He did care. He couldn’t’ve faked that for so many years, with the effort he put in, the way he showed up for her. Encouraging her interest in history and English, hiring a tutor for math, which was her weakness. He even found a college consultant who told her which extracurricular activities to pursue if she wanted to get into an Ivy. An Ivy. Her? Ray was a BC man, college and law school. She wouldn’t’ve dared to dream beyond what he’d done himself, but he dreamed for her. Kathy was smarter than him, he said. And the truth was, her grades were perfect. There were few distractions. Boys scared her. She wasn’t one of the popular kids and didn’t run in the fast crowd. She was the treasurer on student council, sang in the chorus, and volunteered as a Big Sister. The teachers who wrote her letters of recommendation talked up how remarkable she was, as the child of a single mom who’d dropped out of high school and been ill throughout Kathy’s childhood. She didn’t feel remarkable. But the combination of her accomplishments and her life story was enough to get her into Harvard.
On the day of her college graduation, Kathy was sweating beneath her cap and gown, hung over from partying the night before. Freshman year, she’d discovered drinking and never looked back. She collected her diploma and went hunting for Sylvia in the massive crowd. It was Ray she spotted, big and bulky, coming toward her, waving and beaming with pride, her delicate mother on his arm. And her heart swelled.
He’d booked them a table at Union Oyster House to celebrate. The place was jammed that day, a line out the door of the old brick building with its mullioned windows. Ray pushed his way into the paneled dining room and claimed the prime booth set aside for him, which had a gilded sconce and an oil painting of that same room a hundred years ago. A regular for decades, he knew everybody in the place, and the waiters were falling over themselves to bring them champagne, oysters on the half shell, a seafood platter to share.
“This is my goddaughter, Kathy. Just graduated Harvard, magna cum laude. Isn’t she amazing?” he said to anyone who’d listen.
Ray wasn’t actually her godfather. She had no godparents. Having been born out of wedlock, she was refused christening. But she loved him for claiming her like that, the way Eddie never had. For once, she was a normal girl, with a regular family who feted her on graduation day. Like a Brady kid.
She thanked him for lunch with tears in her eyes.
“Not just for lunch. Say thank you for this, too,” Sylvia said, picking up the tube that contained Kathy’s diploma and waving it at her.
Kathy threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Uncle Ray.”
“Aw, well. You’re a very deserving girl, Kathy. It makes me proud to help you out.”
“I can never repay you for what you’ve done for me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Have you thought about your future? I got to tell you, you’d make one hell of a lawyer. You got the brains, the excellent record. The looks. Who would’ve thought that skinny kid with the pigtails would turn out as pretty as her mother?”
Ray was not a big believer in credit cards. He threw down a wad of cash, and they got up to leave. On the street, Kathy said she had to go pack up her dorm room and move out. The plan was, work for a few months, save enough for a plane ticket and Eurail pass, then bum around Europe for a while and figure out her life. She had a few leads on waitressing jobs.
“What do you want with waitressing?” Ray said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s a dirty business. Your clothes smell, men grab your ass. Come work for me in the office, with your mom. There’s plenty of projects that could use attention. I’ll pay you ten bucks an hour. You’ll save enough for your vacation in no time.”
By then, she understood that Ray’s law practice was not a hundred percent above board. You couldn’t be Eddie Wallace’s best friend and closest associate without bending the rules occasionally. But she didn’t see how that would affect her if all she was doing was secretarial work. And the offer of easy desk work at a good wage was hard to turn down.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Of course. I’d love to have you. Just come in with your mom on Monday, and we’ll put you to work.”
“That would be great.”
“I’m warning you, though, I’m gonna keep bugging you about law school. You know I got no kids of my own to follow in my footsteps. I consider you like my own. I’ll pay whatever financial aid doesn’t cover, just like with college.”
She smiled and pecked him on the cheek. “Wow, thank you, that’s a beautiful offer. And very generous. I’ll definitely keep it in mind.”
“I’m serious. Think about it. You could graduate debt-free,” he said.
Kathy didn’t know it at the time, but some debts went beyond money. Her debt to Uncle Ray would be like that.
14
Five years later In the first year that she was a prosecutor, the debt came due.
It had been a long day of listening to wiretap tapes in a windowless room. Ten hours straight of the bug in the barbershop where Salvatore Fiamma planned his hits. But the tapes were useless. Locker-room talk, sports teams, the manicotti they had for dinner last night. When those guys had something incriminating to say, they took a walk around the block. Kathryn could’ve told her boss, You’ll never catch them. They’re too smart for you and way too vicious. She knew that, from Ray. But she was a junior prosecutor, only six months on the job. And her connection to defense attorney Raymond Logue was not something to brag about. On the contrary, it was something to hide.
She walked down the long hallway toward her boss’s office to give her report, hesitating on the threshold. BRADLEY MCCARTHY, CHIEF, ORGANIZED CRIME, the nameplate read. She was afraid to go in, or more accurately, ashamed. Despite not having done much to compromise herself yet, she’d done enough. Ray ambushed her on her mother’s birthday, at a celebratory dinner in the North End, over a plate of lasagna. He waited until Sylvia went to the ladies’ room to lean in and say he needed a favor. A small thing, nothing really. Have I ever asked you for anything before? It was only information, he said. She wanted to say no. But it was Ray, and she owed him so much. She made a deal with herself. She’d pass him information, just not enough to compromise herself too badly, or harm anyone else.
She knocked and pushed open the door. Brad was on the phone. He covered the receiver with his hand.
“Anything?” he mouthed.
She shook her head. He motioned for her to sit.
“Yes you are, yes you are. Daddy’s good girl.… Hon? Hon, are you there? Yeah, someone just walked in.… By ten at the latest.… I promise, I’ll work from home this weekend so you can have a break.… Kiss the kids for me. Love you.”
Brad hung up and scowled at her. “Really? All those tapes, and nothing?”
Kathryn shrugged. “I got a good recipe for manicotti out of it.”
He laughed. She crossed her legs, which were famous around the office. Brad was a devoted family man, but he looked.
“What’s your take?” he said. “Did the bug get blown somehow? A leak?”
Well, yes, and the leaker was sitting right in front of him. She felt sick. And yet she told herself that there were other ways besides a wiretap to make a case. They’d get Fiamma eventually, and she would help them. She would even things out in the end.
“I don’t think so. They’re just careful.”
“It costs an arm and a leg to monitor. I’m starting to think we should take it down.”
“Your call.”
“It’s a tough one. A lot of high-value targets come into that barbershop. Half the syndicate. I keep thinking they’ll slip up eventually, but…” He shook his head. “There’s another way we could go. With our new star witness, I’m thinking we take a direct run at Old Man Fiamma.”
“You’re talking about Mad Tony? Will he agree to that?”
“He has to. Did you draft the plea agreement?”
“I put it in your inbox this morning. You didn’t see it?”
She stood up and started shuffling through the overflowing pile on his desk.
“Here.”
She handed him a sheaf of papers in a brown paper wrapper, stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” in large block letters. It was the plea agreement for Anthony “Mad Tony” Capito, a capo in the Fiamma crime family who had the potential to bring down the biggest mobsters in New England.
“Sorry, I must’ve missed it. This day has been insane,” Brad said, running his hands through his thinning hair.
There was a stain on his tie. He looked worn out. She felt sorry for him, how little time he had with his family.
“How did the debriefing go?” Kathryn asked.