I awoke four hours later thinking thoughts that were way too complex.
Foremost among them were the images of Samantha Stevens meeting me at the airport, Samantha Stevens alone knowing that my car was at Kinkead's, Samantha Stevens jumping in a taxicab before I could even offer her a ride home. She was the only person in any way connected to the assassination attempt or the resulting investigation who had monitored my whereabouts in the hours before the explosion. Not good.
I thought of my anonymous source, the grotesque way in which he was forced to die, all because of his mission of truth. I felt as if I had known him, even if we had never actually met. And now he was gone, and with him so much of the information I so desperately needed, now more than ever.
Of course I thought of Havlicek, fighting for the story right to the end, happy with his lot in life, confident that things would always get better, that the truth just lay a day or two away. I questioned whether I could push onward in this story without him or whether it was time to abandon my efforts, then dismissed that latter thought as unworthy of another second's consideration.
Then I thought of Kent Drinker, so desperate for the last week-plus to learn the identity and location of the person who had called me in the hospital that first day. And a few hours ago, I found that person murdered, just after someone had failed to murder me.
It's a different Tony Clawson. And it's his background that's so interesting and so potentially devastating, especially to my agency.
I played Drinker's strange words out in my mind as I showered and readied for the day. I was exhausted. My head hurt from the cut, my ribs throbbed from last week's shooting. My life had become a life-or-death obstacle course, and right now, I was racing down the homestretch, toward the hopeful confluence of Election Day and some truthful answers about this assassination attempt.
Pink and powdered, I sat down in the fluffy terrycloth robe-had no fresh clothes-and called downstairs for a laptop computer with Internet access. A few minutes later, a solicitous bellman delivered it to my door.
I settled in at the computer to conduct a cyberspace manhunt. First I checked Social Security Administration records, on-line, for all Tony Clawsons in the country in the last twenty years. For each one I found, I checked for current telephone numbers. If they didn't have a phone number, I checked for death records. If they didn't have a phone number or a death record, I checked for a credit report to see if there was recent activity. It was a frustrating, tedious endeavor, the type of pick-and-shovel work that outsiders assume we layabout reporters have someone else on staff to do.
On about the fifteenth Tony Clawson, this one out in the suburbs of Chicago, I could find nothing-no death record, no phone number, no credit activity. I checked for marriage records. Nothing. I checked, most interestingly, for a birth record, and again, nothing.
I went deeper into his Social Security history and saw that he hadn't been assigned a Social Security number until 1979, when he was listed as forty years old. That was unusual, though not definitive. With every stroke of the key, I learned more, and as I learned more, my pulse quickened to the point of excitement. Clawson, my computer told me, began paying into the system in 1979, and continued for nine years.
Sometime in late 1988, he had abruptly stopped paying in.
More keystrokes, more information. Social Security never paid out a death benefit to any Clawson survivors. Clawson didn't appear to have been drawing unemployment payments. There was no mortgage information, no credit activity, nothing. In 1988 Tony Clawson of Rosemont, Illinois, ceased to exist.
This was, of course, interesting because in 1979 Curtis Black had ceased to exist, the year Tony Clawson took shape. Best as I could tell, I felt fairly certain that Curtis Black became Tony Clawson in the witness protection program in 1979, and these records seemed to bear that out. Interesting, though, that Clawson himself then disappeared from sight in 1988. Drinker had implied in my dog park that it was this Clawson who had resurfaced out at Congressional with a gun and a mission. The cryptic words of Diego Rodriguez popped into my mind. Sometimes people change, and it's tough to keep up with them.
So this is what he meant. But one question still lingered, one very important question: Why?
I was still stuck in the realm of supposition, trying to peer over the wall into the world of actual facts, but with little luck. My gut feeling told me that the truth behind the assassination attempt would say something about this president, something we didn't already know, something he didn't want us to know. I now had just one day to get that into the newspaper, and I was starting to realize what an impossible feat that would be. Maybe Havlicek and I could do it together. But not me alone. Not alone.
The ringing phone crashed through my thoughts.
"I've got two engineers in the lobby," Martin told me, skipping anything in the way of an introduction. "They're going to set up separate phone and fax lines in your room that match your office phone, so you'll get all incoming calls. The phones will also be untraceable, so you can make calls.
"I've also got a pair of security guards standing by the elevator and the stairway on your floor, so no one will have access to your room.
I've put down an untraceable credit card to hold your room for as long as you need it."
Hats off to Martin. He was bringing order to chaos, and he didn't even question the rack rate.
"Now tell me what you know. What the hell is going on here?"
"Are you on a secure line?" I asked.
"Affirmative," he said, starting to talk like he really was in a movie.
"I've had the office phones swept for bugs every day for the last week."
So I walked him through the bombing scene and aftermath. I told him about making a tentative match between Clawson and Black on the computer. I finished with the part about finding Stemple dead in his bathtub and hearing his voice-the voice of my secret informant-greet callers on his answering tape.
"Jesus Christ," he said. "Havlicek's dead. You're in grave danger, and we don't even have a publishable story explaining why."
Someone knocked at my door. "Hold on a second," I told Martin.
I yelled out, "Who's there?"
"Phone engineers."
I opened it with the safety chain still fastened like they do in the movies and said, "You have ID?" The first man showed me a badge, and I let him in.
As they set up a telephone and fax, I asked Martin, "Did we get news of the explosion into the final edition?"
"No," he said. "It happened too late. We led with election stuff-the candidates making contrasting proposals on gun control. We had a poll on the front showing Hutchins up six points, just beyond the margin of error."
He paused, then added, "The FBI has called this morning, looking for you. They want to question you about last night. They said you left the scene of the bombing, and they were unable to find you."
Damned right I left the scene. My mind flashed again to Stevens at Kinkead's, to Drinker's inquisition about my source, and then to Stemple in the bathtub. "No way," I said.
"I already told them that," Martin replied. "I told them it was our responsibility now to assure your safety. They said something about filing criminal charges against you and me for suppressing evidence. I told them to go right ahead."
Give Martin credit. He was as far afield as a Washington bureau chief could be from the typical rigors of Supreme Court decisions, Senate committee votes, and election maneuverings. But here he was, handling it like a white-collar Clint Eastwood.
"I need some new clothes," I said.
"I'll be there within an hour," Martin said. "I just have to make sure I'm not followed. Stay put until then."
He hung up, the engineers left, and my office line immediately started ringing with requests for interviews, which I didn't grant.
My first call was to Stevens, and was something of a test. When she picked up the phone, I blurted out, "You'll live with Havlicek's blood on your soul for the rest of your life." I hung up before she could reply. It felt good, even if it didn't accomplish anything.
My next call was to Drinker. I took a softer, more pragmatic tack, recalling that he had been seeking to be my new ally. I also didn't want to give up the fact that I knew Stemple was dead. I assumed that he did.
"I'm sorry about your colleague," he said. "That's just awful. We have some agents here who are looking to collect some information from you."
"I'll get around to that," I said. "First, though, let me run something past you. It's my understanding that Tony Clawson used to go under the name of Curtis Black. Curtis Black used to be an armored car robber in Massachusetts, before he entered the federal witness protection program in the late 1970's. Is this something you can guide me on?"
There was a lengthy silence between us, except for the occasional sound of him snapping his tongue in that bothersome way that some people do.
In a very careful, measured tone, he said, "If this is what your information is telling you, I am unable to dispute what you've found."
I rolled my eyes to myself at his lapse into officialese. "Look, I need more than that right now. I need confidence that I'm doing the right thing. What you're saying, or the way you're saying it, doesn't help me get this into print."
Another long silence, though no tongue snapping.
Then, carefully, Drinker said, "If this is what you've found, then you understand the embarrassment of this agency. You understand why the director wanted to offer up a different photo of Tony Clawson as the suspect, to be honest yet vague at the same time. You understand that it wouldn't reflect well on the FBI to have a former federal witness who lived for a while with a government subsidy and government protection then become an attempted assassin, rather than spend a lengthy stretch of time in jail."
were the pieces falling into place at last? I asked, "And the motive for the shooting?"
Yet another long silence. "That, I truly don't know," he said. "And the only guy who can actually answer that is still in a Maryland morgue."
I said, "I need to use you as a source, identified only as an official familiar with the investigation. I need that official to say that Clawson and Black are the same guy."
I know that his word would probably not be enough on which to pin a story of this gravity, but it's always good to line up your options.
"Can't," he said, with less hesitation than before. "That'd cost me my job. But give me a while to think of another way."
"Well, that other way better come damned quick. My colleague is dead, and I'm turning into a loose fucking cannon. No telling what I may put into the paper."
"Where are you?" Drinker asked.
"No way," I said.
"You have a fax number?"
I gave it to him, and we hung up. For every question, there needs to be an answer, but for every answer, there always seems to be a new question. And sooner or later, sometimes you just run out of facts, and if not facts, then time.
Five minutes later, my facsmile machine kicked to life. A one-page document rolled out, stamped "Top Secret" about two-thirds of the way up the page, just beneath a letterhead for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice. My eyes raced down the page to see the name Curtis Black, along with his last known address in 1979, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Beneath Curtis Black was the name Tony Clawson, with an address in Springvale, Illinois, and the year 1979.
At the bottom of the page were the words "Identity transition, csto US
Marshals Service."
Obviously Drinker had thought this through pretty damned quickly. I read the document over again. It was glorious in its simplicity. As a rule, you usually have to wade through cartons and sheaves of official papers to come across a jewel like this, and often you risk missing it.
This time it was laid out on a platter, direct and easy to understand.
Before I could even step inside, the telephone rang. It was Drinker.
"That going to help you?" he asked.
"It will help, but it doesn't give me everything I need," I answered, not wanting to betray too much appreciation. Never leave facts on the table when reporting a story.
A familiar tone of frustration, even disdain, filled Drinker's voice.
"This lays it right out for you. What the hell else is there?"
I said, "Well, first of all, the last official statement from the FBI was an agreement that Tony Clawson was not, in fact, the shooter. I have no one from your agency saying he was, on the record or on background. Second, I have no motive. Third, I have a loose end left to tie up, a guy named Paul Stemple." I threw that last name out at him to gauge a reaction, to try to figure out just how strong an ally he might be.
There was a long silence again before he spoke. "One, you ask the agency, they will have to tell you that Clawson is still a suspect.
Two, you don't need a fucking"-his voice sounded especially tight here-"motive in court. You shouldn't need a fucking motive in the newspaper. Who the hell knows what Black was doing? He was probably doing this for the money. Third, I don't know who or what Paul Stemple is, but he doesn't have anything to do with our case."
I looked over the document again as we talked. It was a beauty. Even the printing was all so neat and clean, the paper crisp. "I'll call you later," I said.
"You either run with this, or I'll go to another paper with it," he seethed. "And this is the last damned bit of help you'll ever get out of me."
The Stemple mention, I'll admit, seemed to shake him up. It may not have been the wisest strategy maneuver on my part-a fear that was fulfilled about forty minutes later. As I carefully tried to readjust the bandage on the cut on my head, my phone rang again. It was Martin, skipping any niceties, telling me in no uncertain words to turn the television to CNN. So I did.
On the screen, a weekend anchor with pouty lips and eyes the size of footballs was just saying, "So we'll go live now to Washington and hear this surprising new development on that car bomb explosion this morning straight from the FBI." The picture flipped to a press conference at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Drinker was at the podium, looking frazzled. There were a couple of agents behind him wearing badges from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
"I'll read a short statement, then take just a few questions," Drinker said, gruffly. "At approximately one A.m. today, a car carrying Steven Havlicek, a reporter with the Boston Record, exploded on the 1300 block of Twenty-eighth Street in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.c. Mr. Havlicek was killed in the explosion. The owner of the car, Jack Flynn, also a reporter with the Boston Record, was nearby at the time and sustained minor injuries in the explosion that were treated at the scene.
"At this time, the FBI, in conjunction with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Washington, D.c. police, have determined that an explosive device was hooked up to the engine of Mr. Flynn's automobile, a Honda Accord, and was timed to ignite several minutes after the automobile's engine started running."
Drinker paused for a while at the podium. Even on television, you could hear the constant flap of camera shutters and see the never-ending flashing of bulbs.
Drinker continued, his face looking grim, "In answer to your anticipated questions on whether we have any suspects, at this time, we don't. But I would like to say that in light of this being Mr.
Flynn's automobile that was specifically targeted in this explosion, we are reviewing our own investigation into the shooting on October 26 at Congressional Country Club. So far we have been investigating that shooting as an assassination attempt on the president of the United States. We are now going to review our investigation to determine if Mr. Flynn may have been the intended target in that shooting, as in this explosion, and President Hutchins an unintended victim."
I could hear the audible, collective gasp of my reporter brethren in the room, and trust me when I tell you, reporters don't gasp easily.
For that matter, from my hotel room, I could just about hear Peter Martin's jaw drop in our office several blocks away. I could hear Appleton's blood begin to boil in anger and fear that the paper was about to be humiliated on a national stage.
A reporter asked, "Have you learned anything about Jack Flynn's private life that would make you suspicious of such an attack?"
Drinker: "Not definitively, but we are pursuing leads and several lines of inquiry." Not with me, he wasn't. The jackass hadn't even given me the courtesy of a heads-up when we were on the telephone. One minute he was all over my case, the next minute he was leaking me sensitive documents. I didn't know what to think.
A New York Times reporter asked what I regarded as the most obvious question of all: "Since Mr. Flynn"-that's how they talk at the Times-"was one of the most active reporters in Washington investigating the unsolved shooting of President Hutchins, might that not make him a natural target in this explosion for anyone who fears he is getting too close to the truth?"
Drinker replied, "That is, of course, one explanation, and we are continuing to look at that possibility. However, I would caution that the attempted assassin is dead. And though we initially investigated the Congressional shooting as a possible conspiracy, we do not have definitive evidence that is the case. So the question remains, under that scenario, who alive would try to kill Mr. Flynn?"
Sitting there on the edge of my bed in the Jefferson Hotel, I felt as if I was watching my life flash before my eyes, or more accurately, collapse beneath my feet. If Drinker had suddenly decided to render me obsolete because I wasn't buying whole hog into his Black/clawson scenario, this was a clever, almost brilliant maneuver to do just that.
By making me part of the game, he was effectively excluding me from it, at least as far as my ability to investigate and report news was concerned.
I looked at my telephone, anticipating that it was about to ring, but it stayed silent. In exasperation, I punched out Martin's number at the bureau but got no answer. Likewise, I got his voice mail at home.
About two minutes later, there was a knock on my door. At least I knew it wasn't Drinker. He was killing me in different ways. I yelled out,
"Who is it?"
"It's Peter."
I pulled the door open, and in the hallway before me stood Peter Martin and Bob Appleton, the editor in chief of the Boston Record. What, Appleton fly down from Boston on the Concorde? From the fact that they were here, rather than on the telephone, from the look on their faces, from the nasal sound of Martin's voice, I knew this conversation would not be one that I appreciated.
"Boys," I said, as frazzled as I've ever been in my life, every one of my senses screaming for a break, "good to see you."
They came in and settled in my sitting area. We made the appropriate small talk, discussing Havlicek and his wife and the explosion itself and the tidal wave of coverage that was following it.
It was Martin who steered us to the point of their visit. "Jack," he began, "Bob and I have been discussing the events. Bob's worried, and I have to say I agree with him, that with the FBI'S theory that you may be a repeated target of some killer, you should not be putting yourself at personal risk any longer by staying on this story."
I had figured this was on the cards. All you have to do is look at the undistinguished career of Bob Appleton, the very definition of a mediocre newspaperman who got to the top by playing it safe, to know this was coming.
"Well," I said, slowly, letting it sink in, "suppose I wasn't the target of a killer at Congressional. Suppose we just side with logic and assume that was a presidential assassin at work. Then let's follow that line of logic and assume that since we were the lead newspaper in the nation covering that assassination attempt, that someone tried to kill us because they didn't like what we were reporting."
I let that sit out there for a minute so even someone like Bob Appleton could understand it. He started to say something, but I cut him off.
"This is the most logical scenario. Anyone with a brain knows that.
You heard the New York Times reporter ask that question today. If this is the case, by pulling me off the story, you are in effect surrendering to whoever killed Havlicek out there today."
Another pause, and then, in a daring tone, "That really what you want to do?"
There was silence in the room. It should have felt clubby, three guys, successful newsmen, memorializing a colleague who had died and plotting their next move on the biggest story since Watergate. Instead, the feeling, within me, anyway, was one of desolation, a sense of utter loneliness that was on the brink of turning bitter.
Martin said, "Look, Jack, I can only imagine how you feel. Steve is dead. We're all devastated. You've busted your ass on this story, and you've come a long way. Christ, I thought we were going to crack the thing. I really did. But now you've become a part of the story-a big part of the story. The FBI'S having press conferences about you, Jack.
You're going to be on the front page of every major paper tomorrow.
That doesn't work anymore. You know that. You know we can't continue like that."
"Peter, none of our actions, none of my actions, have intentionally made us a part of this story. All we've done is covered it. And even in covering it, we've done everything by the book. It's whoever bombed my car early this morning that made us part of the story. And it's this FBI agent Drinker-and look at his record on this case-who made us part of the story. You want to give in to them now? They don't want me on this story. Don't you get it? Havlicek's dead. My anonymous source is dead. We're knocking on the door of some really serious answers, and you want to give in to them? For chrissakes, I've got valuable documents. We've got this thing all but cracked."
Appleton, who had been watching Martin and I go back and forth as if he were attending a tennis match, spoke for the first time. He bridged his fingers to affect the posture of thought and said, "Jack, we're not giving in, not by any stretch." He spoke slowly, surely, as if every one of his words were some valuable jewel to be savored. This editorship had obviously gotten to his head. "I'm going to send people down to relieve you. For the time being, I know it's best, for your own safety and for the reputation and future of this newspaper, if you bow out for a while and stay in hiding."
I simply sat there, my elbows on my knees, looking down at the blue carpet in the dark room. I felt like a boxer getting my brains beaten out, unable even to think, longing for relief, but knowing the only relief I would get is from conceding defeat, ending the match, going back to my corner the loser.
"You're making the biggest mistake of your careers," I said, softly, almost as if I weren't even addressing them.
That remark seemed to get under Appleton's thin, chalky skin.
Ironically, on a day when they should have been consoling me, offering me any form of help, his tone now changed to that of overt attack.
"We all make mistakes, young man," Appleton said, sternly. "Though this decision doesn't happen to be one of them. Just for the record, I want you to know that I know you were engaging in lengthy discussions with Hutchins about becoming his press secretary at the same time as you were covering this story. Based on that alone, the decision to pull you off the story was made. What happened today just makes it an easy one."
He paused, still speaking slowly, looking me straight in the eye as I picked my head up to match his stare. He continued, "That I consider to be a firing offense. As I said, we all make mistakes, so I'm not going to fire you now."
Appleton looked to Martin and started to stand up. My elbows still on my knees, my voice deflated, I said, "Hutchins pursued me, and he wouldn't take no for an answer, even when I said no. I just used his offer to get a couple of interviews for this newspaper."
Appleton shook his head dismissively. He was on his feet now, leaning toward the door. Martin, still sitting, said, "Jack, you're still a reporter in good standing in my bureau, as far as I'm concerned. My only worry is for your safety. I ask that you not talk to other members of the news media. I ask that you not leave this room until the election is over. There will be no wake for Havlicek. The funeral service is in Boston tomorrow. I'm afraid I have to forbid you from attending. We cannot put your safety at any further risk. We'll continue to foot the bill for all of your protection as long as you don't endanger yourself by leaving. Sandlera and Bartson"-two remarkably ordinary reporters in Boston-"will fly in tomorrow. I'll send them over so they can debrief you. I expect you to tell them everything you know."
Appleton was at the door now. He said to me, "We have your best interests at heart. I'm not sure you could say the same thing to us."
Then he walked out.
Martin rose slowly from the wing chair, pursed his lips, and said,
"Things will turn out fine, Jack. I'll call you later tonight."
And with that, they were gone. It made me think of the line from Pete Hamill, the journalism icon. Newspapers, he once said, will always break your heart. And now I find out, they can also rack your soul.
Boston, Massachusetts February 20, 1979
They led Curtis Black into the small, dingy conference room, a federal agent and a police detective, pushing him along from behind like he was a common criminal, a pimp, a drug dealer of some sort, someone not worth even a flickering moment of respect.
Inside the room, another police detective sat at a scratched wooden table, smoking a cigarette and paging through a manila file filled with official documents. His smoke gathered in the air of the ventless room beneath the single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling above the table. The stained walls were bare but for one filmy mirror. The room seemed to cast a pall over anyone unfortunate enough to be in it.
At first, Lieutenant Kevin Morrissey didn't even bother looking up, didn't deem his prisoner worth even that much dignity or interest.
When he did, as the three men stood by the door, he said in a surprisingly soft voice, "Take his cuffs off."
The detective behind Black pulled out a key, stuck it into the handcuffs, and freed Black's wrists. Black shook them for a moment, trying to regain his circulation.
"Sit down, please," Morrissey said, nodding to the chair across from him, speaking in that same soft voice. He blew a mouthful of smoke out, and it floated into Black's face. It didn't seem intentional. In a room this small, there was no place else for the smoke to go.
Morrissey nodded at the two standing men, prompting them to retreat quietly out into the hallway. Black heard the door click shut behind them.
Morrissey looked typically Irish, typically Boston-bright blue eyes and a ruddy face, carefully combed graying hair, the build of a former athlete who had tried to care for himself but finally decided to surrender to the effects of time. He sat in his shirtsleeves with a shoulder holster holding his service revolver. He eyed Black from across the table, his gaze drifting from Black's face down to his chest, to his hands, then back up to his face.
"Paul Boyle had two daughters," Morrissey said, his voice still low, easy, almost soothing. "One's sixteen, a junior out at Malden High.
She wants to go to college. Smart kid, too, they tell me. Honor society and all that. Pretty girl. The other's thirteen. She's in seventh grade, a good athlete, kind of a daddy's girl type. Liked it a lot, I understand, when he went to her basketball games."
Black gulped hard, knowing where Morrissey was leading him.
"Here they are," Morrissey said, sliding a pair of pictures across the table-one of just two girls standing in the driveway of a modest suburban home, both girls gangly, all arms and legs in the way some teenagers are. They were smiling in an embarrassed kind of way, looking like they were biding time, waiting to do something else. The other picture was a more formal family portrait-a husband, presumably Paul Boyle, and his wife standing up, their two daughters sitting in chairs in front of them. "Take a look."
For a few seconds, Black was riveted by the photographs. Then he felt his head spin, his stomach grow queasy. The smoke continued to float up from the cigarette across his face. He looked away from the pictures at the empty wooden expanse of the table.
"I'm Kevin Morrissey. Lieutenant Kevin Morrissey. I assume you've been read your rights?"
Black continued to look down.
"Well, it's probably worth repeating the highlights. You have the right to remain silent. You also have the right to a lawyer. If you should want a lawyer, we will cease talking to you immediately and give you the opportunity to call your lawyer. You are free to do that any time you please."
Morrissey paused, and his voice became more confiding. "My advice to you right now, Curtis, is that a lawyer would not help and may well hurt. We can work together a lot more easily without someone getting in the way right now." Change of tone again, back to the original one.
"But again, that's your call. You do have the right. I just want you to know that."
Black nodded and said nothing. He didn't have a lawyer, didn't even know a lawyer. A lawyer was never part of his program, never necessary, not until the FBI and Boston Police had showed up at his Chelsea apartment that afternoon.
Morrissey eyed him expectantly, nodded himself, and said, "So what went wrong? You don't usually kill people, Curtis. That's not your style.
And look at this guy. Good husband. Good father. You know he was an usher up at St. Paul's Church. He's dead. And look at his family.
They've got to live a life without him. I wonder if those girls will even be able to go to college now."
He said this not in a taunting tone, but flat, matter-of-fact, curious.
Black sat in silence. Morrissey took a last puff of his cigarette, stubbed it out on the table, tossed it on the floor, then lit up another one.
The smoke continued to wash over Black's face. The faces on the photographs smiled up at him. The room seemed so painfully small and shrinking by the moment, the stains on the wall clawing at him.
Morrissey said, "You ever hear of the charge of felony murder?" He paused, got no reaction from Black, and continued. "We have it here in Massachusetts. It's when a victim dies in the commission of a felony, just like last week on Hanover Street. Everyone involved in that felony, whether they pulled the trigger or were some flunky driving the car, they're all going away for life. That's the sentence: life."
Morrissey was silent. Black gazed down at the table. This, he was coming to realize, was the dreaded climax not only of a tortuous week, the longest, most painful week of his life, but the climax of what had until then been a successful career of crime. Successful criminal careers, he was realizing, don't end with a banquet and a gold watch.
One way or another, they usually end in court, then prison. For the last seven days, Black had awaited his destiny. He could have fled like a couple of the others, just taken his cash and boarded a plane and gone somewhere he had never been before, never to return. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Some odd part of him, a part he had never felt before, kept him back, told him he had to face the consequences of that deadly dusk on Hanover Street. He had already lost his wife and their son in a hit-and-run crash the year before.
After that, he felt he had nothing left to lose.
"We have an informant," Morrissey said, his voice still so calm, so easy. "This informant tells us that you were recruiting for a job a couple of months ago. You were getting ready for a heist. This heist."
Morrissey paused, stubbed out another cigarette, and threw it on the floor, Black continued to look down at the table, away from the photographs.
"We have a witness, an employee of the city of Boston's Transportation Department, Parking Enforcement Division. He saw someone double-parked in that blue cargo van outside of the bank. He tried to get that person to move, then wrote out a ticket. He picked your photograph out of a lineup, an old FBI surveillance photo we have, and identified you."
Black flinched, his almost imperceptible movement the only betrayal of a wave of sheer terror working its way up his spine. If there was even a scintilla of doubt about his fate, it was decided with those foreboding words. We have a witness. Black lifted his head up. His eyes rested on Morrissey. The two men locked stares in total silence.
"There is a way out," Morrissey said finally, the two men still eyeing each other, Black in desperation, the detective providing at least the veneer of help. "There's a way out." He shuffled some papers around purposefully. "Let me tell you how."
Black continued to stare at Morrissey, who lit up yet another cigarette, took a fast drag, and put it down right on the table.
"I don't believe you fired the weapon," Morrissey said. He paused, letting that thought hang out there with the cigarette smoke and the awkward adolescent smiles of Paul Boyle's two daughters. "Judging from where we believe you were during the commission, and the ballistic tests, we don't think you could have fired the weapon."
Silence, Black just staring back.
"Not your style." Morrissey raised his graying eyebrows. "And who knows, I may be able to find another witness who says you never got out of that van, which would make it impossible for you to have fired the gun, because Mr. Boyle was shot by someone standing over at the doorway to the bank."
Black continued to stare at him, his blank face masking a hurricane of thoughts and questions churning in his head. What kind of deal? Could he avoid doing time? What would that mean to the rest of his life?
What would it mean to the others involved?
Morrissey continued, "So we cut a deal, me and you. I'd still have to convince the FBI to go along with this too, and they're not as easy and they're not as eager, but the worst of the charges in this case is in state court, this felony murder count. Life in prison, just for being there. It takes a long time to live a whole life in prison, you know."
Black could only imagine, which is what he was doing sitting in the chair trying not to breathe in the smoke, trying not to let his eye linger on the photographs of Paul Boyle's two daughters, trying not to let his guard down and be trapped by this man across from him.
"We cut a deal," Morrissey said. "You give me the names. You tell me who fired the shot that killed Paul Boyle. You tell me who else was involved. I'm especially interested in a convict by the name of Rocco Manupelli, who has strong connections to the Boston branch of La Cosa Nostra. You help us, we protect you, we put you in the federal program, we send you out of state with a new identity and a new way to make a life, an honest way to make a life. You make out. We make out.
The only losers in this thing are the fucking murderers who killed this man." With that, Morrissey reached across the table and waved the Boyle family portrait in front of Black's face. "These girls don't have a father."
Black stared at him, still silent. He wondered to himself if he could do it. Could he be a rat? He didn't know these guys well. He didn't owe Manupelli anything. They had bungled the job. He had it teed up perfectly for them. Just follow orders and adhere to the plan, and they'd be all set now. And what was the alternative? If he didn't rat, what would happen?
As if reading his mind, Morrissey said, "And think about it. You're the only one we have right now. If you don't cough up the others, we come down on you in state and federal courts with a fury the likes of which you've never seen before. You'll never see a free day for the rest of your life. You won't even make bail."
Morrissey stubbed out another cigarette and flicked it on the floor.
Black just wanted out of this room, out of his life, for that matter.
He needed time to think. He should talk to a lawyer, if he could find one. He knew that much. That thought emboldened him to speak.
"We may have a deal. I need to speak to my lawyer first," he said.
Morrissey jumped up out of his seat, the chair almost falling backward because of his sudden force. He yanked out the chair closest to Black and sat back down, their faces now a few inches apart.
"This deal holds right now," Morrissey said, almost seething. "You get a lawyer involved, that creates a whole new level of bullshit I have to go through. I still have to talk those jamokes from the federal government into this. If you hesitate, I hesitate. Let me state it another way. You call a lawyer right now, I want to be the one who swings that prison door shut on the rest of your life."
Black put his hands up to his head, through his hair, across his forehead and eyes. When he opened his eyes, he was accidentally staring at those pictures, the smiling girls, the dead father, the times past they would never have again.
Looking at the photos, Black said, "I'll give you the guys." His voice was so low it was barely audible. Morrissey still sat right next to him, still just a few inches away.
"How many?"
There were five involved, plus him. Black hesitated. "All four," he said.
"Who was the shooter?"
"I don't know." As he said this, he thought of Stemple pitching his handgun into the harbor.
"Bullshit. How the fuck do you not know?"
Black gulped. "They wore masks and identical clothes. They were a good distance away from me. It was getting dark. I couldn't tell which one it was."
"Fuck it. No shooter, no deal." Morrissey got up as he said this and walked the few steps to the other side of the room, then turned toward Black, leaning on the table with his two hands.
Black's mind went into overdrive. Does he make it up? Does he tell him Stemple because it was Stemple who ditched his gun? But maybe Stemple fired a shot that missed. Does he tell him Rocco Manupelli because he doesn't like Rocco, thinks Rocco was destined to fuck this thing up, knows that Morrissey wants to hear that it was Rocco who was the killer?
Black said, "Then no deal. I don't know which one fired the deadly shot."
Morrissey lit up another cigarette and walked a slow lap of the table, cutting close behind Black.
"You're missing a guy too, right? Five guys at the scene, including you, and a driver at the fish pier, right? We have witnesses."
Black said, "Three guys were on the guard when he came out of the bank.
One guy was on Boyle. I was in the van."
"Yeah, and what about the driver at the pier where you dumped the first getaway car?"
Black hesitated, collected himself, and said, "There was no other driver. We planted a car there, and when we got there, I drove."
Morrissey shook his head. When he spoke, his voice sounded tired now.
"Bullshit again. I know how you work. You wouldn't risk leaving a car there unattended and having it be towed or watched or whatever. You like having a man on every job, a live person. You don't leave things to chance."
Black thought of his getaway driver on the pier. Older guy, no record, not even any criminal experience. He had needed the money, but didn't need it so bad he wanted to be part of the holdup. He took the driver's job for a smaller cut and said it was the only job he'd ever do. Black recalled the way the driver watched as the men arrived on the pier, angry and scared. He had watched as Black vomited, then fearfully asked what had gone wrong.
Black would spare him. He'd spare him. To Morrissey, he simply shook his head.
In response, the detective tossed his half-smoked cigarette, still lit, against the wall and strode silently out of the room, flipping the door shut behind him.
Maybe five minutes later, the door opened and another man in a navy blue suit entered the room.
"Curtis," Morrissey said, "This is special agent Kent Drinker of the FBI. He's a liaison between the bureau and the witness protection program. He, along with the U.s. attorney here in Boston, has to sign off on anyone entering the program."