He tried another question. “Dad, who was all that cash for? I need to know this.”
For a long while his father didn’t move. Rick wasn’t sure whether Lenny understood, so he repeated the question: “Who was all that cash for?”
Another long pause. Then his father slid his left hand across the letter board, his index finger landing on the letter I.
Rick erased “I don’t remember” on the whiteboard and in its place wrote an I.
His father’s finger moved to W, and then A, and then N. A few seconds later his index finger moved to the T.
Rick wrote the letters on the board. IWANT. Realizing that these were two words, not one, he erased them and wrote them again with a space between the I and want.
Slowly picking up speed, Len’s index finger moved to T and then O.
Rick had written on the whiteboard, I WANT TO.
Rick spoke the words aloud: “I want to… What do you want, Dad?”
His father’s index finger moved up the letter board to D and then I, and then Rick realized what his father was saying and tears came into his eyes as he finished the phrase:
I WANT TO DIE.
Rick put his hand over his father’s useless right hand and tried to look into Len’s eyes again, but his father was pointedly looking away, a tear coursing down his left cheek.
37
Leaving Charlestown, Rick had the uneasy sense he was being followed.
It wasn’t a certainty. A vehicle had been behind him all the way from the hospital parking garage to Storrow Drive. Not a black Escalade or Suburban but a gray GMC Yukon. Was it a tail, or just a coincidence, someone else traveling from Mass General to Boston?
Maybe it was nothing, but he had to be careful. Where he was going, it was crucial he not be followed.
He saw the exit for Copley Place and decided at the last minute to take the exit. When he turned off Storrow and the Yukon followed, he realized he wasn’t imagining things.
A quick left and straight down Arlington Street and a few blocks later he came to the Park Plaza Hotel. He remembered there was a gala being held there, the one Darren from the magazine wanted him to attend. It had probably started already. He’d had no intention of going, but his name was on the guest list. Which gave him an idea.
He pulled up to the valet and the Yukon double-parked across the street. He wondered whether they wanted him to notice the tail, as if that was part of a strategy to unnerve him, cause him to do something stupid.
Well, they could follow him into the hotel, but not into the gala.
He got out of the car, handed his keys to the valet, and entered the hotel without looking back.
It was easy to find the banquet room where the event was taking place. The usual crowd was gathering, bunched at the entrance by a sign for the SCULLEY FOUNDATION LITERACY INITIATIVE, as attractive young women in headsets, holding iPads, checked off names.
He was wearing jeans and a fleece pullover and was seriously underdressed for the occasion. But they weren’t going to kick him out for not wearing a jacket and tie. All he needed to do was spend thirty, forty-five minutes here, long enough for his watchers to give up and leave. He’d pretend to be on assignment from Back Bay. Which shouldn’t be difficult, since he actually was.
Someone grabbed hold of his elbow. It was Mort Ostrow. “I like your idea of cocktail attire,” he said. “Didn’t I just see you at Marco?”
Rick shrugged. “Hello, Mort.”
“Sculley’s right over there. Isn’t he on your dance card this week?”
“That’s right.”
“Listen, Rick, I want you to give him the real Rick Hoffman treatment.”
He winced. “Sure.” The truth was, Rick could write the lede to the Q &A in his sleep: He may own several of the most iconic buildings in the Boston skyline, but when you talk to the billionaire builder Thomas Sculley, he’ll tell you it’s people, not buildings, that he’s built his fortune on.
“Let me introduce you,” Ostrow said.
“Mort, how about we do this another time, I’m-”
“Two minutes.” Ostrow sidled in close and confided: “Sculley and I are in talks. I think he’s about to buy the magazine. Though I’m calling it a vertically integrated media company. I want him to experience the full Rick Hoffman treatment. There he is.”
Thomas Sculley was talking to an elegant fortyish blonde, but when he saw Ostrow, he turned. He had craggy, rough-hewn features and looked to be in his seventies.
“Thomas, I wanted you to meet one of our ace reporters, Rick Hoffman.”
Sculley gave him the big-man handshake-and-biceps grip-and-grin. “Oh, yes, Mr. Hoffman, why don’t we have our little talk right now?”
“I’d love that, but I don’t think these folks would forgive me if I took you away.” Rick gestured vaguely toward the throng. “Maybe you can find a few minutes next week?”
“Certainly,” the man said, crinkling his eyes.
A few minutes later Rick managed to escape Ostrow’s clutches. He walked around the perimeter of the ballroom, which was crowded with tables set for dinner, and exited via one of the doors at the far end. He emerged from the hotel at the cabstand and got into one of the waiting taxis. “Government Center, please,” he said.
38
Rick had met FBI Special Agent Ernie Donovan a few times, but it hadn’t been for at least seven years. Donovan hadn’t changed. He was ex-Marine and took pride in maintaining the look, the high-and-tight hair and the physique. Donovan’s black hair was peppered with gray now. That was the main difference.
Eight years ago Rick had worked on a piece on interstate sex trafficking of minors and had, in the process, gotten to know Donovan. The FBI is always finicky in its dealings with journalists. It views them as unreliable, uncontrollable, publicity-seeking loose cannons, which is largely true. Journalists view the FBI as hidebound, bureaucratic, and legalistic, which is also largely true. But when their needs overlap-when the bureau wanted a story out-the relationship could be harmonious.
They met at a Starbucks across the street from the Boston field office. Donovan turned down Rick’s offer of a drink after work. He had four kids and had a long drive home from Boston.
Donovan met Rick in line. The agent’s grip was very ex-Marine. They made small talk until they were seated with their coffees at a table. Rick told him about what he was investigating, the covered-up accident. “Did that ever come across your radar screen?”
“You’re talking about the Big Dig. The radar screen got awfully crowded those days.”
“So nothing about this accident in particular? A cover-up?”
“I don’t have anything for you, Rick.”
“Meaning you can’t tell me, or you don’t have anything to tell?”
Donovan smiled. “If I had anything, I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’d know if an investigation was ever opened.”
“And officially I’m not supposed to tell you that no investigation was ever opened.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
“I remember the accident well. Off the record, it always troubled me.”
“But not enough to open an investigation.”
“A lot was going on back then. Whitey Bulger had just vanished in Boston the year before. A lot of fingers were being pointed. But if you find something, let me have a look.”