"Two hundred."
"Deal." I hung up the phone.
"How much?" Junior asked.
"Two bills."
"Dammit," he said as he pulled on his coat. "It's fuckin' freezing out. Shoulda got another fifty." Junior pulled knit mittens over his hands. He saw me smirking. "What?"
"Nice mittens, Mary." If you can't see why mittens covering the knuckles of a man with H-A-R-D and C-O-R-E tattooed across them is funny, then I can't explain it to you.
"Hardy-har. You're gonna have a good time explaining to the E.M.T's how these mittens got inside of you."
Ralphie O'Malley always said that his luck permanently switched for the worst on October 2nd, 1978. Ralphie claimed that he was sitting on the lap of the elder Mr. O'Malley the moment Bucky Dent hit his home run out of Fenway. As the ball arced over The Green Monster, Mr. O'Malley leapt up in disbelief, sending Ralphie airborne off the couch and headfirst into the TV screen, effectively busting both the Zenith and his only son's head.
Since that point, society, the fates, and even Ralphie himself considered him something of a jinxed soul—I didn't know of a bar in Boston that didn't eighty-six Ralphie during important baseball games.
Or hockey games.
Or basketball games.
Yeah, Ralphie wasn't much welcome during football season either.
But it was deeper than that. I'd seen some of the old timers actually cross themselves when Ralphie entered the bar, heard people half-kiddingly talk about the invisible cloud of doom that followed him wherever he went.
Remember the Sox in 2004? Everybody thought it was funny to chip in and buy him a weeklong trip to New York during the ALCS.
That jinx ain't so funny any more, is it?
Then there was the night of "the girl".
One evening about two years ago, the heavens parted, the stars aligned and the cloud looked like it lost its way for the night. Lo and behold, Ralphie was talking to a girl. An honest to goodness, living and breathing girl. And a cute little blonde, at that.
Silently, we all rooted him on. We'd never seen him talking to a girl before. All seemed to be going well. I even thought I might have even seen a twirl of the hair.
Then the cloud found its way back to Ralphie's coordinates.
Out of nowhere, somebody dropped a full pitcher of beer from the balcony. It wasn't heavy, just angled right. The pitcher landed right on the crown of Ralphie's head, knocking him silly. The cheap beer erupted in a mushroom cloud, directly into the blonde's face. Ralphie was lights-out for less than a minute, but of course by that time the girl had skedaddled in beer-soaked humiliation.
Now, for most people, embarrassing as that incident might have been, the story would have made for a great bar tale of ill-fate and circumstance, told over and over to great guffaws and shots of whiskey lifted in good humor. For Ralphie, it was just another bitch-slap from the heavens. Hell, even Junior and me couldn't find the funny in his tragi-comic existence anymore, and we're the masters of the form. Most of the time, it was just sad.
"Warming up" Junior's car was just a figure of speech, since the heater didn't work. It was also three below zero that afternoon. Wind chill my ass. Cold is cold. We sat there, shivering and cupping our hands over our cigarette cherries for warmth while Junior's '79 Buick, (which for some sweet fuck-all reason he'd named Ms. Kitty), slowly stopped coughing like a habitual three-packer.
"You gotta get this heater fixed, Junior." My demand might have had more weight if Ms. Kitty's heater had ever worked.
Junior glared at me, then tenderly rubbed the dashboard, as if I might have injured the car's feelings.
We drove onto Storrow Dive heading out to Quincy, where Ralphie lived in a house with his mother.
Miss Kitty had warmed up to a temperature just above welldigger's arse by the time we got to the O'Malley residence. If houses were representative of the people who lived in them, then Ralphie's was dead-on. The paint might have been light blue at one point, but had faded into a peeling gray, hanging off of the weather-beaten shingles for dear life. The porch, half-built, had never been painted at all—a project undertaken long ago and never finished. It too, looked like it was clinging to the house simply because it had no better place to be.
Junior clucked his tongue as he killed the ignition. "This is gonna break Mrs. O'Malley's heart again." Miss Kitty wheezed once in seeming agreement, then fell silent.
"You'd think she'd be used to it by now."
"Wonder what she cooked last night?"
It wasn't the first time we'd had to pick up Ralphie. Almost a year ago, Ralphie got busted for public drunkenness after he peed, blind drunk, between two parked cars. One of the parked cars just happened to be an idling black-and-white.
When we showed up at the O'Malley house the last time Ralphie forgot he had a court date, Mrs. O'Malley cooked us leftovers while Ralphie showered and got dressed. She cried the whole time. That alone might have been enough to kill the appetite of lesser men, but Mrs. O'Malley made one hell of a chicken pot pie. Besides, it seemed to make her feel better to be doing something just then, to feel appreciated. As far as I could tell, Ralphie never disrespected his mother, just took her for granted like a lot of people do with their parents.
Junior and I both lost our families when we were kids. For a long time growing up, all we had was each other. We knew how important family was. And how fragile. We appreciated a warm meal from a mother—even if it wasn't our own—in ways you wouldn't understand if you still have yours around. Appreciate those pot pies.
The front steps groaned under our weight, as if they too were dreading our presence. The wind blew cold whips across the porch and our faces. All of a sudden, I found myself coveting Junior's mittens. "Ring the bell."
"You ring the bell."
"I'll ring the bell, but you're telling her."
"Hell with that. Ralphie's telling her."
"What if Ralphie isn't here? We have to tell her something."
Junior either shrugged or was wracked by a huge shiver. "Tell her we came here for a play date."
"Just for being stupid, you get to ring the bell. Please, before something freezes off of me."
"Bet you wish you had mittens now, don't ya?"
As Junior and I bandied our Mensa-level discourse back and forth, the front door swung open. I had a half-second to assume that somebody heard us coming up the steps. I say "half-second" because during the latter half, an arm clutching what looked like a wooden blackjack with a leather strap came crashing down into the middle of Junior's face. Blood sprayed from his nostrils as he lurched back, stepped on a slick of ice, and went tumbling backwards down the porch steps. Lord, it looked painful.
I took a step back from our attacker and got ready to crack somebody's skull with a straight right. Then I found myself face to face with all five-feet, two-inches of Mrs. O'Malley. Complete with pink and orange floral print housedress on.
And one shoe off.
She was wild eyed, panicked. "You leave my Ralphie alone!" she shrieked. She raised her weapon again, ready to brain me with it this time. "Don't you hurt him anymore!"
"MrsO'MalleyMrsO'Malley!!!" I leapt back, hands up defensively. "It's just us! It's Boo and Junior!
She squinted at me through lenses thicker than those used on the Hubble, but kept her hand up. It was then that I saw her weapon. It was her other shoe. She'd attacked us with one of her wooden orthopedic sandals. "Boo?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. My hands were trembling, part adrenaline rush and part hypothermia.
"Baaah-bra?" Came a voice from across the street. In the doorway facing opposite us, another housedress was standing with a steaming cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "You want me to cawl the cahps?" she yowled. Neighborly help with a Boston accent thicker than paste.
"We're fine!" I yelled back and returned my attention to Mrs. O'Malley. "We're not here to hurt Ralphie." Then I noticed that her trembling lower lip was pooched out
and bloodied. Somebody had popped her one. And recently.
"I'm nawt asking you!" from across the street.
"Junior?" she asked the crumpled heap lying upside-down on her front steps.
"Guhhhhh," replied Junior.
We sat in the dining room while Mrs. O'Malley reheated some chowder and biscuits for us. Junior had a black garbage bag with ice in it pressed against his nose. The long remainder of the bag trailed up and over his head like a novelty plastic wig.
"You look like the worlds worst Cher impersonator."
"I'll make you Cher," he threatened.
I took a second. "What?"
"Shaddup. Look at me!" He lowered the bag. "Excuse me if my comebacks ain't up to par today, dickweed." His nose, obviously broken, had taken the shape and color of a small eggplant. Just above his pathetic honker sat an ugly bump with a scabbing scrape along it.
Mrs. O'Malley waddled back into the small dining area balancing two huge bowls of soup and a Tupperware container between them. "I'm so sorry I hit you, Junior. I thought you were those other men."
"What other men?" I asked through a mouthful of biscuit.
"The big men who came and took my Ralphie away." Tears welled behind her glasses, the moisture making her eyes look like two bloodshot fishbowls.
Junior and I looked at each other over our bowls. "They say who they worked for?" Junior asked between spoonfuls.
"No, they just said that they were coming to get him. That he was late."
Goddamn you Barry, I thought. "What did they look like?"
"One was big and had blonde hair the other one was heavyset and bald. The bald one hit me." She pointed at her fat lip.
I looked at Junior again, his mouth pursed tight in the same anger I felt. We knew the grabbers. The Swede and Fat Pat. Two other meatballs for hire, both of whom had brief stints under us at 4DC. We fired the Swede for being stupid.
Let me tell you, when a man is fired from a bouncing job for being stupid, that says something. He couldn't figure out how to subtract 21 years from the driver's licenses. One too many requests for Lady Googoo (or whatever the fuck her name is) on the jukebox was what clued us off that our clientele had taken a sudden dip in the age bracket.
Fat Pat was just a mean pituitary case who had the misfortune of being fat and having been named Pat. Calling him heavyset was the charity of the year. Fat Pat looked like a pink Irish blimp.
"We'll find Ralphie for you, Mrs. O'Malley. We promise."
She smiled and sniffed back her tears. "You boys really don't have to. I know my Ralphie can get himself into trouble. It's not your problem. He just breaks my heart sometimes."
"It's not a problem. We want to make sure he's all right too."
She squeezed my shoulder with a pudgy hand. "Let me get you boys some cheesecake," she said, and headed back to the kitchen.
Junior glared at me.
"What? I got chowder on my face?" I dabbed at my chin with the holiday print paper towels we were using as napkins.
"What did you promise that for? Isn't this more than enough work for two hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars that we ain't even gonna get now?"
"C'mon, Junior. She's old, she's alone, and she's scared. We're just going to make sure that those two fucktards brought Ralphie to Barry and didn't put him in the hospital."
"If they'da showed up with Ralphie already, Hard-On wouldn't have called us."
"That's my point."
Junior folded his arms across his chest. "I just can't believe you promised her. Never promise anything to nobody."
"What if I promise to love you forever?"
"Touch me and I kill you."
"Homophobe."
"I'm a you-aphobe." And before I could mock his poor comeback, "Fuck off."
"Thanks Barry, you colossal prick," I said as we stormed into his office.
"Hey. Hey!" Barry held his arms out, indicating his office and the man sitting across from his desk. "I'm with a client here!"
"Hey George," I said to his client.
"Hey Boo."
"What's the big idea sending Swede and Fat Pat over before us?" Junior sat on the edge of the desk and ruffled around the papers on the blotter. "That's not very professional of you, sending two teams on the same job."
"What?"
"Your little brother again?" I asked George.
"Yeah. Stupid-ass kid stole a car this time."
"He eighteen yet?"
"Turned last week."
"That's no good."
"You're telling me. What happened to his nose?" George swirled a finger in the general direction of Junior's ugliness.
"Got hit with a shoe."
"Oh"
"Cut it out!" Barry stood and slammed his palms onto the papers that Junior was mussing. "What the fuck is the matter with you two?"
I glared at him. "Why did you send Fat Pat and The Swede to the O'Malley's before us? We're not your fucking clean-up crew."
"First of all, they're idiots." Junior tipped over Barry's pencil holder. Pens clattered onto the floor."
Barry groaned and sighed, "Now look what you did." Then he shook his head, confused at my accusation. "Who's an idiot?"
"Secondly, did Fat Pat tell you he socked an old lady in the mouth in the process?"
Junior was reaching for the coffee cup that read World's Greatest Grandpa when Barry stabbed at his hand with a letter opener, missing his fingers by an inch. The opener stuck straight into the worn wood. "You touch one more thing Junior, and I swear to God I'll stick your hand to the desk."
Barry pried the opener from the desk and held it stomach-level to keep us at bay. "Now. Calm down." Barry smoothed his thin hair, composing himself after our mess-up attack. "Mr. Smart, would you please wait in the front room while we sort this thing out?"
George crossed his legs and leaned back into the fake leather chair. "Nah, I'd rather hear what these guys have to say."
"Yeah Hard-On. Let him hear about the kinds of guys you're hiring now to do your pick-ups."
"What guys? I hired you two jackasses. Where's Ralphie?"
"You tell us."
Barry's face was a shifting mass of bewilderment and twitching eyelids. He held his hands up, palms open, and breathed deeply through his nostrils. It whistled like a tiny tea kettle. "Now," he said through clenched teeth and forced composure, "why would I know where Ralphie is? Isn't that what I hired you two numbnuts to figure out?"
"So your first team never brought him in? That what you're saying?"
"You are the first fucking team!" Barry hollered. He held his palms up again, re-composing. His tea kettle nose whistled once more as he took another deep, calming breath. Then he opened up the drawer of the desk, popped two antacids and chased it with Maalox. Calmly, he said "You don't have Ralphie then. Is that what you're telling me?"
Junior sucked on his teeth. "Uh. No."
I said, "You don't have him either?"
"I do not."
"Shit,"
Barry sighed into one of his trademark groans. "So what you're telling me is, somebody else got him before you two did?"
"Looks that way."
"Who?"
"Well, we know who. Now we have to figure out why."
"Well, why don't you both do that. Because one drawer down? Under the one filled with pills and syrups to keep me from hemorrhaging myself into the morgue every time I sit on the crapper?"
"Yeah?"
"I have a gun."
"Gotcha," we both said at the same time.
"Always good to see you George," I said as I backed out of the office.
"Yeah. Better circumstances next time, huh?"
Junior was slowly backing out, too. "Yeah. Forget everything we said. Barry's a great guy."
"Real stand-up," I said.
"For a Hard-On."
Barry reached for the drawer. We ran like hell.
By the time we got back to the car, Mother Nature had decided to take a swipe at us too. Ominous bl
ack clouds roiled over the Boston skyline, the air holding the charge of an impending storm
"Well, ain't that just a dandy," Junior said, flinging his hands skyward in frustration. "So now what? I'd say we got maybe a couple of hours before we get dumped on."
"You hear how much we're getting?"
"Yeah. Two hundred dollars for this bullshit."
"I was talking about snow."
"I know what you were talking about."
"Maybe there's something back at the O'Malley's. Other that that, we just have to find Fat Pat or Swede."
"If the snow doesn't cover them up, we might be able to find a trail of fried chicken bones. That should lead us to Pat, at least."
"Do we have their numbers still?"
"What? You gonna call them and ask; 'Hey, you guys beat Ralphie O'Malley into a coma?', or do you have another question in mind?"
"Bring the mountain to Mohammed, my brother. We'll call them and say we need extra guys for a gig."
"Think they'll buy it? Fat Pat sure as shit qualifies as a mountain."
"They should. They're even dumber than us."
"True dat."
Back at The Cellar, Junior and I waited downstairs where the bands played. It was early enough in the day that the space was still completely empty.
Did I mentioned it was soundproofed?
Half an hour after I left a message on The Swede's voicemail, I could hear the huge, thumping footfalls that heralded Fat Pat's march down the stairs.
I crouched behind the gate opposite the entryway. They walked in, looking around for us in the darkened room, the only light emanating from the red exit signs.
"Where are they?" Fat Pat wheezed softly from the exertion of walking down a flight of stairs.
"What time they say to be here?" asked Swede.
I shut the gate with a slam, making them both jump in surprise. Well, Pat didn't jump exactly, but he did wiggle.
"Jesus, Boo," wheezed Fat Pat.
Behind them, Junior silently vaulted the bar, baseball hat in hand.
The Swede caught a glint of metal reflecting off my hand. Dumbly, he asked, "Why you wearing knuckles, Boo?"
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