“And this hairless man took the child?”
“I don’t know if he took that kid. I said he snatches kids up.”
“But you think it likely?”
“What?”
“You think that man has the child?”
“Sure. Sure. Probably. Yeah.”
“And the man is an associate of Buccola’s?”
“Yeah, right. That’s right.”
“Where does this hairless man frequent?”
“What?”
“Jesus Christ. Where does he fucking hang out, drink?”
“I said I don’t know. He’s fucking strange. Gives me the heebie jeebies. I think he’s a finocchio, maybe. A queer. I try and stay away from him. He just comes into the café sometimes to meet with the boss. Fucking disgusting looking guy, smells sick, too. You know that stink sick people get.”
“For what reason?”
“Does he smell sick? How should I know?”
“No, fuckhead. Why does he meet with Buccola that often?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. They’re buddies from way back. They always go in the back room to talk. Real hush-hush.”
“Tell me about the place outside of town he drops the children at.”
“What’s to tell?”
“Where is it? What kind of building is it?”
“I don’t know. I spoke to the guy once. All I heard was it’s an old gas stand or something.”
“North outside of town? South outside of town? I’m going to need more information if you want to leave this shithole in one piece, Frankie.”
“Fuck! I don’t fucking know. It’s one of Buccola’s old buildings, maybe. He owns property all over Massachusetts, I know that much. You’ll need to go the city hall, research the permits and shit. Listen to me, I could’ve been a detective, easy.”
“That’s all your information, is it? It’s not much to go on. I guess, I’ll have to go and have a little chat with Buccola myself.”
“Ha! You won’t get close enough to Buccola to ask nothing.”
“And why’s that?”
“Cos’ you’re a cop and he ain’t stupid, that’s why. Everybody knows you push buttons for Stevie Wallace. You’d be dead before you even walked into the place.”
“They’d be very foolish to kill a Boston Police Detective, it’d be suicide for every Italian on the North Side.” Ben dusted off his hands. “Well anywho, if that’s all your information, then I’ll be on my way.”
“I can get more. I’ll find out where the guy is. The gas stand. Give me a day. Please. Please.”
“Your information was frankly rather disappointing. But you’ve earned a quick death at least.”
“No, no, no! You said you’d let me leave here. Let me go.”
“I said, I’d let you leave here in one piece and you will. I never said you’d be alive, Frankie.”
“For the love of God, please! You’re making a big fucking mistake! DON’T!”
The Italian rocked back and forth in the chair screaming. Ben’s ears hurt and he wished he’d thought to gag him.
He stood quickly, backed up towards the door. Switching on Frankie’s Victrola, twisting the volume way up. Coincidently, Perry Como’s Prisoner of Love. He snorted. Laughed into the handkerchief held to his mouth.
“Hey, Frankie, you can go ahead and sing like Perry Como now,” Ben pulled the .38 from its holster. Frankie wailed, rocking backwards and forwards in the chair. Begging, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Screamed “MOMMY!” The word like a slap to Ben’s face. He stumbled back a step. The revolver trembling in his hand.
When the Italian took a breath and slumped back down in his seat, Ben shot him in the chest twice before he could start to scream another word. Blood seeped and then drip-dropped onto the floorboards mixing with the puddle of piss. Ben popped the chamber and shook out the spent bullet casings. Retrieved the handcuffs from the dead man using a curtain he ripped from the window as makeshift gloves. Wrapping them in newspaper like Christmas presents. He’d throw them into the river on the way back. Scrubbed his hands in the sink again and left the flop house room with the handkerchief still gripped to his mouth and nose.
The hallway strewn with refuse. People in rooms shouting at each other. Radios blaring out. The type of place that heard screaming and the sounds of violence regularly. An old lady with wavy white hair wearing a stained ivory nightgown opened her apartment door, peeked out, Ben smiled. She muttered something in Italian and slammed the door closed again.
The Chinese takeaway boxes rotting away in the sink, the scratches and scrapes on Li Yu’s knees flashed achingly through his mind like developing photographs, mixed with the face of the screaming boy, as he made his way out of the decaying building. He tried to push the thoughts away. Li Yu loved him. She was going to California with him. The dark thoughts came stronger, more vivid and he flinched at each image as it exploded through his mind. Frankie with two slugs in the chest, bloody holes, fucking Li Yu on the bed he’d first found her in. He counted to seven. Lucky seven. Knocking on the wooden bannister rail as he made his way down the stairs into the vestibule and out of the building. Tried to think of something good, pure, positive. Clean. Nothing came but sin, filth, the dead and the dying. He could make it better. He could fix himself. Repeating words over and over until his mouth was dust dry. “Find the boy. Find the boy. Find the boy. Find the boy. Find the boy. Find the boy. Find the boy.” Seven. Lucky seven.
The rain had stopped, and a dull winter sun lit up the slick streets in a tarnished gold. The house, tall and red-bricked, located in the affluent Back Bay, Beacon Hill, several blocks from the State House, hadn’t been difficult to find. He pulled his Cadillac Fleetwood up across the street and sat looking the place over. Nipping at his flask to dull his speeding mind. Sweat soaking his shirt through. Watching shapes of light ripple over the windows. A typical four storied town house that reminded him of his childhood home in Chelsea, London. He rubbed at his eyes. Cringing, blinking in the driver’s seat, suddenly assaulted by memories of his father that came screaming back on sharp taloned legs pricking at his mind.
He pushed the ghosts away by taking out the manila file and flicking through the case notes for the seventh time. Finished the flask and placed it in the glovebox. Concentrating on Mellon’s scribbled notes and a few hastily drawn diagrams of the park. The bandstand where the vendor had been selling hot potatoes. Photographs of the kid’s parents. His guts whined. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Mom and Dad. Mr. and Mrs. Goodman. The kid had a beautiful mother and a lawyer father. Ben wondered if there was a connection between the father’s occupation and the kidnapping. A lawyer. Upper class society. Perhaps the father had got into trouble with the wrong kind of people. Fumbled the wrong case with the wrong client. That could be how the Italians figured in. He shook his head no. Southie was Southie. Leary, the town gossip, would’ve heard something. Ben would’ve heard something. They’d heard zero in regards to the case, or the kid. Frankie said he’d heard. Frankie said that a highfalutin’ woman was involved. Frankie said a man with no hair and surgeon cut face snatched the kids on orders from said rich woman. Frankie said he had been fucking Li Yu. Services fucking rendered. Frankie said Li Yu was lying to him, setting him up.
Li Yu on her knees.
His consciousness a silent movie of sickness and pain.
Fuck!
Frankie had screamed loud and died hard.
Fuck that lying piece of shit Frankie.
Ben counted to seven out loud into the chilled interior of the car. Spitting out each number slow between breaths. When he’d counted to seven seven times he started reciting the poem, repeating it over and over again like a mantra. “Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there! He wasn’t there again today, oh how I wish he’d go away!” The images of Li Yu lost color, faded to grey then black. He exhaled deep. Snatched up the file again and started reading the notes fully focused. Save the boy, save himself. A cure
. An antidote. Save the boy.
The sound of a front door rattling shut startled him from the case details and he glanced over towards the house again. A plump, middle aged woman with pale skin and disheveled auburn hair, draped in a heavy black woolen shawl over a light blue apron had come out of the front door and was sweeping damp, dead leaves from the sidewalk outside the house. Ben flicked through Mellon’s notes, found what he was looking for and reread the maid’s statement over. Fiona O’Reilly. Thirty-nine years old. An immigrant from Cork, Ireland. Unmarried. No children. Had been working for the family for over ten years. Said she’d raised the missing boy as her own. No prior arrests. No untoward associates. Clean. Pure. Ben went back to Mellon’s scribbles. Patrolmen had canvassed a ten-block radius from the park. Knocked on doors. Braced known sex offender scum and child molester fucks around the surrounding neighborhoods. Telephone book and beavertail sap interrogations. Sniffer dogs. The whole damn caboodle. They came up short. No one saw a thing. Nothing. Not that Boston residents were known for talking to cops, even in the better neighborhoods. A bullshit mistrust that went all the back to The Old Country and their hatred for the British. They’d dragged and dredged the bodies of water in the common and the adjoining public gardens. No corpse. A big fat nothing again.
Ben closed the file, placed it carefully on the seat beside him and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Thinking. Hoping Frankie was lying about kids being snatched. Hoping the kid had just ran away from home like Mellon speculated and Li Yu wasn’t any of the things Frankie had said about her. Hoping Frankie was a fucking liar.
Liar.
Fucking liar.
Liar fuck!
The maid noticed him watching her and waved. He popped a breath mint in his mouth, nodded, tried to smile and got out of the suddenly claustrophobic automobile. Heart beating erratically. He scratched at his sweaty, itchy chest as he crossed the street. Squinting into the filmy, diseased eye of the yellow afternoon sun as he approached.
“Excuse me, Madam? Ms. O’Reilly?”
She propped the broom against the side of the house and wrung her hands into her apron. Her scent carried faintly by the breeze. Rose water and soap. A comforting smell that made Ben feel at ease. Then his mother’s smiling face in darkness. He flinched. Blinked. Taking off his hat, running his fingers through his hair and then dropping it back on his head, pulled down low over his eyes. Could hear children playing somewhere but when he glanced around the street was empty.
“You’re a policeman,” she still spoke with a heavy Irish accent. Ben still had his British accent, but it had mixed with the Boston intonation into a bad cocktail.
“Yes, I am. How did you know?”
“You’ve the look to you. And we’ve been waiting for news. The lady of the house telephoned the police station this morning. She’s naturally distraught. Out of her mind with worry. She’ll be happy to see you. She’s laying down presently, migraine, shall I go and call on her?”
Ben flashed his badge, “I’m Detective Benjamin Hughes. I’d like to talk with you beforehand, if that’s all right with you, Mam?”
“You’re an Englishman, I see. Far away from home, as am I.”
“Yes, I can’t seem to lose the cursed accent. I guess you can rip us away from our homes, but you can’t rip the homes from out of us, Ms. O’Reilly.
“Please, call me Fiona. And of course, you may ask me any questions you wish, though I don’t know what good it’ll do. I’ve already told the other officers everything that I know. More than a few times actually.”
Ben noticed her front teeth were rotten black and took a step back grimacing. She noticed his unease and took a step backwards too. A car door slammed shut and echoed, highlighting the sudden awkwardness. Ben swallowed and tried to smile. Stepped forward again.
Save the boy. Save the boy. Save the boy. Fix yourself.
“We have some fresh leads we’re currently looking into,” he said, the words rolling from his mouth like jagged rocks.
“Oh, really? That’s the grandest news.” She smiled. Black teeth. Ben stared at the space of flesh between her thin eyebrows.
“On the morning the boy disappeared, the reports say you went to the bandstand to buy a baked potato from the vendor there at approximately ten thirty-five, is that correct?”
“Yes, I still have my Finn’s pocket watch and I checked it not ten minutes before.”
“Finn?”
“Yes, he was my greatest friend. He didn’t come back from the war, over there in Europe.”
Ben nodded quickly, took out a small notepad and pencil from his pocket, “I see, sorry for your loss. Were you well acquainted with the vendor? See him often? He was a regular in the park?”
“Were you there, Detective?”
“I’m sorry, Madam? Was I where?”
“Europe? The war?”
Ben frowned at her. Eye contact. Her eyes were green with flecks of brown in them. He looked away, down towards a storm drain. The darkness.
“Why do you ask?”
“You have the look that a lot of the men have, that came back.”
“What’s the look?” he tried to chuckle, but the sounds came out mechanical and shattered on the air.
“Haunted. It’s a haunted look, I think. I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn.”
“It’s quite all right.” The image of him bringing the butt of the rifle down on the back of the drill sergeant’s skull illuminated his conscience, then the filth and the damp of the brig. A cold shock crawled down his spine. He shook his head. “No, no, I wasn’t in Europe, I wasn’t anywhere that mattered. Now, Miss O’Reilly did you happen to see anyone suspicious around the park? The public gardens? Anyone distinctive?”
“I told the other policemen; the park was empty that morning. It was only me and little James there. He wanted to see if there were any frogs in the pond, so we went after breakfast. Went to the park at least twice a week. Often. Of course, there’s no frogs around now. It’s too cold. But I don’t tell him that. The fresh air was always nice. It was nice before, I mean.”
James. It was the first time Ben had heard the missing child’s name spoken aloud and the sound of it caught his breath. Gut punched. He swallowed. Scratched. Blinked. James.
“Please think hard, Miss O’Reilly. Fiona. Not just about the park. Did you see anyone distinctive that whole morning? Anyone at all? Say for example, someone with strange facial features or anyone that seemed out of place on the street or around the house? Or a woman, perhaps? Someone or something that stuck out to you? Anything?”
The maid’s features illuminated. “Now that you mention it, I did. There was. I mean, maybe I did see a rather strange looking man that morning.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. His breath snagged between clenched teeth.
“Go on, Fiona. Strange how? Try and describe him as best you can. As best you can. Please, try and describe, describe him as best you can. Please. Describe him.”
Ben coughed into his hand. Wiped his hand on his sleeve. Cleared his throat. Halting the flow of haggard words.
Fiona frowned. “Well, it was a gentleman with a face like a baby’s.”
Ben froze. “Like a baby’s? What do you mean?”
“I mean he was hairless. As bald as a coot. No eyebrows even. His face was very smooth. Tight looking.”
What Frankie had said was checking out. Ben didn’t know if he was happy or disappointed. Li Yu danced into his mind. Her long, dark, wavy hair spread over silk sheets. Eyebrows knitted together in ecstasy. Services rendered. Frankie handcuffed to a chair, cockroaches pushing themselves out of the bloody bullet holes. Grotesque births. Frankie hadn’t been lying. Ben shook his head violently side to side, trying to dislodge the thoughts. The maid tightened her eyes on him and placed a hand on his arm. “Are you all right, Detective?”
Ben startled, rubbing at his eye socket. “What was he doing when you saw him, Ms. O’Reilly, I mean, Fiona? The man?”
“
Well, I couldn’t rightly say. He was sat in an automobile across from the park, and we walked past him. He seemed to be waiting for someone. It didn’t look very suspicious, but he just caught my eye because, like I said, he didn’t have any hair or eyebrows and I remember thinking what a poor, poor man he must be to look like he did.”
“You didn’t mention this to any of the other detectives?”
“Well, it just didn’t seem relevant at the time. Do you suppose it is, Detective?”
“It could be pertinent. Very pertinent. What was the vehicle, Ms. O’Reilly? Do you remember?”
“Well, I can’t rightly recollect. It was black, that I know for sure. Looked a tad similar to yours.”
“A Cadillac?”
“I couldn’t say. Don’t know much about motor vehicles and such. I walk everywhere I go. Always have.”
Ben stepped closer, “Ms. O’Reilly is there anything else that seemed unusual. Anything else that stuck out to you? Anything at all. Even the slightest, smallest of things can be of the utmost importance.”
“No, I’m sorry, Detective. There’s nothing more I can think of.”
“Please, think carefully, Ms. O’Reilly.”
She thought for a moment, staring off down the street, shook her head sadly, “I’m sorry Detective.”
Ben clenched his jaw, speaking through his teeth “you can’t tell me anything about the automobile. Anything more about the man?”
She gaped into his face, “I’m sorry, Detective.”
Ben took another step toward her. Her breath stank rusty. “Fucking think, woman.”
The maid backed off towards the front door, her hand to her mouth, “Detective! That kind of foul language is wholly unacceptable.”
Ben held out his hands to calm her. They were shaking like he was in the final stages of terminal illness. His mother in the hospital. Starched sheets stained with hospital food. Her lips like rose petals underneath his thumb.
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