I'll Pray When I'm Dying

by Stephen J. Golds

  He pushed her hard against the side of a building, “I love you so much and you always hurt me so, Margaux,” he hissed, reaching up her thighs, pulling roughly at her knickers. She pulled herself free from his grasp, spat in his face and took off quickly. Running like a ghost story into the night. He wiped saliva from his face. The echo of footsteps around him. Vengeful spirits seeping out from the darkness to take his hand. The blade across his throat flashed faster than an unwanted memory. Cold knives slid into his back. Penetrated. Raped. He could smell lavender and red wine. Paris on the night air. He fell to his knees. His son’s face there in front of him. Weeping. Then the woman who had taken everything that had remained of him after the war. He spat out her name hot with blood.

  Margaux!

  Sabini stood looming over him. “This shall be as satisfying as popping a puss filled spot I think, William.”

  The muzzle of a revolver pushed cruelly against the top of his skull. He stuttered out the beginning of a prayer and then his entire life snapped to black.

  Charlestown, Boston, USA

  Saturday, February 23rd, 1946

  Fucking yap, yap, yap, yap. His bitch of a wife never stopped her incessant nagging. Jones couldn’t even remember why he’d married the cunt. He hurried down the stairs, pulled on his jacket from the coat rack and shouted back up towards the bedroom, “I’m going into work, don’t bother waiting for me.”

  “What time will you be home? I’m cooking your favorite tonight,” the bitch hollered down.

  “Jesus Christ, leave it in the oven and I’ll eat it whenever,” he yelled.

  “I don’t even know why I bother anymore,” she shrieked.

  “Quit your pissing and moaning, it ain’t ladylike.”

  “What would you know about it?”

  “Evidently not enough, I married you, didn’t I?”

  Jones’ throat hurt from all the back and forth. He thought about going back upstairs and giving the old lady something to really screech about, but saw his son watching from the parlor. The constantly sad, confused look on the boy’s little face always disappointed him. Those big blue eyes. Like a kicked dog, cowering. Why couldn’t he have a normal kid like the other fellas? Fucking cursed genetics. Probably his wife’s fault. Her side of the family were all suckers, retards and morons. Maybe the kid wasn’t even his. The wife had always been a round-heels. He went over to the kid and picked him up and hugged him. He didn’t know why. The action surprised them both.

  “You look after your mama while I’m away, kiddo, okay?”

  The kid nodded. Those eyes too wide and too moist. Little body stiff in Jones’ arms. He dropped the kid down on the couch, ruffled his spikey hair and switched on the wireless for him. The kid sucked his thumb and stared. Jones cursed, shaking his head at the boy, picked up his car keys from the coffee table and left without saying another word. He paused a moment at the bottom of the stoop, one foot on the sidewalk to look back at the house for a final time. Wondered when his wife would find the note he’d left on the dining table. He was leaving them both. He’d had enough. Had met someone else. Someone better. A real woman. One that could fuck like an alley cat and had some real dough. One that could and would testify against that murdering fucking freak, Hughes, finally. Hopefully, they’d give him the death penalty. Jones’ partner had been found dead in parked car in Southie two years ago. Two bullets in the chest. No suspects, but he had always known in his heart it was that prick Hughes. Hughes would get a black hood over his head and then Jones would use all the information he had against The Chief as a wedge. Hang it all over Sullivan’s fat fucking head until he was cut into whatever dirty little deals he and Hughes had going on. Get promoted finally. Hell, become Captain. Chief. Commissioner. The fucking president. The future was going to be bright. So bright.

  He unlocked his automobile, grinning and swung himself into the green Ford Coupe, glanced back at the house again and slid the key into the engine. The engine farted and spluttered. Died. The fucking thing wouldn’t start. He cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to get out and start the fucking heap of shit manually. The son of a bitch kicked back like a mule on the crank. His eyes caught on something red, white and blue on the dashboard. He picked it up and peered at it. A small paper Union Jack flag on a cocktail stick, the kind you’d find in a lousy bar. He tossed it over his shoulder into the backseat, tried the engine again. It choked to life and the automobile exploded killing him instantly. Windows shattered, his wife smeared lipstick across her jaw and his son screamed for his daddy. The emerald-green Ford Coupe and Jones burned fiercer then Hell. The smoke was seen from all over Charlestown.

  Salt Lake City

  Saturday, February 23rd, 1946

  The man the Mob had sent from Los Angeles to kill Joseph P. Kennedy sat by the window of his second story room on a stool watching shit kickers and shoppers wandering up and down Broadway as the day started the decline towards its end. He had a great view of the Peery Hotel opposite. Had lucked out with there being a smaller motel across the way from the more prestigious one. Prestigious because it was the only hotel with air conditioning in the whole of Salt Lake. Hell, probably the whole of Utah. His motel didn’t have jack shit. Business must have been a bitch for the little dump having to keep up with those kinds of standards. He snubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and leaned back on the stool, glancing at the old man slumped in the ensuite bathtub. Bled out and dead. A shocked look smeared all over his face. Maybe he’d been excessive with the old timer. The good old boy had spotted the Thompson machine gun leaning barrel up against the wall in the far corner when he’d come into the room to fix the radiator. He’d acted impulsively, sliding his bayonet up into the old man’s ribs. He had closed his eyes for a moment and was back at Shuri Castle, Naha. Sliding the same bayonet up and under the ribs of another old man. Everything was a battle. It couldn’t be helped none, the old guy had to die but now the room was fucking freezing and the owner of the little motel was dead. Foolish old fuck. Another casualty of war, the man from Los Angeles thought, scratching at the three-day stubble on his jaw.

  He lit another cigarette, turned his attention back to the street below and the Peery hotel again. He’d been watching the fucking place for twelve hours straight. Hadn’t slept since the stopover in Cedar City a day and a half ago. Not that he ever slept much nowadays, anyway. Had a bad feeling in his guts about this job. The first for the wops. Didn’t like the look of the Peery Hotel either. Something about the architecture was jarring. Disquieting. Haunted. The way the red bricks caught the sunlight like blood from a fresh wound. The windows reflecting empty like a corpse’s eyes. The target too. Disquieting to say the fucking least. Joseph P. Kennedy. The wop, Anthony Cornero, who’d given him the job had told him they wanted to hit someone, when he asked who it was, he’d been told ‘the biggest vegetable’. A big fucking vegetable indeed. One of the biggest. He didn’t ask why they wanted Kennedy dead. Knew it was something about heroin being imported from Europe or some bullshit. Corsica, maybe. Joey P. had fucked the Italians over on the deal. The man from Los Angeles had been promised a large chunk of change and more work if he proved himself and gunned Kennedy down publicly. Cornero had told him to ‘make a fuckin’ example of the fuckin’ prick’. No problem. He’d done much worse things for free in the Pacific. Much worse. And to people who deserved it much less than a piece of shit like rich prick Kennedy.

  He’d counted at least three Irish goons hanging around the hotel’s lobby wearing tan trench coats and looking bored as hell. The kind of coats used for hiding the type of artillery that killed you quickly and badly. The kind of faces that were dull and mean as hell. Killers. No other patrons that he’d seen had gone in the front. A few Rolls Royce had pulled in the back the night before. Strange as hell. Yeah, he had a feeling in his guts this was a kamikaze mission. Kept telling himself he’d survived worse. He’d already been to Hell. Okinawa. Sugar Loaf Hill. Salt Lake City would be a piece of cake. Nothing.
A stroll in the park. But the feeling in his guts was rarely wrong. He leaned back on the stool again to take a peep over at the old man slumped dead in the bathtub. Red going on thick black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and he stared the same way all the ghosts from his dreams stared. The man from Los Angeles shook his head to clear it and puffed smoke rings at the window.

  The people upstairs thumped around. Talked loud. More wops. He’d seen a couple of them on the stairs, talking hushed when he’d first checked in. They’d given him the stink eye and he’d given it back. The type of wops that stuck out in Utah. Had the look of very well-dressed hard cases. He wondered if they were there to steal his payday, because they sure as shit didn’t look like they were in Salt Lake City to ski the slopes and enjoy the views. He’d spent the last of his family’s dough on the gas for the three-day drive. The last of their savings. Left his wife and kid back in Bunker Hill without a single red cent. It was this job or fucking bust. The wops upstairs had another damn think coming if they thought they were going to steal his fucking meal ticket to a better life for himself and his daughter.

  He snubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill, pulled the scrap of paper with the emergency contact telephone number on it from his pocket, went over to the telephone on the bedside table and told the operator the number. She asked him to hold, then said she was putting him through, telling him to wait. He sat down on the bed, spinning a Colt .45 on his finger.

  “Yeah?” a deep voice boomed down the line.

  “Mr. Cornero?”

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “Scott Kelly?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy you sent to Salt Lake City. Scott Kelly.”

  “Oh, shit. The fuckin’ marine. That’s right. Sure. You done the job, already, huh?”

  “No, not yet. I wanted to ask if you’d sent any other guys over here?”

  “What? No, we ain’t. People gave the job to me and I gave it to you. That’s it. This ain’t the army, marine. One guy’s all it takes most of the time. If you ain’t up to the fuckin’ job, you better say now.”

  “The job’s as good as done, but I want you to know I don’t appreciate you sending in back-up. I’m not sharing the salary with anyone else. That wasn’t the deal we agreed on.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “There are other mob guys around here, I’ve seen them. Italians. They’re not exactly inconspicuous. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this thing, Mr. Cornero.” He glanced over at the bathroom door, the dead man there. “And I’m not sharing the proceeds. You see what I’m saying to you?”

  “Marine, look here, I ain’t bullshitting you. You’re the only guy we’ve got anywhere fuckin’ near that fuckin’ dump Salt Lake City. You drinkin’ on the job or what? You fuckin’ micks. No offence intended.”

  Kelly raised his eyebrows over at the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the bedside table. “No, no, I’m not drinking.”

  “I hope not. I know what you fuckin’ Irishmen are like. Look, Kelly, kill that double-crossing Mick fuck Kennedy and call me after it’s done. No more fuckin’ telephone calls until then. We clear or ain’t we?”

  “All right. Okay, thank you, Mr. Cornero. We’re clear. I won’t disappoint you.”

  “I hope not, marine. And call me Tony for Christ’s sake.” Anthony hung up.

  Scott Kelly placed the telephone down on its cradle, picked up the bottle and took a long drink and went back to the window again. The feeling in his guts twisting tighter. He lit another smoke and told himself he’d survived much worse.

  Buccola was growing impatient, and the small, shitty motel room was giving him cabin fever. He slapped down the newspaper he was pretending to read on the bed and jerked his chin at Lombardo sitting on a chair by the dresser. “What does he see?” Lombardo slapped his cousin Calacante with the back of his hand. “Well, what you see?”

  The stick-thin man peering through curtains with a brass telescope, took it away from his eye and spoke over his shoulder in a thick Sicilian accent, “No change. The men you want are in the entryway of the hotel. Always. Sometimes they change. Two go, three stay. But they are there. Always.”

  “What they doing?” Lombardo asked.

  “They sit, they talk. Drink. Smoke tobacco. Sometimes they get up and walk around. They appear, what is the word? Bored.”

  “What about other guests? You see any?” Buccola said.

  “No one. I see no one else. Just the men you hate. The Irishmen,” Calacante brought the spyglass to his eye again and spoke while peering out of the curtain.

  “Well, where are the other hotel guests?” Buccola said.

  “I don’t know. They turned a man and woman away a couple hours ago,” Calacante took the spyglass away from his face, breathed heavy on it, wiping the lens with a handkerchief.

  “How’s that?” Lombardo said.

  “I don’t know. The couple, they went in and the men with the orange hair told them to go and they went. Perhaps, I saw some motor vehicles go round the back. Many black cars. They had the man who drives with the special hat. Last night this was,” he said, replacing the spyglass to his eye again.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Lombardo said.

  “I think they’re making moves here. Something is going on and it must be molto importante they come all the way to this fucking cowboy city,” Buccola said.

  “Maybe they got a floating casino going. Something like that,” Lombardo shrugged.

  Buccola glanced at his gold wristwatch, lay back down on the bed, his hands behind his head, speaking to the ceiling. “I never thought I would feel this way, but I would like to go back to Boston very soon. Already I miss the place like a beautiful woman. We wait until the sun sets behind those mountains and then we go down there. They think they can destroy my business? Kill my men, our blood, and continue their lives? They’re foolishly mistaken. Lombardo and me, we go in quick. It will be like it was when we were younger, hungrier men.” He nodded to Calacante. “You be waiting outside with the engine running. Then we return home. We will have the whole of Boston. The spoils of war.” Buccola grinned and picked at his teeth. Lombardo checked his nails and Calacante stared through the spyglass.

  South Boston, U.S.A

  Friday, February 22nd, 1946

  Ben slid the key into the door of his Cadillac, heart still jerky from the hit on the Italians. The sting of gun smoke still burning his eyes. Boston alive with the howls of sirens. He paused, gazing up at the bell tower of the Old South Church. The symmetry of the architecture was calming. Soothing. He remembered bringing his mother there a few times, before she went into the hospital for the final time. He strolled slowly over to the front and seeing that the heavy doors were pushed ajar, slid inside the place. That aroma of old wood, prayer and sin. A bitter twist of nostalgia trickled down his spine with beads of sweat.

  Watching his mother hobbling down the aisles, running her grey fingers along the redwood, worn pews. So much white light from chandeliers and filtering through the stained-glass windows basking her in a saintly halo.

  He guessed she had found some kind of a peace there. She’d spent so much of her final years jabbering away to priests and plaster models of Jesus Christ. Scrambling around for redemption. Her blue eyes on Ben’s face always. Something there in the irises. Dark and shiny, glistening like black glass. He sat at the back. The pew nearest the door. His hands trembling viciously. Breath coming out in gasps. Ragged. Strained. The sounds of the outside world crashing into the silence of the church. He gripped onto the pew in front, trying to steady himself. Took out the silver flask from his pocket, drained the remnants of poteen, shook it, ran his fingertips over the inscription ‘Love Always, Mother’ and tossed it down in the empty space beside him. Suddenly revolted by it. Sucking the dusty, ancient air through gritted teeth. Irises. Black and shiny. Glistening like black glass. The color of the abdomen of a cockroach on its back, its legs twitching madly in the
air.

  “You promised, Mother! And now what? What have I become?” he shouted it out towards the ends of the church. To the figure draped over the cross, hanging over the altar, the candles flickering with each spat word.

  “Are you all right, my son?”

  Ben jerked his head behind him to see the priest standing there. Draped in black. Concerned. Understanding. Lies. Lies all over his face, in every wrinkle of his aged skin. The bible held to his chest like a dead child. He moved closer to Ben, reaching out a filthy hand. “Would you like to pray with me?”

  Ben stood up, handing the priest the flask, “Go to Hell, Father. I’ll pray when I’m dying.”

  The priest shrunk, gawped, backed up, stumbling into the pew across the aisle. Ben walked out, not looking back, the keys to the car held in his fist like a jagged piece of glass.

  He pulled his Cadillac up at the curb and down the street. Slumping over the steering wheel, watching the address that Li Yu’s mother had scribbled down on a paper towel with a revolver pressed into the flesh of her neck. An apartment over a bakery in Charlestown. Eyes itchy. Heavy. He hadn’t slept in days. Things seemed to be moving around him too fast or too slow.

  He twisted his neck until he heard the bones click and slid out of the automobile. He counted his steps in groups of seven. He reached the bakery in four sets. Four was an unlucky number. He turned around and walked back seven spaces, turned and walked back. Cancelling out the bad. Creating order. He sighed. Coughed. Walked around the back of the building. Bread baking warmly on the cold air. A rusty fire escape led to the apartment on top. He counted the steps up to her door. Twelve. Went back over two steps to make it fourteen. Two sets of seven. Felt relief. The door was green. There was a spyhole. He pushed his thumb over it. Knocked twice. Heard movement inside. A lazy kind of shuffling that sent shivers down his spine. A child again awoken in the night. He wiped his palm over his face and pressed it over his mouth. Glancing around nervous. Footsteps. Her voice, “Lewie? Finally!” Ben’s eyes sharpened to slits. Lewis Jones. Of all the things the filthy, backstabbing, treacherous whore had had in between her lips, that piece of shit’s name was the worst. Fucking bitch. He gripped at his Adam’s apple, making his voice sound gruffer than it was, croaked out a “yeah.” The lock clicked; the green door opened an inch. Ben slammed all his weight into the door and bust the thing wide open. Li Yu yelped, falling hard to the floor. Wearing a lime green dress with patterns of purple grapes on it. She cried no, no, no, no when she saw him step into the apartment kicking the door shut behind him. Opened her mouth to scream. He slapped her hard across the face, her head rocked back, features slacked as though momentarily blacking out. He choked her in the crook of his arm, dragging her over to a disheveled bed, throwing her down onto the soiled sheets. A bottle of wine, glasses half empty, an opium box and a pipe on a bedside table. Her lipstick and rouge smudged across her face. Stains on the pillows. A stink coming off the walls and the furniture. He stood there panting, staring down at her, his fists opening and closing, a broken heart’s beat. She scrambled back on the mattress, her knees pulled up under her chin, staring back at him, hands wrapped tightly around herself. The sunlight came golden through a crack in the curtains, illuminating her face and regressing her back to childhood. Ben’s eyes blurred.