There is an exhibit at the Newseum-a museum dedicated to the journalism industry, of all things-that allows tourists from, say, Iowa, to stand before a camera with the White House as a backdrop and broadcast their own news story on a nearby television screen, as if they were a real live Washington network correspondent bringing the day's events to the rest of the nation, windbreakers and sneakers aside.
I took limited comfort in this knowledge, figuring that my meeting with this anonymous source might actually give these network wannabes something to report on. At about 5:20 P.m." I paid my admission to the museum, which sits in Rosslyn, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Georgetown, and began walking around the various exhibits.
I didn't know, obviously, what this source looked like. I had to assume he knew me, and would seek me out if I just made myself visible.
Ends up, the Newseum closes at six, a fact I thought to be odd for a couple of reasons-first, shutting down a museum about the media right in the middle of deadline, second, because this early closing hour cut the time awfully close for my source. I had to assume that whatever it was that he had to say to me, he would say it quickly. As an echoey voice over the public address system called out that visitors should be prepared to leave within thirty minutes, I hung around an area where they posted front pages of newspapers from across the country.
I heard footsteps coming from across the hard tile floor, then a man called to me, "Excuse me, sir, but everyone has to start getting ready to head out now. We're closing down for the evening."
I turned to see a gentleman in a security uniform, complete with a hat.
He looked startled when he saw my face, and added, "Oh, Mr. Flynn, excuse me. I had no idea it was you." He hesitated, then said,
"Please, make yourself at home. We'll be doing some cleaning upstairs for a while, probably about an hour. Feel free to enjoy the museum in the meantime."
"Thank you," I said. So celebrity has its advantages.
I poked around for about thirty minutes, until it was quite obvious I was the only one in the place. I tried concentrating on exhibits on the history of newspapers and the evolution of network news, but to no avail. I could think of little more than what my anonymous source might have to say, and what it would all mean to this story. I was also growing impatient with his lack of punctuality, and come around six-twenty, resigned myself to the assumption that he wasn't going to show. It was either a hoax, or he got scared off, or he misplanned the encounter and couldn't get inside because of closing time. This was obviously not a pro, but then again, what is a professional source? I wondered if I should wait outside.
Suddenly, to my left, a wall filled with television screens, twenty feet high and maybe twice that in length, popped to life, each set filled with the image of Peter Jennings broadcasting ABC'S World News Tonight-hundreds of screens, every one a haunting image of the other.
I'll admit, I like Peter Jennings, but enough is enough.
"Tonight, growing questions and few answers on Thursday's assassination attempt against President Clayton Hutchins," Jennings said, raising his eyebrows in that way he does when he disapproves of the direction of a story. "Tonight, an ABC special report."
His voice, his expressions, engulfed me. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me watch Peter, but the rest of the museum was empty, frighteningly empty given all the noise. I had the feeling of being alone in an amusement park, late at night, and having all the rides inexplicably spring to life.
"At the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, headquarters of the FBI, the official line remains that investigators continue to probe whether the shooting is tied to the nation's militia movement,"
Jennings said. "But within the FBI, sources tell ABC News there is currently a paucity of evidence pointing in that direction, though those same sources warn that new information is being gathered and multiple theories, including the possibility of a militia-related shooting, are still in play.
"Meanwhile, out in the field, those who know the dead would-be assassin, Tony Clawson, express surprise. We go now to Jackie Judd in Fresno, California, for a report on the life, and the death, of Tony Clawson."
The distant image of a Home Depot store flashed on all those screens, as the reporter's voice filled the Newseum and echoed toward the cavernous ceiling. Around a nearby bend, I heard what sounded like shoes on tile, then nothing but the reporter's voice, then more shoes on tile, then nothing again. I stared in that direction, looking for a person, a shadow, anything that would indicate another form of life in this room.
"Mr. Flynn?"
It was a loud, urgent voice emanating from the balcony above me, a shout almost, by necessity because of the television sets. My eyes bolted upward, but I could see nothing but darkness.
Peter Jennings droned on, oblivious to my situation, even though he appeared to be my only witness. "Out on the campaign trail, Senator Stanny Nichols, the Democratic presidential nominee, delivers a red meat speech to a labor union rally in the pivotal swing state of Wisconsin, as polls show President Hutchins creeping ahead in the aftermath of the assassination attempt-"
"Who is it?" I yelled back. Okay, stupid question, but sometimes you just ask the first thing that pops into your mind. And they're always asking that question in the movies.
"Stay right there, Mr. Flynn." For a second, it was as if Jennings was talking to me, but no. The voice, still at the clip of a holler, was younger than I had expected, given that the phone calls sounded like they came from a reasonably old man.
I stayed silent, waiting, but nothing happened.
Jennings: "Later in the program, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a fresh start for some old steel workers. As part of our Eye on America, we bring you the latest from an innovative job retraining program that is being billed as a model for our fading industrial nation-"
Still nothing. "Where are you?" I yelled, but got no response. I strained my eyes looking upward, then off into the distant expanse of the museum, but all I could see was the glow of so many television sets. Jennings's voice was so loud, so omnipotent, that it seemed to take its own visual form.
I'd like to think I'm nobody's fool, so it was beginning to dawn on me that if this was just some relatively innocent meeting between a reporter and a confidential source, I wouldn't be entangled in this situational melodrama. Problem is, that thought struck me just as I heard a loud crack- a sound that was becoming all too familiar these past few days.
I'm not sure whether I ducked or just flinched. Nor was I sure where the noise came from, which direction the bullet-assuming it was a bullet-was headed. Because of that, I didn't know which way to run, and feared that if I peeled off in any given direction, I might find myself face-to-face with my stalking gunman. Times like these, I wish I had just become a copy editor.
I looked behind me to see Peter Jennings's face blown out on one of the television screens, just about level with my own, and that image sent something tantamount to a convulsion through my body. It also prompted me to get flat to the floor and begin crawling toward the door, figuring that all things being equal, it was probably the best direction to head.
"The Gulf Coast of Texas braces for the late arrival of Hurricane Sally, which is expected to make land by dawn tomorrow-"
I strained to hear any other sounds, any other slight movements, most notably a gun cocking, but all I could really hear, Jennings aside, was the sound of my own heavy breathing. So I kept crawling to the entrance, about forty feet away, straightaway across the center of the museum floor. Every inch I covered I wondered whether I was an inch closer to safety or death.
About halfway there, I veered toward a heavy door marked with an illuminated sign that read, "Emergency Exit. Alarm will sound." Maybe sounding alarms wasn't such a bad idea. I paused on the floor for a few seconds, summoning the emotional and physical energy to bolt upward and blast through the door. My driving fear, gunman excepted, was that the door would be locked, but these are the risks you take in the name of salvation.
I braced myself on all fours and hurled myself against the door. It flew open, and a shrieking alarm filled the air. I found myself on some nondescript street in Rosslyn, empty after dark. I bolted around the corner of the building and could hear the alarm become muted as the door shut behind me. I ran the one block to the Metro station, gulping the fresh air of freedom and safety. A train was sliding toward the platform as I bounded down the escalator. The doors rolled open, and I grabbed my own pole to hold and stared out the rear window as we pulled away, staring, it ends up, at nothing at all.
By all means, I'm Irish. I have the ability to brood for hours at a time. If I ever needed bypass surgery, I'm convinced my doctors would open up my chest and find that my heart is an alarming shade of black.
Not all the time, but often, I love to drink, to tell stories, to laugh hard when my brain feels soaked in Miller, or even worse, gin. But if you really want to see ethnic, take a look at Steve Havlicek.
He stands about five feet six inches, though he doesn't exactly seem short. His face is like a Rand Mcationally map of wrinkles, heading every which way from the downtown location that seems to be the middle of his cheeks. His hair, graying, is often matted against his big scalp or sticking up in various directions in shapeless wisps. He talks loud. He laughs even louder. He loves jokes, and he seems to have a general inability to be embarrassed by anything that life might throw at him. At home his wife, Margaret, his high school sweetheart, his same age, looks a decade younger. She is gorgeous, perfectly put together. They have two children, both grown and successful. From a distance anyway, and I suspect up close as well, they seem to have an ideal relationship, the type of love that tears barriers down rather than builds them up. Ah, but there I go getting deep again.
"Jesus, what a place." That was Havlicek, walking into the paneled Grille Room at the University Club, an establishment where I have remained a member in good standing for many years. He looked around the lounge and gave one of those soft whistles, like something on the Andy Griffith Show, and said, in a confiding voice, "High-roller city, huh? I bet lots of big guns come in here."
I don't think he quite understood the general code of conduct at all private clubs-one of understated appreciation. Members favor words like comfortable and traditional, and neither gawk nor mock each other, at least in a forum as public as the club bar. So I ignored that. I had arrived comfortably ahead of him, giving myself enough time to clean myself up in the marble men's room, knock down a Miller Highlife, and try to calm my nerves. "What are you drinking, Steve?" I said, rather shortly. Maybe I wasn't exactly calm quite yet.
Havlicek's gaze zeroed in on something across the room, nearly empty because it was a Sunday night. "Nice cheese tray," he said. "That for anyone? Even a nonmember?"
Lyle, the bartender, finally caught Havlicek's eye, God bless him.
"Can I get you something, sir?" he asked, in that way that leaves the impression he might have a mouthful of marbles.
"You bet. What kind of beer do you have?" Havlicek asked.
The list was a long one, and I shot Lyle an interested look, wondering how he would handle this. "Anything you like." Okay, so he would handle it well.
"I like that," Havlicek said, warming to the place even more, growing comfortable, taking on a feeling of belonging. "I'll have a Heineken."
Havlicek wrapped his hairy hand around the ice-cold bottle and took a long gulp before Lyle could even hurry down the bar with a frosted pilsner glass. "That overnight flight and all that time-change bullshit wiped me out, so I didn't get much today," he said to me, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since he walked in. Then, urgently, "Jesus Christ. What the frick happened to you? I thought I was a mess, but look at you, you're a fricking wreck."
"A tough day," I said. "Let me regroup first, and I'll tell you about it."
On a related matter, earlier in the afternoon, I had already decided to tell him about the anonymous calls and note, for a couple of reasons.
First, he would probably be of help on it. He had one of the best investigative minds in the country. He had won his Pulitzer Prize a few years earlier for a series of stories detailing how a group of Boston housing inspectors were actually the biggest slumlords in the city, having arranged a series of property takeovers from prior shady owners, then operating the properties in the same way, free from the threat of inspection. Second reason was, it would be vastly unfair to withhold information from him on this story. If anyone did it to me, I would be furious, and that was the final yardstick. And given what had just happened to me an hour previous, I really had no choice anymore, for my own safety, and perhaps his as well.
"So we've got a dead assassin wannabe who no one knows who the fuck he is," I said as we leaned on the bar. "We've got the FBI immediately pointing the finger at the militias, and no one knows why. Basically, we've got nothing."
"Martin says you might fly out and talk to a militia pal of yours in Idaho? That might be a good idea, just to nail that angle down clean, be able to print that the militias definitively say they don't know who this guy is and that they wouldn't condone the shooting of the president."
"Thinking about it, but I'm not sure if that moves the ball far enough along. I do have a couple of other interesting developments-"
Lyle, at this point, came over with a couple of bowls of mixed snacks-some pretzels, wheat Chex, corn chips, and peanuts swirled together.
"Jesus Christ, this place is great," Havlicek said. He reached into his pocket, and I started thinking, Oh, no, please don't. But he did.
He pulled out a fold of money and asked Lyle, "How much do we owe for that last round?" Confidingly to me: "I can bill this off to the Record."
I put my hand gently on Havlicek's arm and pushed it down. "On me," I said.
"No, no, no," he said, determined, holding the money up high now. The few people around were looking. Lyle appeared frozen behind the bar.
"Really, Steve. I've got it. Besides, they don't take cash in here.
Everything's on charge. I just sign it all away."
"You just sign your name, and that's it?" A pause while he calculated just what that meant, which, for him, was free food and drink. "God, I love this place."
Lyle looked relieved. I tugged Havlicek toward an empty dining table nearby, away from more potential trouble. Don't get me wrong. I'm not rich, and I'm not a snob. The University Club is my one true indulgence. Years ago, it was my refuge, a place to steal away for a few hours from the grind of work and the occasional frustrations of my courtship with Katherine. We were both enormous advocates of the need for our own time, private time, and I usually spent mine here, down in the gym working up a sweat, taking a long steam bath, then stealing up to this very grille room for a hamburger, a beer, and a wedge of cheesecake. Now, with Katherine gone, the club had become something of a second home for me, an anchor when I was constantly on the road, a place where I looked forward to coming and where Lyle would always greet me with a warm squeeze of my shoulder.
"Look," I said, after we sat down. "I've got some things we should go over."
"Yeah?" he said. He was looking at me square in the eyes, waiting, and I continued on slowly.
"I think someone just took a shot at me," I said. I saw the look of confusion on his face, and added quickly, "Let me start from the beginning. I've got an anonymous caller ringing me up. He made the first call right after I arrived in the hospital. He called me once on what must have been late Thursday afternoon, then again on Friday morning. Then someone-the source or more likely someone else-followed me to a restaurant in Georgetown last night and gave the waitress a note telling me to meet him at the Newseum over in Rosslyn tonight at five-thirty."
"What the fuck," Havlicek said. An eloquent one. "What happened tonight?"
I told him the details. When I was through, Havlicek said, "Jesus Christ. Some fricking story. You never saw the guy?"
"Not even a glimpse."
"You think it was the same source who's been calling you? You think this is all just some sort of setup?"
A pair of typically good inquiries. I shrugged.
Havlicek said, "What's he sound like?"
"He's older, and very eloquent. He's polite, but forceful. He sounds like he really wants to make a point. Sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but he hasn't really said anything of value yet."
Havlicek asked, "And was that the same voice that called out to you at the Newseum?"
"That's the thing," I replied. "I don't think it was. The voice there sounded much younger, much livelier, less formal."
"Probably two different people," Havlicek said, reaffirming what I believed in the back of my mind. "One person wants to help you get information. The other person wants to make sure you never get it.
The good guy, assuming there is one, how did he leave it with you?"
I said, "Says he'll help me more as soon as he's convinced I'm serious."
"Well, the answer is to keep getting some hits on this story and slam them into the paper. Meanwhile, I'll renew my sources out there and work them over. And you should turn Idaho into a nice quick hit.
Would be nice to have a turnaround on that, get it in the paper, generate some news and maintain this guy's interest in you."
Notice that although my life was on the line, calling authorities was never an option-not for Havlicek, not for me. There was a story at stake, and a peripheral investigation would hamper our chances at getting it.
A waiter came over with some menus. "I saw you on CNN, Mr. Flynn," he said to me. "You looked terrific." Mental note: add an extra tip on the sign slip.
Havlicek said, "Something's been bothering me." He looked at me hard and continued. "Why were you playing golf with Hutchins in the first place? Martin said you were working on some pardon story, but I didn't quite get it."
"Presidential pardons," I said. "Every year, the president pardons any given number of convicts. It's part of his executive powers, like vetoing a piece of legislation. At first, I was working a generic story, kind of the anatomy of a presidential pardon. Most of the pardons have easy explanations, like a convict in a questionable murder conviction becomes a model inmate after forty years and is freed to spend his dying days with his family, something like that. I came across one in Massachusetts, a guy by the name of Paul Stemple, involved in an armored car heist back in the late 1970's, that lacked an easy answer. So I asked Royal Dalton about it. He called me back with a vague explanation about the inmate having served twenty years already, but never explained properly the genesis of the pardon. Then, out of nowhere, he says the president would like to know if I might be available for a game of golf."
Havlicek cut in and said, "So you asked Hutchins about it?"
"Well, I planned to, yes. But before I could, we got carried away in another conversation, and then, suddenly, we get shot."
"Let me ask you something far-fetched," Havlicek said. "You don't think there's any way that Hutchins or his people might have staged this assassination attempt as some sort of preelection ploy, do you?"
I stared down into my beer and nodded my head slowly. "I'll admit, I've thought about that," I said. "But damn, come on. How dangerous is that?"
"Yeah, too stupid. Too stupid."
He added, "So somebody wants to help you. Somebody else wants to kill you, maybe because that first somebody wants to help you. You have to watch your back."
I nodded, and we both turned our attention to the menu. We ordered some smoked salmon, some calamari, a couple of hamburgers. At ten o'clock, Havlicek looked at his watch and announced he had to head back to his hotel and call his wife.
Watch your back. I started to walk outside, into the night, and then thought better of it. The dog was with Kristen, so I ambled up to the front desk, got myself a guest key, and slept in one of the overnight rooms upstairs.
Boston, Massachusetts February 13, 1979
Finally, Curtis Black decided it was time to break the heavy silence.
For ten minutes, as he drove the intentionally nondescript blue cargo van out of Chelsea, then up and over the Tobin Bridge into Boston, no one had uttered a solitary word, not Black himself, not his three men sitting on the floor in the back. All of the men wore gloves, all of them were dressed in gray, all of them were packing a 9-mm semiautomatic weapon that Black hoped against hope they would never have to use. The fourth man would be meeting them on Hanover Street in the getaway car-a 1978 Lincoln Continental, stolen the week before and stashed since in a private garage. The fifth man would be meeting them on the Boston Fish Pier in a second getaway car, a Mercury station wagon with tinted windows.
Not that Black minded the silence. Better to be silent than jumpy, falsely jovial. Silence meant economy, and at the scene of a crime, there's nothing better than to be economical. The more words you speak, the more actions you take, the more opportunity there is for error and the more clues you leave behind. Better to cut into the fabric of everyday life with a scalpel rather than blow it up with a bomb, the goal being to grab whatever it is you want or need, then vanish in as straight a line as you came, leaving as little of life interrupted as possible. No need, in short, for undue drama.
Still, this silence felt almost morbid, Black thought. They had gone over their plan one final time, sitting around the little kitchen table of his Chelsea apartment. They had run through a checklist of actions, then made sure everyone was carrying his ski mask, his gloves, his gun.
Each man's pockets were otherwise empty. Everyone knew his role.
"In an hour, we're a hell of a lot richer than we are right now," Black called out from the driver's seat. The unsubtle intent was to provide more incentive to do the job right-positive incentive.
He heard them move in the back, where the three guys were sitting on the floor and wheelwells, but still no one spoke. Eventually, someone-Black thought it was Cox-said, "You think we can put this money right back into circulation, or are we going to have to sit on it awhile?"
Black replied, "Well, I wouldn't try to open an account with it at Wells Fargo, and I wouldn't walk into the Bank of New England with a suitcase full of it tomorrow, but I think you can spend it if you're smart about it, buy plane tickets, maybe even a car, or whatever."
"I'm heading to Vegas tomorrow," Rocco said. "I'm getting myself a suite at Bally's. I'm going to eat a nice steak dinner, and I'm going to get a beautiful hooker, one of those little seventeen-year-old girls. I'm going to give her a little taste of what I'm all about, until she's giving it to me for free. Then I'm going to leave her in my room and hit the tables."
Black rolled his eyes in the front seat. How had he ended up with this farm animal? In another hour, he'd never have to deal with him again, and he never would. He made that promise to himself right there and then.
Black pulled his van off the bridge, looped around, and drove through the streets of Charlestown heading for the North End. The morning sun had given way to heavy afternoon clouds and the threat of rain, which all in all might be good. Clear the streets of passersby-each one a potential witness.
"About three minutes, and we're there," Black called out to the men in back.
Everyone had fallen quiet again, which was just as well. Black had made his point, and he'd heard all he could stand to hear from Rocco.
Just pray to the good Lord he doesn't screw this up. Just get through the next half hour, and in every job in the future, he'd be more selective. He'd find better guys, pay them better money, keep them around longer. Maybe this guy Cox would prove himself today. Maybe he'd be someone to keep in the stable.
"Coming down Prince Street," Black said. "Two minutes."
Black checked his watch. It was 4:44 P.m." about twelve minutes until action. So many things to go wrong. But he had to remind himself: nothing ever did, not for him, not ever, not now. He was the most meticulous criminal strategist in Boston, a mastermind of bank heists and store holdups whose reputation within criminal and legal circles was held in virtual awe. This job, though, this job represented his most daring venture-a daylight armored car strike involving what he had already determined would be more money than he had ever pulled out of a single hit before. He was estimating the take to be anywhere from $600,000 to $1 million. This was a sleeper of a bank branch, a repository for Mafia money in the North End that was usually deposited every Tuesday afternoon after the weekend receipts.
"On Hanover Street. One minute to arrival."
He scanned the street, looking for anything unusual, anything he hadn't seen there in the last couple of days, but he saw nothing extraordinary. He was starting to get that feeling he always got during a hit, that lightness of heart, the singular focus of mind, the surge of concentration, when thoughts and words and actions mesh seamlessly into one. It was just another mark that made him so good at what he did.
He pulled the van over to the side of the street, double-parking in the precise spot where he had for the past couple of scouting missions.
"Arrival."
Pause.
"Standby."
Pause.
"Ten minutes to action."
A minute later, in his rearview mirror, Black saw the Lincoln pull up about two car lengths behind him and double-park, filling him with a sense of relief. Everything was running according to plan.
"Getaway car has arrived," Black called out, keeping his guys informed, even if the intricacies were lost on them.
Now it was just a matter of waiting-waiting for the Wells Fargo armored truck to pull down the street, to park in front of the van, for the security men to get out, one of them to walk inside the bank branch and come back outside pushing a dolly with a duffel bag filled with money. They had a plan. They just needed to follow it, Black told himself.
Four minutes later, Black broke the tense silence again. "Put your earpieces in place," he said, and the three men in back reached into their pockets as one and inserted small wires into their ears. "Test them," Black said. Then he spoke very quietly into his cupped hands.
"Testing, one, two, three. Testing. Please acknowledge."
"Gotcha," Rocco responded.
"Fine," Cox said.
Stemple, the third man in the van, added, "With you."
Black said, "Car two, please hold up your hand if you can hear." He looked in his rearview mirror and received the signal he wanted.
Suddenly, a problem. In the mirror, Black's eye caught something he didn't expect. A meter maid-a man, actually-walking purposefully down the street with his ticket book in hand and a look of annoyance on his bearded face. A fucking meter maid.
"Stay down back there," Black said to the three men in the van. He cracked his window and watched in his side mirror as the man approached the getaway car behind him. He saw the meter man and his driver exchange words, then saw the meter man shrug, write out a ticket and carefully insert it under the windshield. Now the meter man was coming toward the van.
Black quickly processed this development through the calculator that was his criminal mind, and realized this wasn't necessarily harmful.
The van, as well as the car, had been stolen the previous week. A ticket, assuming that the meter man didn't call the vehicles in, would be meaningless. Of significant concern, though, was the fact that the meter man may have gotten a good look at his driver, Sanchez, and was about to get a good look at Black.
Approaching the van, the meter man said in a loud voice, "Move it along. Move along."
Black looked the other way and ignored him, hiding his face with his arm in as casual a way as he could. Even as he did this, the ramifications flashed through his mind. This meter man would place the robbers at the scene. He would be asked to help with composite drawings. Those drawings would eventually be published in the newspaper and broadcast on television.
Black refused to turn around.
The meter man stood at the cracked window. "What's your problem? Move your van."
Black still ignored him. So the meter man wrote out a ticket with a flourish, stuck it under the windshield wiper, and proclaimed loudly,
"That's fifty bucks right there, jerk." With that, he walked on.
Black looked out the window, his hand still over his face. All he saw was the man's back.
At that exact moment, he also saw the armored car slowly, awkwardly, fill his side mirror, then lumber in front of him. His mind raced. It needn't be complicated. He had two choices. Pull the plug on the operation-drive away and forget the whole deal, at least for now. Or he could go on as planned and hope that the composite sketches looked nothing like anything that would matter.
In front of him, the armored car was backing up now, toward the van.
Urgently, Black kept asking himself, Stay or go? Stay or go? The smart money told him to go, to pull up stakes, to just revamp his plan for another time and place. Why take a risk he didn't have to take?
Shouldn't he take this as some sort of signal of a doomed operation?
But what about the work that had already gone into this plan, the time and effort just to find a group of guys to carry it off, and then to train them?
Stay or go?
Did the meter man see anything he shouldn't have seen? Did he get a good look at faces? Would he remember them? Would he make for a good witness?
The driver's side door opened slowly on the armored car, as if it were opening a door into Black's own mind. He looked inside for an answer.
Stay or go? Stay or go?
Black said softly into his microphone: "Truck has arrived. Guard and driver getting out. Ski masks on. Four minutes to action."