A Town Called Malice Read online

  “Is that what you do now, security work?”

  “Occasionally. For people who actually want real protection.”

  “As opposed to…”

  “The clowns who like having a couple of bookends three steps slow for the NFL beside them to attract attention, let everyone around know how important they are.” Solarte reaches inside her jacket, removes her wallet, and opens it to flash me what looks like a bona-fide private investigator’s license issued by the state of Massachusetts. I’m impressed. It has a state seal and everything and looks about as official as a badge from the now defunct Jack’s Joke Shop.

  “Why am I here, Ms. Solarte?”

  “Because I would like to hire you, Zesty.”

  “Only not as a messenger.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So what, then?”

  “It’s not often I can say this, but basically I’m overbooked and need an extra set of eyes for something I took on. Short-term surveillance while I wrap up another case.”

  “You don’t have someone on staff or someone you normally farm this sort of thing out to?”

  “You’re looking at my staff. And as for farming it out to a pro, well, I’d lose money on the deal.”

  “Why me?”

  “Come on, Zesty. Don’t be modest. For all the reasons you showed me already. You pay attention even when it seems you’re not. You see things others don’t.”

  Which is true, my years attending my father’s poker games tuning my senses to the little tells that everybody eventually gives off, allowing me to weed out the false signals and manufactured tics from the unintended obfuscations that complicate the read of every player.

  Ignore the words. I can still hear my father’s voice bouncing around inside my brain. How are they sitting? Breathing? The eyes alone are unreliable because too many people believe their own lies, construct their own truth. But it’s the rare man who can simultaneously keep the lie off the pulse in his throat, ears, hands, the slump and rise of his shoulders. And in return, show them nothing. The stillness of a corpse.

  Only how would Solarte even know to audition these attendant details unless she’d been talking to someone on the short list of people who know me that well? There’s Zero, of course, but he’s a closed book when it comes to sharing and would have reached out to let me know someone was asking questions. Homicide Detectives Wells and Brill also cross my mind, but they’re unlikely candidates for a job referral, considering I totally fucked their homicide investigation when McKenna hijacked Bad Santa’s sleigh back to town. Same goes for FBI Agent Wellington Lee, though he did eventually parlay the mayhem he’d jump-started into a promotion to Boston’s FBI regional director. Only Lee’s as tight-lipped as they come. So who does that leave?

  Darryl Jenkins.

  “Big deal,” I say. “So you’ve got friends in low places.”

  “Like you.” Solarte beams.

  “Those are the best kind,” I admit.

  “And see, there you go proving my point again. Come on, Zesty, you telling me you can’t use the money? I can afford you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t need the work?”

  “What do you know about it?” I say, ruminating on my predicament with Charlie. And though Martha was too selfless to mention it, her employment status is also hanging in the balance, as she is just as dependent on the volume of work coming in, taking a percentage of each run made on top of a salary that belongs to an earlier decade. If I can’t drum up business fast, there’s about to be some serious trickle-down poverty around these parts.

  “You really want me to answer that, Zesty? I’ve seen your tax returns. Don’t look so shocked, they’re not so hard to get.”

  “It’s not that,” I say. “I’m just surprised I file taxes.”

  “Yeah?” Solarte laughs. “Give your office girl a raise.”

  I just did, albeit with coffee beans.

  “What exactly is it you’re asking me to do, Ms. Solarte? I’ll admit I’ve got a touch of the voyeur in me, but snooping on cheating spouses, working for a bunch of crooks masquerading as insurance companies, doesn’t really appeal to me.”

  “Perfect, then. It’s not a divorce case or an insurance scam. I just need you to follow this man.” Solarte slides a couple of pictures from under the blotter on her desk toward me, two different angles on the same man, tan-dark in the first, almost clay red in the second, with a sharp V hairline and shoulder-length black hair tucked behind his ears. I’m guessing probably somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties, unusually tall for someone with such pronounced Aztec-like features, his head only clearing the doorway by a couple of inches. Black jeans. Dark turtleneck curled under his chin.

  “His name’s Martine Andino.” Solarte pauses, looks like she’s going to add something but doesn’t.

  “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  Ms. Solarte shrugs no clue. “I’d be shocked if it did. Only I don’t think that’s his real name.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Would you believe woman’s intuition?”

  “No offense, but no. Not on its own. There must’ve been something else. Hold on.” I pick up the pictures and look at them more closely. Behind Andino’s right shoulder is a corner of a framed print on a wall. Above him, thickly painted crown molding with different colors showing through chips and cracks.

  “These pictures were taken here,” I say. “You’ve also got a camera set up where, over the door in the waiting room?” I point up at the ceiling without looking. “To go along with the one above me in the center chandelier thingy? Feeds into your laptop?”

  “God, I’m such a solid judge of talent.” With her right hand Solarte reaches over her left shoulder and pats herself on the back.

  “Did this guy threaten you or something?”

  “No.” Solarte rears back in her seat. “And if he did, I wouldn’t involve you in the situation. Mr. Andino is tangentially involved in a pending case, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “So what’s with the pictures?”

  “Nothing. I take them of everybody. Facial recognition software’s come a long way lately, saves me the trouble of asking for IDs. Mr. Andino’s Arizona license was real enough, his Social Security number checked out, and he’s had no arrests or convictions attached to him. He’s not a danger to me or to you.”

  “But…,” I say.

  “He’s had some surgical procedures on his face. Really well done around the eyes, his mouth, expensive and skilled. Most people probably wouldn’t have picked it up.”

  Solarte is as polished at reading people as I am, developing those same skills for however long she was a cop. Probably a necessity if you didn’t get the answers you were looking for while beating suspects with a rubber hose.

  “You worried I’m asking you to do something dangerous, Zesty?” Solarte’s eyes twinkle in delight.

  “You’re joking, right? I make my living riding a bike in Boston.” Where signaling is a sign of weakness and red lights are poetry, meaning: open to interpretation. Helen Keller could get her license in Boston. Stevie Wonder could drive a bus for the T.

  “Do you do this often, Ms. Solarte?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Invite others to share in your invasion of their privacy. Offer work and money to unreliable people with violent and ethically questionable bloodlines?”

  Alianna Solarte stiffens, a spark of feral anger lighting her eyes, a small, almost blue scar on her cheek pulsing with a beat of its own, inadvertently revealing herself to me for the first time, like an accidental turn of a down card. My slight was intentional. Sometimes you have to poke at people’s core to get a real look.

  “I know this office doesn’t look like much, Zesty, but the location can’t be beat and, like you, I’ve got bills to pay. It’s work, plain and simple. If you don’t like what I do, if your conscience is somehow offended, there’s the door. I’ll watch you leave on my laptop, make
sure you don’t steal a painting on the way out.”

  “Basic surveillance,” I say, smiling. I don’t know why, but it feels good to be dressed down by someone other than Martha for a change. I definitely need more women in my life.

  “Just surveillance.” Solarte’s anger drains as quickly as it arrived; maybe she’s even a little embarrassed she showed me that much of herself. “I’m just looking for eyes, take a few pictures, make a few dollars.…”

  “Why not,” I say, before it occurs to me I should probably ask what the case involves.

  “Now that, Zesty,” Alianna Solarte points at me, “I’m not at liberty to discuss in detail, seeing as you’re not officially an employee nor are you licensed by the fine state of Massachusetts. But like I said already, no cheating spouses, no insurance; your ethics intact at least for another day. What I’m asking you to do is pretty simple, just some straight-up surveillance while I close out this other thing I’ve got going. Listen, you don’t like what you see, get bored, spooked, I’ll pay you for your time and you can wash your hands of it. All you have to do is let me know where Mr. Andino goes, what he does, take a few pictures, pocket a few bucks. Hell, maybe you’ll enjoy the work, learn some new skills. Come on, Zesty. What do you say? I mean, what have you got to lose?”

  FOUR

  “Come to headquarters,” Wells had said when I’d spoken to him from my office, the detective multitasking poorly, the phone scraping hard on his perfectly manicured beard, an off-kilter tapping at a computer in the background. I’ve witnessed Wells typing before: all his fingers in motion brushing the keyboard, a diversionary cover for the fact that he uses only the two middle fingers of each hand to actually punch the keys.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I could feel the added heft of the gun in my pack and shifted it lightly to the side. I’ve been described as reckless, but even I wasn’t dumb enough to walk into the shiny new Boston Police headquarters strapped.

  “Why not?” Wells inquired, the phone thumping to the desk before being picked up again. “The coffee’s free.”

  “I’ve had your coffee before,” I reminded the detective.

  “True, but you were a suspect then. We poured it from a different pot.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Meet me at the Buttery in the South End. Corner of Shawmut and Union Park.”

  “I know where it is.” Wells sounded annoyed. “You buying? That place is so expensive, instead of an ATM they got a guy named Vinny in residence offering loans from a corner table.”

  “Cry me a river. Don’t they give you expense accounts for these types of meets?”

  “You mean like for CIs? Why, you got somebody you want to snitch on?” Wells banking subtlety for a rainy day, angling toward Zero, who owns Zen Movers, a company staffed by a wide array of ex-cons Wells had once noted carried rap sheets so long they could double as packing paper.

  He wasn’t wrong, but Zero was a believer in second chances—he’d been given one himself when my parents adopted him off the streets—and there weren’t many places that would hire somebody with a criminal record even if they were ready to turn the page on their past. And anyhow, if a man did happen to slip up, unable to resist his recidivist nature—the Safe Whisperer, the Mario Andretti of getaway drivers—well, Zero found a use for him as well. And for this, Zero engendered loyalty in his crew, a diamond-rare quality among thieves and hard cases.

  In the past when I’ve been strapped for cash or fell behind in my bills I would jump in on one of Zero’s bandit moving crews for some extra work. Only it’s been a while, my body not quite ready for the awkward rigors of moving, too many twisting stairs in the older Boston buildings and triple-deckers, far too many unbalanced weights and impossible turns in narrow hallways built to accommodate smaller, less-well-fed populations.

  “Buttery or nothing,” I held firm. “I’ve got other things to do.”

  “As do I. So let’s make it in a couple of hours, then. It’ll give me time to hock my watch so I can afford you.”

  FIVE

  South End Buttery in Union Park still sports its original pressed-tin ceiling with the world’s tiniest tables and most uncomfortable chairs outside, but if you can withstand the discomfort, it offers a pleasant view of Union Square Park, turn-of-the-century brownstones with wide stoops and flowering vines, and a parade of beautiful people sauntering by like they’d cornered the market on all the leisure time in the world.

  Wells has added a real fedora to his outfit today, looking every bit the modern Philip Marlowe if Marlowe had sported a two-hundred-dollar haircut, a suit cut by laser beams, and dark cherry boots polished on the wings of an angel. There is a guy sitting at a corner table wearing a leather jacket with slicked-back hair, but he doesn’t seem to be doling out money or negotiating terms of the vig.

  “I guess you’re buying,” I say to Wells, who gets a lot of attention at the counter, furtive glances and direct come-on smiles from the entire afternoon shift. Though I live near the bakery, my budget doesn’t afford frequent visits, so I order a chocolate croissant and the largest coffee they have. If I’d spotted a more expensive pastry, I would have ordered that instead.

  “Is it my imagination,” I say, sniffing at Wells as we seat ourselves in the sunshine, “or do you still smell like ashes?”

  Wells sips his black coffee and looks at me over the rim of his ceramic mug. I took my coffee to go in a paper cup. That about sums up the difference between us.

  “It’s always such a pleasure to see you, Zesty.”

  “Hey, you called me.”

  “Remind me why.”

  “You didn’t say. Only I’ve got nothing to add to last night if that’s why we’re here. Honestly, I just came for the free food. Where’s Brill? You guys have a falling-out or something?”

  “Every day. Keeps us sharp.”

  That, they were. Cutting into each other the wrong way, the yin to the other’s yang, one detective always finishing the other’s sentences. Only never with the right words.

  Detective Wells is the Theo Epstein of the Homicide Division, the poster child of a newer, shinier Boston. Gold shield by thirty. Fine threads, analytics, and instinct, working angles nobody else sees. Brill is his opposite: an aspiring cynic and grouchy old-school, old-dog detective, one foot squarely planted in the Smithsonian display case. If opposites attract, then Brill and Wells collide.

  “So really.” Wells sets his cup down, smiles at next year’s runway sensation as she sashays by. Returns her smile, I should say. “You’ve got nothing to add to last night?”

  “Nada. And you know I was inside when they shot up the door.”

  “The door wasn’t shot up. A rock broke the glass.”

  Some men, like Wells, are born for what they do, their calling probably having come to them at an early age. Which makes him the polar opposite of most everybody I spend time with in the messenger and moving worlds, jobs populated by people who have stumbled along the path of least resistance with little planning for what the future might hold. It isn’t just the clothes and the hair that make Wells unique, it’s his commitment to the mission, to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Wells had run CSI Roadkill as a kid.

  “I misspoke. Also when the Molotov cocktail exploded. I’d say you and your date were pretty lucky not to get burned.”

  Wells nods but says, “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Really? You tell that to her little black dress and high heels?”

  “And anyhow,” Wells ignores my words. He’s good at that, which only comes from practice. “It wasn’t luck, either, not really. According to Boston Fire, based on how long the sidewalk burned, that bottle bomb was practically empty.”

  “You were targeted by the city’s stingiest hitmen?” I say, screwing up my face. “Saved by OPEC?”

  “Possibly. Or it could just be a matter of coincidence, wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Could it have been a warning?
”

  “Now what makes you say that?” Wells feigns indifference, making a show of clocking the steady traffic of well-dressed men and women shuffling in and out of the Buttery, half of them commuting all the way to their phones to move money around, buy low, sell high; what the fuck do these people do that affords them this lifestyle?

  “Those articles your nondate wrote must have made some heavy hitters pretty unhappy,” I say, even though it’s been nearly six months since those stories ran. And anyhow, I’d think Boston crews know better than to go after reporters, bring that type of heat down. And that goes double for targeting cops. “What about one of her more recent pieces?”

  “You have one in mind?”

  I do.

  Tehran had written a series of articles that brought to light the volume of foreign nationals, mostly Eastern Europeans, purchasing astronomically priced real estate in the city: entire floors of luxury buildings still under construction on the new seaport and downtown and a number of high-end condos in Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. While the purchases themselves were legal, the creation of shell companies that moved the money and paid for the condos—always in cash—obscured the true ownership of these properties and the source of the money. Tehran had managed to chip away through the layers of some of these shell companies and named names—many of them claiming dubious sources of income from overseas, a number with ties to corrupt foreign regimes or Eastern European organized crime figures.

  Essentially, what Anitra Tehran had exposed was a perfect way to launder money: Funnel it into a safe investment that was likely to turn a profit down the line as it rode the wave of a Boston real estate boom that looked to have no end.

  Wells laughs when I run my theory by him.

  “What, you think the Boston Realty Association took a hit out on Ms. Tehran because she wrote a few pieces about shady real estate deals?”

  “Molotov cocktail,” I remind Wells.

  “And Nick’s Comedy serves Stoli. How did I miss that connection?” Wells bops himself with the heel of his hand and rolls his eyes before something sharper comes into them.