Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  Daniel speaks without response, “So close to the Meehan Brownstone that if this window was a photograph, I could touch it,” he runs a finger along the glass where Dinny Meehan’s home stands one block away, partially obscured by a three-story building in the foreground. He puts the Lemaire field binoculars to his eyes and can see where the glass had been repaired by members of the White Hand on the third floor where the Meehans live.

  Daniel lets the black drapes fall back into place to cover the window and moves his eyes slowly to his new toy, “Best friends yaz were right? Moe and Doe, my wife?”

  Maureen attempts to cast doubt on those words, but can manage only throaty sounds. The chain wrapped round her pale pink chest is tight enough that she must use her stomach muscles to sit up. On one side of her is a metal bed with a dirty mattress and no sheets. A single limp and yellowed pillow lies in the middle of the bed next to Maureen’s torn dress. On the other side of her is a barrel with steel hoops round beveled staves.

  “Brosnan told me the story,” Culkin’s footsteps ring through the room as he walks slowly over and drops the binoculars on the dresser next to Garry Barry’s hand sickle. Against the dresser he leans on both palms, his long tunic almost completely covers his shiny black shoes. “Moe an’ Doe. The most popular girls in school. But havin’ a good father is a roll o’ the dice, ain’t it? Sometimes ya get a good roll; a lovin’, soft-hearted an’ understin’ father who’ll do anythin’ in his power to help his daughter along, like Brosnan. But when ya roll dice ya can also get Snake Eyes,” he turns to her. “A rapist an’ a drunk. All those years ya father was rapin’ ya an’ no one ever knew until ya told Doirean? I wonder though, why’d ya keep it a secret for so long? Brosnan said ya father had been doin’ it to ya since ya was a moppet. Why didn’t ya say nothin’ before? Did ya like it when he rode ya?”

  Maureen’s eyes darken and she lets herself fall back, allowing her legs to open.

  “Close ya legs ya fookin’ slattern. Fookin’ disgustin’,” Daniel averts his eyes. When he looks back, she has opened them even wider.

  “Close them,” he kicks her thigh until it turns bright red. “Ya think that’s power? It ain’t! It’s a finite power, that’s all it is. All any whores got.” He walks back over to the dresser. “Ya know my grandmother was raped. Raped by a Englishman. Captain o’ a coffin ship. My father told that story, but I never wanted to know it. Brosnan used to bring it up all the fookin’ time. He used it against me an’ I hated him for it. My grandmother was only fourteen when she came over from Ireland. A virgin, more than likely. Just a little girl from a deeply religious an’ tight knit community in County fookin’ Mayo,” he makes a face and wiggles his fingers in mockery. “It was ravaged by hunger. Fookin’ peasants. Couldn’t read or write. They all turned against each other in the end. By the time she arrived in Brooklyn she was showin’. The way I see it, rape gave me life, an’ thank god for that. Plus, there’s basically no biological difference between Irish an’ English anyhow, right? So who cares about any distinctions an’ particulars, I don’t. That reminds me. Who fucked the Lonergan girl? Brosnan an’ I were takin’ bets. He said Vincent Maher. I said it was Sixto Stabile,” Daniel looks at her and waves his hand. “Never mind, don’ matter who wins now. . . Brosnan’s dead.”

  Maureen’s eyes go wide.

  “Yeah, he went over to the other side. Ya didn’ know? I guess ya wouldn’t. No one knows, really. Ya’self’ll get the same as him though. Barry wants to cut ya head off too. We just gotta wait ’til we can get a big strong guy to carry ya down the stairs an’ put ya in the automobile truck he’s bringin’. O’ course, that’s after we stuff ya in that barrel.”

  Maureen’s eyes turn to the barrel. She moans and wriggles to free herself of the chains, then kicks at the bed and pounds her heels into the floor. She then attempts to position herself so that she can kick backward at the barrel. Unable to reach it, she screams into the towel with more temper than terror.

  Daniel grabs the hand sickle from the dresser and flies toward her, “I’ll just kill ya now!”

  Maureen closes her eyes and hunches her shoulders. Opening one eye, she turns it up and sees Daniel with the weapon over his head, frozen in place.

  He bursts into laughter, “That stopped ya, didn’ it? Didn’ it?”

  He drops the sickle on the floor next to her, “G’ahead, take it. Oh ya can’t reach? Oh gee, wow. Maybe if I loosened up the chains a bit for ya? Would that work? Then ya can grab it an’ try to kill me wit’ it. . . Except I got this,” he opens his coat enough to show her the steel nestled into the leather shoulder holster.

  Daniel turns round and opens the drapes again, leaving the sickle next to her. “Barry an’ Wiz voted to kill ya right off. But I wanted to get a piece o’ ya first. I ain’t into dead girls. I like them warm. Doirean never lets me tie her up. Besides, she's pregnant. She only wants flowers and surprises an’ new sofas an’ jewelry. She likes them yokes a lot more than she likes cock. She could go the rest o’ her life wit’out havin’ sex an’ she’d be fine wit’ it. Just my luck. I’m the one likes to get wild. I like to experiment. My god, I never knew I’d like fookin’ a prisoner that much though. I gave ya what, three thrusts? Ah well, it’s not like ya enjoyed it. At least I spared ya the agony o’ ridin’ ya for an hour. Now. . . I’ve had both Moe an’ Doe,” Daniel turns and smiles. “Kind o’ a nice feelin’, actually. Cleary’s gonna go next, if ya don’ mind. I’m sure ya don’t. Men’ve been ridin’ ya for years now. The only difference is we ain’t gonna pay ya t’day. . . We’re gonna chop ya up. Ya own pimp is gonna do it too, Garry Barry. How’s that for loyalty? Or was he ya boyfriend? Did ya see him as ya boyfriend once? Betrothed? Even though he charged other men to fuck ya? Sad, sad girl.”

  The black blood streaking down Maureen’s pale face thickens and weeps onto her shoulders, down toward her nipples.

  “Ya were gonna tell on me, weren’t ya?” He quickly turns to face her with his bottom lip pushed out and unhooks his blackjack and rears back.

  Maureen closes her red eyes and lowers her head in as much cowering supplication as the chains allow. It sounds like a baseball bat clapping a skull, but it is her shin where he bludgeons her. The dense leather at the end with the lead ball inside had caromed closer to her knee than ankle. There, her leg began to turn blue and swell within seconds. He clips the blackjack back onto the belt of his tunic and watches as Maureen’s eyes almost pop out of her pressurized head.

  She’s in another world right now, Daniel smiles. I sent her there.

  Her face turns purple in front of him, yet only a few muffled screams and some snorting sounds escape.

  Daniel takes an exhilarated breath and exhales through gritted teeth, “Ya came to my home like a wild woman when everyone found out my father-in-law went missin’. Ya had to make a big scene. I s’pose ya thought it was a ya civil duty to report me to my commandin’ officer. Surely a citizen can do that wit’out retribution. Lucky for me ya got the reputation o’ a itinerant slattern.”

  He looks her up and down, “Ya dropped that letter off at our home didn’ ya? Ya wanted Doirean to know about the house up in Peekskill, so ya slipped it under the door, didn’ ya?”

  Maureen looks quizzically up at him.

  “But why sign it wit’ a ‘H’? Eh? What’s that mean, ‘H’”?

  Maureen shakes her head in confusion and mumbles through the towel.

  “Ya ain’t so thick, are ya? Nah, ya ain’t. Durin’ the storm when me an’ Wiz the Lump came an’ found Barry and Cleary an’ ya’self in that room they was pimpin’ ya outta? Ya know, when Wiz broke ya arm? Remember? Ya put it all together, didn’ ya?”

  He shows her one finger, “Ya knew Barry was capable o’ killin’ anybody.” A second finger, “An’ ya knew Wiz the Lump reports to Wolcott.” He flashes three fingers and balls them into a fist, “An’ me. I was the connection to Brosnan. I wouldn’t call it smart, per say. I’d say ya just smart enough to connect-the-dots is
all. But ya gotta lotta words that come rollin’ outta that lipless slit o’ a mouth ya got. Well, ya know what they say in Irishtown; ‘clouts for touts,’” Daniel bends down and picks up the hand sickle and touches the tip with an index finger. “Whoa, that’s sharp. I saw this cut right through the muscle an’ bone in a grown man’s neck. The fookin’ head went flyin’ an’ for a second I thought I saw Brosnan’s lips movin’. Like he was talkin’ to himself or somethin’. Right now I’m thinkin’ why not just do ya now? Why wait for Cleary to come up for sloppy seconds? Ya probably already did it wit’ him though, right? Probably lots o’ times. I heard he an’ Barry used to take turns on ya. Anyway, Cleary don’ need another turn. I’ll just cut off an arm first. But wait, if I do that ya might get loose. A leg then? That might be too difficult. How deep do ya think I can bury this instrument into ya skull? Ya think I could cut ya head in half? Is that possible wit’ this? Maybe Wiz could, he’s stronger than I am. But I can try. Yeah, I’ll just kill ya now.”

  Daniel stands over her again and holds the hand sickle over Maureen Egan’s head. He grits his teeth and his face begins to turn red. His body shakes until all at once, he bursts out laughing again.

  “Oh shit, I got ya again,” Daniel drops the sickle and lowers himself to see beneath her legs. “Look, look, ya pee’d. Oh fuck that’s funny. Ya really pee’d. Listen, listen. I’m not gonna hurt ya. Men wit’ real power don’ actually do the killin’, see. Animals like Garry fookin’ Barry do. I’m gonna go get him, I’ll be right back.”

  Daniel stands and moves for the door, but the sound of Maureen’s cries stop him. She whimpers, which leads Daniel to believe she has given up hope. His cock tingles at that. He moves his tunic aside and looks down at his trousers where he notices he has begun to stiffen again. When she whimpers again and sniffles, the lump in his trousers flexes.

  It’s the sound of her cries, he realizes and turns round to her. I want to hear her cry. It’s too muffled.

  He walks over to her and tears the tape from her face and yanks the dirty rag out of her mouth.

  Maureen takes a deep breath. Her face is half-covered with a tangle of hair like a wounded animal peering out from a hedge. She looks up at him, “I already told Captain Sullivan that ya killt Brosnan.”

  “Horseshit, ya didn’t know until I just told ya.”

  “No, I knew it was the four o’ ya,” she throws her head in the direction of the door. “When ya came an’ took Garret away from me durin’ the storm, then later I saw the newspaper article about Brosnan. I knew it was all o’ yaz, an’ I told Captain Sullivan. I told him.”

  Daniel’s hand goes to his stomach, Captain Sullivan is coming for me. He is going to punish me. He will probably just beat me up and put me behind bars, but I deserve worse. I deserve to be flogged.

  He turns his eyes to her, “Ya’re full o’ shit. I know ya are.”

  “G’ahead an’ kill me,” Maureen’s voice is low and hoarse as she pulls at the chains that cross round her bare chest. “Nothin’ I can say can stop that, I just wanted ya to know that ya’re gonna die too. They’ll hang ya for killin’ a detective an’ a vet’ran o’ thirty years on the force. The thing is, for all that is pleasurable comes an equal contradiction o’ pain. Daniel, before ya die, I’ll haunt ya. I’ll make ya pay for all ya pleasures. I have been raped by my father, prostituted by Christie the Larrikin, dumped by Garry Barry an’ after ya kill me, I’ll sway over ya for ya remainin’ days like a axe over the throat.”

  A noise from downstairs turns both of their eyes downward.

  “See, Sullivan is here.”

  Daniel’s eyes go wide. He rushes to shove the rag in her mouth again. As he grabs for the tape, her teeth snap rabidly in the air at his fingers. Running, he opens and closes the door behind him. Then he stands between the door and the stairwell and puts his hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming and peers over the bannister. Downstairs he does not see Captain Sullivan and everything is just as he left it after he and Barry and Cleary had abducted, gagged and chained her in the room.

  He turns back to the door, but again stops himself. I should go in and kill her. To stop her from talking. She can’t haunt me if she’s dead. I don’t believe her. She just wants to scare me. But I deserve pain. I deserve to suffer.

  He turns round to face the stairwell, takes a deep breath and moves forward.

  The bar is at the base of the steep stairwell and as Daniel comes down, the tender’s scared eyes find him between the backs of Garry Barry and James Cleary who are hunched over their drinks at the bar. Daniel’s tunic is so long it looks like a dark blue dress with a copper badge as a brooch. When Doirean’s father got him a spot on the force, she had to take the sleeves back because they went over his knuckles so that only the tips of his fingers could peek out.

  “No one goes upstairs,” Daniel announces to anyone who can hear.

  The tender drops his towel, “Officer—”

  “Whatever ya plan on sayin’, make sure ya end it by tellin’ all these men at the bar that no one goes upstairs.”

  The tender’s white eyes and stuttered words tell everyone at the bar what they need to know. Before he can complete a sentence, Daniel stands as tall as his little body allows and opens his tunic to brush his thumb across the police issue’s handle, “Anyone puts a single foot on the first step o’ this fookin’ stairwell an’ the full force o’ the law will be upon them, everyone understand?”

  Daniel’s threat is met with mumbles of agreement. He leans up to sit on a stool next to Garry Barry and wags his finger at the bartender to approach. The man leans in close as Daniel whispers, “I’m expectin’ a friend. A large friend. When he gets here the four o’ us will be goin’ upstairs for about a hour. Maybe two. We’ll come down only wit’ a barrel an’ yaz’ll never see the likes o’ that red tramp again.”

  “Alright but—”

  Daniel wags his finger in the air again and brings them to his lips while Garry Barry watches the tender closely, “No questions. Take this wad. It’s a hundret an’ fifty dollars. Ya’ve never had a day this beneficial in ya bar. Let it be said that no female ever entered, or has ever entered this establishment. No women allowed, am I right?”

  Barry growls low like a bitch over her pups as the tender searches for words. He had no choice but to allow them to make his establishment their headquarters, and hasn’t had a say in almost anything since. Instead of speaking, he only nods, stands back and slips the bills into his trouser pocket.

  “Drinks are on the house!” Daniel calls out to the ten to twelve drinking men along the stretch of bar in the low light.

  “T’anks officer,” a toothless man tips his cap.

  “Don’ thank me, it’s the bar’s tender what’s payin’.”

  Daniel’s eyes and mouth fill with water as the stench of Garry Barry punches him in the nose.

  My god he fucking reeks of death. What is that, the smell of an infection? Rotting innards?

  Sitting on the stool, he looks up to the profile of Barry until it turns to see him in its visage. The long scar that stretches through an eyebrow, down through an eye, up into his nose, down through the length of his sinus finally ends on his upper lip. It seems to be blackening. Loose pieces of dead tissue slough off of it from time to time without Barry’s noticing. And the scar is swollen with a yellow and pink discharge that oozes out of the black eyeball, while his pale eye appears normal. The long weeping ulcer on his face drips onto the collar of his coat and has darkened the knot on his tie. His faded clothes look as though they had been bathed in the ocean and new bruises have appeared on the cheek and under his good eye.

  Daniel leans in and gently places the sickle in Barry’s hand, “She’s a foul little red slattern that’s beggin’ us to put her outta her misery, like the kid was, remember? The cub reporter? Ya know she’d tell my wife if we let her go. Tell her all about what we did to my wife’s father too. Have ya seen the red slattern yet? In ya. . . In ya thoughts?” />
  Barry turns back toward his drink and brings the amber liquid to his lips but says nothing.

  “Did ya hear me?”

  Barry turns to him unwittingly, “Ya smell smoke?”

  “Smoke? No. Jesus, I’m tryin’ talk to ya. Have ya seen her?”

  Barry blinks, “Nah.”

  You fucking bedlamite, Daniel shakes his head.

  It was Barry’s questionable sanity that caused Wolcott to choose him in the first place. For years Barry had been dead-set on the idea he was the rightful leader of the White Hand, even as he had but one follower, had been beaten many times and was left aside when Dinny won the waterfront and bestowed his boons on his fellow men. Still, Garry fucking Barry wouldn’t change his mind. And like a bedlamite, he couldn’t change the subject either.

  Drink, he needs more drink. Pour whiskey on that bruised brain and I can get him to do what I want.

  “Tender, two more,” Daniel motions in front of both himself and Barry.

  “Sir,” the barkeep’s fearful eyes move close. “It went quick. The money ya gave me, it’s almost gone—”

  Daniel peels a bill and places it on the wet bar.

  Barry shoots back his drink and grits his teeth and stares ahead as if he were watching something closely, beyond the liquor wall, “I see a man wit’ a stone face. A bearer o’ flames. He is a warrior on a secret mission in the psychic war.”

  “Psychic war, yeah?” A thin smile forms on his Daniel’s mouth as he pushes the whiskey he ordered for himself in front of Barry. “What else?”

  Barry stares ahead through mismatched eyes, “Out there, shadows seek to right lies. Conjurers summon misfortunes upon evildoers while mothers hide from heroes. Youthful matriarchs an’ starved assassins become kingmakers as poets write stories in blood. All come together in silhouettes against a grey sky, under a harvest moon. An’ there, do you see it? There I am! ready to take the seat as the victor o’ the psychic war. Ready to become the heart that thrusts new blood through the old territories. An’ there! The day I am crowned king! I am bein’ escorted by a parade o’ devoted revelers an’ armed protectorates into the Dock Loaders’ Club. An’ at my approach, I turn an’ look up into the eyes of an evil little girl—” Barry stops himself when he notices a new whiskey by his hand and picks it up and tilts it back. “I solved the demon!”