Bomber's Law (48 page)

Dennison looked at Dell'Appa. He nodded. “Yeah, Bob, you can go now,” Dennison said. “I wish I knew what to tell you. I don't know what we'll give the grand jury. I won't know 'til we see what we've got.”

Brennan, standing back to them, goatshoulder-slumped, flopped his left hand at his side, the right hanging limply at the empty holster with the snap-strap loose. “Doesn't matter,” he said, “doesn't matter at all. Do the best you can for me, guys. That's all I guess I can ask.” He shuffled the rest of his way to the door, the empty holster bobbing on his right hip, turned the knob and went out, closing the door carefully and quietly behind him.”

“Happy, Harry?” Dennison said.

“No,” Dell'Appa said, “Bob was right about that one, too. It just isn't fun when you win what I won. Even when you wanted to win it.”

“You know how the Bomber got his name?” Dennison said.

“No,” Dell'Appa said. “I assumed: from the Air Force. He was in B-Fifty-twos, I know? ‘Rolling Thunder' or something.”

“Nope,” Dennison said. “Bomber grew up on K Street in Southie, and he was not a big kid. What he was was a fat little fucker the nuns loved, because he was also so bright, and Jesus, did that ever plague him. So when he's about seven, he's got this blond crewcut that his old man'd slapped on him there, most likely savin' money on haircuts, or like that, hot weather, I know it was summer, and for some reason or other, suddenly that was
his year.
That was his summer to shine. People pickin' on him, wouldn't give him no peace, and they're all of course bigger 'n he was. They're all 'way bigger 'n he was. And well, he tells me, ‘I just said: “Aw right, fuck it then. So I'll die. All right then, at least I'll die proud.”

“ ‘It's a wonder I didn't have to have surgery six times, 'fore Labor Day finally come that year. I had more fights 'n Tunney an' Dempsey did, and I don't mean: just with each other. Both of all of their fights, them and everyone else, all of their fights put together.

“ ‘I lost almost every one of those fights. I was too small, and too short and too hot, and I didn't know howtah fight. But I was the kid that grows into the man that they tell you about in flight-school: “The man to look out for's the man who found out, that he really does not give a shit. Because he will hit you with everything he's got, and when he runs out of
that
, then he'll hit you with his own
head.
He will ram you with his own fuckin' head, and if that kills
him
, killing
you
with his head, well, that's all right, he don't care. Because that is the thing he found out, and at least to everyone else that he comes up against, it is a terrible thing: he doesn't
care
if he dies. There's nothing you can do to him.

“ ‘And that was the way that I was, that year, that summer when I was seven. Somebody jumped me? Hey, okay by me. I didn't mind a good fistfight, even though I knew I would lose. Losin'd gotten me noplace—the other kids still beat me up, so I might as well do some damage to them. At least I went home, shit all kicked outta me, I knew the other guy hurt too. You can't stop the customers from comin' in, but by Jesus, you can make 'em pay, 'fore you let the bastards get out. And if you can set the price high enough, maybe not quite so many will come.

“ ‘That was all that I hoped to do: make it hurt so much to beat me black-and-blue, which all of those big guys could do, they'd go beat someone else black-'n-blue when they felt like doin' that, and then they would leave me alone. I threw lefts, I threw rights, I threw elbows and butted, I kicked and I bit and I grabbed, and I took hold of ears and I yanked 'em, yanked 'em as hard as I could. Closed my eyes and then I got hit on 'em? I didn't care; I would've got hit on 'em anyway, if they had've been open, I mean, and I swung as hard as I could. If I missed? Okay, then I'd swing again. And of course the real advantage, edge I had on them there, with the kids that were beatin' me up, was that they didn't know howtah fight either. So every so often I would get lucky, knock one of them into next week. And word of that will get around. You fight stupid long enough, get a few good shots in, pretty soon you're not fighting no more. Guys still see you, you go out for somethin', but they also leave you alone.

“ ‘So that's how it happened, how I got my name, that summer, when I was seven. “He's in another one, down the beach there, and it's just like the last time was too—he's bombin' lefts, bombin' rights, all over the place. Bomber loses; he don't give up.” I knew they said about me. And also what they didn't say, too: ‘Yeah, throwing hands. And gettin' killed, most of the time. Yeah, but also winnin', just often enough, to keep the old spark of hope bright.'

“And that, Harry, I think, is what we've got to do. No one said we were gonna have fun here. The pitch was, as I seem to recall it, that what we do here is important. What we do here is worthwhile. And that is our real reward.”

“Then, then you mean, Master,” Dell'Appa said, “you mean that the monster lives? That he will walk in the world then, and they will know then, what we have done here? He will be called … 
Fronken-schteen?
”

“Yes, my son, and God love you,” Dennison said. “And this is also really the year that the Boston Red Sox win the whole goddamned-fuckin' World Series. Oh, and do not forget this, either: Life sucks, and then you die.”

“Words to live by,” Dell'Appa said.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Cogan's Trade
A City on a Hill
The Friends of Richard Nixon
The Judgment of Deke Hunter
Dreamland
A Year or So with Edgar
Kennedy for the Defense
The Rat on Fire
The Patriot Game
A Choice of Enemies
Style Versus Substance
Penance for Jerry Kennedy
Imposters
Outlaws
The Sins of the Fathers
Wonderful Years, Wonderful Years
The Progress of the Seasons
Trust
On Writing
Victories
The Mandeville Talent
Defending Billy Ryan
Bomber's Law
Swan Boats at Four
Sandra Nichols Found Dead
A Change of Gravity
The Agent
At End of Day

George V. Higgins was the author of more than twenty novels, including the bestsellers
The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Cogan's Trade, The Rat on Fire
, and
The Digger's Game
. He was a reporter for the
Providence Journal
and the Associated Press before obtaining a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1967. He was an Assistant Attorney General and then an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston from 1969 to 1973. He later taught Creative Writing at Boston University. He died in 1999.