GRAYSON’S KNIFE
GRAYSON’S KNIFE
Russell H. Aborn
Copyright © 2019 Russell H. Aborn
All rights reserved.
ISBN 13: 9781709656392
DEDICATION
To Susan
And my parents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many thanks to Dennis Lehane and Tom Bernardo for their support during the early days of writing this and for their friendship over the years.
My business partner and good friend Jill Clifford covered for me in work and encouraged me to keep at it.
My wife, Susan M. Aborn, kept after me to finish and wouldn’t let me quit when the going got tough.
“And that is the terrible myth of organized society, that everything that’s done through the established system is legal—and that word has a powerful psychological impact. And therefore, society can turn its conscience off, and look to other things at other times.”
William Kuntsler
February 1970
CONTENTS
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Epilogue
CHAPTER ONE
Michael Grayson, plagued by yet another hangover, is mocked by the memory of his latest vow of abstinence. He winces periodically, as random bolts of pain section his brain, like lightning in a thundercloud.
He says, “I was still sleeping when you woke me up.”
Hugh Grayson says, “That’s the way it works. You have to be asleep if you’re going to wake up. Plus, you were drooling on my couch.”
“Aren’t you getting a new one, or something? Where are you looking?”
“Sure, let’s talk furniture. Way to change the subject,” Hugh says.
“There is no subject. I told you yesterday, no. Count me out.”
It’s a murky, pre-dawn March morning and the Grayson brothers sit in Hugh’s brand new 1973 Ford Galaxy 500 parked at the sea wall on the shore of Quincy Bay at Wollaston Beach.
“Look,” Hugh Grayson says. “You owe me, you know it, and I know it and this is what I’m asking.”
Hugh holds a large take-out coffee in his left hand, as does Michael, who is known to everybody but family and his ex-fiancé, as Grayson. He alternates small sips of coffee with great drafts of orange juice from the half gallon carton in his right hand.
Hugh says, “These are students, at the pharmacy college, so they’re not like real drug dealers, with loads of firepower and so on. I need you to drive and for you and Donny be the muscle, to discourage them. You’d have a third duty to keep Donny from acting up. But, if you’re stiffing me, I guess I can have Charlie drive. He should be able to handle Donny, too. Charlie goes, what, 125 pounds?”
“Charlie is going to drive? Have you ever seen his car? We call it the golf ball; it’s got a million little dents.”
Hugh waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, if you’re not going. It’s not your problem.”
“I thought it was going to be a walk in the park?”
“Just an abundance of caution. Belt and suspenders.”
Quincy Bay hides out in the gloaming, quiet, shallow and well protected, and on clear days it has the aspect of a large lake. The scattered islands and protective peninsulas that make up this part of Boston Harbor shelter the beach, and today there is no wind to break up the light gray curtain of fog that hangs from the grayer clouds to a point just above the dark gray water.
Grayson swallows some OJ, even though the acid in the juice isn’t helping his stomach any.
“Why are you doing this?” he says.
“I need money, quickly,” Hugh says. “I owe Gumby.”
“You borrowed from Gumby? To pay gambling debts? What the fuck?” Grayson says. “I suppose you went to China Blue last night?”
Hugh says, “No, the Dragon. I landed on a very bad run of cards, right away. And, because I didn’t have enough money to wait it out, I got trimmed before my luck had a chance to come back.”
Hugh loosens his necktie a little. His suitcoat is hanging in the back seat. He has a sales conference in two hours.
Grayson says, “That makes zero sense.”
“Because you don’t know anything about it. My error was not having enough cash to hang in until my luck came back.”
Hugh believes in luck the way Job believed in God.
“I’ve got money saved,” Grayson says. “How much do you need?”
“I’m not borrowing from you.”
“No. But you’ll take money from a loan shark, knowing when you can’t pay it back, he’ll cut your ears off and give them to his dog for chew toys.”
“Twenty thousand, give or take. Do you have that much laying around?” Hugh says.
Grayson is shocked.
“If so,” Hugh says, “Great, hand it over. Because I wish Gumby would only cut my ears off. He’s a pain fiend. That’s the part of the business he likes most.
“So why would you go to him?”
Grayson’s head is swimming, stunned by the amount of money Hugh owes Gumby.
“Why? You could almost buy a house for that money. What’d you do with it? That’s like a year’s pay. For me.”
“This and that, you know. And I didn’t borrow it all at once.”
“So, you had to make a series of stupid decisions.”
Hugh does a ‘so what’ shrug. “In any event, it’s done. I choose to focus on the future.”
“You have a nice sales job, an expense account, a brand-new company vehicle,” Grayson says, sweeping a hand around the car. “What the heck?”
Hugh says nothing, maybe letting the big, scary number do the work.
Twenty thousand dollars. Not to mention Gumby.
Hugh points out through the windshield where the beach is hiding.
“Or if Gumby’s really mad, he’ll have his guys bury me up to my neck in The Muck at low tide.”
Because the beach is so well sheltered, the rising tide does not arrive in waves, but instead the water slides in on its belly, like a reptile. One of the side effects of the beach being sheltered is The Muck, a
nd its’ signature, rotten egg smell, which is, in many ways, the smell of their childhood.
“Well, if you’re not going to help me there’s no point in talking anymore. Hop out.”
Hugh sounds resigned, like he’s giving up.
Grayson, too, is done. It’s getting harder to say no.
“Sorry.” He grabs the door handle, just as Hugh grabs his shoulder.
Hugh says, “Listen, let me give you a few more facts. They’re not kids, they’re our age. Just listen. They’re selling pharmaceutical grade drugs, drugs that they’ve stolen from the VA in Jamaica Plain, where they have these low wage, on-the-job, work-study type gigs. What they’ve learned so far is how to order extra narcotics from the suppliers, sneak them out of the hospital and have the VA pay for it.”
“Stealing medicine from hospitalized veterans in JP? That’s nice.”
“Donny said yes, and he’s a vet, and it obviously won’t impact those guys, but Donny has no sense of proportion when things get rough, so I need you to keep him in check.”
Donny Gates, their first cousin, is 6’5” and weighs 280, about the same size as a newborn killer whale. Starting at age 14, he began lifting weights daily and for a while he practiced a menacing smile in the bathroom mirror, and all credit to him, he got crackerjack results. When that empty eyed smile beams from his big face atop that giant body, he looks like a head from Easter Island. That smile could cause Dirty Harry or Mean Joe Greene to lose bladder control.
Hugh says, “And it has to be Saturday night because of all the St. Patrick’s Day parties. There will be a bunch of them all around that college area. The Fenway, Allston, Beacon St, Comm Ave, there will be parties everywhere. A girl in their building is having a party, so that’s where we’ll go. So, the pharm boys snatched extra supplies to sell to the party goers. The pharmers are somewhat cautious about who they sell to, but they also know if their screening is too tight, they won’t move much product. They rely on their friends to refer customers. So, all you have to do is let Donny do his thing with the girl throwing the party, get her to call upstairs, then you guys go and knock and say you’re from the party downstairs. Charlie will be front and center at the keyhole up at the pharm boy’s door, looking as harmless and friendly as only he can.”
“Where are you going to be? At the movies?”
“Hanging out on the fifth-floor stairwell, waiting for you to get them to open the door.”
“I’m too busy,” Grayson says.
“Well get un-busy. You owe me. And Gumby is going to fuck me up if I don’t get him his money by next Friday. Besides, these pharmacy guys are total feebs.” Hugh waves his hand dismissively.
“So, it’s okay to have Donny bounce them off the floor so you can take their money. And the drugs, too, I bet.”
“We take only the money. If we take the drugs and sell them, then we’re drug dealers, too, and as bad as them. You know I can’t go for that.” Hugh says. He looks at Grayson, as if hoping for applause.
Grayson says, “You’re a fine man and a great American.”
“Plus, this other guy is taking the drugs.”
“What other guy? Who’s the other guy? You never said there’s another guy.”
“You can’t expect to know everything, if you haven’t committed. This guy has done stuff like this before and will help us. We’re meeting tomorrow night to go over everything in detail. All I want you to do is manage Donny, and be another big body to discourage them from even trying to resist, and also to drive.”
Grayson shakes his head a little bit, and quickly regrets it.
“No more gambling, right? You’re going to quit,” Grayson says.
“Yeah. You quit drinking and I’ll quit gambling and Ma will live to be a hundred, Paul will turn out to be still alive in Vietnam, and we’ll all live happily ever after. Right after we do this.”
“Who’s the guy who’s helping?”
“If you’re in you’ll meet him Friday. His name is Bird. He’s a badass,” Hugh says.
“No guns, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m not telling Bird what to do. But, if he does, he won’t use it except to scare people. He’s already been acquitted of manslaughter, so he’s not looking for trouble.”
Grayson keeps his face forward. “If you want a winning bet, bet this is going to end up going sideways.”
“All the more reason to help. Protect me. From myself,” Hugh says, and forces a phony laugh. “And, I need Donny, for two reasons, but as we know, he can be unpredictable. One, in case multiple parties need punching, and two, because it’s a chick who’s throwing the party.”
When not projecting menace, Donny is a big hit with the ladies. He looks like the Superman in the funny books, and women vibrate like tuning forks when he comes into a room. He loves the women and the women love him right back.
Grayson says, “How the hell do you know all this?”
“I got the idea a couple of weeks ago. You remember that story I showed you from the newspaper?” Hugh says.
“No.”
“Here, this one.”
Hugh pulls down a newspaper clipping from the visor. Grayson reads about an apartment on Bay State Rd. in Kenmore Square that had been invaded. Neighbors had heard loud noises and called the police. When the Boston cops arrived some young men in the apartment appeared to have been beaten up and their place had obviously been tossed. The boy’s faces were flushed, swollen and bloodied, one had a broken nose and another was icing a large knot on his head. The neighbors griped to the police that based on the amount and kind of traffic at the apartment, they long suspected drugs were being sold inside. The young men said no, unh-unh, no way. Asked why they were disheveled to such a degree, they claimed they’d merely been rough housing. The Boston police force is comprised largely of WWII vets, men now middle-aged. They had seen real trouble close-up in their youth, so they know real trouble, and this isn’t it. Their official motto is, “To serve and protect,” but their working motto was, “Don’t bother me with your stupid shit.’ The cops likely pretended to believe the kids so they could head back to the station and get off work on-time.
A reporter from the newspaper must have heard the call on a police band radio. He showed up and tried to get the kids talking, but only managed to interview the neighbors. On another, busier night, the story might have gone unreported.
Grayson says, “These pharmacy kids might have seen this story, too. What if they have protection?”
“These kids are feebs, rich snots, from like Hingham or Marblehead. They hope to be pharmacists, for Pete’s sake. They do have a neighbor who’s supposed to provide security, but he’s some burnout, an older guy, he’s like twenty-six or seven, but it’s only one guy. Like I said, Bird might be armed and anyway, Donny’s like having three guys.”
“How do you know all this? Did you put this together?”
Hugh says, “It’s a long story that doesn’t matter. The drug kids are paying the girl having the party a commission if she sends buyers up.”
“They might have guns. What then?”
“Not likely.”
“If you get shot that will kill Ma.”
“This is not going to be a big deal. We’re not robbing Brink’s. These fancy pants will roll over like trained seals,” Hugh says.
“What about the older guy? The burn-out neighbor. He could be a mental case.”
“With all of us going, we’ll be equipped to deal with whatever comes our way.”
Grayson says, “You will never be out of the hole. Not until you stop gambling.”
“Wisdom from The Shitface Kid.”
“Yeah, that’s right. The Shitface Kid. The guy you need for this idiotic plan. I’m a fuck up, and you’re counting on me. That makes you worse. Listen, let me lend it to you.”
“I don’t want to borrow money,” Hugh says.
“You’re in this mess from borrowing money! From a sadist masquerading as a loan shark.”
“I
mean borrow more money”
“All right. I’ll give you all the money I saved. I don’t need it anymore.”
“Are you talking about the money you and Catherine saved to get married? For a house? The money you’ve been saving since high school? No thanks.”
Grayson says, “Don’t worry. No more wedding. That’s over with. She’s not even talking to me. For the rest of my life, she says.”
“Again? From New Year’s Eve? Or is that one fixed and you’re working on the second breakup of 1973?”
“New Year’s.”
“Wow,” says Hugh. “That’s a long breakup for you two.” He puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Keep your money. She’ll change her mind. She has before, right? Come over to my place Friday night and just listen. Donny’s coming, you can meet Bird. Then if you don’t like the plan, don’t come with us. But hear us out. I do need your help.”
Brother Hugh has him boxed in. If he doesn’t help Hugh, and something goes wrong, Grayson will blame himself. Plus, if Donny’s agreed to go, the potential looms large for things to get out of hand, and Grayson does have a knack for keeping Donny focused. If they get away with it, whatever this “it” is, there would be another “it” soon enough, because at the heart of Hugh’s gambling was neither winning nor losing money, it was all about the rush. He started gambling when he could no longer play football.
“It’s not really about the money, is it? It’s about the adrenaline buzz, right?”
“Is that your diagnosis, Doctor Freud?” Hugh smiles, but he doesn’t deny it. “Let’s go. We have to get to work.”
CHAPTER TWO
Grayson slides his time card under the clock face in the last half of the final second before it would have snapped past his start time at Triple T Trucking.
“Did you make it?” Rosario the dispatcher says, grinning.
Grayson looked at the card to be sure the time stamp confirmed he had indeed made it, and it read: 7:00 AM March 15, 1973.
“Why do you have to cut it so close?” Rosie says.
Rosie leans back against the counter at a precipitous angle, his fingers loosely intertwined at his belt buckle and his legs crossed at the ankles. This pose of amused nonchalance is made poignant by the great likelihood that within the hour some minor setback, a load that isn’t ready or a truck that won’t start, would have him unhinged.
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