A Scourge of Vipers (24 page)

“Want I should drag him out and ask why he's screwin' with us?” Joseph asked.

“Not just yet. Let's keep an eye on him and see what he does.”

“So what the fuck are we doing here?”

“We're gonna go into that campaign office and pretend we're trying to decide whether to vote for Lovellette,” I said. “Ask some questions about his stand on the governor's gambling bill. Think you can do that?”

“Duh.”

Inside, a young man with a phony smile plastered on his face was standing at a counter, waiting to greet walk-ins. Behind him, two middle-aged women were working the phones. From their chatter, it sounded as if they were making cold calls to voters.

“Welcome,” the young man said. “Are you registered voters?”

“We are,” I said.

“Great. Are you familiar with Representative Lovellette's stands on the issues?”

“That's what we come to find out,” Joseph said.

“Well then, let me give you our new flier. It outlines his thoughts on the major issues facing our state and points you to a website where you can find his detailed position papers.”

He handed us the fliers, and we took them.

“Main thing I care about is the gambling bill,” Joseph said. “What's Lovellette got to say about that?”

“Representative Lovellette believes that legalized sports betting is the best way to alleviate the state's fiscal crisis without raising taxes,” the young man said. “However, he opposes having the state Lottery Commission take the bets. He wants to turn that responsibility over to private enterprise. Mr. Lovellette is a firm believer in our capitalist system, and he opposes anything that would make big government bigger.”

“Cool,” Joseph said.

“So can we count on your vote?”

“You bet.”

With that, the young man turned to me.

“And what about you, sir?”

“I'm still thinking on it,” I said as I flipped through the flier. “Huh. At the bottom here, it says, ‘Paid for by Americans for the Preservation of Free Enterprise.' What the heck is that?”

“We are an organization that raises money to support candidates who share our position on sports gambling.”

“You mean this isn't Mr. Lovellette's campaign office?”

“No, sir, but we are doing everything we can to support his reelection.”

“How long have you been at this location?” I asked.

“We had our grand opening on Saturday. Would you two like some bumper stickers? How about a couple of lawn signs?”

We smiled gratefully and carried them to the car with us, even though we didn't have a lawn.

I pulled out of the parking spot and cruised past the SUV. It waited until two other cars fell in behind us and then followed at a discreet distance. I kept tabs on it in the rearview mirror as I led our little convoy south toward Bristol.

There, we found another new campaign office in a Hope Street storefront, this one promoting the reelection of veteran Republican state senator Ralph Cummings. According to the fliers the staff was handing out, Cummings was courageously bucking the Republican leadership's stand for legalized, privately run sports gambling. He was morally opposed to any form of legalization. The small type at the bottom of the fliers read “Stop Sports Gambling Now”—the super PAC funded by the NCAA and the professional sports leagues.

It was still morning when we crossed the Mount Hope Bridge and drove south through Portsmouth, but it wasn't too early for Joseph to start whining about lunch. I'd been daydreaming about the Reuben Cuban sandwich at Newport's White Horse Tavern; but when Joseph spotted the McDonald's on East Main Road in Middletown, he drooled the way Homer Simpson does whenever somebody says “doughnuts.”

Inside, we took our orders to a booth that looked out on the parking lot. The grilled chicken club sandwich and a medium Coke for me. Three Quarter Pounders, two large fries, and a strawberry shake for Joseph.

“Keep this up,” I said, “and you're gonna regain all those pounds you lost.”

“I weigh myself every fuckin' day,” he said. “Don't worry, Mom. I'm keepin' an eye on it.”

We'd just started eating when the black SUV rumbled into the lot and braked to a stop two parking spaces from Secretariat. The driver sat behind the wheel for about five minutes. Then he climbed out and came inside. He waited at the counter for his Big Mac, fries, and Coke, carried them to a booth in back, and studiously avoided looking at us.

I put him at forty-five years old with thick gray hair, a lantern jaw, and a slight paunch. Six feet tall and wide in the shoulders, he had the look of a former athlete who still worked out but had developed an unhealthy fondness for fatty food and beer.

“Recognize him?” Joseph whispered.

“No. You?”

“Uh-uh.”

We finished our meal, bused the table, and headed outside.

“What now?” Joseph asked.

“We sit in the car and wait for him to come out.”

“And then?”

“We roust him and find out who he is.”

“'Bout fuckin' time.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were still sitting there while our quarry nursed a second cup of soda and made a show of not watching us through the window.

“How 'bout I go back inside and drag his ass out?” Joseph said.

I shook my head and cranked the ignition. I backed out of the parking space, rolled slowly past the front of the restaurant, made a quick right turn, and braked beside the windowless south side of the building.

“Get out of the car, stay out of sight, and grab him when he comes out,” I said. “I'll circle the building and meet you out front.”

I got there just in time to see Joseph rush our stalker from behind and bull him against the hood of his SUV. As I climbed out of Secretariat, Joseph kicked the guy's legs apart and started to frisk him.

“What the hell!” the guy said.

Joseph smacked him hard on the back of the head and jerked a semi-auto from the small of his back.

“Who are you,” I said, “and why are you following us?

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Empty your pockets.”

“No.”

Joseph gave him another smack.

“My buddy here's going to get annoyed if I have to ask you again,” I said.

“You can't make me do shit. You two assholes aren't cops.”

“No, we ain't,” Joseph said. “Cops probably wouldn't do this.”

He shoved a paw between the guy's legs, grabbed his scrotum, and squeezed. The guy yelped like a dog getting neutered without anesthesia. Then he dug into his pockets and tossed the contents onto the hood. A set of car keys, a cell phone, a handful of change, and a brown leather wallet.

The cell looked like a prepaid that couldn't be traced, but even burners were vulnerable to my expert sleuthing. I turned it on, checked the list of recent calls, and jotted the numbers in my notepad.

Then I opened the wallet and slid out his driver's license.

“Jesus!” I said. “How many Alfanos are there in New Jersey, and how many of you have to get killed before you learn to stay out of Rhode Island?”

He didn't say anything. From the set of his jaw, I figured he wasn't going to unless we roughed him up some more, and I lacked the stomach for that.

Instead, I returned his phone and wallet, and he put them in his pockets.

“What about the Glock?” he asked.

“You're joking, right?” Joseph said.

The guy turned to pluck his car keys from the hood, but I snatched them first and shoved them in my pocket.

*   *   *

“Whaddaya 'spose he was after?” Joseph asked as we cruised south toward the Newport waterfront.

“The people he works for must have been mad about my bribery story,” I said. “They probably asked him to find out what I'm going to do next.”

“What
are
you gonna do next?”

“We're doing it,” I said.

In Newport, we stumbled on another new legislative campaign office, this one paid for by the super PAC working for privatization of sports gambling. After we talked up the staff and walked out with more fliers and lawn signs, I told Joseph to take the wheel and head west.

As he drove across the majestic Claiborne Pell Bridge, I asked him to hand me the Glock. I slid my window down and tossed both the gun and Alfano number three's car keys over the railing into Narragansett Bay's East Passage. Then I pulled the cell out of my pocket and called Judy at
The Atlantic City Press.

“Hey, Mulligan. What's up?”

“There's another Alfano in town.”

“Which one?”

“How many are there?”

“Two more brothers and maybe a dozen uncles and cousins.”

“All of them connected?”

“That's what I hear.”

“Is Marco Alfano one of them?”

“Another brother.”

“According to his driver's license, he's from Somers Point, New Jersey. Where's that?”

“Just south of Atlantic City. How the heck did you get a look at his driver's license?”

“By asking politely. So what does Marco Alfano do for a living?”

“Other than help out with the illegal family business?”

“Yeah. Other than that.”

“He owns a chain of escort services.”

“So he's a pimp.”

“He is, but in Atlantic City you don't get arrested for that. You get a plaque from the chamber of commerce.”

“I've heard.”

“So what was he doing in Rhode Island?” she asked.

“Tailing me. Probably will be again once he figures out how to start his SUV without his car keys.”

She chuckled at that. “Why? Because of the story you wrote?”

“That's how I figure it. Probably wants to find out what I'm up to now.”

“Think he's also spreading money around?”

“Wouldn't surprise me.”

“He might also have a personal reason for being in Rhode Island,” she said.

“Because Mario Zerilli probably killed his brother?”

“Yeah. The Alfanos aren't the kind to leave something like that to the authorities.”

“If he wants Mario,” I said, “he'll have to get in line.”

After we hung up, Joseph gave me a nudge.

“I think we picked up another tail.”

I glanced in the side mirror.

“Where?”

“Four car lengths back. The gray Honda Civic.”

It followed us for a dozen miles, but when we turned north on Route 1, it peeled off.

I fetched my laptop from the backseat and used a reverse directory to check the phone numbers from Marco Alfano's cell. Three of them were New Jersey landlines belonging to women who shared his last name, probably a wife and daughters. One was the number for Party Hearty Escorts in Atlantic City. The other six were unlisted. Probably more untraceable burners. When I called them, each was answered by a male voice that said, “Yeah?” When I asked who was speaking, they said, “Fuck you,” and clicked off.

It was still light, but well past Joseph's dinner hour, by the time we rolled into Central Falls and decided to call our tour to a halt. We'd cruised through nineteen of the state's thirty-nine cities and towns and found freshly opened, super-PAC-run legislative campaign offices in twelve of them.

On the drive back home, Joseph grumbled every time I passed a fast food joint. As we approached Providence on I-95, I spotted another gray Honda Civic in my rearview. I told myself that it was the most common car on the road.

Still, it worried me.

 

37

Shortly before eight the next morning, I stepped off the newsroom elevator, turned to punch the clock, and couldn't find my time card. I strode to Twisdale's office to complain, but first I wanted to fill him in on what I'd learned during yesterday's tour of the state.

“Super PACs have started pouring a ton of money into the House and Senate races,” I said as I settled into the leather visitor's chair. “By law, they have to report those expenditures to the Campaign Finance Division, so I should be able to get some hard numbers for you by the end of the week.”

Twisdale glowered.

“I'm surprised you had the gall to show up here this morning,” he said.

“Huh?”

“You're fired.”

“I'm
what
? Why? Because I called in sick again?”

“Like you don't know. You've gone too far this time, Mulligan. You'll never work in the news business again. Gather your personal belongings and get out.”

Puzzled and angry, I got up, stomped to my cubicle, and slumped into what used to be my chair. I rummaged through the desk and didn't see anything worth taking home. Then I stood and took one last look around at the newsroom where I'd spent my entire working life.

It was here that I'd learned how to write, exposed corrupt judges and politicians with front-page headlines, and forged a handful of friendships that would last a lifetime. It was here that I'd discovered my calling as an investigative reporter—and where I'd learned most of what I know about life.

And death.

I'd seen the brains of shotgunned mobsters spattered on barroom walls, smelled putrefied cadavers pulled from polluted rivers, watched medical examiners paw through the remains of dismembered bodies, witnessed firemen carrying charred corpses from smoking ruins, and stared into the dead eyes of abused children. I'd been struck dumb by what remained of human beings who'd been run through wood chippers, crushed by automobiles, fed to pigs, and smashed in aircraft accidents. Once, I'd even stood on the Amtrak ties on the outskirts of the city as rescue workers plucked bits of a fifteen-year-old named Tommy Santos out of the trees minutes after he'd stumbled into the path of a speeding train.

Good times.

As I trudged to the elevator, Frieden approached, a pen and an open notebook in her hands.