“All I have to do?”
“We get the information on his BlackBerry, we’ve got the case against him nailed down.”
“That thing never leaves his hands.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m supposed to just grab it from him and start downloading…? This is insane.”
“It’s easy. All you need is the right opportunity.”
“No such thing. Look, it’s not my fault that your transmitter was discovered. I did my part. I don’t see why I have to risk my neck again because your plan didn’t take into account the possibility that Galvin’s security people would do a sweep.”
Yeager shrugged and took a heaping forkful of hash. He chewed for a few seconds and then said, through a mouthful of food, “You get points for trying. But until we have enough on him to justify an arrest warrant, you’re still on the hook.”
“Why did you want me to take the T here anyway? Why not my car?”
“Security.”
“Like I might be followed?”
“Or there’s a tracker on your car. It’s all possible.”
“If there’s a tracker on my car, that means they suspect me,” he reasoned. “Right?”
Yeager shrugged. “Maybe they’re doing their due diligence. Watching you, seeing who you meet with. Making sure you’re not working for the DEA.”
“And if they find out I am?”
“That’s why we’re taking measures to protect you.”
“What happens if they find out I’m meeting with the DEA?” Danny persisted.
“Why do you keep obsessing about this? You’re, like, picking a scab. Don’t keep thinking worst-case scenario, or you’ll be too scared to function effectively.”
“Yeah, well, he invited me to play squash with him.”
“You see? He definitely trusts you. That’s a great opportunity. Please tell me you said yes. I’m thinking he’s not going to be bringing his BlackBerry onto the squash court. Your opportunity has just presented itself.”
“I said no. Anyway, that’s not my point. He said I told him I played squash. I never told him that.”
“So?”
“How would he know I play squash? I don’t even know where my racquet is anymore.”
“Isn’t that an Ivy League kind of sport? You went to Columbia. That’s an Ivy League school, last I heard. He just figured.”
“Listen to me-”
The waitress appeared again to top off his coffee mug. “You sure you’re not going to have breakfast, sweetie?”
“I’m good,” Danny said.
The waitress looked disappointed, but she smiled and sidled away.
“He knows things about me I never told him,” Danny said. “It’s like he’s had me checked out. Like he’s been briefed about me. That thing about the squash, that was a slip.”
“And that surprises you? Your daughter spends a lot of time with his daughter, he lets you into his house, into his family’s life-you think he’s not going to be careful? He’s not going to have a backgrounder done on you? This is not a guy who trusts a lot of people. In his position, he can’t.”
Danny exhaled slowly through his nostrils. “Maybe that’s all it is.”
“That’s all it is,” Yeager said. He turned his head and smiled. “There’s your buddy.”
Danny turned and saw Phil Slocum approaching the booth, a beat-up leather portfolio in one hand. He looked grim, even grimmer than usual. He sank into the booth next to Yeager without even giving Danny a glance.
“You look like someone stole your lunch money,” Yeager said.
Slocum unzipped the leather portfolio, took out a brown file folder, and handed it to Yeager. “The body checked out.”
Yeager’s smile faded. He pulled out several 8 x 10 glossy photographs. “Dear God in heaven,” he said. “Goddamned animals.”
He handed one of the photos to Danny. “I would say they discovered the bug.”
It was a photo of a body so disfigured, the carnage so gruesome, that at first glance it didn’t even look like a human being.
Only when he saw the mole in the shape of Australia on the right side of what remained of the neck did he recognize Galvin’s driver.
25
“It’s him,” Danny said. “It’s the driver. Esteban.” Hot prickles of sweat broke out on his forehead, on the back of his neck. Hot acid burned his gullet, and he felt queasy, as if he might vomit. “Where did you find the…”
“The body was found in an alley behind a bar in Brighton. Covered by a plastic drop cloth. It was obviously a drug-related execution, and it looks like he was tortured, so the Boston Police drug unit caught it.”
Danny lurched from the booth, clattering his fork to the floor, and rushed outside, where he threw up on the sidewalk. A young couple carrying matching Under Armour gym bags were passing by at that moment. The guy shoved his girlfriend away from the trajectory of the vomit.
Danny remained bent over for a minute or so, head ducked, the world spinning and wobbling.
The photos depicted a work of sculpture made by Satan. An arrangement-a derangement-of a human body in parts. The man in the photo, though it was but a torso, was holding his own severed head, as if he were clutching a soccer ball. The head looked like Esteban’s head, but it also looked like one of those hyper-real latex Halloween masks, except for the horrific bloody innards of his neck and trachea that hung down raggedly, a torrent of dark blood.
The eyes were open slightly, as if he were falling asleep.
Stuffed into the head’s mouth, like discarded gristle on a butcher’s counter, was what appeared to be his own dismembered penis.
Danny returned unsteadily to the diner and stood at the booth.
“Was he one of yours?”
Yeager’s eyes widened. He glanced to either side. “Sit down, please.”
The booths on both sides of them were still empty. Danny slid into the booth, slowly and reluctantly.
Slocum said, “You really think if we’d turned Galvin’s driver, we’d be wasting our time with you?”
“Don’t shed a tear for Esteban,” Yeager said. “He was a low-level sicario for the cartel.”
“Meaning?”
“Enforcer. Hired gun.”
“Well, that could easily have been me.”
“It wasn’t,” Yeager said.
“Who did it?” Danny asked.
“The cartels have cells scattered around the country,” Yeager said. “There’s no shortage of muscle. We put out a BOLO and this report of a body came back. And checked out.”
“Isn’t this just going to lead back to Galvin?” Danny said. “As soon as the body’s identified. I mean, the driver to some rich investor is found tortured and murdered-”
“The body won’t be identified,” Yeager said. “Their security people will do their tricks with ID cards and fake passports. This guy here”-he tapped a pudgy forefinger on one of the glossies-“is a John Doe.”
Danny nodded, bit his lower lip. “Well, I’m out.”
Slocum made a slight movement, as if he were about to say something threatening, but Yeager put a hand on Slocum’s arm.
“This is not going to happen to you.”
Danny laughed bitterly. “Oh, right, of course not. How could I possibly think that?”
“If anything, this guy’s death is your protection. You’re off the hook.”
“But you guys have made it clear I’m still very much on the hook. You think you can keep pushing and pushing me until I’m found in pieces, rolled up in plastic somewhere?” He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’m not meeting with Galvin again. That relationship is over.”
“Just like that?” Slocum said. “Suddenly you’re gonna cut off all contact? You don’t think that’s going to look suspicious? They find a transmitter, they finger the driver, and suddenly you’ve disappeared? They’ll know they got the wrong guy. You’ll just turn the klieg lights on yourself, buddy.”