The Fighting O'Keegans

by Aaron Kennedy

  ‘The last two boys have just gone in then we have one more then we’ll be done and it will all be up to you…’ Flannery said, the strain and tiredness stating to come through.

  Flannery nodded. ‘OK. Let’s have a little breather between the last fight and me and Meehan. I have to go out for thirty minutes or so. Just to check something out. Ask the next set of boys to not kill each other too quickly will you? I need that thirty minutes. If one of them makes a lucky hit and finishes the fight too early call a twenty minute break so the crowd can get a few drinks, bullshit each other some more and place a few last minute bets. But whatever happens, I’ll be back in thirty minutes.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Flannery asked.

  ‘What about? That I need thirty minutes or I’ll be coming back? You know better than to ask. Why would I want to give up all this?’ He reached out and gave the tatty curtain a slight tug, a smile on his lips.

  ‘Yeah, why would you.’

  O’Keegan stood up to leave. Flannery held him back. With one hand gently on O’Keegan’s shoulder, he looked down at the sitting Priest, who had been listening to their conversation.

  ‘Priest, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Good, good. I think Alteri was going easy on me. I feel great.’ He gave Alteri a quick smirk who responded with a painful wink. The visible purple welts across the Priest’s face had begun to change colour as his body accommodated to its beating. His mashed nose looked a little better after it had been cleaned up but only a little, they all knew he must feel like hell. The Priest was a mess but the real pain wouldn’t set in until he’d had a chance to sleep on it, if his body let him sleep.

  ‘Great. Then do me a favour OK. Keep O’Keegan company. He needs to go out for a bit.’ The Priest looked over at O’Keegan who smiled back at him.

  ‘Yeah, no problem.’

  ‘You ARE making sure I’m coming back.’ O’Keegan shook his head, laughing good naturedly.

  ‘No, I know you’re going to be here. I just don’t trust the Commissioner or Meehan. It would solve a lot of problems if you weren’t here to fight tonight’.

  ‘OK but remember, tonight’s suppose to be off limits to trouble. You coming Priest?’

  The Priest struggled up, all muscles and bones aching to stand beside O’Keegan, ‘No problem O’Keegan, right behind you.’

  They both left, the Priest doing his best to flex himself at the waist, trying to get his sore muscles and aching bones back into action as he tried to keep up with now brisk walking O’Keegan dodging between the chatting bodies as he made his way out of the warehouse.

  Flannery stood watching them go. Knowing inside that the Commissioner’s ban on trouble was probably limited to ‘visible’ trouble in front of all of his friends, if O’Keegan found trouble someplace dark and silent then no one except him and the boys would be crying over their beer, certainly not the Commissioner and especially not Meehan. Flannery mentally crossed his fingers, hoping to see them both back here within the thirty minutes. Everything they had accomplished so far and everything they could accomplish was riding on it.

  A moment or two later O’Keegan and the Priest were standing outside, back in the scantily lit street. O’Keegan pulled his jacket together to fight off the cold then put his arm around the sore and tired shoulders of the Priest, giving him his brightest Irish smile and his broadest Irish accent played up for humour’s sake.

  ‘So how’re you feeling Priest? A walk in the park right? If I didn’t tell you already, you did good tonight’.

  ‘The truth? Now that Alteri’s not around?’ The Priest looked over his shoulder to make sure the warehouse door was firmly closed. ‘I feel like a garbage truck ran over me three or four times O’Keegan. I think Alteri must have had a pool ball clenched in his fist, that’s the only thing that explains how hard that man can hit.’ He winced, touching one of the bruises above his closing eye. ‘Not sure I’ll be wanting to do that again in a hurry.’

  ‘Don’t worry son. You won’t have too. You’ve got a ‘name’ now. The whole of Boston knows who you are. No one will want to give you any trouble for some time and if any one tries, you know and I know that you’ll be able to deal with it.’

  The Priest sighed. ‘Yeah, I can deal with anything. Just so long as I can put myself back together before the next time.’

  O’Keegan looked him over seeing the gashes and purpling skin, ‘Don’t worry Priest, it will be all plain sailing from here, I promise you. Half of Boston are afraid of you, the other half respect you, what’s the worst that can happen?’

  The Priest didn’t hesitate. ‘Meehan’s the worst that can happen right now.’

  ‘Meehan? He doesn’t have long left in this city, after the next few days, we’ll just sit back and take all the cream. Meehan’s cream.’

  The Priest sniffed, ‘Yeah. Of course. Meehan’s cream. It’s all going to be fine.’

  ‘Alright Priest, we’ve got thirty minutes to go to the meat shop and get back here. If we’re late they’ll probably lynch Flannery and the rest of the boys from that lamppost over there.’

  He pointed, setting off for the meat shop, the Priest painfully struggling to keep up.

  ++

  As O’Keegan and the Priest set off, leaving the street of people, two men slipped out from a side alley and walked over to the front of the warehouse, carefully stepping around the immediate light that shone from the scattered iron lampposts. One was tall and thin, slightly gaunt even to the casual eye, the other much shorter and almost adolescent in build. The two men stood for a few seconds scanning each of the cars until both sets of eyes settled on the one that stood out from all the rest with an extra edge of the gaudy, an underscored lack of taste. Meehan’s.

  Meehan’s car had been carefully placed a good ten steps away from the warehouse. Parked near all the rest but in its own spot just off to the side of the bulk of vehicles.

  Shorty chuckled as walked towards Meehan’s pride and joy,

  ‘Looks like Meehan thought his little car getting scratched. Some people worry about the stupidest things when there’s so much more to worry about....’

  O’Toole whistled between his teeth, ‘Yeah, but look at it Shorty…it must have cost a bundle’ His hand trailing over the front fender.

  ‘It must have done. Anyway, how long will it take you to get inside and to leave the package?’

  ‘It should be a simple lock Shorty. You can’t make car locks complicated. Shouldn’t take more than a minute.’

  ‘OK. I’ll go stand near the door and make sure you don’t get disturbed. Now remember, the package goes under the back seat OK. No, slip ups otherwise it will be our necks.’

  O’Toole looked a little hurt but focused on the need to open the back door of Meehan’s car rather than thinking or giving Shorty back a wise crack back. They only had so much time before any one of the two or three hundred people inside the warehouse decided to leave for the evening or perhaps take a leak against the outside wall.

  Crouching down next to the rear tire he placed the tool bag that he’d been carrying beside his feet. He was just another person needing to rearrange an errant shoe lace. After another moment or two of shoe concentration he turned his head from side to side in case there was anyone around and seeing that everything was clear gave a last glance over at Shorty.

  Shorty nodded back, then gave the warehouse door a tap. The door window was briskly pulled aside and the smiling face of one of O’Keegan’s boys was on the other side.

  ‘Hey, we need a minute or two of peace and quiet out here. If anyone decides to come out for a breath of air or whatever, stall them. Rattle the lock or something like it’s stuck, that way we’ll hear you and it give us a little time to get clear, OK?’ Shorty demanded.

  ‘Yeah, no problem Shorty.’ The doorman said.

  ‘Good’.

  Shorty looked over at O’Toole who was now planted firmly on the side of Meehan’s car, a small lock pick running around the locks barrel in
an effort to make all the right twists and turns. Shorty stood with one eye on O’Toole’s work and one ear listening out in case the warehouse door locks was shaken and eventually drawn back by the warning doorman.

  Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Shorty started to feel the nervousness, O’Toole was visibly getting frustrated, had still not managed to get in. O’Toole sat back on his heals for a few seconds, taking a steadying breath or two while he thought it through. Interlacing his fingers and giving his knuckles a relieving crack, feeling better, he spat into his palms and rubbed his hands together, getting some warmth back into his cold fingers.

  O’Toole took up the lock pick again. Shorty tried hard not to pace, beginning to lose all patience, his heart starting to beat in tune to the rhythmic stamps and claps from inside the warehouse. He began to turn to walk towards O’Toole who was now one hundred percent focused on getting this bitch of a car door open.

  After a few steps Shorty heard the sound of the warehouse lock being shaken, as if the person on the other side was having difficulties, Shorty quickly turned his head back to the door knowing it was the sign that someone wanted out.

  A split second later, he was back at the warehouse door and was grasping hold of the small iron handle which was used to pull the door too from the outside. The bolt was finally drawn and the door began to move slowly inwards, Shorty held on for dear life stopping its progress for a few more seconds.

  Finally the door was fully opened and Shorty stood squarely in the opening as if he had been waiting and trying to get in from his side. Standing in his way was Meehan. They both stood their ground neither wanting to let the other through first. Meehan took a second look at who was in the way, trying hard to remember a somewhat familiar face.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Meehan asked. Shorty shook his head, a blank face looking slightly upwards at the taller Meehan.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Who are you?’ Shorty said.

  Meehan started to step through the doorway,

  ‘Don’t be a fucking wise ass. You’re in my way, move.’

  ‘Sorry about that, I’ve been trying to get in here all night but the doormen couldn’t have heard me above all the noise. Come on man, let me through…’ Shorty started to push his way into the warehouse, not letting Meehan exit. Meehan placed a hand on Shorty’s chest, pushing him back but not quite through into the street.

  ‘I don’t give a shit. Get out of my way.’ Meehan growled.

  Two seconds later two guys had pealed themselves off from Meehan’s shoulders and had stepped round to grab hold of Shorty, one holding onto his shoulder, the other grasping an arm.

  Spinning him around, they gave him a shove back through the door and out into the street. Shorty made a good show of sprawling along, palms on the sidewalk as his knees followed after. Scuffling along the sidewalk as he tried to kill more time for O’Toole.

  Meehan and his two guys surged out, looking down at Shorty who had the sense to stay where he’d been thrown. Meehan stepped up beside Shorty and gave a good swing with his foot straight into Shorty’s stomach, the wind punched out of his lips with a pop as his diaphragm was kicked upwards.

  ‘Who am I?’ He snapped, looking at his two boys who stood smiling down at Shorty,

  ‘Everyone’s a fucking comedian.’ Meehan shook his head, looking down at the balled up Shorty he gave him an almost absent minded prod with his shoe and began to undo his trousers.

  ‘All I wanted to do was come out here and have a quiet piss and even an unknown piece of shit like you wants to yank my chain. Well, I wanted to piss so I’m gonna piss’. Fingers pinching, Meehan ended his soliloquy by releasing a warm steaming stream on Shorty’s back as his two guys looked on laughing.

  Shorty rolled over slightly his stomach now flat on the ground, as if attempting to escape from the majority of Meehan’s stream, looking out of the corner of his near squeezed shut eyes, Shorty raised his head to look over at Meehan’s car. He gave a slight smile seeing that O’Toole was long gone, no visible signs of him, his bag or his undone shoe laces.

  As Shorty diverted his mind from Meehan and the humiliation, as the smell of Meehan’s warm piss reached up to his nose he cursed, vehemently hoping that O’Toole had managed to do what he was supposed to do.

  Meehan noticed the smile and the curse, and looked around to see what it was all about. Seeing that Shorty was looking at nothing at all annoyed him even more, wanting him to focus on the denigration Meehan was delivering.

  ‘You think this is fucking funny you sick bastard?’ Meehan asked.

  He dragged his foot back further and shot it forward with a good, vicious swing, this time at Shorty’s head. ‘Lights out you fuck’.

  Shorty saw it coming but with nowhere to go felt the crashing kick connect before darkness arrived as a midnight steam train, smashed into unconsciousness by Meehan’s shined shoes.

  As Shorty went under O’Toole watched on from their original spot in the darkened alley a cold smile on his lips happy that at least he had managed to do what he had been brought to do.

  ++

  O’Keegan and the Priest were turning the meat shop lights on as Meehan was turning Shorty’s lights off. The brass bell at the top of the large wooden door continued to jangle as the Priest closed it firmly behind them. O’Keegan already walking through the front store reached around the corner to turn on the lower light to the back office.

  ‘Last thing we need right now is for some beat cop to wonder what the hell we’re doing in here and give us a hard time. I’ll keep the door closed. You keep the main light off OK.’

  ‘No problem O’Keegan I’ll stay right here.’

  The Priest planted himself firmly against one of the side walls while O’Keegan walked through to the back office, closing the door in between. He heard O’Keegan pick up the phone before he realized that standing in the darkness somehow brought the beating he had just experienced to the front of his mind. Maybe it was being left to his own thoughts but even though he knew it would take a good few weeks before his body felt human again, he still had a good feeling down in the pit of his stomach. He had given his best tonight, he hadn’t shamed himself and was now a man of respect, one of O’Keegan’s men. It felt good. Very good.

  As the Priest stood there listening to the incoherent mumblings of O’Keegan on the other side of the wall into the phone, it occurred to him that one of those juicy steaks stored away in one of the huge meat lockers would be better served against his swelling nose than on some Bostonian’s dinner plate.

  With a gut felt, mischievous chuckled he walked around to the other side of the meat shop counter and pulled upon one of the meat locker horizontal handles, sighing as it satisfactorily swung open. Perhaps it was because he was focused on opening the door in the meat locker in blackness or because his ears were still ringing from the Enforcer’s blows, but it was a minute or two before his brain registered that the ringing in his ears was being duplicated in the real world.

  The Priest turned, large sirloin in hand, realizing that the ringing was the door’s brass bell as the shop door had just been gently open. He didn’t have time to respond with more than a surprised look, as the kick from a silenced bullet caught him in the chest, the second thud catching him in the throat silencing his cry before it fully began.

  The blood from the forgotten meat mixing with his own, as the Priest looked down at the gash in his chest, his hand reached up in an effort to stem the blood flow. A bloody hiccup later and the Priest crumbled, falling back into the meat locker, brain still struggling to cry out asking for life as his assassin lifted his still twitching legs gently and quietly lifted into the meat locker, his feet stopping the door from closing all the way.

  The large silver cold storage door was swung almost closed, the Priest’s memory taking him back as O’Keegan raised his hand alongside the Enforcers, the fight over. For a few hours he had really been the Priest, a few moments later his eyes closed. Another vacuum packed piece of cold me
at in a Southie meat shop, the shooter thought as he closed the large aluminium faced door. The intruder turned towards O’Keegan’s mumblings.

  O’Keegan wrapped up his conversation and putting down the phone in its cradle. Knowing what he needed to know, O’Keegan moved towards the door, turning off the light so it didn’t shine into the main shop. Still blinking from the lack of light, his eyes strained to accommodate themselves to the instant blackness, pulling open the door he stepped through to the shop front,

  ‘Priest, are you ready to…’

  The hard point of metal was pushed against his temple as his eyes made their final accommodations to the semi-darkness, some light still shinning through the shops window from the street outside. He could just make out the elements of the shop from street lights giving the room a moonlight feel of shadows as he turned his head towards the metal gun that had been placed against his head.

  Looking straight into the guns barrel, he looked past it and saw a hat perched atop a grim face, all chinned face which lead down to a burgundy suit, tie and dark overcoat.

  O’Keegan knew instantly that this was not a cheap Southie stickup, it was a professional doing what he was paid to do. O’Keegan had no doubt that he was looking straight at a man that wouldn’t hesitate to pull that trigger, killing O’Keegan would be just flicking dust off his lapel before he went on without another thought.

  Shame this guy isn’t working for me, O’Keegan thought while waiting for the man to do whatever was next on his agenda. A few moment’s more and something occurred to O’Keegan,

  ‘Where’s the Priest?’

  The hood grinned and flicked the gun barrel towards the cold storage,

  ‘He’s in the confessional. He’s got an eternity of Hail Mary’s to say and won’t be out for sometime’.

  O’Keegan kept his face calm, anger bubbling up from the bottom of his stomach, bile rising into his mouth between clenched rows of teeth. O’Keegan watched as Meehan’s man laughed thinking he had just told the best joke on the fucking planet. O’Keegan waited for whatever was next, expecting the ice cold bullet to start drilling at any moment. It didn’t come, Meehan’s man leaned in close, then said,