Ben stared at the creases in his slacks and sniffed at his fingers. Still smelling the gasoline. “Can you just get to the fucking point of why you’re actually here, Paul,” he shot the words out, slurred. Not looking up.
“Jesus, it was just a joke, English. Trying to lighten the mood is all, it’s like a funeral in here. No need to get all cunty about it.” Negro Paul brought a beer bottle to his lips and flashed his eyebrows around the table.
“They’ll be another funeral soon enough, if you don’t start showing some respect, Negro.” Leary blew smoke across the table at him.
Paul shrugged, hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Alright, alright. There are two crates out in the back. The very best for all of you guys.”
“Did you get us what we asked for?” Christopher Mulligan said, examining the label of the whiskey bottle he was drinking from. Blowing grey smoke rings.
“I did what I could. It was difficult,” Negro Paul shrugged.
“How many?” Ben asked.
“I got two.”
“We asked for five,” Ben said.
“So, you asked for five and I could only get two. It wasn’t a small thing you asked for. It being short notice, like I said.”
“We asked for five,” Ben repeated.
“St. Valentine’s Day was last week. This is Boston, not Capone’s Chicago. Getting my hands on two Thompson machine guns within a day and a morning was pretty fucking good work, if you ask me.”
“We ain’t asking you,” Connor Mulligan sneered.
“Okay. Alright. Two Thompsons’ll have to do. What else do you have for us?” Leary shrugged.
“I got you a couple of shotties and a machine gun pistol as well.”
“That sounds good enough,” Connor nodded.
“Continuing with the topic of Valentine’s Day in Chicago, how about the other things we asked for?” Ben said.
“I thought it strange you asking for those. Being who you are?”
“Did you obtain them or not?” Ben looked up, locking eyes with Paul for the first time that day.
Negro Paul got up, went out the back for a moment and came back hefting two large olive canvas duffel bags. Dropped them on an empty table and started pulling midnight blue fabric from out of one. He tossed the bundle at Connor. An uneasy laugher rippled out into the club as Connor stood up and pulled on the jacket of a Boston beat cop.
“You look even more of a cunt than usual, Con,” Christopher said, grinning at his brother. More uneasy laughter. Ben stared.
“I don’t get this Valentine’s Day, Chicago connection,” Paul scratched at his nose.
“Capone’s idea was genius. A couple of the fellas from Egan’s Rats, Freddie Burke and Jackie McGurn, went into that garage in Chicago, pretending to be cops. Caught the whole Northside gang with their pants down and their hands up. That’s what we’re gonna do to those greaser pricks. Get the drop on all of them,” Connor said.
“Right, I get it. I get it. Don’t tell me no more, I don’t wanna know. So, anyway, there’s one uniform for each of you guys. I tried to get your sizes, but some may be a bit tight or a bit loose. You know how it is. You’ll have to mix and match. Leary, it’s gonna be tight for you anyways because the Boston cops don’t tailor uniforms for beached whales.”
“Oh, that’s hilarious. You should be on the stage… Cleaning it after the audience’s gone home. Spanish cunt.” Leary flicked a piece of ham at Paul.
“I’m Portuguese.”
“You got the complexion of a spook, maybe your mother fucked one and your father ain’t really your father. For shame. But I do have to say you’ve done grand work here, Negro. How much are we to owe you then?” Leary said.
“Today being the day that it is, I’ll let you have the guns and the uniforms at seventy-five percent of what I originally asked for. But, on one small condition. I want in on the Salt Lake City job that you told me about, Leary.”
Ben eyeballed Leary. Leary blanched deep.
“You let the cat out of the bag on the Salt Lake party, did you, Leary?” Ben leaned forward, knocked on the table as he spoke.
The Mulligans rolled their eyes.
Leary held his hands out, half surrender, half shrug.
“Why do you want in on the party, Paul?” Ben said.
“Are you kidding me, English? Two thousand bucks to sit around the lobby of a lace curtain hotel for two days eating room service and flirting with the maids? Do you even need to ask? Besides, I can take all you guys in my Hudson. It’s big enough for sure. Never been to Salt Lake City, anyway, always wanted to go. Drive’ll be fun. Like a road trip.”
“It looks like that’s settled then,” Ben said, finishing his flask and getting up to go and sit at the bar. The wake had him beat. Having to talk to so many people, pretending he was all right, normal, exhausted him physically and mentally. Drained.
Voices, memories and the words spoken by Li Yu’s mother as the teahouse burned flying around his skull with switchblade wings the entire day.
The chances of finding the boy were becoming slimmer by the day and he’d lost track of where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing.
He slid the newspaper page from out of his pocket and opened it up on the bar, trying to smooth out the creases with the base of his fist. Formulating some kind of a plan. First, fix all of the North End Italians for Stevie once and for all, go babysit the groups of spoilt, overindulged cunts in the Salt Lake City hotel, stamp on a cockroach that had been crawling around his feet for too long, and then finally come back and investigate the case properly, pull in all the favors that were owed.
He knocked on wood.
He’d find the boy. On his soul. If he had anything of one left to barter with.
And then there was Li Yu. She would’ve heard about the fire and the dead by now. He massaged his eyes, twisting his head away from the thoughts that ripped through his head like electric shock treatment. Lobotomy sometimes seemed the only answer to his fucking problems.
One.
What’s the matter with Uncle George?
He thinks too much,
yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there!
worries too much about things that
aren’t real, and it makes him very
sick.
Two.
So he stays in the hospital where the doctors look after him.
Where he can be properly cared for. That’s why you mustn’t
worry
too much about that silly
upon the stair, I met a man
Three.
Beetle Man
who wasn’t there!
and other such nonsense. There are more important things to
be worried
Four.
about in the world.
Such as what,
Mother?
Five.
Say it, Benny, say the words.
Tell me
Six.
you love me.
Seven.
I love you, mother.
yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there!
Sickness and disease.
very dirty... Filthy.
A filthy, filthy
Beetle Man
Tell me you love me, Ben.
Seven.
Say the words to me
I love you,
Li Yu.
And I love you. Even I know all the
terrible things
you’ve done;
seven.
who wasn’t there!
I still love you
yesterday,
upon
the stair,
who wasn’t
there!
Ben drank until he blacked out.
The North End, Boston, U.S.A
Friday, February 22nd, 1946
Ben breathed shallow in the front passenger seat of the blue Ford truck Negro Paul had stolen. Closest thing he could
get looking similar to a BPD paddy wagon. Hungover with the shakes. Trying to hold his breath. Leary stank fucking filthy. Unwashed. Ben yawned, tasted something foul on his breath and gagged. The Thompson machine gun cradled in his lap smelled strongly of gun oil and mean intentions. He checked his wristwatch. Ten minutes past ten. A misty Friday morning. Hanover Street empty and damp. Grey. Something haunted. An edge of Hell. Foot traffic almost nonexistent. The café’s front window boarded up with sheets of plywood. He used the sleeve of the dark blue uniform jacket to wipe away the condensation on the windshield and wound down his window. Spat. Breathing the chilled morning air. The jacket fit loose and brought back memories of his time walking a beat. Then Li Yu there at the forefront of his mind again. He wrestled with the images of her. Too bright. Too colorful. He poked at his temples and frowned into another migraine. Li Yu — a razor blade dragged slowly across his flesh. Recollections that throbbed like a bullet wound in the back. His guts like cruel chips of ice. Stabbing.
Counting to seven in his head. Repeating the poem his mother taught him. His only Hail Mary. Mother.
He gazed up at the building opposite the café. IOU on the roof with a pair of army surplus field binoculars. He’d give them a wave when he confirmed Buccola, and Lombardo were present. So far a big, fat nothing. Ben rubbed his bruised throat, thinking Rat Fuck’s presence in the café would be a very nice bonus. A ruby red cherry on top. Today was the day he wanted to end it all. Dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. A flying insect landed on the windscreen and Ben cursed, twitched, twisted his head to squint at Leary. Scratching at his cheek.
“Leary, you still know how to ply your specialty?”
“How do you mean?”
“From your days in Belfast.”
“Oh, that? For sure. It’s like riding a bicycle. Let me tell you, you never really forget. Especially when you got half your jerking off hand missing to remind you how to do the job right.” Leary chuckled bitterly, waving his deformed hand through the air above the dashboard and then dropping it back down on the steering wheel.
“There’s something I want you to do for me tonight.”
“If you’re wanting me to blow up the guineas with a car bomb, I’d say it’s pretty fucking late notice, wouldn’t you?” Leary said, lifting the Thompson aloft from his lap, sucking air through grit teeth.
“It’s not the Italians.”
Leary gave Ben a long hard look.
Ben noticed a puss filled spot on Leary’s chin and looked out the windshield. The flying insect had seemingly disappeared.
A group of kids appeared from a side street, ran around with sticks in their hands playing cops and robbers, squealing machine gun ratatatat noises excitedly at each other.
“Hope those kids fuck off before we get the showtime wave,” Leary murmured to Ben or himself, pawing at a lucky rabbit’s foot hanging from the rear-view. Ben let the comment pass unanswered.
The Mulligans’ voices bouncing back and forth came muffled from the rear. Leary leaned over the steering wheel and squinted. The man really reeked crusty, stale, rotten and Ben rolled down his window further and tried to breathe the outside air deeper. Heard one of the kids yell, “You’re dead!” Another kid, shouted, “no, I’m not, you stupid liar. I’m a good guy.”
Ben grinned. Fucking children. One day they’d realize there were no good guys. Just bad people who got worse.
“A couple of the guinea cocksuckers coming down the street now. Is that them, you think?” Leary said shifting in his seat. The leather squealed under the pressure.
“I can’t make out their faces,” Ben said, eyeballing the figures on the sidewalk.
The two Italian men flicked cigarette butts into the carless street and entered the café. Ben and Leary stared up at IOU. No wave. Nothing. No Buccola. No Lombardo.
“What’s the betting that little eegit is half asleep up there?”
“It’s still early. Give it time,” Ben said, pushing his body as far as it would go against the passenger door, away from Leary and the stink. Checking his wristwatch again.
“Anything yet? We’re freezing our pricks off back here,” one of the Mulligans hissed from the back.
“Nothing. Now keep it the fuck down back there,” Leary said, grinning at Ben and banging on the back with a fat fist. Ben swallowed another gag. Squeezed the oily Thompson in his hands. He’d last fired one at basic training, before the first Dear John letter from his wife and before being kicked out of the army.
“Those two make five of the wop cocksuckers in there. They’ve got some fucking balls meeting up all together like this so soon after…” Leary trailed off, squeezed the steering wheel hard.
“It appears as though they’re having some kind of an important meeting,” Ben said, checking his wristwatch for the umpteenth time. Ten-sixteen. “No doubt planning how they’re going to take the rest of us out. I’d say it’s extremely fortunate for us. Exactly what I was hoping they would do. Mindless fuck heads.”
“Dumb wop fucks. We’re gonna bury them all. Fuck the Roman Empire,” Leary thrust his hips. Ben wound down the window even further.
Two more well-dressed men turned the street corner and strode confidently into the café. Ben’s heart skipped beats. The stagnant air suddenly electric.
IOU gave the wave. Leary banged on the back of the truck three times hard. The vehicle rocked on its axles as the Mulligans got out, slammed the back doors and walked briskly up the sidewalk towards the café. Looking exactly like two of Boston’s finest.
One of the kids dropped his stick and threw up his hands. Clutched at his chest. Fell into the street for ten seconds. Waited. Grabbed his stick again and ran towards the other children, shouting, gunning them down. Ben wondered if the kid’s branch was a Tommy gun.
Loud shouting coming from the café. Crockery smashed. Bellowing.
Ben and Leary waiting the pre-agreed ninety seconds. Eyeballing the slow-moving hands of their wristwatches.
“All right. Let’s go, Leary,” Ben said, tying a bandana around his mouth and nose.
“What the fuck is that for?” Leary stared.
“Protection,” Ben stared back.
“Like a disguise? I thought that’s what this fucking cop get-up was for.”
Ben stared back.
“Maybe it’s none of my business but you’re letting your, how do I say, fucking eccentric ways get the best of you lately. You need to watch that shit. You’ll end up in a mental asylum shitting your pants and finger painting with it.”
“You’re right, Fat Man. It’s none of your fucking business.”
“Fuck it, this is for Stevie. For Stevie,” Leary nodded, shifting his gross body out of the truck. They jogged up the street towards the café. Leary gasping, panting. Out of breath. Ben counting to seven. Burst through the doors, shouting their throats raw.
The interior was dim and lit with lamps. The silver expresso machine still hissed clouds of steam, stopped Ben dead in his tracks. Heart erratic. Cold sweat popping. He grasped at his throat. Guts painful. He bit his lip and tried not to shit himself.
The Mulligans waved their shotguns around erratic, screaming orders. Leary flipped a table with coffees, and small baked pastries smashed to the floor.
“Get your fucking hands up, you wop cocksuckers! This is a fucking raid!” screamed Christopher.
“He said get your fucking hands up!” Connor drove the butt of his shotgun into backs and necks. Italians whelped, cried out and shook. Others played it tough. Christopher made an example and cracked a young guy’s hard head clean open. He collapsed over the coffee bar like a drunk after last orders. Christopher barked laughter and pointed.
The other North Enders got the message and lined up against the bar quick. Hands up and backs turned. Cursing. Six Italians. Ben scanned the sides of sweat moistened tan faces and the backs of greasy heads.
No Buccola. No Lombardo. Fuck!
“Where the fuck are Buccola and Lombardo?” he hissed o
ut of the side of his mouth, through the fabric of the bandana. His breath stinking of something metallic.
“The top two pieces of shit ain’t fucking here?” Leary yelled.
“Wait a minute! There was a seventh? Where’s the fucking seventh?” Ben called out.
The Rat peered over his shoulder. Locked eyes with Ben. Face screwed up. Screamed something foreign and garbled. Italians span round. Faces like death masks.
“They know we ain’t cops,” Christopher shouted.
“Fuck it! Let ‘em have it! Now!” Connor bellowed.
Ben and the Irish pulled down on the triggers. Bullets tore into the huddled line of screaming Italians. Bodies twisted. Hands waved seizure like. Legs kicked out. A death dance to the soundtrack of gunfire. The Thompsons and shotguns roaring and ripping into the shrieking flesh – something primal. Chips of wood and plaster flew. Lost in the fog of gun smoke, fire and blood, the Southie gang fired on empty. Guns click, click, clicked. Loud. Ben held his breath underneath the fabric covering his mouth and nose. Ears ringing. He couldn’t hear a fucking thing. Connor emptied the cash register. Christopher reloaded his shotgun, kicking bodies, answering gargled, begging prayers with point blank resolution. Leary pawed over corpses, looting pockets, billfolds, chains and wristwatches. Ben stepped over slick puddles of red going on black. Broken glass and porcelain ground under foot. Kicked open the back-office door. A cheap desk. Steel filing cabinets. A lamp. An Esquire cheesecake calendar tacked to the cracked wall. Nothing. Vacant.
He stepped inside, Li Yu’s bedroom rupturing his mind. Frozen in the memory. The cigar store Indian on his knees, bloody with the muzzle of the .38 stabbed into the cracked flesh of his forehead as Li’s mother yammered in broken English. Jones. Li Yu. Confessions. The crucifix his mother wore around her neck pulsing from the recesses of his childhood. The black dressing gown she wore with a hood. Silk. He remembered how it felt underneath his fingertips. Made his stomach feel as though there were an octopus writhing inside it. Just a boy. The boy in the newspaper photograph. A flash of darkness.
Something crashed from behind the door, collided with his chest sending him sprawling. A glimpse of a ghostly white face. All gaping eyes and mouth. The face of a deformed baby. No eyebrows. No hair. Whimpering and clattering towards the front door of the café. High pitched wailing. A baby crying for its mother.
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