was sitting sideways on the seat with the door open and had his hard hat on, which was a white helmet with a blue telephone-company symbol in front. He annoyed me, sitting casually and uninvited in my drive. I heard a thumping sound and the van rocked slightly. The smoker had friends in the back. I liked the whole scene less and less, but considering the shape I was in, I sure didn't feel like getting tough. The man nodded, said good-bye, and put the phone back. He looked up at me.
'Hiya Doc,' said Joe. 'Where's Mare?'
I approached him and saw Kevin O'Hearn, also dressed as a lineman, peer around the corner.
'Hi Doc,' he said. 'Hey kid, you're in trouble.'
'Oh really, what else is new?' I said, leaning the bicycle on its kickstand and moving over to the door. 'What's all this for anyway?' '
'We're going to go and get Carmen DeLucca in about half an hour, that's what,' said O'Hearn.
'We know he's holed up in Lynn, right above a sub shop,' said Joe. 'Been watching the place two days. Way he's moving lately, we figure it's time to make the tag. I'm just waiting here to get the word to start up there; Don't want too many of us, converging on the place at once. But Kev's right, you know. You are in trouble. You wanna take a fall for B and E?'
'Of course not.'
'Then stay out of it, Doc. Really. You're either going to get yourself killed or get me canned.'
'Can't I just go up to Lynn and watch you nail DeLucca?'
'Naw,' said O'Hearn. 'It might get rough. DeLucca's no pussycat.'
'What you could do, though,' said Joe, 'is to drive up to Lynn so I can get a ride back here for supper.'
'I don't have a car. I'm grounded.'
'Oh. Well look, I'll do you a favor. If you promise to stay out of this thing, I'll write a little note to Sis saying you're riding up with us. You can watch all the preparations too. But when the hammer's about to fall I want you safe in the back of this vehicle, on the floor. Deal?'
'Deal.'
'Okay with you, Kev? After all, we're only the communications 5 team. The SWAT boys will pull the dirty stuff. Remember, Doc: mum's the word.'
So I parked my bike and climbed in. The inside of the van was crowded but comfortable. A phone-company van was perfect cover; it allowed the fuzz to plant stakeouts just about anywhere and stay as long as they liked without attracting attention. Most important, the cops wore headsets or talked into phones as they waited around the van or up on poles. Thus they could stay in close touch without attracting the least suspicion- and they could tap into common phone lines to do it, which meant their messages weren't subject to radio surveillance.
I sat amidst a sea of props, most of them functional. There were orange traffic cones, Mm Working signs, yellow blinkers… The van was equipped for protracted engagements too. There was a chemical toilet and a tiny gas cylinder stove for making coffee. The cops had added all these touches after they purchased the vehicle from Ma Bell.
We bounced and swerved along Route 2, then around the rotary at Fresh Pond and on to 16, which is called Alewife Brook Parkway there and soon becomes Revere Beach Parkway. I sat hunched on a carton right behind the two men in front. Before long the view opened up a bit, revealing distant smokestacks and fuel storage tanks, factories and warehouses.
'Where's my wop lighter?' asked Joe, frisking himself. He found it and lit a Benson amp; Hedges and Kevin's Kent. The smoke in the tiny van was awful, and I scooted back to open the plastic rooftop vent with a steel crank. It worked; the smoke got sucked out the tiny hole faster than the two smokers could put it in. I liked the cozy van, which reminded me slightly of the cabin in our little cat-sloop, the Ella Hatton.
'You really love that lighter don't you?' said Kevin.
'Yeah, and I know you do too. Listen, Doc, we got the lead on this place from a snitch in the sub shop. But anyway, it was the hospital where DeLucca got sewed up that helped us focus in on the North Shore. Then up comes this little snitch, see, who's a two-time loser under suspicion for a string of robberies which he knows- he knows, seewe're gonna pin on him. So what does he do but comes forward last Thursday with a nice leak for us if he can work out some kind of deal when we go to sock the rap to him.'
'And it sounded too good to be true, so at first we doubted it,' said Kevin.
'I still do a little; I'm not convinced it's him. But if it is.. . we'll get him sucked in and sealed up so goddamn tight a mosquito can't get out.'
Joe gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles were white. Kevin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye with a worried look. It was not like Joe to be so worked up. We were passing through Everett now, toward Revere. There was the Teddy peanut-butter factory on our left, with its steamy stack and a smell like a candy bar, and a small GE plant. As we passed into Revere the scenery got positively bleak, and I knew it would get worse. Shallow pools of standing water lay on both sides of the roadway in places, and tired gulls circled overhead. Smoke and smells drifted across the sky. We went through Revere, and I could see the big red-and-white-checked watertank that marks the Veteran's Hospital in Chelsea. Strobe lights winked from tall stacks that spewed white steam clouds. All around was that grayish, dusky coloration of industrialization. We turned onto highway 1A and headed north toward Lynn.
Lynn is filled with nice working people, but it is not a pretty city. In Lynn, even the dogs are ugly. They have mangy coats, bloated bellies, and spindly legs. They have a black spot around one eye and bobbed tails that wag too fast.
We swung along 1A, which was now called the Lynnway and which took a straight shot over bleak marshy meadow after crossing the Saugus River and headed back toward factories, railway yards, and oil tanks. Joe was chain-smoking; Kevin drummed his fingers fast on the dash. I stretched my legs out hard one at a time to relieve the cramping. To our left loomed the General Electric River Works plant, the largest factory in New England. It was here that America's first jet engine was built during the Second World War. Just opposite Lynn Gas and Electric on the harbor, we eased left off the Lynnway, went three and a half blocks, and came to a stop along a low and dirty curb. Joe turned to me.
'Put on a helmet, Doc, and one of those jumpsuits.'
'I can't; it hurts my head too much.'
But we could find no alternative, and so I slipped on the biggest hard hat there was in the van. After a few seconds I forgot the ache. With my lineman's jumpsuit and dark glasses was one of the crew. We opened the rear doors of the van and Joe set out a few orange traffic cones and blinker lights. Hell, it even fooled me.
In accordance with state law, a cop was present at the site to help direct traffic. Our cop was really a detective in a local Lynn uniform. He ambled up and chatted with us and filled Joe in on the other teams. There were three of them: another phone van up the street and around the corner, an unmarked car a block up on our street, and a milk truck in the alleyway opposite the unmarked car.
'Don't turn around fast,' said Joe to me, 'but when you get a chance, look at that sub shop down the street, just opposite the unmarked car. DeLucca's been holing up right over it in rented rooms. The snitch is working in the shop; in a few minutes we're going to go see him. Give me those cables, Kev; here comes Powers.'
O'Hearn uncoiled some wire in the back of the van and fed it out to us. A lineman was walking up the street toward us smoking a cigarette with a big coil over his left shoulder. It could have fooled me. Frank Powers nodded hello to us and spoke under his breath as he puffed on his smoke.
'We expect him just after four. It's the time he's been showing up. I doubt if he's got a steady gig going, but Rizzo says he's been showing up every day almost like clockwork. Joe, can you call the rig? I'm about ready. Excuse me.'
He stepped forward and hooked the big cable over his shoulder to the ones Kev had snaked out of the little van. Almost as soon as he was finished a big phone truck with a cherry-picker hoist slid around the corner. Powers got into the crow's-nest and soon was up above us all, hooking the big cable to the pole. In the van Joe and Kevin put on earphones and I listened in on a phone extension fastened with clip wires. Pretty soon both phone trucks could communicate clearly and talk to the men in the unmarked car as well, since they had a remote device. Powers swung down from the treetops and said good-bye, adding that he'd station the hoist truck two blocks away and keep the platform up so he could keep an eye on everything and advise all parties what was happening from his vantage point.
'That guy seems like a real pro,' I told Joe as Powers jumped into the truck.
