The Guardian

by David Hosp

‘I know a way we can get more information,’ Saunders said quietly after a moment.

  ‘Do you?’ Ainsworth sounded skeptical.

  Saunders nodded. ‘You’ll have to trust me, though.’

  Ainsworth thought about it for a moment. ‘You realize you’re already just barely hanging on here, right? One more fuck-up and even I won’t be able to protect you.’

  ‘I know that,’ Saunders said. ‘Just give me the men I need for two hours, and I’ll get some answers.’

  Ainsworth sipped his coffee, staring out the window as the ambulance pulled away. ‘I guess I don’t have any choice, do I?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cianna Phelan sat in the passenger’s seat of a rusted Nissan Sentra on Reverend Burke Street in South Boston, staring out the window at Building 29 of the Old Colony Housing Projects. A thick, late-September mist had rolled in off the harbor and hung in the air like an omen. In the driver’s seat next to her, Milo Pratt gripped the steering wheel nervously. His normally weak chin had receded to the point where it looked like little more than a bump between his lower lip and his Adam’s apple, and she wondered for the thousandth time how he’d ever come to this line of work.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said to him. ‘It’ll be fine. Are you sure she’s in there?’

  He nodded. ‘I followed her earlier.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said. ‘Let’s do this.’

  She got out of the car and walked across the street. Milo followed. She had to give him credit, he didn’t back down, no matter how ugly things turned or how scared he got. She liked that about him.

  The three-story building was one of hundreds in the Colony, perfectly rectangular and devoid of architectural charm or individuality, lined up like some oversized trailer park cast in brick permanence. The green door at the center of the building lolled halfway open, daring them. They paused on the sidewalk, regarding the gap in the entrance warily.

  ‘You ready?’ she asked.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Remember, show no fear.’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got,’ he said. She chuckled, and he gave her a weak smile.

  The door creaked as Cianna pushed it all the way open, and she could hear Milo suck in a lungful of stale air. There was no one in the hallway that ran through the center of the building. Half of the lights were out, adding to the gloom. Trash gathered in the corners. She stood there for a moment, and pushed away the blanket of childhood memories that tried to smother her.

  ‘Which apartment?’ she asked.

  ‘Last one on the left,’ Milo said.

  She walked down the hallway, head high, shoulders back, wishing she had a gun. There was nothing she could do about it, but she wished it anyway.

  She heard the music long before she came to the door. It was the bass-heavy, expletive-laden, misogynistic fare that seemed to echo through the hallways of too many places she’d been in her life. The door was the same dark green as all the others, with several deep dents in the metal and chips in the paint where it had been struck throughout the years by angry boyfriends or girlfriends or parents or children or enemies or strangers. In truth, anger didn’t need a reason in a place like this. Anger grew from the bricks.

  She squared her shoulders once more and put on her game face. Reaching out, she slammed her fist against the center of the door.

  The voices that could be heard over the music ceased for a moment before the stereo was turned down. A voice called out ‘Fuck is that?’ in a thick Boston accent.

  ‘Open up!’ she shouted back.

  ‘Who the fuck is it?’

  ‘Now!’ Never answer a question. It lets them think they’re in charge, and she aimed to make clear that they were not.

  A moment later, the door cracked open, and a rat-faced kid of around twenty peered out at her. He was skinny and pale, with zits on his face and up the arms that dangled from his enormous sleeveless Celtics jersey. He looked at her, and a wide smile broke over his face as he opened the door even wider. His teeth were brown and dying. Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless crack for their patients who smoke crack, she thought humorously.

  ‘Shit, boys,’ the kid said over his shoulder to the others in the room. ‘Check out the fox!’ He stepped back and swung his arm inward, inviting her to enter. She had on jeans, a dark T-shirt, and her black leather jacket, but from the way the kid was leering at her you’d have thought she was wearing a G-string and was leaning on a pole. It was a compliment of sorts, she supposed, but one she would have preferred to forego at the moment. ‘Just what this fuckin’ sausage-fest needs.’ He licked his lips, and Cianna choked back a gag. ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re doin’ here, but can I get you a fuckin’ beer, honey?’ All three ‘R’s in the sentence got caught in the kid’s gingivitis. They came out as yaw, heeya, and beeya.

  There were five young men in the apartment. Standing behind the toothless scarecrow in the kitchenette was a three-hundred-pound adolescent with a wisp of a beard and bulging eyes. He was turning from the open refrigerator to look at her. That his attention could be diverted from any appliance dispensing food she took as another stunning, if unwelcome, compliment. Two identical twins with crew cuts and piercings covering the outer rims of their ears sat at a battered card table in the living room, glaring at her with a disturbing mixture of lust and anger. On the card table sat a glass pipe, a butane lighter, and several clear plastic bags of substances ranging in consistency from hard-white to powder-brown. The alpha male was in the corner, sitting with his leg draped over the arm of a torn, half-reclined La-Z-Boy. He had long greasy dark hair and the sharp face of a hustler. She had little doubt that a decade earlier he would have been exactly the type of guy she would have gone for. Thank God those days were behind her.

  Cianna stepped into the room, looking around to see whether there was anyone else. No one. The place smelled of beer and chemicals, sweat and piss. The skinny crack addict started to close the door and it banged off of Milo, who was moving in behind Cianna. The kid looked at Milo as though seeing him for the first time. ‘Fuck are you?’ he demanded.

  Milo took a deep breath and said in a loud, clear voice, ‘We’re here for Jenny. Where is she?’ Cianna was proud of him. Not a single quaver. She’d taught him the breathing trick a week ago, after his inability to control his voice had nearly gotten them shot.

  The other four looked nervously at the young man spread across the over-sized chair. ‘Jenny?’ he said. ‘I don’t know any Jennys.’ He gave her a sickening smile, and the others in the room laughed as though reassured.

  She fixed him with a hard stare. ‘Does it look like I’m kidding?’ she asked. ‘Where is she?’

  Just then a girl’s voice came from the back of the apartment. ‘Jesus Christ, Vin! There’s no fuckin’ toilet paper in here!’

  Cianna raised an eyebrow at the young man on the chair. His nonchalance seemed shaken, but only for a moment. ‘Use the paper towels on the sink!’ he shouted back, turning his head slightly, but never letting his eyes leave Cianna’s. It took a moment, but he forced the smile back onto his face.

  No one moved or said anything else until a young woman walked out of one of the bedrooms. Her head was down, and as she pulled her eyes up and saw Cianna, she stopped in the doorway, completing the frozen menagerie. She was wearing pink mesh leggings, a short skirt, and a tight long-sleeved white shirt. Her hair was pulled back and pushed up in a thick wave. Her cheeks were sallow and sunken, and her eyes were red. She had the look of someone about to drive off a cliff. Make the most of the good years, kid, Cianna thought, ’cause it only gets harder from here.

  ‘Jenny, I presume?’ Cianna said to her.

  Vin, on the chair, spoke before the girl had the time to react. ‘Naw, that’s not Jenny, her name is Flower, right babe?’ The girl looked back and forth between Cianna and the guy, the expression of confusion slowly morphing to jealousy and anger.

  ‘Who the fuck is she?’ she asked. She was talking
to Vin, but staring at Cianna like she gave off a stench that was more than she could bear.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Flower. Why don’t you just come over here, where you’re comfortable.’ He patted his crotch.

  The girl took another look down her nose at Cianna and walked over and wriggled her leather skirt into his lap. ‘My name is Flower,’ she said defiantly. Vin draped his arms over her shoulders, and they both sat there staring at Cianna. Her eyes were filled with hatred; his less so.

  Cianna looked behind her at Milo, and he moved what was left of his chin up and down in an affirming nod. She turned back to Jenny. ‘You’re coming with us, Jenny,’ she said.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ Vin answered for her. His face grew hard.

  Cianna ignored him and spoke to Jenny. ‘Let me explain this to you once, Jenny. Me and Milo, here, are your only chance. You’re on parole, right?’

  For the first time, doubt crept into Jenny’s eyes.

  ‘Right,’ Cianna answered her own question. ‘That’s why we’re here. You blew off your meeting with your PO today. That’s violation number one.’ She looked around the room. ‘I see at least another eight violations here, any one of which would get you sent back inside. You come with us now, and you get a pass. Just this once. That’s the way this works, you understand?’

  The doubt on Jenny’s face had spread like a rash. ‘You’re with the Parole Office?’ she asked nervously.

  Cianna shook her head. ‘Not officially, but we work with them. We can get you one pass if you come now.’ Jenny hesitated. ‘Where’s your daughter Maggie?’ Cianna asked. It was her trump card, she hoped. Jenny’s eyes went to the floor. ‘That’s what I thought. Playtime’s over; you need to come with us.’

  Vin spoke before Jenny could move, and all trace of flirtation was gone from his voice. ‘I said she’s staying put.’ He removed one of his arms from Jenny’s shoulder and dug around in the chair’s cushions. A second later the hand reappeared, now holding a semiautomatic pistol.

  . . . And that’s why it’d be nice to have a gun on this job.

  He brought the gun up and traced it along Jenny’s arm, caressing her with it, running it up along her neck and under her chin. Her eyes were wide with fear as he used the barrel to twist her head back around toward him until he could kiss her aggressively, forcing his tongue into her mouth, his eyes closed in a pantomime of ecstasy. Her eyes remained open, and tears began forming in the corners.

  When he was done, he released her and let the gun drop so that it was resting under her left breast. ‘See?’ he said to Cianna. ‘She wants to stay here with me.’

  Cianna hadn’t looked at or spoken to him since Jenny had entered the room. Now she realized that she was going to have to engage him. She frowned as she looked him in the eyes. ‘It’s Vin, right?’ she said. She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Vin, you have to understand something: Jenny is going to come with us. I don’t give a shit how you spend the rest of your life, but you’re not going to fuck up hers. At least not tonight. Do you understand? Or should I speak a little slower?’

  The two twins at the table pushed their chairs back, leaving them with a clear run at her. From all appearances, it was on. ‘Do you understand, Vin?’ she repeated.

  He looked at her, and the sick smile returned. ‘What I understand is that we’re guys.’ He gestured to his underlings. ‘And guys need to get laid.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s just the way things are; we need to clean the pipes every once in a while, or we go all fucked up in the head.’ He twirled the barrel of the gun around his ear as if to illustrate. ‘Now, that’s not a problem for me, as you can probably guess. I can get pussy any time I want. But these guys . . .’ He pointed his gun at each of the other four. ‘These guys ain’t all that great with the ladies. That’s why I told them that we could have a little party tonight, and once we’re all good and fucked up and Jenny and I have had some fun, they can all have a turn with her.’

  The blood drained from Jenny’s face and her tears gathered speed. He looked at the side of her face. ‘It’s only fair, Jen. I mean they do good work for me, and besides, by then you’ll be so fucked up that you won’t give a shit.’ He looked back at Cianna. ‘Hell, she probably won’t even know it’s happening.’ His eyes were so dark now, they seemed dead.

  He pushed Jenny off his lap and stood up. It took two slow steps for him to be in front of Cianna. ‘I am a businessman, though,’ he said, gesturing over toward the drugs on the card table. He took the gun and ran the barrel lightly between Cianna’s breasts, then up her neck and across her cheek. ‘So if you have a counter-offer, I’m more than happy to reach an agreement.’ He put his face close to hers. ‘I’m Irish; I’ve always loved redheads.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d go in that direction,’ Cianna said. She breathed deeply, almost in a pant, as slowly she ran her fingers up his arm, over his shoulder, and around to the back of his neck. She was close enough to feel him harden against her stomach as he pressed against her.

  ‘I had a feeling you were,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ she breathed to him. He began to move his hips against her and she matched his rhythm as her other hand slid lightly up the forearm that held the gun against her cheek. He was groaning, and his eyes were half-closed. ‘You see, now that she’s seen who you really are, it will be that much easier for Jenny to walk away.’

  He was so engrossed that he wasn’t listening. Even if he had been, she acted too quickly for him to defend himself. She twisted the hand that held the gun hard, out away from his body, and heard the clean snap of his wrist. He screamed out in pain, and released the gun. His knees buckled as he used his other hand to grab his wrist. She grabbed hold of the hair on the back of his head and pulled down with all her weight. His head snapped back, and his spine bent to try to keep the hair from being pulled out of the scalp. His mouth was open, and he was screaming louder now, and she raised up his gun and drove the butt into his nose, drawing a fountain of blood.

  Vin collapsed on the floor at her feet. It had happened so quickly that no one else in the room reacted. She turned and looked at the other four. The twins and the crack addict and the fat kid by the refrigerator all just stared at her, mouths dangling. She pointed the gun at them. ‘You tell him when he wakes up that if I find out anyone has gone near Jenny or any of her friends or family, I’m coming back, and I’m going to shoot all of your balls off, understand?’

  The four stood there, paralyzed.

  ‘You understand?’ She asked it louder this time, raising the gun at their heads for punctuation.

  ‘Yeah,’ they muttered.

  Cianna looked at Jenny, who was standing next to the chair, where Vin had moved her. ‘Are you coming?’

  Outside, Cianna climbed back into the passenger seat of the rusted Sentra. Jenny got into the back seat and Milo got behind the wheel. They all sat there for a moment in the silence, staring straight ahead. She reached over and put the gun into Milo’s lap. ‘You need to take this,’ she said.

  He looked down at the gun. ‘Are you afraid you might go back and finish the job?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t have a gun.’ He gave her a quizzical look and she scowled at him. ‘I’m on parole, too, remember?’

  Milo dropped Cianna off at her place on Mercer Street in South Boston, less than a half a mile from the Old Colony Projects. He would take Jenny home; dealing with emotional and psychological wrecks was his special talent. Handling the physical challenges of their job was hers. It was what she had been trained for, after all.

  Her apartment was in a big, square, three-story clapboard house with two residences on each floor. Hers was on the south side of the third floor: 600 square feet of scarred wood floor with a bathroom that had a freestanding tub from the 1940s. The furniture was old and stained: a queen-sized bed, a pea-green couch with a crate in front of it for a coffee table, a dining-room table with one chair, and a makeshift desk. Still, it was home, and it was the one place where no one co
uld tell her what to do.

  She climbed the staircase wearily, and made her way down the landing to her apartment. The last of the adrenaline from the evening’s encounter had almost fled her system, leaving her with the crack-jittery, strung-out feeling of a crashing addict. She noticed that the light on her landing had burned out and would need to be replaced. It made it a little more difficult to find the right key in the dark, and the keys jangled as she located the right one. She’d just unlocked the door when she felt the hand on her shoulder.

  For a moment she was frozen. Her job was dangerous. It was one of the reasons she’d taken it – that, and the fact that Milo was one of the few employers who would hire an ex-con. Milo believed in redemption. Cianna wasn’t as convinced, but she was grateful to be given the benefit of the doubt, and was willing to help people if there was a paycheck in it. It was a small neighborhood, though, and you couldn’t ruffle greasy feathers without expecting some attempts at retribution. The hand on her shoulder let her know that one such attempt had arrived.

  Without thinking, her hand came up and took hold of the attacker’s wrist just below where the hand rested on her shoulder, pulling and twisting at the same time. The assailant gave a pained scream as he toppled forward, off balance, and she used his momentum to her advantage, driving his head into the wall just to the side of the door. He screamed again, but now it came out as a confused yelp. ‘Wait!’ he cried.

  She barely heard him. She kicked the man in the side as he tumbled to the floor.

  ‘Get off of me!’ he screamed.

  She was getting ready to fully incapacitate him before calling the cops, but as she raised her fist his last plea for mercy penetrated her consciousness. There was something about it that was eerily familiar. Like a scent that touches deep within the memory, the rhythm of his wail brought her back to another time, another place. Suddenly, she was back in the Projects, fourteen years old, kneeling on the arms of skinny kid two years younger than she. She saw herself torturing him by letting a long thin line of spit dangle from her lips, dropping slowly until it almost touched his face as he squirmed away, before she sucked it back into her mouth, laughing. He wriggled and squirmed to try to get away, but she had always been stronger. And every time he tried to get away, he would cry out pitifully, ‘Get off of me! ’