The Guardian

by David Hosp

  Then the man spoke.

  ‘You haven’t been persuasive enough,’ he said to Sirus. ‘Perhaps I can do better.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘Where to?’

  Cianna Phelan barely heard the question. She was staring out the passenger window, her mind given over to the fear of what might happen to her brother.

  ‘Where to?’ Saunders asked again.

  She heard him this time, and replied, ‘The waterfront.’

  He turned his eyes back to the street.

  She gave him a sidelong glance. He had an unremarkable appearance that would never be noticed or recalled if passed on the street, or caught out of the corner of an eye at a bar or on a plane. And yet when she focused on his face, she could see a gripping strength. It was in his eyes, and in the set of his mouth – hard and evaluating, intelligent and uncompromising.

  ‘You want to tell me where we’re going?’ he asked.

  ‘A bar,’ she replied.

  ‘Are you thirsty, or just a boozer?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘We need to get to Spudgie’s, down by the water, near the projects. Just drive.’

  He leaned forward and tapped the name of the bar into the GPS. A series of options came up on the screen, and he chose the one identified as a bar in South Boston. ‘East Ninth Street?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Cianna Phelan looked back out of the passenger window.

  ‘It would be helpful if I knew what was at this place.’

  ‘It’s just a bar.’

  ‘Then why are we going there?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Because it’s where we were safe growing up.’

  Charlie Phelan no longer felt connected to his body. He was floating above the room, looking down at the awful scene as it flickered inexorably along. At one point, when the pain became too much, he even believed that he’d died and he was no longer suffering. At just that moment, though, he saw the man with the teardrop shaped birthmark reach into a bag and pull out a needle. He measured an amount of liquid from a vial, and stuck the needle into Charlie’s arm. Charlie felt himself pulled toward his body. He desperately struggled to stay floating above, away from his body, flailing his phantom arms and legs in an effort to get away as something forced him down, back into the corporeal wreckage.

  He opened his eyes slowly. The pain had returned. The teardrop man was standing over him. ‘Welcome back, Mr Phelan,’ he said. ‘You left us for a moment. It is often difficult to find the line where a man can no longer accept the pain. The medicine I have given you should keep you here with us, though . . . for a while. You will feel the pain less, of course. But I do not think it will matter. Your awareness of what is happening to you will be enough.’

  Charlie tried to speak, but his lips and tongue wouldn’t cooperate. He turned his head and realized that he was no longer in the chair. They had laid him down on the massage table, strapping his arms and legs in the leather – as though he might have the strength to try to escape. The notion almost seemed funny to him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Phelan? You wish to tell us something?’

  ‘Please . . .’ Charlie managed to choke out.

  ‘Of course. Tell me what I want to know.’

  Charlie looked around the room. He could see Sirus standing behind the teardrop man. Their eyes locked, and it almost seemed as though there was a hint of sympathy in Sirus’s expression. There were two others there, watching. Neither of them spoke, and to Charlie they seemed more like ghosts.

  ‘Please . . .’ he said again.

  ‘It is within your own power. Tell us where it is.’

  ‘Please, please, please, please, please . . .’

  The man frowned. He looked over at Sirus, who gave an exhausted shrug. Looking back at Charlie, the man shook his head. ‘It does not have to be this difficult.’

  ‘. . . please, please, please, please . . .’ Charlie could feel the sanity leave him as he cackled in a half-laugh, half-cry.

  The man nodded, giving a slight smile, as if acknowledging a challenge. He reached into a leather satchel on the floor and pulled out a knife almost as long as a machete. The tip was curved, and the metal gleamed. The man held it up, like he was showing off a new toy. He walked around to Charlie, looking at him.

  ‘You know what you are, Mr Phelan?’ he said slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry! Please, I’m sorry!’

  ‘You are a thief.’ The man slid the knife up and rested it on Charlie’s neck. ‘It is very bad to be a thief where I come from. There are very strict penalties for theft.’ Charlie could feel the knife so sharp on his throat that just the weight of it was slicing through the skin. ‘Do you know what the penalty is for theft?’ the man asked.

  Charlie whispered, almost hoping, ‘Death?’

  The man laughed softly. ‘Oh, no. We are not barbarians. You will be spared. But the penalty is still severe.’

  ‘What, then?’ Charlie asked.

  The man sighed, as though he was loath to even tell Charlie. He reached under the table and pulled out a narrow extension that ran from just below where Charlie’s shoulder was. The other men in the room were watching him, and he nodded to one of them now. He approached and untied Charlie’s hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie cried. The man ignored him, and pulled on Charlie’s arm so that it was stretched along the extension. ‘No!’ Charlie screamed. He had no idea what was happening, but he didn’t like the look of it. He tried to pull his arm back, but he was too weak, and the man easily overpowered him. He pulled the arm down and strapped it to the extension so that Charlie was now lying on the table with his left arm extended, like a one-winged angel. ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie sobbed.

  The man with the teardrop birthmark stepped forward again. He reached down and took hold of Charlie’s hand, just above the point at which the arm was secured to the plank. ‘You have such delicate hands,’ he said. ‘Not unlike my own.’ He was caressing Charlie’s hand now, almost comforting it. ‘There were times when I was younger when the other children mocked me because it was so thin. They assumed it was weakness.’ He looked Charlie in the eye. ‘They were wrong.’

  He picked up the knife again. ‘You are a thief, and you must be punished. I take no joy in that,’ he said.

  ‘PLEASE! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! . . .’ Charlie was no longer sobbing; he was screaming in terror.

  ‘Shhhh,’ the man whispered. ‘It will only hurt for a moment.’ The man lifted the knife, and in one quick motion swung it in a high arc, bringing it down toward Charlie’s wrist. Charlie bucked and pulled at his arm, but it was no use; he was tightly secured to the table. The man brought the knife down with all his weight.

  Charlie heard the sound before the pain reached his brain. It was a sickening combination of crunching and popping, like the sound made when tearing a leg off a turkey at Thanksgiving, only much louder. He was screaming so deafeningly now everything was blocked out. When the pain arrived, it was dulled by the anesthetic.

  The man reached down and picked the lifeless hand off the table. He held it up, examining it closely as the blood dripped from the severed bones poking from the clean edges of skin. One by one, he wiggled each finger. Charlie watched, his mouth open in a silent scream, as the man toyed with the hand. After a few moments, the man looked at Charlie, and turned the hand to him, moving it up and down in a mock wave at its former owner. Then he let out a long, high-pitched cackle and, with a flick of the wrist, he tossed the hand on Charlie’s chest, up by the breastbone, so that it was only inches from his face.

  Charlie screamed over and over, wrenching his shoulders to try to shake the hand off him, but nothing worked. It sat there, oozing from the severed end, tormenting him.

  One of the man’s silent companions stepped forward and used medical tape as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding at the stump.

  ‘Shhhh,’ the man said quietly. ‘It is all right. The pain you are enduring today is but a nuisance to the torment Allah is saving f
or you in return for what you have done. Think of this as . . . what is the word . . . practice?’ He leaned down close to Charlie. ‘How many pieces of you do you think I could balance on this scrawny goat body?’ he asked.

  Charlie was no longer screaming. He had no such energy left. All he could muster now was a long, low moan punctuated with his sobs.

  ‘There are many bits that are easy to get at.’ He paused, leaning in closer still. ‘This is your last chance before I cut them all off. I will not pause again until the job is complete. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie sobbed.

  ‘Will you tell me what I want to know?’ Charlie choked as the air rushed too fast into his lungs. ‘Will you tell me?’

  It took another moment for Charlie to answer. Finally, he managed to choke the word out. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I will.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nick ‘Spudgie’ O’Callaghan was in his early-sixties. His gut hung over his belt more than he cared to acknowledge, but he was still tall and thick through the chest and shoulders, and the veins popped in his wrists when he worked the taps at Spudgie’s Seaside Bar and Grill. He’d survived an alcoholic father with a violent temper, two tours in Vietnam, and three ex-wives. He and his bar stood at the edge of Paradise Bay in South Boston, just a few blocks from the Old Colony Public Housing Projects, like a bulwark against time and change.

  Nick was pulling the taps at the bar when Miles Gruden walked in with his two fireplug bodyguards. The place was relatively empty. A young couple with well-styled hair and labeled clothing was sitting at the bar, trying to tease conversation from him. Nick had been getting more and more of these types – slum-divers, he called them – ever since Southie started yielding grudgingly to gentrification: adventurous yuppies who thought the trick to fitting in was to poke their moisturized faces into the places the locals held most dear. It was okay with Nick. He kept two versions of his menu behind the bar, one for the locals and one for the well-dressed set with the prices doubled. He didn’t mind them coming, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to charge them for the privilege.

  ‘Did you ever meet Whitey?’ the girl was asking. She whispered the name, as though the mere utterance could conjure up evil.

  Gruden took a seat at the bar two away from the couple and stared at Nick.

  Nick ignored Gruden. ‘Bulger? ’Course. He was in every other week trying to shake me down. Never paid him. He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew the neighborhood would back me if it ever came to that. My place was never touched, and we ended up friendly enough.’ He set two beers down on the bar in front of the couple. ‘That’ll be fourteen dollars.’

  The young man flipped a twenty on the bar.

  ‘It must have been so exciting,’ the girl said. She’d be back in the bar again in the future, Nick guessed. She liked the danger. At least she thought she did. At some point in the near future, she and her thin-hipped euro-boy would break up, and she’d be back in to see what the real life was like. She might even hook up with one of the locals. It wouldn’t take her long after that to realize, though, that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

  ‘Spudge, we need to talk,’ Gruden said roughly.

  The couple looked over at him.

  ‘Always happy to talk, Miles,’ Nick said amiably. ‘I’m just serving a couple of customers, as you see.’

  ‘Tell them to fuck off.’

  ‘You were raised without manners, Miles. It’ll get you in trouble someday. My mother would never have let me use that sort of language around strangers.’

  ‘My mother didn’t give a fuck.’ Gruden looked at the couple. ‘Fuck off.’

  The woman looked at Nick nervously. ‘Should we leave?’ Her boyfriend looked like he was going to throw up.

  ‘Might be best,’ Nick said. ‘The table in the corner’s got a nice view of the street. Miles, here, looks like he’s got something to chew over with me, and he’s not the most patient man. Let me just get your change.’

  ‘Keep it,’ the boyfriend said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Nice of you. I’ll bring over some popcorn. On the house.’

  The couple moved away toward the back of the bar quickly.

  ‘You charge for the fuckin’ popcorn?’ Gruden asked, shaking his head.

  ‘No,’ Nick responded. He cleared a glass from the bar. ‘What do you want, Miles? You know I don’t like you in my bar; you scare business away.’ He picked the glass out of the sink and began wiping it down.

  ‘You seen Charlie Phelan recently?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Gruden stared at Nick for a few seconds. The bar owner went on wiping down glasses without speaking. ‘You used to date his mother, didn’t you?’

  ‘Date would be an exaggeration.’

  ‘Her kid used to hang around here. I remember that. Him and that piece of work of a sister. She was a fuckin’ headcase, you remember?’

  Nick put down the glass he was cleaning and leaned over the bar. ‘What do you want, Miles?’

  ‘The kid, Charlie, was supposed to meet me at my barber shop earlier this afternoon. He didn’t show.’

  ‘Maybe he went to Super Cuts instead. I hear they do a hell of a job, and they’re only twelve bucks.’

  ‘Funny you say that. He was supposed to bring me some merchandise. A very valuable piece. When we were cutting the deal, he said he had others interested in it. So I’m thinking that maybe he went to one of my competitors.’

  Nick shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s possible. Maybe you should have been more generous.’

  ‘He made the deal with me. We shook hands on it.’

  ‘And your handshake has always meant so much?’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me on this, Spudge,’ Gruden growled. A narrow line of spittle formed on his lips as his ire was raised. ‘The only person the kid knows in town who might be able to refer him to someone else is you. You and I both know that. I want to know what the fuck is going on.’

  Nick took a napkin from the tray on the bar and tossed it at Gruden. ‘Wipe your goddamned mouth before you spit at me. I don’t know anything about your business with Charlie Phelan, and I couldn’t give a shit about it. It’s time you left my bar.’

  Gruden’s two bodyguards moved in close behind him. They looked like twin bulldogs, and they flashed identical menacing looks at Nick.

  Gruden leaned back in his chair, looking perturbed. ‘I’ve always let you run your business here without any hassle, Spudge. Just about everyone else in the neighborhood pays for the privilege, but not you. You really want to push me on this?’

  Nick reached below the bar and pulled out a shotgun. He rested it on the bar, the barrels pointing at Gruden’s chest. His movements were calm and relaxed, so that no one not involved in the conversation would even be aware of the confrontation. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. ‘Listen here, you scaly little shit. I’ve never paid a dime of tribute to anyone. Never. And if I didn’t pay Whitey and Stevie, I’m sure as shit not going to pay a retard like you. If you’ve got a problem with that, you send your boys here to talk to me after hours. But don’t expect them to come back in mint condition, you understand?’

  ‘You’re making a bad mistake, Spudge,’ Gruden said. ‘You know that, right?’

  ‘Get out, Miles. And don’t come back.’

  ‘What do we know of this place? This Spudgie’s?’

  Ahmad Fasil was sitting at the kitchen table in the house in Cambridge. He was freshly showered, and Charlie Phelan’s blood had been washed down the bathroom drain. Before him on the table his array of sharp metal implements was laid out on a towel. He was cleaning them one by one, and putting them away in a leather case.

  Sirus Stillwell stood at the kitchen window looking out, watching for something. He didn’t believe that anyone had called the police. The basement had been soundproofed, and even the most ear-piercing screams would not have been heard from outside. And yet he was ne
rvous. He couldn’t pinpoint the cause of his concern, but he couldn’t ignore it either.

  ‘It’s a local place,’ Stillwell said. ‘The owner is ex-military.’

  ‘You are military. So, you can talk to him, yes?’

  Stillwell shook his head. ‘He’s not my military. He fought back in the sixties. Draftee. Got out a long time ago. Word is he knows everyone in the area, both the cops and the criminals.’

  ‘What is his connection to Charles Phelan?’

  ‘There’s not much we can find. Phelan’s from the same neighborhood, and from what we can tell his sister used to hang out at Spudgie’s.’ Sirus had taken off his shirt, and was cleaning the wound in his shoulder as he stood in front of the sink. The shoulder was stiffening, and he cursed quietly under his breath.

  ‘Are you going to tell me how you were injured?’ Fasil asked. They had been in the basement since Fasil’s arrival and had not had a chance to discuss what had happened at Cianna Phelan’s apartment.

  Sirus hesitated. ‘There was some trouble at the girl’s apartment,’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘I have found that gunshot wounds are rarely suffered without trouble.’

  ‘The police may be involved now. There was a guy who showed up at the girl’s apartment claiming to be a cop when I took Charlie. We traded shots. She’s probably talking to them right now.’

  Fasil turned on Sirus, staring hard into his eyes. ‘Tell me about this man,’ he said slowly. ‘Tell me what he said and what he did.’ He listened as Sirus relayed the information, his eyes never leaving Sirus’s. When Sirus was done, he said, ‘He is not the police.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because a police officer would have neither the skill nor the presence of mind to shoot your gun out of your hand. If this man was the police, he would have shot you in the chest as soon as you pointed your gun at him. There would have been no hesitation. Police are trained to look after their own safety first in such a situation. This man was able to wound you as you sped away from him in a car.’