House Revenge by Mike Lawson

hit in the head again, he could end up like some punch-drunk NFL lineman. Another problem was that he’d been sent to Boston to help Elinore Dobbs, and if he ended up in jail for assault, he wouldn’t be much help to her.
    So, for now, he would forestall the pleasure of getting even with the McNultys, but if the opportunity presented itself . . .
    The second thing he thought about was how to help Elinore. He couldn’t hang around Boston forever watching over her, and at some point the McNultys would recommence making her life miserable. He had no doubt that the old gal was stubborn enough and tough enough to hang in there until her lease expired, but he could just see her sitting in her apartment during the winter, her generator running, bundled up in a ski jacket and stocking cap after they cut off her heat. He needed to come up with some way to force Callahan to back off and leave her alone. And since his friend, Lawyer Dooley, hadn’t shown him a way to use the law to protect her, he needed to come up with a different strategy.
    And then a different strategy occurred to him.
    He called Maggie Dolan, the lady who ran Mahoney’s Boston office. Maggie knew everyone in the city of Boston who was anyone. She’d be able to get him a name. Half an hour later, she called him back and said the guy he wanted would meet him in front of Elinore’s building at nine a.m. tomorrow.

11
    The man sitting on the front steps of Elinore’s building was about seventy, a tall, lanky guy with short, bristly gray hair. When he shook DeMarco’s hand, DeMarco could feel calluses. He was wearing khaki pants, a short-sleeved blue shirt, and steel-toed work boots. His name was Jim Boyer and he was a general contractor, now retired, and had spent all his adult life on construction sites.
    When Boyer saw DeMarco’s face he shot to his feet and said, “Whoa! What happened to you?”
    â€œI got jumped by a couple of guys, which is one of the reasons you’re here.”
    DeMarco explained the situation to Boyer. A developer named Callahan was renovating the entire neighborhood, as Boyer could plainly see, and a little old lady named Elinore Dobbs, who lived in the building they were standing in front of, was refusing to move out so Callahan was making her life a living hell—and DeMarco wanted Boyer’s help to force Callahan to back off.
    â€œHere’s what I’m looking for,” DeMarco said. “I want you to walk around with me and find safety and building code violations. The bigger, the better. Then you’re going to call the right bureaucrat in OSHA or the EPA or whoever, and rat Callahan out. In other words, I want you to bring this project to a screeching halt, and if you can’t do that, I want you to disrupt it as often as possible. Then, when the work is stopped, I’m going to sit down with Callahan and explain to him that for the next three years you’re going to devote your life to fucking up this development.”
    â€œOh,” Boyer said, sounding uncertain. “I told Maggie I’d help you today but I don’t know about three years.”
    â€œIt’s not going to take three years. I just want Callahan to think I have a guy who’s willing to devote three years of his life to making him miserable if he doesn’t leave Elinore alone.”
    Boyer looked skeptical.
    â€œHey, maybe it will work and maybe it won’t,” DeMarco said. “But in the meantime, Maggie Dolan will pay your hourly rate for whatever time you spend here. And if you know a couple of guys that have the kind of background you do, they can spell you if you’re busy.”
    â€œDon’t get me wrong,” Boyer said. “I’d like to help the lady but you oughta know that most builders follow the rules and projects are inspected at various phases during construction, so it might not be as easy as you think to find problems.”
    â€œTell