“Sorry. I’m not confirming any names.”
“Can you at least say that there were three?”
Ten seconds this time, and then, “No. That would not be accurate.”
“There were more?”
Five seconds. “There were.”
How many?
“Five more so far.”
“Who am I missing?”
“You’ll have to get that from somebody else. Are we done here?”
“Do you know who the Alfanos were working for?”
“I thought you already had that,” he said.
“Atlantic City casinos, yeah,” I said. “But which ones?”
“I’m not going there.”
“I’m guessing you don’t know.”
Ten seconds. “Do you?”
“No.”
With that, he turned away and cranked the ignition.
“One last thing,” I said.
“I think I’ve said enough.”
“Not quite, Captain. I need you to confirm that Mario Zerilli is your chief suspect in the Templeton and Romeo Alfano murders.”
Five seconds. “The Providence PD thinks you shot them.”
“But you know better,” I said.
He turned away and stared out the windshield.
“Mario Zerilli is being sought for questioning in both killings,” he said. “That’s as far as I’m willing to go.”
“Thanks. And Captain? Take care.”
Late that evening, I called McCracken and invited him to meet me for a beer.
“Trinity Brewhouse at eight,” he said.
“Too noisy. We need a quiet place to talk.”
So a half hour later, we slipped into Hopes and found it nearly deserted. Just one alkie hunched over the bar and a couple of off-duty cops taking turns at the pinball machine. None of them had fed the jukebox. We picked up bottles of Killian’s at the bar and claimed a wobbly table by the back door.
“What’s up?” McCracken said. So I filled him in.
“When I write the part about our visit to Romeo Alfano’s hotel room,” I said, “is it okay if I use your name?”
“Can you leave out the part about me roughing up Mario?” he asked. “I don’t want to expose myself to an assault charge.”
“I can do that.”
“Then you’re good to go. Ready for another round? I’m buying.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I need to keep a clear head tonight.”
I swallowed the last of my beer, left him alone at the table, and walked back to the newspaper in the dark.
By one A.M., the newsroom had cleared out. I was the only one in the place.
I wrote mostly from memory, referring to my notes occasionally for dates and verbatim quotes. I got up from the keyboard only to fortify myself with vile vending-machine coffee. Finally, around four A.M., I was finished.
I e-mailed the story to Twisdale, drove home, and poured myself a shot of Bushmills. Then I tore off my clothes, flopped onto my mattress, pulled the pillow over my head to muffle Joseph’s snoring, and fell right to sleep.
32
“Kinda late for breakfast, ain’t it?” Charlie asked.
I checked my watch-two P.M.
“You still got eggs, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Bacon?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then,” I said.
Charlie poured me some coffee, then cracked three eggs on the grill and slapped five strips of bacon down beside a dozen sizzling burgers.
Someone had left the day’s Dispatch behind on the counter. I opened it to the sports page, caught up with last night’s Red Sox win over the Blue Jays, then browsed through the rest of the paper. An ad from the super PAC funded by Atlantic City casinos took up all of page five.
So this must be Thursday. That’s when the group’s ad was scheduled to start.
I shoveled in Charlie’s masterpiece without tasting it, swigged my coffee, and walked three blocks to the newspaper. There, I found Twisdale hunched over his computer screen. He was concentrating so hard that he didn’t hear me step into his office.
“Boss?”
“What is it now? Oh, hey, Mulligan. Thanks for dropping by.”
“I still work here, right? I found my time card next to the punch clock.”
“For now, anyway, but you’re six hours and forty-five minutes late.”
“Gonna dock my pay again?”
“Perhaps I can let it slide this time.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think I need another hour or so to finish going over this. There’s a stack of press releases on your desk. I’ll call for you when I’m ready.”
Ninety minutes later, he did.
“I’ve got some concerns,” he said.
“I thought you might.”
“I want to make sure we’ve eliminated any libel risk.”
“You’re not running it by the company lawyers?”
“If I do, they’ll advise me not to run it. They won’t care whether the story actually libels anyone. They’re paid to forestall any risk that somebody might sue. If they catch the slightest whiff that I’m not taking their advice, they’ll rat me out to corporate.”
“The Alfanos are libel-proof,” I said. “Dead men can’t sue.”
“What about Mario Zerilli?”
“He’s on the run from the cops. Hiring a libel lawyer is the last thing on his mind now.”
“But he might get around to it later,” Twisdale said. “The story does implicate him in two murders.”
“All I say is that he’s wanted for questioning.”
“Yeah, but the suggestion of guilt is clearly there. And that’s not all. You say flat out that he was doing strong-arm work for two Jersey mobsters who were offering bribes to public officials. You’ve got to admit that tends to damage his reputation.”
“Not really,” I said. “Mario is a drunk driver, a domestic abuser, and a gay-basher. The whole town knows he’s a violent punk. There’s not much we can say that would make people think worse of him.”
“I see your point.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think we need to cut out the part about the Alfanos working for Atlantic City casinos.”
“Why? The information’s solid.”
“Because we don’t know which casinos,” he said. “As written, the story throws suspicion on all of them.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” I said. “How about changing ‘casinos’ to ‘New Jersey gambling interests’?”
“That does the trick,” he said.
“So when will it run?”
“I’m stripping it across the top of page one on Sunday,” he said. “With mug shots of the bad guys and photos of Parisi, Hernandez, and Templeton, it’ll eat up a full page inside.”
“Okay,” I said, and got up to leave. Then something else occurred to me. “Who’s going to copyedit this?”
“Good question. No way I can send it to the copy center in Wichita. They might squeal to corporate. Guess I better take it home and do it myself.”
“Thanks, Mister Twisdale.”
“Aw, what the hell. Go ahead and call me Chuck.”
I owed three people a heads-up.
That afternoon, I batted out the day’s weather story-warm and sunny with an 85 percent chance of bribery-and rushed through a stack of press releases. When that was done, I called Judy Abbruzzi at The Atlantic City Press.
“Things are moving fast, here,” I said. “We’re breaking the story about the Alfanos’ bribery scheme on Sunday. I’m e-mailing a copy to you now. It’s got enough named sources for you to match it if you hurry. Just don’t break anything until we do, okay?”
“I promise. Thanks.”
“And Judy?”
“Yeah?”
“If you dig up anything I don’t have, give me a call, okay?”
“Count on it.”