‘Yes I know, some other time huh? Some other time…Will there ever be a time to deal with it?’
‘You know maybe not O’Keegan, but I sure as hell know that if ever there was a fucked up time to lose you’re grip, this is it. Winning one fight isn’t winning what’s important O’Keegan, it’s winning the day in day out stuff, keeping it all together no matter what’s thrown at you.’
O’Keegan nodded, wiping the sweat from his eyelids as he brought himself back.
‘What about Shorty, O’Toole, they’re both ready? They know what to do?’
‘You know they do. Shorty and O’Toole are right where their supposed to be. What about you? Are you ready?’
O’Keegan thought for a moment and Flannery relaxed as he began to see the cylinders beginning to fire, O’Keegan was back in mode.
‘OK, OK, it’s going to go a bit different than the plan, it won’t be me’. O’Keegan stood.
‘It won’t be you, why the hell not?’
‘Because that’s not how it’s going to go, believe me. There’s someone with more right than me’
‘More right? You’re sure?’
O’Keegan smiled, then nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m sure, I couldn’t change it now even if I wanted too’.
Flannery looked questioningly at O’Keegan and knew that O’Keegan was back, it could still come off, he stopped worrying.
O’Keegan stood, holding out his hand to Flannery who grasped it.
‘I won’ O’Keegan brought both hands up to clasp Flannery’s.
‘Yes, you did’
They walked together back into the warehouse and were deluged by the applause, by the wave upon wave of cheers. Meehan and brother stood, arms around shoulders in the centre of the ring, Meehan putting his foot down on just one good foot, oblivious to the good will that washed around them, not touching them in its embrace, two rocks in the centre of the foam.
The crowd watched on as O’Keegan and Flannery came back, wondering if there was to be an encore. Perhaps there was still more to come, more to see. O’Keegan walked to Meehan, who pushed himself up and away from the support of his brother. They stood opposite each other, Meehan spat a glob of blood and spit on the floor working to clear his mouth before connecting his eyes with O’Keegan, the spectators silenced themselves, waiting for the final act,
‘This isn’t over O’Keegan’
‘No?’ O’Keegan asked as if surprised.
‘No. I won’t give it up, not a damn inch of it…you’ll have to see me buried before you get what’s mine’
O’Keegan smiled at Meehan, painful lips grimacing with painful humour. As he did Meehan began to cough, his arms wrapping around his stomach and ribs, the stomach felt wracking causing visible pain as crack ribs prodded, like a wooden spoon turning through mincemeat. Meehan winced, trying to hold himself together, torn ligaments, broken bones and splaying muscles groaning at the steel-cabled effort to keep him standing despite the now unconnected network of fibres. Nausea caused by his broken body attempted to overwhelm him, battling with his bloody consciousness. He crouched down, the coughs intensifying, the crowd watching on as he shook. He was broken, a man to be pitied.
It all slowed down, afterwards no would could really explain how it happened, one moment a man looking like a Tuberculosis sufferer in his last death throws, the next, Meehan was standing straight, feet a solid shoulder width apart, looking out at everyone with burning, blazing hatred, gun in hand. For a second Meehan wavered as the physical reality of his broken state fought with the Meehan’s mind screaming against the weakness, the gun barrel pointed squarely at O’Keegan who stood just a few feet away. There really was nothing left to say, he wasted no words, trying to steady his aim with increasingly shaking arms, running his tongue across fractured lips, Meehan pulled the trigger. The shot reverberated around the warehouse hall, intensified as the sound thunder clapped within the brick box. The crowd surged in all directions, people running and trampling. The sane made for the door, the rest just tried to get as far away from Meehan as they could, no real logical thought or escape route yet in mind. A growing circle from the Meehan epicentre as he collapsed to one knee his brother reaching down to pull him up from the floor.
Travelling in all directions, people took the risk, surging between the Meehan O’Keegan gap, a second shot impossible. Tony worked harder to pulled him up and taking the gun from Meehan’s hands, pointed it at the retreating mass of bodies, an invisible line to the door appearing as people moved out of the line of the gun barrel. Tony kept pointing all the while dragging his broken brother towards the warehouse door, a stumbling three legged race to the exit. Flannery and O’Keegan stood, no visible signs of where the bullet had struck, seemingly watching as the humanity washed itself out of the building, leaving them standing at the centre of what had been their night to remember. Two more men stood still, just a few feet away from Flannery and O’Keegan, the Commissioner and Cesare, watching the watchers, untouched by the panic.
The Meehan brothers managed to cram themselves through the door, outside now, they watched the crowd dissipated like steam from the streets different valves and exits. Taking a tighter hold on Meehan, his brother did his best to drag Meehan towards his car. Fumbling with the keys, he finally opened the passenger’s side door and pushed Meehan into the seat, lifting his legs in before slamming the door shut, Meehan relaxing his tussled sweat and blood encrusted head against his reliably bullet-proof closed side window.
Running around the front of the car, Tony undid the door and placed himself in the driver’s seat. Ratcheting the gears in his frustrated haste, he reversed the car out, scattering those still swarming out of the warehouse before setting the car off in forward motion. Meehan had slumped down in the seat, his head now resting on the seats back as he tried to capture his breath, now confident as the doors locked popped downwards, enclosing him in his protected moving sanctuary.
Looking sideways at his brother, Tony drove despite both eyes still looking his brother over, cataloguing the cuts, blood and gashes, not noticing the two men that stood at the end of the road, one short the other not so. O’Toole and Shorty stood, waiting, guns aimed directly at the car’s front window, centred in the middle of the road, a few hundred steps away in front as the car barrelled towards them. Tony looked back at the road, and for the first time saw the two gun men, levelling their weapons.
‘Shit. Denny? Denny? Fuck.’ He started to pull the wheel to the side, anticipating the shots that would fire as the car came comfortably within range. He slowed the car down. Before he could pull the car over fully, Meehan had grabbed hold of the wheel.
‘Run them down’
‘What? What do you mean? They’ve got guns Denny.’ Doing his best to wrestle the wheel back from his brother’s grasp.
Meehan did his best to smile, looking like a gargoyle with gas.
‘We’re…we’re…bullet-proof. They can’t…can’t hit us. Run them down. Don’t argue with me you…you fuck. Run them DOWN.’
Stamping on the accelerator, smiled back at his brother, god he was going to enjoy this, Tony swerved the car back into the centre of the road, leaning forward as he realigned the car towards the stock still and waiting Shorty and O’Toole.
Shorty and O’Toole looked at each other and smiled. The car hurtled towards them, gaining more speed as the engine caught up with the floored accelerator peddle. It was a game of chicken, guns against car, O’Keegan’s boys against Meehan. Shorty and O’Toole waited, five seconds, four seconds, the collision imminent, both men seemingly waiting until the last moment before shooting as both Meehan’s focused completely on running them both down.
Shorty and O’Toole fired, the guns kicked upwards as the bullets cracked with deadened impact on the front window. The window held, Meehan cackled, the car travelled forward as the brothers anticipated the crunch of metal hitting bodies. Shorty and O’Toole, stepped to the side a second before the car hit, Meehan’s eyes followed Shorty as they quickl
y passed by, Shorty smiling up at him, raising his hand to his head in salute,
‘I told you we were bullet-proof…tell me I ain’t the smartest shit you’ve ever met…’ Meehan heard the click part way through his self congratulations, ‘what the…?’
Alteri sat up fully in the back of the car, the two barrelled shotgun pointed just an inch from the back of Meehan’s head,
‘Say hello to the Priest from me’. Alteri pulled a trigger, a hole the size a fist appeared as the metal hornets drilled their way through the back of Meehan’s head, his nose, eyes and face fragmenting, stopped by the bullet-proof windscreen dowsing it with gore as his twitching body toppling onto his now screaming brother, the shrimp head gore covering him in greyness and clotted mess. The Enforcer moved the shotgun a few inches and listen with satisfaction as Tony intensified his wordless yell, his hand mindlessly scrabbling against the door, pulling against the lock, knowing even as the handle lifted that he wouldn’t make it, he was dead already, all that was left was the administration. Alteri pulled the last trigger, knocking the big bits of Tony against the side door with a crashing force, the small bits finding their own way wherever they wanted.
The Enforcer sat back, drained, as the car slowly ground to a halt, the accelerator finally released. A moment later, the door was pulled fully open, an out of breath Shorty stood in the gap, looking over both bodies as Tony’s tried to slide out through the gap Shorty had created.
‘Christ…’ Shorty shoved Tony back into the centre of the car until he leant against his brother’s dead corpse.
‘Come on Alteri. It’s done. Let’s get out of here. It’s over.’
‘These fucks killed the Priest.’ Alteri’s let the shotgun drop, forgetting it as he thought back to just a few hours before, supporting and being supported by the Priest after their scrap.
‘Yeah we know. Let’s go find a bar…we’ll raise a few glasses to him. Best we’re somewhere else before the cops show up’.
++
O’Keegan, Flannery, Cesare and the Commissioner all waited, sure that in a minute or two they would have complete privacy as the Boston populace redeployed themselves back into the lives, the last four men, alone. They all stood in the blood encrusted circle, no one saying anything. A minute or two ticked by then they heard the repeated rapid gun shots Boston gangster words ending with the shotgun full-stop.
The Commissioner was the first to break the silence,
‘Seems like my boys have arrived, that’s probably them catching up with Meehan. Who’d have thought he would have gone crazy like that, over just losing a fight.’
Cesare stepped forward, bridging some of the gap between O’Keegan and himself while looking over at the Commissioner.
‘It wasn’t just a fight Commissioner. To people like us, face is everything. It’s what keeps it all together. He lost the fight, he lost face. He knew as soon as his people started to disappear after the fight that it was all over. To a man like Meehan, once that’s gone then there’s nothing left.’
O’Keegan started to walk towards the warehouse exit, keen to know the outcome he had planned for weeks,
‘That’s not your men Commissioner. Your boys use Smith & Weston’s, not Shotguns. I think we’ll find Meehan and his brother out there, deader than dead. I should thank you Mr. Commissioner, you’re going to be the best alibi I could have. Despite the fight, I’ve been here with you since then, no one’s going to question your testimony.’
The Commissioner looked thoughtfully at O’Keegan.
‘I’ll be your alibi O’Keegan and now that there have been a few changes around here, I would have been prepared to be your alibi whether I was here or not. That’s the way it works around here O’Keegan, I help you and you help me. Nice and civil. Like we discussed before, one of my boys will drop by your place at the end of the week, talk with him and then we can all get through all of this and begin to work together. Back scratching is the reality here O’Keegan.’
O’Keegan looked back as he neared the exit.
‘Mr. Commissioner, I appreciate your offer and I’ll take it into consideration but I need some time to consolidate and until then I’ll not be making any contributions to the Police Orphans Benevolent Society or whatever it is you’ll be calling it.’
‘Now hold on a minute O’Keegan. There are ways of getting along, you either play the game or the game crushes you…I crush you. Do we understand each other O’Keegan?’
‘I understand you perfectly and I’m not saying ‘no’ I’m just saying ‘not yet’.’
Tempers were beginning to fray and any more talk would take them both to a place where something would be said that would make any future arrangement an impossibility and with it the likelihood of an all out war. Cesare intervened not sure that it could be averted anyway,
‘Gentlemen, Mr. Commissioner, our friend O’Keegan here has only just arrived in Boston. He doesn’t yet know how it all works. Let’s sleep on it and then you guys can get together and come to some agreement. It’s been a long night, let’s leave it until tomorrow.’
The Commissioner sucked on his teeth, wanting to stamp on any disagreement here and now liking buds nipped before they were fully buds, but looking at Cesare, he recognized the need to keep on Cesare’s good side. There would be another time soon to sort this out and he had the whole Police force behind him. He could bring O’Keegan down any time he wanted if O’Keegan didn’t get with the program. O’Keegan was still weak, even if he had beat Meehan. It wasn’t like crowning a king, O’Keegan would have to work hard to pull it all together before the rest of the vultures came in for their share. Even Cesare might decide to try for an extra piece. Better to stay on his good side for now. The Commissioner issued his best smile as he narrowed the distance between himself, Cesare and O’Keegan.
‘Good idea Cesare, we’ll all sleep on it. And just to show that I can be flexible, we’ll finish this discussion at the end of the week. You fought well tonight O’Keegan. You’ve earnt everything that’s coming to you.’
Sirens of Police cars echoed off the warehouse walls to signify that Boston life was returning to some semblance of normality.
‘You too Mr. Commissioner’. O’Keegan said, the double meaning hitting home instantly for the Commissioner but ignored as he stepped out of the warehouse, greeted by the blue flashing lights of the squad cars that had pulled up beside Meehan’s car in the distance and dotted in a line up to the warehouse door.
Cesare, O’Keegan and Flannery remained, not yet ready to walk into the building swell of cops, press and onlookers that could be heard jostling outside.
‘If you going to make it here O’Keegan, you need to know how to work the system. The Commissioner, you, me, all of us, we all play our part and more often than not know how to get by without making too much trouble.’
‘I understand Cesare.’ O’Keegan kept his thoughts to himself and Cesare probed O’Keegan face, looking for some clue to what was going on behind O’Keegan’s messed up face. Not sure that O’Keegan wasn’t just saying the words, he reached out his hand to shake O’Keegan’s.
‘I hope you do O’Keegan. I would rather work with you than against you. We don’t need any more difficulties, Meehan knew his place, you need to figure yours out too. Don’t take too long with it. We’ll speak soon O’Keegan. Good fight tonight O’Keegan, you did well. By the way, you may not have noticed but your boy needs a Doctor. Have him see Jones at the Hospital on Broadway, tell him I sent you.’ Cesare left.
O’Keegan quickly turned towards Flannery who hadn’t moved from the bloody circle, just where he’d stood since Meehan had taken the shot at O’Keegan with trembling hands and missed. O’Keegan ran forward, seeing Meehan’s dead body forgotten. Moving Flannery’s jacket to the side, he peered down, seeing for the first time the crimson bubbling pulse of Flannery’s side, a spreading bloody wound that winked at him as Flannery made painful sucking breaths.
‘You were hit. You stupid fuck, why are you j
ust standing there? Why didn’t you say something? We need to take you to a Doctor.’
‘Didn’t want to interrupt your conversation. You and the Commissioner seemed preoccupied.’ Flannery grinned, stumbling forward, collapsing, his eyes staring up into the warehouse rafters.
‘It’ll be a night to remember won’t it O’Keegan, we got him. It’s over. We got him. It’s gonna be all ours now, isn’t it O’Keegan. O’Keegan?’ He looked up with unseeing eyes, trying to look into O’Keegan’s eyes, trying to connect and draw some strength from his friend - seeing only darkness.
Flannery sank into O’Keegan’s bruised and bullet cut arms. Almost out.
The two men huddled on the warehouse floor, the centre of the circle that had set them walking towards their fates that night. Flannery drifted off hearing O’Keegan yelling for help long in the distance.
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The Fighting O'Keegans Page 26