The City Below (36 page)

But this was Boston, and the images they saw that Friday night silenced them.

Joan had spent all of her time so far at the museum. Her position at the Fogg included teaching a section of a Harvard art history course, and she'd been in a panic about getting ready. But increasingly, like everyone in the city, she too had registered the dark clouds to the south and the north. She'd heard the rumblings and knew vaguely of Terry's work. But she was not prepared, not at all.

They were sitting on the couch, their legs entangled. She took his ankle in her hand and squeezed hard.

The television camera moved in on black children filing off a bus between rows of helmeted, dead-eyed policemen. Under the picture, a voice could be heard: "Yuh muthafuckin' niggers!" The camera cut to a teenage white boy, his mouth twisted, and then to a pasty-faced housewife, and next to her an acne-scarred man whose neck vein could be seen throbbing dangerously: "Yuh muthafuckin' coons! Yuh jungle bunnies!"

Christ, Terry thought, they're putting this stuff on television?

Joan let go of his ankle, pulled her hand away to cover her mouth, as if she were thinking hard. A white baby's face filled the screen. The camera pulled back The baby, in the canvas throne of her umbrella stroller, was staring at a woman, apparently her mother, who was on her knees reciting the rosary. "What do they want," Joan said with icy detachment, "this Blessed Mother person to overrule Judge Garrity?"

"'This Blessed Mother person'?" Terry said, facing her.

Joan's brow registered the rebuke in his words, which stiffened her face. Her blond hair, cut in a tidy pageboy, offered an image of the perfection that enabled her to meet his stare with an even starker one of her own. "What," she said.

"You make it sound like their religion is the problem."

Joan pointed at the television. "The woman is obviously praying, Terry."

"That's not prayer. It's a crass manipulation of prayer. The fact that they are Irish Catholic is incidental."

"I'm not raising that point. You are."

"'Blessed Mother person'—that's snide and condescending, Joan."

"Since when did you become a defender of that crap?"

Terry faced away, too furious to respond. He was aware that as he became more heated, she became colder. On the television, black children in their ironed shirts and Sunday dresses, a line of them, not ten years old, clutching pencils, marched past the cameras without blinking. Their mute, expressionless bravery awed Terry.

Joan said, "They're babies!"

On either side of these children, blocked by the police, were the gauntlet mobs. The camera zeroed in on an Irish teenager, grunting and hopping, pretending to masturbate a banana. Religious medals flashed at his throat.

"Well, there's a new one," Joan said.

Terry got up and snapped the set off. But Joan was right beside him, just as quickly turning it back on. "You can keep this from Senator Kennedy, but not from me."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Joan pointed at the screen, but still with a lawyerly detachment "Tell the senator what his people are doing."

"My people, Joan.
My
people. Isn't that what you mean?"

"But why haven't you told him?"

"What makes you think I haven't?"

"He'd
be
here. He'd be on that street there, with those children, helping them. The
black
children. If this was the South, we'd all—"

"Not we, you! You! I wasn't there, remember? Your famous sit-ins at the lunch counters of Williamsburg for the rights of Negroes who were back at campus making your beds every morning in residence halls designed by Thomas Jefferson! Did the civil rights movement ever get William and Mary students to make their own beds?"

"Thomas Jefferson was UVA, not William and Mary."

"Goddamnit, Joan." Now it was Terry pointing at the screen. "Those Charlestown women on their knees with the rosary go down on their knees at work too, making beds in freshman dorms in Harvard Yard, among other places. Believe it or not, they're maids, Joan. Just because they're white doesn't—"

"Terry, listen to yourself. Look what they're doing to those children. You don't agree with them, I know that But you're tolerating what they are doing. Why haven't you called the senator?"

"I talk to his office three, four times a day."

"Not his office, him." She lowered her voice, emphasizing its lack of affect. "He should be up here. Ted Kennedy. Bobby's brother. One of the few people in America who can talk to both sides."

Terry shook his head. "You're wrong. Those whites won't listen to Ted, and neither will their leaders. The pols, the ward committeemen, the priests, the muckamucks, they've all bailed out. That's what I've spent the last three weeks finding out. On busing, as far as the Irish in Boston are concerned, Ted might as well be Ed Brooke. To them this week, he's worse than Ed Brooke. He's a traitor. That, in fact, is what it's been my job to tell him, which is why he won't talk to me."

"Then what about the black children, Terry? Is he going to let them do this alone?
They're
his people too. Why isn't he here for them?"

"I don't see Senator Brooke coming up from Washington."

"Ed Brooke isn't a Kennedy."

"He's black."

"He isn't a Kennedy," Joan said with stark finality. "Think about it, Terry."

Doyle resented her cool analysis. What gave her the right to such distance? But, of course, he knew. She was born with it. He forced his feelings down, trying to match her tone, saying, "Ted's coming to Boston would make things worse."

"For whom? Him? How could it be worse for those children? If Bright were here—"

"There's the point, Joan. Bright is one of the people who has convinced Kennedy to stay in D.C."

"Well, if Bright could see ... this." She indicated the screen again, but it had gone blank for a commercial.

He said, "The thing is in flames now, Joan. What's needed is firefighters. Cops. Not Kennedy, and not the pope either. Once the whites see that the court won't back down, they'll stop."

"The senator should be here, in Boston. That's all I'm saying."

"Here? This is Cambridge, Joan."

"Where apparently he
does
have clout."

"Are you talking about your job? Is that what this is about?"

"Derek Bok, but not—" She stopped. "Name one. One of their leaders."

"Ray Flynn."

"But not Ray Flynn?"

Terry shrugged. "These aren't your tribes Joan. Not your religion."

"But yours. Your tribe. Your religion."

"Sad to say. Yes. Sad to fucking say."

Joan stared at him, then backed away until she reached the door of their bedroom. She turned and went through, closing the door with exquisite control.

He stood looking after her for a long, mystified moment. Then he turned the television off and went into the small kitchen to pour himself a drink. As he brought the glass of diluted whiskey to his mouth, his hand shook. "Jesus," he said aloud. After a stiff belt, he put the glass on the table, then placed his hands, palm down, on either side of it He pushed. "Jesus Christ, what's happening?"

Later, after undressing in the living room and turning out the lights, he entered the bedroom and slipped into bed beside her. She was on her side, turned away. As he listened to her breathing, his eye began to scan the ceiling, looking for cracks. An old feeling of sadness choked him.

"Terry?"

He thought at first he'd imagined the sound, so much did he long to hear it.

"Sugar, I'm sorry." Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She'd spoken without moving.

"I'm sorry too, Joan. But mostly what I am is ashamed."

Joan was silent, then she turned halfway toward him, so that they were alike in lying on their backs, staring into the void above. "But for the wrong reason, Terry. You're ashamed because it's Charlestown, when you should be ashamed that you're not doing anything."

"Don't start again."

"Well, don't be ashamed because it's Charlestown. That has nothing to do with you."

"You think." The talk was making Terry lightheaded, as if he were floating in the vacuum of darkness, the vault of time. Was this twenty years ago, the room with the slanted ceiling? Was this Nick next to him? Nick was the one who'd always made him feel both too emotional and too passive. Now it was her.

But Nick. "How do you feel about tomorrow?" he asked abruptly. "I mean, now."

"You mean, can I go to your family's house without being snide and condescending?"

"I guess so, yes."

"Don't worry."

Terry grunted, half to himself.

"Just don't be ashamed of the wrong thing, Terry. There's nothing wrong with where you come from, and there's nothing wrong with having left it behind. That's all something else."

"So tomorrow we'll just be like ... tourists, huh? Wonderfully detached anthropologists." He elbowed her as once, seeking recovery, he would have Nick. "In quest of the cult of 'this Blessed Mother person.'"

Joan put her hand on his thigh. "Your mother's house, sugar. That's enough. I wish I could have known her."

Terry was instandy aware of sharing no such wish. What a nightmare, the idea of introducing Joan to his apron-sucking mother. As always, the thought of her filled him with sadness, and so he pushed it away. He took Joan's hand and brought his face close to hers. "Rattle the headboard?" An old phrase of hers; the joke always was how odd it sounded coming from him.

"Not tonight."

"I didn't think so."

They kissed lightly and rolled apart, as was their habit A few minutes later Terry said softly, "You'll like my brother."

She did not hear him.

"Everybody likes my brother."

A
LMOST SIXTEEN YEARS
to the day after Guido Tucci and Deebo McCarthy took their fateful stroll down to Mystic Wharf on the for side of Charlestown, Tucci's son and Squire Doyle retraced it McCarthy had suggested the heart of the Town for his meeting out of an inbred caution, but now, all these years later, Doyle had a more pragmatic reason for wanting Frank Tucci to see the Charlestown waterfront up close.

Still, thinking of that other meeting, Doyle was capable of indulging an admittedly twisted Irish nostalgia. Few in Charlestown had ever forgotten how for short McCarthy's caution had fallen that day in 1959, or how his failure to read an enemy had changed things in Boston. Old Tucci's shocking murder of the mick chieftain had given Squire Doyle's life, for one, its untouted shape and meaning.

Frank, the year after his father's death, had moved from Revere to a big house in Weston. With a discretion and swiftness that had surprised Doyle, he had solidified his hold on his father's organization, and expanded it. His grip was as iron-fisted as the old man's had ever been. Even the Patriarcas had found it prudent to give him room, and ultimately had formed an effective alliance with him that had deterred the Gambinos from moving into New England.

It was noontime Saturday, and though a bank of dark clouds blocked the sun, the sky was bright. The wind had picked up and feathered Squire's hair as he held Tucci's door for him. The car wasn't a limo, but Frank, unlike his father, always rode in the back seat.

"Hello, Mr. Tucci," Squire said.

They shook hands. Tucci was wearing a trimly cut double-breasted suit that evoked the Via Veneto. Gold flashed at his wrist and at his collar. His shoes were tassled. He carried a soft leather man's handbag, a true Italian dandy who didn't want his wallet ruining the line of his Armani. His appearance contrasted with the dark informality—that cardigan, that polo shirt, those loose trousers—of Squire's clothing. Except in the flower business, where it served his purposes to be a figure, and except in the Town, Squire had made himself more invisible than ever, and his way of dressing was part of that Frank, on the other hand, cut a swath in Boston: judges, cops, and newsguys knew him. The pois openly took his money. Squire knew that Tucci wanted it both ways.

"Thanks for coming over," Squire said. "You'll like the view from out here."

Frank hooked the loop of his leather handbag around his wrist The bag, hardly larger than an envelope, swung at his hand as they walked along.

The man who'd ridden in front with Tucci's driver had fallen into step several dozen yards behind them. Squire had seen him many times, hovering near Frank, and had long ago recognized him as one of the thugs at Boston Garden the day Kennedy came, an event Squire made it a point not to call to mind. Sometimes he could not help it, though. The shoe was in his face, there it was.

Doyle and lucci set out along the edge of the ball field nestled between the projects on one side and Terminal Street with its storage buildings on the other. Neighborhood softball teams were playing their end-of-the-season championship, and knots of spectators lined the field. A set of stands was full. Even as the air had turned blustery, mothers still pushed strollers and old ladies leaned on the arms of granddaughters, as old men on the arms of other old men stood watching the boys at play. All bright, Irish faces.

Those people knew very well who Squire was, and though they did not know Tucci, they were savvy enough to sense his importance. As the men walked along, other Townies nodded at Squire. If he sensed tension in some of their faces, or saw signs of the urge to speak to him, he knew it was about the busing bullshit They were parents who were keeping their children home from school, or brothers of guys on the police force who hated both sides, or their houses overlooked the corners where teenagers hung, acting more and more like juvenile delinquents. They would all want a word with him, advice or help. Goddamn busing. Everywhere he went in the Town, he saw how crazy it was making people.

At the railing of the backwater inlet, on one side of Mystic Wharf, they stopped. Doyle faced back toward Boston. Tucci did likewise.

They leaned against the railing, both pretending to look at the view, the ballplayers, the hill in the distance, the monument. In fact, they were each noting Tucci's bodyguard, who had hung back, and was now hunched over cupped hands to light a cigarette. To be certain they were not followed was the real point of this stagy stroll.