Dark Harbor by David Hosp Page A

was really in control of the case. The uncertainty was all the more difficult to deal with because Natalie wasn’t there to lend her support. She’d have been able to help him sort everything out. Of course, if she hadn’t been killed, he never would have had this case to deal with in the first place.
    Finn shook himself and started back to his office. The August heat was oppressive, and he loosened his collar and tie. Everything had changed. The sky seemed a different color, and the buildings and people around him seemed less friendly. It had been more than a week since he’d had anything to drink, but he sure felt like he needed something now.

Chapter Sixteen
    T IGH MCCLUEN , a giant of a man with dark hair, sat on a stack of packing crates in a warehouse at the edge of Southie. The old man sitting in front of him was taking his time, as was his habit, reading every entry in Tigh’s ledger with care, and adding the figures in his head with greater precision than any Harvard MBA.
    “You got a few stiffs you’re carrying here,” the old man said at last.
    “Long-standing customers,” Tigh offered with a wink. Although he’d been in the United States for more than two decades, his accent still rang with the cadence of the shores of Donegal on the west coast of Ireland. “They’ll pay, and in the meantime it gives me leverage to get whatever I want out of them.”
    “What could you possibly want from them?”
    Tigh pointed at the ledger, halfway down. “That man there’s a doctor at Mass General. Remember the tiff that Johnny and Viles got into last month?”
    The old man nodded. “With Frankie’s old crew, right?”
    “Right.” Tigh nodded. “Johnny took a slug in the leg. Nothing serious, it missed the artery, but it still needed tending. The good doctor was kind enough to pay a house call—off the record. At the hospital there would have been a police report, which would have presented a bit of an embarrassment.”
    He slid his fingers down to another red entry. “That man there is a waiter.”
    “What the fuck good is a waiter?”
    “He’s a waiter at Olives,” Tigh explained. “It’s the mayor’s favorite restaurant. I told his Honor to ask for Sean whenever he goes to eat there. Sean cuts the check down to nearly nothing, and the mayor is very appreciative when we need him to be.”
    “How about this guy, here?” the old man asked, pointing to the bottom of the page. “Billy Zern?”
    “That’s a separate issue entirely,” Tigh said, smiling. The old man looked at him expectantly. “I fancy his sister,” Tigh explained with a wink.
    The old man laughed. “I swear to fucking God, Tigh, if you didn’t bring in as much money as you do, I’d have had you clipped years ago for that mouth on you.” He shook his head. “You’re just lucky you’re good at what you do.”
    Tigh chuckled. “Funny, that’s just what Billy Zern’s sister said to me the other night. You two been sharing secrets, now?”
    “You think that fuckin’ charm can get you through anything, don’t you?”
    “It’s worked so far,” Tigh pointed out. “I stepped off the boat from the motherland when I was twelve with nothing in my pockets and no one in the world who cared about me. Now look at where I am.” He waved his arms around the warehouse, which smelled of decay and had rats scurrying noisily in the corners. “Heaven!”
    The old man shook his head again. “You do okay. Not as well as you would have in the old days, but you do fine.” He rubbed his face in his hands. “When I was younger, all you needed were some balls and the muscle to back them up. Now the plays are bigger and you need more. You need brains. Guys like you and me are a dying breed.”
    Tigh scratched his head. “Like you said, I do fine.” He nodded toward the ledger. “Everything all right in there?” he asked.
    “Yeah, you’re fine. Just don’t give the stiffs too much rope, okay?”
    “Understood.”
    “There’s one