The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  ‘What can I get you, Mr. Toomey?’ said Ryan. He was always polite around the older men, Dempsey noted. Ryan was clever like that. Respectful. Had things worked out differently, he might have gone a long way.

  ‘You think they got tea here?’ said Joey. ‘I never come into these places. You could buy a share in a plantation for what they charge for a cup of coffee.’

  ‘They got tea, but you won’t like it,’ said Dempsey. ‘They use the water from the boiler. It won’t taste right. It’s never the right temperature for tea.’

  Joey raised his eyes to heaven. He was out of his comfort zone here, which was just as Dempsey had intended. Joey Tuna liked restaurants where his name was known and the laminated menu hadn’t changed since V-J Day. Joey Tuna didn’t drink, he didn’t do drugs, and he didn’t frequent bars. He ate sandwiches six days a week at an untidy desk in an office that smelled of fish, and drank stewed tea from a battered metal pot warmed by a single electric ring. Joey Tuna was a traditionalist, a paid-up member of the old school, a patter of backs and a shaker of hands. Joey Tuna was a smiler of broken smiles, an honest broker for dishonest men, a recorder of old, dusty debts and unwise promises made in haste. Joey Tuna was a cold, merciless vacuum; there were fish on his slabs that held more warmth.

  ‘Coffee, then, coffee,’ said Joey. ‘Black with a bit of milk. None of that mocha shite, or whatever it is.’

  Ryan got up to place in the order.

  ‘How you doin’, Joey?’ said Dempsey. His back was to the wall, and his right hand remained hidden beneath the paper.

  ‘I’m good. Arthritis is acting up, though. It’s the weather, and the time of year. I’ll be crucified like Christ on the cross from now until April.’

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. ‘Something wrong with your hand, Martin?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing at all, I’m pleased to say. It responds quickly to stimulus.’

  ‘We’d better hope that nobody breaks a cup.’

  ‘These are troubled times, Joey.’

  ‘Is there ever any other kind?’ Joey put his handkerchief away, but slowly, and he made sure that only the tips of his fingers entered his pocket. ‘You couldn’t have picked somewhere with more heat, could you? The feds won’t have far to take us if they come for us. They could just lock the door and leave us here.’

  ‘There’s a lot of bad blood. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have the law on my side.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’

  ‘You I trust,’ said Dempsey, and he was careful not to let the taste of the lie show on his face. ‘It’s the others I’m less sure of, and I can’t hide under your coat for the rest of the day.’

  Joey looked away. ‘It’s longer than that you’d need to be under there, the way things are going.’

  ‘Which is why we’re here. Tommy is concerned.’

  ‘And so he should be. So are we all.’

  ‘So what’s to be done?’

  ‘He should just walk away. I’ve told him that.’

  ‘He can’t afford to walk away. He wants to rebuild.’

  ‘It’s all gone, or as good as. They’ll bury him under the ruins of what’s left.’

  ‘Well, you see, Joey, he’s trying to figure out where it all went wrong. If he can do that, he thinks he can put things right.’

  ‘Poor investments. Bad luck. Could happen to anyone. Once it starts to go south, it goes fast. It’s like a boulder tumbling down a hill. When it’s big enough, and it builds enough momentum, it can’t be stopped. It rolls, and it crushes anyone caught in its path. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Well, it seems to Tommy that people might actively have conspired to send that boulder his way. He thinks that he’s been set up for a fall.’

  ‘A bad workman blames his tools, Martin. You know that. He’s made mistakes, and now he’s looking for someone else to shoulder the responsibility. It’s understandable, but that doesn’t make it right. There are debts that have to be settled. Unless he wins the Mega Millions, he’s going to have to off-load his business interests in order to meet his obligations.’

  ‘They’re all he has, Joey. If he walks, he’s left with nothing.’

  ‘He has his life.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know what it means.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Come on, Joey, you’re too old to play the virgin.’

  Ryan arrived with the coffee.

  ‘Is there milk?’ said Joey.

  ‘You said you wanted it black.’

  ‘Black, then milk. I didn’t want them fucking around with it behind the counter, sprinkling shite on it.’

  ‘I’ll get you the jug,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Nah, you do it. Not too much. Just add a bit of color to its cheeks.’

  Ryan looked at Dempsey. He had no idea what that meant.

  ‘Brown it,’ said Dempsey. ‘Like an Asian girl.’

  Ryan moved off, even more bewildered than before.

  ‘Too old to play the virgin, eh?’ said Joey. ‘You have some mouth on you. You should have more respect.’ But he was grinning.

  Ryan came back with the coffee. Joey looked at it, tried it, and nodded.

  ‘Good lad. Now go outside for a minute, will you? Take some air.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Ryan.

  ‘It’s good for the skin. Off you go.’

  Ryan sighed and went outside with his coffee. He stood with his back to them, one hand holding his coffee, the other on the gun in the pocket of his black leather jacket. He had cut away the lining especially for that purpose, a trick Dempsey had taught him.

  ‘He’s all right,’ said Dempsey. ‘You could have let him stay.’

  ‘He’s young, and I’m not sure how much he knows or doesn’t know. He’s a listener too, and I don’t like people to listen unless I tell them to. It’s not for me to betray confidences. As for Tommy and his troubles, that’s where we stand on the matter. You don’t want to go overcomplicating it.’

  ‘Tommy is worried that it has already been complicated.’

  ‘You’re talking about the girl.’

  ‘That’s right. It’s out of order.’

  ‘The girl has nothing to do with this.’

  ‘We’re here because of the girl. Tommy wants to be sure that Oweny doesn’t have her.’

  ‘He doesn’t. I asked him. He doesn’t have her. He said so.’

  ‘With all due respect, that’s what he’d tell you.’

  ‘Careful now, Martin.’ Joey wagged a calloused finger at him. ‘I’ve always been very tolerant of you. You’re brighter than ten of the rest of them put together, but don’t think you can belittle me. I’m telling you now, Oweny doesn’t have the girl. If he did, you’d have known about it long before this. What would be the point in taking her and then not using her as leverage? Jesus, I don’t think he even knew about the girl until you mentioned her to me.’ Joey sipped his coffee. ‘That’s not a bad cup of coffee,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I’m not paying for it, but it’s not bad.’

  The coffee seemed to make him relent somewhat or, as Dempsey suspected, it gave him an excuse to alter his approach, to adopt a different persona. Had the stakes not been so high, Dempsey might even have enjoyed watching the performance.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ said Joey. ‘A young girl being taken like that. What’s the world coming to, Martin?’

  And then Joey switched masks again, and Dempsey felt any lingering respect that he had for the old operator fall away like so many scales from his eyes.

  ‘Who knows what’s being done to her, you know what I mean? There are deviants out there who’d think nothing of forcing themselves on a child, raping her and then leaving her to die in a ditch. If she was blood to me, I don’t know what I’d do. I suppose I’d do anything, anything at all, to try and help her.’

  He placed his hands together, his thumbs m
eeting to form the sign of the cross, just as they did every Sunday when he knelt down to pray at eleven o’clock Mass at St. Francis de Sales, his head bowed and his eyes closed, as though God cared to hear the prayers of one such as he.

  ‘We know people up there, Martin. We have connections. If Tommy does the right thing, we can act on his behalf. We’ll have men out combing the bushes. We’ll put the screws on every pervert between here and Canada. We can help him, Martin, but only if he wants to help himself.’

  And Dempsey wondered if they did, in fact, have the girl, and if this was all part of the game: Lure Tommy in when he’s weak, and then finish him off before letting the girl go. For they would let the girl go; even a blackened husk of a man like Joey Tuna wouldn’t want the death of a child on his soul.

  ‘I’ll be sure to let him know that,’ said Dempsey.

  ‘You do whatever you want. I’m here to help if I’m needed.’

  ‘Even if Oweny doesn’t have her,’ Dempsey continued, ‘Tommy wants him to back off. Oweny’s acting like Tommy’s already in the grave and left everything to him in his will.’

  ‘Tommy’s dying, Martin. He just doesn’t want to admit it. When you’re dying, the vultures start to circle.’

  ‘Oweny’s not circling, Joey. He’s pulling the meat from Tommy’s bones while he’s still alive. Tommy’s not just dying; Oweny’s killing him.’

  ‘There are other concerns here, Martin. You’ve said so yourself. You’re no virgin either. If Tommy’s desperate, then he’s vulnerable. He’s been around a long time. He can name a lot of names. He could hurt a lot of people. We had enough of that in the past.’

  ‘Tommy’s not like that, Joey. You know it. He’s sound.’

  ‘You ever been to federal prison, Martin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if you had you’d know that half the guys in there are locked up because they trusted someone who they thought was sound. Everybody’s sound until it comes to the moment when they’re not, when their survival is at stake and they have to cut a deal to go on living. If I were Tommy, I’d be looking for a way out now. One way out is a stone’s throw from here.’ And he jerked a thumb at the nest of law enforcement behind his back.

  ‘I’d know, Joey. If he was thinking along those lines, I’d know.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool. You wouldn’t know until they came knocking on your door with a federal arrest warrant. Then you’d know, and it’d be too late to do anything about it. There are men in this town who have no intention of dying in prison, and I’m one of them. Don’t be thinking that you’re safe either. He’ll rat you out along with the rest of us. That’s how they work, those bastards. They want everything, every name that you can vomit up, every man and woman who ever did you a favor in your life. It’s all or nothing with them, all or nothing.’

  ‘Tommy’s not trying to cut a deal. I’m telling you that.’

  ‘Ah, you’re telling, you’re telling.’ Joey waved at him in dismissal. ‘You listen to me – the only telling you need to do is tell Tommy that he has to come in. We’ll arrange a sit-down. We’ll work things out. If he’s sound, like you say he’s sound, then he has nothing to worry about.’

  Joey put a meaty paw on Dempsey’s wrist, holding it so tight that the tips of Dempsey’s fingers began to tingle. There were beads of spittle on Joey’s lips, and Dempsey could smell the lingering stench of fish that always hung around the man.

  ‘Do you understand me, Martin?’ said Joey, the stink of him all over Dempsey now, his skin burning as though he were allergic to this foul man. ‘You tell him to come in, or maybe you give me a call and let me know where we might be able to find him. That’s all you have to do. You’ll be looked after, and so will he. I promise you that. It will all be done the right way.’

  They both knew what was being spoken of here. It was an act of betrayal, after which there would only be two choices left: Walk off to exile, or pretend that a life in Boston might still be possible, taking whatever work they put your way until they eventually decided to put a bullet in you, because you couldn’t trust a man who’d sell out his boss.

  Dempsey pulled his hand away. He looked at his watch. Oweny’s representative was now fifteen minutes late. The arrangement was that Joey would come in first, and his presence during the meet would ensure that all exchanges remained civil, except Oweny’s man hadn’t shown yet. Outside, Ryan had finished his coffee and was dancing anxiously from foot to foot.

  ‘Oweny’s boy should be here,’ said Dempsey, but Joey had stood up and was now buttoning his coat.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Dempsey. ‘The sit-down hasn’t happened yet.’

  ‘Yes, it has,’ said Joey, and Dempsey felt the air leave his body as surely as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Oweny’s boy wasn’t coming. He had never been coming. Instead, Joey spoke for Oweny. Joey spoke for them all, every one of them, every man who wasn’t Tommy Morris and wasn’t linked to Tommy Morris, every man who wanted Tommy silenced with a bullet through the back of the head, the smell of the lime that would be used on his body burning his eyes, and a hammer close by to knock his teeth out when it was done. Sentence had been passed. All that remained was its execution.

  ‘The girl?’ said Dempsey. ‘Tell me the truth. He wants to know. You said Oweny didn’t have her. But do you have her? Is she leverage in this?’

  But Joey was already somewhere else in his mind. His body just hadn’t arrived there yet.

  ‘You tell him to come in, Martin. Don’t make us go looking for him. I like you. I like the boy outside. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to either of you. So talk to Tommy. Make him see sense. You’re a smart man. You’ll find the right words. Take care, now.’

  He left the coffee shop, patting Ryan on the back as he went. Ryan watched him go, then turned to stare at Dempsey, his mouth agape, one hand raised in a ‘WTF?’ gesture, the other still holding on to the gun in his pocket.

  Good lad, thought Dempsey. Keep a hold on that gun. He was thankful now that he had arranged the aborted meet for here and not for somewhere in Dorchester or Charlestown, as Joey had first suggested. If he’d agreed to that, he’d be on a warehouse floor by now and someone would be hammering nails into his hands and his feet to make him talk.

  He walked to the door, the newspaper held awkwardly over the gun. There was a woman coming in and he slipped by her, jostling her as he went. She said something, but he didn’t hear her. He was concentrating on the world outside, on the plaza that suddenly seemed more empty than before, on the faces that suddenly seemed more knowing, more threatening. In the time since he had stepped into the coffee shop, his realm of existence had become a desolate, merciless place.

  He told Ryan to get moving, and together they floated out into this hostile universe.

  15

  Aimee was forced to cancel our morning meeting owing to an incident of domestic violence that left a fifty-year-old man with a broken arm, a fractured skull, and a collection of busted ribs. His assailant was his forty-three-year-old wife, who weighed barely ninety pounds fully clothed and soaking wet, and was so soft-spoken that only bats could hear her. Apparently her husband had been beating on her for the first nineteen years of their marriage, and so she had decided to mark the start of their twentieth year together by encouraging him to turn over a new leaf through the judicious application of a lump hammer while he was sleeping off a drunk. A women’s refuge for which Aimee provided pro bono services called her in to speak to the woman, so Aimee had postponed our discussion until the afternoon.

  There was only a scattering of worshippers at the eight a.m. Mass at St. Maximillian Kolbe in Scarborough when I arrived. I slipped into a pew at the back, and kept my head down throughout. I didn’t go to church so much anymore; I went when I needed consolation, or just a space in which to breathe for a time. I found a peace there, the peace that comes from distancing oneself from the mundane, if only for a little while, and embracing the possibility of a peace beyond this
world. I could never tell when the urge to seek out that space would strike me, but it came to me that morning after Aimee postponed our meeting, and I did not fight it.

  Louis had once asked me if I believed in God after all that I had seen and all I had gone through, most particularly the loss of Susan and Jennifer. I gave him three answers, which was probably at least two more than he had been expecting. I told him that I found it easier to believe in God than not to believe, for if I believed in nothing then the deaths of Susan and Jennifer were pointless and without reason, and I preferred to hope that their loss was part of a pattern I did not yet understand. I told him that the God in whom I believed sometimes looked away. He was a distractible God, a God overwhelmed by our demands, and we were so very, very small, and there were so very, very many of us. I told him that I understood how that could be the case. My God was like a parent always trying to watch out for His children, but you couldn’t always be there for your children, no matter how hard you tried. I had not been there for Jennifer when she most needed me, and I refused to blame my God for that.

  And I told him that I believed in God because I had seen His opposite. I had seen all that He was not, and been touched by it, and so I could no more deny the possibility of an ultimate goodness to set against such depravity than I could deny that daylight followed darkness, and night the day.

  All this I told him, and he was silent afterward.

  When Mass was over, I drove out to the Palace Diner in Biddeford and ate breakfast. Some might have felt that it was a ways to go for breakfast, but those people hadn’t eaten in the Palace. I lingered over coffee, and read the newspaper, and just as I was relaxed and ready to face the day my phone beeped to indicate that I had a new message. I read it, saved it, and felt my good humor vanish.

  I returned home and began working my way through Randall Haight’s list of names, using distinguishing information to trace their movements over the years in case any had been employed in a capacity that might have brought them into contact with prisons, and cross-referencing names and addresses against prison records in an effort to establish if anyone in Pastor’s Bay had either served time in North Dakota, Vermont, or New Hampshire, or had close relatives who had served time in those states. I drew a blank on them all, but it was only the first stage in what might prove to be a long, drawn-out process of picking apart the weave of dozens of potentially interconnected lives.