talk with him, be his friend, be his daddy, win his trust.”
Wamsley’s protruding ears reddened. He rotated them toward the assembled detectives, who had turned to watch. “Keep your voice down, Michael.”
“Never mind them, George. You hear me? You’re going back in there and you’re going to sit with him till he gives you something. That’s how it works. That’s how my dad and Conroy used to do it. Take Brendan in there. He’ll make Nast think twice. Then you be on his side, George. Be his friend, get him to trust you-then fuck him.”
“I don’t know how to…”
“Just stop with the questions for a while. You go in there, the first thing you say is ‘How you feeling, Arthur?’ Ask him if he needs a break, if he needs to use the bathroom. Offer him something to eat, ask him if he wants a Coke. Then don’t tell someone to get the Coke; go and get it yourself. And don’t put it on the table; hand it to him. Uncuff him, then no questions. Just talk. Ask him about his shrink, Dr. Keating. Tell him Dr. Keating is a pal of yours.”
“I don’t know Dr. Keating.”
“Lie.”
A little smirk appeared on Wamsley’s mouth. An idea. “You do it, Michael.”
“No. It’s a bad idea. My brother’s a victim. I’m conflicted out.”
“You’re not conflicted out. Your brother is a cop, not an ordinary victim.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’d be a hell of a stink bomb for some defense lawyer to toss into the courtroom.”
“Michael, why are you avoiding this? You know the file better than I do. And you seem to know what interrogation is all about. You must have heard your dad talk about it a thousand times.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Well, neither am I. But it’s our case now, not theirs. The cops had their chance. They blew it.”
“George, keep your voice down.”
“Michael, just do it. Go in there and do it. That’s an order.”
So it was decided. Diplomatically, Michael asked the assembled cops if anyone objected. Tom Hart quickly spoke for the grumbling group: “No, it’s a good idea. Michael’s a smart kid. Give him a chance.” Michael invited Conroy to join him, which fed Conroy’s ego-the old cop swelled visibly at the invitation-and eased Michael’s own sense of presumptuousness.
“Let’s do this, son,” Conroy said.
“Yeah, okay, Brendan. Look, I’m just going to keep him talking.”
“And what am I going to do?”
“Just be yourself, Brendan. That’ll scare the shit out of him.”
A few cops sniggered.
Michael took off his coat, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves.
He swept into the office and said to Nast, “Hey, Arthur. I’m Michael. How you feelin’ today?”
No answer.
“Long day, huh?” Michael glanced at the desk but did not sit behind it. Instead he sat down in the chair next to Nast’s. “You want a Coke or something? How about a spucky? You must be getting hungry. I’m going to have a Coke. You want one?”
“Sure.”
Michael walked out, leaving the office door open so Nast could see the crowd of hostile faces outside the room. Nast watched him walk the length of the narrow office, past the eight empty desks, and out into the hall. When Michael returned, Conroy had settled himself behind the desk, and Nast looked like a hopeless dog at the pound.
Michael handed him a Coke, sat beside him, and began to chat. “I talked to Dr. Keating the other day.”
“You know Dr. Mark?”
“Yeah. Dr. Mark’s a friend of mine. He was asking about you. People are worried about you, Arthur. Would you like to talk to him?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, we’ll see, Arthur. I’ll try to call him for you.”
At one o’clock that afternoon, more than three hours later, Michael showed Arthur Nast a snapshot of Joanne Feeney, the woman who had been strangled to Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony. Nast smiled briefly: He recognized her. Michael said nothing when he denied it.
A little after three, Nast admitted that one summer he had done yard work for Mrs. Feeney at a summer cottage she had rented in Scituate. He had been living at a group home nearby. Once, she had even given him a ride back to Boston. “She was nice. She told me about music.” Nast leaned toward Michael and confided, in a shy voice, “She was my friend.”
Conroy shot a glance at the mirror, at the cops standing behind it. He gave away just the slightest grin. Gotcha!
19
In Harvard Square, on the sidewalk in front of the Harvard Coop, a strange man in costume-belted tunic over dingy jeans, authentic-looking sword dangling from a loop of string on his hip-declaimed from Shakespeare on the art of acting: “Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently…” He had thinning, sandy hair and a slash of red on each cheek that resembled theatrical rouge. His skin was unlined and pinguid; he might have been anywhere from twenty to thirty-five years old. This actor had drawn a small crowd, largely by disregarding the advice he was delivering, but then it took some doing to stand out in bohemian Harvard Square and you could hardly blame him for hamming it up. Besides, he seemed to be in on the joke, an intelligent guy, probably some out-of-work Harvard grad-there were some who came to Harvard and simply never left; they just floated around the Square for years-or one of the legion of kooks and longhairs that called Cambridge home.
Ricky skirted the crowd. He slowed only enough to glance at the actor, not to listen.
He continued north on Mass. Ave. and was well out of the riot of the square when he became aware of a black finned Cadillac Fleetwood drifting alongside. Ricky turned quickly onto a side street. The Caddy moved with him, lurking behind the unbroken wall of cars parked at the curb.
A man’s voice called from the car, “You Rick Daley?”
Ricky did not answer.
He had long expected this day would come. Capobianco’s organization had never shaken him down before, but Ricky had figured the chaos would affect him somehow. There was only so much money Capobianco would be able to squeeze out of the bookies and deadbeats in the South End, and when he’d finished gorging himself there, he’d hunt around for new sources of income. It was only a matter of time before a stalker like Vinnie Gargano paid Ricky a visit. Try as he might to fly under the radar-Ricky never flashed a lot of cash, he lived modestly in a Cambridge apartment, dressed in jeans, drove a Ford Fairlane-word had got out that he was making a lot of dough. It was an occupational hazard; you could not do Ricky’s job in perfect secrecy because you could not do it alone. The idea of paying Capobianco’s tax was galling, of course. Ricky earned his money fair and square, with intelligence, creativity, skill, preparation, and hard work. If he was technically a criminal, he was a prince among criminals. His “crime” was victimless, unless you could consider fatcat insurance companies victims. Not that it would matter to Capobianco’s men. They would shark him just as they sharked everyone else. And Ricky would swallow hard and pay, call it a cost of doing business. No sense getting killed when there was a deal to be cut.
“Are you Rick Daley?”
Ricky kept walking.
“Hey, you speak American? I asked you a question.”
“Who wants to know?”
“Who wants to-? The fuck is this? Are you Rick Daley or not?”
“Yeah.”
They were at a corner. The Cadillac eased to a stop in the crosswalk, blocking Ricky’s path.
Ricky stood and waited. His eyes closed briefly, an involuntary wince. Here we go.
