'You keeping him separate?' I said.
'Yep.'
Hawk made a soft, derisive sound.
'Never going to make trial,' Hawk said.
Quirk shrugged.
'And ain't that a shame,' Quirk said.
'What have you got on the rest of them?' I said.
'The details are, of course, confidential police business, which is why I have them sealed up safe in this envelope. We been talking to the organized-crime guys, the FBI, immigration. We know it's a Ukrainian mob. Which means we are dealing with some very bad people. Even the Russians are afraid of the Ukrainians.'
'They straight from the old country?' I said.
Quirk shook his head.
'We think from Brooklyn. They've set up around here in Marshport, up on the North Shore, which has got a small Ukrainian population.'
I nodded.
'They come in, start small. Take over a book here and horse parlor there. Usually small-time black crime. The assumption being that the blacks have the least power.'
Quirk grinned at Hawk.
'Which, from the looks of you, may be correct at the moment.'
'Enjoy it while you can, honkie.'
'Hey,' Quirk said. 'I'm a police captain.'
'That's right, you is,' Hawk said. 'Enjoy it while you can, Captain Honkie.'
'Anyway, pretty soon they have all the black crime, and are moving on the Asians. And so it goes. Sometimes they end up with the city. They probably got Marshport. Boston is their first big-city try since Brooklyn.'
'They don't run Brooklyn,' I said.
'Nobody does,' Quirk said. 'But they got a part.'
'This wouldn't have happened,' I said, 'if the Dodgers hadn't left.'
Both of them looked at me silently for a while. Then Quirk shook his head.
'Gotta go to work,' he said.
He stood up.
'We're going to chase these guys until we catch them for something,' he said. 'But if someone gets there first…'
Quirk shrugged.
'Well, what's a poor cop to do?' he said, and turned and went out the front door of the coffee shop. When he was gone I picked up the manila envelope.
'Hey,' I said softly, 'you forgot your envelope.'
7
OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS of my apartment, it was getting dark. Hawk was asleep on the bed in my bedroom. The trip to Bullfinch Place had used up all his strength. Hawk slept a lot. I used the couch. The couch was fine. I sat at my kitchen counter with the overhead lights on and the contents of Quirk's big envelope spread out in front of me.
There were mug shots and arrest records of five men:
Bohdan Dziubakevych
Fadeyushka Badyrka
Vanko Tsyklins'kyj
Lyaksandro Prohorovych
Danylko Levkovych All five originally came from Odessa. All five had legitimate immigration credentials. None was wanted by Ukrainian police. They were foot soldiers. There had been various arrests for assault, extortion, and racketeering in Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Romania, New York, New Britain, and Boston. No one appeared to have done serious jail time. Witnesses were probably hard to come by. The men were all between thirty-five and forty- five; they had hard, middle-European faces. Their eyes had seen awful things. I looked at the names some more and decided not to memorize them. I wasn't sure I could forget the faces.
At about twenty to six, Susan unlocked my door and came in with two large shopping bags. She was in her understated work mode-gray suit, black sweater, clear nail polish, quiet makeup.
'It's hard to shrink people,' she once explained to me, 'if they're fascinated by your eyeliner.'
She was beautiful and quiet when she came from work. Sometimes she wasn't coming from work. Then she looked beautiful and flamboyant. She put the bags on the floor and came and kissed me.
