it’ll be the biggest fuckin’ story in Boston in years. And it will lance the boil like nothing else ever could. The father and son. And the brass’ll lament it till the fucking cows come home, and you’ll go away and be disgraced and they’ll go on their merry fucking way and nobody will worry about corruption again on the BPD until all these guys are long retired.

“You went toe-to-toe with them, Jack, and they fucking beat you.”

Abruptly, Del Rio sat down on the bench, crouched over, his head in his hands. Then he got up and turned his back to Jack.

“So all along, you’ve been assigned to cover me,” Jack said, though it was a question.

“It’s like in those games where Gretzky comes to town,” Del Rio said. “When he was in his prime. You know, they’d shadow him. One guy assigned to do nothing but get inside his jersey.”

Del Rio turned and looked closely at Jack.

“You’re Gretzky and I’m the shadow,” Del Rio said. He stared at Jack for a long moment, then shook his head, ashamed.

“They set him up,” Jack said. “They set him up. Not a
perfect man, but a very good man. He was a good man. And look what they did to him.”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“I’ll have to hand it to them,” Jack said. “Very clever. Get the feds to believe that the guy who’s supposed to be cleaning up the place is in a perfect position to steal. So what’s the plan, bring me down, set me up, frame me? Then the papers are happy and the politicians and everybody go on their merry way. Right?”

He leaned closer to Del Rio. His jaw was clenched, though his fury was well-controlled. “Am I right?”

Del Rio nodded and looked away. He walked a few steps, and Jack thought he was about to leave, but Del Rio stopped, pausing, then walked back. Still, he didn’t look Jack in the eye, but rather looked out at Arlington Street, over toward the Ritz. A light snow began to fall.

“How long have you known?” Del Rio asked.

“Known?”

“About me.”

Jack shook his head. “Last night,” he said. “New England Medical Center.”

Del Rio shut his eyes again.

“So who killed Murphy?” Jack asked.

Del Rio shook his head. “I could guess,” he said, sounding genuinely sorrowful. He turned and looked toward Beacon Street for a long moment. The traffic was jammed, backed all the way up past Charles Street.

“They’re bad people, Jack,” Del Rio said. “Very bad. No conscience there. None. They’re capable of anything. Absolutely anything. If they think you’ve become more of a threat than an opportunity, then watch out.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning right now they’ve got you,” Del Rio said.
“You may not think it or believe it, but they do. But if they think the tables are turned, they won’t hesitate to blow your fucking brains all over the sidewalk.”

Del Rio stood still for a long moment, staring down at the pavement. Then he shut his eyes hard and shook his head as though he had just seen the execution of Jack Devlin in his own mind.

Del Rio looked up, a ghostlike pallor on his face. His expression was one of pain, agitation. He looked Jack in the eye for only the briefest moment, then quickly shifted his gaze back to the ground, his chin pressed into his chest.

“I gotta go,” he mumbled. He turned and started to walk away.

Jack wanted to stop him but didn’t know how. And as Del Rio walked away, Jack was not certain, but thought he heard him mutter the words “I’m sorry.”

C
oakley drank Pepto-Bismol from the bottle. He’d been up throughout most of the night drinking coffee, and now his stomach was on fire. He waited until six o’clock, then picked up the phone. Emily Lawrence had said she wanted the call placed at six, precisely, so that’s when Coakley dialed Jack Devlin’s home.

Jack, wide-awake, answered on the first ring.

“We have to meet,” Coakley said.

“What’s happening?” Jack asked.

“We have to talk,” Coakley said.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Take the trolley to Cleveland Circle,” Jack said. “The rink.”

Coakley hung up. He opened a fresh pack of Rolaids and started chewing on four of them. Leaving his home, Coakley walked through the darkened streets and saw the maroon van following at a respectful distance. It had been outside his house, half a block down, all night. The indignity of it all. They had required him to wear a bracelet, the kind they placed on white-collar criminals to ensure that they remained within their houses. His phone had been tapped.

He walked along the street and pulled his overcoat tighter around the neck. He wondered who, exactly, was inside the van. Was she there so early in the morning? Or were there FBI men? Technicians only? Young men or women who understood how to make the wire he wore relay whatever sounds it picked up back to the recording machinery inside the van.

The walk to the MBTA stop was a short one. Once there, he dropped coins into a yellow newspaper box and withdrew a
Boston Herald
from atop the stack. Soon, a trolley came, headed outbound, and Coakley got aboard. He rode out toward Cleveland Circle, and as the car swayed from side to side he felt worse and worse.

He folded the paper open to the crossword puzzle and began slowly printing letters in the boxes. He turned the newspaper over to the back page. Above a headline that lamented yet another loss by the Bruins, Coakley printed two words. He tucked the paper under his arm and waited until the trolley arrived at Cleveland Circle. Once there, he went to Dunkin’ Donuts next to the station, where he bought two black coffees. He walked across Beacon Street toward the skating rink. As he approached, he saw the maroon van a half block down.

Inside, Jack stood by the boards and watched the Brookline High School girls’ team practicing. The sounds of sticks banging the ice echoed off the cavernous walls of the place. It was freezing and the lighting was terrible. But Jack felt comfortable. He always had inside rinks, and he felt an odd sense of comfort now in the early morning that he was somehow connected to this fraternity. He was amazed by how fast and skilled these girls were. When he’d been growing up, it was rare for a
girl to play. Now there were girls’ leagues and even a women’s Olympic team.

Coakley entered the rink appearing pale and ill. He looked through the glass from the warming area out toward where Jack stood. Seeing Coakley, Jack went inside.

“You probably like it here,” Coakley said.

Jack smiled. “I do, as a matter of fact.”

“What’s the earliest you were ever in a rink?”

Jack thought a moment. “Maybe five,” he said. “No, probably five-thirty. I remember as a Mite having a game in Worcester at six on a Saturday morning. My dad drove me. We left the house at four.”

They walked across the waiting area and sat down opposite each other on benches where players sat to tie their skates.

Coakley placed the
Boston Herald
down on the bench next to Jack with the sports section facing up.

“Bruins got beat again last night,” Coakley said, his eyes drawing Jack’s gaze to the top of the sports page:
WIRED—FEDS
.

Jack stared down at the block letters Coakley had written. Then he looked up at Coakley, who nodded, ever so slightly.

Jack looked around the rink. There were no other adults.

“See any of the game?” Coakley asked.

“Some of the third period,” Jack replied. “I saw the Flyers tie it up.”

“The LeClair goal,” Coakley said. “Kid’s amazing.”

“So much power.”

“Imagine him and Lindros on the same line.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” Jack said, sipping it.

“So when do we move?” Coakley asked.

Jack hesitated. “The stuff’s in. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

Coakley nodded. “Tomorrow night,” he repeated. He fished a pack of Rolaids out of his coat pocket and popped four more in his mouth. He took a mouthful of coffee.

Jack studied Coakley closely for a long moment. The lawyer was overweight and looked unwell. There was a sharp contrast between his pasty countenance and the broken blood vessels around his nose.

The two men rose from the benches as a dozen high school girls came streaming through the doors, walking on skates across the rubber mats. They were sweating and gasping for breath, having ended practice with a series of wind sprints.

Jack and Coakley stopped at the door to the rink.

“So where?” Coakley asked.

“Here,” Jack said. “Right here. Eleven o’clock.”

Ninety minutes later an agent of the FBI handed the tape to Emily Lawrence. She played it. She sat stock-still, her heart pounding. The conversation stunned her. When it was done, she shut her eyes and said softly, “Oh, my God.”

“Yes, hello, I’m trying to reach a Dr. Robinson, please,” Jack said into the telephone. “Have I called the correct number?” He was calling a residence in a suburb of Phoenix.

“Oh, well, he’s in the garden right now,” an elderly woman replied. “May I have him return the call?”