‘An interesting way of looking at it…and if I do take part in your event and you win?’
‘It just speeds up the inevitable. We both know you aren’t going anywhere, so it’s back to you and me, just like it’s always been’.
‘You know, for a stupid Mick, sometimes you can be quiet smart. But before we agree on this, let’s just finish our conversation about your Pa. I don’t have all day so I’ll just come straight to the point, some friends of mine are keeping your Pa company. From what I understand, he’s having a grand old time with them, just like good old boys doing what they do best with a few crates of stout but whether he stays that way depends on you.’
O’Keegan had visibly flinched when Meehan had finally got to the point. This really was working out just as he expected.
‘You have my Pa? He’s OK?’
‘For now yes. I have a Pa too, I don’t want to see anything to happen to your old man but you’ve put me in a difficult position.’ He looked down in mock concern like a person who really had little control over the actions of others. Meehan’s insincerity was palpable. He continued,
‘If you don’t play ball with me then you father will be divided and spread through each of your Irish provinces.’ His face turned wolfish meaning each word.
For the first time this evening Flannery watched O’Keegan look a little nervous. He was amazed at O’Keegan’s control since first finding out that Meehan had his Father. Other people would be going nuts at even the thought, but aside from this brief look of nervousness and concern, O’Keegan had been completely passive. O’Keegan had to be the coldest man he had ever met, he was happy he was on O’Keegan’s side.
‘So you want me out of Boston. If I get out of this car, throw my jacket over my shoulder and make sure I’m on the next ship back to Ireland, you’ll let my Pa go. Is that how you see it working?’
‘You know…before we met…before our little chat…before your boys went around my neighbourhood and took MY money, that would have been just fine. I could have settled any ripples you’re being here had made. But not now.’ Meehan relaxed further down into the seat, creaking into the leather as he moved. ‘I think you’ve made some good points. If you just walked away, would that shut everyone up once and for all? No, somehow I think your right. I need to draw a thick line under the last few weeks and I think I know just how to do it.’
O’Keegan waited not saying a word but silently praying that this would all fall into place like a child’s two piece jigsaw puzzle. Meehan expected O’Keegan to participate in this little pantomime to his main character, making the right noises at the right time, participating but even in this, O’Keegan left Meehan wanting. A few seconds more and Meehan went on as if O’Keegan had asked the question Meehan was expecting,
‘Yes, we’ll give them what they want. You and me, face to face in the ring. Tonight, just us. The top two Irishmen in the city…one Boston bred the other from the old country. We’ll show those bastards what we’re made of. How does that sound?’ O’Keegan leaned forward, hands gesticulating.
‘Well why didn’t you say so at the beginning, we could have saved ourselves a lot of bother. And whoever loses leaves Boston…winner takes all.’
‘Not so simple O’Keegan. I still have your Pa.’ O’Keegan turned to look at Meehan, still grinning. ‘So, you and I make sure we put on a good show. I’ll even let you land a couple, maybe you’ll draw some blood, we’ll go through all the right moves, get the audience’s blood pumping, it will make your dive seem even more believable. The deal is this. We fight, you lose, what could be easier? Then you’ll get your Pa back in one piece so he can go back to whichever bar he was propping up when my boys found him. Now that’s a simple plan don’t you think?’
Meehan reached into his breast pocket and O’Keegan reacted, his hand holding onto Meehan’s wrist before he could pull out whatever it was he wanted. O’Keegan squeezed, grinding together the bones in Meehan’s wrist creating a little pain. A second later Tony had leant across from the front seat, a small handgun, it’s cold burnished metal nose planted against O’Keegan’s temple.
Flannery sat waiting for the next move, his hand firmly grasped around the handle of one of his knives still resident in his leather waist band. O’Keegan pulled Meehan’s arm out of his jacket in a slow and deliberate motion, still thinking that Meehan had let his rashness, their comfortable conversation get the better of him. As Meehan’s hand cleared his jacket edge, within his painfully clenched fingers was a leather cigar case coloured to match the cars interior, the ultimate accessory for the car’s owner.
O’Keegan let go of Meehan’s wrist, shrugging his shoulders to Meehan in apology, Tony Meehan small gun still pressed against the side of his head. Tony made no move to retreat, O’Keegan turned to look straight at Tony. He ignored the gun Tony still had not moved, now pointed squarely between his eyes, he could almost smell the gunpowder in the bullets, the oil that kept the mechanism smooth, O’Keegan spoke, his voice hard like one hundred year old mahogany timber.
‘Put that gun away…or I’ll make you eat it.’
Tony had expected some nervousness, some give in O’Keegan, surprised that O’Keegan was calmer than any sane man should be in this situation. Tony’s hand started to move back then stopped. Either O’Keegan didn’t really care or he didn’t think Tony had the balls to pull the trigger. Both pissed him off. Anger welled up from his stomach, O’Keegan discounted him, his brother discounted him, that really pissed him off. Tony face purpled, anger flashing across his face, he began to pull the trigger, a flea’s wing away from unloading the gun directly into O’Keegan’s face. Meehan spoke,
‘Like the man said baby brother, put that gun away or I’LL make you eat it. O’Keegan and I are coming to a little understanding. Aren’t we O’Keegan?’ He prodded the case towards O’Keegan. ‘Cigar?’
Meehan offered O’Keegan and Flannery cigars from his leather holder. Tony reluctantly pulled the gun back as the conversation continued, O’Keegan turned back to Meehan.
‘You’ll let my Father go if I take a dive when we fight at tonight’s event? Why not just fight fair and square? Leave my Father out of it and we can just do it for real. You’re a man from the streets just like me and Flannery, why don’t we put all the shit to the side and do it how we would have as kids. One on one, face to face. You don’t think I might win do you? A man like you.’
‘A man like me only got this far because I always makes sure the odds are in my favour. That’s why I always win. The idiots that tried to play it fair and square as I was growing up ended up dead, the streets don’t want fair, they want blood and sacrifice, cracked heads and bared teeth. They want winners. Tonight will be no different. You keep your end of the bargain. I’ll keep mine. We put on a good show, pull out a few tricks from the old days to keep the audience clapping and happy. They’ll be baying for blood and we’ll give them yours. But just so you’re clear, if you play any games, if you fuck with me…then you’re Father will regret the day he had you as a son’.
‘I’m sure he’s regretted that many times already but I’ll play along. I’ll do it, nice and easy, just like you said. But what if I get in a lucky punch as part of the show?’
Meehan’s face solidified, tight. ‘Don’t’.
O’Keegan settled back, focusing for the first time on inhaling what must have been the most expensive cigar he had ever seen, let alone tasted. He sat there for a minute or two, rolling the tasty smoke around in his cheeks. For the first time in his life he had a cigar in his hands that tasted as good as it smelled, he was tempted to inhale it but was afraid that if it had any harshness, it would dispel the magic of what he was savouring in it’s taste. Meehan saw the pleasure that O’Keegan was experiencing from the cigar, it reminding him of the taste he had been ignoring, sure they had a bargain Meehan reclined further into his seat to join O’Keegan in this moment of peace.
It was all agreed, an understanding had been reached and in this one act a
lone, at tonight’s event, they would be working together. As Meehan sat back he allowed himself to consider that someone of O’Keegan’s calibre, the first real threat he had experienced, would soon be attached to a concrete block a few feet below the dock side. He drew in the smoke, he could have used a man like O’Keegan but there was just no taming some people, and Meehan knew instinctively that O’Keegan would never bow to him, would never kiss his ring and accept him as his boss, would always be pushing at Meehan. That fact alone was what would put O’Keegan at the bottom of the ocean, and Meehan would be the one doing the pushing of O’Keegan and his concrete jewellery into the sea.
Flannery looked at both Meehan and O’Keegan lying back bullshitting each other that a deal had been done, and considered what this would all mean to him if it were true. If O’Keegan played ball then his life was number by the time it would take Meehan to plant O’Keegan, he would be next on the list. But if O’Keegan didn’t do it then he would be minus one Father, not a thing most people would want on their conscience. Flannery wasn’t sure how he would play it in O’Keegan’s situation and he didn’t even have a Father to worry about. But something wasn’t adding up. He was there when O’Keegan got his call at the meat shop. O’Keegan had come off the phone quiet and relaxed if not a little disturbed telling Flannery that one of Meehan’s men had taken his Father. He knew it already but played shocked and surprised when Meehan broke the news. Was it possible this was all some set up, that there was something O’Keegan hadn’t told him? Or was O’Keegan buying for time? Either O’Keegan didn’t give two shits about his pa or else there was something else going on, perhaps O’Keegan had something else going on that he hadn’t told Flannery?
As Flannery worked it through he knew he had few choices. He either stuck by O’Keegan or he was on the next train to somewhere else. If he was lucky. There was no telling whether Meehan would even now let him get that far. Meehan would turn his attention on him if he hadn’t already, as soon as O’Keegan was minus the capacity to breath, Flannery was sure of it. Shit, there really was nothing left to do but see all of this crap through, he decided to put his trust in the fighting O’Keegan’s, there was nothing else left to do. Flannery gave his cigar a big pull.
O’Keegan surfaced, coming up for air having taking the last five minutes indulgent respite to think through all of the plans, all of the conversations. There was one piece of information Meehan didn’t have and that made all the difference, even if he didn’t exactly agree with what was to happen next. He allowed himself to grunt in vocal satisfaction at the cigar’s pleasures, like the first taste of a good cup of fresh coffee with a cigarette.
With a few visible inches of cigar left, perhaps another five or ten minutes of joy still to come, O’Keegan looked at Meehan saying,
‘We’ll fight then. And it’s not that I don’t trust your word or anything but I want to make sure we all stick to our sides of the bargain.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘We both use our boys to spread the word that the finale to tonight’s event will be me and you giving the crowd what they want most. The top dog and the new dog…fighting it out to see who gets these streets that you have and I want. The streets that have given you this car, these cigars and everything else you have. That way, when I go over, you’ll be keeping, winning what you already have, the streets will be the prize. They’ll be no one to question your place ever again. I get my Pa back and you get your city back. We’ll both get what we want’
Meehan tried to keep his face emotionless, feeling the stakes, fighting the apprehension that settled on him, he knew he had everything all lined up but what if O’Keegan didn’t fall when he was supposed to? What is there was something he’d missed? No, he had it all sorted, O’Keegan’s Pa was even now firmly in his hands, he had even sent a few more boys across when he’d first got the news to make sure there would be no surprises. If O’Keegan screwed with him the old man would be diced and sliced but a lot was riding on O’Keegan’s feeling for one old man.
Meehan was under no false illusion that his power came from being undefeated, someone that just didn’t lose, a leader of men that terminally dealt with all threats and enemies. It’s true that he shared this city with the Italians and the Chinese but after years of battles, everyone had found their place, had settled into a comfortable Boston map. The boundaries were clear and rarely encroached. Few people were prepared to open Pandora’s Box again when everyone was making a good living keeping their own people down. Still, Meehan was the master of all he pervade, just as long as he didn’t ‘pervade’ anywhere near Boston’s North End and the Italians. Not places he was ever overly fond of anyhow. South Boston was his and would stay his just as long as he could keep down the local talent and put a knife or a bullet through any new opponent’s as they appeared. Quickly and without fuss.
That was how this O’Keegan problem had occurred in the first place. New boys tried to nibble at the edges, to tear at the folds and hope no one noticed – to make enough cash and connections to grow bigger, to prove difficult to put down. O’Keegan hadn’t played it like that, one minute he didn’t exist, a nobody, the next he was all anyone could talk about.
This ‘event’ of his started the talking and the whispers. When the bookies had got wind of the event, they had sent their scouts out to get the inside stories on each of the participants. Within hours, stories wrapping around myths which enfolded gossip like a multicoloured child’s jaw breaker and at the centre, O’Keegan, the black aniseed.
Meehan thought about O’Keegan suggestion, make the prize the streets he had already won, shut the whispers up for good. Was he really prepared to place everything he owned like a chip on a black jack table, everything risked on the final hand? Everything stacked up ready for one of them to put their hands around the prize and pull it towards themselves, Meehan gambling on no son would knowingly ending his Father’s life even if it was to win part of a city? O’Keegan was right about one thing, when Meehan won, it would put all the questions back in the box, perhaps locked away for good. He hoped O’Keegan actually gave a damn about his old man, otherwise he would be in the ring with no percentage on his side. It would be even money. But what was he thinking? Was he going soft? One way or another, hadn’t he been fighting every day of his life? Sure, he hadn’t used his fists in the last year or two but it wasn’t too long ago that they were the only weapons he had and he sure knew how to use them. So, after nearly twenty years of fighting, it was all coming full circle his future would again be dictated by his ability to pummel the snot out of the other guy with his fists, knees, teeth, elbows and whatever else he could throw at him. Things hadn’t changed after all, he looked around the car, feeling the softness of the seat, the cigar smoke laying low from the ceiling, the smell of money, know that he was fooling himself but still confident. There was a certain poetic irony about it all perhaps that was why he was even considered it. Perhaps this wasn’t about O’Keegan at all, maybe it was more about wanting to know that he still had it, whatever it was that he had been born with. Still, it didn’t hurt knowing that he had O’Keegan’s old man hanging on a string, to be yanked or let go whenever he felt like it. He knew that a man like O’Keegan wouldn’t want to live with his Father’s death to haunt him. Meehan was risking everything, but O’Keegan wasn’t prepared to kill his old man, he was sure. Meehan made up his mind.
‘Fine. I’ll tell my boys, you tell yours. Inside of an hour, the way this event has got everyone going, the whole of Boston will know. The prize will be the streets, my streets.’ He smiled at O’Keegan, more comfortable now it was said. ‘I hope you’re selling tickets because it will be standing room only and where you’re going, the money will keep you out of trouble for a short while’.
O’Keegan nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself, before leaning forward, starting to get up. As he moved, O’Keegan lifted the last remaining inch of his cigar, holding it vertical like he was making a bid in an auction. He raised it str
aight up and ground the burning ember into Meehan’s new ceiling, putting it out with a few spark falling clockwise, anticlockwise twists.
‘Until tonight then’. O’Keegan said watching the purple chocking expression that had leapt onto Meehan’s now tortured face.
‘Until tonight then’ Meehan echoed between angry gritted teeth, his whole character wanting in that quick instant to break every bone in O’Keegan’s cigar extinguishing hand. He looked up and saw the blackened scorched circle that O’Keegan cigar butt had left in the centre of his new leatherwork stretched and tailored as one piece of leather around each surface of his car’s interior.
Meehan watched first Flannery and then O’Keegan as they stepped out of his now flawed car, he licked his lips relishing the thought of beating O’Keegan to a pulp and relished even more the grand finale, securing O’Keegan’s feet to the cinder block and pushing him off Boston’s pier. O’Keegan wanted to be part of Boston? Well Meehan would make sure he had his very own plot - at the bottom of Boston Harbour.
Chapter 38
Shorty watched from across the street, saw O’Keegan and Flannery shooting the shit with Meehan, watching each facial expression as Meehan lorded it over Flannery and O’Keegan within his treasure trove of a car.
After a few more minutes of watching the day go by, Shorty stuck his handles deeply into his pockets and slowly sauntered off to leave Flannery and O’Keegan to themselves as they left Meehan, Shorty’s thoughts moving fast while his body moved slow.
Flannery and O’Keegan found themselves back out on the Boston street, almost as if the last fifteen minutes or so had never happened.
Flannery looked around, watching the tired, the drab and the hustlers all moving backwards and forwards along the street as if there world and their cares where the only ones that existed.
The Fighting O'Keegans Page 15