The City Below (22 page)

"You're the guy that's made it work These wops start throwing weight around again, it'll be all hell loose like it was, fucking newspapers, then the, feds forced to shine their lights in the corners."

"And cops have to get out of the gaming business."

"Exactly."

"You flatter me, Sonny. We want Frank to succeed, okay? Keep that in mind. We
need
this guy on top of the pile. You want Patriarca taking over Boston? You want Gambino up here? The Tuccis know the tradition. They know how Boston works. Frank knows, and so does Vinnie. They just want to feel like they're in charge, that's all. I say we should help him feel that way."

"But you're out now, as the go-between."

"I just have to find another way to prove my usefulness." Squire smiled. "Don't worry about me."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Couple of things. I'll keep you posted."

"Please do."

Squire looked over at Mullen, who was standing with the tip of his cue at his armpit, watching his sexy opponent line up a bridge shot on the eight.

"On another subject, Sonny..." Squire continued staring off toward the pool game, without enthusiasm.

"What."

"I need an exam."

"For who?"

"Not of interest to you, not the department. I need the State Police exam, the entrance test How do I get it?"

Murtaugh eyed Doyle. "This is another subject?"

"Favor for a friend, you know." Doyle smiled.

"You scared me there for a minute, Squire. I thought you meant
for you.
"

The two men laughed.

And while Squire drained his Coke, Murtaugh took a matchbook from a nearby dish, opened it, and wrote a name inside.

"It'll cost you," he said.

Squire pocketed the matchbook without looking at it. "No problem. My friend's father is fixed. This guy will be a good cop."

"Like me, Squire."

"Yeah, Sonny. With any luck."

Doyle slapped Murtaugh's shoulder. They both laughed again.

Mullen was snapping off two fifties from his money clip. He paid the woman, and she reacted by putting her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. Then, arm in arm, they crossed to the bar.

"Still hustling the suckers, Ginny?" Doyle said.

She left Mullen's side for Squire's. "How about it, honey?"

Squire opened his arm easily, and she fit snugly against him. His fingers dropped into the rear pocket of her jeans, an automatic intimacy. "Ginny, you know I'm too smart to rack up with you."

"Come on, Squire. It's been too long."

Jackie and Sonny caught each other's eyes. Sonny made a show of looking at his watch. "Yeah, about two hours."

She pretended to ignore Murtaugh, but in fact went up on her toes to put her mouth at Squire's ear, to whisper, "If that asshole didn't own the furniture, we wouldn't let him in."

Squire replied by putting his mouth to her ear and blowing softly.

"Thanks for the refill," she said. A joke of theirs.

Squire pressed her ass. "I'll take you on." He clasped her hand and led her to the pool table. At the cue rack he faced her. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her to himself. She smelled of the usual cheap perfume. Her hair, seen this close, was starting to look strawlike from peroxide. Her eyes were caked with blue makeup, with ample hints of coming dark circles visible below them. But by some miracle there was still an essentially unspoiled quality about her.

"I've missed you," she whispered, pushing into him.

"Ginny ..." Squire backed off a bit. Oddly, he thought of the prim Brahmin lady at the MGH. What, he was at an age to want what he couldn't have? "I'm not playing," he said. "I brought you over here to tell you something. Things are up in the air around here. I want you to watch out for yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"And the other girls too. Tell the girls to keep their eyes open. It's musical chairs upstairs, if you get the picture. Somebody's going to get left out when the music stops. A few weeks, couple of months, a scramble for chairs, Gin. It might get rough. Sonny's the one you have to watch. He'll be covering his own ass. He won't be worrying about you."

Ginny looked back at Murtaugh, who had gone behind the bar to draw a beer for Mullen. "You mean, he's ..."

"He's all right, but he's not in charge. If somebody was to tip him over, he'd see it coming. He'd have to take his tan coat off and lead the cops in to raid this place himself. He'd be looking to make some easy pinches. That's the point of a cop being in this business —he controls the damage. But somebody would have to fall. A few pothead slot players up from Jersey, maybe, an out-of-town cardsharp —"

"And a couple of teenage hookers."

"Just watch your step, okay?"

Ginny nodded solemnly, the randy mask —her ready and false desire —gone from her face. Doyle had the feeling her eyes were trying to show him something, the helpless child held captive inside that cocky, hard-core body of hers. He knew, though, it was a feeling she was good at planting in men, part of her technique. He had fallen for it once.

She offered him her face. He bent to her, and when they kissed, the tip of her tongue slipped between his lips, her right hand went discreetly to his pants, pressed him there, then moved away, only wanting to confirm his hard-on —the power she thought it gave her.

With his nose in her hair, his mouth at her ear, he whispered, "Don't trust Sonny to protect you. If you get busted, don't try blowing the whistle on him either. Just sit tight I'll hear about it, and I'll take care of you."

She rested against him, mumbled something he heard as "I love you, Squire."

They parted. Ginny turned to the pool table and started racking the balls, making loud cracks on the felt-covered slate.

Squire returned to the bar. "We got to go, Jackie."

"Oh, come on, Squire, I just got my beer."

"We have a few more stops to make. Drink up." Squire picked up his own glass and raised it at Murtaugh.

"Shit, Coke." Mullen jerked his thumb toward his friend, said to Murtaugh, "Do you believe this guy? Permanent Lent." He swirled his glass and downed the rest of his beer.

Murtaugh put his meaty hand on Doyle's shoulder. "Well, anyways, Squire, come in and play sometime, anytime. Really."

"With
your
dice, Sonny? You kidding?"

"What do you mean? You think the commish'd let me play with crooked dice?"

"But the commish that counts is dead. Isn't that the point?"

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"So be careful. Can you be careful, you and your goons?" Squire was grinning as he said this, but his words had weight.

"Sure, sure. Anyways, don't be scarce, okay?"

"See you around," Squire said, and he left with Mullen following. Jackie was one who always hitched his trousers, going through a door.

Squire drove. For a time neither man spoke as the car rattled through the rutted streets of the warehouse district, but within a few minutes they were back in the neighborhood, heading up Austin Street past the busy stores and taverns to Main Street, the heart of Charlestown.

Mullen was looking sullenly out the window. Finally he said, "Doran's, the Clover, Chi-Chi's ... Seeing these places ... it makes me ... I mean, it really ticks me off."

"What does, Jackie?"

"Having to pull back now, let those fuckers take over here."

"Don't let your spit get in your eyeballs, Jackie."

"No, for real. This shit is driving me crazy. You think I was shooting pool back there? I was listening to you, which is why I lost to Ginny. Her game sucks egg whites."

"I thought you lost because you got your own game of pocket pool going."

"
You
didn't even pick up the stick, just climbed right on her. I'm not sure you should let me watch that shit, Squire. Christ, with Didi pregnant even."

"
Don't
watch, Jackie. Close your fucking eyes."

"And don't listen either, I suppose. I have to fucking eavesdrop to find out that we're walking away from eight years —"

"No we aren't."

Mullen turned in his seat, facing Squire. "What the fuck are we doing, then? What are
you
doing?"

"Keeping the franchise on Main Street, on City Square and Sullivan, our neighborhood. Daisy's is gone, sure, Aladdin's and the Golden Arm. The joints in Somerville, Fields Corner, and Southie, okay. Frank will rope those in too. The book, the sharks,
let
Frank squeeze them. I hate that shit anyway. I hate having to turn markers over to the kneecappers, especially our own guys. Fuck
all
that stuff, who cares? Let Frank run the Dublin Horse Show if he wants. But not here."

"Not the Town?"

"We're not moving off these streets."

"But won't the wop —?"

"We gave his old man a reason to leave us alone, then we gave him one to need us,
then
we expanded. Bit by bit, Jackie. The old man liked when we connected because we cut him in on everything and kept things smooth. We have to do it again, that's all. Give Frank a new way to need us."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, Jake. That part I don't know yet. The part I know is, the Town stays ours."

Squire slowed for a light, but his eyes swept along —the bakery, a pub called Towne Grille, another called Mehan's, the corner Kresge's, a button shop. Late shoppers took their time, enjoying the balmy afternoon, one of summer's last Two young mothers pushed their babies along the sidewalk in identical umbrella strollers. Workmen, fresh off the MTA, lunchpails in hand, flag pins stuck in their tweed caps, headed for their tavern, its door open to the bright September air. Ahead on the left stood the pillared, slightly pompous building of the Sullivan Square Savings Bank, where Squire kept his cash accounts for the various Bouquets. For Tucci's tote he used other banks around the city, which he'd be pulling out of now. Things change. But not Charlestown.

A feeling of nostalgia gripped him. Such a golden afternoon, such an air of affection about the people. A huge red-white-and-blue billboard on the wall of the bank, facing the Foodmaster parking lot, read,
AMERICA, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT
. And he did love it! This part at least. As he hadn't in years, Squire burst into song. "Oh, Yankee Doodle went to the Town ..."

Jackie joined in, and they rolled through the local version of the stupid old anthem as they had a million times when they were kids, blasting the rough melody out their open windows, drawing smiles and waves as the car moved slowly up the hill. They grinned at each other. The song, the street,
those
storefronts and bars, the playgrounds and the corner stoops, Old Ironsides, the navy yard, and the school on Bunker Hill —all that had made them friends, would keep them friends forever.

Their song ended. They fell silent.

At City Square, inside the curve of the el, Squire's eyes clicked on the numerous signs in the upper windows of the buildings. He had not seen them before. Apparently they had just been put up, multiple copies of a new campaign poster. Louise Day Hicks, the Southie pudding puss, the gumdrop hat
You Know Where She Stands.

After losing the mayor's race a year ago to Kevin White, she was running now for the city council. She'd had no particular clout in Charlestown until the blacks got uppity, but by now she was the Town's fidgety, harebrained aunt as much as Southie's. Her figure was familiar here, smelling of talc, wagging her finger, whining about the priests and nuns who disapproved of her. The school committee wasn't big enough for her anymore. Squire thought her a fool, but he had given her five or six thousand dollars between last year and this, and Ned Cronin had supplied her with his shamrock corsages.

Squire indicated the posters. "Look at that. Christ."

"You don't like Louise? She wants what we want."

Squire shook his head. "The fences stay up around Charlestown only if outsiders don't notice that the fences are there. Louise
dares
the city to come into Southie and change things. You think niggers give a shit about Southie, want in there? No fucking way. But once she makes them feel they
can't
..." He shrugged. "We don't want her pulling the same shit over here."

"It's the same with Tucci, right? If he feels he
can't,
then he has to."

"You got it, buddy. Fucking A."

"So how do we —?"

"I don't know. I'm still working on it."

Their car was heading around the square, under the el, past the police station and courthouse on one side, the short row of storefronts, lawyers' and doctors' offices, on the other. "The point, Jake, is to stay the fuck off Frank's list for now. Head-in-the-trench time, bud. See what I mean? The opposite approach to Louise's. If she was in the rackets, she'd have signs in all the windows. 'Fuck the wops! Come and get me, you dago bastards!' Typical Irish. Typical Southie."

Squire honked and waved at an old woman on the corner, Alice Mulrooney, one of the altar ladies from his mother's time. She lit up when she saw him. How the mothers loved Squire Doyle.

"Besides, I won't miss hauling my ass out to Revere."

A cool breeze wafted up from the navy yard, and with it the fresh, nostril-cleansing aroma of the sea. All of Squire's senses seemed to quicken when the ocean took over the air like that, and a primrose glow settled on the dying summer day. It was a sensation of complete physical and spiritual awakening, what he loved about life in the Town, and why he'd never leave it.

After easing through the traffic onto Main Street, congested as always because of the post office and the hardware store, Doyle pulled over to the curb near the Irish Rover. End-of-the-day happy noises drifted out from the pub. Half a dozen corner boys, high school kids too young to be inside, were hanging there. They brightened at the sight of Squire, hoping he would wave. But Squire didn't notice. "I want you to go in and tell Bobby to put his end on ice for a while."

"He'll want to know why."

"Tell him I'll be in later, I'll talk to him. But I want the works shut down until further notice. No collections."