then turned and leaned his back against it.
'Who you dealing with in New York?' Deegan said.
I shook my head.
Deegan grinned. 'Sure,' he said. 'Of course you won't say. You don't give a fucking inch on anything.'
'You're not dead,' I said.
Deegan raised his eyebrows. Then he walked to my desk and poured another shot for himself.
'You get it together in New York, names, promises, the works, in detail and then we'll talk again. Where do I reach you?' I said.
Deegan paused, thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.
'I'll be with Madelaine,' he said.
'I'll be in touch,' I said.
Deegan picked up the whiskey glass and tossed the rest of the scotch down. He put the glass on my desk again and turned and walked to my door. He tugged his collar up higher.
'Raining like a bastard,' he said, and went out.
34
I spent the next day on the phone. I talked three or four times to Maguire in Brooklyn, and then twice to a guy from the New York Federal Attorney's office, a guy named Jennerette.
'Why don't you nail him for the gambling thing up there?' Jennerette said, 'if it's so air tight.'
'Because I'm trying to protect the player,' I said.
'So why not let Deegan walk. He keeps quiet, you keep quiet?'
'Couple of reasons,' I said.
I'd already gone through them with Maguire and with the commander of the Brooklyn robbery squad.
'He's walking around loose, with only the player to finger him, he might find it more sensible to ace the player. Also another kid died in this deal, kid named Danny Davis. I figure somebody has to pay dues for that.'
'What's this kid Davis to you?' Jennerette said.
'Nothing,' I said. 'But somebody owes something for him; and I don't want the other kid to see Deegan walk away from this looking like a stand up guy.'
'Witness protection isn't like doing time,' Jennerette said.
'That's not it,' I said. 'I want my kid to see Deegan rat on his buddies.'
There was silence on the phone.
'You want us to help you cover up a crime, so you can give some kid an object lesson?'
'You bet,' I said.
Again silence on the phone.
'Why not try to get Deegan on the murder of this kid Davis?' Jennerette said.
'Expose my client,' I said. 'I'm trying to save this kid. He's got a future if I can save him.'
'Mr. Fucking Rogers,' Jennerette said.
'You get several guys that are better off the streets. Brooklyn cleans up a robbery that's been making them look bad. Witness Protection gets the chance to hang out with Bobby Deegan, always a treat. Who knows what you may find out once you get Deegan talking. Guy's a connected guy. You could end up on `Nightline.' '
'Boss will end up on `Nightline,' ' Jennerette said. 'Hold on a minute.'
I could hear the phone being put down on the desk and the faint sounds of office noise: voices, other phones ringing, the tap, occasionally, of high-heeled shoes. There was maybe five minutes of this and then Jennerette came back on the phone.
'Okay,' he said. 'Deegan turns, and gives us the OTB job, we'll give him immunity and protection. If,' Jennerette paused for the 'if' to sink in, 'he delivers quality.'
'But of course,' I said.
'We'll be the judge of what's quality,' he said.
'The rest of the crew in the OTB robbery,' I said. 'Is that quality?'
'Yes,' Jennerette said.
'I'll get back to you,' I said. We hung up.
I went down to the alley back of my building and got my car and headed for Newton. It was nearly four in the afternoon and traffic was beginning to clog things. Boston was never meant for automobiles. The streets wound in the downtown section like cattle trails without any reasonable pattern and even in Back Bay, where the grid system had been applied when the old bay was filled in in the nineteenth century, the scale was too limited for automobiles in large number. In New York they drove faster, but for simple difficulty in getting from one part of town to another, Boston was, on a scale of ten, ten.
