We Were Kings (4 page)

“We've had twelve murders in the month of June,” said Owen. “You know the last time we had a number like that? And that's just in Dorchester, Southie, Roxbury, and Charlestown. And now the Italians are pushing in as well, which doesn't help any.”

“They must have unloaded the cargo in a hurry,” Cal said, “which means they most likely transported it somewhere local. They'll need to find another way to get it to where it was going.”

“Probably,” said Owen. “Although they might always have had a contingency plan. Our tip-off thought it was a done deal, but someone else already had the get on us.”

“And on him,” Cal said. “You think this dead guy on the docks is the rat, your informant?”

“We don't know—that's the thing, we don't know much of anything right now. I have to wait for an ID on the body and for the registry on the boat.”

“That's some birthday present,” said Dante.

“Yeah, a real great present.”

“Happy fucking birthday,” said Cal, raising his glass, and Owen and Dante banged their glasses against his. “Happy fucking birthday,” they echoed and the Irish bartenders glanced down from the other end of the bar, stared at them for a moment, and then looked away.

They climbed the stairs back to the main ballroom, with Cal trying not to show how inebriated he was and testing each step carefully with his feet. He waved Owen and Dante on and they went ahead and rejoined the women. He stepped gingerly on the wood, resting to knead the muscle in his bad leg as men and women passed him.

As he stood before the ballroom, trying to collect himself, its doors opened suddenly. A couple emerged, arm in arm, the man smiling, the woman's head thrown back in laughter, the sound lost in the cavernous space of the ballroom and among the dancing couples on the crystal-lit floor, and he was in that illuminated space, holding Lynne close to him and together they were twirling effortlessly about the room. The sound of the orchestra seemed to swell and in the rectangle of light cast onto the balcony he could see her—for the first time in months, he could see her face clearly—and she was smiling and happy, wearing an olive gown made of some type of silky material that clung to her body. Cal's breath caught and he remained still, lost in and transfixed by the sight before him as if he were in a dream even as men and women bustled about him.

“Lynne,” he said quietly. “There are times, baby, when I need you more than ever, when I don't know if I can do it without you.” He knew it was a selfish thing, but as bad as it had been after the war, it had never been as bad as this. Lynne had helped him keep it in check, reminding him of the difference between his two experiences, the one in Europe among the dead, and his life back home among the living. She'd reminded him during the darkness, when he'd become incapacitated by fear, shame, and self-loathing, that he was alive and he had only to make the choice, if he wanted, to keep living. And because of her he had made the choice. He'd kept living.

After he'd said good night to Owen and Anne and walked Dante and Claudia to their car, Cal stood on Dudley Street smoking a cigarette, watching the street life and waiting for his buzz to fade before he got on a trolley. The moonlight flickered on the rooftop stacks and water barrels, glowing like embers on the broken glass in the alleyways and glimmering on the chrome of cars parked along the street. Couples, arms entwined or wrapped around each other, passed by him. Cal stubbed his cigarette out on the brick wall and threw it in a trash can. The top floors of the dance halls shone light out onto the Avenue—he could see people there at the windows—and the strains of music filled the steamy night with a charge that prickled the skin, sent the hairs up on his arms.

On the corner opposite the Waldorf, half a dozen men lounged, hair greased and combed back, smoking intently and talking loud. Cal watched them for a bit and he knew they were looking for trouble. By the way they stood he could tell that they'd been drinking. One of them already seemed drink-sick; he had his head pressed to the brick wall as if it were the only thing that might save him. The others stared at the couples as they left the dance halls, eyeballing the men who might challenge them. The usual tension weighed like a lead slat across Cal's shoulders and neck as he considered which one was the ringleader and how he might take him out, and then a large group of Connemara men crossed the street from Winslow House and their faces were flushed and their fists balled and they were talking angrily among themselves in Irish as they walked the street, and the greasers turned away and just as quickly Cal let his anger dissipate and the need to fight left him.

_________________________

July 4, South Boston

BOTTLE ROCKETS TORE
into the sky, whistling threads of smoke that arched out over the harbor and exploded in sudden blasts of fire. Their reports were no louder than a .22-caliber pistol's, but each reverberated off the still, dark waters as though signaling a war that was making its way to Boston.

Wiping his brow with a handkerchief already soaked through with sweat, Michael Cleland walked along the chain-link fence that bordered the truck lot and separated it from the small, sloping patch of land that led down to the derelict pier. There were about a dozen of them, mostly teenage boys and some smaller, likely their younger brothers who, with their mothers and fathers out at the bars and saloons, the older boys had to keep an eye on. Two of them prepped another round of rockets, placing them in empty cola bottles that were wedged at angles between the pier's wooden slats. One boy lit a match and brought the flame to a long string of firecrackers, and once the wick sparkled white, he tossed it at the two kneeling on the pier. It flared up and blossomed violently; sparks and fire rained down between the rotting planks to the shallow waters below. The two boys hunched down and, with their bare arms shielding their faces, fled through the assault, hollering mad cries and curses. Smoke hung heavily in the air. Cleland couldn't see them, but he could hear them laughing and screaming at one another, like children pretending to be men, their voices loud and courageous with liquor.

Today was the Fourth of July, Independence Day.

Once the smoke had cleared, the acrid odor of it biting at his throat, he could see one of the smaller boys standing at the very edge of the pier. The boy lit a Roman candle with the smoldering end of a cigar and raised the flaming stick high above his head. Blasts of red, blue, and white sparks shot out over the water, and Cleland could see that the boy clutching it was shirtless but unflinching as the bits of fire streamed down on him. The boy appeared possessed in the light, a young savage showing the others that no matter how much pain he suffered, he would hold his ground and never let go.

In a few years, he'd be a menace, Cleland could tell. No longer a troublesome delinquent but a young man cleansed of innocence, a criminal, chin always raised and fists always clenched. All to make his father proud. His father's father proud. The whole line of hard men who were born in the States and saw Ireland as a mirage, a mythical land where their blood belonged but that their hearts had forgotten. They could never be royalty, but here in Boston, they could be kings.

Cleland cursed under his breath. Not even a single breeze to be found along the whole coastline. The city was three days into a heat wave, and he had the feeling it had just started, making Boston a great, miserable furnace, and that it would be this way until well after Labor Day. More sweat gathered along his brow and he wiped at it again with the handkerchief. He tried to breathe deeply and heard himself wheeze. It was as if a massive slate pressed hard against his lungs.
I'm too old for this,
he thought, his heavy-knuckled fingers grasping the chain-link fence as if he were trying to hold himself upright.

He watched one of the boys kneel down to light a whole brick of firecrackers. His friends hollered foulmouthed threats as they rushed by him, hopping off the pier and back to the bare patch of land where empty bottles of beer and broken glass glistened under the half-moon. The wick appeared to dim and then go out. Several of the boys turned inquisitive and cautiously stepped toward the brick, but suddenly the wick sputtered back to life. One of the teenage boys screamed like a young girl. And then blasts of light seemed to multiply and never end, but when the last firecracker exploded, the silence reappeared suddenly, jarringly. The cloud of smoke hung low off the pier and drifted up toward Cleland. The acrid odors of gunpowder burned at his eyes and filled his nostrils. The smell triggered a memory from his childhood, grabbed hold of him and brought him back.

Mum, will it ever end?

Dublin. Easter. The third day of fighting and him ten years old again, standing at the bedroom window and looking at the silhouette of the church two streets away that spired above the rooftops and cut into the great, dark sky. Reflecting off the church came the light from the other side of the square, illuminated with low blasts of artillery and the flashing bursts of rifles. On the street below, a blockade of scrap wood and furniture burned brightly. And from the flames came the shadows of men, elongated and stretched as they flickered against the storefront across the way, skipping through the night like ghouls. He had no idea if they were rebels or looters or Royals. He glanced down at his younger brother Samuel, who was standing beside him, his small hand hot and sweaty in his own, and him clasping at it because if he didn't, Samuel would start up again. He noticed how the boy's large eyes had had the blue sucked out of them; they glistened as black as river stone as he fought against tears. “Be a man, Sam. Crying will do us no good.”

And with their mother pacing the upstairs hallway, the floorboards creaking with slow, tired groans, the two of them waited it out and stood at the window well past their usual bedtime, watching as arcs of fire rose and fell beyond the church and listening to the dueling gunfire as it rattled and echoed against the buildings and along the cobblestones, and they waited, waited for Daddy to come home.

Will Daddy come home?

Yes, once this is over, he'll be home.

Forty-eight years old again, Cleland felt his palms sweat and for a moment had the sensation of a small hand clutching his own. He stuffed the handkerchief into his back pocket, reached into his front pocket, and took out a butterscotch candy. He unwrapped the cellophane and popped it into his mouth. He rolled the sweet around, careful not to let it touch his back teeth, which pained him like rusted nails burrowed deep into the bone of his jaw.

Behind him, a truck's engine suddenly came alive. The headlights of Dick Creeley's Chevy flatbed flared brightly, two beams that carried over the gravel lot and illuminated a flurry of mosquitoes battering against one another. The driver, old Creeley, worked odd jobs in the warehouse—cleaning, restocking parts, keeping guard on a shipment awaiting pickup, whatever was necessary. He honked the horn once.

The truck slowly pulled out of its space, the old man pressing the horn again. The brakes cried out, metal on metal, and the beat-up vehicle rolled out of the lot. Cleland turned back to the pier, which remained quiet as the boys moved within the smoke and gathered more ammunition.

Cleland had cursed himself for owing a favor; for “the Cause,” they had told him at the club, as if it meant as much in this place as it did in Ireland. And now here he was, on the lookout for a pickup, when he could have been at home with a cold bottle of Pickwick listening to the Sox on the radio, Mel Parnell on the hill against those lowly Pinstripes from the Bronx.

He walked toward the only light on in the back lot, a caged bulb flickering above a steel door to the office. Along the other side of the warehouse came the scrape of a gate against the roadway. Cleland assumed it was Creeley taking his sweet time leaving, and he imagined the old man idling as he nipped at a pint of rotgut whiskey before heading back to his basement apartment outside Quincy Center. But the battered Chevy truck was already a half a mile away on Summer Street, Creeley singing a song to himself, the heels of his hands drumming against the steering wheel as he pushed the engine as hard as it could go.

Cleland walked under the light. Above him, moths battered against the caged bulb. He checked the door to make sure it was still locked, then moved back into the darkness.

His eyes had trouble focusing. He squinted, sucked hard on the lozenge, and felt sharp tremors vibrate in his jaw. There was movement in the lot. Perhaps just that homeless black Labrador passing through. He spit out the candy, and it cracked against the concrete. His hand clutched at his back pocket and twisted anxiously at the handkerchief. And then he realized he wasn't alone.

Several yards ahead, the ember of a cigar flared and pumped red as if someone was trying to keep it burning evenly. Eyes adjusting, he could see the shadow of a man smoking it. The man was of a large build, and his bald head reflected the moonlight that came through a jagged cluster of low-moving clouds. Cleland raised a hand to get the man's attention.

“Over here.” And then he repeated it, softer this time. “Over here.”

It should be so simple. Truck comes in, he opens the garage, it pulls in, and they load up the crates. Then he shuts the doors, chains and locks them, and heads home, Mel Parnell probably still on the mound, throwing that sweet curve with a mind of its own, and him drinking a cold beer, knowing that another one awaited him in the icebox.

Down on the pier, whistler rockets popped off in the distance. A bottle crashed and shattered against the rocks. One of the teens hollered with drunken song, words slurred and nearly unintelligible.

Cleland pulled the revolver out of his pocket, kept it at his side.

Without its headlights turned on, a long, black Cadillac pulled into the lot, the slick and polished surface gleaming with the moonlight's reflection. Silent, as though rolling without the engine on, the car moved toward him. Cleland offered a halfhearted wave. He watched the car come to a stop, saw the elongated, ornamental hood, the sweeping curve of its roof, and, behind the backseat, a window, rectangular and covered with white curtains, parted at the center.

“You got to be kidding me,” he said, walking toward the hearse. He could see a shadow holding on to the wheel with both hands. The face was without definition, yet he could feel that the eyes were on him, and without seeing it, he knew there was some manner of a grin in that darkness.

Headlights suddenly beamed on and cut across the lot, flashing into his eyes. With his arm, he shielded himself from the light, backpedaled, heels digging through the gravel rocks. He heard a door open and then slam shut.

The headlights dimmed and smoldered with an electric amber, illuminating only a few feet ahead. Spots of light danced wildly in Cleland's vision. Off to his side, he heard the crunch of a boot on gravel. He turned quickly and saw another man walking across the lot toward him, one hand in the pocket of his sports coat, the other clutching a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun.

“Where's the truck?” Cleland called out. “There's supposed to be a truck. Ryan's Kitchen Supplies.”

“That's right, old man.”

“Don't you worry,” another voice called to him. He turned in a dizzying circle and couldn't see who had said it. The man smoking the cigar was no longer there. The hearse remained still.

Cleland turned and moved toward the lone light above the office door. Maybe he wouldn't have to fumble for the right key. Maybe he could get inside quickly and lock the door behind him and then get on the phone for help. His heart hammered in his chest. Three steps in, he watched the glass bulb explode. Sparks showered down in a bursting pop; the cage protecting the light fell and clattered onto the concrete walkway. He turned around and, without aiming, raised the gun and moved it from side to side.

“They asked me to do a favor,” he called out. “I was told to wait for a truck, that's all.”

Below the warehouse, more fireworks tore off the pier into the night. But close, on this side of the chain-link fence, only yards away, Cleland saw another man with his arm raised, the glint of black, polished steel, and then the sudden, white flash of fire. He tried to move away, felt his knee give out, the bone and joints buckling. He turned and tucked his chin down, rolled his shoulder inward to protect his head from smacking the hard ground.

But he didn't turn in time and landed full-on, his skull cracking against the gravel. The heat of the wound filled his head, and he rolled to the side and felt blood drip down into his right eye. Frantically, he reached before him and searched for his gun. His fingers grappled with nothing but broken stone until, fingernails cracked, fingertips bloodied, he finally came into contact with the gun's grip.

“Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father,” he said to himself, waiting for the men to come out of the dark. He raised the gun and fired off a haphazard shot. Another blast came from the darkness and his hand erupted in a spray of blood and bone that spattered across his neck and face. He clutched his wrist and bowed his head over it. He bit down on his tongue and fought back a scream. The hearse's headlights flicked on full, and he was awash in bright light. He managed to get up on his knees and, clutching his arm, saw with painful clarity that three of his fingers had been blown off above the knuckles.

His mouth filled with the taste of copper. He fell to his side and curled into a fetal position. A pool of blood at the back of his head, the throbbing in his legs weakening, Michael Cleland realized he was dying.

Two men had come from the light and, standing before him, one of them said, “I think I know this guy.”

“It doesn't matter, does it?” The other spoke with the lilt of somebody from the south of Ireland. “Now search him for keys.”

Cleland couldn't talk. Blood filled his throat. He shut his eyes and listened to the fireworks whistling toward the islands in the harbor, and the pain suddenly subsided as he felt the sensation of a child's hand pressing his own. A comfort, no matter how brief, and he took a ragged breath and was back in Dublin again. It was 1916 and his younger brother Samuel was beside him. Through the window, they could see the fires lighting the city of Dublin, gunfire echoing like the distant cracks of newborn thunder ushering in a storm far, far away.

“Once in agony, pity on the dying,” said the bald man in a tone mocking a preacher from the old country. He raised the sawed-off 12-gauge and pulled the trigger.