The Revenge of Liam McGrew: A Dermot Sparhawk Mystery

by Tom MacDonald

  I emerged in Maverick Square and navigated my way to Border Street, the location of the meeting. As I was driving by Project Bread and the Atlantic Works complex, my cell phone rang. I said a quick prayer that it was somebody calling about the composite sketch, even if that somebody turned out to be another chucklehead. I got my wish.

  The caller, a soft-spoken woman with a tremor in her voice, asked about the ad in the paper. Before I could answer, she asked if she had called the right number, and then she asked about the reward money. Her voice went from trembling to frantic, as if panic had set it. I told her that she had called the right number and that the reward money was still on the table. She breathed a sigh of relief and said thank God, she wasn’t too late.

  I urged her to relax and assured her that she had called in plenty of time, and then I said, “Why don’t you tell me about the kid in the sketch.”

  “Yes, I can do that. I think I can do that, I mean, I can tell you about him, a little bit anyway.” She was all over the place. “I met him at a club in Davis Square.”

  She confessed that the meeting had been brief, no more than an exchange of hellos. I asked her when she met him and she told me. She had met him the night before he was drinking at the Blarney Stone. Her credibility inched forward. I asked her if she knew his name. She said that if he told her his name, she didn’t remember it. She went on to say that she probably wouldn’t have remembered him at all if not the newspaper sketch. She kept talking and seemed to be settling down. Her thoughts became more collected.

  I listened to her as I drove along, grateful to be listening to anybody at this point. She said a few things I found interesting, so I agreed to meet with her. She wanted to meet tonight if that was possible, but she didn’t want to impose. I told her that she wasn’t imposing and that tonight would be fine.

  “I’ll meet you at the Rack Club in Chelsea,” she said. “It’s on Beacham Street in the meat-packing district. Do you know the area?”

  I knew the area, all right. Beacham Street was dangerous enough in daylight, let alone in darkness, but at least the big trucks wouldn’t be humping by at night.

  “I know it,” I said.

  “Do you know King Arthur’s Lounge?” she asked.

  If Beacham Street was the toughest street in Chelsea, then King Arthur’s Lounge was the toughest address on Beacham. Even Townies steered clear of the place.

  “I know King Arthur’s.”

  “The Rack Club is across the street,” she said. “There’s a parking lot in back. That’s the best place to park, in back. You’ll have the money with you I hope. Am I being too pushy? I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “I’ll have the money with me, and no, you’re not being too pushy.”

  “I think I can help you with the sketch, but it has to be worth my while. I hope you understand.” She cleared her throat. “Did I tell you I have a picture of him? I wasn’t taking a picture of him specifically, but he’s in the background with his friends. Will that help you?”

  Will that help me? Was she kidding?

  “The picture will definitely help,” I said.

  “You said cash, is that right?”

  “Yes, cash,” I said. “And don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while. That’s why I put the reward in the paper, to buy information.”

  She sighed again, sounding relieved.

  “Ask the bartender for Shelley. That’s me, Shelley. He’ll point me out to you. I get off work at eleven-thirty. I should be there by midnight, ten past at the latest.”

  §

  That evening I ate barbecued ribs at Tommy Floramo’s (where the meat falls off the bone), attended an AA meeting at the Soldiers’ Home, and drank too many cups of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts on Everett Avenue. At eleven-thirty I drove up Beacham Street, a bronco ride over potholes, hubcaps, and railroad tracks, and I parked in back of the Rack Club as instructed. The cars in the lot looked like losers in a demolition derby, and I had a feeling I’d be seeing more of the same inside.

  I entered the club through the rear entrance at ten minutes to twelve. The bartender, an old geezer with a soft belly and a blooming face, was leaning against the bar watching a flat-screen TV, the only contemporary thing in the joint. He didn’t turn to look when the door slammed behind me. Two hunched men sat on barstools drinking shots of something clear, and it was clear by the way they teetered on their stools it wasn’t water. In one of the ratty booths, a dandy wooed a floozy, and she seemed to be enjoying the wooing, which probably didn’t happen often to her. They sat together on the same side of the booth on the same Naugahyde bench, slurring sweet nothings into each other’s cauliflower ears.

  I said to the barman, “I’m looking for Shelley.”

  “Who?” he asked, with his eyes glued to the bar’s flat-screen.

  “Her name is Shelley. She said you’d know her.”

  “I didn’t know they had names.” He turned the channel. “I can’t help you, unless you want a drink.”

  “I’ll have a Coke, no ice.”

  “A Coke straight up? That’s a first, even in here.” He looked at me and sneezed on his sleeve. “Okay, pal, a Coca-Cola it is.” He poured it into a collins glass from a soda fountain dispenser.

  I sat in a booth and waited for Shelley. The two men at the bar ordered refills of tequila, sans the salt and lemon. They were as pickled as the worm in the bottle. The couple in the booth touched glasses and slobbered on each other, their passion budding with each rotgut swig. It was midnight and no sign of Cinderella. At twelve-thirty Shelley still hadn’t arrived. At one o’clock the barman gave last call, and at one-thirty he told us to finish our drinks and leave the premises. I put my glass on the bar and went out the back door, saying to myself you can’t win ’em all. Shelley must have got spooked.

  On my way to the car, two white men stepped out from behind a cargo van and came toward me. One of them carried a bowie knife, the other one had a baseball bat. They were wiry men, fidgety and sniffling. Drug addicts no doubt. They crept closer to me, guardedly, like animals stalking prey. And I knew what they were going to say before they said it.

  “Give us the money,” the batsman demanded. “C’mon, let us have it.”

  I wanted to give them the money, I really did, but I couldn’t. I’m a Townie.

  “I can’t do that,” I said.

  The two men came closer. This time the knifeman spoke.

  “You’re gonna get busted up bad, bones broken for nothing. Just give us the money and we all go home safe.” He hesitated. “You might be big, but you ain’t that big.”

  I scooped up a fistful of gravel and said, “I don’t want to hurt you guys.”

  The batsman, no David Ortiz, plodded toward me and raised the bat. I threw the sandy mixture into his face, a beanball of dirt and pebbles. He dropped the bat and pawed at his eyes. I stepped up and booted him between the legs. He hopped off the ground, cupped his crotch, and pitched forward, shrieking.

  The knifeman stood frozen, a man out of his element, but a man forced to make a tough decision within that element. I said to him, “Pick up your friend and go home. Get out of here and I won’t call the cops.”

  He ignored my advice and came at me, waving the knife like an extra in West Side Story. I suppose he had no choice but to come at me. Two grand buys a lot of dope. He lunged like a fencer, thrusting the blade to within an inch of my gut. I jackknifed back, got hold of his knife hand, and forced the weapon away from my ribs. He tried to pull his arm away but I wouldn’t let go. I jerked him toward me and head-butted his ear. The butt hit hard, hard enough that I saw stars. God knows what he saw. I drew back my head and blasted him again.

  He reeled like a boxer in trouble, disoriented and looking for help. But in vacant lots on Beacham Street there is no help. There are no neutral corners or cut men to succor your wounds. You won’t hea
r a bell to end the round, unless it’s ringing inside your head. On Beacham Street, you’re on your own.

  I twisted his arm, but he bravely held on to the knife. Spreading my feet for leverage, I leaned in and torqued it once more. Something popped like a champagne cork. His arm rotated limply, flopping like a drumstick snapped from a turkey. I’ve never heard a wolf howl in the wild, but that’s what I thought of when he wailed.

  He fell to his knees and folded into a fetal curl. I kicked away the dagger, not that he’d be using it anytime soon. He wouldn’t be using his arm for anything anytime soon, except to get painkillers. His partner, the batsman, crawled on all fours, searching for his breath, or perhaps his privates. Neither man seemed game to continue, so I walked to my car and drove home to Charlestown.

  §

  Up in my bedroom, with the shades drawn and the lights low, I thought about Shelley’s phone call. I’d been too eager, and she sensed it, and she seized on it. She teased me until I was salivating and then hooked me like a guppy in a fishbowl. I’d been building momentum and I wanted to keep it going, and as a result, I ignored the warning signs and jumped into her trap. She did a nice job of it. I’ve seen this happen in football games, when a team uses a player’s aggressiveness against him. They let him get away with a few things, and when he’s ripe, the quarterback pump fakes, the player bites, and the receiver blows by him and catches the winning touchdown pass.

  Game over.

  I opened the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Step Ten suggests that we take a daily inventory of our actions, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Was I wrong tonight? Did I go too far, drubbing those men the way I did? I contemplated the battle. I didn’t put the boots to them after I subdued them. No gratuitous blows were struck. Once they were defeated I walked away. I concluded that I acted within the boundaries of street etiquette. Step Ten done, I got on my knees, thanked God for another day of sobriety, and went to bed.

  Chapter Six

  I.

  A massive salt dune edges the north side of Charlestown on Terminal Street, but unlike the dunes in Provincetown and Truro, this one didn’t result from millions of years of natural events. It resulted from a few months of dump trucks piling salt there for snowplows to use in the winter. In the summer the mound is covered with a dark tarp, a blackhead on the face of our historic town, but I guess the salt has to go somewhere.

  I was parked across the street from the briny bank, eating a meatball sub and drinking a Coke, when my cell phone rang. I flipped it open and a man spoke.

  “Watch your back. There’s a hit on you.” He hung up.

  His voice sounded familiar, but he never said my name. If the warning were legitimate, he would have said my name. Right? The phone rang again, and again it was a restricted number, but this time it was Cameron O’Hanlon, my cousin on the Irish side of the family. Cam was one of Boston’s finest, and after we exchanged hellos, he asked me if I was busy tomorrow. I told him I wasn’t.

  “Good, because there’s a memorial service at Holyhood Cemetery, and I’d like you to go with me.”

  “Did someone in the family die?”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s an annual event, something to do with Irish history, a tribute to a rebel fighter named John Boyle O’Reilly, whoever he was. Anyway, my sergeant is playing the pipes at the service and I told him I’d go. I haven’t seen you in a while, and I figured I could treat you to a burger at Doyle’s afterwards.”

  “You hooked me with Doyle’s,” I said.

  Cam told me that the service started at ten o’clock and that Holyhood Cemetery was located in Brookline. He also said that the graveyard wasn’t very big and that I’d have no trouble finding the site once I got there. I finished my sandwich and drove to the noontime meeting at Saint Jude Thaddeus. At the end of the meeting we stood for the Lord’s Prayer, stacked the chairs, mopped the floors, and locked the door.

  So far, no one had tried to kill me.

  II.

  The next morning I took Route 9 to Brookline and turned on to Heath Street for the burial grounds. A plaque at the entrance read Holyhood Cemetery, Consecrated 1857. I drove through the gates and rolled past the Kennedy family plot and countless statues of the Blessed Mother and the headstone of James Connolly, a triple jumper from South Boston who won the first gold medal in the modern Olympic Games.

  I powered down the windows and cruised on an asphalt lane on a perfect summer morning. A lone acorn popped under my tire, prompting a group of mourners to look my way. I crested a hill and heard the faint whine of a bagpipe, the drone of the dead, and I followed it over a leafy knoll to the site of the John Boyle O’Reilly Memorial.

  My cousin Cameron O’Hanlon was standing next to a kilted piper, who seemed to be catching his breath between toots. I joined them on the greensward. The gathering was small, maybe fifty or sixty people, mostly older, mostly of Irish descent: men with ruddy complexions, women with rosary beads.

  A priest with an Irish timbre invoked a Gaelic blessing. A wind gust bent the shrubs surrounding us. The altar server, a freckle-faced boy wearing a white surplice, lit an incense thurible that emitted a funereal scent. A chipmunk bustled out of the bending shrubs and burrowed into a decaying stump. I must have arrived late, because the priest closed his breviary and brought the service to an end. The piper blew a choppy rendition of Danny Boy, and when he finished, Cam introduced us.

  “Dermot, this is Sergeant Fran Dillon.”

  “You played great,” I said to Fran, a tall man with kind blue eyes.

  In typical Boston-Irish fashion, Dillon sidestepped the praise. “Henderson bagpipes, even a greenhorn can sound okay with them.” He fitted the pipes into a hard case and went on his way.

  “Doyle’s for lunch?” Cam asked.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  As I walked through the thick grass the back of my neck tingled, maybe from the eeriness of a graveyard, and then goosebumps prickled on my arms. I searched the grounds, but all I saw were old folks walking back to their cars. Then I heard a crack. A bullet ricocheted off a grave marker and a chip of granite struck my forehead. Stars flashed behind my eyes.

  “Get down!” Cam yelled.

  He knocked me flat as a second shot rang out. We crabbed to a gravestone and took cover. Cam came up, gun drawn, but he didn’t fire. He sprinted to the hedged perimeter and then a hundred yards beyond to a stone wall that enclosed the cemetery. I did my best to keep up with him, but my legs still ached from the surgery and slowed me down. I eventually caught up to him. We saw nothing of the gunman.

  “Your head is bleeding,” he said.

  “A piece of granite hit me,” I said.

  “I have to call this in, Dermot. Stick around.”

  “Right” I touched my forehead and looked at my bloody palm. “I guess the burger at Doyle’s is out.”

  III.

  Four hours later I was standing on my front steps with Captain Pruitt, who was not too pleased with me. “What happened to your face?”

  “I was born this way.”

  “Wise ass, I’m talking about the cut on your head,” Pruitt scoffed. “Tell me what’s going on. First you get shot at the food pantry, and now someone shoots at you in a cemetery. What are you into?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t shooting at me,” I said, not mentioning the phone warning. “Somebody fired a gun, that’s all.”

  “Don’t get cute with me. He aimed at you and he fired at you. It’s a good thing Cam O’Hanlon knocked you down or you’d be dead.” Pruitt stared at me, his intense brown eyes studying my face. “Look, Sparhawk, you’re not bad a guy, and I’d hate like hell to see you get killed, but I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, and that’s the truth.” Why didn’t I want his help? “If I find out anything, I’ll call you. Right now there’s nothing
to say.”

  Pruitt grumbled and cussed and said that I was holding out on him, and that I was a prima donna, and that I was trying to be a hero. He finally gave up and went back to his unmarked car and drove away. Another car pulled up as soon as Pruitt left. My cousin Cam O’Hanlon, no longer in uniform, got out carrying a shopping bag.

  “I was waiting for Pruitt to leave,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

  We went up to my apartment and sat in the parlor. I asked Cam if he wanted something to drink. He said no and put the shopping bag on the coffee table.

  “A Kevlar vest,” Cam said. “Someone is trying to kill you, and I’m not going to let that happen. Do you have any idea who it is?”

  “I wish I did,” I said.

  “I saw your ad in the Herald.” Cam sat on the couch and crossed his ankles. “Did anyone answer it?”

  I was surprised that Captain Pruitt hadn’t shoved the ad in my face as part of his upbraiding. Maybe he was saving it for later.

  “A few people called, mostly cranks. Two of the callers sounded promising, so I met with them.” I thought about Delia, the Blarney Stone waitress. I thought about “combover”, the cabbie who didn’t log the Charlestown fare. The last thing they needed was to get dragged in for questioning. “They didn’t tell me much.”

  “You’re something, you know that? A maniac is out there trying to kill you, and you want to do it all by yourself.”

  “Cam, I’m just trying to–”