Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (13 page)

Then I tried Olga Evorova's number at the bank to
bring her up to date on how little I'd found out and to ask her how
far she wanted me to push an already upset Andrew Dees. I drew a very
formal secretary who advised me that Ms. Evorova was attending a
meeting out of the office. I left basically the same message with her
that I had at the DA's.

After organizing the questionnaires from Plymouth
Willows into a simple file, I did some other paperwork for an hour or
so, involuntarily thinking of Nancy and glancing at the telephone
from time to time. Following that, I signed my name to reports a nice
woman at the accountants' office down the corridor word processes
"under the desk" for ten bucks a throw. Then I looked at
the Plymouth Willows iile again. I was about to start counting the
turning leaves on the Common's trees when the phone finally did ring.

"John Cuddy."

"John, it's Nancy."

Just hearing her voice made my heart settle when I
hadn't been aware it was stuck too high in the chest. "You got
my message?"

"At the office, but I'm calling from a bar
thing."

Her voice sounded stilted.

" 'Bar thing'?"

"You know, a Bar Association event, cocktails
and then dinner. Boring, but appropriate for a lawyer of my acumen."

More stilted. "Nance, is everything all right?"

"Fine. I guess I forgot to mention the bar
thing, huh?"

Now over-casual. "Yeah, I think you must have."

"Well, I'm sorry. I've got this trial still
tomorrow, so I'm just going to head home tonight."

"Right."

A silence between us.

Then Nancy said,

"John, are you okay?"

"Only if you are."

Another silence. "You mean, did I call the
doctor?"

"That's what I mean."

"I called her but didn't get a chance to speak
with her. I have an appointment for tomorrow morning."

"What time?"

"John, it's nothing. Don't worry."

"I do worry, Nance. What time?"

"The appointment?"

“
Yes."

"Ten o'c1ock."

"That won't foul up your trial?"

"The judge will let me work around it."

"I'll drive you."

"Where?"

"To the doctor's."

"No."

"Why not?"

Her voice became a little sharp. "Because I'm a
big girl, and I can make it to the doctor for a simple checkup on my
own."

"Nance, do me a favor. Don't turn my concern for
you into some kind of insult to you, okay?"

"John, I'm not in a position where I can discuss
this very well."

"Call me tomorrow, then, after the doctor's."

"If I can. I've got to be back on trial for the
afternoon."

"I love you, Nancy."

A softening. "Same here, squared."

Then she rang off.

I hung up the phone with a bad feeling. I tried to
shake it off, then thought about burning it off at the Nautilus club
back near the condo. Downstairs, the traffic on Tremont Street was
gridlocked, so I walked to the photo place before getting my car. The
pictures were ready, and the dozen extras of Andrew Dees at the
driver's door came out beautifully. Small triumph.

Putting the envelope of prints and negatives in a
jacket pocket, I walked back toward the office, my mind on Nancy and
whether I should have pressed more or less in talking with her.
Coming around the corner of my building to the parking area, I
registered only the forearm coming up, clotheslining me just under
the throat.

I went down backwards, a pair of strong hands on each
of my arms as soon as I hit the ground. The hands brought me back up,
face against the wall, my wrists twisted behind my spine as one hand
on each side frisked me quickly.

"I'm not carrying," I said.

One of the frisking hands rapped at my left kidney.
The pain and nausea broke over me like a wave, my knees buckling a
little.

A man's gruff voice spoke into my left ear.

"And if you was?"

I managed to say, "Then you'd be dead, and
somebody else would be asking me these questions."

The one on my right arm spun me around. I braced my
stomach muscles for the shot I expected from his partner, but the
punch, with fingers stiffened at the second knuckle like a striking
cobra, still penetrated deep, taking my breath away as it doubled me
over. Then the other guy used the heel of his left hand to smack my
forehead, whiplashing my skull back against the brick. One hand from
each gripped my lapels while the other hands pinned my arms against
the wall. I was fighting the gag reflex and seeing stars, but I could
also make out the two men.

Both had dark hair, slicked back in a way that looked
wrong, like they didn't have the right cut for wearing it that way.
Each wore a suit jacket, with fly-away-collar shirt open to the third
button and a gold chain instead of a necktie. Olive-skinned, burly,
and a few inches shorter than my six-two-plus, one guy had coarse
features, the other fine.

Fine said, "You been asking around about Hendrix
Management, Cuddy. Why?"

"You guys . . . have condos too?"

Coarse tightened his grip on my lapel and pushed me
against the wall harder but didn't hit me. "You were fucking
asked why, asshole."

"I'm representing . . . another complex. They—"

Fine pushed me too. "That's bullshit. Why?"

"——they want to know how . . . good a
company Hendrix—"

Coarse pushed me again. We'd gone from a solid
working—over to the schoolyard at recess, and I couldn't see why.
"Which complex we talking about here, asshole?"

The line didn't sound right coming from him, like
Nancy on the phone. "Confidential."

Fine said, "You got any idea the pain we can
cause you?"

Coarse grinned at me. Nice teeth.

"My associate here, he likes to kill people."

"Loves to kill," said Fine.

"Lives to kill." Coarse grinning broader.

Fine moved his lips to within three inches of my
face.

"We got a message for you, Cuddy."

"Simple message," said Coarse.

"Yeah, but real irnportant," said Fine.

Coarse brought his lips to the same distance from me
as his partner's. I could smell the mint on his breath. "You
tell your clients, Hendrix ain't interested in their business."

Fine said, "You don't fuck around with Hendrix
Management or its properties, capisce?"

Coarse almost kissed me. "You don't go see them,
you don't call them, you don't even fucking think about them."

"Seems clear enough," I said.

Fine feinted, as if to give me another shot with the
cobra hand. I tensed as best I could before he pulled his punch.

"Don't make us fucking deliver the message
again, huh?"

They both let go of me at the same time, Coarse
hunching his shoulders, Fine shooting his cuffs like he'd just
learned how that moming.

Coarse said, "You stay right here."

Fine gestured toward the dumpster. "Enjoy the
garbage, like we had to, fucking waiting for you.”

"And don't start up or anything before we're ten
minutes gone." Coarse flicked his fingertips at me. “Capisce?"

I watched them walk out, Fine forward, Coarse
backward, watching me. When they reached the side street, they turned
left and disappeared.

I rubbed my stomach, coughing up some remnants of
lunch that didn't have any blood in them. As the adrenaline wore
down, I shook a little too. The guys had come on hard, then backed
off. They didn't feel right to me, like they'd seen somebody else do
this kind of routine and were trying to copy the model.

So, maybe they were mob-connected and maybe they
weren't. I wasn't sure, but I thought of one person who might be able
to shed some light on the subject.
 

=10=

Hey-ey-ey, Cuddy, how you doing."

A greeting, not a question. His right hand returning
a car phone to its cradle on the console, Primo Zuppone looked up at
me from the wheel of his Lincoln Continental, the same one he'd had
when I first met him. Mid-forties, he wore a double-breasted blue
suit that didn't do much to hide his blocky body. The hair was still
black and slicked over the ears, duck's-ass style. His complexion
hadn't changed, either, ravaged by the pits and scars of teenage
acne. The brown eyes glittered happily above his half-smile, a
trademark toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth.

"Primo, it's been a while."

"Get in, get in." He leaned over, opening
the passenger's side door. "We'll drive around, listen to some
music."

I slid onto the front seat gingerly, the buttery
leather creating almost no friction against my suit pants. I noticed
Zuppone checking his rearview and sideview mirrors, and then me. A
leather coat the same color as the upholstery was folded carefully on
the back seat, an audio cassette partway into a dashboard slot next
to the radio.

Primo pushed the cassette the rest of the way into
the player. "Tim Story. Solo piano mostly. You ever hear him?"

"I don't think so. I have some Liz Story tapes.
They related?"

A tick-tocking of his head, left to right and back
again, as we moved into traffic. "Beats me. I just listen to the
shit, I don't study it."

I'd first met Zuppone working a case that involved
the Danucci crime family from Boston's North End. Primo had been the
"situation guy" assigned by them to "coordinate"
with me. A mobster who loved New Age music.

The cassette began to play, a mournful piano
accompanied by something acoustical.

I said, "That Wim Mertens album you gave me
still sounds great."

He rolled the toothpick from one comer of his mouth
to the other. "Glad to hear it. That was Close Coven am I
right?"

"I think so. It was a bootlegged tape, so there
isn't a lot of information on the cassette holder."

"Yeah, yeah. It's a homemade jobbie, that was
Close Cover all right. They love him in Europe—he's Dutch or some
fucking thing—but it's tough to get the guy's stuff over here. I'll
dupe one of the other albums for you."

"Thanks."

Zuppone nodded. "How do you like old Timmie so
far?"

"Reminds me of old Wimmie."

Primo glanced over. "That's pretty fucking good,
Cuddy, just off the top of your head and all."

My turn to nod. "Hope you'l1 understand if I
don't ask after the family."

"Tell you the truth, they probably wouldn't be
so hurt about that. You're not exactly on the Christmas list from the
last thing, you know?"

A killing I was part of had been cleaned up by a
friendly funeral home and covered up by a doctor beholden to the
Danuccis.

"So, how have you been, Primo?"

"Pretty good. All things considered, anyways.
Just got back from A.C."

"Atlantic City?"

"Yeah." The toothpick rolled to the other
comer. "I go down there a couple, three times a year. This
friend of ours comps me to the charter flight and hotel. You oughta
see their idea of a fucking honeymoon suite, it'd look great in a
Madonna movie. Best part, though, I met this guy named Enrico, used
to be a POW in World War II."

"Prisoner of war?"

"Yeah, but one of ours."

"I don't get you."

"I'm standing around the casino, taking a break,
and I overhear this little old guy talking in Italian to a little old
lady, looks like she's gotta be his wife. So I say something to the
guy, and it turns out this Enrico served his home country in the
Italian army and was one of our prisoners, way out in the desert,
Arizona someplace."

"And he came back after the war?"

"And got made a citizen some fucking way, don't
ask me how. Anyways, Enrico starts telling me what it was like to be
a POW, and it was fascinating. I mean, he remembers being in the
middle of Indiana, and then they get told by this MP—that's what
you used to be, right?"

"I was Military Police, but a lot later on the
time line."

"Right, right. Vietnam, I remember. But this
little old guy, he's telling me about the MP captain who's moving
them by some kind of convoy—like fifty trucks, ten Italian soldiers
to a truck, all lying down on the floor of the thing, with guards and
a canvas stretched over slats above them. Like a fucking olive-drab
covered wagon, get it? And the MPs, I guess they bought these
prisoners box lunches along the way when they stopped for gas or
whatever."

"Anyone try to escape?"

"No. Enrico said the captain told them through
an interpreter that if anybody lifted his head, the guards would
shoot it off. Then, after they drive around the clock, they get to
this camp in the desert, godforsaken fucking place with chain-link
fences and barbed wire, like five hundred of the guys per compound.
And one day, there's an attack."