Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

The rush of rescuing Milton, guns blazing, has gone away, leaving Jack cranky and not in the mood for macho camaraderie, but things are breaking so fast that he can’t risk putting Tolliver off until tomorrow. As his friend returns from the bar with a couple of drafts, Jack tries to put on his game face, get into the swing of things.

“Happy hour,” he says, forcing a grin. “Look at these kids. I’m old enough to be their father.”

“Yeah? Be glad you’re not,” Tolliver says, eyes roving over some of the fair young items who’ve come up to the roof to suck on their long white cigarettes. All bright and giggly in short skirts and makeup, primping and priming for a night at the clubs.

“Nachos on the way,” Jack says.

“Good. Great. Seriously, kid, you look like you’ve been running with the wolves.”

Jack shrugs. “Things are happening.”

“You’re not in violation of any statutes, though, right?”

“Not in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, no.”

Tolliver gives him a look. “I never know when you’re kidding.”

“I’m always kidding, Glenn. Cheers.”

They tap glasses, drink.

“Mr. Baked Alaska, the frozen croak at the Bing murder?” Tolliver says, sucking air through the gap in his teeth. “We made the ID. His prints were in the system.”

“Oh yeah?”

“No surprise, a low-level gangbanger out of Chinatown, goes by the name of Micky Lee. Muscle for a protection racket. Look familiar at all?”

Tolliver hands over a small mug shot. Jack studies and returns it. “No,” he says. “Any connection to Jonny Bing?”

“Not that we can find, no. Bing moved in more rarified circles. He might have known the banger’s boss, but probably not the banger.”

“You think Bing was involved with a protection racket?” says Jack, surprised.

“No, no, I’m just saying. It’s a fairly small circle, the rich, connected Chinese in Boston. Bing knew ’em all, at least socially. Liked to show off, throw shindigs on his fancy boat, appear at all the local Chinese charity dinners. So he could have crossed paths with this particular guy’s boss. We’re looking into it.”

“Good to hear. Whoever killed the little dude, it wasn’t Randall Shane.”

“No? Why not?”

Jack lifts an eyebrow, wondering how much the trooper already knows. “Because when Bing was getting whacked Shane was being tortured by the bad guys.”

“Oh yeah? What bad guys?”

“Yet to be determined. All we have are theories at the moment.”

“Which you can’t discuss.”

Jack shrugs, finishes his beer.

Tolliver scoots his chair closer. “Here’s my theory. Shane knows we have him dead to rights, so he tries to put the frame on Jonny Bing somehow, only it all goes wrong when the boat doesn’t burn.”

“It was more like a ship.”

“Whatever. Just because that dyke lawyer of yours has Tommy Costello all hot and bothered, and persuades him to treat the suspect like royalty and not even take him into proper custody or bring him to court for arraignment, that doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty of doing that weirdo professor, even if he didn’t do Bing.”

“ Dyke is an ugly word,” Jack says, dander up.

“Hey, they use it, why can’t I?”

“The way you say it.”

Tolliver looks ever so slightly abashed. “Okay, lesbian or gay or whatever. I’m sorry, no offense intended. I get it, Jack, she’s a friend of yours, but it really takes the cake, our suspect getting a deluxe room with a view instead of a holding cell at the Middlesex Courthouse. All because the D.A. has political ambitions and he’s afraid Naomi Nantz will embarrass him somehow.”

“The D.A. gets it that Shane was most likely framed. The gun, the bloody shirt? You said so yourself, it’s way too perfect.”

“Yeah, I did. But once an arrest is made it should follow the rules.”

“A suspect confined to a hospital bed is hardly against the rules, Glenn. Half the Mafia dons spent years in hospitals, in their silk pajamas, awaiting trial. If you’d seen the guy, okay? They beat the crap out of him, shot him full of some kind of designer truth serum. For a while he thought they drilled a hole in his head, scrambled his brains. He needs to be under a doctor’s care. That would be true even if he was guilty, and he’s not. ”

“That’s the point,” the trooper says, truculent. “We never saw him. Cut off at the pass by lawyers. They all stick together no matter what side they’re on.”

“Okay, we can agree on something.”

Tolliver clinks his glass to Jack’s and makes a toast. “Dead lawyers.”

“Dead lawyers.”

They drain their glasses.

Kidder leaves his rental at a metered space on Newbury Street, feeds his quarters in the slot like a good doobie and places the receipt on the dash, as instructed. Sometimes it makes sense to play by the rules. Son of Sam got caught because he failed to pay the meter. Save a dime and spend the rest of your life in a concrete pod? Dumb ass. Not that Kidder is really afraid of the local flatfoots, who arrested that moron Shane, exactly as intended, on evidence so planted it practically sprouted.

Randall Shane being a moron in Kidder’s opinion because he could have made millions but didn’t. What’s wrong with a little reward for your efforts, all the years spent learning your craft? Which is why Kidder left the military and went mercenary, because that’s where the money was-the private sector-and because he was sick of higher-ranking officers treating him like a three-year-old. He still had his bosses-lately just the one-but no one can assign him to the burn detail, where drums of human waste get drenched in diesel fuel and then torched. A stench he can never quite erase from his mind.

First stop, a Starbucks. Love that Mocha Frappuccino, dude. Kidder hums to himself as he stands in line. For some reason Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” is sticking in his brain this evening. A song so freaking ancient that he was barely born when it first came out. Still, when in Rome, or in this case Bean Town.

“Here you are, sir.”

Lost in thought, Kidder looks up to see a chickee holding out the tall plastic cup. Trying out a tentative smile.

“Beautiful,” Kidder says, taking the glass. “You know what they say?”

“What’s that?”

“You ain’t seen nothing ’til you’re down on a muffin,” Kidder intones, staring into her little brown eyes as his mouth finds the straw.

Back on the street he strolls, enjoying the season. Five in the evening with hours left of daylight. Oodles of time to kill.

Kidder laughs.

On the sidewalk a young couple, arm in arm, register a brutal-looking, steel-built man chuckling to himself, and instinctively move away. He gives them a wink- Son of Sam never had such style! — and takes the vacated space with a jaunty sense of entitlement.

“Gimme a kiss,” he says to the shying-away couple. “Like this!”

He heads north on Exeter Street, bringing himself one block closer to the Naomi Nantz residence. Thinking it’s about time he checked it out with his own eyes, instead of relying on images taken by a circling drone.

Street level is always best. You never know when you might want to make a personal visit, arriving unannounced, in the dark of night, with a properly silenced weapon. And before that can happen, he’ll have to find a way in.

When the door chime sounds at nine-fifteen I’m in the library, updating the timeline. So far as I’m aware we’re not expecting guests at this hour. Boss lady had declared a pizza night, releasing Mrs. Beasley from her duties. We, that is all those currently in the residence, happily chowed down on slices from Regina’s, picked up curb-side by yours truly, and then called it a day. Milton, understandably uneasy about returning to his home, has been offered a guest room, for which he seemed pleased and grateful. Dane has returned to her own residence, located a few blocks away, and promises to be available at a moment’s notice. Jack called from some bar, sounding more stressed than he usually lets on, and announced he would be returning to Gloucester for the night and would report first thing in the morning. Apparently his thrilling escape from the woods of New Hampshire left him in need of quality time with his current spouse, although he didn’t say so, not in those words. Teddy, dismayed by his failure to discover the now-obvious connection between Randall Shane and Taylor Gatling, Jr., retreated to his bat cave (others might call it a bedroom, but bat cave is more illustrative, believe me) where he’s currently sucking down energy drinks and playing the latest version of “God of War,” which is his form of sulking. No doubt he’ll slay a few thousand adversaries before daylight and return to the real world renewed if not exactly refreshed.