Back Bay (57 page)

Philip Pratt sipped his drink and tried not to listen.

Rule smiled. “Just like the Pratts. Except for one thing—my empire’s already built. I’m takin’ it away from you. On Monday, I’ll be elected chairman of the board. On Tuesday, I’ll move to have the president replaced. On Wednesday, you’ll be playin’ golf.”

Philip Pratt stood. He had come with a bluff. He would not leave until he was satisfied. “Save your daydreams for someone else, Rule. You’re not moving us out.”

“Monday morning, I start a new job, and once I’m in that office, don’t ever expect to get me out. My old man’s picture is gonna hang over that fireplace for the next two hundred years. And you want to know why?” He aimed a finger at Philip Pratt and forty years of hatred rasped out of him. “Because you built your fortunes on the sweat of men like my father, and when they asked you for fair treatment, you cut them down.”

Rule looked at Calvin. “Pratt Winter Ball, 1933. You remember it, Cal? You must’ve been six or seven at the time. You remember the labor demonstration? The leader of that march was my old man.” He turned to Philip. “And the man who had him killed was yours.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Philip Pratt softly.

“But you’ll pay for it. I promise you that.” It was a moment of triumph, of bitter satisfaction, for William Rule. He folded his arms on his chest and watched the expressions. He saw bewilderment, confusion, and, on Calvin’s face, dim recollection. He smiled. “Chew on that for a while, gentlemen.”

“We will retain the office,” said Calvin firmly.

Rule ignored Calvin’s response. “They say the bluefish are making an early run this year, gentlemen. I want to be out of the harbor before the tide turns. Good morning.”

The Pratts left.

From his balcony, he watched them climb into a silver BMW parked on the wharf. Then he gazed out toward the harbor and wondered if the Pratts were close. Maybe they had a line through the student. He had been seen with the girl. He had talked to the Pratts. He had snooped around Hannaford. He had even witnessed the bartender’s murder. Rule decided not to take any chances. It would not be unusual for the witness of a gangland shooting to be shot himself.

Evangeline drove the Porsche to Cambridge. Peter wanted it to seem that they no longer cared if anyone was following them. They didn’t speak until she had pulled up in front of his apartment.

“Do you want me to wait?” she asked.

“No. Go to the Green Shoppe. I’ll see you at Quincy Market around one.”

Evangeline drove off toward Harvard Square. Then Fallon saw the black Oldsmobile swing past. He was surprised to see that Soames was riding with Buckley in the front seat. The Pratts were getting serious. He looked down Massachusetts Avenue and saw Henry Dill duck into a doorway.

Maureen Fallon answered the telephone in South Boston.

“Is Peter Fallon there?” It sounded as if the caller was in a subway station.

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Jack C. Ferguson.”

Maureen remembered the name. “He’s gone to Cambridge, to his apartment.”

Ferguson hung up before he swore. He didn’t want to frighten Fallon’s mother, but Rulick’s men had come after him again, and he figured they would be going after Fallon. He heard a train rumble through downstairs. He was at Park Street Station. It would take him ten minutes to get to Harvard Square. He didn’t have much time.

Evangeline circled through Harvard Square and back down Mt. Auburn to Central Square. She parked at a meter near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Western Avenue, near the Cambridge police station. She left the motor running because she didn’t know if she was staying.

The black Oldsmobile drove past and parked on the other side of the square. Soames got out of the car.

Evangeline didn’t see Soames. She didn’t see anything. She was composing the story she would tell Lieutenant Maughan, a Harvard classmate who had studied law enforcement in graduate school and stayed in Cambridge to practice it. Nothing had happened within his jurisdiction, but she knew he could help her.

Soames was across Central Square and moving toward her car. He reached for the handle, and she saw him. The Porsche swung out of the parking spot, turned right, and headed down Western Avenue. She lost the Oldsmobile in the side streets between Central Square and the river, parked near Dunster House, and was back in Fallon’s apartment a few minutes after she had left him. He was listening to the tape of his phone messages when she arrived.

“I was followed,” she said.

“I know.”

“Soames tried to get into my car in Central Square.”

“What the hell were you doing in Central Square? I thought you were going to work.”

“I was thinking about going to the police.” She looked him straight in the eye, but she didn’t know him well enough to predict his reaction.

There was none. He simply stared at her. He couldn’t believe that she would end it just when they were closing in.

“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “At least not until we talked.”

“We’ve already talked, Evangeline. If you end it before we find that thing, don’t ever expect to know me any better than you do now, because I won’t know myself.”

“You can’t play a dangerous game with yourself and other people and expect that you’re going to learn how to get from one day to the next.”

The phone rang. It rang again.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?”

Fallon shook his head. “It’s probably Professor Hayward. He’s been calling for three days. I don’t want to talk to him.” Fallon hit the button on his telephone recorder, then played the message back.

Even on the tiny speaker, they heard the tension in the voice. “This is Ferguson. You’re in trouble. Don’t go out of the apartment, and don’t answer your door. If you’ve heard this message, pull down your shades.”

The shades in Fallon’s apartment snapped down. Ferguson stepped out of the telephone booth and looked across the street. He didn’t know the man behind the wheel of the late-model Chevy, but he knew the man who was entering the apartment house. He had seen the slender body, the receding hairline, and the gaunt, pockmarked face before. He knew that under the tweed sportcoat, the man carried a .22 caliber pistol.

Ferguson had to help them. As a rule, he worried about Ferguson first and let other people take care of themselves. He didn’t want to cross that street. He wanted a good stiff drink.

Fallon looked at Evangeline. They both heard the footfalls in the stairwell. Fallon took the baseball bat out of the closet. He didn’t know what help it would be. He didn’t know what was coming up the stairs. He stepped closer to the door. He cocked his head and listened. He shifted his eyes toward Evangeline. She was frozen; tension crystallized in the air around her.

The man with the pockmarks reached the second floor and stopped. He took a silencer from the pocket of his tweed jacket and screwed it onto the muzzle of his Smith & Wesson .22. He looked down the hallway—front doors and emergency escapes for four apartments. Fallon’s was the first on the right, and Fallon was the assignment. The man didn’t want to kill the girl. He had orders not to kill the girl. But she had gotten herself into the middle of it. If she was in the way, he would have no choice.

Jack Ferguson saw the neck of a long, thin wine bottle protruding from a trash basket. Green Hungarian from a California vineyard, and a few ounces still sloshed in the bottom of the bottle. He held the bottle to his lips. He was tempted to drink, but he didn’t. He started across the street.

“Go into the kitchen,” said Fallon softly. “Wait until I’ve got them inside, then open the fire door and run like hell.”

She said nothing. Without taking her eyes off Fallon or the door, she backed slowly into the kitchen.

In the hallway, the man began to walk again. Very slowly, very cautiously.

Evangeline could hear the footsteps. She was petrified. She stood with her back hard against the refrigerator door and her arms drawn tight around her. The footsteps grew louder. She dug her fingers into the gasket so she would not tremble.

Jack Ferguson stumbled on the curb beside the Chevrolet. He put the bottle to his lips, but he didn’t drink. Then he pulled down his fly and leaned against the car. He was glad he was frightened. He didn’t have to wait at all. His stream hit the side of the car and washed down the dust on the rear quarter panel.

A broken nose and a crew-cut skull appeared at the window. “Hey, you fuckin’ rummy, stop pissin’ on my car.”

Ferguson didn’t stop.

The man started to get out of the car, and Ferguson smashed the wine bottle into the side of his head. The man was stunned. Ferguson took the bottle in both hands and swung. Two short, brutal strokes. He broke the broken nose again and fractured the block-shaped skull. Then he pushed the body back into the car and reached under the left armpit. He pulled out a .45 caliber automatic pistol. He took the morning newspaper off the seat, placed the pistol inside it, and went into the building.

In the hallway on the first floor, he pulled up his fly. The front of his pants was covered with urine. He looked up the stairs. Something inside him said not to go up. He wasn’t fighting for himself. He was sticking his neck out. Only fools stuck their necks out.

The man with the pockmarks pressed Fallon’s buzzer. The electric sound snapped through Evangeline and sent chills down Fallon’s neck. Fallon positioned himself against the wall by the door. If he released the lock, he’d have a clear shot when the door opened.

Evangeline gripped the refrigerator and wished she could climb inside it. Her whole body was shaking.

The man buzzed again.

From where she stood, Evangeline could see the end of the baseball bat swing slowly through the air as Fallon cocked it. She realized that Fallon was endangering himself for her while she cowered in the kitchen. Something outside the door was threatening both of them. It had entered her world and driven her into a corner, and if she did nothing, it would destroy her.

Fear became anger, then resolve. She released her grip on the refrigerator. She opened a drawer and grabbed a butcher’s knife. She appeared in the archway between kitchen and living room with the knife held threatening at her hip.

“Where do you want me?” she whispered.

Fallon studied her face for a moment, then gestured to the other side of the door. She took her position.

They heard someone else coming up the stairs. Fallon put his ear to the door. A familiar voice was humming “Sweet Adeline.”

The gunman stepped away from Fallon’s entrance, picked up the newspaper in front of the opposite apartment, and pretended to read.

Jack C. Ferguson staggered up to the second floor. His left kneecap was vibrating, and inside the newspaper, his index finger was squeezing the trigger. He hesitated for a moment at the end of the hall. He saw that the man was not holding his gun. He stopped staggering and took four crisp steps down the hall.

Rule’s assassin recognized another item on his hit list. He reached for his pistol, but he was too late. The
Boston Globe
exploded into his chest and blew him halfway down the hall.

Not one door opened on the second floor.

“It’s me, Ferguson.”

Fallon peered through the peep hole and opened the door.

“You two all right?” asked Ferguson.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go.”

Fallon threw his suit over his arm, Evangeline dropped the knife on the floor, and they stepped into the hallway. They were both trembling—equal measures of fear and relief. As they walked past the body, Evangeline tried not to look. She wanted to think of it simply as a force, not a man. But Fallon stopped.

The shot had spun the gunman around and he lay so that most
of his face was obscured. Fallon sensed something familiar about the physique. He started to kneel beside it.

“He’s dead,” said Ferguson. “Let’s not hang around.”

They hurried down the fire escape, out of Henry Dill’s view, and headed for the subway.

Philip and Calvin Pratt sat beside the tennis court on the roof of the Back Bay house. Philip had wanted to play a set to work off his frustrations, but Calvin had been too distracted to return a serve. Instead, they sipped beers, and Calvin told the story of the 1933 Winter Ball.

When Calvin finished, Philip shook his head. “And now, he wants to pay us back for something that happened over forty years ago.”

“He may yet back out. The power of blackmail lies in its threat, in the knowledge that someone has or may have the power to destroy you. As long as Rule fears us—and I’m certain that he does, despite the bluster—there’s a chance he’ll back out, even if we don’t have the tea set.”

“A very slim chance.”

“Slim, but better than announcing to the world that the tea set is a fraud. Once we’ve done that, Rule will have nothing to lose by charging ahead, and he still might find enough votes to overthrow us.”

“I still think Rule is too seasoned to back out in the face of a few empty threats. He knows that it may well be impossible for us to find the tea set, because he’s looked for it himself.” Philip laughed. “Or maybe he knows it will be impossible to find because he’s already found it. The tea set in the museum has been officially accepted by a lot of people, from Revere experts right down to members of our own family.”

None of the discussion was new to them. They were simply talking to fill up the time and distract themselves from the heat. They had forty-eight hours and no solutions. Calvin hoped Rule might crack. Philip was relying on Isabelle to find the missing link in Sean Mannion’s family history.

After a while, Philip spoke again. “I think we should be preparing to lose on Monday.”

“If it happens, I’ll immediately begin to structure a tender offer and we can try to buy a controlling interest in the stock. Christopher wanted us to do that from the outset.”

“I’ve never considered a tender offer, Calvin, and neither have you. It would mean buying outright another twenty percent of Pratt Industries. It would force us into alliances that we’ve never cared to make with banks and bonding institutions, and they’d end up controlling Pratt Industries.”