“What do you reckon?
“We’re leaning towards a kidnap for ransom, waiting on some kind of communication right now. Nothing else to be done. My private, personal opinion, the kid ran away, probably got a den stashed away somewhere. You know the kind we had as kids. He’ll come home when he gets hungry or lonely enough.”
“Still, a white child from a middle upper-class family goes missing, I would’ve thought your squad would be all over that.”
“We’re fucking swamped at the moment. This kid is the fourth to disappear into thin air in the last three months and that ain’t even including all the spade kids that have turned up gone. It’s a shit show around here and I’ve got enough on my plate. Besides, word came from up on high, The Chief and even the fucking commissioner himself told us to concentrate on the cases we can actually fucking solve. None of these kids are the Lindbergh babe, that’s for sure.”
“I see,” Ben said stepping away from a dust ball that was running across the floor like a cockroach.
“You don’t see shit, Hughes. Why do you give a damn anyway? I ain’t seen you around here for weeks and this kid ain’t even on your beat.”
“I was just curious is all. Do you think I could I take a look at the file?”
“Just curious, huh?” Mellon snubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and lit another. “I think you’re full of shit, Hughes. Why don’t you go loiter around your own department or Dorchester Street or wherever it is you spend all your time nowadays.”
Ben turned around to go. That dull ache in his guts again.
“Hey, Hughes. Take this with you, I don’t fucking want it,” Mellon held up the scrap of newspaper and waved it distastefully through the air.
Ben hesitated a moment, took it slowly and folded it carefully. Placed it back inside his pocket and turned to go again.
“And Hughes?” Mellon said, holding Ben’s eyes, evaluating.
“Yes, Mellon?”
“You know I can’t let you take a look at the file. But I don’t really give a shit anymore. My transfer to L.A went through and I’m counting down the days. Going out for coffee and a bagel now before this morning’s briefing.” He rummaged through the piles of manila folders scattered on his desk, pulled one out and dropped it on top of the column. “Maybe it’ll be here on my desk when I’m gone. Knock yourself out.”
“Thank you very much, Harold.”
“You’re a very strange man, Hughes. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, but you were one hell of a detective once. Where the hell did that guy go to anyways?” Mellon said, getting up, readjusting his shoulder holster and pulling the brown suit jacket from the back of his chair, nodding.
Ben watched him leave. Glanced around, snatched up the manila file from the clutter on the desktop, shoved it underneath his jacket and followed Mellon out of the precinct into a cruel, unforgiving Boston February rain. He glanced at his wristwatch. Still early. He had someone to talk to and time to kill.
“My father whipped me with a razor strop throughout my childhood. Any minor infraction and the razor strop would be taken down from that rusty hook on the bathroom wall. I used to fear the damn thing so much. That fucking strop. But the human being is an amazing animal, isn’t it? We can become acclimatized to any form of pain or humiliation. It changes us. We mutate to suit our environment. Father stopped whipping me the day I didn’t flinch or whimper. Just stared straight through him. I had acclimatized. Adapted. Mutated. Become better. Yes, the day he didn’t come home to mother and me was a huge relief. Almost as though we had rid ourselves of a terminal illness. Cured. Reached some kind of an immunity. The atmosphere in our house changed, lightened instantaneously. Yes, my father’s death was a huge relief, but then my mother changed. She became needy. Taking from me more than I could give. The man of the house. A last crippling blow from my father,” Ben said, crossing his legs and picking flint from his slacks. He opened up his arms and shrugged at the man seated opposite him as though inviting critique.
“Why are you telling me all this?” the man asked, straining against the handcuffs that were holding him confined to the chair. A bloody gash in the center of his forehead trickling a thin stream of blood down his face. Ben watched the stream of red’s progress. It looked like a leech twisting its way down the Italian man’s gaunt, pale features.
“Because I want you to know that I’ve suffered too. I’ve suffered more than most. My father was a very brutal man and now his son is a very brutal man. We all become our fathers in the end, don’t we?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t give a shit about none of that.”
“Yes, well, I feel better for the telling of the story, anyhow. I feel, I don’t know, cleansed. Unburdened. A burden shared is a burden halved after all, isn’t it? Thank you, Frankie. It is Frankie, isn’t it?”
“Please, just let me go.”
Ben fake laughed. “You know I can’t do that. Why do you people always ask things like that? It’s redundant and completely pointless. You wouldn’t say it to the grocer or the butcher or the lawyer, would you? No, you wouldn’t. They’re just doing their job. So am I. How do you people say it? ‘Capiche’?”
“Please. Look it, there’s an envelope of cash over there on the table,” the man whined, nodding his head frantically in the direction of a cluttered tabletop. “It’s yours. There’s at least five c-notes in there. Take it. I’ll go away. I’ll go away and I won’t come back to Boston, I swear it. I’m gone. Gone.”
“Five hundred dollars?” Ben tee-heed. Whistled. “Is that how much you’re willing to spend to get yourself out of this predicament? Cheap. Real cheap. Sometimes I wonder about that. How much the human soul is worth? How much is my soul worth? We are all equal under Heaven but are some souls worth more than others? Would the devil pay more than God? Surely I would get more bang for my buck from the devil. Perplexing, isn’t it? Could go mad just thinking about all those things, couldn’t you?”
“You want more dough? I can get more! A lot more. How much you want? You just give me a figure.” The handcuffs rattled. Iron dragged over pine wood.
“You people think all of life’s problems can be solved with paper money, don’t you? It’s pathetic. Besides, if I had any intention of letting you go, I wouldn’t have told you such a deeply personal story from my childhood, would I?” Ben said, examining the fingernail on his pinkie.
“I can’t go back to prison. I can’t. Please.”
Ben tittered. “You think I’m here to arrest you, Frankie?”
“What do you mean? You’re a cop, ain’t you? You don’t just work for Stevie. You’re a Boston Police Detective, I heard it. You’re a cop.”
“Yes, that’s true. You heard right. I’m a detective, most of the time anyway. I’m not here to arrest you, however. We already discussed all this, Frankie. You can’t do what you did and walk away clean. Someone very important to me wants me to make an example of you. In life, you have to pay for all your mistakes, you know. It’s not personal for me. I don’t give a shit about the little tart you sliced up; truth be told. Like I said, I’m just doing a favor for a very good friend of mine.”
The man groaned, exasperated, “I told you a hundred fucking times already, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’ve never cut up any whores. You’ve got me confused with someone else, I’m telling you! I just run a shy, got a spread of dough on the street. I lend out cash to people who need it. Like a bank but more honest. More friendly. That’s it. That’s all. Please, I’ve got kids. I got two boys.”
“Are you a good father? Play catch ball with your kids in the park? Buy them shaved ice? Lift them up on your shoulders? That sort of thing, do you?”
“Yes! Yes! All of that! I’m a good father! Good! Fucking great!”
“Looking at you now, I highly doubt that’s true, Frankie.”
“It’s true. I love my kids. I’m a good father.”
“Does a good father beat
on whores? Carve their faces up so they can’t work any longer? Can’t support their families? I imagine you probably beat your children too. What kind of a person would hurt a child? A grown adult hurting a tiny, defenseless child. Small, innocent children. Small boys. What kind of a man does that? I’ve never been able to understand that at all.”
“I said I didn’t do any of that shit. I’m sorry about the girl, but you’ve got the wrong fella here. Besides she’s just a fucking whore anyways. It’s not like she was someone important, for crying out loud.”
“Everyone’s important to someone though, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, me. Me. I’m important to my kids. They need me. I’m all they’ve got.”
“I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask,” Ben said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Noticed more flint on his slacks and brushed at it irritably. Itchy again.
“Sure, anything. I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.”
“Have you ever had relations with a woman named Li Yu?”
“How’s that?”
“Carnal relations?”
“Relations? What do you mean? Like she’s my cousin or something?”
“Jesus Christ, you Boston degenerates need to read a fucking dictionary once in a while. Have you ever fucked a woman named Li Yu?”
“The black Chinese whore?”
“She isn’t a fucking whore,” Ben yelled, getting to his feet.
“All right, all right,” Frankie cowered. “Whatever you say. She ain’t a whore. Sure, sure. Why you asking me anyways?”
Ben pinched the creases of his slacks and sat back down, “I’m curious, is all. And you’re the one handcuffed to the chair, so I’ll ask all the fucking questions from here on out, Frankie.”
“Wait a fucking minute. She was the one who put you up to this, wasn’t she? That fucking sneaky little bitch-whore. She told me she had cops in her pocket,” Frankie said, shaking his head and spitting a bitter laugh.
“You cut up her friend real good, I heard.”
“Buddy, you heard wrong. She’s playing us both. She’s taking us both for fools, I’m telling you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s taking you for a ride. That sneaky little cunt is into me big time. BIG. She borrowed heavy a couple of months ago and now she’s sent you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“She’s fucking us over. She’s lied to you; can’t you fucking see that? The whoring two-bit bitch.”
“You use the present tense.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re inferring she’s still whoring?”
“I don’t know about that for sure. Maybe, here and there, I heard it. I do know how she’s been paying my vig every week.”
“What did you say?”
“She’s been paying my vig, in, how do you say, services rendered? That it?”
Ben started to hyperventilate. His hand to his eyes as if shielding his vision from a burning bright light. A sharp stabbing pain suddenly shooting down his prick and he wondered if it was syphilis. This wop was probably crawling with infections. Sickness. Writhe with venereal disease. A boiling sweat seeping from his pores. A dull ache behind his eyes. His leg started to shake. He uncrossed his legs and then quickly crossed them again.
“Why would she lie to me? Lie to me? She would lie to me? Lie?” Ben bit into his fist.
The Italian shrugged. “These fucking broads. Can’t trust any of them. They’ll kill you quicker than a bullet through the fucking eye. She’s fucked us both. How do you say, literally and figuratively?”
Ben gagged. His eyeballs suddenly heavy in their sockets. Wondered if he was going to start weeping. He pinched at the bridge of his nose and tried to breathe.
“I have to leave now. The filth and stench in this room is making me quite itchy and uncomfortable.” He stood up shakily.
“You’ll let me go?” Handcuffs rattled. Metal against wood again.
“No, of course not. Don’t delude yourself, man. We passed that moment a while back.”
“She’s fucking lying to you. This is exactly what she wants, don’t you see that?”
“If she wants you dead, there has to be a good reason for it.”
“Yeah, cash money. All debts fucking void. That’s the best reason there is, ain’t it the truth?”
“I don’t understand her motives, but I’ll still take her word over a slimy piece of shit like you any day of the week.”
“You’re making a big mistake, pal. You can’t hurt me. I’m made. A man of honor. You know who the fuck my uncle is? You can’t fucking touch me. You must be out of your mind! Buggy!”
Ben flinched at the words, twitched. “What did you just say?”
“I said you must be buggy. Taking the word of some half-spade, half-chink whore? You’re fucking crazy! You’ll cause a fucking war if you kill me. All you paddy fucks in Southie will be wiped out like the rats you are. You understand what I’m telling you here? Wiped the fuck out, like cockroaches.”
Ben stood up, stretched, faux yawned to hide the sadness he felt clouding his face. Looked around the room properly for the first time since he’d kicked the door in. Sparsely furnished. Peeling paintwork. Ammonia reek. A naked bulb hanging from the cracked ceiling cast everything in a hospital light yellow. Magazines and newspapers littered the cracked floorboards. A disgusting little dump. Takeaway food boxes from a well-known restaurant in China Town tossed in the kitchenette’s sink made his stomach twist painfully like a dirty wash rag. The place wasn’t far from Li’s Tea House. A block away if that.
He spotted what he wanted on the dining table next to the thin envelope of cash. A singular heavy brass candlestick. The long kind. He walked over to the table slow. Weighed the envelope in his hand, before slipping it into his pocket. Picked up the candlestick. It was heavy. Good. He went back to his seat and sat down opposite the man tied to a chair.
“Why is there no candle in this candlestick, Frankie?”
“What? There just ain’t. Why?”
“It puzzled me is all,” he said, yanking the handkerchief from his pocket and holding it to his mouth and nose. Frankie screwed his face up. Confused.
“What’s that for?”
“Protection,” Ben mumbled through the fabric, standing up and stepping towards the Italian.
“Protection from what? I’m fucking tied up here.”
“Protection from inhaling any of your filthy blood,” Ben swung the candlestick down hard into the man’s face. The man shrieked high pitched. Teeth smashed and trickled in pieces from his bloody, wrecked mouth into his urine-stained lap. Ben grimaced, stepping further away from the piss puddling on the floorboards and held the candlestick aloft for another swing.
Frankie flinched, twisting. The chair legs danced. He gurgle-screamed words.
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Okay, I’ve got information! Important information for the cops. Useful fucking information,” he screeched through blood.
“You’ve already told me everything that needed to be known. Told me too much actually. More than I wanted to know.”
“Wait! I’ll talk. I’ll talk. I know about that missing kid, the one in the newspaper. The fucking little rich kid that went missing. I know all about it. I’m a witness, I’m telling you. Take me down the precinct and I’ll talk. I’ll sing like Perry fucking Como,” he gurgled, gagged. Spat blood.
Ben dropped the bloody candlestick clattering to the worn floorboards, kicking it towards the window. Went over to the sink, washed his hands. Dried himself on his handkerchief and then took the folded piece of newspaper out from his breast pocket. Unfolding and holding it in front of the wrecked crimson of the man’s screwed up face. “This child? You’re talking about this child?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the one. I got information about that,” Frankie slurred. Spitting a tooth rattling across the floor.
Ben dragged the chair he’d been sitting on half a foot further
away and sat back down. “All right, you’ve bought yourself a little time, Frankie. Spiel what you know. Everything.”
Frankie spieled.
“There’s this guy, a fucking degenerate, hangs around with our crew on the North side. He’s good pals with the boss.”
“With Buccola?”
“Nah, the pope. Of course, Buccola. Anyhow, this guy, he snatches up kids for order, like a fucking catalogue or something,” he slurred.
“What do you mean? For order?” Ben leaned forward slightly, focusing on each dribbled word.
“I don’t know. I met him through another guy in the crew, told me he’s making it rich, snatching kids for some rich broad. She tells him what kids she wants; he snatches them up, leaves them tied up in some empty building on the outside of town and then she pays him off later at some swanky meeting place.”
“He abducts children on the orders of a rich woman?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to tell you right now. Some highfalutin’ bitch, the guy says. I think you broke my jaw.”
“And the woman? Who is she?”
“I don’t know nothing about the broad. All he said was she’s some rich bitch.”
“I want names, concrete intelligence, not idle rumors you heard in some squalid fucking dive-bar, Frankie. I want the name of the man you spoke to.”
“I don’t know. Fuck! He ain’t one of us. He’s just an associate. Someone who comes into the café every so often. Buddies with Buccola, like I said. I can’t remember his fucking name. But I’ll know him when I see him. You can’t miss him, if you see him.”
“Explain. What’s your meaning?”
“I mean he looks like a freak.”
“Elaborate.”
“What?”
“Fucking go on. Explain, fuckhead.”
“I mean, the guy, he ain’t got no hair. No eyebrows neither. He’s as bald as a duck’s ass. Bald as an Eightball. He’s got some kind of a sickness makes all his hair fall out. Looks as though he’s been cut by one of those plastic surgeons too.”
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