The City Below (10 page)

Bright McKay said, "Charlie? What's that, for Charlestown?" No one answered, so he got half up from his chair and offered his hand to Squire. "I'm Bright McKay. Terry's told me about you."

Squire smiled easily. "I wish I could say the same. Terry tells us nothing."

Jackie put the cigarette into his mouth, pointedly taking it deep between his lips. Then he took it out and offered it to Squire. "Want a drag?"

The end of the cigarette was wet with saliva, a full inch of it. Squire took the butt and held it up, a display. Nigger-lipped.

Terry nearly reached across to slap the thing out of his brother's hand.

Squire eyed the cigarette, then looked at Terry with an apologetic wince: Do you believe this crude asshole Mullen? "I think I won't," he said. He mashed the cigarette out in an ashtray in front of McKay. But he had made Mullen's gesture a success.

McKay's fabulous smile had not faded. He sat there in his starched shirt and perfectly knotted narrow tie, hands clasped serenely behind his head, and Terry realized with relief that a jerkoff like Mullen couldn't touch the classy Bright McKay.

Terry stood and made as if to move Squire away, as though they had nothing to discuss that wasn't highly confidential.

But Squire did not budge. Instead, he scanned the room, sizing up the Dems, disarming them with his smile, the girls especially.

Didi had gone back to cranking the mimeograph, saying everything she felt about this intrusion by ignoring it.

Terry turned to Jackie. "What gives, fellows? What's the rub?"

Jackie shrugged. "We thought, you know, we could help."

"Help?"

Squire answered, "The thing at the Garden."

But now Terry did take his brother's arm. "I can't hear you with that mimeo machine. Come on. I'll buy you a drink." Terry led the way toward the center of the big room, far from his colleagues, near a U-shaped arrangement of tables at which, in daytime, the ladies sat addressing envelopes. No one was there now. A water cooler stood nearby.

"What," Squire said, "you don't want me to meet your new friends?"

Mullen tugged at Squire's sleeve. "Did you catch that bitch sister of mine? She wouldn't even look at me."

Terry said, "She looked at you, Jackie, long enough to see that stunt you pulled with your fucking cigarette."

"What stunt, Charlie?"

Terry went to the cooler and filled first one paper cone with water, then another. "Here, have a drink."

Jackie sipped his, and his face went sour. "Jeez, Charlie, somebody's been putting water in your booze."

Terry leaned back against a table, but his rigid white mouth betrayed his feelings. "What are you doing here?"

"Terry, you seem different." Nick was grinning broadly. "Even the way you talk is different"

"Yeah," Mullen piped in, a sudden recognition. "What happened to your voice?"

Squire raised a hand to silence Mullen. "Lay off, Jackie. Can't you see how embarrassed he is?"

"I'm not embarrassed."

"Yes you are. But why, I wonder. Because we give your new friends an eyeful of where you come from? Or is it earful? Do we talk funny, Charlie? Do me and Jackie have dem Townie accents? Or are you embarrassed because of what
we
hear?"

"Neither. But I still don't know what you're—"

'"What's the rub'? Did you ask us that? What kind of phrase is that? And how
do
you do that with your voice? It's lower, ain't it? You're talking through your teeth."

"You're full of shit, Nick."

Squire opened his hands to show how harmless he was. "Hey, Terry, it's nothing to get pissed off about."

"I'm not pissed off," Terry said, but so vehemently that even he laughed.

Squire was relieved. "You can't fool me."

The brothers looked at each other, nodding, the way they had in basketball games after a score. "I know it," Terry said. "I'm not trying to fool you, Nick"

Nick held his eyes for a long moment. "I miss you, brother."

Terry was surprised, a direct affirmation, no hint of sarcasm. It would have been natural, because it was true, to reply, I miss you too. But he did not.

"So," Squire said, "what about the Garden?"

"How do you know about that?"

"Didi told us."

"No, I didn't." Didi had come over from the Young Dems' corner, and beside her stood Bright McKay. "I told Ma. She must of told Jackie."

"What's the dif?" Squire said. "When Kennedy comes back to Boston, there'll be a big hoopla. Is that some kind of secret?"

"No. We sure hope not."

"When is it?"

"The night before election day."

"Which makes it ..."

"November seventh."

Jackie and Squire exchanged a look Jackie said, "Plenty of time."

Terry cocked his head. "For what?"

Before Squire answered, an apparently oblivious McKay stepped between the brothers to help himself to water. He swallowed some, then crushed the cup, glancing at Jackie as he did. McKay was taller than Mullen but far thinner, no physical match. But for that moment he seemed a threat And then, in the next instant, the cloud had passed. McKay offered his hand to Mullen. "Bright McKay," he said. Mullen put his hand in McKay's, who squeezed it hard. "I don't think we've met"

"I'm Jackie Mullen."

"Sullen?" Blight's smile was like a harbor. An ocean liner could sail into it.

"Mullen," Jackie corrected, having missed the blade.

"Didi's brother?" Bright swooped his arm back toward her. "Didi is the queen bee here, aren't you, Didi?"

"Who's the king," Squire asked, "the guy in charge?"

"Of our team tonight? I guess that'd be me."

"You?"

McKay took the cigarette pack from his pocket and snapped a couple free. "Smoke?"

Squire had to admire the bastard. He took one. So did Terry. Mullen refused.

McKay flicked his lighter, lit his cigarette, then Terry's, then Squire's. While Squire was drawing on the flame, Bright said, "Third man unlucky." He snapped his Zippo shut. "You know why they say that, don't you?"

"No."

"The war. GIs lighting up in a foxhole. By the time the third guy has the flame in his face, the enemy sniper has his aim. Bang."

Squire exhaled a cloud. "Maybe that's what happened to my old man." He smiled weirdly, then leaned to the water cooler for another cupful. "I hate these fucking Dixie cups, don't you?"

Bright laughed. Fucking Dixie, fucking A. He liked the guy.

"So, do you want to hear my proposal or not?" Squire asked.

Terry couldn't tell whether Squire's nonchalance was an act He had never felt quite so much the observer of his brother.

"Sure," McKay said. "Why not?"

"So the night before the election, you got all these kids out in the street cheering for Kennedy, right?"

"If we do our job," McKay said. "On Causeway Street, down Canal, all the way to North Washington Street."

"For the cameras, right?"

"It'll be on television."

"And you'll have all these beautiful young college kids going crazy for the guy."

"We hope so."

"Any colored people?" Jackie put in.

Squire's hand shot up in front of Jackie, a command, but a late one.

McKay didn't miss a beat "Sure. Plenty." He smiled. "A lot of colored kids go to college these days."

This blade caught Mullen. He leaned toward his sister and hissed, "
You
don't go to college. What are you doing with these creeps?"

Now Squire took Jackie's arm and moved him back "Will you please?" A mask of impassivity fell across Mullen's face.

Squire turned back to McKay. "So all these beautiful young people are waving something, right?" Squire swiveled to Terry. "Right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Terry said.

"It's television," Squire said like a pitchman. "I mean, they got to have something that makes an impression on the moms and dads in the living rooms of America."

"What," Terry said wryly, "like hankies?"

"Like flags," Bright said.

"Wrong." Squire dropped his cup into the trash. "You are so wrong. Flags aren't Kennedy. Flags are Nixon. Flags are what schoolchildren wave, like hankies"—he bit at Terry here—"are for war brides. Besides, what happens to flags after? Thousands of flags. Dropped? Tossed aside? They get walked on, how would that go over? That's ... whatta ya call it?"

"Desecration."

"Right No, you want something else. Something sexy. You want something the people can
throw
if they feel like it. All the better if they do." Squire looked for support to Jackie.

"Like a bullfight," Jackie said, on cue.

"Yeah," Squire said. "Ever seen a bullfight? What do people wave at the matador? What do the fans throw at him? Isn't Kennedy our matador? The Irish matador?"

Terry touched McKay's shoulder and he said wearily, "Flowers, Bright. He's talking about flowers."

"That's right." Squire took McKay's other sleeve. "It could be roses, but we think carnations, with long stems."

"Christ, Nick!" Terry came off the table and turned to go back to the corner.

But Bright stopped him. "Wait It's not necessarily a had idea. We had been talking about confetti or ticker tape, but the buildings aren't high enough around the Garden, and it'll be dark"

"But Bright, pay attention," Terry said. "My grandfather is—"

"In the flower business, I know."

"And this is my brother. He works in the store. He's just selling. He's down here
selling!
" Terry whipped around to Squire. "You could have talked to me first, goddamnit!"

"You're never around, Charlie."

"Quit calling me that!"

Squire and Jackie, and Bright too, pulled back. Terry said, "Have you ever heard of conflict of interest?"

Bright touched Terry's arm. "I don't necessarily—"

"But he thinks because I'm here, because Didi's here, he can sell—"

"I'm not selling," Squire said firmly. "I'm talking about donated flowers. Not just Gramps's shop, but the whole fucking Flower Exchange. They all love Kennedy down there. Dineen and Reynolds are the biggest wholesalers in Boston, both micks. They'd give Kennedy flowers by the truckload if you asked them to. It won't cost Kennedy a dime. I can arrange it I know these guys."

McKay raised an eyebrow at Squire's jacket. "You're still in high school."

"I'm at the Exchange every morning before school—if I get to school. The Exchange is what I do."

Bright glanced at Terry, who nodded and said, "He does know them."

"Then what's your problem?"

Terry shrugged. What could he say: I love my brother but he's an operator, always has been?

McKay made a show of studying Squire. A young Negro, yet his authority was complete finally. "It's worth running by Mike, upstairs. Can you hang around?"

"Sure." Squire let his weight fall back against a table edge. "There are a couple of things, though."

"What?"

"The flowers won't cost you ..."

As Squire talked, Mullen said toward his sister, who had remained at some remove.

"...but you have to, you know, place official orders with the various wholesalers. They'd want credit for the donations."

"That's reasonable," McKay said.

"And also, of course, you wouldn't have to do it this way, but ..."

Didi ignored Jackie even as he drew close to her. He put his mouth by her ear and whispered, "How's your love life, sis?"

Her face bloomed. She turned—how she hated him!—and walked back to the Young Dems' corner. What a defeat, to have him enter this special world of hers, so easily claim a place in it.

"I'd appreciate it," Squire was saying, "if you or Mike or whoever could make the deals through me, so my grandfather can get
his
credit with the suppliers."

"No problem," McKay said. "I'll make the point Anything else?"

"Yeah, actually there is." Squire flashed one at his brother. "I guess you could say there
is
a little selling here. Was the campaign going to buy flower arrangements for the big platform? You know, where Kennedy will stand? What they speak from, inside the Garden?"

"I have no idea."

"I think usually platforms have floral displays."

"Like I say—"

"I mean, if they were going to buy flowers anyway, maybe you could put in a word for—"

"Buying them from your grandfather."

"Exactly."

McKay shrugged. "You'd have to raise that with Mr. Gorman, if he wants to see you, which is what I'll find out"

Squire was pointedly not looking at his brother. "It's just that a thing like this would be the peak of his life. He loves Kennedy." Now Squire did face Terry. "We all do. Gramps would donate the money right back, but the commercial transaction would get him a foot in the door at the Garden."

"That's bullshit, Nick Gramps doesn't care about the Garden."

"How would you know? When were you last in the store?"

"I know a crock when I—"

"Hold it, guys." McKay pulled Terry away, to a partition beyond the U-shaped tables. "This isn't a had idea, Terry. Gorman might go for it"

"I'm out of the flower business, Bright."

"Let it go, man. Whatever it is with you and your brother, let it go."

Terry looked back toward Squire with a vague sadness. McKay caught it and said, "Squire'll be one of those guys who has his name on his shirt First his letter jacket, then his green uniform."

"Mullen maybe, but not Nick He's a very ambitious guy."

"That's what you are. So you're more alike than you think."

"We used to be alike. Not anymore."

"Maybe that's what's bugging him. He holds it against you that you left."

"That's the problem, Bright. I
haven't
left That's what his being here means. It's a feeling I don't like."

"It's a feeling you should shake. This flower thing is a chance for
you,
Terry. It's a whacky idea, carnations in the streets, but Gorman might buy it And if he does, the connection with the campaign is
your
grandfather.
You
handle it
You're
where the action is. If Kennedy loves the sight of ten thousand people waving flowers at him, you're made. That's how we get ahead in this business, get an idea and go with it Either that"—McKay grinned and held up his hand—"or get yourself some black skin. We're talking How to Succeed in Politics in the Sixties."