She was at the sink. Her back to him. Head tilted to the side in thought. A sweet smell like lavender and almonds in the icy air.
He growled, let go of the breath he had been holding down in his throat, “Jesus Christ, woman! What the hell are you doing up at this hour?”
His wife ignored him, and he cursed in her direction, taking a bottle of gin down from a shelf, unscrewing the lid and taking a long, deep drink.
He sat down on a kitchen chair, sighed. “Ah, that certainly hit the spot. Just a wee nightcap to soften the pillows and sheets. What are you doing, wife?”
No movement of acknowledgment. Her back to him. Long blonde hair tangled in clumps from sleep. The lamp flickered, dancing erratically as though threatening to extinguish itself. The stink of almonds growing stronger. Sickly sweet. His eyes watered.
“Oi, woman! Are you sleeping on your feet or what now?”
He took another long hit of the bottle, squinting his eyes at the back of his wife’s white nightgown. Brown stains puddled and smeared around the arse as though she’d shit herself. Not a white nightgown at all, but a dirty white dress. Neither a smell of almonds, but the stench of rot. His breath snagging on his teeth. The kitchen freezing. The thing giggled, bones in its neck grinding together as it turned slowly to face him. The skin of its face stretched tight. A grin cut hysterically into its purpled features. Eyes rotten milk white.
You’re gonna be in so much trouble…
The flame flickered. Died.
Dead.
William hurled the bottle at the thing, cursing as the darkness wrapped its pitch-black coils around his throat.
Muttering a Hail Mary with gin tainted breath.
A whisper so close to his face he could feel the humid, decomposing breath on his cheeks. When I’m dying…
William bucked in the chair.
The chair legs danced and screeched.
Scalding piss splashed down his legs, puddling on the floor.
A clock struck twelve times like a condemnation and William screamed until he choked. Strangled. Gasping. Choked.
The North End, Boston, USA
Tuesday, February 19th, 1946
Hanover Street. The Italian North End.
Ben leaned against the hood of his Cadillac, massaging his temples, across the street from Buccola’s main hangout, the Italian café. The death throes of the sun cast the place in a coppery, blood-tinged light and his reflection in the large storefront windows rippled like murky water. His guts all knotted up. Pressure behind his eyes. Body aching
Buccola inside sat at a table yapping with his underboss Giuseppe Lombardo, the human personification of a razor blade. The man rumored to have murdered Stevie’s brother years before.
Ben squinted into the café.
Checked his wristwatch.
Checked it again.
Trying to wipe the lingering scent of Mrs. Goodman from his hands on the front of his slacks. He’d washed them until the old, dried sores split open again and oozed puss. The smell remained. Unrelenting.
Li Yu in his mind like a moving picture show repeating a reel.
He needed to see her face.
One look into her eyes and he would know.
He scratched at his neck.
Talk with Buccola, get the whereabouts of the bald fuck, drive over to China Town.
Talk to Li Yu. Find out what the fuck was going on. Get the boy from wherever he was being held. Kill the bald fuck. Bring the boy back to Mrs. Goodman. All sins absolved. All wounds healed. Start a new life in Los Angeles. A good plan. The only plan. His jaw locked, clicked as Ben murmured the repetitive words. Slipping a hand into the pocket of his slacks and fingering the ring there. Diamond. Gold. Mother’s. She’d pulled it loosely from her skeletal finger as she lay dying in a private room of Mass General hospital. Told him to give it to the woman he loved. He had. That woman had left it with a fucking ‘Dear John’ letter on the kitchen table and fled back to Los Angeles where she came from. Had taken his daughters with her. Now he would give it to Li Yu. Start again. He didn’t give a fuck if she’d lied. Things could be fixed. Bones grow back stronger at the broken parts. A fractured arm grows back stronger. He needed her. Had been a mess before her. She gave him order. Symmetry.
Yes, he’d find the kid and things would get better for him. For both of them. California. The City of Angels. He’d see his daughters again. Start a new life with a new wife. A clean life. He’d kick the junk. Wouldn’t need it any longer. He’d be clean. Pure.
Save the kid, save himself. Save the boy. Save himself. Couldn’t explain it, but there it was. A truth, like a bullet ripping through the center of everything and bringing his life meaning.
He scratched at his stomach. Pinched the bridge of his nose, working the fingers up between his tired eyes. Could feel another headache rolling in like storm clouds. He cleared his throat and spat the contents far away from him.
Buccola glanced over, raised his eyebrows in surprise. Pulled at the knot in his necktie. Lifted an expresso cup to his lips, frowning into it as he drank. Spoke animated, gesturing his hand to someone out of view. A couple of seconds later, a skinny Italian with wavy, greasy hair pomaded to the side, a large, loud pinstriped suit hanging from his body, swung open the door and waved Ben over impatiently. A hand shoved inside his jacket. Ben walked over slow; his badge clasped in his outstretched clammy hand. Reflecting terminal rays of sun. The Italian had the face of a starved rat. Acne scars. An overbite and eyes like dirty one cent coins. Moved jerkily like an insect tangled in a spider’s web. Revolting. Ben’s stomach plummeted. Flip flopped. He swallowed saliva that tasted of exhaustion and the whiskey he’d been nipping at since he’d done what he had done. Since he’d been in that house. With the child’s mother. Mother. A guilt like acid pooled at the bottom of his guts eating away at his insides. Mother.
“Hey! He wants to know what the fuck you want?” The Rat said in a thick New York accent.
Ben snapped his head up, startled, lost in his own thoughts. “Tell him I’m here as a Boston police Detective, nothing more.”
“That badge don’t mean so much to you or us. We know who you are. Know all about you.”
“Just fucking tell him I wish to speak for five minutes. It’s about a missing child.”
The Italian pulled an ugly grin, eyeballed him up and down, slow. Disappeared back into the café, the door swung shut and Ben looked at his face in the smokey reflection of the window. A shadowed creature stared back. He heard mumbled Italian chatter. After a moment, the Rat came and pushed the door open again. “You can come in, but you leave the piece in the automobile.”
Ben almost laughed out loud, “No, no, no, that’s not going to happen.”
“Your fucking piece stays in the fucking car or you don’t fucking come inside,” Rat Fuck said.
Ben hesitated.
The boy’s face burst like a star in his mind again as though begging him to hurry. Screaming. A cockroach scurried across his cheek and forced itself into a nostril. Ben dry gagged. The Italian stood there repeating himself like he was practicing his English intonation. “Piece stays in the fucking car or you don’t come in here.”
“Fuck!” Ben twisted around, went back to the Caddie, swung the door open, pulled the .38 from his shoulder holster and pushed it under the driver’s seat. Slammed the door closed. Locked it. Strolled back to the café. Stopped. Spun around. Returned to the vehicle and pulled on the door handle. Counted to seven. Touched it. Counted to seven. Breathless. Touched the handle. Unlocked it. Opened the door and slammed it shut again. Counted. Cursing under his breath. The kid in his mind whispering silently with lips a dark, cold blue. Black, shiny cockroaches for eyes. Pulsing. Shitting out eggs from their fat abdomens. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Four times. That cursed fucking number. Fuck! He stumbled back to the café. Stopped. Hesitated. The Rat stood there, tapping a wingtip impatient. “What the fuck you doing over there? We ain’t got all fucking day.”
“Mind your own fucking business. Your own fucking business. Mind your own fucking business,” Ben spat. Panting. Saliva dribbled down his stubbled chin.
The Rat stood eye fucking him, sneering for a moment, and then cut his hand through the air, motioning Ben forward.
“All right, I gotta check you over, see, make sure you ain’t carrying nothing else,” he said, running his greasy hands over Ben’s body in the doorway. The man stank of stale sweat and cheap cologne. Ben swallowed bile and grimaced, glaring over at Buccola and Lombardo talking machine gun heatedly at the table nearest the large floor to ceiling window.
“Okay, he’s all right.” Rat Fuck nodded over to his boss and Ben pushed past him into the café.
The interior a dusty kind of hot, smelling sickly of three-day old coffee, licorice and burnt pastries. Ben peeped at the door to the office. Non-descript. Closed.
Buccola, dressed to the nines in a dark grey, tailored three-piece suit, blood red cravat, nodded at Ben, wiping at his fingers and mouth with a paper napkin.
“What a pleasant and unexpected surprise this is. You coming to us like this. What is it you are wanting, Detective Hughes?” The first time Ben had ever heard Buccola’s voice. Surprised at how refined the gangster and murderer spoke.
“I came here to ask you a couple of questions pertaining to an active investigation.”
Buccola raised his pencil thin eyebrows and turned in his chair to Lombardo, muttered something in Italian. They laughed heartily. Lombardo glaring at Ben with eyes pitch black, lit a cigarillo and shrugged, clearing his throat.
“An active investigation and you came here to ask some questions, huh? Am I needing my lawyer with me now, Detective? You have me worried; I must say.” Buccola leaned back in his seat and tilted his head to the side, jutting his chin in the air. Arrogant piece of shit.
“No, it hasn’t reached that point, yet. I want a few answers and you’re the man that’s going to provide me with them.”
“Am I really, Detective Hughes? Are you alone? I don’t want to answer any questions in front of a crowd of bulls in blue, you know? I’m a very discreet man, have a reputation to uphold.”
Buccola grinned, waving his finger at Ben like a disapproving father. Ben thought of his own father. The twentieth anniversary of his death was the day after tomorrow. Surprised he still remembered the man at all. A man with a head full of sickness and a heart full of hate. Haunted by the ghosts of all the evil things he had done. One thing Ben and the old man didn’t have in common. Ben wasn’t haunted by anything he’d done. All the killing and all the stealing he’d done were more than justified. No, Ben wasn’t haunted by what he had done to others. He was haunted by the ghosts of the things that had been done to him.
“Hey!” Buccola slapped a hand down on the tabletop. Ben flinched. “You don’t come here and waste my time. Are there other bulls around my business now, or no?”
“No,” Ben swallowed. The hiss of the expresso machine behind him pain inducing.
“No? No, what?” Lombardo sneered.
“No, I’m alone as your eyes can very well see. However my partner is waiting down the block with a few other officers, real head breakers just in case there’s any trouble.”
Buccola’s lips pulled tight across his lower face. He said something softly in their language to the Rat and then grinned back at Ben. Eyes a narrowed pitch-black like a snake coiled to strike. Nudged Lombardo. “This man, he speak so, how do you say, raffinato, not like these Boston dogs in the South. Britannico.”
Lombardo pulled his mouth down, inspected his fingernails.
“Alright, okay, I’ll hold my patience and listen to your questions. We talk business now.” He gestured airily to the chair opposite him. “Please sit, Detective. You want an expresso? I have the beans imported especially from Palermo. They’re a robusta arabica blend. The very best. The beans here in this country, they taste like shit, don’t you think? How about something to eat, perhaps?”
“No, thank you and I’m fine to stand.”
“You treat me with such rudeness and vilipendio in my own place of business, yet you expect me to answer your questions? I thought you were a man to reason with. A gentleman. Perhaps, I was wrong about this, huh?” he said over Ben’s shoulder to the Rat.
The Rat bit down on a toothpick and giggled. Lombardo sipped expresso. The sounds made Ben gag and cringe. He wiped sweat from his face with the forearm of his jacket. Pulled out the chair from the table, sat down opposite the two Italians, and placed his badge on the crisp white tablecloth. Rubbing his hot, clammy palms on his slacks and pinching at the creases. Twisted his head to glance over at the Rat, standing behind the coffee bar making an expresso from the steaming, silver machine that seemed to be hissing louder as the minutes rotted away. A telephone attached to the wall, the receiver cradled to his ear by his shoulder and cheek. Grunting Italian down the line.
“Now, that’s better, isn’t it? Like we’re all old friends, yes? Talking of friends, how is my old amici Stefano? You see him lately?”
“I saw him today. He’s good. Tip fucking top. An Olympian,” Ben pulled his lips into something resembling a smile. A muscle at the top of his left cheek twitching uncontrollably.
Lombardo grinned, hissing out Italian to Buccola. They talked low animatedly for a moment and Ben waited for them to finish. Touching his badge and counting to seven in his head.
“He’s good, he says,” Buccola said in English to Lombardo jerking a thumb at Ben. They turned their focus on Ben tight lipped. He glanced out of the window at the Cadillac. His .38 underneath the seat. Suddenly miles away. In his stomach, it felt as though he were on the surface of the moon. Cold. Isolated. A child in a bathtub. A child naked in bed, shivering. Fingertips like ants scurrying over his body. Fuck! The boy’s face there again behind his eyes. The child’s jaw dropped open in a silent scream. Insects poured crawling from the gaping orifice.
Buccola knocked on the table with a fist. Ben snapped back into the café.
“Wakey-wakey! Well, go ahead and ask your questions, Detective. I’m very curious as to why you had the balls to come here into my world today,” Buccola said, sipping his expresso.
“I want to know where I can find a man with no hair. No hair. I want to know where I can find a man with no hair. No hair. None.” Ben bit into his bottom lip hard. Swallowed. Fuck, he couldn’t afford to show weakness now. He pitched hard into the flesh of his thigh. Took a napkin from the chrome dispenser and wiped at his hands.
The mobsters glanced at each other frowning. Buccola shrugged. “You work in Vice, do you not? You should know where to look. If that’s your thing, Detective. Bald men,” he winked, clucked his tongue at the end of the sentence. The Italians hahaha’d.
Ben ignored the insult and licked his sandpaper lips. Left eye twitching. Pulsing. The chime of the telephone receiver being replaced back on its cradle causing him to snap around, checking behind him. Rat Fuck slurping at his expresso, playing with what looked like rosary beads in his fist. Ben hid his hands underneath the tabletop.
“This man is an associate of yours. Comes around here. You talk business with him in that back room, I’m told,” Ben said, turning away slowly from the Rat to look at Buccola again. Nodded towards the locked door.
“And who told you about this, Detective?”
“President Truman. We play golf together on Saturdays. Who told me isn’t fucking important. What is important, is that you tell me exactly what I want to know or you’re going to have a lot of mick cops in here drinking your shit Italian coffee and busting up your business.”
“Irish cops. Now, that’s a very frightening threat, or maybe not, considering most of the paddy fucks are on my pad, taking my money. But to be reasonable, I’ll entertain you a little more. Listen to me, I don’t know who would tell you such lies, Detective. But I know no bald men. There is only Joseph, here,” Buccola slapped Lombardo on the back. “His hair, it is receding, No? He almost has no hair. You’re
almost bald, aren’t you, Joseph?”
Ben licked his dry lips again. Swallowed, “If it was this little fuckhead sat on your lap that I wanted, Boston PD would be tearing this filthy little rathole of a café to pieces already.”
“Nice bedside manner you got there, Detective. Your father and mother didn’t teach you no manners when you were a child, huh?” Lombardo said.
Ben blanched deep. Eyeballed Lombardo. Placed his fists on the tabletop again. Buccola dropped a hand on Lombardo’s arm to calm him without taking his eyes away from Ben.
“I have many friends. I’m an important man. Many people want to be my friend. Many people come here to ask my counsel. But, I must say, I don’t know anyone as ridiculous as you… How did you say? With no hair.”
“No hair at all. No eyebrows. Distinctive. A man that is sick. Might have had plastic surgery in the past. I believe he knows the whereabouts of a missing child. Does that refresh your memory? Remember anything now?”
Buccola’s eyes flashed. He knew. He fucking knew.
“No, again, I’m afraid. I can’t say that I am reminded of anyone significant. And I don’t know anything about missing infants.”
Ben wanted to scream the word LIAR into the mobster’s face. Buccola finished his expresso, sighed, went on, “Now, I have a question for you, Detective. When did you last see Stefano Wallace? Today, you said. What time was it?”
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