The Silver Bear

records, no more paperwork, no more checks. Everything will be kept in cash.”

“What will I find at this address?”

“A bank for those of us who don’t like banks. You will find you already have an account there. And in that account is fifty thousand dollars that wasn’t there yesterday.”

I leaned back, trying to mask that the sum staggered me. Vespucci knew it had, but he didn’t say anything more. For a minute, we just sipped our espressos, leaving the air between us silent.

“When do I get my next assignment?” I finally managed.

“When you are ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

“No, Columbus. You need a month to get your . . . how should I say? . . . to get your edge back.”

I opened my mouth, but then closed it while his eyes measured me. He was right. I wasn’t ready. Though I couldn’t put my finger on what was holding me back.

“This business, this business you find yourself in, it pays well but it also exacts a fee, Columbus. Do I make sense? It exacts a fee up here . . .” He tapped his head with his index finger. “The only currency by which you can pay this fee is time. You need some time so you can do what you do again.”

I nodded, but I knew he had more.

“I think it is not enough to do your job and walk away from it. I believe . . . this is hard to understand . . . I believe you must connect with your mark’s mind . . . ahhh . . .” He waved off his words as though he were displeased with them, like they had failed to communicate what he was trying to say. I waited. After a moment, he spread his hands in front of him. “Columbus, I did not give you enough lead time because it was a test to see how you would do. Typically, you will have eight weeks before an assignment must be complete. Use the time to not only know the routine of your mark, but to know what is going on inside your mark’s head, to become your mark, to really understand his . . . or her . . . motivations. Once you have fully realized the connection, only then can you fully sever the connection. Do not ask me to explain why this is so. I only know it is.”

With that, he dropped a ten-spot on the table to cover our bill, excused himself, and shuffled out of the coffee house.

JAKE could tell I had changed. She didn’t know how to ask what was different about me, why I was acting morose, so she grew frustrated.

“What did I do?” We were sitting down to dinner.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Ever since we came back from New Hampshire you’ve been acting . . . I don’t know . . . bothered by me.”

“I’m telling you this has nothing to do with you, Jake.”

“Bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say? You need to drop it.” I could feel my anger rising like boiled water.

This was our first row and I discovered she wasn’t one to back down. “Drop what? How can I drop something when you won’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be dropping?”

I started to answer but she interrupted, “I’d expect this from some people, but not you. Since the day I met you, we’ve been nothing but honest with each other. That’s what having a relationship, a real relationship, is all about. You have to trust me and I have to trust you. There isn’t any other way to do it—not a way that works, that really works.”

She was right, but my hands were tied. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

I could see her eyes soften, but she held firm. “You’re apologizing but I don’t even know what you’re apologizing for. This isn’t communicating. This is me talking to a brick wall.”

“I said I’m sorry, Jake. I’m trying to figure some things out, but you have to believe that the problems I’m having aren’t about us. The only thing . . . the only thing I depend on each day is us. I know that’s not a satisfying answer but I need you to accept it . . . I’ll get down and beg you to accept it if that’s what it takes. But I can’t handle you going sour on me, too. I just . . . can’t. When the time is right, I’ll tell you everything.”

Whatever defenses she had melted away. “You promise?” she said, weakly.

“I promise.”

“You trust me? Completely?”

“You’re the only one I do trust on this planet.”

“I love you.”

When I answered her with the same three words, I meant them fully.

CHAPTER 7

MY next assignment was a disaster. The name on the top of the page was Richard Levine, a numbers runner on the east side. Vespucci had done his homework, but even the homework had gaping holes in it, gaping holes due to a very specific reason: I was working a job where the target knew I was coming.

Levine was a five-foot-two slight figure with chronic headaches and a short fuse. He had made a fortune working the rackets among the union workers down by Boston Harbor, and as his bank account increased, so did the list of his enemies. A cautious man, he had a regular staff of five bodyguards . . . professional guys, former cops, men who hadn’t had a chance to go soft. He lived in a large house near Beacon Hill and rarely went out any more, letting his minions work the books, deliver the payouts, and make the collections. A handful of guys were entrusted to enter his door, and all of these guys were known faces, fellas who had been on his payroll for ten-plus years. None of these men left the business either; the only way to get away from Levine was to die or disappear.

Vespucci didn’t have schematics on the inside of his house; they had mysteriously vanished from the Department of Records downtown. My fence also knew better than to talk to any of Levine’s men. I had eight weeks and very little information. But it was the last sentence in the file that got my attention: “Mark knows he has a price tag on his head.”

The son-of-a-bitch knew, knew someone had been hired to kill him, knew bullets were being loaded into cylinders at this very moment, intended to strike him dead.

What I had to do, what Vespucci inherently knew I must do, was to get inside the head of my mark, realize the connection so I could sever the connection, as he said. But how could I crack Levine if I couldn’t get close to him?

I started by jogging down his street wearing a Boston College T-shirt and some athletic shorts I’d purchased from a bookstore close to the school. I’m sure I looked like every other out-of-breath runner, cutting through neighborhoods near the park to break a sweat and get the ol’ heart rate up.

His street was common, lined with expensive homes, the standout feature being Levine’s house at the end of the block. Gated, with an expansive lawn, it was a two-story Tudor mansion looking down on the rest of the homes like a pedantic schoolteacher in front of a classroom. I didn’t stop to tie a shoelace and get more of a look; it was too early in the game to raise any eyebrows.

From the file Vespucci gave me, I pulled out a chart with the names and faces of Levine’s pigeons, the low- level guys who handled the sports books around town. Vespucci had also included the name of a bar in Little Italy where a couple of the guys liked to whittle away time instead of going home to their wives. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

I eased into Antonio’s on Stuart Street, just down from Maggiano’s. It was a small place, dimly lit, with a long oak bar covering the length of the back wall. A couple of dartboards, a jukebox, three tables, a television tuned in to the Sox, and a fat Irishman pouring drinks for an eclectic crowd of locals, college kids, and tourists.

Two of Levine’s bookies were at a table near the box, drinking beer and watching the game through jaded