FIGHT

by Brent Coffey

  He hoped the nervousness in his voice would come across as enthusiasm, or happiness, or anything other than nervousness.

  “You don’t say!”

  “Yeah, turns out an old high school fling…” (Damn it! August is younger than that!) “…that I reconnected with a couple of years ago…” (Goddamn it to hell! He’s older than a couple of years! He shot a quick glimpse at August and remembered his age.) “… well five years ago to be precise, and, you know how it is. Surprise! She sprung this on me. Hadn’t met the little guy until a few days ago.”

  He chuckled warmly, waiting for a response.

  She knew he was lying. The story sounded forced.

  “I’m so happy for you! I can’t wait to meet him. What’s his name?” she asked, feigning interest.

  “Eddie.”

  “Your father will be pleased!”

  “I’m sure he will be. Set an extra place at the table tomorrow.”

  She wished she was setting one for her Latin lover whose job was walking around half naked and pretending to change the chlorine in the backyard pool.

  “I’ll set a place for you both. See you at 7?”

  “Sounds good.”

  When he hung up, he turned to August to gauge his response. August’d heard the lie, as he’d been sitting nearby on a sofa, and he knew Gabe was trying to pass him off as his own. Gabe was at a loss for words to explain why.

  “You you heard what I said, right?”

  August smiled and nodded, holding Zoggy.

  “I need you to go along with this. You understand what that means?”

  August kept smiling and nodding.

  “You know, kid, you’re eventually going to live with the Hudsons. You remember that, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember.” His smile faded, and he looked down at Zoggy glumly.

  “I mean, I like having your around and all, but I’m not cut out for being a parent. I’m too… I’m too different.”

  August turned away from him and stared out the apartment’s living room window. Gabe had never experienced a cold shoulder before, mostly because he’d never cared about someone enough for it to work.

  “You’re going to love the Hudsons. They’re good people, and they’ll take care of you. Much better than I can.”

  August kept looking out the window, not responding. His silence irritated Gabe.

  “I mean, look, kid, I can’t raise you and that’s that!”

  He hadn’t meant to yell.

  For the first time in his life August wasn’t afraid of being yelled at by an adult, and he demanded:

  “Take me back to the Ringers!”

  “What did you say?”

  “I wanna go back to the Ringers!”

  “Why? Why do you want to go back? I can’t take you back now. It would mess up everything. I’ve got people expecting you tomorrow for dinner. You aren’t going anywhere, except where I tell you to go!”

  “I don’t want to go to the Hudsons!” he yelled back. “I don’t want to live with them! Take me back to the Ringers!”

  August hid his eyes behind his fists and lowered his head to his lap. The waterworks began. Gabe was dumbfounded. He’d risked pissing off Victor to siphon off a huge chunk of change to improve Bruce’s health, trying to eliminate the last hold-up of the kid’s adoption, and now the little ingrate didn’t want to be adopted. What the hell had he been doing? Why the hell had he bothered? This was going south with no end in sight. He was tempted to shove August outside and lock the door behind him. That would be the smart thing he told himself. He could always call up Opal again… Ha! Ha! You really fell for that one? You actually thought I had a kid, didn’t you? Riiiiight… You shoulda known better.

  His mobster’s intuition kicked in, and the temptation to kick August out on the streets grew stronger by the second. He hadn’t killed anyone for August yet. There weren’t any bodies to hide, no alibis were needed to cover up the dead, and he didn’t have to pay off any coroners. Sure, he’d involved a social worker and the Hudsons, but he could always spin that same old yarn about just messing with the enemies… just messing around in their private affairs to rattle them… and he could claim that the check for Bruce’s colectomy was part of some elaborate plot to get the D.A. sedated so he could make a bedside cameo and take him out… And Victor could once again work his legal magic to prevent him from going to jail for kidnapping August. It was all coming together. It wasn’t too late to jump ship. He wasn’t committed yet. He wasn’t committed to shit. His sense of self-preservation took over. He walked towards August.

  August heard Gabe’s approaching footsteps. Gabe wasn’t speaking, and August understood enough about adults to know that he shouldn’t trust them when they were in stealth mode. He sensed Gabe was about to do something terrible. He stopped crying just in time to look at Gabe and scream:

  “I want to be with you! I want to be your son! I want to live with you! I love you!”

  Gabe’s hand froze. He was wrong: he was committed. It was entirely too late to jump ship.

  Gabe pulled his hand away and put it to his forehead, fighting waves of shame. He instantly felt like the world’s biggest hypocrite for lecturing August about taking risks for the people in his life. In a moment of frustration, he’d nearly made the kid’s life worse, and that had never been his intention. He had to get out of this apartment, and he did, leaving August inside. He needed some fresh air and to escape the sound of a child’s crying in a room that had suddenly shrunk to an uncomfortable size. Outside, he drew in a couple of deep breaths and rethought things. He scratched out Plan A. Helping the Hudsons adopt was now out of the question. August wouldn’t stand for it, and, he realized that he didn’t want that either. He wasn’t sure what Plan B was. While he tried to decide what to do with August, hazy memories of his mom tried to resurrect themselves in his mind. Gabe felt like a kid himself, not knowing what to do, with no one to turn to. He felt alone in his fight to improve things for August, a fight he might very well lose. But I’m a shitty friend if I don’t fight for him.

  He turned around and glanced through the window, catching sight of August watching him with a scared look on his face. He placed a hand on the pane, not giving a damn about the smudge it’d leave, and he smiled. August smiled back.

  ------------------------------------------------

  Chapter Seven

  “Dr. Sandefur, Bruce Hudson’s on line 2. Should I take a message?”

  “No, Carroll, I’ll take it.”

  Hitting a button, Dr. Sandefur switched lines, eager to tell Bruce the good news that You’ll never believe it! The money for your colectomy has come through! He didn’t give her the chance:

  “Dr. Sandefur, are you sitting down?”

  “I was just about to ask you the same.”

  He paused. She sounded happy enough, but it was always unsettling to get news from a physician. He went on:

  “I have the funds to pay for my colectomy.”

  How did he know? I thought these guys were anonymous philanthropists.

  He continued:

  “Sometime soon, Gabriel Adelaide, or one of his cronies, is going to drop by and deliver the money required for my operation. I know that sounds dangerous, but I’ve cleared this with local law enforcement, and you’re free to take the money.”

  Her jaw would’ve bounced back in place had the floor been a trampoline.

  He continued again:

  “During my colectomy, the BPD is going to stake out the hospital’s perimeters, including the parking garage, to ensure my safety and yours. The additional security won’t cost St. Knox’s a dime. The cost will be covered by the municipal government.”

  He stopped. He wanted to give her a chance to get a word in edgewise, hoping that any dialogue was good dialogue and that good dialogue might prevent her from slamming the phone down in horror at the thought of the mob paying for her services and the police spying on her for her own safety.

  She said nothing.
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  He continued for the last time:

  “I feel the need to reiterate to make sure that we’re on the same page. Gabriel Adelaide will pay you upfront, either in person or using the services of a goon, to cure my colitis, but! That needn’t worry you, because both the chief of police and my veteran colleague, Detective Richard Dorsey, will ensure our safety. They’re going to pull out all the stops when you’re operating. There’ll be everything from undercover cops to bomb sniffing dogs patrolling the place. So, again, there’s no need to worry.”

  He suddenly realized how terrifying his assurances sounded. Undercover cops and bomb sniffing dogs might be more alarming than calming.

  “This is fucked up beyond my ability to process, Bruce.”

  She’d never cussed in front of a patient before. She continued:

  “I think you should know something. A few days ago, a guy pretending to be one of my patients came in and told me he represented civic minded do-gooders. He paid me half the money for your surgery and promised to return with the other half. He claims to be with an association called Boston Monetary Management.”

  Bruce felt sweat running down his neck. Cold, icy sweat. Adelaide is on top of things. He’s already paid the first installment. Though he’d spent the first portion of this call assuring her of how safe everything was, the reality of a mobster forking over cash on his behalf stirred his restless bowels. It was a good thing he was calling from the toilet.

  “I know about Boston Monetary Managment. It’s a front for Adelaide. You were paid by the mob,” he said.

  She suddenly felt quite stupid for having fallen for such a simple cover. Not as stupid as Larry’s going to feel when I rake him over the coals for this. He’s a lawyer, and he was supposed to check this out for me. She bit her lower lip, repressing the urge to shout obscenities about her lawyer to her patient.

  “I probably should have guessed that,” she said, sighing. “Anyway, and I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to speak with the chief of police and the other guy you mentioned.”

  “Detective Richard Dorsey.”

  “Yes, him. I’d feel better about this if I talked with them in person. In fact, could you arrange for them to drop by? If this is really going to happen as you say it will, then they’ll need to come by to coordinate with the hospital’s administration to set up their security plan.”

  “I’ll call them as soon as we hang up, and I deeply appreciate your open-mindedness.”

  “Well, Bruce, I’m a doctor, and the first rule of medicine is ‘Do no harm.’ What kind of harm would I be doing if I said no to a procedure that would free you from this ball and chain? As long as we’ll all be safe, then I’m duty bound to treat you. And I’m glad to do it.”

  ------------------------------------------------

  Eating burgers and fries with August from a local drive-thru, Gabe mentally checked for people who’d seen the kid and might recognize him tomorrow night at his parents’ home. His uncles, Ronald and Michael, knew about his interest in the kid, but they’d never laid eyes on him. Several Family employees also knew about August, but none of them had seen him either, except Luke Espinoza. Luke, he recalled, had delivered toys to August at the Ringers’ place. He’ll know August. He couldn’t let Luke be present at tomorrow’s dinner, if he was going to pass off August as his son. Swallowing a mouthful of grease, he phoned Luke:

  “Luke, I need you in Watertown tomorrow, all day and night.”

  “What? I thought you wanted me to pay that doctor chick the rest of the money for the D.A.’s thing?”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll pay the doc later. Go to Watertown, and keep your eyes open.”

  “You want me to follow the Filippos. Got it.”

  The Filippos, in Watertown, were Boston’s other major Family, and they posed the greatest threat to the Adelaides’ turf. Recently, two Filippo associates had cornered a lone errand boy from the Adelaides (who wasn’t quite old enough to qualify as an associate) and beat the hell out of him in an abandoned building that once housed a hardware store. They only let him live so that he could bitch his beaten ass all the way home and lick his wounds for the Adelaides to see, a convenient way of posting a Keep Out sign. Luke knew exactly what he was supposed to be on the lookout for in Watertown: any evidence that the locals were getting restless and looking to relocate. Luke would notice whether the usual faces hung out on their assigned street corners. A good turnout of druggies and whores meant the Filippos were content with their digs. A sparse workforce meant things weren’t going so hot, and the Filippos needed to do business elsewhere.

  Ever since the Adelaides had secured the winner’s portion of black market real estate during the days of Victor’s father, the late senator Joseph Adelaide, the Filippos had found themselves less fit to survive in the Darwinian underworld. Until lately. One of Victor’s recent causes of indigestion was a report saying that the Filippos had been spotted in Southie. One Filippo was even rumored to have bought weed off an Adelaide dealer, which, if true, meant he was checking prices. The only thing Victor feared more than a turncoat son was a price war with another Family. Anything was better than that. Victor’s early trips home in the past couple of days were due to the stress he faced from keeping track of possible Filippo front men, as their biological clan had expanded exponentially over the years (their Kingpin, Donatello Filippo, didn’t suffer from Victor’s embarrassing problem of sterility), and each addition to their Family had been successful in building up his own personal forces. Two days ago, Luke’d heard Victor shouting about how he’d kill every last one of those damn Filippos if he caught them nosing around Boston’s red-light districts and horning in on his turf (which, Luke knew, meant that Victor would dispatch him to do the dangerous and underpaid work of killing them), so Luke was primed to assume that Gabe’s order for him to hang out in Watertown tomorrow was both a needed job and a plan that Victor would think prudent. Gabe was relieved Luke bought his phony assignment so readily. With Luke gone, no one present at the Adelaides’ estate would be able to identify August. And Gabe would have Luke slide over to Dr. Sandefur’s the next day and pay the rest of the money for Bruce’s surgery.

  “Looks like you’re going to meet my so-called family tomorrow,” Gabe said to August.

  “Who are they?”

  “Well, my father’s an old fart named Victor.”

  August giggled.

  “And my mother’s a whore named Opal.”

  “What’s a whore?”

  “You’ll learn when you’re older.”

  “Are they nice?”

  “They will be to you.”

  “Are they nice to you?”

  Gabe paused. Under normal circumstances, a rich couple who adopted you and gave you everything that money could buy would count as nice. But, under normal circumstances, that same couple wouldn’t have kidnapped you as a child, bribed both an adoption lawyer and a judge to make things legit, and slapped you silly every time you begged to go home. That same couple also wouldn’t have killed in front of you, trained you to kill, and threatened to kill you if you ever revealed that you weren’t an actual member of the Family’s bloodline.

  “No,” Gabe finally replied.

  “Your mommy and daddy aren’t nice to you?”

  “They aren’t my mommy and daddy. They’re Victor and Opal Adelaide, and I never wanted them to adopt me.”

  August could relate. He knew all about being pressured into an unwanted adoption. Sara meant well. The Hudsons meant well. Everyone, excluding the godawful Ringers, meant well. Still, he didn’t want to live with the Hudsons. As nice as they’d been to him the day he’d visited them, they were old, and they didn’t seem like family. He remembered that mommy-in-heaven was young when she died. He wanted someone her age to look after him. He liked the Hudsons’ home well enough, but it was their home, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  “Why didn’t you tell them you didn’t want to be adopted?” August asked.

&n
bsp; “Why didn’t you tell the Hudsons you didn’t want to be adopted? Or your social worker, Sara? Or me, before today?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, blushing.

  “Sure, you do. You know why you didn’t say anything. It’s because you were supposed to want it. You had all these people, all these adults in your life wanting you to want it, and you didn’t want to disappoint them. It was easier to pretend that you wanted to be adopted by the Hudsons, because that’s what you were supposed to want. Get what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t say anything when the Adelaides adopted me.”

  He didn’t mention that he’d also been too scared out of his wits (and occasionally beaten out of them) to complain much.

  “Do you love them?”

  Gabe knew the answer, but he didn’t want to say it. He needed a way to sugarcoat it, to make it more navigable to the moral compass of a child. There was only one way to make his answer okay:

  “No, I don’t love them. I love my real mom, just like you love your real mom.”

  ------------------------------------------------

  The maids put the champagne on ice, grilled the swordfish, tossed the salad, and drizzled lines of strawberry sauce on the chocolate mousse. They were prepared for the most discriminating palette, and they’d made a grilled cheese and French fries for August, in case he found seafood gross. The house staff had learned that errors were unacceptable in food preparation, dinner was the highlight of the Adelaides’ day, and there may have been worse sins than botching a meal, but none were less forgivable to the Family.

  While the maids finished dinner, Opal Adelaide donned her evening dress with its white body and contrasting black V neck, and she was lost in thought. She hoped Victor would buy Gabe’s story about having a son. She didn’t know why Gabe needed to lie about having a kid, but she could tell when he was lying, and she’d slapped the hell out of him for it when he was younger. Her question You told someone about Debby didn’t you? was never truthfully answered until she’d swiped a hard palm against his face. She eventually broke him of his habit of telling his classmates about his real mom, and, luckily for her, his friends were too incredulous to believe he’d been abducted.