The City Below (56 page)

"You like it?"

"Sure I like it I
love
it." He turned to the corner behind the table. "Look at this." He held up a galvanized steel watering can. "Just like mine."

The thrill could be seen breaking across the kid's round, fat face, a wave that picked him up and carried him into his father's arms, paradise.

Squire could never embrace this son—his pasty, boneless flesh, his swollen belly, the clinging smell of Listerine—without a stifled, guilt-inducing shudder of repugnance. The unwilled physical reaction had nothing to do with his fierce love for the boy. In a bizarre way Squire adored him, and drew a surprising consolation from knowing that Jackie, unlike all his other children, would be entirely his forever. He patted him, saying softly, as his own grandfather always had, "Cush-lamochree, buddy. You're the pulse of my heart."

The boy pulled back, as he always did at that, and tapped his father's chest. "In there?"

"Yes. That's where I carry you. You're the greatest kid a dad could want."

Jackie looked into his father's eyes with acute fervor, always searching for some sign that he did not mean what he said, never finding it.

Squire heard someone at the door. He looked up and saw his son's namesake standing sheepishly in the threshold with a battered, swollen face. Jackie Mullen wore a fresh shirt and pullover, and his hair was slicked back, a sign that he'd just come from the shower. Squire took his son's elbow, turning him. "Look who's here, Jake."

As his godfather and uncle, Mullen was, with the nuns of St. Mary's and his teachers in Quincy, one of the few adults whom Jackie knew, but now the meanness in that face startled him. The boy drew back. His eyes darted queerly. Mullen did nothing to soften the impression he was making.

Squire said, "Say hello to your uncle, Jake."

But the boy only stared at the bruised face with his mouth open, his flycatcher. Squire reached into the nearby refrigerator and took out a fresh shamrock boutonniere. He pinned it on his son's shirt like a medal. "Why don't you go show Mommy what you made. Want to?"

Jackie nodded and pulled away. Squire said after him, "Tell Mommy it's a present you made for her, okay?"

The boy stopped and faced his father in a sudden fury. "It's for
you,
goddamnit!" He waved one hand, clutching the vase in the other. As he stumbled toward the door, Mullen cleared the way. "Are you crazy?" the boy howled. "I said it was for you!" And then he went through the door, bewildered and inconsolable, pounding up the sidewalk, away from the flower shop.

Doyle and Mullen stared at each other blankly. Squire never let anyone, certainly not Didi's brother, see how sad his son made him feel.

Ordinarily, Mullen would have apologized, but he just stood there, his bruises on display.

"You just back from the dead or what?"

Jackie shook his head. "You're not going to believe this."

Squire raised a finger, crooked it, then moved past Mullen, through the door, onto the street. He crossed to the small park, the Charlestown Common that anchored that part of the slope. When Mullen joined him, Doyle's manner was frigid, which made his eyes seem darker, which emphasized the natural ruddiness of his face.

"What happened?"

Mullen looked gravely across at the store. "You remember when Tucci's punks came in there, years ago. The one kid with acne, the other kid in the argyle sweater."

"Yeah, Jackie. I remember."

"You had a knife you didn't use. I never forgot that. They coldcocked me, but you gave them the money."

"They gave it back."

"You made them think old Tucci was protecting us."

"What happened to you?"

"Tucci's punks, Squire. It felt like the same fucking guys. They know. They know what you're doing."

Squire stared at his old friend in silence for a long time. "What am I doing?"

"You're turning the tables finally."

"And they came to you?"

"I was checking the surveillance team in the North End. More or less routine, I thought Collins and Pierce on Hanover Street, the Commonwealth branch that we have staked out I was driving by when my fucking doors get yanked open, front seat and back both. Two wops, one with a gun. They make me drive down to Atlantic Avenue, into the lot at Bay State Lobster, which wasn't open yet The lot was empty. They offered me money to tell them what you were doing. One asked if you was body-miked, Squire. That's the word he used, 'body-miked.' I didn't say anything. They kicked the shit out of me. Obviously."

"And then?"

"Before they left, they said if I told you, they'd make it look like I was the one that ratted."

"How would they do that, Jackie?"

"I don't know. Set me up somehow, I guess. I didn't say anything, but I knew they couldn't."

"Couldn't what?"

"You're making me nervous, Squire. Why are you fucking looking at me like that?"

"Couldn't what?"

"Make you suspect me."

"Suspect you of telling Tucci and Amory that I'm coming to the meeting tomorrow wearing a wire?"

"Right."

"I don't get it, Jackie. If they already know that, why did they jump you? Explain that to me again."

"I don't know. I guess it doesn't make any sense. Unless they just weren't sure."

"If they weren't sure, they could just strip me when I showed."

"You wouldn't put up with that, which they know. That's the point. After all these years, they know you." Mullen changed the level of his voice, lowering it to indicate a shift in the gravity of what he was saying. "This one fucker tells me something really strange, Squire."

"What?"

"That they can use your brother against me."

"Terry?"

"I guess so. 'Doyle's brother' is what they said. He's working for them. I guess McKay must of—"

"What is this shit, Jackie?" Squire slammed Mullen's shoulder, jolting him.

"I don't know. Honest to God, I don't know."

Doyle hit him again, driving him back off the curb into the street.

"Come on, Squire. Give me a break."

"I'll give you a break, you fuck! What does Terry have to do with Tucci? You telling me Terry is in with Tucci?"

Doyle seemed crazy suddenly, like his son—goddamnit! goddamnit!—or like his brother had acted behind Fenway. "Back off, Squire," Mullen said, but with no strength. "I come here to warn you, that's all, to save your ass. Isn't that the bottom line? You're just going to have to decide if you believe me, that's all there is to it." Mullen turned and started to walk away, knowing already what a mistake this was, the impossibility of fooling this bastard. Now he'd have to run. Brazil, for Christ's sake. Bangla-fucking-desh.

"Wait a minute, Jackie. Wait a minute." Doyle's voice was completely free of rage. He was shaking his head, his hands open. "I lost it because of Terry, the idea of Terry—"

Mullen turned back. "You did that, Squire, nobody else. You put Terry on the edge of this thing when you brought in the nigger banker."

"Doesn't matter. Come on." Squire threw an arm over Mullen's shoulder. "Come with me." Squire led the way across the street to his car.

Before getting in, Mullen said, "I shouldn't be seen with you."

"You're my brother-in-law. Come on, buddy, I just want to ride down to Old Ironsides, get some air." Mullen got in.

Doyle drove around the Common to Adams Street, then down to City Square. He waved at corner boys and honked at the parish priest. He was a guy without a care in the world. At the tourist end of the navy yard, afternoon strollers had begun their turn around the waterfront. The antique frigate sat at its pier like a Gothic cathedral, and the thin line of visitors gave off a pilgrim air as they approached the gangplank. But Squire pulled up shy of the official parking lot, at the pair of hooded pay phones on the sidewalk Shore-leave sailors used those phones to call their girlfriends; Doyle thought of the phones as his. Ignoring Mullen now, he got out, picked one up, and dialed three numbers. Information. For the Ritz. A minute later he knew that Victor Amory had checked out He dialed another number, which rang once and was answered without so much as hello. Squire said, "Just calling to confirm your upcoming cordwood delivery. When do you need it, and where?"

Still, for a long moment, no one spoke on the other end. Then a voice answered, "Ten days. At number seven."

"You got it," Squire said, and hung up. He checked his watch. Ten minutes, at the pay phone on the far side of the Mystic Bridge, in Chelsea. Squire returned to the car, drove back into City Square, and got on the ramp that led up to the bridge. "Let's get an ice cream, what do you say?"

Mullen could not break out of his moroseness. He had no idea, really, what to hope for, except perhaps an extension of the numb void that had replaced his feelings of fear and regret He watched as the spine of the city's buildings fell behind them. Afternoon traffic was slow, and they had to pay the toll. But then, quickly, they hit the Chelsea ramp, and they pulled into a drive-in snack bar in the shadow of the bridge. Mullen stayed in the car.

With an ice cream cone, Squire walked to a weathered picnic table on the edge of the dusty lot, near another pay phone. He checked his watch, waited a moment, checked it again, and then the phone rang. He picked it up before the second ring. Tucci would be calling from the pay phone behind the gray-shingled store down the road from the entrance to his Weston estate.

"What," the voice said gruffly. Frank.

"Amory's gone."

"I know."

"You told him to go?"

Silence. Tucci had no fear of this phone being bugged, but he was cagey nonetheless.

"What's happening, Frank?"

"You tell me."

"I think our friends in the Bureau are trying to mind-fack us, Frank. Don't fall for it."

"What are you telling me, Doyle?"

"Steady as she goes, that's what."

"Fuck you, Doyle."

Doyle felt sick, the sharp nausea of his knowledge that Tucci was off the hook, scooting away even now. "Whatever they told you, don't believe it Believe
me,
Frank. After all these years. Believe me."

"What about this, Doyle? Listen to this." There was silence, then the click of a machine, then the whirring, hollow sounds of an underwater voice. "...
then we're doing seventeen, eighteen cartons a day...
"

"Cartons" was a word they used in referring to thousands of dollars. The voice was Amory's. Doyle listened, stunned. Then he felt, instead of nausea, a stab of pain in his chest, near his heart, when he heard his own voice saying fervently, "
At least that, Victor. And eventually we'll move fifty, sixty.
"

The voice snapped off. Then it was Tucci again. "I'm told you have seven more of those."

Eight reels of tape Squire had made during his meetings with Amory.

"And what are you telling me, Frank?"

"You want
me
on tape, Doyle, reciting the ABCs for the grand jury? What kind of stupid fuck do you think I am? You think I'm Kermit the Frog? You think I'm Irish?"

"You've got a tape, Frank. Doesn't mean it's me. The feds could have—"

"Amory said that was at the Top of the Hub. They got the Skywalk bugged, Doyle? That what you want me to believe? The fucking Skywalk? You want to know what I'm telling you? I'll tell you what I'm telling you. Watch your car, you got it? Watch your boat, make sure it's not leaking. Watch your fucking bicycle, Doyle! Watch your fucking skateboard! You get it?"

Was the wop threatening his kids? No. No. They didn't do that. They wouldn't "Frank, don't fall for this. They've suckered you. Who'd you get this shit from? Mullen? Mullen is working for the feds now, straight arrow."

"Mullen is mine, Squire." Tucci could not resist. It was infinitely unnecessary to flaunt this, a cheap thrill his father would never have indulged, especially on a line with a prick he couldn't trust. But all at once, for the first time in years, lucci didn't care. "Your chum has been mine for a long time. I had you covered. That's why I could go with you, asshole. But I always knew a day would come when I couldn't." The wavy lilt of triumph in Tucci's voice seemed impossible to fake, like the minute patterns on paper money.

Squire saw how he'd miscalculated, trusting too much—not Jackie, but his own shrewdness, and his certainty that Guido Tucci's son was a fool. Doyle held the phone at his mouth, mute, knowing nothing he said now would threaten Frank or dilute his sense of a long-sought and final supremacy. But
omertà:
Doyle fell back on silence, imposing the discipline of numbers on himself. At the count of thirty, he hung up.

In the car, at the wheel again, he said, "No problem, Jackie. We're just going to let things simmer for a while. Tucci's spooked, God knows by what You're right about tomorrow. So we'll cool it" He pulled away from the snack bar, circled under the bridge, then back up onto it, going south.

"So then, I call Joyce and Farrell..."

"Yeah. Make them think
their
people telegraphed. Give them some shit about it Be in charge. We got to keep them needing you."

"Okay. Yeah. Good."

Both men fell silent, each watching the back side of Charlestown come into view. Jackie found the air inside the car stale, and he cranked his window and opened his mouth for air.

"Want to come in and see Didi, have a brew?"

"No. No thanks. I'll just head downtown."

"You'll have to get a story up to explain your face. You don't want Joyce starting to think Tucci has a special interest in you."

"Good point, that's true."

"You'll think of something."

"Yeah."

"You always do."

Mullen looked sharply over.

Doyle was keen on his easy driving, an elbow out the window, a pair of fingers on the wheel. "Where'd you park?"

"Across from the Bouquet."

Instead of driving directly there, Doyle went to the top of Bunker Hill, to Monument Square, and pulled over across from his house, as if he hadn't heard Mullen's refusal. In the park to their right, half a dozen kids were cavorting on the sloping grass, a game of King of the Hill. Doyle pointed. "There's Mark, there's Paddy." Two of his sons. "What is it, Jackie, the click in the brain at some point, when we stop enjoying wrestling?"