“I hate guns,” Finn said.
“More than being shot?” Kozlowski asked.
Finn put the gun in his pocket. “We shouldn’t have to use guns at all,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be in this position at all,” Kozlowski said. “Here we are, though. Just having the gun will probably convince this guy he’s better off taking what he came for and letting the rest go.”
“Where’s my gun?” Devon asked.
“Shut up,” Kozlowski said.
“What am I supposed to do when the shooting starts?” Devon asked. “You expect me to fuckin’ duck?”
“No,” Kozlowski said, “I expect you to throw yourself over your daughter to make sure she’s safe.”
Devon started to open his mouth, then stopped. He nodded.
Finn looked at his watch. It was nearly eight, and even through the blinds he could see that the sun was nearly down. Twilight glittered through the gaps. In a few minutes it would be dark out. Finn couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. “How much longer you got?” he asked Kozlowski, who had returned to adjusting the tiny cameras placed around the room.
“A few more minutes,” Kozlowski said. “I want to test the monitors in the car to make sure everything’s working right.”
“We should get out of here soon if we’re gonna have time to get the paintings and get back here.”
“We’ll make it,” Kozlowski said. “When we get back, everything will be ready.”
He said it with ultimate confidence. Somehow, though, Finn felt little comfort.
Hewitt and Porter sat in Hewitt’s car, parked up the street. They were keeping a loose watch on the law offices; they were close enough to see whether people were going in and out, but too far away to see much else. That was okay, though; they had the GPS device planted, and the lawyer’s car was back at the courthouse. If they were going anywhere, it was going to be in Kozlowski’s Caprice.
“What do you think?” Hewitt asked Porter.
Porter was sitting in the passenger seat. Hewitt had picked him up from the FBI office in a minor detour when their quarry had left Malley’s apartment. Porter looked nervous; he didn’t strike Hewitt as much of a field agent. He also had a feeling that Porter’s obsession had taken him over. “I don’t know,” Porter replied. His forefinger rubbed back and forth across the bridge of his nose. “Something’s going on, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe they’re just preparing a defense on Malley’s theft charges.”
“At eight o’clock?”
“He’s a lawyer.”
Porter shook his head. “It’s something bigger than that.”
Hewitt shrugged. “If you say so.”
Just then Finn, Kozlowski, and Devon emerged from the front door to the law offices. “Here we go,” Hewitt said. He started the car.
Porter reached over and turned the engine off. “Give them a good solid head start,” he said. “I don’t want to attract any attention. We can follow them on GPS; we don’t need to have them in sight. If they realize they’re being tailed, they’ll call off whatever they’re planning.”
“What if something happens before we catch up to them? They could be in danger.”
“If they’re in danger, they put themselves there,” Porter said. “It’s not my problem. I’m not going to risk the recovery of the paintings protecting the people who are mixed up in all this. They had a chance to come in and work with us. They passed.”
“You’d let people get killed over this?”
Porter looked at him. “If it’s that or letting the paintings slip away again, I wouldn’t even hesitate.”
Stone and Sanchez were even further away from Finn’s offices than the FBI agents. The light filtering out from the lawyer’s windows was little more than a distant beacon, but it was enough for them to see the figures coming out the front door. They waited, watching as the Caprice pulled away, staying put as they watched the feds in the car two blocks ahead of them bide their time for several minutes. Staying put ate at Stone. “We’re gonna lose them,” he said.
“No we won’t,” Sanchez said. “Hewitt and his friend aren’t going to let them get away that easily. They’ve got them tagged; all we have to do is keep Hewitt’s car in sight, and they’ll lead us where we need to go.”
The traffic on the street was still heavy. Cars passed them, headed to dinner, or home from a late night at work. Cars pulled out from their parking spaces, and others rushed to take their places, excited at the luck of finding a spot in the parking-challenged town. A white cargo van that had been making a delivery pulled out a block ahead of them, and Stone had to crane his neck around to keep his eye on the FBI car. Still they waited as the minutes ticked inexorably by. “This is gonna kill me,” Stone said.
“Just another minute.”
The lights in Hewitt’s car came on. It eased back in its parking space, making room to pull out, then shot forward onto the street, following the Caprice’s path.
“Now,” said Sanchez.
In one motion Stone turned the engine and threw the car into gear. They were a block behind, and Stone was petrified they might get caught at a light. “Motherfucker,” he muttered to himself. “We lose them, and I swear to God I’m gonna shoot you, then turn the gun on myself.”
She looked at him. “You questioning my judgment?”
He nodded. “I’ll follow your lead, and I’ll let you call the shots. But don’t expect me not to question you when it’s just you and me. When it’s just us, I’ll question everything we do if I think there’s a reason.” He was focused on keeping the tail, and his eyes were riveted on the road ahead of them, but he could feel her staring at him. “What?” he said. “Is there a problem with that?”
She turned away and looked out the windshield as they stayed within sight of Hewitt’s car. “No,” she said after a moment. “There’s no problem with that at all.”
For the first time since they had been riding together, he felt that they were partners.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Kozlowski steered the car northeast, through the quaint brownstones and Newport-styled clapboard town houses going for two million a pop, down along Warren to Chelsea Street, the dividing line that separated one Charlestown from another.
As they pulled down Chelsea and out around onto Terminal, Finn looked across the Little Mystic Channel toward the Newtown Projects. The name might have been appropriate in the sixties, but now it seemed like sarcasm.
Near the end of the road, they came to an open gate. “Pull in here,” Devon said.
Kozlowski pulled in and headed north, toward the water. Two cement structures sat long and flat, running north-south, set nearly flush against the edge of the river. The sign that read “Charlestown Self-Storage” had been repainted, but otherwise the buildings hadn’t changed much in twenty years. “It’s around the back,” Devon said.
Kozlowski followed the path Devon had traveled with Bulger fifteen years before, out around by the water, onto a narrow strip of driveway, then back up into the darkened, narrow alley between the buildings. “Park here,” Devon said, halfway down.
The three of them got out of the car and walked to a door set in the side of the building. A weak bulb protected by a rusted casing screwed into the cement above the steel door threw off barely enough light for them to make their way with confidence.
“You got the keys?” Finn asked.
“Right here,” Devon replied. He pulled out two keys and tried one in the lock. It worked on the first try, and he pushed his way in. Once inside, he reached over to the wall and flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. “Bulb must be out,” he said. “Anybody think to bring a flashlight?”
“Yeah,” Kozlowski said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a slim black-steel flashlight and flipping it on, pointing it down the long narrow corridor.
Finn looked at him. “You’re good.”
“I think shit through.”