G
alvin looked at Danny, shrugged. “What?”
“What would Jay Gould do?”
“Huh?”
“Jay Gould. The guy I’m writing a book about—industrialist, robber baron, whatever?”
“Right.”
“So we play one off against the other. That’s the only way we’re going to survive this.”
“How?”
“A double cross.”
“Explain.”
“I’m starting to have a real appreciation for Jay Gould. He was a shrimpy little guy. Frail, often in poor health. Had a lot of enemies—just about everyone on Wall Street. But he was just light-years ahead of anyone else. And the way he did it, the way he got so rich, was by playing a far deeper, far more sophisticated game than anyone else.”
“Okay . . . ?”
“The way he went after Western Union. Back in his time, the telegraph was like our Internet. And the big gorilla in the telegraph business was Western Union. So naturally, Jay Gould wanted to own it. But their board of directors wouldn’t even let him in the door.”
“Okay.” Galvin was listening closely now.
“So he scammed them. Made them think he was going into business against them. Started buying up shares of the competition, the Atlantic and Pacific. And he knew that Western Union monitored the telegrams sent by their competitors. So he sent telegrams that made it
look
like he was planning to build a rival company. Sure enough, Western Union read those telegrams, and of course they didn’t want competition. So they bought his company. But the whole thing was just an elaborate scam, because he’d jacked the stock price way up. He made them pay ridiculously inflated prices for the stock. Like a poison pill. So Western Union stock tanked. And then Gould moved in, striking quick like a rattlesnake, and—presto—he owns Western Union.”
“What’s the connection?”
“It may be a bit complicated,” Danny began. “But I think it should work quite nicely. You have a bunch of companies in your portfolio—I mean, the cartel’s portfolio. Right?”
Galvin nodded.
“Are any of them, say, construction companies?”
“Sure.”
“Any of them around here?”
“We own Medford Regional Construction & Engineering. Nothing in the city.”
“That may do it.”
Galvin looked puzzled.
“Let me explain,” Danny said.
For the next thirty minutes, he laid out his idea. Galvin listened and made notes and occasionally argued. He made a few calls.
In time they had come up with something that seemed feasible.
Not a sure thing, and not easy.
But possible.
A
s Danny pulled out of Galvin’s estate, he gave a quick wave to the hired guards outside the gate. One of them waved back. The other stared at Danny’s car, as if inspecting the interior. Maybe looking to confirm there was no one else in the car besides the driver.
About half a mile down the road he noticed, in his peripheral vision, a large black vehicle pull out of a turnout just behind him. It was a black Suburban. The only other car on the road. He glanced into his rearview mirror. No one he recognized. Some musclehead behind the wheel and another one in the passenger’s seat.
When he entered the Mass Turnpike and the black Suburban was still behind him, he was fairly certain he was being followed. The Suburban stayed a car length or two behind, maintaining a consistent speed, never overtaking Danny’s car. When Danny exited at Copley Square, the Suburban did the same.
The men in the Suburban had that vacant-faced, stolid crew cut blandness that Danny had always associated with federal agents, Secret Service or FBI or whatever.
Then again, they could just as easily be private, though—working for, or with, Slocum and Yeager. If they were, it wasn’t clear what they were going to find out by tailing him. Galvin’s house and his Back Bay apartment were the two places he was sure to turn up. What was the point? Maybe nothing more than keeping the pressure on, letting him know that wherever he went, his movements were being observed.
So let them follow him. He was keeping up the appearance of a normal, predictable routine.
Because in less than an hour, he was going to depart from his routine. And make a trip someplace where it was vitally important he not be followed.
He found a parking space on Marlborough Street, across the street from his apartment. The black Suburban had followed him, not bothering with subtlety. It kept going past his parking spot, half a block away, then stopped and double-parked, putting on its flashers. They were going to wait for him.
Let them wait.
Once inside his apartment building, he pulled out his apartment keys. He could hear Rex whining softly, scratching at the door, desperate to go out. His tail thumped against the hardwood floor.
The bottom lock wasn’t locked.
He’d locked both locks when he was there last. He was absolutely certain of it.
Rex whimpered softly. “I’m taking you out now, boy,” he said.
The overhead light in the foyer had been left on, and he knew he’d turned it off.
They—probably Slocum and Yeager, the ex-DEA grifters, again—wanted him to know they were here.
Rex whimpered some more and struggled to get up. “You poor guy, you’ve been so patient.” Danny reached down and attached collar to leash—a red grosgrain Lyman Academy dog leash Abby had talked him into buying, at a fund-raiser for a school that didn’t need funds—while Rex licked his hand in gratitude.
As far as his observers could tell, Danny had driven in to the city to feed the dog.
Just part of his regular routine.
Rex hobbled the block or so to the Commonwealth Avenue Mall to relieve himself on the grass. While Rex circled to find a choice spot, Danny took out an index card on which he’d written down a few important numbers. He pulled out the disposable cell phone and punched out the phone number for Leon Chisholm, the Lyman Academy security guard.
Leon was expecting his call.
“You’re in luck,” Leon said in his low, smoky voice. “I still got friends on the job.”
“Excellent. Boston Police, or—?”
“Yep, BPD.”
“How much advance notice will you need?”
“The more, the better. But half an hour, forty-five minutes ought to do it.”
“I’ll call you soon. You’re the best.”
“And don’t forget it,” Leon said.
Five minutes later he got back into his Honda. The black Suburban was now double-parked even closer, about twenty feet away.
Waiting for him.
It pulled into the street right behind him, as if it were part of a convoy. Or an escort. They expected him to return to Galvin’s house, the way he always went, taking the turnpike to exit 15. So that was exactly what he’d do. At the end of Newbury Street, he crossed Mass Ave and entered the turnpike, the Suburban following close, and conspicuously, behind.
It was three thirty, half an hour before the start of rush hour, but the traffic was already heavy and grindingly slow. The old Accord had a fairly zippy pickup, so he was able to pass a few cars and leave the Suburban four cars back and one lane over. He wasn’t trying to lose his pursuers, not here. Just trying to show irritation. To let them believe he was annoyed, maybe a little spooked, which was the natural reaction.
It took almost forty minutes of driving through sluggish traffic to reach the Weston exit, sixteen miles away, a drive that normally took half that time. As he approached exit 15, he put on his right-turn signal and glanced in the rearview. The Suburban was still following him, maintaining a steady distance, always a few cars behind.
Instead of taking the exit for Weston and Galvin’s house, as he normally would, he pretzeled around onto Route 128 heading north.
He wasn’t going to Weston.
He had to get to Medford, a town not far from Boston. But without his followers knowing where he was going. That was critical. If they saw what he was doing, his entire plan would come crashing down.
Only by getting to Medford and making the transaction without being seen did Danny have any chance of staying alive.
As he sped north, he looked in the mirror again and saw the gold Chevrolet bow tie nameplate and its menacing front grille like the bared teeth of a wild animal. He caught a glimpse of the crew cut passenger.
They were still there.
He had to lose them or else scrap the meeting in Medford. Up ahead was the exit for Route 2. He signaled and took it, and the Suburban followed. Now he was heading east in the direction of Boston, and also Medford. The highway here was wide, four lanes each way divided by a steel guardrail. On one side was a sheer cliff face, the rock out of which the road had been blasted. On the other was a high concrete wall. Even though it was now rush hour, the traffic here was moving at a good clip, sixty to sixty-five miles per hour.
The Suburban was two cars behind. When he slowed down, it slowed. He pulled into the right lane, and it moved over to the middle lane, always staying back, but always in view.
There was nothing furtive about it: The guys in the Suburban wanted him to know he was being followed. They were doing the automotive equivalent of breathing down his neck. Anywhere Danny drove, he’d know they were on his tail.
Up ahead was a sign for exit 60. It said
LAKE STREET, EAST ARLINGTON, BELM
ONT
. He signaled right, and the Suburban did the same. He took the exit, and the Suburban followed. The road veered around hard, doing a complete one-eighty, past a chain-link fence and some trees and all the way around to a traffic light.
At the intersection, the road forked. On the right it took you back to Route 2. The lane on the left took you into a densely settled old residential neighborhood in Arlington. He’d driven around here before and knew it well enough. The traffic light showed a red left arrow. A couple of cars were waiting in the left-turn lane ahead of him, a U-Haul van and a VW bug. He slowed down to a crawl as he approached, the Suburban right behind him, clinging like a barnacle.
He had a choice to make: left or right.
He flicked on his right-turn signal, and the Suburban did the same. Suddenly, he jammed one foot down on the brakes while keeping the other foot on the gas pedal. His car rocked to a halt, its engine revving like crazy. As the Suburban slammed to a halt behind him, Danny cut the wheel hard left and floored the Honda’s accelerator, blasting through the intersection, through the red light, swerving around the U-Haul van, narrowly missing it.
The van honked and braked and skidded sideways. The VW bug, trailing too close behind it, clipped its rear bumper, sending both cars spinning into the center of the intersection. Danny saw this in his rearview mirror as he gunned it down the tree-lined road.
He took a quick right turn, so fast that he felt the tires on the left side nearly come off the road, narrowly averting a collision with a Subaru station wagon pulling out of a driveway. Two blocks more and he turned left, then another right.
Sirens were blaring, two police squad cars heading the other way—toward the accident, he assumed. The accident he’d caused. He glanced left, saw the pileup—and no Suburban. He’d left it behind. It was massive and ungainly and top-heavy, and a sharp turn might tip it over.
Meanwhile, Danny took advantage of the crucial few seconds of lead time to hang a left, once he was sure he was out of the Suburban’s sight. He’d entered a short road with two houses on either side that ended in a T. There he took a right. The houses here were small, pristine brick buildings, all the lawns neatly mowed. He went to the end of the next street and took the first left and immediately realized he’d entered a cul-de-sac. Not good. He didn’t want to get stuck. So he pulled into the first driveway he came to. A pink tricycle sat in the driveway, silver fringe hanging from its handlebars. A brightly colored play structure on a postage-stamp-size lawn. Someone pulled back the curtain in the front window.
He backed out down the street and went on to the next one.
He was on a main thoroughfare now, much more heavily trafficked. A jeweler, a travel agency, a RadioShack, a Chinese restaurant. Two more blocks and he’d hit Route 60, which would take him straight to Medford. He glanced at the rearview—
And his heart sank. There, turning onto the street, was a black Suburban. Gritting his teeth, Danny sped up and swung around into a narrow alley next to the Chinese restaurant. On the left side was a Dumpster, heaped with black trash bags. He cut the wheel and pulled up just past it, the Honda right up against the brick side wall.
Had they seen him make the turn? Would they be able to make out the car from the road? He’d pulled into a blind alley, a dead end. All he could do now was wait. Wait, and hope. He was fairly certain he couldn’t be seen from the street. He looked in the rearview mirror, watched and waited.
He was still holding his breath a minute later, when the Suburban came into view. It moved slowly, the sun glinting off its shiny black hood. Moving slowly enough that he could make out the crew cut driver, now wearing mirrored sunglasses.
No question about it. It was them.
He breathed out slowly. Took another breath. Waited.
The Suburban kept going. Drove right past.
He waited a few minutes longer, just to be sure. A scuffed steel door in the alley came open suddenly and a tired-looking middle-aged Chinese man emerged, jolting Danny. He spun, his fists up—and then he saw the man hurl a trash bag up into the Dumpster, and Danny started laughing, uncontrollably, with relief. The guy glanced in Danny’s direction, shook his head, and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.
Five minutes later, Danny pulled back onto the street.
Half an hour later, he arrived in Medford.
He pulled into a large dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. Signs on the fence said
NO TRESPASSERS
and
K
EEP OUT
. A sign at the entrance gate said
MEDFORD REGI
ONAL CONSTRUCTION &
ENGINEERING/EMPLOYEE
S ONLY/TRESPASSERS W
ILL BE PROSECUTED
.
The gate was open.