Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (20 page)

"Smell?"

"Yeah. I can't understand it. The air looks
clean—the streets, you could fucking eat off—but there's this
smell. Guy told me later it was probably one of the breweries, the
wind was right."

"I've heard they like their beer."

"You kidding? We're out to dinner with these
people, they take us to the one Italian restaurant they say can
really do the food justice, and it's just, like, mediocre. Mediocre
at best. Then, instead of wine, they order beer with it. I mean, it
was fucking disgusting, they're drinking beer with pasta. You give
them a bottle of wine, I think they would've poured it on the fucking
salad."

I laughed. Zuppone did too, a little looser now.

"And the hotel, Cuddy. I forget the name of the
place, but you should have seen it. Usually when we're out of town,
we stay with some of the people we're seeing, kind of a home away
from home, you know? But this gentleman we're paying our respects
to—Mr. Ianella, the one gets rattled out by your guy there?—he
wants us to stay in the best place in the city. So we're at the
check-in desk, and there's some convention or other going on. The
clerk tries to tell one of our Milwaukee people—this gentleman's
son, got a scar through his eyebrow and a look that'd scare
Tyrannosaurus fucking rex——that there's no rooms available. So
the son leans over the counter, and says something real quiet like,
and you'd have thought the clerk grew fucking wings, he moved so fast
for us. And I get this apartment, it's got a living room and a
bathroom with a Jacuzzi the size of a fucking regular room. And the
bed? Let's just say you would've thought you were in the Wilt
Chamberlain Suite.

"Anyways, I get settled in the room, figuring it
might be nice to pick something up at the bar, show her the Jacuzzi,
you know? And when I get down there, I see ten, fifteen broads
standing around, all sipping wine and club sodas, and they're even
pretty young. And I say, 'Great, they must be here for the
convention'—not pros hustling, you understand, just like attending
it. Then I notice the hotel has this computer bulletin board in the
lobby right by the bar, and they've got what the convention events
are, rolling over the screen. And guess what the convention turns out
to be?"

"I give up."

"It's some kind of nurses' thing, only the
fucking theme or whatever you call it is 'Sexually Transmitted
Diseases.' The computer screen's rolling panels with titles like
'Dysfunctional Vaginal Bleeding' and 'Canker Sores of the Male
Organ,' and I say to myself, 'Fuck, the vibes this board's giving
off, there ain't gonna be nobody laid in this hotel for a year.' "

Zuppone's laugh was cut short by the gate agent's
announcement that our flight was just hooking up to the jetway. He
rose to look and said, "Come on."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean I'm not setting up Alfonso DiRienzi for
your hitters."

His face coloring, Zuppone sat back down. "Cuddy,
they aren't 'my hitters." They're the guys have a score to
settle with a certain bean counter who betrayed them."

"I don't see the difference?

"The difference is that my people owe the
Milwaukee people a favor, and the coordinator I told you about let
the cat out of the fucking bag that 'we' know where the rat is. And
that 'we' includes you, since it was the fucking favor you asked with
the photo that got me into this situation in the first fucking
place."

"And they expect you to produce me for a little
talking to."

Primo shrugged. "You might say that, yeah."

"Not tonight."

"What?"

"They know who I am?"

"Cuddy, you winking out on me or what'? They
never fucking met you before."

"So they don't know my name."

Zuppone struggled to keep his voice down. "Of
course they don't know your fucking name."

"All right, then. You tell them you've been
trying to reach me. Tell them you camped out in front of my house and
I never showed up."

"Your car's there now."

"Tell them it wasn't when you left."

"Cuddy," the face getting more flushed,
"why should I tell them any of this fucking shit?"

I pointed to the jetway. "Because when they come
through that door, I'm going to be holding one of the telephones next
to us, speaking on an open line to Boston Homicide. Just to make sure
nothing cute happens here."

Zuppone glanced nervously at the jetway door. "You
got rocks in your head or what? These guys just flew how many fucking
miles to talk to you tonight, get this thing done.”

"You tell them you're working on finding me, and
meanwhile you'll show them the city."

"Show them the city? Cuddy, these guys didn't
come here to shop Quincy fucking Market. They came here to avenge the
family honor and fly the fuck back.”

The gate agent opened the doorway, putting on a year
book smile to greet the arrivals.

I said to Zuppone, "I'm going to make the call,
and then I'll try you tomorrow on your car phone."

"Tomorrow'? What the fuck am I supposed—"

I stood up and walked over to the phone bank. After I
picked up a receiver and dialed, Primo took a series of breaths, the
color in his face finally returning to normal. Only three people—an
older couple with what looked like a granddaughter-came through the
doorway and into the lounge before two men appeared and nodded to
Primo. Both wore suits. One was tall, stooped, and balding. The other
was husky, with dark, styled hair. Neither of them looked anything
like the two guys who had worked me over behind my office building,
but the husky one, talking animatedly to Zuppone, was familiar in a
different way. There was an obvious scar line through his left
eyebrow, a lot like the one Primo described as belonging to the son
of the "gentleman" Alfonso DiRienzi had helped send to
prison.
 

=14=

To allow Primo Zuppone enough head start to clear the
baggage carousel area downstairs, I stayed at the arrival lounge
telephones. Trying Olga Evorova's home number, I got an outgoing
tape, her voice anonymously announcing, "Please, leave your
message." After the beep, I said to call me at my home number as
soon as possible, any hour. Then I dialed the bank number and left
the same on her voice-mail.

Trying Nancy at home next, I got her machine too.
After a similar beep, I said into the receiver, "Nance, if
you're there, please pick up," but only static crackled back at
me. I replaced the receiver and thought about it. I could go to
Nancy's in South Boston by taxi, but I'd have to make the driver
wait, because if she didn't answer her door, I'd be stuck over there
without a car, and hailing or calling a second cab would mean hiking
to Broadway. On the other hand, I could go to Evorova's apartment on
Beacon Hill by taxi. If she didn't answer her door, I'd be within
walking distance of my parking space, assuming Primo and the
Milwaukee contingent weren't already planted outside the condo
building, watching for me to do just that. Then I could drive to
Nancy's, and my car wouldn't be where I'd told Primo to tell the
hitters it wasn't.

I checked my watch, sat
for another five minutes trying to think of a better plan, and
finally went downstairs to the revolving door marked GROUND
TRANSPORTATION.

* * *

I had the cabbie drop me at Joy Street, a few blocks
from Evorova's address. Then I zigzagged another two blocks around
it. Given the narrow, one-way streets on the Hill, there was no way
anybody in a car could follow me without tipping themselves, and
nobody on foot who looked like one of Primo's "associates"
stayed close.

Finally reaching Evorova's building, I saw the
telephone-style keypad at the main entrance and realized that if I
punched in her code, I'd only be ringing her phone, and therefore
would still get just her answering machine. I tried anyway, heard the
"Please, leave your message," and said it was me, waiting
downstairs, and if she was there, would she please pick up or buzz
the outer door. Neither happened, so I pressed the HANG UP button,
then walked around the block to the back of her building.

There was a parking area tucked into what should have
been the rear garden of the first floor unit, but I didn't see the
orange Porsche Carrera my client had told me she owned. One slot
stood empty. though, between a green Mercedes and a gray Lexus, and I
figured I'd done as much as I could about warning Olga Evorova about
"her Andrew," at least for the night.

Using a similar zigzag pattern, I walked down to
Charles Street and over to Beacon. I went west up Marlborough to
approach my building, then loitered at the corner of Fairfield for a
while, watching the Prelude in its space under the streetlamp.
Expanding my field of vision a few parked cars at a time, I didn't
see any people obviously sitting in them.

Moving as casually as possible to my driver's side
door, I opened it, slid behind the wheel, and started the engine.

Nobody tried to block me
in as I backed out, and no vehicle seemed to stay in my rearview
mirror very long on the drive to Southie.

* * *

I left the car around the corner from the Lynches'
three-decker. At their stoop, I pushed Nancy's button. No fancy phone
pads or intercoms in this neighborhood, just old-fashioned bells that
rang above doorways upstairs. I pictured her coming down the interior
staircase, a towel over her right hand, a Smith & Wesson
Bodyguard with shrouded hammer under the towel, in case a customer
she'd nailed in court had somehow gotten the prosecutor's address and
decided to cross the line.

I waited a minute, then forced myself to use my watch
to wait a full minute more. I tried her button again. Same lapse of
time, same lack of response.

Mrs. Lynch, in her sixties, lived alone on the first
floor. Her son, Drew, shared the second with his wife and baby. I
pushed the middle button.

When the front door opened a foot, Drew stood inside
wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt over red sweatpants, his right arm
hanging straight down from the shoulder, the hand hidden behind his
thigh. As he recognized me, the right hand came out, relaxing its
grip on a long-barreled revolver.

"Drew, I'm really sorry to disturb you, but
Nancy's not answering her phone or the bell, and I'm kind of
worried."

A nod. "I heard her walking around the kitchen
above us, so she's there."

I didn't ask to come in, but he swung the door wide
for me to enter. Saying thanks, I moved past him and up the stairs,
trying my best not to take them two at a time. On the third landing,
I waited until I heard Drew's apartment door close below me, then
knocked gently on Nancy's. I could hear Renfield pawing against the
other side, but nothing else. I knocked louder, and the cat upped the
ante too, now mewling a little as he couldn't get at whatever was on
my side of the door.

I bent down and over the sill said, "Renfield,
tell her if she doesn't open up, I'm kicking it in."

That's when the deadbolt clicked back, and the door
finally cracked ajar.

Renfield scuttled out, his bent rear legs churning
like a locomotive's wheel linkage, his clawless front paws trying to
burrow a hole through my shoe laces. Nancy stood in front of me. She
wore a cotton turtleneck under a fuzzy mauve robe, knee socks going
up past the hem of the robe. Her eyes were red, and her hair was
mussed, but less like she'd been lying down and more like she'd been
tossing and turning.

In a hurt voice, Nancy said, "Didn't you get my
message?"

"No. When did you leave me one?"

"A couple of hours ago."

Well after I'd checked in from Vermont. "What
did your message say?"

Nancy closed her eyes. "That I was still on
trial tomorrow, and couldn't see you tonight because I wasn't feeling
well and had to make up for all the time I lost today."

The explanation sounded brittle. "Time you lost
going to the doctor's?"

Opening her eyes, she started to say something, then
stopped.

"Nance, how about if you let me in?"

A frown.

I said, "Maybe before Renfield tears the shoes
from my feet?"

She stepped back and turned away, the cat leaving me
alone as he trailed her into the apartment.

I came through the door and closed it behind me,
noticing the tape from our Scottish fiddle night still on the shelf
near her telephone. Then I followed Nancy and Renfield into the
living room.

She plopped herself down on the couch, the cat at his
station under the glass-topped coffee table, where I'd feed him
scraps if we were eating. But instead of food covering the table,
there was only a half-glass of white wine and a box of tissues, some
soul-rending jazz piano at low volume coming from the stereo.

I sat across from her on a chair. "Nance?"

"It's just . . ." She ran a hand through
her hair. "It's just this stuff they're doing at the courthouse?