Nothing seemed to fit the profile: something that would require the services of a PR guy like Pappas. After a few hours of searching, his eyes were weary and his head had begun to ache. Then he noticed a story with Monica Kennedy’s byline, TheBoston Globe’s investigative ace.
JAMAICA PLAIN FAMILY KILLED IN TUNNEL ACCIDENT. A terrible story about a young mother and father and their fourteen-year-old daughter killed when their car hit the wall of the brand-new Ted Williams Tunnel. Rick knew the tunnel was part of the Big Dig, so he lingered on the article for a moment. A tragedy, but not something that would in any way involve his father or Alex Pappas.
So why was Monica Kennedy writing about a car accident of all things?
He looked at his watch. It was a bit after 7:00 P.M. Back Bay had cleared out, but Monica worked long hours. If she wasn’t at her desk, she was on her way home. She was disturbable.
“Kennedy,” she barked after one ring.
“Monica, it’s Rick.” He paused. “Hoffman.”
There was a lot of background hubbub punctuated by the clinking of glasses or silverware. “Rick Hoffman! Coming back like a bad penny.” Her words were garbled by a mouthful of food. “What the hell you want now?” She said it jokingly, but Rick knew there was a sharp edge of truth in there.
“The Cabrera family mean anything to you?”
“The who?”
“A family from the Dominican Republic who lived in Jamaica Plain, Hyde Square. Daddy, mommy, teenage daughter killed in a traffic accident.”
“I don’t know what…”
“This is back in ’96.”
“Are you still playing investigative reporter for the Shop ’n’ Save Gazette or whatever you call that piece-of-shit supermarket circular you write for?”
“The Ted Williams Tunnel-?”
“Oh, that, sure, sure. Awful story. Family of three wiped out in a car crash.”
“But why were you on a traffic story?”
“Yeah, hold on a second.” She chewed, then took a big swallow. “You know, I never got the goods on that one. As I recall, it went like: This guy and his pregnant wife and young daughter are driving through the Ted Williams Tunnel in the middle of the night-this is right after it first opened-and the guy drives his car into the tunnel wall and they’re all killed immediately.”
“Got that. What I don’t get is what put you on the story.”
“The Ted Williams Tunnel. The spanking-new, just finished Ted Williams Tunnel, man. The Big Dig, what do you think? Started out I thought I had something about shoddy construction on the Big Dig and it turned out to be just a plain-vanilla accident. Nothing there. Like my Afrin bottle. Wait a second, now I remember! Alex Pappas!”
“Pappas? What about Pappas?”
“For some reason he was all over the story, playing zone defense. He called me a couple times. Yeah, Pappas was doing reputation management for one of the construction firms that built the tunnel, and he was making sure the company’s name didn’t get dragged into it. But like I said, he had nothing to worry about, ’cause it was just driver negligence or whatever. The driver was drunk, I always figured. Nothing there.”
Pappas, he thought. Reputation management. If Pappas was talking to a reporter for the Globe and also talking to Lenny Hoffman…
Was it so farfetched? Pappas wanted Lenny’s legal help, maybe.
“You think you still have the file?”
“Somewhere. Somewhere. I don’t throw anything away. When was that again?”
“Ninety-six.”
“Probably in the file drawer at work. Now can I get back to my dinner, please?”
“I’ll come by tomorrow.”
Rick had parked his Zipcar in the big parking lot on Washington Street behind the building where Back Bay’s offices were, a lot that faced a sports club and the off-street patio of an Italian bistro. In the daytime the lot was always full, but now it was half empty. He pressed the Unlock button on the remote to pulse the car’s flashers and remind him where he’d parked.
He got in the car and pushed the ignition button and drove toward the exit, when he felt something whispering across his neck, maybe an insect, a fly, and he reached to scratch it and felt something grab his left shoulder and heard a man’s voice immediately behind him, from the backseat.
“Pull over, Mr. Hoffman, but gently, please, sir. What you feel against your carotid artery is a seven-inch Japanese santoku, a chef’s knife made of molybdenum vanadium stainless steel. Ice-tempered and hollow ground and probably the finest chef’s knife in the world.”
Rick froze, his heart fluttering wildly.
“It slices with very little pressure. So bring your chariot to a stop gently, Mr. Hoffman. This is a rental vehicle, and it’s damnably hard to get blood out of the upholstery.”
31
His body jerked slightly, he couldn’t help it, as he eased his foot down on the brake and guided the car to a stop. “Jesus,” he said. He felt the blade hot against his throat, gasped involuntarily as it broke skin.
“How much do you want?” he said.
He felt the warm wetness, the prickle of blood, and at the same time felt an icy clutch deep within his bowels.
He didn’t dare raise his hands, do anything to cause his attacker to pull the knife in any harder. He smelled that barbershop smell again and the odor of stale cigarette smoke. He sensed that his attacker was alone in the backseat of his car, and he sized up his chances for escape. They were limited. If only he could reach up and grab the wrist that squeezed hard against his neck, tight as a hug. But the blade would sink in a beat faster, he had no doubt of that. He inhaled deeply and felt the bite of the blade on his larynx and tears of pain came into his eyes. He would have to lull his attacker into momentary complacency and then move suddenly. But that sounded workable in theory; in practice, it seemed impossible.
“You want me to talk to you, it’s a lot easier if you take the goddamned knife off my throat.”
He knew what they were planning to do to him, and he knew he had to do everything in his power to get away.
In his peripheral vision he saw someone approach the driver’s-side door and the door came open and a pair of hands thrust inside, grappling with a piece of cloth. The moment had passed. The hood went over his head and everything was dark. The knife edge remained poised against his throat. It smelled of burlap and was coarse against his skin.
“But I have information for you,” Rick attempted.
“We’re not talking,” a voice finally said. Not the voice of the poetry lover. This was higher, raspier. In just a few words he could detect an Irish accent. “Now move over.”
“I can’t,” Rick said. He gestured with his hands at the console that separated the driver’s from the passenger’s seat.
A pause. “All right. Get out.”
The knife came away from his throat.
He did. Someone grabbed his elbow; the second man. He couldn’t see anything but was pushed and yanked into the backseat of the Prius. He wondered if anyone in the dark parking lot could see what was happening. He hadn’t seen anyone in the lot when he unlocked the car a few minutes earlier. If someone did see, would he or she get involved, say something, or not. In a city like New York, people didn’t get involved, as a rule. But Boston was a smaller city, in some ways like an overgrown town. Maybe someone who saw something suspicious would call the cops.