The Dogfather

pointer, and India, his shepherd, and neither of us said a word about disbarred lawyer ex-wives-to-be, Italy, or racketeers. Zap continued to sit alone at the bar and gave no sign of noticing my presence. All went well until just as Steve’s finnan haddie and my lobster were served, the bartender turned up the volume on the television, and onto the screen flashed a photo of Blackie Lanigan with the superimposed caption “Where’s Blackie?”
    In turning our attention to the televison, Steve and I were no different from everyone else in its range, and the smile that crossed Steve’s face was just a particularly attractive version of those that appeared on the faces of the entire population of Greater Boston whenever this famous question was asked. In Boston, everyone recognized Blackie Lanigan’s picture and loved wondering where he was. Why? Because Blackie headed the FBI’s list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, and Blackie was a Boston crook. Around here, it’s not every day that a local boy makes bad. My buddy Kevin Dennehy took a particular interest in Blackie because their backgrounds were somewhat similar. Although Kevin had grown up in Cambridge and was part Italian, he liked to claim that he and Blackie were both Boston Irish and had had the same occupational choices: cop, robber, or priest. In espousing this bigoted view, Kevin always wore a wry expression. His eyes glimmered. Cop that he was, he rationalized his Blackie mania as professional duty. Still, I felt convinced that Kevin the Cop saw Blackie the Crook as the shadow side of himself, or, as Kevin phrased it, “there but for fortune.” Anyway, everyone in Boston who read the papers or the local magazines or who watched televison or listened to the radio or just hung around with other people knew all about Blackie Lanigan, but I knew even more than most other people because of listening to Kevin Dennehy.
    “No one ever gets tired of it,” Steve remarked without moving his eyes from the monitor. “Here’s a guy who’s been on the lam for... what is it? Five years? And there hasn’t been any real news about him in all that time, but, hey, it’s Boston, so Blackie’s permanent news.”
    The narrator of this latest Blackie TV special was now reading the list of crimes for which Blackie was wanted by the FBI: racketeering influenced and corrupt organizations—RICO—eighteen counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, narcotics distribution, and so on. If it was bad, Blackie had either done it or conspired to do it or both, and the FBI wanted him for all these deeds and conspiracies. Just how eager was the FBI to catch Blackie? The reward for information leading directly to his arrest was a million dollars.
    “I hope you’re remembering to keep your eyes out for Blackie,” I said to Steve, “because he loves animals, you know. You can never tell when he might show up in your waiting room.”
    Steve laughed.
    “I’m serious. Kevin knows everything about Blackie, and he’s always talking about him, and he says that Blackie is crazy about dogs.” The television displayed one of the close-ups of Blackie that the local papers kept printing. In this one, he wore glasses. “Steve, you really should watch for him. We all know what he looks like. We’ve seen this picture hundreds of times. I’ll bet that there are more people in Boston who’d recognize that picture than a picture of the mayor or the governor.”
    “Holly, it’s that same old black-and-white photo from six or eight years ago. They use the same three pictures all the time. This one. The one without glasses. And then there’s that same shot with a moustache drawn on it.”
    “That one really is stupid. It looks as if a kid had scribbled on it.”
    “Probably doesn’t matter,” Steve said, “because there’s nothing distinctive about him. Average guy. Medium height. Medium build. How old is he now? Late sixties? Gray hair.”
    “Blue eyes.”
    “Right. The next time I walk into the waiting room and see a gray-haired man with blue eyes, I’ll call the FBI.”
    But he was amused. As I was feeling happy about flirting with him, however, a new segment of the Blackie special appeared on the screen. It opened with footage of my client and kidnapper, Enzio Guarini, as he walked toward the front door of his vegetation-free house in Munford. When he reached the door, he turned to the camera, smiled, and waved. He had good