Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

The office’s bone-white walls were adorned with framed autographed photos of Ernie DiGregorio, John Thompson, Marvin Barnes, Johnny Egan, Lenny Wilkins, and a dozen more basketball legends from Providence College, where McCracken and I were undergrads together a lifetime ago. The last time I saw those photos, they were hanging in a shabby, one-man storefront office shoehorned between a bucket-of-blood bar and the police station in the sorry waterfront town of Warren, Rhode Island. My friend’s fortune had taken a turn for the better.

“Nice,” I said.

“The office or Sharise? She’s engaged, so do your ogling from a respectful distance.”

“I’ll try to behave.”

The woman in question returned with a silver tray that held two china cups, matching creamer and sugar bowl, two silver spoons, and a pair of monogrammed cloth napkins. She placed the tray on a cherry coffee table in front of a cognac-colored sofa that smelled like real leather. McCracken and I sank into it and picked up our cups as she left and silently shut the door.

McCracken leaned back and plunked his shiny black Bruno Maglis on the tabletop.

“I gather business is booming,” I said.

“It’s getting there. I’m on retainer with five law firms and two insurance companies now, and the wayward-spouse racket is outta sight.”

“That’s enough to support all this?”

“Not quite yet. The rent here is steep. But you gotta look the part if you want to attract a deep-pocket clientele.”

“So who are these associates I read about on the door?”

“There aren’t any.”

“The other two offices are empty?”

“Yeah, but I got plans to expand,” he said. “Hold on a sec.”

He pulled himself to his feet, padded across the rug to his desk, and rummaged in a drawer. Then he came back and handed me an engraved brass nameplate. The name on it was Shamus Mulligan.

“I know you don’t like your first name,” he said, “so Liam was out. I was gonna make it L. S. A. Mulligan, like your byline, but then I realized one of those Gaelic middle names of yours worked better.”

“Because Shamus is slang for private detective?”

“Bingo.”

“On my birth certificate, it’s spelled S-E-A-M-U-S.”

“So what? The sign goes on the door as soon as you’re ready to start.”

“I’m still thinking on it.”

“Don’t take too long, okay? I could use some help around here.”

“I hear you.”

“So tell me, now,” he said. “Who did you kill this time?”

“Whaddaya mean, this time? The creep I shot last year made a full recovery.”

“I know. Thanks to you, the taxpayers have to provide him with free food and shelter for life. I hope your aim is better now.”

“It is the way the homicide twins tell it.”

“The corpse have a name?”

“Mario Zerilli.”

“Mario’s dead?”

“Maybe,” I said, and gave him the rest of it.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said. “That asshole was into some nasty shit.”

“I know. It would be fine by me if all the women-beaters and gay-bashers end up facedown in the Blackstone.”

“If that was his body in the river,” McCracken said, “a lot of people had reason to put it there. So what can I do to help?”

“Nothing. I’m not losing any sleep over this one.”

“You’re here about something else?”

“I am,” I said. “What do you know about the video surveillance system at Green Airport?”

“Not much, but I can make a call. A buddy of mine runs the crew that installed it.”

“Can you find out how long they keep the video, if they have face-recognition software, and if they do, whether we can get somebody to check, say, the last three months for me?”

“You’re joking, right?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Face-recognition software? You’ve been watching too much junk TV.”

“But I thought-”

“You thought wrong,” he said. “The technology’s in development, but unless the NSA or the CIA has come up with something they aren’t sharing, it works less than half the time. It’s pretty good if the camera catches the face straight on, but the more it veers toward profile, the less reliable it gets. And it’s easily fooled by facial expressions, too. Even a grin or a frown can throw it off. And sunglasses? Fugettaboutit. Most times, it can’t tell the difference between Osama and Obama.”

“Just like Fox News,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“So if I wanted to find a face in the crowd,” I said, “I’d have to go through all the video myself?”

“If you could get you access to it, yeah. Who is it you’d be looking for?”

“This guy,” I said, and handed him my cell phone.

McCracken’s jaw dropped.

“What is your interest in Lucan Alfano?” he said.

Then it was my jaw that dropped.

“What’s yours?” I asked.

“The sign on the door says confidential investigative services,” McCracken said.

“So you’re not going to tell me?”

“Not unless you have something to trade. Even then, it would have to be off the record.”

“Alfano died with a briefcase on his lap,” I said. “Inside it was two hundred grand in hundred-dollar bills.”

“You know this how?” he asked, so I told him.

“What else have you got?”

So I spilled about the list of names.

“Did you already know about this?” I asked.

“No.”

McCracken rubbed his jaw and took a moment to decide what he was willing to share.

“About a month ago,” he said, “a public official came in here with a story. He claimed a stranger who looked like Paulie Walnuts had walked into his statehouse office unannounced on March third and offered him a large sum of cash in return for a favor. The offer came with a warning not to call the police.”

“You took his case?”

“I did.”

“Did this favor have something to do with the governor’s gambling bill?”

He nodded.

“The man wanted the bill killed?”

“He wanted it modified.”

“To turn the bookmaking over to private enterprise?”

“That’s right.”

“It was Alfano who made the offer?”

Another nod.

“Your client knows this how? Did Alfano give his name?”

“He didn’t.”

“So?”

“So my client trailed him outside and watched him walk down the hill toward downtown. The guy crossed the street and entered the Omni Hotel.”

“Then what?”

“After I took the case, I dropped by the hotel and asked the desk clerk if he’d recently had a guest who looked like Paulie Walnuts. He remembered the guy, all right. Said he’d registered under the name Michael O’Toole and paid with an unusual credit card.”

“Unusual how?”

“It didn’t have his name on it. Just a company name, Bucks and Pesos Inc.”

“I thought all credit cards are supposed to have the holder’s name on them.”

“So did I,” he said. “Turns out there’s at least one so-called bank that issues credit cards with just business names.”

“Sounds fishy.”

“You think? Far as I can tell, the bank exists only on the Internet. According to its website, it will also register your company name in Central America and set you up with an offshore bank account.”

“Alfano and this Bucks and Pesos are one and the same?”

“They are.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I gave the desk clerk a hundred bucks for the credit card information, and then I traced it. Had to call in a lot of favors before I was able to link it to Alfano. Once I had his name, I called a P.I. I know in Atlantic City and got the lowdown on him. The P.I. also sent me Alfano’s picture.”