Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (11 page)

“We did,” Agent Gus said grimly, “we found him with his throat slit from ear to ear, facedown in the Charles River last month.”

“Oh,” she said faintly, unable to block the image of Casey in the same condition from her mind.

“I don’t know, Mrs. Riordan, how much you know about your boss,” Agent Gus continued uncomfortably, “but we’re not talking about an amateur here, the man has got people in his pocket from thugs on the street to detectives on the force. Had a judge from the housing court stand up to him four years back. The man refused to put the person Hagerty wanted into an open clerkship, Hagerty leaned a bit then backed off. Six months later legislature passes through the State House that has the judge’s pay cut back, staff reduced, and then his court is folded into another judiciary branch effectively ending any power the judge had. Hagerty’s willing to wait for his revenge and he’s got a long memory. And now,” the agent chanced a quick look at her, “he’s in bed with the Bassarelli family, and that’s a poker game with the highest stakes you can imagine. Want a hotdog?” he asked, nodding toward a vendor at one of the cross paths of the pretty little park.

“Don’t tell me, he’s one of yours?”

“He is, as a matter of fact, but he has real hotdogs just to make him look legitimate.”

“You’re kidding,” she said incredulously.

“Of course I am,” he said without cracking the slightest smile. Just her luck to get a G-man who thought he was a comedian.

Agent Gus held up two fingers to the man who nodded and dug in the cart with his tongs.

“Listen,” the agent continued, “I know all this seems a little cloak and dagger, but the truth is Love Hagerty is one of the most dangerous men in Boston. He’s got such a chokehold on Southie that we can’t get a whisper out of anyone close to him.”

“And that, I suppose, is where you think I come in.” Pamela said, feeling the figurative noose tightening rather quickly about her own neck.

“Sorry,” he said, face flushing beetroot red. “It’s just that things are getting a little desperate. If Love merges his set of criminals with the Bassarelli clan, we’re talking about complete control of all the organized crime on the Eastern Seaboard from Maine down to New York, and that’s a big stretch of real estate. We have to nail this bastard now or never. Excuse me for a second,” he said. He walked over to the hotdog vendor with the odd bouncy step that was his trademark.

He came back with two napkin-wrapped hot dogs and two bottles of Coca-Cola tucked under his elbow. She waved off the hotdog but accepted the Coke, grimacing as the agent loosened the cap with his teeth before handing it to her.

“Sorry, that always bothers people, makes my wife crazy when I do it.”

Agent Gus had a wife? She had a sudden vision of him in boxer shorts brushing his teeth and took a quick swallow of her drink to cover the laugh that accompanied the image.

“Thought they just hung us up on a hook, suit and all, at the end of the day?”

She flushed, realizing he’d read her thoughts as easily as she could see the rush of trapped carbon in her soda.

“Something like that,” she smiled ruefully, wondering if she was ever going to develop the ability to hide her thoughts. She took another swallow of soda, feeling the tiny sting of bubbles as they rushed over her teeth and tongue. “So, Agent Spencer, why me?”

“Because you’re the only one in Hagerty’s inner circle that’s got something we can barter for.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, “Care to define that?”

“Your husband,” he said bluntly, and then bit into his hotdog, bright yellow mustard leeching through the white napkin. She waited patiently for him to chew and swallow.

Then she repeated the agent’s words back to him, “My husband?”

“Mrs. Riordan,” he said tone apologetic, “I don’t need to tell you that there’s bad blood between your husband and Hagerty. I think you also realize your husband is in a rather tenuous position legally, he’s seen things it would be better if he hadn’t and that makes him guilty by association. He won’t talk to us; he’s made that clear, even though he’s got to know he’s in a bad situation with Hagerty.”

“By bad situation you mean he wants my husband dead?” she said, voicing the words that had been gnawing a hole in her mind for weeks now.

“Yes,” Agent Gus said, and she saw clearly the core of steel in the man that made him equal to his job.

“Wouldn’t you be better off approaching the mistress? I’d think she’d know a thing or two.”

Agent Gus shook his head. “The pretty little apartment in Brookline is empty, though he’s still paying the rent on it. He cleared her off his calendar about a month ago. Had the place cleaned, repainted and swept for bugs. He knows we know, he’s just arrogant enough to think we can’t catch him. The mistress left no forwarding address, but we traced her to Las Vegas, where she’s working in a casino and has little memory of anyone named Love Hagerty. I don’t think she knows anything anyway, he’s pretty damn careful.”

“Why’d he get rid of her if she doesn’t know anything?”

“I think, Mrs. Riordan, it’s a case of out with the old and in with the new. Perhaps he thinks you’d prefer Brookline to Southie.”

“Me?” she squeaked, horrified at the implications. “But I—” she shook her head, speechless, understanding suddenly why the man had wanted to speak with her.

“I don’t think,” the agent said quietly, “it matters a lot to him whether you’re willing or not, he’s so corrupt he thinks everyone is seducible given the proper inducement. He just thinks he hasn’t found your upper limit yet.”

Above her head, in the spreading branches of the horse chestnut, a scarlet tanager emitted its optimistic
burry-shureer-shureet-shuroo
and a flutter of filmy pink-white petals dropped upon Agent Gus’s impeccable navy blue suit. One petal clung to the fine dew of condensation on her soda bottle, tearing when she tried to set it free.

“I love my husband,” she said, not knowing why she felt the necessity of stating it to this man.

“Enough to help save his life?” Agent Gus asked, taking another bite of his hotdog. The smell of mustard mingled with the scents of new mown grass and the bitter under note of the chestnut. She watched, mesmerized, as a petal drifted from the agent’s sandy crew cut to land precariously on the knife pleat of his trousers. She knew the next question was hers.

“What exactly are you suggesting, Agent Spencer?” she asked, hands cold and lips numb.

“I think you know, Mrs. Riordan, what I’m suggesting. It’d kill two very nasty birds with one stone. If Love Hagerty doesn’t take a fall, and soon, you are going to have the rather unpleasant task of burying your husband. If not,” he shrugged, “well, knowing about a crime makes him an accessory, and that’ll buy him some unpleasant time in a federal prison at the least. At worst Hagerty finds him in there and you’re a widow anyway. It’s up to you.”

“Anything I could get from Mr. Hagerty would be hearsay,” she said, desperately looking for a way out of this tangle of thorns she’d suddenly found herself in.

“We’d tape it. We’ve been waiting for this bastard to screw up for about twenty years now. You’re the first real shot we’ve had.”

“You’re going to tape it? Where exactly,” her voice was thick with sarcasm, “ would you suggest I hide the wire?”

The agent shook his head. “No wire, there are any number of places to hide a bug in a bedroom.”

She flinched at his use of the word ‘bedroom’ but somehow was glad of the bluntness and that the man wasn’t trying to couch this in nicer terms. They wanted her to screw Love Hagerty for information, not make him fall in love with her. She clasped her hands hard around the Coke bottle to stop them shaking. “It’s not illegal or inadmissible to record his private life?”

“We can’t place bugs with impunity but if we have reason to think that we’ll get something solid that will lead to conviction, we’ll get the go ahead. I’ve got reason to think he’ll open up to you, he’ll be vulnerable in a way he just isn’t with anyone else.”

“Forgive me if I’m not flattered,” she said dryly. “I want to know what we’re talking about here, how long do you actually think you can put this man away for?”

“RICO’s given us some leverage. If we can establish a pattern of organized crime we’re talking hard time here; twenty years or more in prison is something even the mob takes seriously.”

She knew a bit about RICO, it had been in the news, touted as the most potent weapon the government had ever held against organized crime. The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act had been passed by Congress only that year. For the first time operating a criminal racket became a federal offence, carrying huge prison terms. The FBI finally had the power to crack the back of the Mafia and those who gained from their affiliations with it. Affiliates like Lovett Hagerty.

“What’s the protocol in these situations?” she asked, tone remarkably calm, almost as if she’d sensed the inevitability of this from her first meeting with Love.

“Generally speaking you’d have to have a face-to-face with my supervisor, but I told them all bets would be off if they insisted on it. I thought maybe,” he gave a half-hearted smile, “it’d be easier if they couldn’t put a face to the voice they’d be hearing.”

She swallowed, feeling slightly dizzy, “That was decent of you, Agent Spencer.”

“Call me Gus,” he said.

“I’d rather not,” she replied.

“Fine,” he shrugged again and then his face softened, looking once again like the bumbling young man she was used to. “As soon as he starts talking we’ll call the whole damn thing off.”

She shook her head. “Don’t lie to me Agent Spencer. You haven’t yet, I’d rather you didn’t start now.”

“Okay, I apologize. You’re a tough one, Mrs. Riordan.”

“Agent Spencer, if you keep calling me Mrs. Riordan I’m not going to be able to go through with this.”

“Point taken,” he said. “Now is there anything you need, anything we can do for you?”

She raised her eyebrows, feeling a hot core of anger opening inside her. “Like what? Lingerie? Champagne? I already feel like a whore, I don’t want a wallet left on the dresser to confirm it.”

His face remained implacable, “I thought you might want your husband removed to somewhere safe.”

“Safe for whom? Him or me?” she asked, feeling a scalding rush of tears damming up at the back of her eyes.

“For the both of you, I imagine. You may want to give some consideration to where you want to be when all this is over.”

“I suppose Boston is out of the question,” she said sarcastically.

“I’d avoid the entire Eastern seaboard,” he said, with a slight twitch of his lips that might have been a smile. “Your husband’s an Irish citizen.”

“Are you suggesting we go back to Ireland?” she said incredulously.

“Do you want my honest opinion?”

“Yes.”

“Put an ocean between yourself and what’s happened here. When Love Hagerty goes down there’s going to be an awful lot of unhappy boys in the neighborhood looking for a scapegoat. You don’t want to be in that line of fire. I used to work homicide in the North End. Twenty-four corpses in a six month period, burned, strangled, cut from ear to ear, and all of it the Bassarelli family’s handiwork. Hagerty’s going to want to cut a deal, and that means ratting out his contacts in the North End.”

“And they’ll want their vengeance?”

“They’re Italian, aren’t they?” he said and this time there was no sign of humor in his face. “When they’re done in Southie there won’t be a man left standing. We’re expecting a bloodbath and we’re rarely wrong about these situations. This is your chance to get out before we put the fire to the mob’s feet, probably the only chance you’re going to get.”

She nodded, slightly dazed by the revelations of the last hour. “How much time do I have?”

“It’s got to be in the next month, sooner if possible, we’ve got agents out there undercover that need to be pulled back in before someone sniffs them out. You pick a target date, tell me and I’ll get it set up.”

“That simple, hey?” she said, wanting nothing more than to go home and shower. She knew the filth of the day was going to take more than hot water and soap to clean off though.

“For us,” he said, “yes. For you, no.”

“Alright,” she took a deep breath, “give me a week to figure this out. Mr. Hagerty’s going to be suspicious if I spring this on him. I’ve been resisting his advances for months. Give me a week and then get my husband the hell away from here, somewhere they can’t find him and he,” she pressed the dewy bottle to the burning skin of her cheek, “can’t find me.”

“Done,” Agent Gus Spencer said, thinking he’d never put in a harder hour for the Bureau than the one he’d just gone through.

He swallowed the last of the liquid in his bottle and then held it away from him, the vagrant sunshine curving thickly through waves of pale green glass.

“Coca Cola designed this bottle to feel like a woman’s body—see how it’s nipped in at the waist—so that subconsciously a man would connect it with the female form in his mind and like the snug of it in his palm.”

“Seems to have worked,” she said, wondering if he had a point or was just making conversation.

“I’ve always thought females were the ones with the real power,” he said quietly, turning the bottle around in his hand, “it just comes with a price. Is the price going to be too high for you?”

“Considering what’s at stake, no,” she said, “it’s just a body after all, right? Mine to give if I so decide.”

“It’s a lot more than that and we both know it.”

“Try not to remind me of that too often,” she said bleakly.

He looked at his watch, uncomfortable now that she’d agreed to consider his deal. She wondered if he’d ever be able to look into her eyes again.

“I’ve got to get back to the field office,” he said awkwardly, and she felt a certain detached sympathy for him, knowing he was an honest man simply trying to catch a dishonest one, and that he didn’t like the methods he’d had to resort to.

She sat for a long while after the agent’s dark-suited form had disappeared from view. Sat while couples strolled past arm in arm and mothers headed home with sleepy babies. In the distance, she heard the distinct crack of tight leather against a bat. She knew she had to get back to work before Love wondered what had happened to her. She couldn’t afford to raise his suspicions now.