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Authors: John Dobbyn

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BOOK: Deadly Diamonds
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“Good morning, Paddy. Now that you've had breakfast, let's finish your mission. It's not the most gracious invitation I've ever had, but I'm going to accept it. Let's go.”

Paddy was the dictionary picture of ambivalence. The obvious question that stood out on his furrowed brow was whether or not to lead me to his undisclosed principal under the reversal of circumstances. I had to get him off dead center.

I handed him his cell phone, which was among the items Daddy found in his pockets.

“Call the man. Tell him I'm willing to come. It's his play.”

He hit a speed-dial number and mumbled into the phone. Based on the flow of Gaelic invectives that must have strained the cell phone's little earpiece, his principal did not suffer the turn of events gladly.

I grabbed the phone out of his hand. “This is Michael Knight.”

Abrupt silence. I continued. “I don't know who you are, but, apparently, you know me, and we seem to have business. I don't do command performances. On the other hand, if you want to meet and talk nice, I'll be all ears. What'll it be?”

More silence. I gave him a minute to get a grip on the change of procedure.

“Mr. Knight, I'll apologize for the inappropriate beginning. I'm
used to dealing with a more crude element. And time is definitely of the essence.”

I could sense a distinct elevation in the level of intelligence. There was a calm in the voice that encouraged a second beginning. In a public place.

“How immediate is the problem? How about breakfast tomorrow morning?”

“No, Mr. Knight. I think not.”

“Then where and when?”

“Are you familiar with South Boston?”

“Are you familiar with Beacon Hill?” I was still not comfortable with the idea of meeting on his playing field.

“Won't do, Mr. Knight. There's something you should see. Understand, this is in the nature of a professional engagement. You'll be paid. Extravagantly.”

That gave me more jitters than O'Toole's arm around my shoulder. “I think you better understand. I'm a lawyer. Maybe not the type you're used to. I intend to keep my bar membership intact. I think this conversation is coming to a close.”

“A moment, Mr. Knight. I know your reputation. I'm asking nothing that will, shall we say, tarnish it. That said, I think you'll find this one of the more interesting meetings of your career.”

Now he had me. What I may lack in physical dominance, I, unfortunately, make up in raw curiosity. More than once, it's driven me into what the Chinese curse refers to as “an interesting life.”

“Then where?”

“Please put Mr. O'Toole back on the line. He'll be a more courteous escort in the future.”

Before handing the phone over, there was one more question burning a hole in the curiosity lobe of my brain.

“And just to prepare me for the meeting, your name is?”

“All in good time, Mr. Knight.”

CHAPTER TWO

It was past three a.m. when our little convoy pulled up outside the Slainte Pub on L Street in South Boston. It appeared closed, as the law required at that hour. Paddy led me and my adopted shadow, Charlie, to a side entrance. We climbed a set of well-worn steps to a second floor office. Paddy rapped once. A voice I recognized from the phone conversation gave a brusque, “Get in here, Paddy.”

A seriously subdued Paddy led the way. I followed quickly enough to catch the daggered look toward Paddy from the sixtyish, white-haired individual rising to stand behind the desk. From a physical perspective, Paddy could clearly have bounced his five-foot, roundish body across the floor like a basketball. Equally clearly, that one look sent Paddy hulking to the side of the room like a cowed pup.

I was next in. The hand extended across the desk bode a warmer welcome than that given to my thuggish escort, Paddy. On the other hand, when my other escort, Charlie, came through the door behind me, the look froze and the hand retracted, leaving no doubt that Charlie was not only uninvited, but unwelcome.

“Mr. Knight, you and I have business. It's private. I thought I implied that. Who's this?”

We stood facing each other, Charlie behind me with his hands in his overcoat pockets, clutching heaven-knows-what form of artillery and giving me a sense of well-being that I didn't fancy doing without.

“Call him ‘Charlie.' He likes that name. Given the tone of your invitation—” I glanced over at Paddy, who had gone from cowering
to sulking. “—you can consider Charlie a permanent attachment. If that doesn't work for you, I say we part friends. Your choice.”

The reddening of his complexion from the collar up indicated that he was more used to giving the choices—probably to those without options. Whatever caused him to think he needed me apparently put the lid on his natural instincts. A hand shot across the desk. I nearly jumped into Charlie's arms until I realized it was the offer of a handshake.

“Mr. Knight, we're off to a bad start. Let's begin again. Have a seat, please.”

Based on the fact that the hand did not hold a gun, I accepted the courtesy. Before sitting, however, I needed some ground rules. I remained standing.

“Mr. Knight, I give you my word, you're in no danger. My man here—” Another withering glance at Paddy, for whom I was developing unexplainable sympathy “—lacks the gentility to convey the tone I intended. I have a simple favor to ask. Again, you'll be paid handsomely.”

“I'd be more convinced if I knew your name.”

A smile cracked the previously rigid features as he rose from the chair and approached Paddy. “I'm surprised you need to ask, Mr. Knight. However—”

He took Paddy by the elbow and led him to the door. “Paddy, be a good man. Take Charlie here downstairs to the bar. Anything he'd like. And Paddy, please, like a gentleman.”

He looked back at me to see how the plan went down. It was a gamble, but again curiosity trumped fear. I nodded to Charlie, who showed clear hesitation. He was under orders from Tom Burns, not me, and most certainly not our host.

“It's all right, Charlie. This is why we came. I'll be down shortly.” To emphasize it, I accepted the offer of a seat.

Reluctantly, Charlie followed Paddy down the stairs. I'd have bet my Bruins season tickets that nothing liquid passed his lips while he waited.

My host closed the door. He came back and leaned his backside on the desk in front of me. There were deep lines forming in his forehead above the white eyebrows that I couldn't quite figure, given the relative strengths of our positions.

Our proximity let him lower the tone to just above a whisper. “Do you have children, Mr. Knight?”

“Never married. And, again, this would be easier if I knew your name.”

He nodded and walked around to sit behind the desk. “You're obviously not from South Boston. Can you tell me the name Frank O'Byrne means nothing to you?”

The words, “Oh, crap,” bubbled up in my throat but never made it to the vocal chords. For the ten years I'd taken an interest in any part of the
Boston Globe
that didn't concern the Bruins or Red Sox, the name, Frank O'Byrne, was constantly linked with the word “allegedly,” as in “allegedly the boss of all criminal activity in the Irish communities of South Boston, Charlestown, and Dorchester.”

The expression on my face made playing dumb a nonoption. “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. O'Byrne.”

“Good. That saves needless explanation. I won't bother telling you that much of what you've heard or read served more to sell newspapers than to expose the truth. I hope you've lived long enough to assume that.”

“That said, Mr. O'Byrne, I have trouble imagining what I can do for you that an army of thugs couldn't do better. No offense.”

I caught the faint crack of a smile. “You're a piece of work, Mr. Knight. I see we can speak frankly to each other. That'll make it easier. Let's get down to business.”

“Let's not, Mr. O'Byrne. Not yet. A couple of preliminaries. Are you asking for legal advice?” I was thinking of the promise my senior partner, Lex Devlin, and I made to each other never to take on representation of anyone who made murder a tool of the trade.

He rubbed his hand across the lines that were back on his forehead. “I could dance around the definition of legal advice, or we could just get to the matter at hand.”

“There's a reason for asking. I can't represent you.”

He looked at me for the length of a deep breath before speaking. “I'm not going to ask why. I'll just say that it's not me. It's someone else I'm concerned about. Now can we stop the chess match?”

“Again, no. Whom are we talking about?”

Another deep breath. “My son, Kevin. And it's not a court matter. Not yet. It could be.”

That was a horse of a different hue. The newspaper articles I was trying to pull back seemed to concede that the criminal life stopped with the father. The son was ensconced behind a Chinese wall, so to speak. He was, if memory served, a junior at Northeastern University.

“In that case, if you please, one dollar. Cash, check, or stamps. No credit cards.”

He looked puzzled.

“Mr. O'Byrne, I don't want to have to go to jail for not answering a prosecutor's questions about whatever you're about to tell me. You and your family are magnets for grand juries. Let me have a dollar, and for the moment—understand,
for the moment
—I'm retained counsel for you and your son. That means attorney-client privilege.”

The furrows were gone, but so was the smile. He pointed a disconcerting finger in my direction.

“Let there be no misunderstanding on that score, Mr. Knight. If you were to disclose anything said in this room to anyone, prison would be the least of your worries.”

I had no answer. The cards were on the table, especially the ugly ones. My heart, soul, and mind reached a unanimous conclusion:
Get Charlie the hell up here and hit the street
. If I had fifty cents for every time in the next two weeks that I regretted not following that conclusion to the letter, I could retire to Bimini.

“I'll take the dollar now, Mr. O'Byrne.”

He shrugged and reached into his pocket for a bill.

Without another word, he led the way down the back set of stairs and turned left into an alleyway. I'd have valued Charlie's company, but Mr. O'Byrne and I were both alone.

Fifty feet into the alley, a bulb over a doorway picked up the gleam of a Cadillac, Black Diamond Edition, high end. I could make out the drooping figure of what looked like a boy in his late teens, head in his hands, sitting on the stoop beside it.

“Kevin, come over here.”

The boy looked up and squinted at us, silhouetted against the backlight from the street. The voice brought him to his feet. He was closer to my height than his father's five-foot something. He looked lean and athletic with a confident way of moving, but even in that light I could see red rims around his eyes.

“Kevin, this is Mr. Knight.”

His hand came up automatically, but no sound.

“Tell him, Kevin.”

He looked at his father like a child actor being pushed on stage by his mother.

“Tell him. He can help. I know how these things work.”

He looked up at me from a slouch. I could hardly hear the words.

“I was with two other kids. We … I never did anything like this. One thing led to another. It was like a dare. Dad, I don't want—”

A fist shot out of the father's side that caught him in the ribs and straightened him up. The voice that went with it even straightened me up. “Speak like a man! You get into a man's trouble, you act like a man.”

The boy was looking me eye-to-eye now. The stammer was gone. He seemed to want to get it all out in one breath.

“We saw a man leave the keys in the car. They dared me to drive it around the block. They thought because of my father I'd dare to do it. The man came back when I was driving off. He ran down the street screaming. I panicked. I drove here.”

“Where was the car when you took it?”

“In front of Patrini's Restaurant.”

“Oh, crap in spades. Tell me you don't mean Patrini's in the North End.”

He just nodded. I looked over at his father who clearly understood the reason for the question.

“I don't suppose you'd know, but did anyone follow you here?”

“I don't think so. I was gone before they could catch up. It was dark, about midnight.”

“Who were these kids? Are they from the North End?”

“No. They're just kids from South Boston. Classmates.”

“Not to be indelicately racial, but are any of them Italian?”

“No. Irish.”

“All right. Any race other than Italian'll do at the moment. Do you know why I'm asking, Kevin?”

“Yes. But I was just going to drive around the block.”

“In a car that was undoubtedly owned by a made man in that little social club,
La Cosa Nostra
. You hit the jackpot.”

BOOK: Deadly Diamonds
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