Back Bay (64 page)

Rule had known from the day he first heard Phil Cawley’s gravel voice that he would use their own legend, their own greed, to avenge himself on the Pratts. He had engineered everything to that end.

Now, Rule had few options but to wait. If Hannaford’s plan succeeded, he might be able to turn back the Pratts, whether they found the tea set or not. And there was always the possibility that the tea set wasn’t there, that it had been dug up inadvertently by some construction crew and dumped where no one would ever find it. But Rule was certain of one thing: he could not kill anyone else. He laughed to himself, at himself. He had worked so hard, and now it was out of his control.

Tom and Danny Fallon spent a hot, busy afternoon. They had to prepare for the night’s work while the others lay low in Danny’s basement. The police were still interested in questioning Peter, and Ferguson figured that, although Soames and his men would be at the church, they might still try to monitor the Fallons. Peter, Evangeline, and Ferguson sat in front of the television set, watched the Red Sox, and waited.

Danny had to place several telephone calls, through a complicated network of cover men, before he found the man he needed. He arranged a deal, then drove to Chelsea and purchased fourteen sticks of dynamite. Danny Fallon had a state dynamiter’s license. After tonight, he would probably lose it. He hoped that after tonight he would never need it again.

When he returned, he and his father readied the tools they would need, and they removed three fuses from the electrical box on the pick-up truck. They didn’t want tail lights, brake lights, or back-up lights tonight.

At ten-thirty, Bennett Soames was sitting in the basement seminar room of the New Old South Church. The rehabilitation meeting was open to anyone who had a drug problem, and Soames, seated among former heroin users and pill takers, was describing his addiction to amphetamines. Outside, his men waited.

In the house at Commonwealth and Clarendon, Philip Pratt finished a ham and cheese omelette and a cup of coffee. He wasn’t hungry. His stomach felt like a clenched fist. He didn’t want to go back to the church. He wanted to leave tonight on the
Gay Head IV
. But he had conceived this scheme. He had to see it through. He had a responsibility to himself and his heritage. He had to do what he could to hold on, even if he no longer cared.

Calvin and Isabelle were eating with him in the second-floor living room. Philip was wearing jeans, deck shoes, and a dark jersey.

“We should be getting over there,” said Calvin.

“You should be going home,” answered Philip. “We have enough men to dig, and if we all end up in jail, we’ll need a good lawyer to get us out.”

“I’ve been involved from the beginning,” said Calvin.

“There’s no need for two Pratts to dirty their hands. Go home and stay by the telephone.”

Isabelle went downstairs with Philip. At the door, she touched his cheek. “Good luck.”

“In a way, I hope it isn’t there,” he said.

“It will be. You’ll find it. You have to find it.”

“I’d rather sail to Hawaii free of responsibilities. Are you still interested in serving before the mast?”

“I won’t be here when you come back, Philip. No matter what happens, we can’t stay together.”

She had been thinking about his offer all day, but she hadn’t known what her response would be when she walked him to the door. Now, she faced their reality. “We’ve given each other strength. Let’s leave it at that.”

He kissed her on the forehead.

“Be careful, Philip.”

He stepped outside. He knew she was right. The clenched fist in his stomach tried to punch its way out of him. He started up Commonwealth Avenue. His pace quickened. His steps became pronounced, angry. He knew that he wouldn’t be sailing anywhere with anyone. He had to find the tea set. Pratt Industries was his life.

At eleven-thirty, the drug-rehabilitation seminar ended. On his way out, Bennett Soames slipped into a restroom. He had little problem defusing the alarm system from inside the church, and at midnight, he opened the door. The entrance to 645B Boylston Street was at basement level. A flight of stone steps led up to the street, where Pratt, Harrison, and the others were waiting for him.

By twelve-fifteen, the Hilti electric hammers were cutting into the floor in the seminar room.

On Huntington Avenue, the trolley tracks ran down the middle of the street on a gravel-and-stone roadbed, and automobile traffic traveled on either side. The last inbound trolley stopped in front of the Museum of Fine Arts at twelve-thirty. Huntington Avenue was nearly deserted.

Evangeline Carrington was waiting to board. She was wearing
jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. The doors flipped open and she put her foot on the first step. “Is this the Green Line?”

“The trolley’s green, ain’t it?” said the driver, a heavy Irishman interested only in finishing his run and going home for a beer.

“Forest Hills to Park Street?” she asked.

He nodded. “And I’m goin’ to Park.”

The pick-up truck shot out from a side street. It pulled onto the vehicle crossing about a block behind the trolley and backed down the tracks, its tires slamming over the railroad ties.

“Can I change at Park Street for Harvard Square?” asked Evangeline.

“Not if you don’t get on real quicklike.”

Evangeline glanced down the track. The truck was backed up to the rear of the trolley. Peter and Danny were dropping the tailgate. They needed more time.

“Do you make change?” she asked.

“Lady, if you don’t have the right change, you can ride for nothin’. Just get on.”

She looked down the track again. The railcart rolled off the truck and onto the tracks.

“You don’t get on, lady, I’m gonna close the door right on your pretty leg and drag you to Park Street.”

As Evangeline stepped onto the trolley, Jack Ferguson came running out of the darkness with a big shopping bag under each arm. “Hey, wait a minute! Wait!”

“Oh, wait,” said Evangeline. “There’s another man coming.”

“I see him.” The driver cursed to himself and kept the doors open.

Evangeline knew that although the railcart would ride close to the tracks, the cab of the pick-up was level with the trolley’s back window. She looked behind her. The light inside the trolley was bright enough that she couldn’t see into the darkness outside.

Ferguson stepped onto the trolley and dropped one of the shopping bags. He stepped off and picked up the packages that had tumbled out. The driver looked at his watch and glared at Ferguson, but Ferguson didn’t need to stall any longer. Peter Fallon gave him thumbs up, and Ferguson climbed onto the trolley.

“Be careful,” said Tom Fallon to his sons. “I’ll be at the ventilator between Auditorium and Copley.”

The trolley began to move. The railcart coupler engaged. The driver sensed a brief hesitation, but the trolley kicked ahead and the Fallons were on their way.

Tom Fallon pulled his truck off the tracks and watched the trolley rattle past Northeastern University. He was helping them do something dangerous and crazy. But he was helping them. He threw the truck in gear and headed for Boylston Street.

Peter and Danny Fallon held tight to the handles on either side of the railcart, which the Fallons used to transport equipment when they did a masonry job in the subway. Tonight, the Fallons were carrying a gasoline generator, two powerful electric drills for boring holes in concrete, picks and shovels, a set of high-quartz work lights, plywood and planks to support a tunnel, hardhats, fourteen sticks of dynamite, a detonator, and blasting caps. They were also carrying five heavy steel fire doors; Tom Fallon had picked them up on a demolition job and thought they might make good protection against the force of the explosion.

After another stop on Huntington Avenue, the trolley descended into the ground. The breeze turned hot and humid, and the metallic whisk of the trolley across the surface tracks became a deafening roar in the tunnel. Blue fluorescent lights flipped past like pulses from a strobe.

Peter looked at Danny. “Scared?”

Danny nodded and yelled over the roar, “Shitless.”

“Wanna turn back?”

“No way.”

“Me neither.” Peter smiled.

There were four other passengers in the trolley. An old woman sat directly behind the driver and read a tabloid. A teen-age couple clung to each other about halfway down the car. A drunk kept falling asleep and waking up, his head bouncing around as though it were on a spring. All were oblivious to their surroundings.

Evangeline sat in the rear seat. She was excited. She was almost happy. She had never believed she would come this far, but she knew that tonight, it would end. She only hoped that tomorrow, she and Peter would find something more to keep them together.

Jack Ferguson sat a few seats away and stared at his reflection in the window. He barely recognized the face. Years of drinking, searching, and running in fear had made him look old and haggard. But tonight, it would all be worthwhile, and tomorrow, he could begin again.

The trolley stopped at Symphony Station, where the coin booth was not visible from the platform. Peter looked around at the peeling paint on the tunnel walls and realized that he was under the ground of what had once been Gravelly Point. He imagined Horace Taylor Pratt poking his cane into the mud at the edge of the Back Bay. He wondered what Pratt would think if he saw this world today.

The trolley lurched ahead again. Fallon felt a jolt of adrenaline turn his stomach over like an engine. He grabbed the sides of the cart. He felt the strength in his hands and arms. He realized the clarity with which he saw everything around him, even in the half-light of the tunnel. He looked up. Through the back window of the trolley, he saw Evangeline looking down at him. He saw one of her gold earrings catch a reflection. She was beautiful. He waved—a short, confident motion, like a salute.

Philip Pratt had his fingers in his ears. The sound of the electric hammers was deafening. But the fingers didn’t help. Every time one of the hammers bit into the floor, the vibrations sent shock waves through his feet and up his spinal cord. He wondered why the noise didn’t seem to bother Soames, who watched impassively as Buckley and Harrison operated the hammers.

Soames was wondering about other things. He didn’t expect any trouble from Rule. He knew that Rule could not afford more overt violence. But he wasn’t certain about Fallon and Ferguson. He did not believe that they would give up so easily. For a moment, both electric hammers stopped clattering, and Soames heard the last outbound trolley rumble through the tunnel below. He wondered if they might come in through the subway. They could never cut through two feet of concrete in time.

As the trolley rolled into Prudential Station, beneath the Prudential Center, Peter Fallon looked toward the change booth. At this
stop, the booth had a clear view of the tracks. But Fallon wasn’t worried. At the moment, he believed he could make himself invisible if he had to. He knew instinctively that they would make it through.

The man in the change booth was counting his money and paying no attention to the platform. Evangeline and Ferguson got off the trolley.

“I thought you wanted Park Street,” said the driver.

“I think I’ll walk,” answered Evangeline.

The doors slammed shut and the trolley pulled away. Evangeline and Ferguson waved as the railcart rattled past. The Fallons looked like a pair of MBTA employees on their way to a repair job in the tunnel. Ferguson looked toward the change booth. The man inside was still preoccupied, and there was no one else on the platform. Ferguson and Evangeline stepped onto the tracks and followed the trolley into the tunnel.

On its last run, the trolley was hitting close to fifty miles an hour. Peter and Danny were both on their knees holding tight to the railcart handles. If not for the ballast of the heavy steel doors, the railcart might have bounced off the tracks.

Peter looked at Danny and hollered, “Now?”

Danny nodded.

Peter let go of the handle and crawled to the front of the railcart. He reached forward and pulled the coupling pin. It came out smoothly, and the cart cut loose.

The driver felt the trolley speed up, although his foot was steady on the accelerator. He reminded himself to make a report.

The cart rolled to a stop, and the trolley spurted on to Copley Station.

“Beautiful,” said Danny. “Beautiful.”

They jumped off the cart and pushed it to the crossover their father had told them they’d find about halfway down the tunnel. They rolled the cart from the inbound onto the outbound track and sat down to wait. The trolley pulled away from Copley Station, a quarter mile down the tracks, and was swallowed by the concrete tube. Except for the sound of Evangeline and Ferguson running down the tracks to join them, the tunnel was silent.

William Rule sat on his balcony and sipped iced tea. His wife had gone to bed. Edward was reading in his room. Lawrence Hannaford had not yet called. William Rule did not ordinarily mind being alone, but tonight he felt very lonely.

He lifted his toupee and wiped the perspiration from the top of his head. The weatherman had predicted a cold front tonight. Rule hoped it came soon.

By one-thirty, the hole in the church basement was three feet deep. Buckley was watching the door. Harrison was resting. Soames and Dill were digging.

Dill stopped and leaned on his shovel. “I’ve been digging for an hour. I need a break.”

Soames took the shovel and handed it to Pratt. “I think it’s time you dirtied your hands for the cause, Mr. Pratt.”

Pratt took the shovel willingly, but he sensed an edge of bitterness in Soames’s voice. He did not like it.

At two
A.M
., the clean-up crew finished work in Copley Square Station. Now, the Fallons could start. Danny threw his cigarette onto the tracks. Ferguson pulled a pint bottle of whiskey from his pocket.

“I thought you were on the wagon,” said Peter.

“I am. But if I have to be doin’ any shootin’, I don’t want a case of the shakes.” He took one gulp, recapped the bottle, and put it back in his pocket. “I had one belt before I got on the trolley, one belt now. When I see that tea set, I’ll take one more belt and drop the rest of this booze in a sewer.” He knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but it sounded good.