The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  But the cold: God, that was the worst of it. It bit and gnawed, its white teeth working on fingertips and toes, noses and ears, like a carrion feeder picking at a corpse in the snow. Winter was one thing: winter, with snow on the ground and clear blue skies. You knew where you stood with winter. But this, this bastard weather, no accommodation could be reached with it. Better not to have come out at all, but that would be to give in to it, to allow it to have its sway over the city, to sacrifice a night out because the elements were conspiring against you, especially when you were young, and nubile, and had money in your pocket. Maybe when you were older, and had less to seek and to prove, the weather might give you pause, but not now. No, such nights were precious, and hard-earned. Let the rain fall; let the cold bite. The warmth and the company will be more welcome for the struggle that it took to find it, and there is little that is more lovely than to watch rain fall in the darkness from the comfort of a chair, a glass in your hand and a voice softly whispering smiling words in your ear.

  Seated in their car on East Broadway in Southie, waiting for their moment, Dempsey and Ryan watched the local kids go by. The two men were thankful for the rain, for it kept heads down and obscured the view through the windshield. Both wore headgear: Dempsey a black wool hat, Ryan a Celtics cap, making him look like any one of a dozen mooks gorilla-walking their way along the main drag at this time. They came out of central casting, those guys, with their tats and their oversized T-shirts, with their misplaced sentiment for an island that meant nothing to them in actual terms, a place they could identify on a map only because of its shape. Dempsey and Ryan knew their kind well. They held ancestral grievances passed on by their parents, and their parents’ parents. Their racism was ingrained but inconsistent. They hated blacks but cheered on the Celtics, who had barely a white face among them. They had older brothers who could still recall the busing program of the mid to late seventies, when Garrity and his so-called experts ignored the warnings from both inside and outside South Boston and paired poor white Southie with poor black Roxbury, two sections of Boston’s immigrant community that had suffered more than most because of the consequences of bad urban planning; the intransigence of the all-white Boston School Committee that played upon fears of integration, and effective ghettoization, including the deeply flawed B-BURG experiment which walled the blacks inside the former Jewish neighborhoods of North Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan. Sure, there were racists and bigots in Southie and the Town, because there were racists and bigots everywhere, but busing played into the hands of the worst of them, and even succeeded in uniting the previously warring Irish and Italian communities against a single common foe with a different skin. Hell, Ryan’s old man, who was smarter than most of his neighbors put together and was a member of the Boston branch of the International Socialist Organization, had found himself on the receiving end of threats from the assholes on the Tactical Patrol Force because he’d formed a council to help ensure the safety of black pupils at his son’s high school. Ryan hadn’t thanked him for his liberal views since he was the one who had taken the beatings for his father being a ‘nigger-lover,’ but he respected his old man more now for what he’d done.

  The years had changed Ryan, but he kept many of those changes hidden.

  Now he sat behind the wheel and wondered at what they were about to do. By Dempsey’s feet lay the shoebox they had taken from the Napier house, but it was no longer filled with money. The device that it contained was crude but effective: little more than a lead-azide detonator and two pounds of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN. The explosive’s lethality had been compounded by the carpet tacks that Dempsey sprinkled liberally through the mix. Ryan had watched, appalled, as Dempsey put it together in the motel room earlier.

  ‘What are they for?’ he asked

  ‘They’re for added value.’

  ‘But they’ll . . .’

  He trailed off. His mouth felt too dry. This was wrong. It should be stopped.

  ‘They’ll what? Hurt people? Scar them? What do you think the point of this is, Francis?’

  Ryan found some saliva. ‘To take out Oweny Farrell.’

  ‘No, it’s to take out Oweny Farrell and everyone around him. It’s to leave nobody from his inner circle standing. It’s to send a message that Tommy Morris isn’t down and he isn’t out, and his meal tickets aren’t up for grabs.’

  ‘They won’t let it slide. They can’t.’

  ‘They will if he gives them no other choice. They sat back and waited to see what Oweny would do, and how Tommy would respond. This is Tommy’s response. This is his way back.’

  Ryan turned away. His fingers shook. He lit a cigarette to calm himself.

  ‘This is not right, Martin. This is not what we are. There’ll be people in there who have nothing to do with it.’

  He tried to visualize the damage that a hail of tacks would do in an enclosed space, and felt vomit well up in his throat. Had Tommy told Dempsey to do this, or had Dempsey come up with the idea himself? Dempsey was the one to whom Tommy relayed his orders, unless, as with Helen Napier, Dempsey was otherwise occupied. Ryan had to take it on trust that what he heard from Dempsey was the true substance of their conversations. If Tommy had really endorsed this course of action, then all was lost and there was no longer any rightness to his cause.

  ‘Look,’ said Dempsey, ‘it’s this or Tommy rolls over and dies.’

  Seconds ticked by.

  ‘That might be for the best,’ said Ryan. He said it so slowly, and so softly, that Dempsey had to lean forward to be sure he was hearing him right. Ryan’s face was still turned away from him. The cigarette was in his left hand, but his right hand was no longer visible. From the angle of his arm, it was somewhere close to his belt. Dempsey grew still. On the table beside him was his gun. Casually, he rested his hand inches from it.

  ‘I thought we’d had this conversation already, Francis,’ he said. He was surprised at how relaxed he sounded. His fingertips brushed the grips.

  Ryan’s shoulders trembled. Dempsey thought that he might be on the verge of tears. There was a tremor in his voice when he spoke again.

  ‘I mean, look at us. We’re making a bomb. We’re going to slaughter and maim. I’m not like you, Martin. Maybe I’m not as tough as you. I’ve delivered beatings with the best of them, but I’ve never killed. I don’t want to kill anyone, not even Oweny Farrell.’

  ‘How did you think this was going to end?’

  ‘I don’t know: with a sit-down, maybe, with everybody compromising. I thought Joey Tuna would see us right. I thought—’

  ‘You thought what: that you were dealing with reasonable men?’ There was no mockery to Dempsey’s tone. He merely sounded tired, and there was a horror in his voice at what he had allowed himself to become.

  ‘No,’ said Ryan. ‘Just men. Just ordinary men.’

  ‘They were never ordinary, Francis. Ordinary men lead ordinary lives, but not them. They all had blood on their hands and on their souls. We’re tainted by it too, just by being around them.’

  ‘Have you killed, Martin?’

  Now he turned to look at the older man. Ryan had heard stories: Dempsey worked alone, and the people he took care of didn’t surface again. Wherever they were, they were buried deep. Now Ryan wanted to hear confirmation from Dempsey’s own mouth.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dempsey. His eyes were empty.

  ‘For Tommy?’

  ‘And before Tommy.’

  ‘Who did you kill, Martin? Who did you kill before?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  But it did. It mattered to Ryan. Dempsey was born in Belmont, but he’d come to them from abroad. The whispers were that he’d been a bomb-maker, that he’d planted devices in Northern Ireland for the Provisionals, and in Madrid for the ETA Basques. Now he couldn’t return to Europe because, even with some form of peace established in both conflicts, there were those with long memories and scores to settle. Tommy had given him a home and a role to pla
y, and Dempsey’s reputation had gone before him when there were problems that needed to be handled.

  Before Ryan could question him further, Dempsey spoke again.

  ‘You say you’ve never killed, Francis. You say that you can’t. But before all this is over you may be put in a position where you have to pull the trigger on someone to save yourself. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ryan. ‘I’ve thought about it. I even dream about it.’

  ‘And in the dreams, do you pull the trigger?’

  Dempsey waited for the answer, the only light coming from the lamp on the table, its glow catching the sharp, glittering spikes of the tacks.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ryan at last. ‘I pull the trigger.’

  ‘Then maybe you can kill after all. Who do you kill in your dreams?’

  ‘Faceless men. I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘But you kill them anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Dempsey. ‘Would you kill me in your dreams? Do you kill me in your dreams?’

  Ryan had come this far. There was no point in turning back now.

  ‘I’ve thought about it.’

  ‘Not dreamed it, but thought it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And Dempsey saw that Ryan’s hand was within striking distance of whatever was lodged in his waistband, and the reality of all that Ryan had said hung in the air between them like a white handkerchief waiting to be dropped on a dueling field.

  ‘It’s all right, Francis,’ said Dempsey. ‘I know you have. I’ve seen it in your eyes.’ He moved the shoebox slightly with his left hand, shielding his right from view. ‘But I’m not the enemy here. Whatever you might think of me, I’m not the one you have to fear. If we turn against each other now, we’ll do their work for them. We have to trust each other, because we have nobody else.’

  Ryan took in his words, still uncertain. ‘You frighten me sometimes, Martin. You take it too far. That woman the other night, she didn’t deserve what you did to her. No woman deserves that.’

  ‘But you didn’t try to stop it.’

  ‘I should have. I was weak.’

  ‘No, you’re not weak. It’s not weakness to avoid the battle that you can’t win. That’s just common sense. And what was she to you? Nothing. Nobody. You look out for your own, and let the others swim or die.’

  Ryan’s right hand was still hidden.

  ‘So where does that leave us, Francis?’ said Dempsey. ‘Where do we stand?’

  The cigarette bounced in Ryan’s fingers. A clump of ash fell to the carpet. It distracted Ryan from his thoughts. Instinctively, he moved, extending one foot to stamp on it. Dempsey glimpsed his right hand. There was no gun. Dempsey’s eyes flicked to the side and glimpsed Ryan’s gun by the sink, left there when he went to clean the glasses that they’d used earlier.

  Now Ryan glanced his way. He saw the gun, and Dempsey’s fingers brushing its burnished steel, and the cold light in Dempsey’s eyes.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said.

  ‘It was nothing personal, Francis. You were just sounding a bit strange.’

  Ryan let out a long, straggly breath. ‘I was only talking.’

  ‘I couldn’t see your hand.’

  ‘You were going to kill me.’

  ‘If I was going to, then I would have. I don’t want to kill you, Francis. I like you. And I told you, we have to stick together, for our sakes and for Tommy’s. If we don’t do this, they’ll pounce. Don’t think you’ll be able to cut a deal with them, because you won’t. We’ve stayed with Tommy too long. They’d never be able to rest or turn their backs on us. They’d always be wondering, doubting, and in time they’d put an end to their concerns because it would be easier that way. It’s all or nothing now. If we send out a strong enough message, we can make them reconsider. We take out Oweny, take out his crew, and suddenly the tables are turned.’

  ‘They’ll want revenge,’ said Ryan.

  ‘No, not if it’s just Oweny and his people who suffer. They’ll understand that they made a mistake, that they should have backed Tommy and not him. It’s about a show of strength. It has to be brutal, and it has to be final.’

  Ryan walked to the table and looked down at the device. He picked up a carpet tack and held it to the light, examining it the way an entomologist might examine an unfamiliar yet clearly dangerous insect.

  ‘Joey Tuna offered me a way out,’ said Martin. ‘This morning, when we were talking, he asked me to rat on Tommy. He told me I could walk away if I made the call and let them know where Tommy could be found.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘He didn’t mention you, Francis.’

  Ryan nodded. He understood. They would have killed him just to be sure.

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m with Tommy, and I’m with you. We’re different, you and I, but we need to stick together on this. And remember, you’re not killing anyone. I made this, and I’ll put it in position. The blood will be on my hands, the mark on my soul.’

  Ryan twisted the tack one last time, then dropped it in the shoebox.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’ll be on my soul too.’

  And now here they were, the rain pattering on the roof of the car, no lights within to expose them, the device on the floor at Dempsey’s feet. Ryan couldn’t help but think of it as a living creature, a monster in the box waiting to be unleashed. They should have bored air holes in it so it could breathe. He could almost hear the beating of its heart.

  In an ideal situation Dempsey would have planted the device earlier, but the bar was Oweny’s place, and there was no way that he could gain access to it in advance. The bar was small, and it would contain the blast. In the confined space, the device’s effects would be catastrophic. The problem was getting it in there. He’d told Ryan that he planned to take the simple approach. In one hand was a brick, in the other the device. The brick would take out the window, and the device would follow.

  ‘What’s the delay on it?’ Ryan had asked, causing Dempsey to pause.

  ‘Where did you learn about delays?’

  ‘Same place I learned about everything else – from television.’

  ‘Five or six seconds.’

  ‘It’s not much. You’d better not trip or wait for the light once it’s set.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on helping anyone across the road.’

  Even through the rain-spattered windshield, Ryan could see Oweny Farrell’s big head from where they sat. He recognized some of the others as well. There were a couple of women too. He hoped they would leave to go to the bathroom before Dempsey started walking. It might make what was to come easier to live with.

  ‘You just start the engine as soon as I get out,’ said Dempsey. ‘Be prepared for the blast, let it come, then move. Don’t look at it, and don’t stare once it’s happened. You won’t want to see the aftermath, and I don’t want you freezing.’

  ‘I understand, Martin.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Dempsey picked up the box and the brick, resting them in the crook of his arm. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt under his coat, and he raised the hood to hide his face as he left the car. Ryan was about to wish him good luck, then didn’t. One of the girls in the bar was laughing, her mouth wide and her head thrown back. She was pretty, and not in the hard way of most of the women who hung around with Oweny and his boys. There was a pale fragility to her features. Her hair was very dark. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. In most bars in Boston, they’d have asked for ID and given her the bum’s rush, but not there, not in Oweny’s place.

  He saw Dempsey lift the edge of the shoebox to arm the device as he stepped into the cold night air. Most of the box was wrapped in tape, but Dempsey had left one corner torn and unsealed so that he could easily access the fuse that would ignite the detonating agent. Dempsey started toward the bar, his fingers poised over the gap in the box, and then there were lig
hts in Ryan’s rearview mirror, and he heard sirens, and Dempsey was walking quickly back to the car, the device still in his arms, the brick discarded on the street. Ryan started the engine, and they pulled out behind a beverage truck just as the first of the patrol cars screeched to a halt outside the bar, more coming behind it, and the big black van of the SWAT team in the middle of them all like the queen bug among its subjects.

  ‘Man,’ said Ryan. ‘This is bad. This is so bad.’

  ‘Just drive. They’re not looking for us. They couldn’t have known.’

  Ryan just kept going straight until they hit the rotary by the water. There he turned left, past the statue of Farragut, past the Francis Murphy ice skating rink. It was only when they reached the empty Castle Island parking lot that Ryan realized he had brought them to a dead end. He swore and began to reverse awkwardly, but Dempsey calmed him down.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Take a breath. We’re okay.’

  Ryan did as he was told. He breathed deeply once, twice. He felt the monster twitch in the box at Dempsey’s feet. Perhaps Dempsey felt it too, because he opened the car door and walked to the edge of the lot, then tossed the box into the water. They drove back to the rotary and took First Street out of Southie.