The City Below

by James Carroll

  "Figures. Tell your brother I still love every bone in his head."

  Terry was incapable of making the shift into repartee. He sat there red-faced, at the limit of his articulateness, and he asked himself for the millionth time, Why am I in politics?

  "Hey, sweetheart," Suzie said from the kitchen door. Bright swung toward her just as she sent his wallet arching into his lap. She was wearing the same dress from the night before, white polka dots on blue, and a large leather bag was hooked on her shoulder. Except for her crooked tooth, she looked like a woman from a New Yorker ad, prettiness more than beauty, the barest hint of the sexual resdessness Terry had sensed before. He liked the flaw in her smile because of its suggestion that wholesome perfection was far from the entire story here. As if to prove it, she said casually, "I dusted that line of yours and put your bag back in the drawer."

  Having opened his wallet, Bright ignored her.

  But Terry said quietly, "I thought you said it was hers."

  Still McKay remained focused on his money. Terry saw a thick wad of bills, and when Bright counted out three of them, he realized they were hundreds. Bright held the money up.

  She came into the kitchen. As she took the bills, she leaned to Bright and kissed him with a luscious wet mouth. The money disappeared into her bag.

  The sharp scent of her perfume hit Terry.

  Bright touched her ass absently. "See you next week?"

  "Sure, honey. But through Yolanda, okay? She'll kill me if you call direct again." She gave Terry a parting sweet smile. "Knock, knock," she said as she walked away.

  "Who's there?" Terry asked.

  "The little old lady," she answered with a flip of her shoulder bag, and then she was gone. A moment later they heard the apartment door open and close.

  Terry looked at Bright. "The little old lady who?"

  Bright nodded ruefully. "You betcha."

  "Do I believe my eyes? Bright McKay pays?"

  "Take it from me, pal. It's better in every way. You get fucked without getting fucked."

  "And the coke that wasn't yours?"

  "Maybe that's none of your business, Terry. I really can do quite handsomely without high-almighty moral judgment from you."

  "Yeah, you're doing fine."

  "What has your nose out of joint, Terry? That she's white? All the coon hookers in this city, I have the nerve to go salt and pepper?"

  "Nerve? From what I see, your nerve went up your nose. I need your help about Boston. That's where my nose is, and yes, it's out of joint. I want you to take me to Ted right now. Let him decide if he should come back with me. My job is to keep the senator in touch with his hometown. It's what he pays me for. And by the way"—he nodded at McKay's fat wallet—"he doesn't pay me like that."

  "You have to decide, Terry. Are you here about my bad habits, or are you here about Charlestown High?"

  "Charlestown High."

  "I'll never let Ted go there. Neither will Kenny. They'll kill him."

  "All right. Then Government Center. There's a rally tomorrow. They want to flip the bird at the federal judge and the U.S. Constitution, the Irish daring anybody to stand up and tell them they're wrong. Ted's the last one left who can. He'll be safe. Compared to Bunker Hill, Government Center is easy to secure. The Bureau's right there, and so is District i. Plus, it's neutral turf, or almost neutral. Ted will have the advantage, because the protesters are coming to the building named for Jack."

  Bright turned his face away, then sat immobile in the flood of morning light Terry could no longer see his good eye, but from under the black leather oval covering his bad one, a thin line of moisture had appeared. The secretions from that eye were not tears, and not tied to emotional responses. Terry knew this. But still the sight shook him, and he saw suddenly the absurdity of his badgering this man on the subject of race.

  "He'll go," Bright said at last.

  "If he won't, then he should get out of public life."

  "It just makes me sad, that shit like this always comes down to a Kennedy."

  "But Bright, that's why we love them."

  ***

  Sunday morning, and Harvard Yard was quiet He stood in the center of the large grassy quadrangle and watched as an occasional student crossed it on the way to Widener Library. Pigeons swooped within the canopy of trees. A pair of girls in sweat clothes walked their bicycles along a cinder path from Sever Hall.

  Squire checked his watch again, then looked up at the sharp, white spire of the Harvard church, a classic brick-and-pillar version of the Yankee house of worship standing on village greens everywhere in New England. A man of Squire Doyle's background could not see one of those spires without feeling the stab of exclusion. Yet that church was what had brought him here. He was waiting for the service to finish. Their worship took forever; if the Romans had been Protestant, they'd have talked Jesus to death instead of crucifying him.

  To be certain she was in there, as her neighbor had cold him, he'd have slipped into the rear of the church. But it seemed, what, disrespectful? not allowed? Everywhere he went that morning, he was breaking rules. He had broken a rule in Quincy, to which he had driven three hours before, and now he thought of it again.

  Hough's Neck, an old Irish neighborhood on a peninsula jutting out from Quincy proper into Boston Harbor, was crowded with modest frame houses that had been built for the skilled workers at the shipyard during its Great War expansion. After World War II the yard had been cut back, and Quincy had never prospered again. But the Neck was still proud, and the houses were neat The rich who'd built their "cottages" along the shore in towns to the south had found a workers' neighborhood easy to resist, and so even the houses on choice sites facing the water were saltboxes and Capes separated by mere ribbons of carefully tended grass. Far out on the peninsula, where Jerry Moran's house stood in a row with several others, the view to the south was of the open ocean, and to the north of the next peninsula up, which was Southie. In the far distance stood the Boston skyline.

  Approaching Moran's seaside house, Squire drove slowly to muffle the sound of his car. Moran had tripled the size of his lot by buying his neighbors' houses and demolishing them. His own place he had expanded with a pair of pseudo-modern wings that featured flat roofs, flagstone siding bound with stained cedar beams, large plate-glass windows, and sliders. But the original tract house with its asphalt shingles, narrow windows, and peaked roof was unaltered. On the street side, most of the yard had been paved, and now three Cadillacs were parked inside the low stone wall. Squire pulled in alongside.

  He went to the front door and rang the bell, which chimed loudly enough to scatter seagulls from the roof. When Moran's wife answered, Squire greeted her by name, Maeve. She told him that Jerry was down on the rocks, collecting mussels before the tide came back in.

  In street shoes, Doyle had to hop gingerly as he crossed the boulders toward the stooped figure in the distance. The blue sea shimmered behind him. Moran was at the very rip of the peninsula, where the water from Quincy Bay washed into the open harbor. Moran was twenty years Squire's senior, but from afar, in his work boots, lank hooded sweatshirt, and baseball cap, he looked like a roustabout, vigorous and strong. He held a bucket in one hand, a garden claw in the other. He saw Squire coming, and he straightened up to meet him.

  "Hey, Jerry," Squire said.

  "Hello, friend. What brings you down here on a beautiful Sunday morning?" There was more than a hint of the harp in Moran's voice still, though he'd come from Ireland as a child.

  Squire smiled, closing the distance, one eye always on his footing. "Would you believe me if I said I was looking for a new church to go to?"

  "Sure I would."

  "But would I believe you when you said so?"

  Squire took up a position atop an adjacent boulder. Moran put the claw in his bucket. They reached across the rocky chasm to shake hands.

  "How's your grandfather?"

  "Holding his own, Jerry."

  "I want you to te
ll him I miss him. The K of C council meetings ain't the same without him."

  "Ned misses the Knights." Squire looked down at the bucket of mussels. "You don't eat those things, do you? From that sewer?"

  Moran eyed the black shellfish. There was a note of uncertainty in his voice as he said, "Course I eat them. This is ocean water here." He looked up sharply. "The pollution stops the other side of Southie, Squire. Between Southie and Charlestown, which is where shit belongs."

  Squire laughed. "I've missed you, Jer."

  "You should get down to Quincy more."

  "I hear things are good."

  Moran shrugged. "Depends on who you're talking to. Who would you be talking to, Squire?"

  "Frank."

  "I thought that might be it You still carrying his water?"

  "He's slightly pissed, Jerry."

  "Fuck him. Quincy is out, Squire. Tucci gives us nothing. You're in Boston, you got no choice. This is another world down here. We got other choices."

  "Tucci gives us the umbrella, Jerry. All of us. Just because it isn't raining this morning doesn't mean we don't need it."

  "I don't need it."

  "You do."

  "I've talked to Sciabba. He's my umbrella now."

  "You're joking."

  "Why not? We're as close to Providence here as we are to Revere."

  "You stupid fuck Tucci can't let Sciabba move north. No wonder he's ripped. You went to Sciabba behind Frank's back? Behind mine?"

  "This isn't about you, Squire."

  "You took a trip to Holland too, Jerry. You've been traveling."

  "Who said I went to Holland?"

  "Town name of Venlo, wasn't it?"

  Moran stared at Squire, unable to answer. Absently, he took the claw out of his bucket again.

  "Holland makes the business mine, Jerry. As I'm sure you knew it would. Who'd you meet with, Nouwen?"

  "He and I agreed we'd have to bring you in."

  "Jerry, I'm surprised at you. Really surprised. The point of a franchise system is control. We're all in one business. We can't have competition inside the company. That's Frank's point, and it's mine also."

  "Squire, we can take control back from Tucci, don't you get it? We don't have to run our shit through him. A lot of fellows think you're too soft."

  "How soft am I, Jerry?"

  "I mean soft with Frank You don't challenge him. You don't fight for our—"

  "So you will, is that it? You'll be the mick they deal with?"

  "Tucci can't take on Sciabba. Not direct."

  "That's right He can't He does it indirect, by getting rid of you."

  Moran looked coldly at Doyle, unafraid. "That's why you're here."

  "Yes."

  "Another order from Tucci."

  "It's me you've crossed, Jerry."

  "I was going to bring you in, once we had it set."

  "I know you were. But things don't work that way, Jerry."

  Moran faced away, toward the open sea, closing his eyes into the wind. "So what'll be? Like Deebo? You got a boat coming for me?" He opened his eyes and pointed to a lobster boat two or three hundred yards out It was white, small, bobbing in the swells as it moved from pot to pot "Thinking of Deebo, the Irish used to stick together, Squire. That's what you stood for when you started out."

  "I still do."

  "Which is why you've come to kill me?"

  "I've come to tell you to get the fuck out of Boston, Jerry. Move to Florida, today. Empty your safe. Call your kids. Tell them you're retired. Put Maeve and her poodles in one of your Caddies and get out You do that and I'll deal with Frank for you. I'll get him to lift the curse. That's what sticking together means in this case."

  "I can't."

  "Then I'll kill you, Jerry."

  Moran turned back to Squire. He held his bucket up in front of Squire's face. "And you say I'm the one who eats sewage?" The bucket fell and the mussels scattered at Squire's feet But the older man held the claw. "Go ahead," he said in a dead voice, devoid of bravado.

  Squire shook his head. "If I did it now, Jerry, I'd have to do Maeve too. She saw me. Besides, I want you to think about what I said. You have today. I'm giving you today. It's Sunday."

  "Fuck you, Squire."

  Squire turned away. When Moran did not bring the steel claw down on the back of his head, Squire knew that his grandfather's K of C chum would leave. Squire hopped to the next boulder, and to the next, and to the next.

  Back at Moran's house, Maeve had been watching him from behind the curtain of one of the narrow windows. Squire waved as he got into his car. He made a quick U-turn, gunning it.

  ***

  The minister was the first one to appear at the blue door of Memorial Church, which, Squire recalled, was what Protestants did when services were over. Lovely sermon, Reverend. Fine message.

  He was watching from his perch halfway up the stairs of Widener Library. After the clergyman's white surplice and cassock, the first thing Squire noticed about him was that he was black. "Perfect," he said aloud.

  He had no trouble picking her out from the line of worshipers as they took the steps down, out of the church portico, dispersing into the alternating light and shadow of the burnished maple-leaf tent of the Yard. Joan was wearing a bright green dress and white, high-heeled shoes. She was carrying a straw hat with a white ribbon; in her other hand she carried a purse. From the distance, Squire admired the way she walked, heading off alone with long, self-affirming strides. His eyes went naturally to the movement of her thighs under the loose fabric of her dress, and he could sense the fine-toned pull of her muscles. As his gaze lagged in her wake, he sensed that this woman was not trying for effect, had no idea of being watched. Suddenly he thought of another woman, from years before, the prim lady at the MGH. Had they fucked or not?

  He set out after Joan, past empty bike racks, wire trash baskets, jogging at first, with the brio of an undergraduate. He left the pavement for the oatmeal path between the brick and, yes, ivy-covered buildings, the gap into which she had disappeared. By the time he saw her again she was beyond the gate, at Quincy Street. From one Quincy to another. He began to jog again, and caught up on the far side of the street. He fell into step with her as she started up the broad, formal stairs of a large Harvard building.

  "Hello, Joan."

  Looking up, seeing who it was, she fell back, entirely startled. "My God, what are you doing here?"

  They faced each other on the staircase. He put his closed hand forward, upending it like a magician, and he opened it—poof! "You forgot your lighter. You left it at our house."

  Joan stared at the gold oblong. "Not exactly," she said, looking him in the eye. "You took it."

  "Oh?"

  "You took it from the table. I saw you."

  Instead of replying, he only looked at her.

  "Do you always take what you want?"

  "Only when I'm sure I won't get caught."

  "But I told you, I saw you."

  Squire smiled. "That's not what I mean, I guess, by 'caught'"

  His eyes never left hers. Finally she asked, "What do you do, Nick?"

  "I sell flowers."

  "No, I mean really. Who are you?"

  "You like the orchid?"

  "Yes."

  He shrugged. "I'm Saint Roch, then."

  "You're bold, is what you are."

  "Does that scare you?"

  "No." Though this was true, it was also true that, inwardly, she was trembling. When had she felt so intrigued by a man, or less in control of herself in meeting one? Terry's brother? She couldn't get over it.

  "I know you're not afraid," he said. "I admire that, and I like it"

  She took her lighter back and dropped it in her purse.

  "Solid gold, Joan."

  "More than you usually shoplift?"

  "Who gave it to you?"

  "None of your business."

  "A man with taste. And money." Squire bowed slightly, as if describing himself. />
  At that moment, a pair of Asian tourists presented themselves on the sidewalk at the foot of the stairs, two men. One was consulting a guidebook, the other grinned up at Squire. "The museum is open?"

  Squire had not realized that's what the building was. With its massive windows and ivy, he'd taken it for a dorm or another library.

  "No," Joan answered. "I'm sorry. The museum is closed on Sunday."

  The tourists moved on.

  "But you were going in," Squire said.

  "I work here. With Terry out of town, I was going to clear up some things at my desk."

  "Would you show me around? Is that allowed?"

  "What?"

  "I've heard of the Fogg. I've never been in it."

  "I'm sorry. I couldn't."

  "Are you afraid I'll take something?"

  "No. No, I'm not afraid of that." She looked at her watch.

  "You're an expert on something."

  "Drawings. Of the Italian Renaissance."

  "Do they have that?"

  Joan smiled. "A fair representation. Fra Diamante, Botticelli, Ferrari..."

  Squire shrugged with exaggerated self-effacement.

  "You've heard of Michelangelo?"

  "I think I have."

  "We have a wonderful collection of his presentation drawings."

  "Which are?"

  "What he'd have shown his client, the elaborate design, multiple drawings, for a sarcophagus, for example."

  "Nice."

  "You'd really like to see it?"

  "Sure. You kidding?"

  "Okay." Joan turned. Instead of going the rest of the way up the stairs to the main doors, she took the path around to the side of the building. Over her shoulder she said, "If we run into the guard, you'll be my graduate assistant."

  "Gladly," he said, following.

  "Not that you look like a student."

  Squire turned up the collar of his dark green polo shirt. "Now?"

  But she ignored him. At the staff door, she applied her key. When it clicked, he helped her pull it open, and they went in. There was a long, narrow corridor, then another door that they pushed through. Squire followed her through a dark foyer into a brightly illuminated stone courtyard that made him think, unexpectedly, of a monastery. A more informed eye would have recognized the surrounding portico with its Romanesque arches, the balcony ringing the second level, and the marble casements at the third as belonging to the style of an Italian villa, not a cloister. There was the overhanging lip of an orange-tiled roof, but above that the courtyard was covered with glass, which filtered the morning light, making it seem unnatural.