Deadly Diamonds Read Free Page A

End?”
    â€œNo. They’re just kids from South Boston. Classmates.”
    â€œNot to be indelicately racial, but are any of them Italian?”
    â€œNo. Irish.”
    â€œAll right. Any race other than Italian’ll do at the moment. Do you know why I’m asking, Kevin?”
    â€œYes. But I was just going to drive around the block.”
    â€œIn a car that was undoubtedly owned by a made man in that little social club,
La Cosa Nostra
. You hit the jackpot.”
    I turned to his father. “Out of overwhelming curiosity, why did you call me?”
    His father took me by the arm and walked me ten steps away from his son. “Word gets around. You and your partner, Devlin, handled a case for the son of Don Dominic Santangelo. I hear they go back. This thing needs to be brokered.”
    I just shook my head at the inappropriateness of me in all of this.
    â€œListen, Mr. Knight. I think you’re more savvy than you let on. There are, shall we say, territorial disputes between them and us.”
    â€œYou mean the Italian Mafia and the Irish whatever-the-hell you call yourselves.”
    He caught the disdain and stifled a small eruption of what could be an Irish temper.
    â€œThe disputes I mention are mostly under the control of cooler heads, but at the moment—” He moved his hand in a way that said “dicey.” “This matter needs an intermediary with influence, but not aligned with either side. You and your partner come to mind.”
    â€œHow fortunate for us. And when the damned bullets start flying, guess who’s in the middle? Hear this. Mrs. Knight’s little boy, Michael, is not that mentally challenged. Hasta la vista.”
    I thought it, and have frequently wished that I’d said it. Instead, I provided a logical solution.
    â€œLook, Mr. O’Byrne, to hell with the brokering and all the complications. Let’s go with the KISS principle. From what your son said,they probably don’t have any idea who took the car. Simple solution. Have someone drive it and park it a few blocks from Patrini’s Restaurant. Make an anonymous call to Patrini’s and tell the maître d’ where the car is. The odds are he’ll know who owns it. He gets the car back in one piece, and life goes on. For everyone.”
    I started to turn and walk. He caught my arm.
    â€œAnd yet, Mr. Knight, do you suppose I need you to belabor the obvious?”
    â€œI wondered the same. And yet, as you say, here I am.”
    He nodded. “There’s a minor complication.”
    He crooked his come-over-here finger and walked to the back of the car. It was a simple move, but it neutralized every soothing effect of the evening-long’s seriatim sips of the Famous Grouse scotch. He waited until I was standing directly in front of the Cadillac’s trunk and hit the release button. The light from the trunk was perfectly adequate to illuminate every feature of the very dead body of a man curled into the same fetal position in which he began life.
    I’ve seen dead bodies. You can’t be even partially Irish without chalking up more wakes than weddings, but this one had unique features. The knife in the back was the origin of a seepage of blood that surrounded the body like a backdrop. The noose around his neck underscored the labeling of the deceased as a traitor. The final touch was the wad of ten dollar bills stuffed into his mouth like the dressing in a turkey. Without an exact count, I’d have bet that there were thirty bills—the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas to betray our Lord. A bit heavy on symbolism, but the point was made.
    My mind was spinning. O’Byrne was right. This was a complication. The thugs in the North End were unlikely to let this go as boys-will-be-boys. The Cadillac could clearly be traced to the owner, and the state of its current occupant could mean a life sentence for the killer if the boy who took the car went