Capobianco had deployed his troops to evacuate the West End. That some of the soldiers happened also to be policemen was an incidental fact. Cops had acted like gangsters because they were gangsters-they were on Capobianco’s pad, paid to protect his interests. It all made sense only if Capobianco had an investment in the West End, because Charlie Capobianco didn’t do anything, didn’t even cross the street, except for money. He worshiped money as only a truly poor kid would. He wanted this project built, by any means necessary, and for reasons that had nothing to do with some fatuous fantasy of a New Boston. Charlie Capobianco did not give a Chinaman’s fart about Boston, new or old.
“How much does Capobianco have invested in all this?” Michael asked.
But Gargano was weakening. He lay flat on his stomach and his torso moiled about in the mud. His jaw chewed the air a moment until words came out: “I-I can’t breathe. I need a hospital.”
“You’re not going to any hospital.”
Gargano looked up at him with an expression of spite which softened, second by second, into spiteful submission.
“How big a piece of this did Capobianco take?”
“The fuck should I know?”
“What did it have to do with my father?”
“Conroy said-Conroy said he was gonna blow it up.”
“Blow it up how? My father wasn’t the type. He never squawked about cops on the sleeve before.”
“He wanted out. Said he didn’t work for Capobianco, didn’t want the money. They asked him to do some things; he said no. Didn’t want to go any further. All of a sudden he don’t want to go any further? Shh! After all those years he took Mr. Capobianco’s money? Now he’s gonna blow it all up, this chiacchierone? Nobody was gonna let that happen. If Daley had went and ratted about cops on the pad in the West End, or Mr. Capobianco having his fingers in the West End, he would have took down this whole thing. What politician is gonna stand up for a buildin’ owned by Charlie Capobianco? And everybody wants these buildin’s to go up. Everybody. The city, the feds, the developers. Too much money to stop it. Too much fuckin’ money. Your old man was like you: wasn’t smart enough to keep his fuckin’ mouth shut.”
“And Amy?”
“What Amy?”
“Amy Ryan. The reporter.”
“Oh. Whatever. She was gonna write it. Loved crooked-cop stories, this fuckin’ bitch, that’s what Conroy says. Course Conroy didn’t give a shit about nothing except himself anyways; he just didn’t want her writing his name in the papers. That piece of shit wouldn’t last a week in Concord without his badge. So he comes back and says we got to clip her, too. Otherwise she’s gonna spill the whole thing in the newspapers, and, y’know, prob’ly the whole project gets stopped. So we did. We hit her too. No choice.”
“Who…killed her? All the things they did to her?”
“That was Conroy’s idea. Dress it up like the Strangler, he said. He gave us all the details, all this shit we were supposed to do, tie a bow around her neck, whatever. He knew the newspapers’d go crazy for it.”
“And the broom handle? Conroy did not give you that; the Strangler never did it. Whose idea was that?”
“Mine.”
Michael nodded, accepting this boast. The sadistic indifference of it.
He hefted the sledgehammer again, patiently. The hammerhead was cast iron, barrel-shaped. Its weight pulled Michael’s arms into a rigid V. Together with the dangling hammer they formed a Y, and the Y rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. A nerveless energy began to build, fed by the rocking and the vision of Amy crucified on her bed.
“And Joe, my brother? What’d he do? He told me he was helping you. Why kill him? He was already on your side, you already had him.”
“You can’t have a cop know that much about your business, see it from the inside. Longer it goes, the bigger the risk. Whole thing was crazy. Someday he’d have burned us. End of the day, a cop is a cop. He woulda woke up, someday. He walked away with too much of Mr. Capobianco’s money anyways. He was lucky he stuck around as long as he did. Dumb shit.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I even know Joe’s really dead?”
“Bullet in the forehead,” Gargano said. “Check it out, you’ll see. Third eye-keep the other two shut.”
“And the gun?”
“You just threw it over there somewhere.”
Michael surveyed the massive pit. The chilly gloom. The forest of piles rising overhead. This place was not part of the city, he felt. It was not part of the earth.
Gargano tortoised forward on his elbows a few inches before laying his head back down, exhausted. “My throat. I think you…”
“Why in the hell,” Michael said, “would Capobianco put his money in this? Since when is he in construction? What does he know about it?”
“Nothing,” Gargano said. “But he runs a cash business, and he can only put so much on the street. He’s got to put it somewhere. He needed a legit investment, a big one. You know how much cash he pulls in? More than you can imagine. Your dad was a cop? Pff, believe me, you can’t imagine.”
“Try me.”
“It’s so much fuckin’ money, the state’s gonna start up its own lottery. You believe that? All these years the government tries to get Capobianco, then they turn right around and go into the numbers business. That’s how much money is in it.”
“And Sonnenshein, how much does he know?”
“Sonnenshein doesn’t know shit. The money’s invested without Capobianco’s name on it, through a trust or whatever. Capobianco always owns things through trusts so the feds can’t take it.”
“So why’s Capobianco interfering? He’s already invested. Why not just watch the project go forward?”
“With that much money riding on it? You don’t know Mr. Capobianco. He don’t take those kind of chances. He’s gonna protect his investment. These buildin’s are goin’ up.” Gargano faltered. He coughed, then spat in an intricate way. “Mr. Capobianco don’t bet. That’s the secret. The book never loses, only the suckers.”
Another fit of racking coughs tossed Gargano’s body. When it was done he lowered a thread of drool from his mouth until it adhered to the ground, like a spider launching a filament out of itself.
Michael laid the hammerhead on the back of Gargano’s head.
Gargano shook it away and dragged himself a few inches.
Michael rested the hammer on Gargano’s head again.
Gargano began to snort in angry dumb protest.
Michael tamped twice, lightly, as if setting a nail in a board before driving it in.
Out front a cruiser and an unmarked car, a detective’s car, were double-parked.
A uniform cop stood guard at the front door, one of the bulls from the nearby stationhouse. He looked Michael up and down.
“This is my mother’s house,” Michael offered.
“Go on in.”
Michael was no stranger to police uniforms, of course. Monkey suits, Joe Senior had called them. Still, in the presence of this uniform Michael hesitated.
“You okay, sir?”
“Yeah.”
The cop opened the screen door for him.
And so it would go, Michael thought. There would be no reckoning for what had happened in that pit. No one would ever know. Because Michael was wearing a uniform too: clean khakis, a clean button-down shirt. (He had stopped at his apartment to wash up and change clothes.) To all appearances he was a grieving brother and a dutiful son. Not a murderer at all. What had he expected this cop to see?
Inside he found Margaret and Kat in the living room and he bent to kiss them. Kat’s eyes were red rimmed, her complexion splotchy. Little Joe sat stone-faced, absently turning a penknife in his hand. Michael bent to kiss him, too, though the teenager did not move to offer his cheek so Michael lightly kissed the crown of his head, with its brush of short soft hair.
