Wait…makeup?
I glanced back at the pile of laundry. Half a bra was sticking out of the pile.
Looked like I was in was Ginny’s room after all.
Should have stuck with the gay dudes being fastidious rather than the girls being fastidious stereotype. Or maybe I could try to stop stereotyping at all. Wouldn’t that be something? So would flying cars. Neither one was likely in my lifetime.
I went back to Dana’s room and opened the closet. There was a suitcase with a piece of paper taped to it that read BYRON’S CRAP.
I shit you not.
I pulled out the big suitcase and opened it. A couple of suits. A shaving kit. Stuff you’d pack for an extended trip abroad. I felt around the lined material. Nothing I could feel squirreled between the layers.
Wait. Dana said he’d taken Byron’s trumpet as well.
I reached up to the shelf and moved a couple of boxes of old photographs and a vacuum bag of what looked like summer clothes. Still couldn’t see what, if anything, was behind them. I felt around and my fingertips brushed a plastic handle. I grabbed it and slid whatever that handle was attached to toward me.
And lo-and-behold, I had me a trumpet case.
I had a strong feeling that there wasn’t going to be an instrument inside there. I popped the first hasp and held my breath.
I’d seen enough television and gangster movies to know that musical cases were only used to carry actual musical instruments maybe one out of ten times.
Okay, television might have skewed the numbers in my head a little bit.
I popped the second hasp and slowly opened the case…
It was a goddamn trumpet.
Somebody knocked at the door, and my heart tried to karate chop its way out of my ribcage.
It was him.
I closed the case and shoved it back onto the shelf.
He knocked again more insistently.
“Keep your fucking pants on,” I said, heading down the hallway.
I quietly opened the door to face the curled smile and blind eye of one Louis Blanc. “Evening, boyo,” he said. “Were you plannin’ on letting hypothermia take me?”
The first time I opened a door to him, he shot me in the leg.
The last time I’d seen him, he was flat on his back on The Cellar’s floor, with me on top of him, pressing a broken bottle neck into his throat.
All in all, we had a unique relationship.
He’d shown up at The Cellar that day to let me know that his boss, Frankie “The Mick” Cade, was in my debt after I’d passed some sensitive information his way. He let me know all this after I decided not to open his throat on the dirty barroom floor.
Fuck that debt.
I’d had no intention of calling that favor in. Ever.
Funny how circumstances could make a person reconsider their own personal codes of morality, wasn’t it?
To be fair, even straddling my tallest high-horse, I hadn’t been able to see far enough into the distance to catch the slightest glimpse of this particular situation.
I was calling that card.
He strolled past me like he was coming over to watch a hockey game. “In a bit of trouble, are we?” A half-smoked Gauloise cigarette poked out between his teeth. He winked at me with his milky-white blind eye. The long scar arching back from the eyelid wiggled when he did. He clapped me on the shoulder.
I wanted to knock the smugness out of his words with a right cross, but I had to keep in mind the trouble I was in. That Junior and I were in. “You could say that.”
Obviously, I couldn’t go into detail on the phone.
I hadn’t talked directly to Cade. The girl on the phone asked me the nature of my problem. I said major and immediate.
She said I’d get a call back.
Thirty seconds later, Ginny’s phone rang, and a deep voice simply said, “Give me the address. Nothing more.”
“Let’s sit down and discuss exactly…” The fancy cigarette dropped from between Blanc’s lips as he entered the living room. His eyes were laser-beam focused on the arm sticking out of the half-rolled carpet. “Is that a body?”
“Yep.”
“Is that a sleeve to a Boston Police officer’s uniform?”
“Yes, I—”
Blanc spun around, a small silver gun appearing in his hand like a magician’s trick—and pointing right at my forehead. “Have you lost your fucking mind, lad?”
I held my hands straight up, palms open, and stared into the barrel, strangely wondering if it was the same gun he’d shot me with the last time. I hated guns. Had since one killed my mother when I was eight. Hated having them pointed at me even more. Everything stood out in sharp contrast, with the gun dead-center of my focus. I could even see the eyebrow over Blanc’s one good eye bristling.
“I know what you’re thinking…” I said
“Oh, boyo. You have no clue what I’m thinking right now. And let me tell you, if you did, you sure as hell wouldn’t be keen on it. Where’s your boyfriend?”
“What?”
“His monstrosity of an automobile is parked outside. Where is he? Don’t need him popping out and irritating my already itchy finger.”
“He’s currently with the police, being questioned.”
“About what? It wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would it?”
“Something else.”
“No rest for the wicked, eh?” He waved the gun up and down my frame. “I’m kindly going to ask you to disrobe.”
“What?”
“Your clothes,” he said. “Can’t be too careful, as I’m still not entirely sure how fond of me you are, etcetera. I’m sure you understand.”
If he only knew precisely how fond of him I’d be if he helped me out of the mess I was currently in. A little burlesque would be worth it. I quickly stripped off my sweatshirt. The waist snagged for a second on the gun I’d forgotten was tucked into my pants. “Um, I have a gun?”
“That sounded like a question.”
I supposed it did. I cleared my throat. “I have a gun. In the back of my pants.”
“Turn around and remove it. Do it with two fingers and do it slower than you’d even imagine I’d like.”
Because things could never go smoothly, the tiny sight on the barrel snagged on my belt. “It’s stuck.”
“I can see that. Undo your belt with the other hand.”
I put my other hand onto the buckle. A bit too quickly, apparently.
“Slow it down.” A smile played out on his lips, his dead eye somehow filled with more mirth than his functioning eyeball. “That didn’t come out as I intended.”
“No problem,” I said as I unbuckled my pants. “If you have a Poison CD to put on while I do this, it might help.”
“Funny. Place the gun on the floor and step back.”
I did.
Blanc gestured to the gun with his own. “That the gun that did the deed?”
“Yes.”
“You do the deed?”
I stayed silent. I tried to give him a steely look right in the eyes, but my gaze kept flicking over to the chalky orb instead of the one that was looking at me. Instead of steely, I landed on shifty.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Resume.”
I kicked my Timberlands off and dropped my pants. I rubbed a hand over the long scar above my knee that he’d given me less than a year earlier.
“Looks to be healing nicely, that.”
Instead of taking the bait, I just opened my arms wide and turned. “Satisfied?”
“Keep going.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Keep going.”
Fun fact about me: I dropped my boxers with less shame than that which I removed my undershirt with. Not that I have a dick that any former sack-bunnies of mine would blog about, more along the lines of…
“Sweet Jesus,” Blanc said.
Yeah. That.
“You’ve got quite a tapestry upon you, lad.” He sounded almost impre
ssed by the latticework of scars along my torso.
“We done?”
“Almost. Bend over and spread ’em.”
“Now, wait a goddamn minute…”
“Just kidding. Cover yourself.” Blanc picked up Twitch’s gun off the floor, emptied the bullets from the clip, then handed it back to me.
I had half my clothes restored when I noticed he still hadn’t stopped with the pointing of his own gun. “Think you can put that away now?” I said as I shoved my useless unloaded weapon back between my butt cleavage.
“Soon.” With his free hand, he plucked a fresh cigarette from the golden case inside his jacket pocket and lit it with his equally expensive-looking lighter.
Instinctively, I wanted to tell him to put it out, to be courteous toward my friend’s home. Then I remembered what Twitch had done to it. All things considered, I had the low-ground, morally.
“Starting at the beginning, you want to tell me who the departed member of the Metropolitan Police force is?”
“I don’t know who he is.”
“This does not help.”
“Why does it fucking matter? I’m calling in the favor that was promised to me.”
“Let’s be clear.” Blanc ashed his cigarette into an empty beer bottle on the coffee table. “During the last bout of unpleasantness that brought us together, Mr. Cade wanted me to pass to you the message that he was in your debt. How this came to be interpreted as a favor, specifically, seems to be something that you have decided.”
Well, shit.
He went on. “That said, Mr. Cade decided to send me along to see what exactly you could have meant by the aforementioned ‘favor.’ A favor is Green Monster tickets on opening day. A favor is a last-minute reservation at Menton on Valentine’s Day. This…” he waved the cigarette in the direction of the corpse, “…this is something that is far, far larger than a favor, wouldn’t you say?”
I clenched my jaw. “Admittedly, it is a large favor.”
“Let me ask you again, keeping in mind that I don’t like repeating myself. Who is this rolled up in the carpet in what appears to be a Bee Pee Dee uniform?”
“Someone who came here to hurt and or kill the residents. I was here. I…intervened. That’s all I know. He’s not a cop.” I hoped I sounded surer than I felt.
“I’m only asking, since, you know, if it is, in fact, a proper police officer, I’m putting a bullet into your head.” Blanc held up his gun. “Then I shall be tossing my favorite gun here into the Charles River and leaving you here with your sins.”
It was then I noticed that he’d never taken his gloves off. The man was ready to end me, if it came to that. “Good to know.”
“So, why don’t you roll up your sleeves, and unroll that carpet?”
I blew out a long breath and went to the body. I slid my fingers under the rough fabric, tried to remember a prayer, and flipped the body. I tensed up and closed my eyes in case a bullet was about to put me out of my misery.
I waited, misery intact.
I waited.
And waited…
“Well, well, well,” said Blanc, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“Not right now, but the night is young.”
I chanced a look at Blanc, who holstered the gun underneath his sports coat as he walked to me. He leaned in close, inspecting what was left of the dead man’s face. “Farewell and adieu to you, Mr. Shaughness.”
“You know him?”
“Galal Shaughness.”
“Really? Galal Shaughness?”
“His father was Irish.”
“And his mother?”
“Wasn’t.”
Fair enough.
“Who is he?”
“Muscle. Works primarily out of New York. Third generation West Side. The Irish boys in the Apple don’t have as much structure as the old days. Primarily they hire out nowadays. I suppose I should be curious what you and your cohorts have been up to that would warrant such attention, but I’m afraid that my curiosity pales in comparison with the issue at hand.” He flipped open his cell phone case. “Now, let’s see how Mr. Cade would like to proceed.”
Blanc held the phone to his ear. I held my breath.
“Dia duit, boss. Forbairt suimiúil…” He turned his back to me, as though having the entire conversation in Gaelic wasn’t going to be enough to exclude me. The only words I recognized in the entire conversation were the names Malone and Galal Shaughness. At one point, I could hear Cade laughing uproariously through the earpiece, which brought a raspy chuckle out of the normally impassive Blanc.
“Fuair sé. Feicfidh mé é a láimhseáil ó anseo.” With that, he put the phone back into his pocket and withdrew a smaller phone from his jacket. “Today is your lucky day, Mr. Malone.” He pressd a few buttons on the phone, snapped the cheap flip phone in half, then walked to the kitchen and dropped the pieces into a saucepan.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait.” He filled the saucepan with water, then set it over a high flame on the stovetop. “Anything to drink in this fine establishment?”
***
Without much scrounging, I found a half bottle of whipped cream-flavored vodka under the kitchen sink. I wasn’t going to speculate as to whom it belonged.
We both winced at the first sip of the cloying alcohol, but bore the sickly brunt. Blanc carefully folded his sportscoat over his arm and sat on the lounge chair. I sat on the couch and almost put my feet up on the re-rolled up corpse rug. Instead, I awkwardly rolled around on my ass, balanced on one cheek for a moment, remembered that I had a gun in the back of my pants, almost drove it into my anus, then re-balanced myself with all of the grace that the previous actions allowed.
I didn’t want to look at the body anymore. I didn’t want to look at Blanc either, that Mona Lisa smile of his displaying his enjoyment at the predicament I’d found myself in.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I clasped the glass of diabetes-inducing vodka and tried to will it into Jim Beam like the Jesus of Jamaica Plain.
After a few minutes of silence, Blanc placed his glass on the end table and said, “Why do I get the feeling that this both is and isn’t your first?”
I didn’t know what he meant by that. I had the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the killing. I looked up at him.
Right into that goddamn smile.
An image of my mother flashed within my mind along with the piles of other bodies left behind in in my life’s wake. Some deserving, most of them simply caught in the maelstrom of fatality that my swirled around me.
I used to think, when half a bottle into the periodic pity-parties, that my sphere of detruction only applied to the people I loved—that my proximity got them hurt. Got them killed.
But in that moment, looking at Blanc, I saw it for what it was.
I was like a black cat walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror and knocking salt over when I did. And my bad luck touched everyone and everything around me. Maybe I could be more sensible and maybe take into account some of my life choices, but fuck that.
I continued my silence.
Blanc leaned forward, adjusted the cuff of his suit pants. “Do you remember when you called me a murderer?”
I remembered. It was when I was on top of him, ready to open his neck with a broken bottle. Kind of hard to forget.
I nodded.
“I told you then that I wasn’t. That there was a difference between a murderer and a killer. If I remember correctly, I also said that I thought you knew the difference.”
With a croak in my throat, I said, “I remember.”
“I’m not so sure I was right.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not sure you knew the difference then.”
The doorbell rang and my skin creeped icily over my bones.
Blanc stood, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. “But I think you do now, boyo, doncha?” The Mona Lisa blossomed int
o a full-blown smile this time. The first time I’d ever seen one on Blanc’s face. The glee almost reached his dead eye as he strolled to answer the door. “Cleanup crew is here.”
“Should I go?”
“Now you’re kidding, right?”
I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I felt as fidgety as a four-year-old in church.
Blanc walked back in with two large Hispanic men in mover’s jumpsuits. They walked with a jail-yard swagger. Behind them was an older dark-skinned woman who, under other circumstances, could have been mistaken for their mother. The woman toted bags of cleaning supplies and a squeegee mop.
The motherly woman looked around the room, taking stock of the mess. “No too bad,” she said in a thick accent, smiling sunnily.
Really?
Blanc held a hand out to me. “Car keys.”
“What?”
“The body goes into the monstrosity your life-partner calls a car. You, my friend, are driving the car.”
Shit.
The two movers rolled out a blue tarp and slid the body, carpet and all, onto the plastic. Some blood had seeped thickly onto the hardwood, but otherwise left less a mess than Dateline would lead you to believe. All said and done, it was as easy a job as the cleanup crew could have expected.
“I’m going to pull the car around. Be a mate and hold the door for these fine gents?” Blanc said as he buttoned up his wool coat.
I opened the door to the frigid night and waited. I lit a smoke and noted the panel truck that had parked in the perfect position to blind the neighbors to anything coming in or out of Ginny’s front door. Claddagh Moving Co. was painted in huge letters on the side of the truck. Underneath, Ireland’s Relocation Associates.
IRA.
Who said the Irish mob didn’t have a sense of humor?
Blanc pulled Miss Kitty around the front of the panel van, again blocking any lookie-loos. I felt the strangest sensation seeing Blanc behind the wheel of Junior’s beloved car, like I was watching my best friend’s girlfriend being molested publicly by the biggest douchebag at the bar.
Huh.
Felt kind of like seeing Summerfield’s hand on Kelly’s ass.
Ugh.
Then…
Blanc popped the trunk.
And drew his gun.
Followed immediately by a small arm extending another gun from the depths of Miss Kitty’s cavernous boot.
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