Chapter 25
We got dressed and went back to the motel and took a long hot shower together and ordered a bottle of Burgundy from room service and got into bed and sipped the wine and watched the late movie, Fort Apache, one of my favorites, and fell asleep.
In the morning we had breakfast in the room and when I left for Boston about eight-thirty, Susan was still in bed, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the Today program.
The Suffolk County Court House in Pemberton Square is a very large gray building that’s hard to see because it’s halfway up the east flank of Beacon Hill and the new Government Center buildings shield it from what I still call Bowdoin Square and Scollay Square. I parked down in Bowdoin Square in front of the Saltonstall State Office Building and walked up the hill to the courthouse.
Jim Clancy had an Errol Flynn mustache, and it looked funny because his face was round and shiny and his light hair had receded hastily from his forehead. Sylvia and McDermott were there already, along with a guy who looked like Ricardo Montalban and one who looked like a Fed. McDermott introduced me. Ricardo turned out in fact to be Bobby Santos who might someday be public safety commissioner. The Fed turned out to be a man named Klaus from Treasury.
“We’ll meet some people from Chelsea over there,” McDermott said. “We’ve already filled Bobby in, and we’re about to brief these gentlemen.”
McDermott was wearing a green T-shirt today, with a pocket over the left breast, and gray corduroy pants, and sandals. His gun was stuck in his belt under the T-shirt, just above his belt buckle, and bulged like a prosthetic device. Klaus, in a Palm Beach suit, white broadcloth shirt and polka dot bow tie, looked at him like a virus. He spoke to Sylvia.
“What’s Spenser’s role in this?”
Sylvia said, “Why not ask him?”
“I’m asking you,” Klaus said.
Sylvia looked at McDermott and raised his eyebrows. McDermott said, “Good heavens.”
“Did I ever explain to you,” Sylvia said to McDermott. “why faggots wear bow ties?”
I said to Klaus, “I’m the guy set it up. I’m the one knows the people and I’m the one that supervises the swap. I’m what you might call your key man.”
Clancy said, “Go ahead, McDermott. Lay it out for us, we want to get the arrangements set.”
McDermott lit a miserable-looking cigarette from the pack he kept in the pocket of his T-shirt.
“Well,” he said, “me and Jackie was sitting around the squad room one day, thinking about crime and stuff, it was kind of a slow day, and here comes this key man here.”
Klaus said, “For crissake, get on with it.”
Santos said, “Rich.”
McDermott said, “Yeah, yeah, okay, Bobby. I just don’t want to go too fast for the G-man.”
“Say it all, Rich,” Santos said.
He did. The plan called for two vans, produce trucks, with Sylvia, McDermott, Santos, Linhares, Klaus and several Chelsea cops and two Staties from Clancy’s staff to arrive in the area about five-thirty, park at a couple of unloading docks, one on one side and one on the other side of the restaurant, and await developments. When the time was right I’d signal by putting both hands in my hip pockets, and “Like locusts,” McDermott said, “me and Jackie and J. Edgar over here will be on ‘em.”
Clancy opened a manila folder on his desk and handed around 8 x 10 glossy mug shots of King Powers. “That’s Powers,” Clancy said. “We have him on file.”
“The two women,” I said, “I’ll have to describe.” And I did. Klaus took notes, Sylvia cleaned his fingers with the small blade of a pocketknife. The others just sat and looked at me. When I got through, Klaus said, “Good descriptions, Spenser.”
McDermott and Sylvia looked at each other. Tomorrow it would be good if they were in one truck and Klaus was in another.
Clancy said, “Okay, any questions.”
Santos said, “Warrants?”
Clancy said, “That’s in the works, we’ll have them ready for tomorrow.”
Santos said, “How about entrapment.”
“What entrapment,” Sylvia said. “We got a tip from an informant that an illegal gun sale was going down, we staked it out and we were lucky.”
Clancy nodded. “It should be clean, all we’re arranging is the stakeout. We had nothing to do with Spenser double-crossing them.”
“One of my people’s going to be there, Pam Shepard. You’ll probably have to pick her up. If you do, keep her separate from the others and give her to me as soon as the others are taken away.”
“Who in hell are you talking to, Spenser,” Klaus said.
“You sound like you’re in charge of the operation.”
McDermott said, “Operation, Jackie. That’s what we’re in, an operation.”
Clancy said, “We agreed, Clyde. We trade the broad and her husband for Powers and the libbers.”
“Clyde?” Sylvia said to McDermott.
