"He's the one told her where it was."
"Why was it in the ceiling?"
"Guys use the ceiling for a hiding spot when they're in a hurry."
"Doesn't seem all that convenient."
"Say they're helping themselves to the catering cart, stealing minis. After cocktails, they don't want to walk around with empty bottles knocking around in their pockets, and they don't want to leave 'em lying around in trash cans, so they toss them up there. The ceiling has rattled around here for years, decades even."
"But no one ever came upon this package?"
"It was way off in the corner. You wouldn't find it unless you knew what you were looking for."
"That means it could have been up there for a while. And you can't even hazard a guess as to what this was about? She never said?"
"No, I don't know. But I think Angie might."
"Angie as in 'Angelo'?"
"Yeah. He had something she needed, and she wanted to put the squeeze on him."
"DiBiasi?" I had to pause for a moment and regroup. I had clearly hit the mother lode, and I was having a hard time assimilating all the new data. "I thought Angelo was small-time. An afterthought. Wrong place, wrong time, that whole story."
John shook his head. "Angelo was the target all along. That whole stakeout thing was just to make it look like they grabbed him up by accident. I gave her some help on the thing."
"Ellen set him up?"
"As far as I know, the whole thing was her idea."
"I'll be damned." I sat back and let this new information settle over everything else that we knew. It added whole dimensions to what I knew about Ellen. And it forced a new appreciation for how deep the swamp was getting. Packages, setups, stakeouts. Missing files, missing tapes, missing videos. Maybe a mystery lover. I didn't know if we'd ever find the bottom or what we'd find if we got there. What I did know was that I was following Ellen's tracks right into the depths.
"This Angelo thing," I asked, "was it before or after the package?"
"After."
"So he might be connected somehow to that envelope. Maybe that's why the union's pushing so hard to get him back," I said. "And Lenny, too, I suppose. They're trying to take away my leverage. I didn't even know I had leverage. John, I know you don't know what was in the package, but did Ellen ever say anything about the Beechcraft?"
He looked puzzled. "No. Not to me."
"How about fish?"
"Fish?" More puzzled still. "Like scrod?"
"I don't think so, but I don't know. Crescent Security?"
He shook his head.
"Ellen seemed to be working on something, collecting information. It may have something to do with the Majestic-Nor'easter merger or the Beechcraft. We were even thinking Little Pete might have been involved in drug running."
"No. That I would have heard about. Besides, Big Pete would kill Petey with his bare hands if he found out he was into drugs. He's already close to killing him over the booze."
"Does he really care about him as much as it seems?"
"Yeah, he cares about him, but part of it is he feels guilty, too, like he passed on the disease. Big Pete was a boozer himself until just a few years ago-the whole time Petey was growing up, anyway. He's always trying to get him to go to A.A. meetings with him. The kid won't go."
Big Pete's chewed-up fingernails started to make some sense. We sat for another few minutes in silence before he started fidgeting, making it clear he wanted to leave.
"John, would it be all right if I contacted you again?"
"Do you have something to write with?"
I found a stubby pencil in my jacket, down with the pocket lint and old movie ticket stubs.
"You can leave a message at this number," he said, writing on a cocktail napkin, "and I'll get in touch with you."
The number was familiar. "Where is this?"
"Sir Speedy up in Nahant. My sister works there."
One mystery solved.
Charles Street, still damp from the rain, was threatening to freeze over, and the brick sidewalk was slick and precarious. John offered to drive me back to the hotel, but I knew he didn't want to be seen with me and I wasn't keen on lying in the backseat under a blanket.
"John, did anyone know you were talking to Ellen?"
"Not even my brother. And you can't tell anyone. Even Fallacaro."
"You don't trust Dan?"
He didn't answer, so I put my hand on his arm and made him stop walking. "Are you saying you don't trust Dan?"
He looked away for a long time as if trying to find the words. "Here's the way I see it," he said. "If she had trusted him, she would have had him get her the package, right?"
He didn't wait for an answer, which was good because I didn't have one. I watched him disappear down a side street and into the shadows; then I turned and started for a cab stand. I was still trying to digest that last thought when it occurred to me that the address on Julia Milholland's postcard was somewhere on Charles. One-forty-two… 146, maybe. I went from door to door reading labels on buzzers and peering through plate-glass windows into dry cleaners, drugstores, and gift shops. I came to 152 Charles Street and found it occupied by something called Boston-in-Common. An article written by Ms. Milholland herself was posted right in the window. It was advice on how to find your perfect mate. Boston-in-Common was a dating service.
The cab dropped me off in front of my hotel. I reached through the window to pay, and when I turned around, I felt him out there, felt him before I saw him standing off to the side in a leather jacket with the collar turned up in front of his face. I didn't need to see his face to recognize Little Pete.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, trying not to show surprise. Or anything else.
"I came to see you."
It had stopped raining, but it hadn't stopped being cold, so the perspiration dripping down his face was disturbingly out of place. Rivulets tracked around the ugly, swollen row of stitches that snaked through his right eyebrow. The thought of how he had gotten them made me even more nervous, and I wondered if he was drunk again.
"If you want to talk to me, do it at work." I hoped I was sounding annoyed and in command.
His fist shot into the air. I flinched and stepped back, almost stumbled backward, certain that his arm, like a tree limb, was about to crash down on my head.
"I can't come to work," he whined.
The blow never came; it was only a gesture of his frustration. No matter. My pulse was racing. I wasn't nervous, I was scared. He wasn't staggering and I didn't notice any slurring, but he was wasted. I could see it now that I could see his eyes.
"That's what union reps are for," I said, inching backward and plotting my path to the front door of the hotel.
"I don't need my fucking pisshead union rep mouthpiece talking for me." A man coming out through the door of the hotel reacted to Little Pete's harsh tone- or maybe the harsh language-with a grim scowl. I reacted by moving closer to the door.
"What happened," he said, his voice elevating with each of my steps back, "wasn't my fault. It's that fucking McTavish."
It was there, that flash of rage, the one I'd seen in his eyes when he'd looked at me during his hearing. I still had no idea where it came from or why it had anything to do with me. All I knew was that seeing it in those dull, drunken eyes sent a cold shiver right through my soul.
"Don't ever approach me like this again."
I turned and headed for the door. Thankfully, he didn't follow, just yelled after me. "I'm not losin' my fucking job over this. You're not takin' my fucking job."
Inside the elevator I reached out and pushed the Door Close button. When it didn't close fast enough, I pressed again and again and again. I don't think I took a breath until I got into my room and locked the door. I know that my heart rate didn't come down until hours later when I finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dan's sneakers squealed on the varnished floor as he looped under the basket and in one fluid motion rolled in a left-hand runner.