Vinnie patted his mouth with a napkin. 'Joe says you need some help on this, we'll help, up to a point.'
'Why don't you just waste Paultz,' I said.
'And move in, sort of like a proxy fight?' Vinnie shrugged. 'Mickey's connections are good,' he said. 'Joe don't want to do it that way.'
'So he wants me to do it,' I said.
'He wants it done. You called us, you know. We didn't call you.'
'If I do this right, maybe I can get my own territory,' I said. 'Couple of junior high schools . . . 'Hi, kids, I'm the candy man.' '
'I don't like it too much either, tell you the truth,' Vinnie said, 'but Joe don't always check with me on these things. Joe likes dope. And you and me both know if Mickey Paultz don't do it, and Joe don't do it, then somebody else will do it.'
'So I take Paultz out, Joe moves in, and I look the other way.'
Vinnie smiled and jabbed his right index finger at me. 'Most definitely,' he said. 'We get what we want, you get what you want, and all the junkies get what they want. What could be better?'
I shook my head. 'Hard to imagine,' I said.
CHAPTER 22
Wearing a pair of chino pants and a shortsleeve white shirt I went to call on Mickey Paultz. I had bought the pants a couple of years ago in case someone gave me a pair of Top-Siders and invited me to Dover. The shirt I'd had to buy for this occasion, but it was a business expense-disguise. I was undercover as a deacon. Since deacons didn't go armed that I could see, and since I didn't go unarmed, I'd strapped on a .25 automatic in an ankle holster. A quick draw is not easy with an ankle holster, but it was better than nothing.
Paultz Construction Company was on the southern artery in Quincy, a big sprawling ugly lot full of heavy equipment surrounded by chain link fencing with barbed wire on top, with an office trailer near the front gate. Back in the lot was a big prefab corrugated steel warehouse. I pulled the Ford Escort wagon that I had rented into the lot outside the gate and went through the gate and into the office. If the two sluggers who called on me were there, I'd simply turn around and leave. But I figured they wouldn't be. They didn't belong out front where the customers would see them. I was right. There was a fat woman in black stretch pants and pink blouse manning the typewriter and answering a phone.
When she got through on the phone she looked at me and said, 'What do you need?'
'Mr. Paultz,' I said.
A long unfiltered cigarette was burning in an ashtray.
'He's busy,' she said. The phone rang, she answered, talked, hung up.
'I'm from Mr. Winston,' I said. 'I have to see Mr. Paultz.'
She took a drag on her cigarette, put it down. 'I don't know any Winston,' she said.
'Ask Mr. Paultz,' I said. 'He'll want to know.'
She shrugged and got up and went through a door into the back half of the trailer. In a moment she came back and said, 'Okay, go on in,' then she sat down and picked up her cigarette. I went through the open door and closed it behind me.
Mickey Paultz sat in an overstuffed chair with a piece of paisley cloth thrown over it. He looked at me and said, 'What's up?'
He was thin with short gray hair and rimless glasses. A kitchen table was next to the chair and on it were two phones and several manila folders.
'Mr. Winston has to see you,' I said. 'He can't call. He thinks the phones are tapped. There's real trouble he says and wants to meet you in City Hall Plaza near the subway as soon as you can make it.'
Paultz's expression didn't change. 'Okay,' he said.
I waited a minute.
Paultz said, 'You want something else?'
A man of few words, I said, 'No,' and turned and went out.
I drove straight to Boston and parked in front of the precinct station on Sudbury Street by a sign that said POLICE VEHICLES ONLY, grabbed a camera, and hotfooted it across the street to the Kennedy Building. Hawk was there near the funny-looking metal sculpture.
'Winston go for it?' I said.
'Unh-huh.' Hawk pointed with his chin across the vast brick plaza in front of City Hall. By the subway kiosk on the corner, Bullard Winston stood glancing at his watch and shifting his weight lightly from one foot to the other as he waited. He was wearing a seersucker suit. I sighted my camera at him and focused through the telephoto lens.
'Paultz coming?' Hawk said.
'I'm not sure,' I said. 'I told him my story and he said okay and sent me away.'
'If he don't come, we gotta think of something else,' Hawk said. 'Can't pull this gig twice.'
'I know.' Behind the funny-looking sculpture I kept the camera steady on Winston. That him?' Hawk said.
Paultz got out of a white Chevy sedan that double-parked on Cambridge Street with the motor running.
'Yes,' I said. As Paultz came into my viewfinder I snapped pictures of him and Winston talking. They talked for
