A Town Called Malice

by Adam Abramowitz

  This is what happens when you swim with sharks, my father’s eyes tell me. There’s always blood in the water. The real trick is making sure it’s not yours.

  At least that’s the way I interpret them as the Rabbi joins us silently at the table. Whether I’m right or wrong, who can tell? But I understand my father differently now that I’ve made the same kind of decision he must have made in his past. I’ve been freed from the burden of judging him. Isn’t that a gift of sorts?

  “The scholar Nachmanides,” the Rabbi’s voice startles me, “refers to Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, as someone who lived his life like a maniac, the Bible even reporting that Jehu was known for driving his chariot wildly, in a disordered state.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Though Jehu is generally known more for slaughtering Judah and overthrowing the evil kings of Israel in an orgy of blood in the ninth century B.C.E. And, it must be noted, for personally trampling Jezebel to death. He was an unpredictable and disorganized man. But he did the Lord’s work even while he was the prince of instability. Is that where you are now, Zesty? Have you turned that corner?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I—”

  “Then consider this: You’re a messenger by trade, by temperament. Speed and efficiency are essential as you move towards your destination. Sometimes it is the same concept with spirituality. There is something to be said regarding spiritual efficiency. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “No.”

  “Simplified, then: Sometimes, perhaps, the most efficient route to spirituality is through fire.”

  “How would you know?” I say sharply. I know they’re unkind words, but I say them anyway.

  “I served in the Israeli Army.” The Rabbi grunts a silent laugh and rubs his bandaged knuckles. “Before being ordained. In Lebanon. You know of this?”

  “No.”

  “There, so now you do. And if I might have the last word: You know what I think your problem is, Zesty? You thrive in confusion. The more convoluted the situation, the more threads coming undone, the better you become. This is not an insult. Unpredictability focuses you and you convert it into formulas of probability as best you can. That is why poker runs in your family blood. Chaos becomes you. Chaos as tradition. There’s no need to close your heart around whatever it is you’ve done. It will be harder to serve your father if you do. You and Zero still have duties to fulfill. Obligations. Your father’s soul will soon be in your hands. It’s too soon for you to have a broken heart. You have a job to do.”

  When dawn breaks, my father has moved to the couch and rests with a blanket that I’d covered him with. The Rabbi sleeps nearby in the platform rocker. My father seems more withered under the thin covers, slighter than he’s ever been, older. I hear the early birds outside starting to sing for their meal money. They don’t seem to care what I’ve done, either. Life goes on if you let it, they sing. Sometimes maybe it really is just a choice.

  “I forgive you,” I whisper to my sleeping father. “I forgive you. And I’ll do what you couldn’t do, Dad. I’ll forgive myself, okay? You hear me? I won’t let it bury me. I know you can hear me.”

  I wake the sleeping rabbi with my foot. “I’m ready,” I tell him as he rubs his eyes and stretches himself out of the chair.

  “Ready for what, Zesty?”

  “To listen. To learn. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, Rabbi. Teach me the words you’ve been teaching Zero,” I say.

  And he does.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “You’re late.” Brill’s smoldering cigar jumps as he speaks. He’s in his overalls again, this time with large kneepads worn over the outside of the pants. If a volleyball game breaks out, he’s ready. There’s no door hanging yet on the bathroom, and I can see the plumbing has been installed and the floor tiles laid down, a nice pale blue-turquoise mix that reflects the late morning light on the white walls. It has the feel of a tranquil aquarium tank.

  Only the room smells of smoke. Badly. Not entirely cigar smoke.

  “You should get the flue checked,” I say.

  “Flue’s fine. You here to consult or work?”

  “Wells—”

  “Won’t even pick up a damn screwdriver unless it’s got a napkin wrapped around it and an orange slice sticking out the top.” Brill takes the cigar from his mouth and leans in close enough to my face to kiss me, searching my eyes for something that won’t be there.

  “Huh.” He leans back, satisfied. “Foxhole buddies forever. I’ll be damned.”

  “I’m here to work,” I say. “I already took your money, I’m just trying to earn it now.”

  “Well, all right then.” Brill returns me my space.

  “But you’re gonna have to show me, though. You realize that, right? This is all new territory to me.”

  “We’ll work on it together, then. It’s not like we got to build the foundation or anything. We’re at the point now where we’re just covering up and making shit pretty, smoothing over the rough edges. I was right about your taping job, though.” Brill points to the living room wall, small bulges running down the length of the Sheetrock panels where I’d worked with my unskilled hands.

  “We gonna redo it?”

  “Fuck no. Like you said, just cover it with some artwork or something. Anyhow, didn’t you say you were looking for a new place?”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Lee meets me in Zero’s office. There was no need to give him directions, he’s been here before.

  I take out Lee’s phone and place it on Zero’s desk as Zero drives his thumb below his eyebrow to dissipate the headache I’m causing him. Lee looks starched. Straight-up stiff in a suit.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t get rid of it.” Lee looks at the phone, but doesn’t touch it.

  “What’s the point, right? You can ping my locations anyhow, figure out where I’ve been. Is there anything else that phone can do?”

  “No,” Lee says. “It’s just a phone.”

  “A phone that doesn’t fucking exist.” Zero gives up on his self-healing touch, opting as he usually does to embrace the pain. Or at least the annoyance, the prophecy of the other shoe falling coming to immediate fruition.

  “That’s correct,” Lee confirms. “A phone that doesn’t exist and doesn’t have Zesty at the site of a double homicide, though nearby, which can be explained by his appearance onstage at the Hong Kong. By the way, how did your set go?”

  “Were you there?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “I killed,” I say.

  “Jesus Christ!” Zero exclaims.

  “No, it’s a good thing, I think,” Lee addresses my brother. “Hasn’t this always been the way he has coped?”

  Partners in suffering, Zero and Lee finally find something to agree on. It’s enough for Zero to swivel in his chair and spin the dial on the safe a few times before opening the heavy door. He sets a small wrapped bundle down next to the phone and uncovers it for Lee to see.

  “You ever go scuba diving, Lee? Florida? The Caymans?” Zero tilts his head toward the scuba gear in the corner. “I could give you a good deal on the suit.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I don’t blame you. After seeing all the shit that was still down there in the channel…” Zero shakes his head. “It’s practically an entire neighborhood, parked cars, half a building, I swear. If Atlantis had a ghetto, I just found it. And fuckin’ Gillette oughta be tarred and feathered for what they done.”

  “You strike me as an unlikely environmentalist,” Lee says.

  “What are you talking about? My boxes are made from recycled cardboard. Those giant rubber bands? Cut from old tire tubes. And my trucks, I’m having them converted to biodiesel.”

  “Interesting.” Something recalibrates in Lee’s eyes. A momentary pause like a GPS that’s just steered itself into a dead end.

  “Well, I got a kid now,” Zero explains. “It makes you see shit differently. We good?”

  “We
are.” Lee rewraps the rusted Glock and places it in the briefcase by his feet. “Don’t be surprised if Cambridge Homicide shows up to ask you a few questions. It’s just due diligence. They know nothing, will learn nothing, from the Bureau, from me.”

  “Powers and McGowan?” I ask.

  “Possibly. Depending on what Cambridge Internal Affairs already has on them or whether they want to own the stain of two corrupted Homicides. Anyhow, even if it is McGowan and Powers riding shotgun, it would not seem to be in their own best interest to solve this case, seeing how they are off their master’s chain now.”

  “That’s a good thing?” Zero looking at it from every conceivable angle, not entirely convinced. I want him to be convinced. Like both my parents, I made a choice that I thought was right, that was just. And in the heat of the moment.

  Zero really was more like my father, more calculating. Would he take out two dirty cops if he thought that was the play? I don’t doubt it for a second. I even believe Jhochelle would do it, trained Israeli sniper as she is. Who knows, maybe even the Rabbi would assist. Powers and McGowan wouldn’t even know they were dead.

  “I don’t believe they are smart enough to put all the pieces together, if that’s what you’re asking. But I do think that they’re intelligent enough in a self-serving manner to not look so hard. The same applies to the Russian Mob, what is left of it. We’ve picked up talk that perhaps Boston is not such a hospitable place to set up shop. The cost of everything is too high. Zesty is safe. Cambridge will make a big deal of the Nikita Kucherov and Antti Voracek killings, the papers as well. But wait for a little time to pass; Harvard will lend their considerable weight to convincing CPD to move on quietly since it was so close to their campus. After all, there are no mourners clamoring for justice in this case and remember, as far as statistics are concerned, Rambir falls under unsolved for Boston Homicide, not Cambridge.”

  “And what if Rambir does get solved?” I say. Knowing Wells, I could have said when Rambir gets solved.

  Lee is quiet for a long time as he plays the scenario out in his head. “That is entirely up to Detective Wells, I imagine.” Lee stares hard at me, letting me know that he knows I wasn’t alone on Bow Street. After all, there were two different guns used in the killing of Voracek and Kucherov, two different caliber bullets, which points to two shooters. “If he solves the Rambir murder, I suspect that he will control the narrative as best he can.”

  “You’re talking about Anitra Tehran,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “I think she’ll cooperate,” I say. “Though I doubt she’ll let him write the story himself.” By which I mean, she’ll have the inside track on her scoop and write her piece and collect her accolades and never really learn what Wells and I did for her. For Sam Budoff. For all of us.

  MIT won’t like it, whatever it turns out to be. But they have the machinery in place to limit the damage and someone more than capable of doing it in Rosalinda Worth. At least until she figures out it might be her conscience that’s bothering her, her name-memory issues maybe manifesting themselves out of guilt. But what the fuck do I know? Worth didn’t say she was losing sleep and we can justify just about anything when our backs are to the wall.

  “And what about you?” Zero looks to close the loop. “Your people?”

  “We will follow up on the files and see where they lead, but these are financial crimes we’re looking at, movement of money, wire fraud, perhaps money laundering. Essentially work for lawyers over expensive lunches and riverfront views.”

  “Tawdry,” I say, because it is tawdry and because it’s a classic word to be spoken in a heavy Boston accent, like cahs, and buhrds, and no holds bahhed.

  “Yes,” Lee agrees. “Tawdry to the extreme. Boston is awash in money. Real estate money. High-tech money. Though there is very little out there on the streets.”

  “Except for the nearly million in poker chips Sam has,” I remind Lee. “Rambir’s chips. Maybe Yuki Fuji’s chips.”

  “Like I said before, Zesty. That is Detective Wells’s call. As far as I know there were only two poker chips from Mr. Roshan’s socks and they are worthless. And that is all that I am putting in my report on the matter.”

  Which actually causes Zero to smile. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Agent Lee.” Zero brings the meeting to a close. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but unless you need someone to move you out of town I hope I never run into you again.”

  “Likewise.” They shake hands and look at me like a stain on the carpet they can’t get out.

  FORTY

  Wells and I share a table at Flour on Washington Street, the restaurant filled with green-and-blue-scrub-clad nurses and doctors from Mass General nearby. Or maybe we’ve stumbled into the casting call for the Boston version of ER.

  Wells looks the same. By which I mean he shows the aftereffects of copious manscaping, his green eyes radiant and alert, his fine pinstripe suit and solid blue tie making him look taller than he is, his shoes making him seem richer than he must be. A lot of coffees get spilled around us, both men and women distracted by his star quality and graceful bearing. He’d be the perfect wingman if he could just tone it down a little, not attract all the attention.

  Only, I can tell he’s changed. It’s the perfection that gives it away. It’s calculated now, where before it just seemed to come naturally. His hair is gelled to a shellacked finish, hard like black ice camouflaging a rough road.

  “We’ll talk about this one time, Zesty, and then never again.” Wells peers over my shoulder, feigning interest in a stunning brunet physician who wears her surgical scrubs like runway fashion.

  “We don’t have to talk about it at all.” I don’t feign interest in anyone. There’s no point with Wells beaming Day-Glo heartthrob.

  “No?” His eyes shift to mine. “There’s still unfinished business.”

  “I know,” I say. “You sure you want to do it here? Pretty public spot.”

  “It’s perfect.” Meaning it’s loud with twenty conversations over the din of ordering, the percussion of plates, silverware, and loose change. Put it all together, it sounds like Iron Man falling down a flight of stairs.

  “We did what we had to.” Wells gives me the full measure of his eyes.

  “I don’t need convincing,” I say.

  “I see that. But still, I’m sorry. Really, that’s why we’re here. I needed to tell you that.”

  “Why? What are you apologizing for?”

  “I could have done it myself. Should have.”

  “You mean like one, two, what’s the difference once you cross that line…?”

  “Yes. There was no need for you to cross it.”

  “Are you religious, Batista? You don’t really strike me as religious, but if you are, Cathedral’s right down the street, we could go together and square this away for you.”

  “You mean confession?”

  “No. I mean to get the weight of the angels off your shoulders. I think what’s bothering you isn’t that you shared the burden, responsibility, whatever you want to call it. It’s that you’re convinced it was the only way, that there wasn’t any other option. And that conclusion runs counter to your…” I can’t find the word. “It turns everything upside down for you” is what I manage.

  “Maybe. It doesn’t make it right.”

  “Yes, it does. It makes it exactly right. At least for me.”

  “And what does the Jewish faith have to say about this?”

  “I’m not religious, either.” I shrug.

  “Really?” Wells sips his coffee. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with the Rabbi lately.”

  I sit back and smile. “You’ve been watching me.”

  “Like I said, we had unfinished business.”

  “So you’ve seen me in Somerville, too, on Hall Avenue?”

  “Watching the blue house. Yes.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Sure. I talked to Solarte.”

 
“Wow, all up in my business,” I say calmly.

  “A business I’m told you’re pretty good at. Maybe you should think about it. You stack up apprentice hours with Solarte, get yourself a license, hang your own shingle after a while. Don’t tell me Martha wouldn’t join you in a heartbeat, trade quips with all the hot dames in furs that would come waltzing through your door.”

  “You mean live off all the cases you don’t solve? Pretty slim living.” I send Wells a rare compliment.

  “There are other types of cases, no?”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” I say. “Hell, I got a head start. I already drink Jameson.”

  “Exactly.” Wells reaches into his suit jacket, pulls out nothing, and then pantomimes placing it on the table between our coffee cups. He looks at me with the old sparkle in his eye.

  “What’s that?” I play along.

  “That,” Wells says, “is the cold case file on Camilla Islas. Go ahead, open it.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Wells opens his hands to the imaginary file. “Just that.”

  “That there really is no file?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I’m not following you,” I say.

  “Yes, you are, Zesty. Or you wouldn’t be watching the house. Or hitting the restaurants and bars around Camilla Islas’s old Davis Square neighborhood. You’ve already figured it out. You’re just not sure how to play the hand.”

  “Thanks for the poker allusion,” I say.

  “You’re welcome. I know it helps you see things for what they are.”

  “There used to be a cold case file,” I say.

  “Of course. Camilla Islas was declared dead in 1983, but the murder was never solved.”

  “So what happened to the file?”

  “Stolen, probably. Misplaced? I’d go with stolen.”

  “By retired detective Peter Polishuk.”

  “Who else is there?”