The Revenge of Liam McGrew: A Dermot Sparhawk Mystery

by Tom MacDonald

  “Don’t bullshit me, Dermot.” He walked to the door. “Wear the vest and don’t tell anyone where you got it.”

  IV.

  The graveyard gunfire and the telephone warning had to be connected. Maybe everything was connected: the pantry shooting, the money-fair heist, the cemetery, the warning. Or maybe I was trying to connect random events, forcing things together that didn’t belong together, but that didn’t seem likely. Something was going on, and I was in the middle of it. There had to be a common thread.

  I wanted to talk to my Micmac kin, Glooscap and Harraseeket Kid. I wanted to hear what they thought of all this, so I drove to their auto body shop in Andrew Square and parked at the Quonset garage at the end of the lot. Harraseeket Kid was standing over a workbench reading a computer monitor when I walked in. His shiny black hair was wound into a ponytail, his bronze skin taut and flawless.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I know you’re there, Dermot. You can’t sneak up on a Micmac.” He said this as he stared at the screen. “Everything is online these days. If you need a bumper, you buy it online. It used to be you looked it up in a parts manual and called in the order. Now it’s two clicks and the bumper is paid for and ready to be shipped.”

  “Is that good or bad?” I asked.

  Kid turned and looked at me. “Did a low-flying airplane clip your noggin?”

  I started to explain and he cut me off.

  “I heard what happened,” Kid said. “Somebody shot at you and a piece of granite ricocheted off your head. Cam told me about it. He’s worried about you.”

  “I know he is.”

  “I told Cam he had nothing to worry about.” Kid clicked off the monitor and a smile creased his reddish face. “I told him I’d be cleaning and loading my rifles tonight when I got back to Charlestown.”

  “I’m sure that put his mind at ease.” I slapped Kid on the shoulder. “I’d like to talk to you and Glooscap.”

  “He’s in his office, let’s go.”

  We went to Glooscap’s office and found him sitting behind his old wooden desk, lighting a bulldog pipe. His face could have been a model for the profile on a buffalo nickel: strong nose, solid jaw, high cheekbones, heavy brow, and pewter-colored hair. He blew out the match with a plume of cloudy smoke and told us to sit down.

  “I need your help,” I said, smelling the burning tobacco.

  “Go on, Dermot,” Glooscap said. “We are listening.”

  I talked about the pantry shooting and the newspaper ad. I told them about the cocktail waitress and the cabbie. I filled them in on the World’s Fair of Money and the $5,000 bill and the $100,000 bills. I finished by telling them about the warning and the gunfire at the cemetery. I didn’t bother telling them about Shelley. It didn’t seem relevant.

  “You just gave us an immense amount of information.” Glooscap took the pipe from his teeth and examined the bowl. “According to the waitress and the cabdriver, the youngster who shot you at the food pantry was Irish.”

  “That is correct.”

  “The other shooter, the one at the graveyard, got away clean,” Glooscap said. “It is logical to assume that the two shootings are linked and may have ties to Ireland.”

  Kid said, “The Irish thing worries me, Dermot. If they want you dead, you’re dead, end of discussion. The guy who called to warn you, was he Irish?”

  “Not Irish, he was Boston all the way, neighborhood Boston, not a yuppie.” I leaned back in the chair. “He sounded familiar.”

  Kid said, “Let’s go back to what Glooscap just said. What if the waitress, what was her name again?”

  “Delia.”

  “What if Delia and the cabdriver got together and concocted their stories? What if they were looking to score a few grand and conspired to snow you?”

  “It’s possible.” I smiled. That’s what I loved about Kid. He always looked for the angles. “But I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Kid leaned forward, ready to fight for his case.

  “I must have answered fifty calls on that ad, and almost all of them were bullshit. It’s funny how easy it is to spot a bullshitter after a while. You don’t even have to try it’s so easy. ” I thought about all the phone calls and something occurred to me. “I learned an important lesson these past few days.”

  Glooscap asked, “What lesson did you learn?”

  “I learned that cops know when someone is lying to them,” I said. “All you need is two ears, two eyes, and half a brain.”

  “That’s why cops work in pairs,” Kid said. “The two half-brains add up to one.”

  “Show some respect, Kid,” Glooscap said, tapping his pipe in the ashtray. “Our law enforcement personnel keep peace in this city.”

  Kid rolled his eyes and asked me, “What about the cemetery shooting? Did anyone see anything?”

  “No one has come forward yet,” I said.

  “It’s a good thing Cam was there to save your ass, or we’d be planning your funeral right now,” Kid said.

  “I know that.”

  Glooscap asked, “What do you plan to do, Dermot?”

  “I don’t know.” An image of Cam knocking me down flashed in my mind. “Kid is right. I’m alive because of Cam O’Hanlon.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Kid persisted.

  “Maybe I should hide out until I come up with a plan.”

  “Hide out?” Kid snorted. “Micmacs don’t hide out.”

  I knew what Kid meant. I didn’t like the idea either.

  “What if they come at me hard, Kid? I’ll be putting everyone around me in danger.” I stood and paced the room. “What happens to Buck if they storm the house? He’s in a wheelchair.”

  Kid said, “Buck is a damn good shot. He took care of business with that shotgun when he had to. And I have rifles in the basement.”

  Preparing for a Charlestown gunfight didn’t seem like the best strategy, but it had to be part of the strategy. If they, whoever they were, attacked the house, we had to be ready for them. When I suggested I might hide out, I was suggesting it for Buck’s sake. My instinct is to attack, and a man should follow his instincts.

  “Here’s what I propose,” I said. “We defend the house twenty-four seven, never leaving Buck alone. At the same time, I’ll find out who’s behind this.”

  Glooscap said, “I will help guard the house. We can divide the day into three eight-hour shifts, so we are fresh and alert.” He puffed the pipe, getting the bowl fiery orange. “Come to think of it, we can divide it into four six-hour shifts. A tribal friend named Vic Lennox wants to stay busy now that he is retired.”

  Kid chuckled. “Vic is perfect. He is one angry son of a bitch.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He bit off a man’s nipple in a bar fight in Allston.” Kid sat back as if savoring the moment. “Some asshole gave Vic trouble, and Vic chomped on the guy’s chest, bit him like a wolf in the grasslands. No one will get near Buck with Vic on duty.”

  “Probably should wear a chest protector if you fight him,” I said. Another crazy Micmac from Antigonish, God save us. “We have a plan.”

  §

  I left Glooscap’s office and walked through the garage with Kid at my side. He stopped near a car lift and said, “You need a gun.”

  “I’d probably shoot myself in the foot.”

  “I’m not joking.” Kid folded his arms across his chest. “You need protection.”

  A train leaving Andrew Station squealed and decompressed its air brakes. The piercing sound froze our conversation, putting us in limbo. The hissing ceased and the train lurched forward with a clunk of steel wheels on steel rails.

  I said, “I have nothing against guns, but I made it this far in life without one. I think I can make it the rest of the way without one, too.”

  “I�
�m telling you, Dermot, the world out there is a shit hole, full of lowlifes and thugs. Use your head, get a gun.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  We said goodbye and I left the garage. As I was walking to my car, I thought I saw something moving near the Quonset garage. I stopped and looked. Tall weeds and cat-o-nine-tails swayed in the wind and obstructed the sunlight, changing the reflections on the casement windows. Maybe that’s what caught my attention.

  I was wrong.

  A man walked toward me from the weeds, his smile broadening as he approached me. Did I know him? He had red whiskers and bright eyes, and he picked up speed as he got closer. My antennae went up for a second time, but they went up too late. He pulled out a gun and shot me. The bullet knocked the breath out of my body. He shot me again. I could barely breathe. Kid charged past me and tackled the man to the ground. Gasping for air, I jumped on the pile. Kid and I wrestled the man, rolling in the dirt like wild animals. The gun discharged. The man stopped fighting.

  “Holy shit!” Kid screamed. “What’s with your breathing?”

  “I got shot in the chest.” I gasped for oxygen. “I’m wearing a vest.”

  The impact of the bullets, I couldn’t get air. Kid tore open my shirt as I lay flat on the ground. He stripped free the Velcro straps and peeled the vest off my torso.

  Kid said, “No blood, the vest absorbed the bullets. The bruising already started. Your ribs are probably cracked.”

  My breathing began to normalize. After a few minutes Kid helped me to my feet and pointed at the attacker and said, “He’s not doing so hot.”

  “No, he’s not.” I squeezed the words out.

  Except for the blood oozing out of a hole in his throat, the gunman lay stock-still. More blood seeped from his ears and nostrils. I studied his face, I didn’t know him. I bent over, or at least tried to. My ribs throbbed as I checked for a wallet. His pockets were empty. A cell phone rang. I frisked him again and found nothing. It kept ringing. I rolled him on his side, corrupting the crime scene, and spotted the phone underneath him. I picked it up to answer it. Before I could say anything, a man with a brogue as thick as Mulligan stew said, “Don’t say a word, just listen. The hit is off, Mac. Forget about Sparhawk and come home.” He hung up.

  “Who was that?” Kid asked.

  “An Irishman calling off a hit on me,” I said.

  “Now will you get a gun?”

  Glooscap came out of the shop and asked if we got hit. We assured him we were fine. He said, “The police will be here shortly.”

  I took a picture of the dead man with my cell phone, and I tucked his cell phone into my pocket. Five minutes later a cruiser sped into the lot with its siren booming. Another one drove in behind it, followed by an unmarked car. Two uniformed cops cordoned off the area with yellow tape. A forensics team arrived and unpacked their van.

  An older detective with gray hair and tired eyes looked at me. I was shirtless and bruising and aching like a bastard. He said, “You need medical attention. I’ll phone for an ambulance. Let me see your license.” I handed it to him. He went back to his car and got on the radio. When he returned he pointed at Kid and said, “Get in the back of my car. We need to talk downtown.”

  The detective grabbed one of the uniformed cops and walked him over to me. He told me that the officer would follow me to the hospital and drive me to headquarters after the doctors gave the okay. And that’s the way it went. An ambulance took me to the hospital and a doctor examined me. She told me that my ribs were bruised but not broken, and that my welts were raw but not infected. After she cleared me, the cop drove me to headquarters.

  V.

  The police grilled me for three hours, and despite their verbal barrage, I didn’t give them much of value. I didn’t tell them that Cam had given me the Kevlar vest, and oddly enough they didn’t seem to care where I got it. I didn’t mention the dead man’s cell phone or the Irishman’s phone call. They finished the interrogation and let me out.

  When I got home I saw that Buck’s apartment door was open. He must have heard me in the stairwell, because he yelled for me to come in. Harraseeket Kid was relaxing in a recliner with a rifle on his lap. Buck was in his wheelchair next to him, unarmed. I sat on the couch and looked at Kid.

  “How did it go at headquarters?” I asked.

  “No problem,” he said.

  I rubbed my throbbing temples with the heels of my hands and said, “Someone wants to kill me.”

  “You should have been a detective,” Kid quipped.

  “And you two could get killed as collateral damage,” I said.

  “Nobody’s going to kill us.” Kid held up his rifle. “We can protect ourselves. We have an army of men at our disposal: Glooscap, Vic Lennox, you, me, Buck. I’m arming Buck with a shotgun, a pump-action twelve-gauge, which I’ll be loading pronto. I’m buying him more ammo, too.”

  I wish I were still wearing my Kevlar vest.

  “I talked to Glooscap on the way over here,” I said, hoping to change topics and quell Kid’s bluster. “We’re relocating for a week.”

  “Relocating?” Kid snapped.

  “I’ll be getting a hotel room. You two will be staying with Glooscap in Dorchester.” I turned to Buck and said, “Glooscap owns a huge house in Clam Point. It’s a safe place.”

  Buck nodded. Kid shook his head in dispute.

  “I say we stand our ground right here in Charlestown. We’re gonna look like a bunch of pussies if we up and run.” Kid waited for me to respond, but I didn’t, and he kept talking. “How do we catch these guys if we run away?”

  “We’re relocating, not running away,” I said. “To answer your question, I don’t know how we’re going to catch them, because I don’t know who they are. I don’t want anyone getting killed, including me. Moving is a safety measure, not a surrender.”

  “I don’t like it,” Kid said. “You’ve been shot to shit.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I want to blast back.” Kid held up the rifle again. “I don’t believe in foxholes, Dermot. I want to fight these bastards head-on.”

  “We’ll get our chance to fight, but let’s get our footing first.” I looked at Kid and said, “Foxholes aren’t a bad thing when you don’t know who’s shooting at you.”

  Buck added, “Dermot discussed the plan with your father, Kid. Glooscap is a smart man.”

  “Glooscap is a smart man,” Kid mocked. “Gimme a friggin’ break.”

  We talked more about it and got everything out in the open. Kid finally relented and agreed to the idea. Buck rolled forward.

  “Where did you say in Dorchester?”

  “Mill Street in the Clam Point section,” I said. “We move tomorrow.”

  Chapter Seven

  I.

  The next evening I went to the Blarney Stone to talk to Delia. She walked by my table without noticing me, so I waited. She jotted down an order from a couple at the next table and then she came to me.

  “What’ll ya have?” she asked, staring at her jotter.

  “A warm Coke,” I said.

  She looked up. “What are you doing here? I told you I don’t want to involve my work.”

  “It’s too late for that, Delia.” I stood up. “What time do you get off?”

  “You got nerve, you know that?” She knew I wasn’t going to budge. “My shift ends in ten minutes. Why?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “What if I don’t want to talk?” She pouted.

  “We have to talk,” I said. “I’d rather not make a scene in here.”

  “Damn you!” She shoved the pencil in her breast pocket. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  “I do what I have to do.”

  “Meet me out front in ten minutes,” she said. “I don’t want you lurking around in here getting me i
n trouble.”

  “Outside in ten,” I said.

  I sat on the hood of my car and waited. Fifteen minutes later Delia came out of the bar and lit a Chesterfield non-filter with a match.

  “I was hoping you’d be gone.”

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  The tobacco’s effect showed in her posture. Her shoulders relaxed and her face calmed. She dragged again and exhaled a chimney’s worth of exhaust into the air.

  “What’s so important you had to harass me at work?” she asked.

  “I want to show you a picture.” I brought up a photo on my cell phone. “The last time we talked you mentioned a man named Mac. Is this him?”

  I showed her the image. Delia gasped when she saw it.

  “That’s Mac,” she said in a shrill voice. “What happened to him?”

  “Mac is dead.” I told her.

  “Dead?”

  “He shot me, but I was wearing a bulletproof vest.” I lifted my shirt and showed her the purpling welts. “We wrestled, his gun went off, and the bullet killed him.”

  “I can’t believe this.” She took a big drag. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I didn’t want to kill him,” I said.

  “If you didn’t want to kill him, why is he dead?” She threw the cigarette at me and ran back to the Blarney Stone. When she got to the door, she turned and said, “Stay away from me or I’ll call the cops.”

  II.

  That night I stayed at the Boston Harbor Hotel at Rowes Wharf, a ritzy place that I never would have considered before the reward money. The facilities were tops and the staff was courteous, but I felt like an intruder, a voyeur peering into a world where I didn’t belong. The feeling of being an outsider could probably be traced back to my growing up in the projects. A football scholarship and a college degree can’t blot out a childhood of poverty.

  Up in my room I took off my shirt and looked at myself in the beveled mirror. The two bruises were darkening on my chest, one below my heart, one on the side of my stomach. Earlier today the bruises were raw and red. Soon they’d be mushy and purple. Thank God for the Kevlar vest or I’d be dead.