They could all see a shudder move up her back and curl her shoulders. She went through the door, across the storefront, and out into the rain, slamming the door. The noise sank slowly below the surface of an oceanic silence.
This, Terry thought while staring into his smug brother's face, is where I am supposed to fall apart He knew that he had spent his entire life avoiding this confrontation because of an inborn assumption that he would not survive it And he knew that that assumption had been far from groundless. Apparently calm, in fact he was completely cut off from his own inner reaction to the things Squire had said. Max? What about Max?
Finally Terry looked over at Bright. "Okay, let's go." They began to move.
"About my box."
Terry faced Squire from the threshold. "If you want this box, you'll have to kill me for it."
Squire shrugged elaborately, but he could not hide his confusion. Had he just lost after all? But hadn't he played his ace? His Max? He hesitated before saying glumly, "I'm no killer. Don't you know that about me?"
"Nick, I know nothing about you."
"That's not true, Charlie. Just look at yourself. We're not so different Whether you'll ever admit it again or not, we're brothers, you and me. Always will be."
Terry just shook his head. He'd come here to protect Bright, but now he saw how he had to protect himself—from the truth of what Nick was saying.
"Right?" Squire came unsteadily toward him. "Aren't we brothers?"
Terry backed away, clutching the cigar box in a way that drew Squire's attention.
Squire threw his hand toward it "Hell, I don't need that shit anymore anyway. Take the tapes. I don't care."
Terry left, but not before having seen the meaning of all those years of kicking away the clutching hands that had sought to draw him back. Now he saw whose hands they'd always been.
***
Squire did not move for a long time. The pops, he decided, he should never have had those pops. He'd felt so blue before, which was why, after wandering aimlessly around the Town for an hour, he'd found himself outside the Harp, saying, What the fuck. At the bar, he'd hoisted his beers like the other guys, and had done his best to join the annual April grousing about fat-assed Don Zimmer and that fingerfucker Haywood Sullivan. "I'll tell you the trouble with the Sox," he'd heard himself pronouncing at one point, as if he gave a shit. "Twenty-seven players, twenty-seven cabs!"
"What?" Slats Moore had asked, leaning in on him with rotten teeth.
"After games, they always leave Fenway separately," Squire explained. He'd read this in the Globe."The whole fucking team, twenty-seven players, twenty-seven cabs. None of those guys are friends, and none of them loves the game. They just do it for the money. Fucking Red Sox."
"I'd do it for the fucking money."
"You would, you shitbag."
Brushed back by Squire Doyle, Slats had shut up and moved down the bar. "What's he doing in here anyway?" he'd muttered when the bartender set him up again.
Squire knew why he was so slow to move off the safe. It was not because of his wife or his brother, or because of Tucci either. After all these years, he was ready for Tucci, high fucking noon, scarface, the man who shot Liberty Valence. It was because of Jackie.
Two players, two cabs.
He'd never, in all the ways he'd pictured the last inning of this game, pictured it with Jackie blocking the plate. Right in front of the goddamned plate, in a Yankee uniform. Squire still couldn't believe it.
As if to prove to himself he'd been dreaming—dream, dream, dream—he pushed up from the safe at last and went over to the walk-in. The chrome handle, as always, was wonderfully cool in his hand when he jerked it down.
And there, when he pulled the door open, was Mullen, still curled on the floor like a giant shrimp, with coins scattered around him. He stank of piss. On his head was a stain of blood, which, in that shadow, seemed black. His mouth was still taped.
"Jackie?"
To Squire's surprise and relief, the figure stirred.
Squire stooped. "It's me, pal." He brought his face down as close as he could. Jackie opened his eyes, but they were so swollen. "You look like a fucking Chinaman," Squire said. He took his handkerchief out and began to dab at the gash on Mullen's forehead. "It's stopped bleeding. You're okay. Right?"
Mullen managed to nod.
"Atta boy, Jackie. Because you got to help me. Tonight's the night, pal. Will you help me?"
Again Mullen nodded, his eyes blazing, even through their half-shut puffiness, afire with pleading.
"Good, Jackie." Squire reached into Mullen's pocket and withdrew his creds folder, which held his ID and badge. He put it in his own pocket, then stroked his friend's head, his matted hair. He felt the old affection come streaming out of him, into his hand, his fingers, which moved tenderly at the edges of the wound. "You were there when all this shit started. You should be there when it's finished."
Squire felt sober now, himself again. The sight of poor Jackie had done that for him, because it was time. He felt moisture on his fingertips. Not Jackie's blood, which was all dried now, but Jackie's tears. "Oh, buddy," Squire said sadly, but he was farther from tears himself than he'd ever been.
***
Squire had been to Tucci's place in Weston only three times in all these years, but he knew exactly where it was. He could have driven straight there if he hadn't wanted to kill time. He went to Memorial Drive, past Harvard, out to Lexington and Concord on Route 2. He drove carefully. It wouldn't do to be stopped in an unmarked State Police vehicle, wearing surgical gloves, with a State Police lieutenant bound and gagged on the floor of the back seat. In Concord, he drove past the famous bridge and along the Battle Road, which in the darkness seemed as rough and narrow as it must have to the Redcoats who'd retreated along it all those years ago.
Squire Doyle had a Charlestown Irishman's hatred of the British, and on the rare occasions when he thought about it, the Adamses and the Otises and the Hancocks and the Concord Minutemen, and the boys of his own Bunker Hill for that matter, were all versions of the great English-haters Padraic Pearse and Michael Collins—never mind that their revolution was more than a century later. And never mind that Boston's Irish hated the English today by hating the people who'd descended from the Minutemen, and who lived in the fancy houses, lit up like whiskey ads, that Squire was passing now. Those houses were set well back from the rustic but tidy roads, and Squire was quite aware that they would have no idea of his passing in the night. No idea of his existence.
What had Terry called him? A gangster's two-bit gofer? Following the curve of the road behind the splash of his own headlights, his mind on cruise, his heart empty, he knew it was true. He'd never pictured Jackie blocking the plate, and he'd never imagined he could come to this climax with such a void of feeling. He was acting out his oldest plan, more or less automatically, half wondering why he had long felt so passionately that it must come to this.
At midnight he drove past the gate of Tucci's estate. A pair of low, unostentatious brick pillars marked the driveway, which wound back into the dark of the moonless wet night The house was not visible from the road. Nor were any watchers.
Down the road, an open field gave way to a mature grove of cultivated spruce trees. The branches of the trees had spread together, making a towering canopy, but the trunks of the trees were widely separated, and Doyle was able to pull the car into them. He shut the ignition off, listened for a moment, then leaned back. "Jackie?"
Mullen grunted.
"Good fellow. Not much longer now."
Beside him on the front seat were the two velour pillows he'd taken from his own sofa and a man's handbag made of smooth Italian leather, Tucci's own. He took one of the pillows, slipped out of the car, and set off through the woods.
Several minutes later he was on his stomach, crawling commando style across the sloping lawn behind the brick house and the garage building beside it.
Tucci lived like a fucking viscount.
The house was brightly illuminated by spotlights, which ironically were Squire's friends at this hour because the windows were all blanked with shades against the glare. Twice he froze in position, looking for guards. He was counting on their being posted in front, and he never saw them. He kept crawling.
The grass was wet, and soon so was he. He moved quickly, keeping the pillow as dry as he could. He reached the lip of the lawn, the circle of brightness, and the edge of a broad flagstone terrace on which summer furniture had already been arranged. He came to his feet and, crouching, ran along the shadowy edge of the light, angling toward the garage. There was no question of risking the house. One of the cars would have to do.
The garage had spaces for three automobiles, but Doyle knew those were for Tucci's Ferrari, Corvette, and Porsche. The garage would be alarmed too. He saw another three cars, sedans, parked on the washed-gravel apron in front of the garage. He crept to the gravel's edge. From there, Doyle could see out along the driveway winding away from the front of the house. And sure enough, a hundred yards out sat the dark mound of the guards' car. A Buick or an Olds. He saw the bright cinder of one of their cigarettes.
On the apron a dozen yards away, he noticed the black Chrysler that Tucci used. Hating the light, he crossed to it flatfooted, to keep from stirring the gravel. From inside his sweater he took out his wire-and-hook, prepared to slip it inside the window crack, manipulate it with his gloved hands. But then he saw the lock button, tall, erect. Unlocked. Jesus.
He looked around again. No one.
He opened the rear door and threw the pillow onto the shelf behind the back seat, beside the gooseneck reading lamp. He left and clicked the door shut without a sound.
Minutes later he was back at Mullen's car in the pine grove. He hauled Jackie up from the floor and out of the car, propping him against the rear fender. He ripped the tape off Jackie's mouth, taking skin from his lips, but the poor bastard was beyond a pain like that.
"Jackie, it's me. Can you see it's me? Squire?"
Mullen nodded. His face looked as if he'd been hit by a truck, but his eyes, what showed of them, achieved some focus. He mumbled something, a guttural noise.
"What?"
Mullen tried to press his lips together, but they refused to close. "Lees," he said.
"What do you mean, Lees?"
"Please."
"Hey, Jackie, you don't have to worry. It's me."
"You."
"Yeah, me. Now listen. We got to get some help out here, right? Right? Can you handle the radio? Can you talk?"
Mullen ran his cracked tongue over his lips, which fresh blood was moistening. He nodded.
"Can you say, 'Get me Captain Lundgren. This is Mullen. They got me at Tucci's in Weston. Help. Help.' Can you say that?"
Mullen stared at him.
Squire repeated: "'Get Lundgren. This is Mullen. They got me at Tucci's in Weston. Help. Help.'"
Mullen nodded.
"Say it, Jackie. I want to hear you say it."
"Please, Squire."
But Squire slapped him brutally on his head, opening the wound. "Say it. 'Get Lundgren! This is Mullen!' Say it"
"Get Lundgren. This is Mullen."
"'John Mullen.'"
"John Mullen."
"'Tucci has me.'"
"Tucci has me."
"'In Weston.'"
"In Weston."
"Good, Jackie. That's good. Now say 'Help.'"
"Please, Squire."
Squire hit him again.
Mullen fell against the car, sobbing.
"That's good, Jackie. Crying is good. Now say 'Help.'"
"Help! Help!" Suddenly, finding a voice neither knew he had, Mullen began to scream, "Help! Help!"
Squire clapped his hand over Mullen's mouth, silencing him. "Not into the fucking air, pal. Nobody can hear you that way. Into the fucking radio, okay? Do it like that into the radio."
Mullen's eyes were wide open now. His terror had pushed all the swelling back on itself. Doyle shoved him forward along the car, then reached in for the handset He flicked the switch, then pressed it on and off repeatedly, an alarm signal. The speaker on the dashboard crackled alive, and a voice said, "Read you. Incoming, read you. Go ahead, incoming. Go ahead."
Squire pushed the handset to Mullen's mouth.
"This is Mullen," Jackie said. "Get Lundgren. Say Mullen, John Mullen."
Squire had his mouth in Mullen's face, and he formed the word "Tucci."
"Tucci has me! Help! Help!"
"Where are you, Mullen?"
"Tucci. Weston. Help! Help!" Jackie began to scream again, indifferent to the voice of the radio speaker.
But Squire heard the dispatcher repeat the words: "Tucci? Weston?"
"Help! Help! Please!"
Squire let him say it once more—"Please!"—before snapping the switch off.
"Good boy, Jackie. Good boy." Doyle dropped the hand mike. Now sobbing again, Mullen fell on him like a baby.
"I got you, pal. I got you. It's okay."
Squire eased Jackie back toward the rear of the car. "I got you." And indeed, carrying half of Mullen's weight, he did. Supporting Mullen in that way made retrieving the keys and opening the trunk awkward, but he managed it "Right here, Jackie. Here you go."
Mullen had given up, and seemed not even to be aware of what Doyle was doing when he loaded him over the edge of the trunk and in. "You curl up in here, Jackie." And Mullen did, in a fetal position, with his back to Doyle. Perfect. Doyle fetched the second pillow and the leather handbag. Back at the trunk, leaning over Mullen, he unzipped the bag and took out Frank's gun. The gun Frank had given him years before. "I loaded it myself," Frank had said, the fool. Squire's bare fingers had never touched it.
He put the pillow against the back of Mullen's head, bunched in half. He pressed the gun nozzle into it "You made a big mistake, Jackie," he said mournfully, "when you fucked with me." And he fired two shots in quick succession.
He dropped both the pillow and the gun on Mullen's body, amazed, now that he'd actually killed someone, to still feel nothing. He closed the trunk after saying, "Rest in peace, pal."
At the wheel again, he drove fast, an exact quarter mile down the road to the small, quainted-up country store, gray-shingled, tin-roofed, trimmed in Nantucket blue. A single gas pump, super unleaded, stood like a sentry, but Doyle knew that the place had closed hours before. Now it was isolated and dark He got out and went to the rust-splotched pay phone on the side of the building, and he dialed the number that always gave him Tucci.
"Yeah?"
Even that brusque word was enough to know whose voice it was, and enough, Squire knew, to bring the listening FBI agent out of his midnight stupor. Because this line was tapped, they used it only to set up other lines. But not tonight.
"This is Frank This is Tucci. I need you up here, quick!" Doyle was speaking as if he were the wop. He pushed all the reined panic he should himself have felt into a long-practiced impersonation. "I want that turd out of here. He's done. I did him. Get up here now!"
As Doyle expected, Tucci said nothing. It did not matter. It wouldn't be clear who was speaking from which end of the line if the Bureau chose not to raise the question.
"He's dead and I want him out of here now!"
Doyle heard the click, Tucci hanging up.
Doyle had an impulse to say, "There you go, boys. Wrap it in ribbons for Farrell." But he didn't. No indulgences tonight No mistakes.
Back in the car, he felt under the dash for the detachable blue light, pulled its wires free, reached out the window, and slapped it onto the roof. He drove as fast as he dared back toward Tucci's, the light flashing. He did not hit the siren.
Not until he took the turn at the two pillars in Tucci's driveway. Then he gunned it, all light and noise, heading right for the car on the rise in which Tucci's two guards sat. He sensed their hesitation. Then, as he drew closer, their car began to move—backwards.
A lone
police car screaming up Tucci's long, elegant driveway, Tucci's men fleeing in reverse, back to the phony Cabot-Lodge house—Squire began to laugh. He'd intended to flash Jackie's badge at them if they'd tried to stop him, but he wouldn't need it now.
At the gravel apron in front of the garage, the guards' car stopped. They got out and, after staring dumbly for a moment, fled to the house. When Squire reached the head of the driveway, he threw the wheel around, sending the car into a careening turn, cleanly reversing direction and stopping. Now the car was headed out.
He shut the siren off and pulled the blue hat in. Then he waited.
Nothing happened.
Moments passed. This was the hardest thing of all. He could just have called it good enough, but the risk was worth being that much surer.
A door opened in the house behind him. He sensed figures approaching, but he didn't look. Had he made a mistake?
But then he heard it, the sound of another siren in the distance, first from one direction, then another. Two sirens, three, four.
The figures behind him froze, then began moving back to the house.
Flashing lights appeared through the trees as the cars wound along Weston's roads toward the twin-pillared entrance.
"Right," he said aloud.
He got out of the car, taking the keys. He circled back to the trunk and put the key in the lock. "Right," he said again.
Then he turned and ran into the darkness, across the grass, toward the woods. He slapped his pocket for the bulk of Jackie's creds folder. I still have the badge, he thought. The feeling was, I'm not finished. The feeling was, I can do anything.
20
UPON LEAVING CHARLESTOWN, Bright said cryptically, "After all this, it's time for me to show you something."
"What?"
"How to take the feather out of your brother's tickler."
"I don't follow."
Bright did not explain. Instead, he took him to Buddies, the unmarked bar on Huntington Avenue across from Copley Place. Throwing the door open, he said, "Ta-dah!"
Terry at once recognized the crowd of men as gays. The revelation caused no emotional explosion in him, which meant he must, at some level, have known. He looked at Bright and said, "They'll have Glen-fiddich here."
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