William Landay - The Strangler

“Conroy said-”

Gargano’s corpulent body shuddered. When it stopped, he said in a breathy rasp, “Conroy come to Capobianco…he said you knew…said you knew about the cop, your old man. Said you accused him right to his face. You even told him you thought Capobianco ordered it. That’s not something you say out loud.”

“So Capobianco ordered the hit on my old man? Why? What did he ever do?”

“Look around you, you d-dumb fuck.”

“I don’t understand.”

Gargano sniffed. He turned his head slowly. “You’re standing in money. These people are making fucking millions. Fortunes. Fortunes. ”

“What’s that got to do with Capobianco?”

“It’s his money.”

And finally, by degrees, Michael saw it. He saw it. Gangsters not just working construction but doing the strong-arm work to clear the neighborhood for demolition, roughing up the holdouts, rolling up the lame and the halt and the stubborn-work that could take months, even years if it was left to the government. Delinquenti, Mrs. Cavalcante had called them. They say, “You gotta go, Mrs. C, you gotta go. It’s not safe for you here no more.” Capobianco had deployed his troops to evacuate the West End. That some of the soldiers happened also to be policemen was an incidental fact. Cops had acted like gangsters because they were gangsters-they were on Capobianco’s pad, paid to protect his interests. It all made sense only if Capobianco had an investment in the West End, because Charlie Capobianco didn’t do anything, didn’t even cross the street, except for money. He worshiped money as only a truly poor kid would. He wanted this project built, by any means necessary, and for reasons that had nothing to do with some fatuous fantasy of a New Boston. Charlie Capobianco did not give a Chinaman’s fart about Boston, new or old.

“How much does Capobianco have invested in all this?” Michael asked.

But Gargano was weakening. He lay flat on his stomach and his torso moiled about in the mud. His jaw chewed the air a moment until words came out: “I-I can’t breathe. I need a hospital.”

“You’re not going to any hospital.”

Gargano looked up at him with an expression of spite which softened, second by second, into spiteful submission.

“How big a piece of this did Capobianco take?”

“The fuck should I know?”

“What did it have to do with my father?”

“Conroy said-Conroy said he was gonna blow it up.”

“Blow it up how? My father wasn’t the type. He never squawked about cops on the sleeve before.”

“He wanted out. Said he didn’t work for Capobianco, didn’t want the money. They asked him to do some things; he said no. Didn’t want to go any further. All of a sudden he don’t want to go any further? Shh! After all those years he took Mr. Capobianco’s money? Now he’s gonna blow it all up, this chiacchierone? Nobody was gonna let that happen. If Daley had went and ratted about cops on the pad in the West End, or Mr. Capobianco having his fingers in the West End, he would have took down this whole thing. What politician is gonna stand up for a buildin’ owned by Charlie Capobianco? And everybody wants these buildin’s to go up. Everybody. The city, the feds, the developers. Too much money to stop it. Too much fuckin’ money. Your old man was like you: wasn’t smart enough to keep his fuckin’ mouth shut.”

“And Amy?”

“What Amy?”

“Amy Ryan. The reporter.”

“Oh. Whatever. She was gonna write it. Loved crooked-cop stories, this fuckin’ bitch, that’s what Conroy says. Course Conroy didn’t give a shit about nothing except himself anyways; he just didn’t want her writing his name in the papers. That piece of shit wouldn’t last a week in Concord without his badge. So he comes back and says we got to clip her, too. Otherwise she’s gonna spill the whole thing in the newspapers, and, y’know, prob’ly the whole project gets stopped. So we did. We hit her too. No choice.”

“Who…killed her? All the things they did to her?”

“That was Conroy’s idea. Dress it up like the Strangler, he said. He gave us all the details, all this shit we were supposed to do, tie a bow around her neck, whatever. He knew the newspapers’d go crazy for it.”

“And the broom handle? Conroy did not give you that; the Strangler never did it. Whose idea was that?”

“Mine.”

Michael nodded, accepting this boast. The sadistic indifference of it.

He hefted the sledgehammer again, patiently. The hammerhead was cast iron, barrel-shaped. Its weight pulled Michael’s arms into a rigid V. Together with the dangling hammer they formed a Y, and the Y rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. A nerveless energy began to build, fed by the rocking and the vision of Amy crucified on her bed.

“And Joe, my brother? What’d he do? He told me he was helping you. Why kill him? He was already on your side, you already had him.”

“You can’t have a cop know that much about your business, see it from the inside. Longer it goes, the bigger the risk. Whole thing was crazy. Someday he’d have burned us. End of the day, a cop is a cop. He woulda woke up, someday. He walked away with too much of Mr. Capobianco’s money anyways. He was lucky he stuck around as long as he did. Dumb shit.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I even know Joe’s really dead?”

“Bullet in the forehead,” Gargano said. “Check it out, you’ll see. Third eye-keep the other two shut.”

“And the gun?”

“You just threw it over there somewhere.”

Michael surveyed the massive pit. The chilly gloom. The forest of piles rising overhead. This place was not part of the city, he felt. It was not part of the earth.

Gargano tortoised forward on his elbows a few inches before laying his head back down, exhausted. “My throat. I think you…”

“Why in the hell,” Michael said, “would Capobianco put his money in this? Since when is he in construction? What does he know about it?”

“Nothing,” Gargano said. “But he runs a cash business, and he can only put so much on the street. He’s got to put it somewhere. He needed a legit investment, a big one. You know how much cash he pulls in? More than you can imagine. Your dad was a cop? Pff, believe me, you can’t imagine.”

“Try me.”

“It’s so much fuckin’ money, the state’s gonna start up its own lottery. You believe that? All these years the government tries to get Capobianco, then they turn right around and go into the numbers business. That’s how much money is in it.”

“And Sonnenshein, how much does he know?”

“Sonnenshein doesn’t know shit. The money’s invested without Capobianco’s name on it, through a trust or whatever. Capobianco always owns things through trusts so the feds can’t take it.”

“So why’s Capobianco interfering? He’s already invested. Why not just watch the project go forward?”

“With that much money riding on it? You don’t know Mr. Capobianco. He don’t take those kind of chances. He’s gonna protect his investment. These buildin’s are goin’ up.” Gargano faltered. He coughed, then spat in an intricate way. “Mr. Capobianco don’t bet. That’s the secret. The book never loses, only the suckers.”

Another fit of racking coughs tossed Gargano’s body. When it was done he lowered a thread of drool from his mouth until it adhered to the ground, like a spider launching a filament out of itself.

Michael laid the hammerhead on the back of Gargano’s head.

Gargano shook it away and dragged himself a few inches.

Michael rested the hammer on Gargano’s head again.

Gargano began to snort in angry dumb protest.

Michael tamped twice, lightly, as if setting a nail in a board before driving it in.