High Stakes Read online

  I had over an hour before meeting Mr. Devlin and Billy Coyne at the Marliave for lunch. I used it to drive through the Callahan Tunnel to the Winthrop shore just north of Boston Harbor. Terry’s father had built a house by the ocean decades before. Terry was living alone there when we married. Since we both loved the location, we chose that as our first home.

  I drove down Taft Avenue. Fortunately, my rental car was less recognizable than my own Corvette. As a precaution, I managed to coast by Andrew Street slowly enough to spot a car with two bulky men staked out with their eyes on the house. That gave me multiple creeps. The two possible “Russians” in the back of the church could have been my own overactive paranoia. But if George and I were now shooting for team players of the year, why did he have my home clearly staked out by thugs?

  I drove another block and parked the car. I jumped the sea wall and walked along the beach until I was in front of the house. The view of the stake-outs was blocked by the house. I was able to scramble over the sea wall and approach the house from the ocean side undetected.

  I scrambled down the bulkhead and came into the house through the basement. I was now free to roam through the house as long as I was careful of windows facing the stake-out.

  When I opened the door from the basement, I paused for three seconds. I felt the blood in my veins freeze. There was a chilling silence. Terry had a five-year-old Shetland Sheepdog she called “Piper.” He was the love of her life before we met. The first time I picked Terry up at home, he ran to brace me with a thorough sniff-test. Then he just sat down at my feet and looked up at me. I kneeled down, and he just jumped into my arms. Terry had never seen anything like it.

  From that moment on, Piper had two humans who had sealed a bond with him. After that, every time I even turned a doorknob to come into the house, Piper was there, twisting and wagging and begging for the hug I always wanted to give him.

  When I opened that door from the cellar to stark silence, every alarm in my mind went off. Our next-door neighbor had been coming in to feed and take him for walks while we were in Romania, but at that hour, Piper should have been there!

  I ran upstairs and threw open every closet door, looked under every bed, pulled aside every drape—all the time nearly sick with the fear of what I might find.

  I exhausted every possibility but one. I went back out the way I’d come in. This time when I walked the beach behind the seawall, I picked up a solid three-foot length of driftwood. I went a block beyond Andrew Street so I could come up behind the stake-out car.

  I bent low and eased up to the back of the car. The only possibility I could think of was that the two thugs had somehow grabbed Piper, God forbid, disabled him, and put him out of sight in the trunk of the car. I put my mouth to the trunk. I barely whispered the word, “Piper.”

  The eruption of instant thumps and barks from the trunk lifted the two goons straight up. Above the sudden barking, I could hear the crunch of the head of the tall Russian on the right against the roof. There was a zesty flow at peak volume of what could only be Russian curses.

  The driver yelled something that stemmed the flood of curses. He spat out what sounded like an order. The tall one on the right threw open the door and edged his way out rubbing his head. Meanwhile, Piper kept up the uninterrupted yelps and barks that hid any sound I might have made.

  I slipped around to the side behind the driver’s seat and ducked below window level. The passenger thug came around to the back. He hit some button that sprung open the trunk. Piper leaped out while the lid was still rising. I could see a mean gash from his ear to the back of his head.

  The cacophony of barks and snarls doubled in volume. Another order came from the driver’s side. The Russian moved faster than I thought possible. He grabbed Piper in an iron fist by the back of the neck. The bark turned to a yelp of pain. I took two quick steps toward the back of the car and swung the driftwood log as if I were going for a home run over the Green Monster in Fenway park.

  The wood connected dead center with the Russian’s ribs. The snap, crackle, and pop sounded like a bowl of Rice Crispies. He dropped Piper and rolled on the ground, clutching as many ribs as he could reach.

  The driver was out of the car, coming up behind me with a gun in his hand that looked like a canon. I spun around to see the barrel pointed squarely at my chest. It must have been pure instinct. I pointed an arm and finger straight out at the hand holding the gun and screamed, “Get it, Piper.”

  My eyes were glued to the Russian’s finger as it started to move the trigger. In an instant, all I could see was the hair raised on the back of Piper’s neck. Instead of a shot, there was only a flow of Russian curses. The gun was on the ground and the Russian was jerking his hand in every direction with Piper’s teeth sunk in and gripping.

  I picked up my trusty driftwood and planted one more blow, this time to the head of the Russian with the gun. He dropped to the ground unconscious. I pulled Piper away from his hand. I just stood there hugging him for what must have been ten seconds.

  I finally got it together and reached into the pocket of the unconscious Russian. I took the driver’s license out of his billfold and ran with Piper to my rented car. I drove the length of the Revere Beach Parkway until my pulse and blood pressure came down within range of normal. Piper lay across my lap the whole way.

  The first time I glanced at the car clock it was quarter past twelve. I had a one o’clock appointment with Mr. Devlin and Billy Coyne, but Piper came first. I called my faithful Julie. I told her I needed a favor. She came through like a champ. She met me at her apartment on Beacon Street, and was more than willing to take him in.

  * * *

  I parked under the Boston Common and walked to the Marliave Restaurant. I had a thousand questions to fit into some kind of order before meeting Billy Coyne, but one kept bubbling to the top. Why had the one I assumed to be the top Russian offered an olive branch and the prospect of a George/Michael partnership for the greatest mutual prosperity since Johnson & Johnson, while he was sending his goon squad to invade our house, steal our dog, and do heaven-knows-what to whomever they found there?

  The olive branch could have been a trap. I knew that. But for some reason I can’t explain, I still had a modicum of intuitive trust.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I ARRIVED A few minutes before one at the Marliave Restaurant off Bromfield Street. I was welcomed graciously as always by Tony, the owner/maître d’. I knew the red carpet was for my connection with Mr. Devlin, but it still felt warming.

  Tony escorted me to the private dining room just off the kitchen. There had been enough exchanges of private information in that room, sometimes carrying life or death implications, between Mr. Devlin, Deputy District Attorney Coyne, and “the kid” as I will always be to Mr. Coyne, to alert Tony to the necessary privacy protocol even without knowledge of the particulars.

  I was relieved to be the first to arrive a few minutes before one. It avoided having to suppress any response to Mr. Coyne’s inevitable reference to “the kid’s undisciplined generation.”

  Messrs. Devlin and Coyne arrived at a minute or so past one o’clock. I made certain to be looking at my watch when they walked in. That brought a grin from Mr. D. and a sneer from Mr. Coyne.

  Four exquisite courses were prepared personally and served by Tony, our host, who has never let Mr. Devlin even glance at a menu. Between courses, I took center stage. I poured out every relevant detail of my recent adventures, from the meeting at the China Pearl Restaurant to the knock-down episode with the Russians that morning.

  As I expected, Mr. D’.s reaction was heightened concern for me when he heard about the morning’s incident. Mr. Coyne’s reaction was a look of confusion. I focused on the latter.

  “Mr. Devlin told you that we need information that you might be able to give us.”

  Mr. Coyne pushed back in his chair. He just scowled for about ten seconds before breaking the silence.

  “This is a hell of a thing.�
�

  “I agree, for a lot of reasons. What’s yours, Mr. Coyne?”

  “Listen to me, kid. Nothing said in this room leaves this room.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  “Well, now it’s been said. So remember it.”

  Mr. Devlin stepped in. “Billy, you know damn well you can trust Michael as far as you can trust me. So to hell with your blustering. Get to it. I have to be back in court sometime this year.”

  Mr. Coyne just raised his hand in submission and laid his napkin on the table.

  “This is disturbing.”

  I couldn’t resist. “You know, I find it disturbing too, and then some.”

  Mr. Coyne gave me a glance before continuing. “What I meant was we have the Chinese mob, undoubtedly the tong, and the Russians after the same thing. And both of them apparently willing to kill for it. That’s off. The tong’s prey is usually strictly Chinatown. That’s what keeps us out of it. The Chinese extortion and theft victims in Chinatown are afraid to report anything. On the other side, the Russians generally leave the Chinese territory alone. They have the rest of the world to plunder. What the hell is it that gets these two into the same game?”

  I leaned over to catch his eye. “You remember I mentioned a Stradivarius violin?”

  “Senility has not set in yet, kid. Yeah, I remember. So what?”

  “So apparently this particular Stradivarius caught the attention of both of them. With me uncomfortably in the middle.”

  He looked me in the eye. “Kid, I had a case with a stolen Stradivarius last year. I found out there are over six hundred and fifty Stradivarius instruments in the world today. What makes this one so special?”

  “The fact that the Chinese were willing to pay over a million for it?”

  “Maybe. But that’s the going price for some of them. Sometimes more. If they’re willing to pay the going price for it, that’s just doing business. Where’s the criminal aspect that would attract the tong? You said this Russian, George, was willing to pay an open-ended price for it, too. That leads to the same question for the Russians.”

  “What are you thinking, Billy?” Mr. Devlin asked.

  “I’m thinking the obvious. There’s something about this particular fiddle that your boy’s holding like a hot potato that puts it in a class by itself. I don’t like it. It could mean that a lot more people die in my city before this thing finds a home.”

  Mr. D. and I looked at each other with the same thought. That number who die could include someone at our table. I thought it best to move on.

  “There’s another question hanging here, Mr. Coyne. This is what we needed to ask you.”

  “So speak.”

  “The Russians have almost killed me three times since this thing began. Before the last time, I got that call from the one who calls himself ‘George.’ I got the sense that he’s close to the top echelon in the organization. I doubt that he’s the very top or he wouldn’t be so jumpy. He was laying the groundwork for peaceful cooperation between us. Then an hour or so later, I have a run-in with two of his Russian mob staking out my house. It makes no sense. I’ve heard the Russians follow a strict chain of command or they lose body parts. Does this make sense to you?”

  “Maybe. There’s a point you could be missing.”

  “That’s why we’re here. Would you share it?”

  “There is more than one mob out there. You know about the Russian mafia. It’s centered in Moscow, but it’s all over the world. You also know by now that you damn well don’t fool with them. My guess is they’re the ones you ran into in Romania and then here this morning. What you probably don’t know is that there are other crime gangs that operate in different parts of Romania. They’re mostly built around native Romanian family clans. They operate in the poorer sections of Bucharest and in cities all the way to the Black Sea.”

  “Are they in league with the Russians?”

  “Hell, no. All the years Romania was part of the Soviet Union, they were oppressed by the Russians in every way you can think of. When the Soviet troops marched down the main boulevard in Bucharest in August of 1944, it was in some ways almost as bad for the country as the invasion of Nazi troops before. The Romanian people had a hell of a time under the power-hungry communist dictator, Ceausescu. Romanian gangs existed then. They were mostly tight-knit groups with family clan ties for trust. They worked the black market, but they were pretty much stifled by the communists.

  “When the Soviet Union finally fell apart under Gorbachev, Ceausescu was killed, and the Romanian counter-revolution took their country back. Those clan gangs were free to expand and operate like they never could before. But they were still strictly ethnic Romanian. The old grudges lived on. No Russian would ever be let in.”

  “What kind of crimes are they into?”

  “Depends on the gang. Some of them moved into drugs, loan sharking, prostitution.”

  Mr. D. drew closer. “How does a Suffolk County D.A. know so much about Romanian gangs?”

  “After the Soviet Union broke up, some of the Romanian gangs went international. A couple of them operate over here. When any international gang comes into Boston, we work with the FBI.”

  My turn. “Any one gang in particular?”

  “I’m getting to that, kid. My guess is that your new buddy, George, is part of a Romanian gang that moved into Boston about five years ago. Their home base is in Constanta in Romania. It’s a port city on the Black Sea. They’re no choir boys, but they’re not the Russian mob either. My guess is that you thought this George was Russian because you couldn’t tell a Russian accent from a Romanian.”

  I found that less than comforting. The odds in favor of a quick way out of this tangle for Terry and me just dropped a notch. Now we had three gangs to juggle in dropping that hot potato.

  I reached in my pocket and handed Mr. Coyne the driver’s license of the unconscious Russian in Winthrop. I also gave him the identification of the Russian gangster that I took off of his body in Sinaia when he was killed by my rescuer, Mr. Chan, outside of the violin-maker’s shop. I explained how I got each of them.

  He looked at them both for about fifteen seconds. He set them down in front of him with something between a sigh and a groan. The lines I was reading in his face were not comforting.

  “Kid, you never bring me anything easy, do you?”

  Lex leaned closer over the table. He was reading Mr. Coyne the same way I was. “What, Billy?”

  Mr. Coyne looked directly at Mr. D. “This business just jumped to a new level.”

  He picked up the identification that I took in Sinaia. “This one I don’t know. But I’ll bet my pension he was a low-level thug connected with the Russian mob, probably sent by the boys in Moscow.”

  He picked up the driver’s license from the man on the Andrew Street stake-out. “This one I know. This guy is not street scum. You got their attention, kid. He’s with the Moscow mob, but he’s local. Ivan Petrovitch. They’ve got a heavy presence here. Mostly around a section of Brighton.”

  My comfort level was draining. “You know him?”

  “I know his work. He’s one of their top assassins. You draw an elite class of enemies, kid. Maybe you should take another trip.”

  Lex jumped in. “That’s not an answer, Billy. Can’t you have this gangster picked up?”

  “For what? The kid says he was just sitting in his car on a public street.”

  “How about stealing the dog?”

  Billy shrugged. “To what end? Their lawyer’d have him out on bail before the ink was dry on his booking. This is a connected group.” He looked at me. “Any chance the blow to the head killed him?”

  “I think he was just unconscious. I don’t know. Maybe. I swung hard.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’d just send another one practically as good as him. You stirred up one hell of a hornet’s nest. Another trip is sounding better all the time. Let things cool.”

  Lex and I exchanged looks. He knew jus
t what I was thinking. Leaving town was no answer as long as I had possession of the thing that had them all on red alert. If Terry and I were ever going to have our life back, it had to be faced head-on. My immediate problem was that the enemy was like Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades. Which head should I face first, while the other two had immediate plans for my life.

  * * *

  I left the Marliave with eyes in every direction. I couldn’t detect anyone taking an inordinate interest in my whereabouts. That was no gold-plated guarantee, but it was the best I had to work with.

  I had a few hours before meeting Harry Wong for dinner. Given all that was riding on it, I decided to give the “fiddle,” as Mr. Coyne termed it, a bit more security. I found the FedEx store to which I had shipped it from Sophia. It seemed almost too easy to simply present identification and pick up something that three organized crime gangs would be willing to spill my blood over.

  On the theory that an ounce of insurance might outweigh a pound of regret later on, I drove to a little known, but much loved, shop called “Broken Neck Guitar Repair” on Boylston Street near the Berklee College of Music. Lanny McLaughlin fixed me up with the rental of an expensive violin and case.

  My next stop was the bank of large lockers in South Station. I chose one large enough for suitcases to stash the “Strad,” as I’d begun calling it in my frequent thoughts. I tucked the rented violin and case into the locker beside the one holding the Strad, and left with both keys. At a local stationary store, I bought an envelope and mailed the key to the locker with the genuine Strad to myself at my office. I kept the other key in my pocket. Somehow, all of that juggling gave me a mild sense of pseudo security. As the saying goes, “When in doubt, do something, even if it’s wrong.”

  * * *

  It was getting close to the time to meet Harry Wong for dinner. Back in 1925, James Hook and his three sons set up a shack on a fish pier on the Boston waterfront to supply nearly every restaurant in town with those sublime prehistoric crustaceans as endemic to Boston cuisine as the bean. That small wooden edifice is surrounded today by state-of-the-art high-rise hotels and fine dining facilities, but when Harry Wong and I feel that irrepressible yen for boiled lobster done to a wicked perfection, we meet at the corner of Atlantic and Northern Avenues where our pal of many years, the third-generation Jimmy Hook, meets our needs as no one else can.