House Revenge Read online

  He called Boyer next to see how things were going insofar as stopping work on Callahan’s construction project. The last time he’d spoken to Boyer, he’d been in the process of ratting Callahan out to MassDEP for asbestos removal and soil contamination issues.

  Boyer informed him that work on the three-deckers near where he found the steam pipe covered with asbestos residue had been stopped, at least temporarily. “And I haven’t reported the oil tank soil contamination yet,” Boyer said. “I thought I’d wait until Flannery is back to work after the asbestos thing, then I’ll report that one.

  “This is actually turning out to be kind of fun. I called two of my buddies, old retired farts like me with nothing better to do, and in the morning we all get together for coffee, then mosey down to the construction site. It’s like a game now, seeing who can spot the most problems. Yesterday, we saw over a dozen fall protection violations and one of my buddies got a video of them on his cell phone. We’ll send that off to OSHA in a day or two. All of us know Flannery, and we want that prick to suffer.”

  DeMarco almost told Boyer that Elinore Dobbs had lost her battle with Callahan. Thanks to the McNultys she could no longer live alone, and thanks to her daughter, she was vacating her apartment. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “Good. Keep the heat on him.”

  “Uh, there’s one more thing,” Boyer said. “And this doesn’t have anything to do with safety or environmental stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah. What’s that?” DeMarco said.

  “I noticed yesterday, the guys doing the actual construction work— you know, pouring cement, carpentry, stringing wire— they were mostly white or black. But the guys doing the grunt work, digging with shovels, loading up rubble from the demolition, they were mostly Hispanic.”

  “So what?” DeMarco said, then the penny dropped. “You think they might be illegals?”

  “Maybe,” Boyer said. “Flannery is supposed to be using union labor, and I doubt these guys are union. But maybe Flannery cut some kind of deal with the unions, or maybe the unions can’t stop him. I don’t know. But the thing is, I could call INS and suggest they might want to have somebody check these guys’ papers.”

  DeMarco pondered Boyer’s suggestion for a moment and said, “Leave this alone for now. We’ll keep it in our back pocket.” The truth was, he didn’t want to see a bunch of Hispanic guys hassled just because they were Hispanic and maybe lose their jobs, or worse. But like he’d told Boyer, that was a card they could play later.

  That night, DeMarco walked to Fenway a couple hours before the Sox were scheduled to play the Yankees. He paid a scalper an exorbitant amount for a ticket—kings have been ransomed for less—then paid similarly exorbitant amounts for two hot dogs and three beers. But he had the pleasure of watching the Sox whip the Yankees. Any day the Yankees lost was a good day, and there were worse ways to spend a hot summer night in Boston.

  Al Castiglia called the next morning as DeMarco was eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The bruise on his right cheek had faded somewhat—although it was still noticeable—but at least he wasn’t forced to sit at a table where he wouldn’t spoil the other diners’ appetites.

  “Okay,” Castiglia said. “I got everything lined up if you still want to do this thing. I can get you ten of the items you wanted for eighteen hundred apiece. They’re pieces of shit, but you said that didn’t matter. So that would be eighteen grand, but why don’t we round it up to an even twenty.”

  “Round it up?” DeMarco said.

  “Yeah. I talked to Providence. The guy in charge doesn’t know your Boston knuckleheads. He’s never heard of them. He checked around and found out that one of his guys used them a couple of times just because they were handy and he had too much else going on. What I’m saying is, Providence doesn’t give a shit about the McNultys and for five, he’s willing to do what you want.”

  “Five? For a phone call?”

  “Yeah. This might come back on Providence in some way. You can never tell. So five seems reasonable to me.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And my end, I’m thinking ten.”

  “You gotta be—”

  “Hey, my guy has to get the money to the guy who has the merchandise. There’s risk in that.”

  By “my guy” Castiglia meant Delray. He didn’t want to say his name on the phone.

  “He doesn’t have to go anywhere near the merchandise,” DeMarco said. “I already told you that. He can FedEx the money.”

  Ignoring DeMarco’s whining, Castiglia continued. “Then he’s gotta fly to Boston and talk with these maniacs. I mean, you told me yourself they were dangerous.”

  “They’re dangerous to old ladies, not guys like him. He could handle them if he was on crutches.” And Delray probably could.

  “Then there’s my fee for, you know, consultation and coordinating with Providence. None of this could happen if I didn’t have the right connections. Anyway, you add it all up, it comes to thirty-five, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.”

  “This is about payback for an old lady,” DeMarco said. “I thought you cared about her?”

  “I do care,” Castiglia said. “But business is business.”

  DeMarco didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “Okay. I need to talk to my boss. How soon can the items be where they’re supposed to be?”

  “They’ll be there twenty-four hours after you tell me you got the money.”

  14

  Sean Callahan, at his home on Beacon Hill, was reclining on a lounge chair near the rooftop lap pool, sipping a mimosa, and admiring his wife’s body. The third Mrs. Callahan was sunning herself topless, lying on her stomach, her skin slick with suntan oil. She was wearing a bikini bottom the size of a cocktail napkin. At twenty-five, her body was flawless and she just took his breath away.

  Sean met his first wife, Connie, when they were both in community college. He’d been twenty-one and she was twenty. He divorced her four years later. She’d just been a youthful mistake, and he often thought of her as his “starter wife.” In retrospect, he realized she’d brought nothing to the marriage other than her body. She had no money—although he didn’t either at the time—no useful social connections, no head for business, and she wasn’t particularly good at mingling with the kind of people he needed to mingle with in those early days to grow his company.

  He married the second Mrs. Callahan, Adele, when he was twenty-seven and she was twenty-two. His first wife had been dark haired, short, and heavy breasted. His second and third wives were both blue-eyed, long-legged blondes with tiny waists and perfect, perky breasts; their facial features were so similar they could have been sisters.

  Unlike Connie, Adele had brought a lot to the marriage: she came from money and she and her parents mixed with the class of people he needed to meet. Adele was also quite bright and he frequently took her advice. He divorced her the year she turned forty, and the primary reason was because she’d turned forty.

  The year before he divorced her, he’d met Rachel in Savannah. Rachel was twenty-three at the time and she looked amazingly like Adele had looked when she was the same age. In other words, he basically traded Adele in for a newer version of the same model, like replacing a 1995 Jag with a 2015 Jag. Like his first wife, Rachel didn’t bring much to the marriage—just her beauty and her considerable charm. She was a marvelous hostess—but at this stage of his life, Sean didn’t need a wife for her financial portfolio or her connections.

  The only problem with having such a young wife was that he had to really work hard not to look like her father. He’d had a bit of surgery done around the eyes and chin, worked out with a personal trainer three mornings a week, and was religious about his diet and the amount of alcohol he consumed.

  Sean knew he should be feeling nothing but contentment. He was in good health. He had a gorgeous spouse. The stock market was booming, and Delaney Square
, the biggest development he’d ever put together, was going to make him a fortune. Hell, the way things were going, he just might become a billionaire. Making his first million had been a watershed experience but that wouldn’t even compare to making a billion.

  The cherry topping the ice-cream sundae that was his life was that Elinore Dobbs was finally out of his hair. With her gone, he was confident that the other tenants in the building wouldn’t last much longer. Yesterday, in fact, he’d talked to the psychiatrist who was trying to convince the agoraphobic guy on the third floor to vacate, and the psychiatrist had come up with a hilarious solution, which the nut had agreed to. The whacko would get into a big wooden box—fortunately he wasn’t claustrophobic—and they’d carry the box to a windowless van, drive to a new apartment that was identical to his old apartment, then carry the box inside so the guy would never be exposed in any way to the big bad outside world. What a hoot!

  The only fly in the ointment—the only thing keeping him from total bliss—was that spiteful bastard Mahoney. He could just kick himself for not having been more diplomatic with Mahoney, but Mahoney’s attitude had just pissed him off. And although Mahoney couldn’t really cause him any substantial damage, he was like a gadfly around a stallion, and the stallion was tired of getting stung.

  He’d received word yesterday that the IRS was going to audit him again. He’d gone through an IRS audit five years ago and it was not only an enormous, time-consuming pain in the ass but the fees he ended up paying accountants and lawyers were mind-boggling. He’d probably have been better off just paying what the IRS claimed he owed them in the first place. He’d also been informed that the SEC was looking into stocks in a pharmaceutical company that he’d sold. There was some nonsense about the coincidence of him selling his shares three days after he had dinner with the company’s CEO.

  Then there was what was happening at Delaney Square. Some son of a bitch was calling OSHA daily reporting safety violations and now Flannery was tied up in some asbestos abatement bullshit that Sean didn’t really understand. He certainly hadn’t ordered Flannery to cut any corners when it came to asbestos. But the safety and the asbestos issues weren’t showstoppers—any more than the IRS audit was a showstopper. They were just expensive annoyances. It was unbelievable how much a construction project could cost even when nobody was working.

  There had to be some way to get Mahoney off his back. Or if he couldn’t force him to back off, which he didn’t think he could, maybe there was some way to make peace. Mahoney had already gotten all the favorable publicity he was going to get off Elinore Dobbs. What else did he expect to gain at this point by tormenting a man who’d been a substantial contributor in the past? Mahoney was just being a vindictive prick.

  One other thing occurred to him. Right now, Mahoney was causing him problems with the IRS and the SEC and OSHA—but those problems were nothing compared to the problem Mahoney could cause him if he looked in a different direction.

  What he needed to do was apologize to Mahoney, as much as he hated to do that. He’d call the damn guy up, say he was sorry for losing his temper and saying the things he’d said. He’d explain that he’d just been having a bad day, plus the heat hadn’t helped. Then he’d point out that it wasn’t his fault that Dobbs had tripped and fallen and, in the end, he did right by her, considering the amount of money he gave her to buy out her lease. He’d try to convince Mahoney that they both needed to quit being so emotional and that Dobbs was water under the bridge. They needed to look to the future, he’d say. He would continue to support Mahoney as a contributing constituent and, hopefully, Mahoney would continue to support his business ventures. One hand washing the other, as it had always been. Yeah, he needed to swallow his pride and call the old bastard.

  He reached for his cell phone—and just at that moment, his wife rolled over on her back and her perfect breasts pointed upward, directly at the sky. At her age, nothing on her body sagged. It took all his willpower, but he picked up his phone, found Mahoney’s cell phone number in the contacts list, and hit the DIAL button. The phone rang twice and went to voice mail, which meant that Mahoney probably saw who was calling and decided not to take the call.

  He found Mahoney’s office number next, called the number, and told Mahoney’s secretary to pass on a message that Mr. Callahan would like to speak with him. “Tell him,” he said to the secretary, “that I just thought we should, ah, clear the air. Write that down on the message slip, please.”

  His wife stood up and stretched—and thoughts of Mahoney disappeared. He could feel an enormous woody coming on. Thank God, he wasn’t yet at the age where he needed Viagra to get it up. He said, “Hey, why don’t you come over here.”

  “Okay,” she said, smiling sweetly. Rachel was smart enough to understand the primary asset she’d brought to the marriage.

  15

  DeMarco flew back to D.C. to talk to Mahoney.

  He hadn’t liked talking to Al Castiglia on the phone about his plans for the McNultys. The FBI could have a warrant to eavesdrop on Castiglia’s phones—Castiglia being who he was—or the NSA could be eavesdropping without a warrant. DeMarco didn’t think that he and Castiglia had said anything on the phone that could cause either of them a legal problem, but he wasn’t going to take that chance with Mahoney.

  DeMarco met Mahoney at his condo in the Watergate complex. Instead of sitting inside his air-conditioned apartment, Mahoney was out on the balcony even though it was ninety degrees outside. The gin and tonic in his hand was his only protection against the temperature. He was wearing green-and-white-checkered Bermuda shorts and a crimson Harvard T-shirt. (Mahoney had not gone to Harvard.) He was barefoot, and his legs and big flat feet were the color of skim milk.

  “How’s Elinore?” were the first words out of Mahoney’s mouth.

  “Not good. She doesn’t seem to be improving.”

  “Goddamnit,” Mahoney muttered.

  Before Mahoney could blame him again for Elinore’s condition, ­DeMarco said, “But I’m working on something that’ll put the McNultys in prison for a long time, boss. And it’ll be hard time. Federal time. And not in a minimum security prison.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “You don’t want to know. But it involves your old pal Al Castiglia and a guy just like him in Providence.”

  “Huh,” Mahoney said. “How much time are we talking about for the McNultys?”

  “Based on a recent case in Boston I’d say a minimum of six years, but more likely ten with their records.”

  “Good,” Mahoney said. He was probably thinking the same thing DeMarco had thought when he developed his plan: if the McNultys were convicted for the attempted murder of Elinore Dobbs, ten years was probably about how much time they would spend in prison. However, no amount of time in prison would make up for what they had done to Elinore mentally.

  “But there’s a problem,” DeMarco said. “I need thirty-five grand to pull this off.”

  “Thirty-five grand?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mahoney wasn’t a rich man—at least he wasn’t rich to the point where he had thirty-five thousand dollars he could easily afford to lose. He made over two hundred thousand a year as a congressman, then made twice that amount in various and sundry ways, some of those ways being arguably illegal. The problem with Mahoney, however, was that he spent money as fast as he made it. He had a large home in Boston, the condo in the Watergate, and his wife had a sailboat that he never boarded. He dressed well, he ate well, and the never-ending campaigning was expensive. Money slipped through Mahoney’s fingers like water.

  DeMarco expected that Mahoney would now start screaming, asking why in the hell DeMarco was bringing him problems instead of solving them, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “I think I know where we can get the money.”

  “Really?” DeMarco said. “Where’s that?”

  “Sean Callahan.”


  “Callahan?”

  “That’s right. He called today and left a message that it’s time to clear the air between us. He wants to kiss and make up. I think some of the stuff you’re doing up there in Boston to derail his project is one reason, and I think some of the stuff I’m doing, like siccing the IRS on him, is another. He figures, even being the rich son of a bitch he is, that having me for a friend is better than having me for an enemy. So I want you to go see him and tell him it’ll cost him fifty grand to be my friend again. That’s what he contributed to my last campaign, and I think it’s only appropriate that he make another contribution.”

  DeMarco smiled. He loved it: using Callahan’s money to put the McNultys behind bars.

  DeMarco flew back to Boston the following day and right after he checked back in to the Park Plaza, he called Callahan’s office. He told Callahan’s secretary he worked for Congressman John Mahoney and would like to meet with Mr. Callahan. “Tell Mr. Callahan that Congressman Mahoney got the message he left yesterday.”

  An hour later, Callahan’s secretary called back and said that Mr. Callahan could meet with him at six p.m.

  “Great,” DeMarco said. “Where at?”

  “Mr. Callahan would like you to come to his home for cocktails. He said to dress casually.”

  “What’s the address?” DeMarco said.

  “Seventy-four Beacon Street,” the secretary said. Then she added, “The Benjamin Mansion.”

  She said “the Benjamin Mansion” like it was a name DeMarco should recognize. As he didn’t, he resorted to Google, where he learned that Sean Callahan had paid fifteen million for his home, which was 8,450 square feet of historically significant elegance and luxury. It had six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and eight working fireplaces. There were two large decks, a media room, a library, a gym, and a rooftop infinity-edge heated lap pool that overlooked the Public Garden. The home was constructed in 1828 and its architect was a famous fellow named Asher Benjamin, although DeMarco had never heard of him. He was, however, suitably impressed.