Chapter 5 - The East Side Basin
The rain had not slackened by two in the morning. At the East Side boat basin, where the Seekonk River narrowed before entering the bay, the water slapped against the treated-creosote pilings with a rhythmic, sucking sound. The masts of wintered sailboats swayed behind chain-link enclosures, their halyards pinging against aluminum tubes like distant telegraphs.
A silver Mercedes-Benz sedan sat idling near the fuel dock, its exhaust curling into the damp darkness.
Elias Ferraro walked alone from the gravel lot, his umbrella held steady against the gusts that swept off the open water. His leather soles made almost no sound on the wet timber of the pier.
As he approached the Mercedes, the rear window hummed downward two inches. The interior smelled of expensive tobacco and the sharp, medicinal tang of an asthma inhaler.
Vance Hollis sat in the back, his heavy, florid face illuminated by the green glow of the dashboard clock. At sixty-two, Vance carried himself like a man who had won every street fight of his youth and then hired better men to fight the rest. His gray hair was cut short, his camel-hair overcoat immaculate, though the corners of his mouth were pulled downward into a bitter scowl.
“Your sister shouldn’t have been at the hotel, Elias,” Vance said, his voice gravelly from age and cigars. “The rooftop is for private guests. Not violin students looking for drinks they can’t afford.”
Elias stopped beside the window. He did not lean down; he made Vance look upward through the narrow opening.
“Your boy has three cracked ribs,” Elias said. “The emergency room doctor at Rhode Island Hospital is an old classmate of mine. He told me Preston was weeping so loudly they had to move him to an interior bay so the nurses could hear their monitors.”
Vance’s face darkened, a vein pulsing near his left temple. “If you think this gives you leverage on the riverfront parcels, you’re mistaken. The council vote is locked. Five to two. My signatures are on the preliminary development map.”
“Your signatures are on a great many things, Vance,” Elias said smoothly. “Including seven invoices from nineteen-ninety-four for structural grout that contained forty percent bay mud.”
The window hummed down another three inches. Vance’s eyes narrowed until they were almost lost in the fleshy folds of his face.
“That’s ancient history,” Vance snapped. “Clara Marsh lost those manifests thirty years ago. Pike searched her rooms himself.”
“Pike searched the rooms she rented,” Elias corrected him. “He did not search the safe in my father’s counting house. We have kept them dry, Vance. They have aged very well. Better than your son’s manners.”
A gull cried out over the river, its voice harsh and lonely in the dark.
“What do you want?” Vance growled.
“I want the waterfront parcels between Point Street and the hurricane wall left alone,” Elias said. “You will withdraw your application for the redevelopment zone at the council meeting on Thursday. You will state that environmental testing has revealed ground conditions unsuitable for high-density residential towers.”
“That will cost me four million in Boston commitments!”
“It will cost you four million,” Elias agreed. “If you refuse, the structural inspection of the Meridian begins at nine tomorrow morning. By noon, the city building inspector will order the top four floors evacuated. By two, your Boston consortium will invoke the indemnity clause and seize your collateral.”
Vance stared at Elias through the rain. For several seconds, the only sound was the wind through the rigging and the steady, low idle of the German engine.
“You’re protecting a bartender,” Vance said, his voice thick with contempt. “A girl whose mother died owing twenty thousand to the Catholic charity ward.”
“I am protecting the balance,” Elias said. “You forgot that the river belongs to the people who work it, Vance. You thought because you put brass railings and twelve-dollar martinis on the twenty-second floor, the foundation stopped resting in the mud.”
Elias stepped back from the car.
May you like
“Nine o’clock, Vance. The front doors. Clara Marsh’s daughter will bring you the papers to sign. If you aren’t there, I will tell the fire marshal to bring his own crowbar.”
Elias turned and walked back down the pier without waiting for an answer. Behind him, the silver Mercedes remained idling for three minutes, then its transmission engaged with a sharp click, and the heavy car backed aggressively onto the wet gravel before speeding away into the mist.
