“The smoke was driving me nuts.” Houston stared back into the foggy office. “I’m not through with him yet. But, I want to be alone with him.”
“I need to go to the ladies room anyway.” Houston smiled when she said, “If it’s not clean I’m calling the Board of Health . . . ”
“It’s probably clean. Jimmy’s female employees would make sure of that.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, listen, if I’m not here when you come out, wait for me in the bar.”
“Be careful. He’s not the same kid you grew up with.”
“The problem is that he is the same kid I grew up with.”
When the door of the women’s room closed behind her, Houston returned to the office. He entered without knocking and found O’Leary and Winter in deep conversation. As soon as they saw him, they stopped talking.
“I want to talk, Jimmy.” He looked at Winter. “Alone.”
O’Leary nodded, and Winter left the room, giving Houston a piercing look as he passed.
Houston reached back and shut the door behind him. He flopped into the chair Winter had vacated. “First of all, I do not believe that you would ever be involved in something like this afternoon’s shootings . . . it’s a psychotic act and there’s no profit in it. You never were one to do anything that didn’t profit you.”
“That didn’t stop you from running over here like a dog that pissed on an electric fence.”
“Because you hear things that I’ll never hear and can get close to people that I can’t get within thirty yards of. This is a real ass-kicker, Jimmy—possibly the worst Boston has ever seen. Right now, we have no ideas, no motive, no clues as to the identity of the shooter. Not that that’s unusual, but this is bullshit . . . and unnecessary. This perp took out four innocent people for no apparent reason.”
“Your perp has reasons—even if they’re nothin’ more than doin’ this because he can. Either way, we’re living in some fucked-up times. Seems like the whole city is goin’ goddamned nuts,” O’Leary said. “Used to be when someone got whacked there was a purpose behind it. Now, even kids are carrying iron and hittin’ people. Like, life’s a damned video game or something.”
He lit a cigarette from the one he held and then ground the butt in his ashtray. It didn’t completely extinguish and sent a column of smoke spiraling into the already foul air.
“Jesus, Jimmy, how in hell do you breathe in this smog?”
“You reformed smokers are ballbusters, you know that? I remember when we was kids and we’d steal smokes from your ol’ lady and smoke ‘em behind the garage out back of the apartment house.”
“That was a long time ago, in a different time and world.”
“World ain’t no different, Mike. It’s still the largest cesspool in the universe, but we changed, didn’t we?” A wistful look came over O’Leary’s face as he inhaled another lungful of smoke. “Together we coulda bin something else, you know? Only you went over to the other side.”
“Yeah, but think of it this way—now, rather than being in jail and taking it in the ass by some punk, I put the assholes in jail.”
O’Leary bristled, rose up and leaned over his desk, his weight resting on his clenched fists. His cigarette hung from his mouth. “Did you just call me an asshole?”
“If the shoe fits . . . ”
After several tense seconds, O’Leary’s laughed and he sat back.
“You got any idea what woulda happened if anyone else talked to me like that?”
“I’m not anyone else.”
“No, you ain’t. But don’t get to thinking that just because we got a history you can get away with saying anything you want to me.”
“I’ll remember that. But, you keep this in mind too. You haven’t seen heat until you see what’s gonna come down on you if you ever pop a cop. So, can I count on a call if you learn anything?”
“Maybe . . . maybe not.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just that, I might call or I might not.”
“You haven’t changed a hell of a lot over the years, Jimmy.”
“You haven’t a clue how much I’ve changed. There was a time anyone talked to me like you just done . . . well, it would be a long time before anyone saw them again. By the way, your partner . . . ”
“What about her?”
“She’s a real looker. If I had a partner who looked like her, I’d be all over her like a dog. Your relationship more than professional?”
Houston felt his face flush with anger. “Strictly professional. Let’s just say that I’m not her type and leave it at that.”
“I doubt that, Mike. But then when it comes to women you were never the sharpest tack in the bulletin board.”
“Like you are?”
O’Leary laughed. “Compared to you, I’m a Casanova.”
Houston turned to the door. “I’ll be expecting your call.”
“Don’t hold your breath while you do—it could kill you.”
As Houston walked down the corridor, O’Leary’s laughter echoed behind him. When the guffaws turned into a spasm of deep bronchial coughing, he muttered, “Choke, you bastard, choke.”
4
“O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.”
—Sun Tzu Wu, The Art of War
After Houston and the dish left, O’Leary sat at the bar. Winter was tending bar again, and he placed a bottle of Jameson and a glass in front of his boss. O’Leary scowled at Winter, letting him know that the last thing he wanted to do was talk.
O’Leary was on his second drink when the pub door opened. A black woman walked a couple of steps inside the barroom and stopped. She appeared nervous and cautious, like a deer entering a meadow during hunting season. He knew what was going through her mind as she studied the bar’s patrons. The faces turned toward her were not only blatantly hostile but all were white. When her gaze circled the room and settled on him, he thought she looked familiar. It only took him a few seconds to recall her name. She was heavier than he remembered and her face showed the ravages of trying to make it in one of the most expensive cities in the country on minimum-wage.
His memories took him back more than forty years, to the busing riots of the 1970s. The city had bussed him—along with hundreds of lower-class white Irish kids whose parents could not afford the tuition at a parochial school—from Southie to the predominantly black schools in Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester. At the same time, they brought black students into Southie, and the resulting riots were among the worst in Boston’s history. It was while he was a student attending grammar school in Roxbury that O’Leary met Marian Stokes and her brother, Rasheed. He motioned for her to join him.
His action gave her the impetus to walk across the barroom until she stood before him. “Mr. O’Leary?”
“How are you . . . Marian?” When she nodded he knew that she was indeed his old acquaintance. “Sit down, please. It’s been a long time.”
She remained standing, her hands twisting the soft clutch bag she held. She cast another nervous look around the room, noting that the customers clustered in small groups ignored her presence now that O’Leary was talking with her. “I need help.”
“Let’s go where we can talk in private.” He swept his arm toward the corridor that led to his office. “This way, please.” He turned to Winter and said, “I’ll be back in a few—stick around in case I need you.”
Winter nodded and kept wiping glasses.
O’Leary led the woman to the office and guided her to the couch that faced his desk. “Please, sit down, Marian.” He circled his desk, dropped into his chair and took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He shook one from the box, put it in his mouth and then offered the box to Marian.
O’Leary lit his as Marian took a cigarette. When she placed the cigarette in her mouth, he noticed that her hands shook. He held the lit Zipp
o toward her. Marian leaned forward to touch the end of the cigarette to the flame. Her head was shaking so violently that he had to track the end of the cigarette with his lighter.
O’Leary sat back, forming a steeple in front of his face with his hands. “You want a drink?”
“A glass of wine be nice, Mr. O’Leary . . . ”
“Marian, we’ve known each other for over thirty years. Call me Jimmy.”
“Yes, sir.” She inhaled deeply and held the smoke in her lungs. It was clear to him that she was struggling to keep from crying.
Jimmy picked up the phone and punched a single number. “Gordon . . . ” He covered the microphone with his hand and turned to Marian. “Any particular type of wine?”
“Anything red.”
O’Leary removed his hand. “Bring me a glass of Merlot.” He placed the phone on its receiver. “So what can I do for you?”
Suddenly, Marian’s resolve broke. Her tears left watery trails down her cheeks, and she swiped at them with her fingers. He knew that life in the ‘Bury, as locals referred to Roxbury, was hard and it took a tough woman to survive there. There was only one thing he knew of that would upset a woman from there this much—someone had done something to one of her kids. O’Leary took a box of tissues from his drawer and slid it across the desk to her.
Marian snatched a couple of sheets and wiped her cheeks. Her head bent back and she stared into the smoky air. She took another deep drag on the cigarette. She exhaled sharply, sat back and for the first time since she had come to him, made eye contact.
O’Leary leaned back in his chair. Once again, he steepled his fingers.
“My daughter, Latisha . . . ”
He dropped his hands, took the cigarette from his mouth and leaned forward. Marian could not have said anything that would get his undivided attention more than those three words.
There was a light knock at the door, but he didn’t move. He knew it was either Lisa or Gordon. Without waiting for permission to enter, Lisa walked in, placed the wine next to Marian and then left without saying a word.
“What about your daughter?”
“They killed her, Mr. O . . . Jimmy.”
“Who killed your daughter?”
“Them gang bastards filled my baby up with junk, then raped and killed her.”
“You’d better start at the beginning.”
“To make ends meet, I work two jobs. When I was at work, Latisha stayed with my momma. She was a good girl, Jimmy, never no bother.” She leaned forward and ground out her cigarette. He offered her another.
“Go on.”
“Two week ago, my baby was found in an alley. She all torn up.”
“You reported this to the cops obviously.”
“Cops don’t care what happen to no black girl in the hood. They too busy keepin’ white people safe.” She looked sheepish, as if she had only then realized that O’Leary was white.
“It’s more about money and power than race, Marian . . . if you got either, no matter what your color, then the cops care, if you got no money or political clout, then you ain’t shit.”
“Don’t matter, do it? Either way, we fucked.”
“Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“I got no way of provin’ nothin’, but I ‘spect that Watts boy, Jermaine, who live across the hall, know something. He always be hitting on her and acting cool when she come by. She only thirteen, too young to be knowin’ what a nineteen-year-old boy really after . . . ‘specially one who belong to the Devs.”
“The Devs—I didn’t think they would do anything like this.”
“Maybe Watt’s an a couple a his homies do it alone?”
“Where can I find this Jermaine Watts?”
“On the street. They calls him Razor. I heard it said he like using a straight razor on people. I hear he hang out on Martin Luther King Boulevard, by Malcolm X Park.”
O’Leary wrote down the address Marian gave him and then picked up his phone. “Gordon, would you come in here?”
Anne picked at her salad. She pushed a piece of tomato around with her fork, her eyes averted.
“What’s on your mind?” Mike asked.
“What was it like growing up in Southie?”
“Every day was a war between the gangs and the Irish mob. Someone was always after you.”
“Is that what made O’Leary the way he is?”
“It probably had a lot to do with it. Doesn’t matter where you live, you grow up with a drunk who uses his wife and kids for punching bags . . . you either get tough or you die.”
“Why didn’t you turn out like him?”
“Luck of the draw. My old man was no saint, but he gave us the best he could. He worked himself to death unloading baggage at Logan. He’d work sixty, seventy hours some weeks for not much more than minimum wage, but no matter how hard he worked there was always something that kept him from puttin’ any money in the bank. Still, he gave us the most important things, as much of his time as he could . . . and his love.”
“We come from two different worlds. I’ve never known anyone like Jimmy O—at least not personally.”
“Our differences are what make us a good team. We complement each other.” Houston waited for her to continue.
“People like Jimmy O anger me. I want to throw him and everyone like him into a hole and bury them forever. You, on the other hand, seem to be able to ignore what he does.”
“I grew up with him, Anne. When I got out of high school I was poised to become what he is today.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Back then we had hope and the belief that we could rise above the neighborhood. Something that doesn’t appear to be true any longer . . . ”
“That’s no excuse for what Jimmy is.”
“I’d be Jimmy if I hadn’t left the neighborhood for the Marines.”
“Why didn’t he do the same?”
Houston made an effort to objectively explain what happened, rather than defend O’Leary. “When we were in high school, Jimmy was in and out of trouble for boosting cars and even had a couple of possession busts. Once he had a rap sheet, the services wouldn’t touch him and he figured that only left him one avenue to follow. He may be a hood, for want of a better word, but he does have his code.”
“That’s twice today that’s come up, first a mass murderer and now a thug with ethics.”
“I know that sounds nuts, but we all have some line that we won’t cross. Jimmy remembers where he came from. As far as the people of Southie are concerned, he does more good than harm. He doesn’t trust cops. In Southie, most people never have and never will. They do the best they can and take care of their own. That’s what guys like Jimmy do for them. As bad as his reputation is—and don’t get me wrong, he’s earned that rep—they trust him. If for no other reason than that he’s one of them.”
“In many ways, you’re still one of them.”
“No, not anymore—I’m a cop and that makes me the enemy. At best, they think that like all cops, I don’t give a damn about them. As I said, they see Jimmy as one of their own who made it big.”
The server returned and placed their meals on the table. “Can I get you anything else?”
“We’re fine.” Houston waited until he was gone. “We’ve discussed this before and have always agreed to disagree on our differences. I know you’ll never truly understand my background, no more than I’ll ever be able to imagine what it was like growing up in Wellesley.”
“That isn’t fair . . . ”
“It’s every bit as fair as you bringing up my background.”
She paused for a second. “You’re right.”
“Now,” Houston said, “what you say we cut to the real issue?”
“This afternoon bothered me more than I ever could have imagined.”
“Anne, we may be cops, but that doesn’t mean we stop being human. It bothered me too.”
She pushed her plate aside. “I know it did . . . you
think you hide your feelings. And to anyone who doesn’t know you as well as I do, you do. But I’m your partner. We spend more time together than some married couples, and I can tell when something gets to you.”
“Do you know what truly gets to me?” he asked.
She waited for him to continue, but after several seconds without him saying anything further, she asked, “What?”
“That in another time and place, I perpetrated scenes as horrific as this one.”
“Are you talking about Somalia?”
“Yes.”
“But, that was twenty years ago and you were in a war. What would drive anyone to do something like this?”
“Power, bloodlust, who knows? You can be sure that when we bring this asshole, or assholes, down—and we will—I’ll make it a point to ask. Until then, despite my unsavory background, we’ll keep working together. We’re too good a team not to.”
Anne smiled. “And, contrary to my privileged, pampered upbringing and all my worries, I’ll do the same.” She settled back and took a drink. “But I’m still concerned about the different ways you and I view the world.”
Houston picked up his fork and moved several french fries around his plate. “I know you are.”
They finished their meal, paid the check and walked to their car. “What’s that?” Anne asked.
“What’s what?”
She pointed to a piece of paper held against the windshield by the driver-side wiper blade.
“Some ambitious rookie must have ticketed us.”
“That’s no ticket.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a pair of latex gloves. Once her hands were covered, she took the slip of paper and read it. “You need to see this.”
Houston circled the car and said, “I haven’t any gloves. Read it to me.”
“It says: Hey, Mikey. Long time no see . . . ”
“That’s it?”
“Well, not quite. There’s some sort of drawing . . . ”
“Drawing? Show it to me.” She turned the slip of paper so that he could see it.
“What is it? It looks like some sort of military patch.”
“That’s exactly what it is. The eagle, globe and anchor are obvious, except the globe resembles a skull and, if you look around the edge, there’s a sniper scope as well. All that’s missing are the words SNIPER SCHOOL QUANTICO. This is a picture of the scout/sniper patch that we wore on our jackets.”
Sniper Page 3