A Criminal Magic

by Lee Kelly

  I’ve been at Lorton Reformatory for three weeks, two days, and four hours of my six-week sentence for “attempting to sell magic contraband,” booked under the guise of running some of Danfrey Pharma Corp.’s remedial magic inventory around town. I’d swear it’s been three years, but that’s impossible, because I’ve been keeping track of everything. Twenty-two breakfasts staring at rows of inmates in sad gray jumpsuits hunched over metal trays. Twenty-two long mornings of making clay batter and shaping bricks in Lorton’s brick-making unit. Forty-four hours toiling around in the crisp fall air in the quad, waiting for someone to offer a smoke or a handshake.

  But no one does. Because I’m an island here. An island in a foreign, treacherous sea. A sea I’m constantly treading, because if I relax for a second, I might find myself with my face to the floor. It’s minimum security, mind you—no one in here’s doing hard time for hard crime—but that somehow makes it worse. As if everyone’s out to prove to the underworld that they’re on their way to bigger, badder things.

  Despite how much I despise these thugs, I need to transform myself into one of them. Like Frain said, I need to embrace my story—become my father’s legacy. Walk inside his underworld, turn it upside down, and destroy it.

  Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the chance. The cell mate that Agent Frain arranged for me to bunk with—my supposed “door” to the Shaw Gang—hasn’t looked at me twice since I was booked into his room, and he sure as hell hasn’t addressed me. Guy’s name is Howard Matthews, Howie, a second-­generation Irishman prone to tall tales and grandiose ideas, one of those self-important greaser types who thinks he’d be running the Shaws already if people would just sit up and start paying ­attention. He’s uncomfortable to look at, and in an eight-foot-by-eight-foot cell, it’s impossible to look at anything else: matted hair that grows past his ears, wide eyes, a lean, jittery torso that looks like it thrives on sorcerer’s shine but has been denied it for weeks. In short, someone I wouldn’t look at twice, if the Feds weren’t holding me over a barrel to do it.

  Day in, day out, I hear Howie at mealtimes, holding court around the small-time Shaw men who have been busted for petty crimes and burglaries, telling different versions of the same stories about his adventures running with his bigwig cousin Win Matthews, some hard-boiled Shaw underboss, from what I can gather. Howie knows who I am, I’m sure of it, as the prison guard who brought me in made a big show of introducing us, I guess hoping that the inherent tension between Richard Danfrey’s son and an up-and-coming Shaw might result in some future entertainment. But Howie didn’t bite.

  “You in here for running too?” I finally attempted conversation several nights ago from my bottom bunk, when the darkness and the silence between us grew so heavy, I started to feel like I was getting crushed underneath it.

  Just more silence.

  “You’re a Shaw boy, right? Smuggling for Boss McEvoy?”

  No answer from Howie but breathing.

  “How long you in here for, chap—”

  “What’s that buzzing sound?”

  My heart started hammering—nervously? hopefully?—at the sound of his voice. “Buzzing sound?”

  “That right there, a buzzing, like a fly,” he said.

  “Sorry, chap, are you—”

  “God, there it is again,” he said to himself, apparently. “Sounds tinier than a fly, actually. Pesty, like a flea. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.”

  Then it was my turn to be silent.

  “Much better,” Howie mock-whispered to himself. “’Cause if that flea starts flitting around again, I’ll have no choice but to swat it.”

  That was nearly a week ago, and I haven’t said another word to Howie since. Now it’s back to hard eyes and sideways looks between us, awkward dances around each other for the toilet, a forced, silent fox-trot as we climb past each other into our cots.

  The dull fear that’s always festering inside me is starting to grow into genuine panic, gnaw at me from breakfast until bed. I’m more than halfway through my sentence with nothing to show for it: if I can’t get in with Howie by the time I leave, I come out on paper as a small-time magic runner with a record. The Prohibition Unit has officially discharged me since my “arrest,” and Frain’s threats are always echoing in my ears.

  There is no safety net in this situation.

  So I need to win this Howie over soon.

  I’m debating the “how” during lunchtime, the meal a variation of the one from yesterday and the day before that, a plate of potatoes, Broadway-bright carrots, and a dark, unidentifiable meat. So I look around the room, debating, watching, listening. We’ve separated ourselves in the long, windowless mess hall like students in a high school cafeteria: the D Street Outfit and Italian small-timers keep to the front left. There’re the Mexicans and the blacks near the windows, and on the right—the first few tables nearest to the kitchen—the junior Shaws and their Irish hangers-on. Then there’s a wide sea of unprotected men, who bob along like fools tossed overboard who didn’t think to buy a life raft.

  This is my territory. I’ve eaten alone every day since I got here.

  I run through my options as I sit, stirring my mushy carrots. Sorcering a trick for Howie—a rabbit out of my ass with no context—seems almost juvenile, forced. Like I talked about with Agent Frain when he drove me down to the station a few weeks back, for as moronic as Howie might read on paper, he’s got street smarts. And a guy showing up in his cell, trying to wow him with magic when Boss McEvoy just lost his right-hand sorcerer? Too convenient.

  But provoking a fight with him, showing him I’ve got balls, that I’m not afraid of a rumble? That could backfire.

  A voice interrupts my thoughts with, “Seat taken?”

  Across from me, perched over the opposite side of the table, stands a large man in his forties. He’s got a tough face that’s seen far too many long days, and a head of hair that’s thick and thinning in all the wrong places. I’ve seen him hanging on the bleachers in the prison quad with the D Street Outfit crowd: the gang that used my father up and sold him down the river. I don’t recognize this goon from my days of working with my father, but it doesn’t matter. My hatred for D Street doesn’t discriminate.

  The guy doesn’t wait for my answer, just lifts one of his legs over the bench and settles in across from me. “Ronny Justi.” There’s no handshake with the introduction. “Don’t worry, we already found out who you are.”

  His use of “we” prompts a thick, hard lump to form at the top of my throat. I’m not surprised D Street put two and two together, obviously—it was only a matter of time before one of those goons got wind of who I am, and what I supposedly did to land myself in here.

  I just thought I’d be under the Shaws’ protection by the time they put it together.

  “You’re Richard Danfrey’s son.” Ronny leans over the table, mock-whispering, like we’re just a couple of chums sharing a secret. “A bunch of us heard the guards talking about you in the yard this morning. Didn’t know we had a celebrity among us commoners.”

  I turn back to my iridescent carrots and start picking at them.

  “What, cat got your tongue?”

  I steady my voice. “Just not in the mood for conversation.”

  “Loner type, eh? I can respect that.” Ronny leans in closer. “But it’s a funny thing I heard those guards talking about, turns out. Some of them were saying you were in here for running magic contraband.” He keeps up with his mocking tone, that dance between chummy and threatening. “But I thought, that can’t be right. Because any son of Richard Danfrey would be smart enough to check in with his daddy’s D Street keepers before distributing any inventory around.”

  Daddy’s D Street keepers. As if my father was just a D Street pet, or a joke. And the worst part, the part that bugs me more than anything else, is that at the end of the day, this thug’s right.

  But I
don’t want to show Ronny that he’s getting to me, so I don’t even look at the bastard. I keep my eyes on my lunch, imagine becoming bigger, stronger, like I’m transforming myself into steel and nightmares, something Ronny can’t touch.

  “Fact, we’ve been over there talking about you since this morning, friend,” Ronny adds. “A big debate on what we should do with you.”

  The mess hall has gotten a little quieter, as we’re right in the middle of the room, like a goddamned circus stage. So without having to look, I can bet that Howie’s table is listening. I can practically feel the Shaws’ eyes on me.

  But maybe that’s not a bad thing—Christ, maybe this is the chance I’ve been waiting for, to show Howie where my allegiance lies, and where it doesn’t. It’s a risk, a huge risk, antagonizing this D Street gangster in the hopes of catching the eyes of the Shaws—but I’m running out of time, and out of options.

  So I force myself into the deep, dark water, and plunge in. “‘Keepers’ is sort of a misnomer, isn’t it?” I say slowly, finally meeting Ronny’s eyes. “Because ‘keepers’ implies that someone’s watching out for you, and taking care of you. And your D Street operation let my father get sold out to the Feds. He’s in for three decades, friend, maybe more. So ‘keepers’? That’s a joke.”

  At this, Ronny gives a spit of a laugh. Then he raises his hands a bit—a begrudging concession. “You know what? Boss Colletto might agree with you. Hell, I agree with you. Our entire outfit had Loretto and Mongi’s numbers for what they did—caving to the Feds, selling a prime asset like your father down the river to save themselves a couple years in jail. It was wrong. Boss Colletto wanted to make things right. Lots of folks wanted to make things right. Trust me,” he says flatly, “things have been righted.”

  I don’t give this thug any kind of nod or indication that I agree. I’m sure Loretto and Mongi, the two goons who rattled off my father’s laundry list of crimes to the Feds this past spring when they were caught with fifty gallons of remedial spells marked DANFREY PHARMA CORP. in the back of their Model T—I’m sure they’re riddled with holes right now. Stuffed into some Dumpster or floating at the bottom of the Potomac for thinking of their own skins over the future of D Street. But that doesn’t do anything for me. That doesn’t give my family our lives back, doesn’t erase the year of pressure and threats that Colletto wielded over my father. And so even though my heart’s so wound up on fear it might spring out of my chest, there’s something else ticking inside me too. Relief. Maybe even excitement. Because this is a moment I’ve actually dreamed about—a chance to tell Colletto’s gang how much I despise them. Regardless of what’s for the Feds, this moment—this is also for me.

  Ronny gives a big, put-on sigh and looks back to his table of D Street cronies in the corner. “Look, I understand your . . . hesitation to make amends, Baby Danfrey.” He shifts in his seat. “But it’s time to let bygones be bygones. You understand? You let the past go.” He drops his voice, I assume so the guards can’t hear. “You work for us until your father’s debts are paid.”

  I stare at Ronny for a long while, way too long. It’s definitely more uncomfortable for me than for him, but I make myself do it. “I’m not ready for that.”

  The corners of Ronny’s mouth start twitching. “I urge you to rethink that, ’cause your father had an arrangement with Boss Colletto. And that final shipment of spells he owed us? That was paid for in advance, check signed, sealed, and delivered. So as far as we see it, anything you’re trying to sell on your own in DC should fall back to us. And any way you slice it, you running magic is something Boss Colletto needs to know about. We own you, till you make it right.”

  “No.”

  Ronny grabs my hand across the table, ending my meal. His face has started to flush, and there’s a thin coat of perspiration seeping from his patchwork hairline to his brow. “Excuse me, did I just hear a no? This isn’t a negotiation.”

  I force myself to look him in the eye again. “You’re right”—I wedge the words past the lump in my throat—“we’re done here. I’m finished with your guinea operation.”

  Ronny tightens his grip around my wrist, twists his neck a bit, and slowly leans forward. “What did you just call me?”

  I’ve gotten into tons of fights before, but nothing like this. I’m trying to push a gangster past the brink. A gangster from a gang that kept my father drenched in sweat and nightmares. A gangster almost double my size. Howie better be watching.

  “You heard me.” I focus on keeping my voice steady and my lunch in my stomach. I pop an overcooked carrot in my mouth and push it to the side with my tongue. Then I add with a bite, “Guinea.”

  An odd, thick vein in Ronny’s forehead starts pulsing, and his face begins to redden. He’s big, but he’s fast—he lets go of my wrist and grabs my tray with both hands in one jerky motion, then throws it right in my face. The dull metal edge knocks me in the chin, and the last of my potatoes hits my forehead with a thick, wet thwap.

  I don’t let myself pause to wipe my eyes.

  I spring out of my seat like a jack-in-the-box, lunge for Ronnie, and grab his collar. Then I send his head crashing onto the table.

  The mess hall goes wild, and the D Street boys in the corner shove away from their benches and start running toward my table to aid their man, shouting, fists up and ready. I can feel their advance, I can see them out of the corner of my eye—and if Howie and his dirty Shaw men don’t decide to hop and come to my rescue, I’m going to get pulled apart.

  A lukewarm shout of a warning comes from one of the prison guards in the corner. “All right, settle. Settle!”

  But none of the guards have moved, and the D Street boys keep coming for me, a tidal wave in the distance approaching like a slow, steady roll.

  Ronny lurches and thrashes against my grip, his hands snaking and jerking over his head, blindly trying to grab me and pull me off. I tighten my hold, pull him across the table, and throw him onto the floor at my feet.

  For a second, my desire to use magic burns like an itch. I could conjure a spell quicker than this thug could blink, could try to teleport a tray right into his skull. Better yet, conjure a force field around me and slip out of the mess hall. But I can’t risk it. If a guard catches me sorcering a single trick, it would double my sentence.

  Besides, I don’t want the help of tricks.

  I want it to be my bare hands that rip this guy apart.

  I sit on top of Ronny’s chest, tuck my legs under me as I straddle his stomach. And then I just start pummeling him. I bring my fist down, hard, against his cheek. He keeps reaching for me with both hands, but I’ve got the advantage of pinning him down, so I take another jab, then another, to his jaw. Blood starts gushing from his nose, and he’s stammering, playing defense with wild arms and loose fists.

  But before I can take another blow, I’m lifted off him in one fell swoop and thrown headfirst into the table. I hit the ground with a thud, my lungs slapping against the hard tile of the mess hall. I roll over, but all I see are legs towering over me, a shadow splayed across my features. I close my eyes out of instinct, raise my hands to block my face—

  But then the shadow’s gone. I scramble to the table’s bench a few feet away to steal a breath. Who had my back? I grip the edge of the bench, steadying myself, and stand.

  And then I’m face-to-face with my cell mate, Howie Matthews.

  His hands are up like a boxer’s, his brow stitched, and his mouth open mid war cry, and for a second I wonder if I’ve somehow managed to get double-teamed—that I have both D Street and the Shaws after me—but then Howie turns around and starts pummeling some dark-haired greaser behind him.

  The fight has ballooned, at least ten, maybe twenty, men sparring and swatting at one another, the D Street boys who flew to Ronny’s side, and yes, yes, yes, the Shaws to mine. I take quick stock of the scene, at the smattering of brawls—two young gu
ns locked together like wrestlers on the ground. A sinewy older man whaling on some lanky teenager. A fistfight at the nearby table.

  The place is chaos.

  “Goddamn it, you half-wits!” a prison guard shouts above the noise. He smacks my table with his baton, and a deep boom clangs through the mess hall. “ENOUGH!”

  Everyone stops moving and turns to look at him. Everyone, except for Ronny. Ronny crawls off the floor slowly and stands. And then like a wounded dog that won’t stay down, he lunges for me. I duck out of the way, as the guard steps in and shoves his baton into the thick of Ronny’s stomach. Three other guards approach from my left side, guns and batons out. They surround our table, pistols drawn and pointed into the crowd.

  And then you can’t hear anything but deep breathing and the clanking of spoons from the mess hall workers in the nearby kitchen.

  * * *

  We’re all filed back into our rooms, doors locked behind us, outdoor privileges forfeited for the day. I know I just painted a mark on my back for D Street’s target practice, but I also know that it was worth it.

  Because that night, for the first time, Howie speaks to me. He waits until we’ve both washed up and are in our separate cots.

  “That was a hothead move, Danfrey,” he says from the top bunk, “taking on that D Street prick solo.”

  My heart starts beating overtime. He’s talking to me. I did it. It begins. I study the bottom of his bunk, trying to figure out the best way to play this, to use his comment as a wedge to prop open the door.

  “Maybe,” I say as coolly as possible. Bring it home, win him over. “But that thug was making claims he had no right to make. I don’t owe D Street anything.”

  I hear Howie’s bed squeak above me. “Well, that’s a damn wop for you. Invite him over for dinner, he’ll try to screw your wife, then have the balls to stay for breakfast.”

  I laugh, the laughter coming easy, a bubble of relief. “Isn’t that the truth?”

  It’s a while before Howie speaks again. “So you really severed all ties with the D Street Outfit? ’Cause I might’ve thought, like father like son, even after those lowlifes sold him out to the Feds—”