and pointed it at us. “Three years ago, Narcotics officer Remy Broussard busts Cheese Olamon, Chris Mullen, and Pharaoh Gutierrez doing a quality-control check of a processing plant in South Boston.”
“I thought all drug processing was done overseas,” Angie said.
“‘Processing’ is a euphemism. Basically, they were stomping the shit-cocaine, that time-cutting it with Similac. Broussard and his partner, Poole, couple of other Narcotics cowboys, bust Olamon, my boy Gutierrez, and a bunch of other fellas. Thing is, they don’t arrest them.”
“Why not?”
Ryerson removed a fresh cigar from his pocket, then frowned when he noticed a sign that read NO CIGAR OR PIPE SMOKING PLEASE. THANK YOU. He groaned and put the cigar on the table, fingered the cellophane wrapping.
“They don’t arrest them, because after they burned the evidence, there was nothing to arrest them for.”
“They burned the coke,” I said.
He nodded. “According to Pharaoh, they did. There’d been rumors floating around for years that there was a rogue unit of the Narcotics Division that had been given a mandate to hit dealers where it hurt the most. Not with busts that would give the dealers street cred, news coverage, and a very dubious conviction rate. No. This rogue unit was alleged to destroy what they caught them with. And make them watch. It was, remember, a war on drugs, supposedly. And some enterprising Boston cops decided to fight it like a guerrilla war. These guys, rumor had it, were the true untouchables. They couldn’t be bought. They couldn’t be reasoned with. They were zealots. They ran a lot of smaller dealers out of business, ran a lot of newcomers straight back out of town. The bigger dealers-the Cheese Olamons, the Winter Hill gang types, the Italians, and the Chinese-pretty soon started factoring in these raids as the price of doing business, and ultimately, because the whole drug business went into a downswing, and because the raids never proved all that much more effective than anything else, the unit was rumored to have been disbanded.”
“And Broussard and Poole transferred to CAC.”
He nodded. “Some other guys did, too, or stayed in Narcotics, or transferred to Vice or Warrants, what have you. But Cheese Olamon never forgot. And he never forgave. He swore that one day he’d get Broussard.”
“Why Broussard and not the other guys?”
“According to Pharaoh, Cheese felt personally insulted by Broussard. It wasn’t just the burning of his product, it was that Broussard taunted him while they did it, embarrassed him in front of his men. Cheese took that to heart.”
Angie lit a cigarette, held out the pack to Ryerson.
He looked at his cigar, back at the sign that told him he couldn’t smoke it, and said, “Sure. Why not?”
He smoked the cigarette like a cigar, not really inhaling, just puffing, allowing the smoke to roll around on his tongue for a moment before exhaling it.
“Last autumn,” he said, “Pharaoh makes contact with me. We meet, and he says Cheese has something on that cop from a few years back. Cheese, he promises me, is playing Payback’s a Bitch, and Mullen has intimated to Pharaoh that everyone who was in that warehouse that night and had to sit by and be humiliated while Broussard and his boys burned the coke and laughed in their faces is going to enjoy this one. Now, besides everything else, I’m a little confused why Mullen and Pharaoh are suddenly so chummy that Mullen would intimate anything to him. Pharaoh gives me this bygones-be-bygones shit, but I don’t buy it. I figure there’s only one thing Pharaoh and Chris Mullen would bond over, and that’s greed.”
“So there was a palace coup in the works,” I said.
He nodded. “Unfortunately for Pharaoh, Cheese got wind of it.”
“So what did Cheese have on Broussard?” Angie said.
“Pharaoh never told me. Claimed Mullen wouldn’t say. Said it would ruin the surprise. The last word I ever got from Pharaoh was the afternoon of the night he died. He told me he and Mullen had been dragging cops all over the city the last few days, and that night they were going to collect two hundred grand, humiliate the cop, and go home. And as soon as that was done, and Pharaoh could figure what it was exactly that the cop had done, he was going to rat him and Mullen out to me, give me the biggest collar of my career, and then I’d be off his back for good. Or so he hoped.” Ryerson stubbed out his cigarette. “We know the rest.”
Angie gave him a confused frown. “We don’t know anything. Shit. Agent Ryerson, have you come up with any sort of theory as to how Amanda McCready’s disappearance plays into all this?”
He shrugged. “Maybe Broussard kidnapped her himself.”
“Why?” I said. “He just woke up one day, decided he wanted to kidnap a child?”
“I’ve heard of weirder things.” He leaned into the table. “Look, Cheese had something on him. So, what was it? Everything keeps coming back to that little girl’s vanishing. So let’s look at it. Broussard kidnaps her, maybe as a way to force the mother’s hand, come up with the two hundred grand Pharaoh told me she embezzled from Cheese.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “This has bothered me forever: Why didn’t Cheese send Mullen to beat the location of the stolen money out of Helene and Ray Likanski months before Amanda disappeared?”
“Because Cheese didn’t find out about the scam until the day Amanda disappeared.”
“What?”
He nodded. “The beauty of Likanski’s scam-while shortsighted, I admit-was that he knew everyone would assume the money was impounded along with the bikers and the drugs. It took Cheese three months to find out the truth. The day he did was the same day Amanda McCready disappeared.”
“So,” Angie said, “that points to Mullen being the kidnapper.”
He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I think Mullen or someone working for Cheese went to Helene’s that night to fuck her up bad and find out where the money was. But instead, they saw Broussard taking the kid. So now Cheese has something on Broussard. He blackmails him. But Broussard then plays both sides up against the middle. He tells the law enforcement side that Cheese kidnapped her and demands the ransom. He tells Cheese’s side that he’ll bring the money to the quarries that night and give it to Mullen, knowing he’s going to drop them, dump the little girl, and scoot with the cash. He-”
“That’s idiotic,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why would Cheese allow himself to be perceived as the kidnapper of Amanda McCready?”
“He didn’t allow himself. Broussard set him up for it without telling him.”
I shook my head. “Broussard did tell him. I was there. We went to Concord Prison in October and quizzed Cheese about the disappearance. If he were complicitous with Broussard, they both would have had to agree that the blame would fall on Cheese’s men. Now why would Cheese do that, if, as you say, he had Broussard by the balls? Why take the fall for the kidnapping and death of a four-year-old when he didn’t have to?”
He pointed his unlit cigar at me. “So you would believe it, Mr. Kenzie. Haven’t you two ever wondered why you were allowed so deeply into a police investigation? Why you were named to be at the quarry that night? You were witnesses. That was your role. Broussard and Cheese put on a show for you at Concord Prison: Poole and Broussard put on another one at the quarry. Your whole purpose was to see what they wanted you to see and accept it as truth.”
“By the way,” Angie said, “how could Poole have faked a heart attack?”
“Cocaine,” Ryerson said. “Seen it once before. It’s risky as hell because the coke could easily trigger a real coronary. But if you do pull it off, a guy of Poole’s age and occupation? Not many doctors would have thought to look for coke, just would have assumed a heart attack.”
I counted twelve cars pass by on Kneeland Street before any of us spoke again.
“Agent Ryerson, let’s back up again.” Angie’s cigarette had burned to a long curve of white ash in the ashtray, and she pushed the filter off the indented crevice that held it. “We agree Cheese saw Mullen and Gutierrez as threats. What if he felt he had to take them out? And what if what he had on Broussard was so bad, he put him up to it?”
“Put Broussard up to it?”
She nodded.
Ryerson leaned back in the booth, looked out the window at the dark cast-iron buildings on the South Street corner. Over his shoulder, on Kneeland Street, I noticed the familiar urban sight of a boxy, nut-brown UPS truck idling with its hazards on, blocking a lane as the driver opened the back and took out a two-wheeler, pulled several
