Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (4 page)

He drank his coffee standing, feet cold on the patched linoleum, and contemplated the meeting that was before him. He wasn’t, it could be fairly said, looking forward to it in the least.

He took his rapidly cooling cup of coffee over to the window, scraped away the frost that had gathered in the night and looked down at what lay below him. Running off to the south into the housing projects of Old Colony, Old Harbor and D Point was Dorchester Street. To his left, and slightly out of view, was Broadway, a street lined with grocery and liquor stores, coffee shops, and bars that were filled to overflowing most nights. Directly facing him was a neon shamrock, gaudy green and buzzing in the dim light. Graffiti lined the dingy brick walls of most businesses, and decorated the labyrinth of triple-deckers down turgid alleyways and on street fronts, where afternoons found tired mothers half-heartedly supervising the play of their offspring from the vantage point of crumbling stoops.

Against the dark blue morning sky, a gull rose and fell on the air currents, a greater black-back that had wandered inland, seeking more exotic fare than the incoming ships could provide.

Casey took a slice of bread from the paper wrapped package on the counter and un-hasped the kitchen window. The sash gave with a shriek of protest as he levered it up with his shoulder. He winced, hoping the noise wouldn’t wake Pamela. He waved the bread out in the morning air, sucking in his breath as the chill of it flowed past him through the window.

Attracted by the noise and movement the gull swooped in closer for a fly-by inspection, gave him a cursory once-over, and returned in a graceful arc to take the chunk of bread. It settled on the fire escape railing and set to gulping this unexpected morning treat.

“Up with yer thoughts, were ye?” Casey asked softly, watching as the bird tucked its sooty feathers in with a quick ruffle.

The gull eyed him beadily, a torn strip of bread hanging from its ocher beak.

“Not to worry,
beag cara
, I’ll not hurt ye.”

The gull tilted its head to the side, the red dot on its beak no more than a darker blot in the faint light.

“Ah, ye’ll not have the Gaelic, then?” Casey asked conversationally. “I’ve only called ye ‘wee friend’, so there’s no need to be lookin’ at me as if I’ve insulted ye.”

If the gull had a discernible eyebrow, Casey felt certain it would have raised it at this point.

“It’ll be a rare hour to be up an’ about for either gull or man, ye’ll admit, though?”

The gull bobbed its head from side to side and uttered a soft
coo-uh, coo-uh,
its pinkish legs doing a funny little side step in time with the bobbing head. It looked hopefully at his coffee cup. Casey smiled.

“My Daddy always said ye should offer food to yer company, said ‘twas the least ye could do for them, considerin’ they were trapped in yer home for politeness sake an’ would have to listen to ye whether they liked it or no’.” He tore off another strip of the mealy bread.

“Now ye understand, ye’ll owe me the kindness of a listenin’ ear,” he told the gull, holding out the bread. The bird hesitated only momentarily, keeping a wary eye on the broad callused palm from which it received its meal.

“In Boston for the winter, are ye? It’s not so bad as cities go, though ye might want to look for a better neighborhood than this one.”

He took another slug of coffee, which was distinctly bitter now, handed the gull another piece of the bread and turned his gaze toward the outlines of the neighborhood. A light was on here and there, wakeful babies with exhausted parents, drunks stumbling home believing the last of the dark would hide their sins, and people that simply could not sleep. There were streets here, particularly in Southie, where he could almost believe he was back in Belfast.

But it wasn’t Belfast, and the streets here were not controlled by political mobs, instead they were controlled by the
actual
mob. Everything that stretched below him—the buildings, the streets, and the people inside the graffitti-littered brick homes—was owned lock, stock and smoking barrel by his boss, Lovett Hagerty. Including the building he and his wife were housed in.

The two of them had arrived in Boston on a beautiful September day, exhausted, uncertain, and in Pamela’s case, four months pregnant. Love Hagerty had sent a car to meet them at Logan airport, had arranged their housing, and had found Pamela a doctor and Casey a job within his own organization.

The pregnancy had surprised the both of them. Pamela had only missed her monthlies the one time and so when the doctor told her she was four months gone, with a child due to arrive early in the new year, she had been, to say the least, surprised. As had he. After surprise had come a sneaking happiness that had made both of them discuss the future with anticipation and a fragile hope.

Pamela had gone to work for Love Hagerty soon after their arrival. Casey viewed the job offer with some cynicism. He was used to men staring at his wife, used to the desire that rose unbidden in their eyes even as she passed them in the streets. Generally speaking, though, a sharp look or an arm about her shoulders made them turn away, faces flushing with shame. Not so with Love Hagerty. Pamela had assured Casey, however, that she could handle Mr. Hagerty, and so had gone to work on a campaign that was faltering in its final furlong toward Election Day. Replacing an assistant who had suddenly, and rather conveniently, Casey thought, found herself quite ill.

The work itself had put Casey’s anttenae up. Pamela’s own father had been involved in Irish American politics and she had been, in part, groomed for the rough and tumble etiquette of that world. Casey knew this only after long, late night conversations about his wife’s childhood. How Love Hagerty had been so certain that she would fit this world like an ivory hand within a velvet glove was something that worried him a great deal. There was, however, little use gainsaying the woman when she made her mind up to a task. And he trusted her implicitly, even if he trusted Love Hagerty less and less with each week that passed.

Shamed as he was to admit it, he had been surprised to find Pamela within her element in the world of Boston politics. She knew how to smooth ruffled feathers, cajole money and time from the wealthy, and make every constituent feel as though their vote was the only one that mattered. She was a priceless asset, he only wondered how Love Hagerty had so swiftly and clearly seen that which had astonished him.

The baby they had begun to build an entire world around was lost a mere month later. Through it all Love had expressed concern, sent flowers and small treats, and finally one afternoon arrived on their doorstep to lure Pamela back into the world of politics he had instinctively known would be her saving grace. While grateful for the return of his wife to the world, Casey had been less pleased about the method employed. For Love Hagerty, smooth and polished as sapphire on the outside, was, behind the sparkling façade, a much darker stone altogether.

Love, who had dreams of one day dwelling in the governor’s mansion, had a crooked finger in every pie South Boston had to offer. Though his own fingers, should they be inspected, were squeaky clean. Love controlled the neighborhood, but he did it intravenously, through the corrupt line of Blackie Brindle.

Blackie, who ran his office out of the back of a pub called
The Shamrock and Shillelagh
, was feared and respected throughout the whole of South Boston. Born to first generation Irish immigrants Blackie was raised on the streets of South Boston, where the code held that a man took care of his own and kept his mouth shut about all he knew and saw. As Love Hagerty’s right-hand man, he oversaw the vast majority of sports betting, numbers running, loan-sharking, and drug dealing that occurred south of the Fort Point Channel. And that was not to mention the prostitution rings, paid protection, and deals that were cooking between Southie and Boston’s North End, where Giulio Bassarelli and his family held court—and the reins of power—for New England’s mafia.

“Do ye know what it is to have knowledge of things that ye’ve no wish to know, to have things that ye’ve seen an’ heard be a burden?” Casey said softly, the last piece of the bread lying on his palm.

The gull took the bread, less cautious now. Ruffling its feathers, it sank down onto webbed feet to enjoy this final bit of breakfast.

Born to a Republican family in a hard neighborhood, incarcerated in a British prison for five years, Casey was no stranger to trouble. But he’d never really felt as frightened as he did this moment. Belfast was a tough city, but he understood its rules, knew which streets were safe and which were not. Even prison, though terrifying, had operated within a set of parameters that he learned to adjust to. South Boston, and the two men who had a stranglehold on its streets and rundown tenements, was a different kettle of fish altogether. Just when he thought he had a grip on things, they shifted, presenting him with a whole new face, unfamiliar and unwanted. On his own he could manage, but now he had a wife to take care of, and it was this fact that made fear a constant presence in his life.

The gull stood and stretched, giving its wings a couple of flaps, while stretching its neck out towards Casey with a questioning look.

“I’ve no more, wee fella,” Casey said, showing his hands to the bird, palms up.

The sun was no more than a watery hint against the mirror of sky as the gull took its leave, the underside of its wings catching a fleeting green glow off the neon shamrock.

Casey watched until the bird became a mere speck caught between the rising sun and the sea, and wished fervently that he could leave his own troubles behind with such ease.

He stood, shut the window and glanced wearily at the clock above the stove.

Blackie was waiting. It was time to go to work.

IF THE SMALL TRIBAL enclaves of South Boston could be called a kingdom, then Lovett Hagerty was undoubtedly its king. To outward appearances he was a benevolent ruler, a true son of South Boston, with a curious mix of Brahmin and Southie genes.

Most residents of South Boston’s neighborhoods had known Love since he was wearing booties and a bonnet. They had watched him grow from an angelic faced altar boy to a twelve year old entrepreneur who’d invested in his own string of newspaper kiosks, to a man that everyone feared, who ruled his empire with a dark velvet smile and an iron fist. Rumor had it that he’d made his first million before his twentieth birthday.

His childhood was the stuff of legend on the streets of South Boston. How at thirteen he’d stood his ground against a notorious Italian gang, armed only with a baseball bat and sheer bravado, when they tried to sell drugs on his block. How at fifteen he’d convinced a group of old Boston Brahmins to fund the building of a Boys’ Club in the City Point district. And Love always gave back, the old timers said, more than he took.

Each Thanksgiving and Christmas without fail, five hundred turkeys would find their way onto the doorsteps in Southie that needed them most. Public works jobs could almost always be found for new immigrants over from the ‘auld sod’, in exchange for votes, favors and blind eyes. Love had the neighborhood tied up so tight that most of its occupants didn’t dare breathe without asking his approval first. Women with problem sons and husbands with problem wives sought his counsel, and woe betide any man caught committing a crime on his turf.

Love didn’t keep the normal gangster hours of mid-afternoon to the wee sma’s. He kept a politician’s hours—available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even during mass should someone need a willing ear, a lending hand, or a shoulder to cry upon.

But there were also the whispers, like a transparent black ribbon, furtive and sinuous, that unfurled behind closed doors and under the influence of too much drink. Of how Love only cared if drugs were being sold on his streets if the profits weren’t making their way to his pocket. That he’d killed George Kellen, the man who’d helped him get his start on the streets, to ingratiate himself with the Somers gang, who, if the rumors were to be believed, had all found themselves behind prison bars, courtesy of Love’s involvement with a FBI agent who’d grown up in Southie and was still bedazzled by Love’s legend and charisma. But the whispers stayed just that, from fear, from need, from a neighborhood code that meant outsiders, especially those in the law enforcement industry, were not welcome, nor expected to understand the rules by which this most Irish of neighborhoods conducted its business.

For the one truth everyone understood was that the police usually didn’t get there fast enough to save you if you crossed Love Hagerty. Certainly it was Blackie who did the dirty work, or contracted it out, but everyone knew it was Love you didn’t cross. Because the Irish charm and good looks were only a surface veneer, something far colder and uglier lay just beneath the skin.

SOUTH BOSTON WAS TRIBAL by nature. Some streets in Southie were microcosms of Irish counties, blocks where only emigrants from Galway lived, or Cork, or Kerry.

Love Hagerty knew this, and used it to his own advantage. South Boston, called Southie with pride and affection by its inhabitants, was a geography he understood intimately.