A Life Eternal

by Richard Ayre

  She managed to nod. ‘Yes, I know Mr Donovan.’

  We stared at each other, then she turned and kissed Donovan on the cheek. ‘Thank you for looking after me, Michael,’ she whispered. ‘And for seeing me home safe.’

  Donovan seemed a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to get shown into her apartment, as he well might, but he smiled gallantly, took off his hat and kissed her hand. ‘Any time, Molly my sweet. Any time.’

  He nodded at me and then turned away, his goons trailing him.

  Molly turned back to me. She sighed into the long silence.

  ‘Well,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Rob…’ she started, but I just turned away and walked up to my apartment, leaving her standing forlornly in the foyer.

  *

  Molly caught up with me a day or so later as I was going out.

  She must have been waiting for me at her door, and she asked me to come inside to talk. I hesitated for a minute but then relented. She closed the door behind us and sat me down on the same settee where we had explored each other’s bodies so often.

  She told me how she came to New York eight years previously, penniless and broken by a marriage to an alcoholic husband. She had escaped Cork, taking her young son with her, looking for a future brighter than her blasted past. And she had found, instead, Mickey Donovan.

  When prohibition kicked in, and Mickey had started to make some real money, he had taken her on as a working girl. She had prostituted herself to feed her and her son, only to have the boy die of Spanish Flu, the same disease that had killed my sister.

  They had been in America only a few years. She took out and showed me a photograph of a dark-haired, handsome little chap. She stroked the face in the picture briefly before putting it back in the drawer.

  Donovan had seemed to take pity on her and had taken her out of the clubs and into his own household as a servant, only for her to quickly become his lover.

  She had succumbed to his advances. Still numb from the death of her boy, she looked upon Donovan’s affections as something good. He had always been nice to her, she said. He had never forced himself upon her at any point, had never been violent, but had simply stated that if she gave him what he wanted, he would set her up. She would be safe and secure and, for a woman who had known only heartache, she had grasped at this false happiness with both hands.

  She knew Donovan was only using her and that, very soon, he would tire of her. She was getting older and Donovan already had another, younger woman on the go too. She didn’t mind. All she had to do was keep him happy while he wanted her and then she would be left alone to get on with her life running the apartment.

  She knew all she had to look forward to was becoming an old, grey spinster, but at least she would have food in her stomach and somewhere to live. It was the most a woman like her could hope for.

  But then she had met me. And she had felt something she hadn’t felt for a long time: affection for another human being. She said she had started to live again, not just survive. She hadn’t wanted me to know about her and Mickey because she knew it would have been the end of our relationship. She had been happy when she was with me and now, she knew, that was gone.

  For my part I felt only sympathy for her. Any anger I had towards her disappeared. She was a broken woman, a haunted beauty with nothing but pain in her past. She had grasped the opportunity of happiness with me, a last hurrah if you will, before age caught up with her and she would simply retire into herself, running the apartment block until she could run it no longer. To have a roof over her head, to have food on her table and some ready cash in her purse: those were the height of Molly O’Brian’s dreams. Her relationship with me had spoiled this and I knew she must have felt some genuine love for me, otherwise why would she put all that at risk?

  We talked long into the night. Molly was the first person I told about my experiences in the war. She had seen the scars of course and, without going into too much detail, I told her about the church and the Medic and how close to death I had come. She made the same sign of the cross over her chest I remembered from the two nuns. The Catholic upbringing still ran deep, even in a washed-up prostitute.

  She asked me, begged me even, if we could remain friends. She knew our secret affair was over. She accepted it, even though she said our relationship was the one good thing in her life. She just wanted me to like her, I suppose.

  I promised her we would. I said I understood, which I did, although I hated her for it even so. I said I would always be there for her.

  Which was a lie. Because when she did need me, when she really needed my help, I failed her.

  Molly O’Brian died because of me.

  VIII

  The winter of 1926 was awful. It was so cold the wharfs had to close because the river had frozen. Ice coated everything in fangs of white and then, in December, it snowed for six days solid, covering the city in snow metres thick.

  I had been unemployed for a while. My job was erratic at the best of times but, with the booze unable to come in, Mickey had closed down operations until the weather warmed.

  I didn’t mind. The stock market still functioned, and I continued to make money. I spent most of my days at home, listening to the radio or the gramophone and watching the snow fall outside, or having sex with Molly O’Brian.

  We had started again. As I’ve said, I understood her position and now I knew the truth, I didn’t blame her for her actions. I didn’t ask where she’d been or what she’d been doing, and decided to simply enjoy the time I had with her. For Christmas I bought her a small gift: a gold bracelet. On the inside of it I had it engraved, ‘From R’. She was overjoyed and gazed at it on her wrist admiringly.

  It was that bracelet, my bracelet, that got her killed.

  I never found out what happened exactly. I just know what the result of it was. I can only assume Mickey had discovered the bracelet and demanded to know who ‘R’ was. I don’t think Molly told him straight away, because when I saw her body she had been tortured abysmally.

  For all his smooth exterior, for all his joviality and his talk of his work as just ‘business’, Mickey Donovan was nothing more than a cold-hearted monster. He enjoyed hurting others and, when it came to his pride, he would let nothing and no one stand in his way.

  He—and I think it was him, not his goons—had tied Molly to a chair in her apartment. She must have held out for quite some time, because he had ripped out most of her fingernails and sliced open her face before she gave him my name. I think Molly died from shock more than anything else. But she tried to stop him coming after me. She tried to stop him murdering me and she paid the price for it.

  And not one person in that whole apartment block came to her rescue. They knew who was dealing out her pain, and they closed their doors and turned up their radios as she screamed in agony. Such was the power of the gangsters of New York, the ‘Robin Hood’ lies which were torn away in the sadistic torture of a woman who was one of the most genuine and lovely people I have ever met in my life.

  Sometimes, even after all these years, when I allow myself to get drunk I weep over Molly O’Brian, and I hope she was reunited with her little boy. I hope she is now happy, and I hope to meet her again someday.

  His goons found me quickly enough as at that time I had no idea what had happened to Molly. The snow had eased off by then and two of his men nabbed me as I parked the truck up at the docks. They dragged me into their car and took me to the apartment to look upon the still and bloody corpse of the woman Mickey had owned, and I had adored.

  Mickey was still there, the knife he had used on her face still sticky with her blood. The goons held me as Mickey advanced towards me. He was in his shirt sleeves and his hair was sticking up in clumps. He was white with anger, the smooth imposter ripped away, the look of a demon upon his face.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from Molly. I couldn’t believe what he had done to her; I couldn’t believe she was dead. I don’t remember feeling any
fear: just shock and a rising anger at the bastard for what he had done.

  Mickey grabbed me by the throat, brandishing the knife. ‘My nephew,’ he hissed. ‘Did he know anything about this?’

  I knew he was asking if Sean knew anything about me and Molly. I shook my head.

  Mickey nodded to himself. ‘Just as I thought. The little fucker’s too stupid to know anything.’ His Irish accent was very thick in his fury.

  He looked at the corpse of Molly before turning back to me. ‘How could you do it?’ he asked. ‘How could you stab me in the back like this? After everything I’ve done for you?’

  He seemed genuinely hurt. As if it was me who had done the dirty on him. I said nothing for a second but, as I stared at Molly, that strange blackness within me suddenly heaved and surged, bringing with it an anger the likes of which I have known all too often. It has defined my life, this anger. It is dark. It is powerful. It is all-consuming.

  It was close to the battle frenzy I had experienced during the war, when terror suddenly enveloped everything in a red mist and I just killed, killed, killed, until there was no one left to kill anymore. But it was stronger, so much stronger. I felt that red mist descend upon me as the reality of Molly’s death battered against my brain. Mickey seemed to somehow sense the change in me and he licked his lips, suddenly unsure of what was standing in front of him.

  ‘Everything you’ve done?’ I shouted at him. ‘What about her? She did everything you ever asked her to do and you carve her up like this? She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve you. I owe you nothing, you bastard. Nothing!’

  The uncertainty in Mickey vanished. He had a new look in his eyes, and it was the real Mickey Donovan. Not the cool, jazz-loving philanthropist businessman, but the evil, black-souled devil he really was.

  He screamed incoherently at me and stabbed the knife into me in a frenzy. Again and again the blade sliced into my stomach. I felt my flesh burst with each thrust, my blood pouring from me in a welter of agony, soaking the carpet that Mickey Donovan had paid for.

  His enraged face, splattered with both my own and Molly’s blood, began to recede from my vision and the pain from the stabbings faded away. I slowly crumpled to the floor.

  *

  I’ve led a very strange life, and it was in New York in the January of 1927 when it began to dawn on me just how strange it would be.

  Whenever I’ve found myself in a situation like the one that day, and there have been a few times, my memory never really brings back to me what happens. It was the same as when I first came across the Medic. Only fractured pieces remained.

  I remember being stabbed to death by Mickey Donovan, but the next thing I knew I was lying on the frozen riverbank of the Hudson, spewing up cold, filthy water. I was face down on the riverbank: slime-smeared, shivering with cold, a strange feeling of tightness hugging my stomach.

  It was now daytime. Mickey had dragged me to the apartment block in the evening, so presumably it was now the next day.

  I hauled myself completely out of the river and pulled at my torn shirt. There were very small, pinkish scars on my stomach: new looking, about eight of them. The water had washed away whatever blood there had been, but that was it. I had been stabbed multiple times and then thrown into a half-frozen river, and all I had to show for it was a few marks and a slight feeling of bruising.

  That night in the church, over ten years before, swam into my memories again. What had he done to me?

  Whatever had happened, my survival instinct soon took over and I stumbled to my feet, crunching up the ice and shingle and climbing over a low balustrade.

  There were only a few people about and I guessed it was still early morning. I was soaked and freezing and, if Mickey found out I was still alive, I was a marked man.

  The thought of Mickey and the sudden remembrance of what he had done to Molly made me groan in anger. The red mist had gone now, replaced by a cold, stony fury. I was out of control, but it was a calm madness; I knew exactly what I was going to do and I couldn’t wait. He had it coming to him. I put my survival from his attack out of my mind and made my plan.

  When the banks opened I took out some cash, ignoring the look the cashier gave my soaked and crumpled chequebook, and went and bought a new, off-the-rail, suit and overcoat. Heavy boots and a pullover helped warm me from the freezing wind. I then went and bought a revolver from one of the people at the speakeasies I had come to know over the years. He didn’t yet know of Molly’s fate, so he didn’t ask too many questions about it. Such was the company Mickey Donovan kept. It would be his undoing.

  I hailed a cab and went to Hell’s Kitchen.

  It was still relatively early, and I knew Mickey was in the habit of sleeping in. I didn’t think one more killing would disturb his rest. I knocked on the door and one of Mickey’s boys opened it. I was pleased to recognise him as one of the men who had been at the apartment the night before. One of the men who had held me tight while Mickey had driven the knife into me again and again. One of the men who had stood by and watched as Mickey tortured and murdered Molly. He gaped at me in utter disbelief and I shot him in the face.

  I jumped over his twitching corpse and sprinted up the stairs to where I knew Mickey had his apartment. Another goon came from a side room beside Mickey’s, half-dressed and rubbing his eyes, alerted by the sound of the shot. He got the second bullet in the head. Four left.

  I kicked open Mickey’s door and found him and a young woman struggling upright in bed. He primly clutched a sheet to his chest as the woman screamed. I indicated to her with the gun and she ran, naked, from the room. Mickey stared in astonishment and horror when he saw who his executioner was.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered. ‘It can’t be you.’

  ‘Oh, it can,’ I said, grinning at him in a way that drained his face of colour. ‘It is me, Mickey. You thought you were rid of me. You thought you’d killed me. But you can’t, because I’m the Devil himself and the Devil can’t be killed. I’m here to take you to hell where you belong.’

  I levelled the gun at him and he held out a hand in supplication.

  ‘No…’ he started.

  ‘Goodbye, Mickey,’ I said, and emptied the revolver into his chest and stomach. He was dead before I turned to leave the room.

  I made it to the bottom of the stairs before my luck changed.

  There was no sign of the woman, but another of Mickey’s men came out of a room near the front door and shot at me wildly, hitting me in the thigh, holing my leg and my brand-new trousers. My revolver was empty so I just screamed madly and ran at him, ignoring the pain in my leg. His mouth fell open when he saw who I was. It was the second man who had been at Molly’s the night before.

  I covered the space between us swiftly and head-butted him in the face as hard as I could, snatching the gun from his fingers and immediately shooting him in the chest. I scarpered before he fell. I’ve no idea whether he lived or died, and I’m still not bothered one way or the other. This may sound cold-hearted but he, like Mickey and Dwyer and the more famous gangsters like Al Capone, deserved everything they got. They worked in an industry of death, and they all got their comeuppance in the end. People usually do, in my experience.

  I caught another cab to my apartment and quickly packed a few essentials, changing my trousers at the same time. And it was then the true reality of my survival from the stabbings hit me as I saw how quickly, and how strangely, my body seemed to recover from trauma.

  When I pulled off the ruined trousers, I saw that the hole the bullet had made in my thigh was blocked by something. I frowned when I realised it was the slug from the gun. As I watched, my body literally pushed the bullet out in a series of small spasms. It reminded me of watching calves being born when I was a kid, each spasm pushing the bullet from my leg. With one more heave and a last trickle of blood, the slug fell to the carpet. The hole immediately began to knit together, a scab forming. The bleeding had completely stopped. In the twenty minutes
it had taken to get from Hell’s Kitchen to Bleecker Street, my body had healed itself.

  I stared at my leg in disbelief. My thoughts returned to the Medic; whatever he had done to me in the church had changed me, I was sure of it. His touch had made me immune to death. This thought whirled in my fevered brain like a Catherine Wheel.

  I was immune to death!

  I needed to find out who he was; I needed to know what he had done to me. And there was only one place to start.

  I left the apartment, glancing at Molly’s closed door, wondering if her body was still in there. I hoped I had avenged her. It was all I could have done, and I had no remorse for the murders I had committed. I still don’t; as I’ve said, they deserved it.

  But Mickey’s remaining men would soon be coming after me and, although I now believed they couldn’t kill me, I wanted to get the hell out of New York. There was nothing there for me anymore.

  I went to the bank again and transferred all my money by wire to a French account. The bank manager wasn’t very happy about this, but there was little he could do. I knew a ship was due to leave the next day as the ice was receding and the lanes were open again. I bought my ticket, first class this time, and the next day boarded the ship.

  The last time I had seen the Medic was in France.

  So to France I would now go.

  IX

  Paris. Tuesday the fourteenth of February, 1928. St Valentine’s Day.

  In a year’s time, back in the USA, gangsters of Mickey’s ilk would gun down their opponents in an atrocity that would come to be called the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. It would be the catalyst to begin to curb the power of those hoodlums.

  But that was in the future. On that chilly evening in 1928 I was returning from a restaurant I had come to know.

  I breathed in the cold air. Not as cold as New York had been in winter, but cold enough. The smell of roasting chestnuts from the sellers on the Boulevard de Clichy came to my nostrils as I walked the tightly packed, brightly lit streets.