that, your Shul on the Hill comes closer to reality.”
“I told you the night you came here I’m a man of action, Jonah, as you are in your way. I need a challenge. Something to build. When Adath Israel stalemated me, left me with nothing left to put my shoulder to, that’s when I knew I had to leave. And the new shul, back in Beacon Hill where fifty had dwindled to none, is where it is going to be.”
“Even if it cost David his life.”
“That’s quite a leap.”
“No, Dad,” Shana said. “Not really.”
“You’re taking his side?”
“This isn’t about sides. You knew David was troubled by what had happened. You made him go out and do it again.”
“How was I to know the next surgery would happen so fast? I figured by the time it all happened, this other doctor would be back in his place. I didn’t know David would be part of it.”
“Lesley McConnell, heiress to the Austin-Smith fortune, is dying,” I said. “As soon as Daggett heard her name, he smelled big money, his best score yet. He could have found half a dozen good matches through the testing program within hours, like he did with his son. And you know what happens after. He identifies the one with the worst money problems and makes them an offer. They either take it or they go missing, because not all of them volunteer, Rabbi. If they don’t take the offer, he kills them.”
“Do you really know that for a fact?”
“You want facts? He’s going to take my partner’s organs too.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“They’re worth a fortune to him. He’ll take every last thing worth harvesting out of her.”
“Stop,” Shana cried, sobbing full out again. You wouldn’t think someone could cry all the tears she had cried that day and still have more inside.
I didn’t stop. “You helped keep this mad thug in business. You chose to overlook the depraved fucking nature of it so you could build your synagogue.”
“You make it sound like I did it for myself.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Only so I can help others.”
“And build a monument to your name. You’re done with Brookline, now you can take Beacon Hill.”
“Get out!” Shana said. “Leave him alone and get out.”
“He helped get David killed,” I said.
All she said was, “So did you.”
CHAPTER 32
Ryan had had a good time shopping at Lugo’s. On the bed in his room were two shotguns, which he said were Mossbergs, and an Uzi, which I recognized right away. “And this is for you,” he said, lifting an assault rifle with a pistol grip and long banana clip. “That cut-down M-16 you told me about, the one you carried in Israel?”
“The Mikutzrar.”
“This was the closest thing he had to it. A Colt M4. Thirty inches long, a little shorter with the stock retracted, and weighs five and a half pounds empty. Muzzle velocity is over twenty-six hundred feet per second. A few bursts out of this will cut a guy in half.”
“He provide ammunition for all of these?”
“Gave me everything but a duck decoy.”
Frank was the bigger of the two men who came to meet us at a cafe near the hotel. Solidly built, near fifty, with some old acne scars and a receding hairline. Victor was younger by a decade or more, with brown hair he wore long enough to tuck behind his ears. A lot thinner too, with a nervous energy that burned around him like he was a hot filament. Ryan introduced us all, first names only, and he and I took some mild shit over the uselessness of Toronto’s sports teams compared with Boston’s while the waiter brought water and bread. We scanned the menus and ordered various combinations of appetizers and a bottle of red wine, three glasses. I stuck with water.
“So,” Frank said. “I’ll speak for me and Victor to keep it short on our end. The man we work for, he says he owes you. He’d like to pay that debt. On the other hand, he tells us this is strictly voluntary. We’re here to listen to your situation and your proposed solution, and only go ahead if we like it. So. Are we going to like it?”
I said, “We need to free a hostage.”
“Where?”
“Wellington Hill.”
“By blacks?”
“No. An Irish guy named Sean Daggett.”
“In Wellington Hill? Christ, some days this town makes no sense. Who’s the hostage?”
“My partner.”
“How many guys would we go up against?”
“Not sure. Around six.”
He thought about that a moment as though weighing odds, then asked, “How heavily armed?”
We’d asked Stayner about that, but he had never seen the guards holding shotguns or rifles of any kind, and if they wore pistols it was with discretion. “Also not sure.”
“Who does your intel,” Victor asked, “Helen Keller?”
Frank ignored him. “Are they expecting us?”
Victor said, “Let me guess. Not sure.”
“Do I have to send you out of the room?” Frank said. Then to Ryan: “What are you guys packing?”
“Three pistols between us,” Ryan said.
“Someone lose one?” Victor asked.
Ryan ignored him. “We also have some party guns you might like. A Mossberg and an Uzi.”
“No Tec-9s?” Victor asked.
Ryan said, “Christ.”
“And what exactly would we be attacking in Wellington Hill?” Frank asked.
“A mortuary,” I said.
“A mortuary. Packed with a bunch of Irish dicks who might outnumber us, might outgun us, all to save your partner.”
“And pay off a debt,” Ryan said. “Put you in the good graces of the man who makes your world go round.”
“That too. So what do you know about this place?” he asked.
“We have sketches, front and back,” I said.
“Sketches?” Victor said. “That’s it?”
“We can go look at it now.”
“What are you driving?” Frank asked.
“A Dodge Caliber.”
“Not big enough for me. I like a little leg room.”
“Can we take your car?”
“You fucked in the head? It’s a brand new Lexus. I ain’t driving it anywhere near Wellington Hill. Fucking animals down there would strip it before I put it in park.” He wiped his hands and face with a napkin and said, “Victor, do me a favour, go steal us something nice while the boys here settle the bill.”
The moon gleamed coldly off the white hoarding around Halladay’s and the fence that closed off the main entrance. We saw a security camera over the front door and had to assume there were more around the building. There was only one car parked in front, a silver Buick Century. We were in a new Ford Explorer that Victor had boosted. Big enough to seat about a dozen, each of whom could watch their own movie.
“You think she’s in there now?” Frank asked.
