I said, “This is Jack Flynn. I’m a reporter for the Boston Record. Is the national editor on duty around?”
“You’re talking to him.” No name, no nothing. His voice remained every bit as bored and almost painstakingly unimpressed by the announcement of my identity. I mean, I assumed everyone at The Times knew who I was, dating back to that botched presidential assassination deal a few years back when I kicked the shit out of them for a month straight on the biggest story in the world. And here I was at the heart of another story that was increasingly national in scope.
I said, “Sir, this is something of a life-and-death emergency. I’m the Record’s reporter on the Phantom Fiend/Boston Strangler story. I desperately need to contact your San Francisco reporter, Elizabeth Riggs, but she’s not answering her home or cell phone number. Do you know if she’s on the road? Have you talked to her recently?”
“Tell me your name again.”
Good Christ. Your name would have to be Bartleby Hornsby III to have any impact on these clowns, and then the most he’d probably ask is if I had a brother who went to Deerfield or Exeter.
“Jack Flynn,” I said, gritting my teeth.
Hank was steering through the Theater District now, such as it is in Boston, heading toward the highway for the short jaunt to the Record.
“And why do you need her?” Bored as ever, the words coming out of his mouth like marshmallows.
I said, “She may be in grave danger. Look, I’m a Record reporter. I’m covering this story. If it helps at all, The Times has twice offered me a job.”
Working in the company cafeteria.
I fell silent. I could hear him pecking around a keyboard, presumably with his fingers. And then he said, sleepily, “Our file shows she’s in Boston on assignment.”
My heart fell even further, if that’s possible, and I didn’t think it was. One more bit of bad news and the thing would be beating in the soles of my feet — or not beating at all.
I said, “When did she get here and where is she staying?”
More silence, though I could again hear the pecking in the near background.
He cleared his throat. “Tell me your name again,” he said.
I did. Then he said, “The Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel. I have her down in Room 533. She was supposed to have arrived yesterday.”
I hung up without saying good-bye, and all but screamed at Hank to point the car toward Copley Square, which he did.
On the way crosstown, on the virtually empty streets, I punched out 411 again and asked for the hotel number. It rang through and a man in an unfamiliar accent — probably best known as hotelier — answered the phone. When I asked for Elizabeth Riggs’s room, he hesitated for what felt like forever, asked me to spell it, put me on hold, and then got back on the line.
“I’ll put you right through, sir,” he said. And he did.
The phone rang once, twice, three times, then four, before it kicked over to an automated voice system with a generic woman’s voice.
“Elizabeth, Jack. Call me,” I pleaded.
I hung up. We were about a minute out, zipping through the South End, Hank intent behind the wheel, the dog stretched out and sound asleep already in the back, and me just about climbing onto the roof of the car.
About thirty seconds out, and my cell phone rang. Hank whispered, “Thank God.” The dog raised his head. I waited until the second ring, saw that the caller ID said “Unavailable,” which could well be the designation for a big hotel, and answered the phone with high hopes.
“Jack here.”
Silence.
Well, not exactly silence, but a muffled noise, which could have been a woman fighting off an attacker, fighting for her life in a hotel room that might be the last place she’d ever see.
I just about shouted, “Who’s there?”
More muffled sounds, as if someone’s hand was cupped over the phone to mask the commotion in the background. And then I heard a vaguely familiar male voice say to me, “Jack, I’m in some trouble. I need your help.”
Vinny Mongillo.
But the thing was, it sounded nothing like the Vinny that I knew so well. This Vinny was seriously distressed and somewhat embarrassed. He sounded exhausted, and scared.
I said, “Vin, I’m in the middle of a world of trouble right now. Tell me fast.”
And unlike the typical Vinny Mongillo, who would have imparted some sort of sarcastic or even caustic comment here, he did.
“I’ve been taken into custody by the Boston Police. They’re about to charge me with something in relation to the Boston Strangler case. It’s not what you think. It’s not what they think either.”
Hank was wheeling around the hotel, pulling up to the side entrance. My mind flashed to Vinny’s letter in the garage on Rodeo Road — a letter that was still in my pocket at that moment. Was I missing something? Was there a link I hadn’t made, a connection I couldn’t grasp? Was Vinny capable of doing something that I couldn’t even imagine?
He continued, “I’m going to need a lawyer and some bail. I’m in headquarters. This is the only call they’re giving me. And you and I desperately need to speak. Can you get here as soon as possible?”
This was a lot to process. By now the car was stopped. Hank was out his door. I said, “Vinny, soon as I can. I have something else I’m taking care of right now, but soon as I can.”
And I leapt out. Hank and I dashed side by side through the door. Inside, I slammed my hand against the elevator call button. A bell dinged, the doors opened, and we were in business. The ride up felt like we were climbing Mount Everest. When we hit the top, we ran left, then right, then right again, and there we were, the two of us, Hank and me, standing directly outside of Room 533. He glanced at me and I glanced at him. That’s when I reached out and firmly knocked.
33
Some of the best hotel nights in my life have been spent in the stately rooms of the landmark building that is Boston’s Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel. I spent my wedding night in the presidential suite. I used to stay there when I was a Washington reporter for the Boston Record during my frequent trips home. My own mother would visit me and look around at the valets and the concierge and the turndown service, and she’d smile that smile of hers and say to me, “You think you’re such a big shot.” Maybe I did.
I’d spent many a night in the Oak Bar with Elizabeth Riggs, listening to great jazz musicians beneath the frescoed thirty-foot ceilings, sipping cocktails served by waitresses and bartenders who counted their tenure not by years but by decades. I once gleaned invaluable information from an old friend named Gus in a corner suite at the hotel as I reported one devastating story after another about the mysterious background of the president of the United States.
All these good feelings and good memories, along with so much more, were about to come crashing to an end on this night, because when you really think about it, that’s what happens in life — things end.
No one answered my knock. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of a sound from inside the room, at least as far as we could hear, and Hank should have been able to with his ear pressed up against the door. I turned the knob and it was locked. Hank pulled back a step, looked at me, and asked, “Do you want the manager to open the door, or do you want me to do it?”
I hated the idea of some nervous hotel manager arguing with me about disturbing guests, possibly summoning police to join us in this search, and then ending with six or eight people walking in on Elizabeth Riggs’s body all at once. I wanted to see her alone, or at least only with Hank, as macabre as that might seem.