The City Below

by James Carroll

  "Mullen is mine, Squire." Tucci could not resist. It was infinitely unnecessary to flaunt this, a cheap thrill his father would never have indulged, especially on a line with a prick he couldn't trust. But all at once, for the first time in years, lucci didn't care. "Your chum has been mine for a long time. I had you covered. That's why I could go with you, asshole. But I always knew a day would come when I couldn't." The wavy lilt of triumph in Tucci's voice seemed impossible to fake, like the minute patterns on paper money.

  Squire saw how he'd miscalculated, trusting too much—not Jackie, but his own shrewdness, and his certainty that Guido Tucci's son was a fool. Doyle held the phone at his mouth, mute, knowing nothing he said now would threaten Frank or dilute his sense of a long-sought and final supremacy. But omertà: Doyle fell back on silence, imposing the discipline of numbers on himself. At the count of thirty, he hung up.

  In the car, at the wheel again, he said, "No problem, Jackie. We're just going to let things simmer for a while. Tucci's spooked, God knows by what You're right about tomorrow. So we'll cool it" He pulled away from the snack bar, circled under the bridge, then back up onto it, going south.

  "So then, I call Joyce and Farrell..."

  "Yeah. Make them think their people telegraphed. Give them some shit about it Be in charge. We got to keep them needing you."

  "Okay. Yeah. Good."

  Both men fell silent, each watching the back side of Charlestown come into view. Jackie found the air inside the car stale, and he cranked his window and opened his mouth for air.

  "Want to come in and see Didi, have a brew?"

  "No. No thanks. I'll just head downtown."

  "You'll have to get a story up to explain your face. You don't want Joyce starting to think Tucci has a special interest in you."

  "Good point, that's true."

  "You'll think of something."

  "Yeah."

  "You always do."

  Mullen looked sharply over.

  Doyle was keen on his easy driving, an elbow out the window, a pair of fingers on the wheel. "Where'd you park?"

  "Across from the Bouquet."

  Instead of driving directly there, Doyle went to the top of Bunker Hill, to Monument Square, and pulled over across from his house, as if he hadn't heard Mullen's refusal. In the park to their right, half a dozen kids were cavorting on the sloping grass, a game of King of the Hill. Doyle pointed. "There's Mark, there's Paddy." Two of his sons. "What is it, Jackie, the click in the brain at some point, when we stop enjoying wrestling?"

  "I really can't come in. I should check in at the job."

  "I'm going to drive you down to your car. Just wait here a minute. I got to get something." Doyle left the car and, after waving to his sons, dashed across the street, a loping stride. He took the stairs in a burst of hops and disappeared through the door of the stately house.

  When he came out again, he was carrying a bulking green garbage bag.

  "What's that?" Mullen asked, seeing threats everywhere.

  Doyle opened the bag enough to reveal a pair of deep purple, velour-covered cushions, an Irish housewife's dream accessory. "I told Didi I'd pick these up," Squire said, as if that explained anything. He drove around the corner and down the hill to the store. When he'd shut the car off, he faced Mullen. "Come in with me. I want to show you something." He stared at Mullen so coldly now that Mullen dared not resist.

  They walked to the store side by side, Squire clutching the garbage bag.

  Mullen said clumsily, "What's up, Squire? Jeez, you're making me nervous. I feel like I'm up to my neck in wet shit, like the micks in that joke about hell, waiting for the Protestants to come by in their motorboat."

  Squire ignored him. Inside the store, he led the way across the old uneven floor into the cluttered back room. "Come here, Jackie."

  Even when he'd thought for a moment that he'd finessed Squire, the foreboding he'd felt since his fate revealed itself in the shadow of Fenway Park had not lifted. Now it positively choked him.

  The back room. As boys, they'd cut flower stems on the worktable that still ran the length of one side wall. The back wall was the walnut and chrome door of the walk-in refrigerator, into and out of which they'd hauled bundles of daffodils and birds of paradise and cottage roses and palm branches, carnations and mums. For an instant, memory played its trick on Mullen's sense of smell: the sweet aromas and cool air had always made the walk-in seem enchanted, especially in summer. It had been years since the refrigerator had been used, except as storage, and it would be musty now.

  Squire was on his knees at the third wall, beside the cluttered roll-top desk that both still thought of as old Ned's. It took a moment for Mullen to realize he was at the safe, opening it The safe had two inner compartments. One was locked and required a key. The other was an open shelf on which banded bills and rolls of coins were stacked. Squire reached in for a single roll of quarters and put it on top of the safe. Then he straightened and leaned across to the desk His eyes briefly met Mullen's, and he said, "Relax, Jackie. I want to show you something." He opened one of the several small desk drawers and withdrew a key. He bent to the safe once more and opened the second compartment. It held a cigar box, several glassine bags of white powder, a folded pair of rubber surgeon's gloves, and a Ziploc bag containing a black oily-looking pistol.

  Squire withdrew the cigar box. He opened it and, facing Mullen, fingered through a collection of small tape cassettes until he found a particular one. It was labeled Amory-2. He held it up to the light. "What do you know, Jackie?" he said. "The thickness of the tape on the take-up end of the little reel here is half what it's supposed to be. What do you make of that?"

  Mullen could only stare at the cassette.

  Doyle said, "You know what that missing stretch of tape is, pal? It's an exact measure of my stupidity—not for trusting you, because it isn't trust between a toilet bowl and the lever you flush it with; it's mechanics. No, my stupidity was in trusting myself. I guess I thought I really owned you, Jackie, like I own the shit that comes out of my asshole." Squire laughed, then replaced the tape in the cigar box, and the cigar box in the safe. He picked up the roll of quarters and faced Mullen again.

  "Jackie, do you remember when my grandfather knighted me?"

  "What?"

  "When old Ned made me his squire. Do you remember that?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm going to do that to you now, pal. I'm going to make you a squire too."

  Mullen took half a step back, shaking his head. "Your brother's the one who fucked us up here. Terry is who you got to watch for, not me. You know that. Terry's always been the one."

  "I don't want to hear about Terry. I want you over there." Squire pointed to the refrigerator. "Move!"

  "What, in there?" Mullen backed toward the door, but he was shaking his head. "I'll suffocate."

  "No you won't It's not airtight anymore, Jackie. No more than you are. It's quiet, and you can wait in there while I decide what to do with you."

  "Come on, Squire," Mullen whined, but he did as he was told. Squire could kill him now, he knew. The fact that he apparently wasn't going to gave Mullen hope. He opened the door and backed in.

  The space held old cartons and boxes, seedling cases and clay pots, the wire skeletons of wreaths and ribbons saying Mother and Beloved Son. The light bulb was long dead. Mullen had to push boxes aside to get in.

  Squire took up a position in the threshold. "Now kneel," he said.

  "What?"

  "Kneel down here in front of me. I'm going to knight you, like I said." Doyle unzipped his fly and pulled his penis out. "Here's my sword."

  "Oh, come on, Squire. Jesus."

  "Do it, Jackie. Now."

  "Blow you? Jesus, Squire! Blow you?"

  Squire laughed wickedly, and Mullen thought, if I do this, maybe he won't need to kill me. Mullen knelt and opened his mouth wide.

  At the last minute, Squire turned aside, adjusting himself, then back From in close, he began
to urinate on Jackie, who knew better than to pull away.

  "Oh, shit, Squire," he said. The piss mingled with Mullen's tears. He slowly bowed his head to his lord of lords.

  Doyle had his eyes closed as he continued hosing down his oldest friend. He went into a land of urination ecstasy, and once, unconsciously, he spoke a word aloud: "Charlie."

  Jackie, kneeling there, soaked, found himself wishing that he'd had to take the bastard's prick in his mouth after all, because this was worse.

  When he'd finished, Squire said quietly, "Jackie?"

  Mullen looked up at him, his red eyes burning.

  Squire had clamped his fist around the roll of quarters and now brought it down on Mullen's face, hitting him once—he fell against Squire's legs; twice—Squire felt the bone in Mullen's skull crack; three times before Mullen collapsed. Squire snapped the roll of quarters in two and sprinkled the coins on the slumped, unconscious figure. "I dub thee Squire," he said.

  He returned to the safe, removed the pistol in its Ziploc bag and the rubber gloves. He closed the compartment, locked it with the key, and put the key back in the desk He closed the safe and spun the dial. He put the pistol and the gloves into the garbage bag with the cushions and knotted it He took a roll of heavy plastic tape from the worktable, went back into the dead refrigerator, placed the garbage bag beside Mullen, then used the tape to bind his mouth, legs, and arms, in case the piece of shit regained consciousness, which he probably wouldn't.

  ***

  The offices of Bailey, Barnes & Coe occupied four floors of the Commonwealth Bank Building, which was always convenient, since the bank was the law firm's largest client. Unlike Bright McKay's city-facing office a dozen floors above, this conference room looked out on the harbor. Of the five blue-suited men and two tailored women at the broad mahogany table, only Terry Doyle was unaccustomed to this particular view, the islands moored like green vessels in the sharp blue water between the arching pincers of Hull on the south and Nahant on the north. The sea rose to the murky edge of the eastern horizon where the water met the sky in the blurring late light of the day. Doyle's focus kept shifting from the broad vista to tiny gleaming objects moving across his field of vision like motes. They were jets going in and out of the airport, which made Terry think of his son.

  The conference room door opened. A receptionist leaned in. "Mr. Joyce is here."

  "That makes all of them, then?"

  "Yes, sir. Mr. Joyce of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Farrell of the FBI, and Mr. Patten of the IRS."

  "Okay. Just one more moment."

  The receptionist disappeared, closing the door without a sound.

  The men at the table occupied themselves variously, adjusting a cuff, twisting the barrel of a Cross pen, centering a Rolex watch on a wrist bone. One of the women sat immobile, and the other held her pencil at the ready above a steno pad. The man at the head of the table looked at each of them. He was Brooks Otis, the chairman and CEO of the bank To one side were Harold Van Buren, the bank's senior vice president, and John Logan, the Bailey, Barnes partner in charge of the bank's file. Next to Logan was a young attorney, the immobile woman. Her name was Roseanne Day. She was black which had stopped Otis cold when he saw her in the corridor.

  "Who's this?" he'd said sotto voce, pulling Logan back as she'd gone ahead into the conference room.

  "She's a recently hired associate who—"

  "Jesus Christ, Logan. Didn't you get the drift of what we're dealing with here? This is too fucking serious to be used as training for your goddamned—"

  Logan had raised a hand in front of his own face with such an air of command that the chairman stopped. Logan had said, "After Harvard, and before joining us, she served as an assistant to the chief of the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs section of the Criminal Division at Justice. She was the principal author of the department's official guide to the Bank Secrecy Act. I'm a real estate lawyer, Brooks, which until recently was all Commonwealth Bank really needed. This woman knows more about the law on money laundering than anyone outside of Washington—and that's what you need now." Logan had moved closer to his client and lowered his voice to add, "We hired her because we saw something like this coming."

  By the time they'd entered the conference room, Attorney Day had taken a chair on the far side of the table, her back to the view, next to the stenographer, who'd shown no sign of noticing that anyone had joined her. Now, across the table, facing the women, were McKay and Doyle.

  Otis said, "John, before we ask our visitors to join us, do you have anything to add?"

  "No." Logan glanced at the woman beside him. "Do you?"

  Day leaned forward. She wore a demure gray suit, and her hair was pulled back tightly in a small bun. A bright red scarf at her throat was one hint of flamboyance. Except for the other, an oversize, white-lacquered wristwatch that contrasted with her skin, she wore no jewelry. Her eyes went right to Bright McKay's.

  "The bank's position is strong," she began. Her hand moved toward the middle of the table, toward McKay, a flaunting, it almost seemed, of the blackness of her fingers. "That is the point to have in mind." She glanced at Van Buren and Otis, but her gaze returned to McKay. "In sum, the reporting requirements of the relevant statutes are explicit There is no question of a violation there. The act does not contain a separate administrative summons or subpoena authority. The provisions of the Financial Privacy Act take precedence over the Bank Secrecy Act. In relation to Mr. Amory, you have been bound by law to protect the privacy of the bank's customers, even from the government."

  McKay nodded. "Until now, when we have reason to suspect deception."

  "Correct. Currency law imposes its burdens on transaction originators, which in this case is the Sullivan Square Savings Bank. As second party, Commonwealth Bank is under no obligation even to report suspicion."

  "Except as good citizens." McKay smiled broadly.

  Day ignored him to make her further point. "There is no question of violation, no matter what the benefit to the Commonwealth Bank."

  "Benefit!" Van Buren slapped the folders in front of him. "This was public service! We handled Amory's accounts, but he immediately collateralized them, involving us in a massive loan commitment Financing Ruggles Center involved no benefit, and we should lead with that fact" Van Buren realized that Otis was glaring at him, and so his adamancy fell away as he concluded, "Benefit to Roxbury, maybe, but not to us."

  But Logan said, "Fees meet the definition of benefit, Harold. Your fees have been considerable."

  Day repeated the phrase with special emphasis: "No matter what the benefit to Commonwealth Bank, there is no question of violation in the absence of evidence establishing intention to participate in illegal use of monetary instruments."

  "And there is no such evidence," McKay said calmly, "because there was no such intention."

  Day nodded. "Which this meeting supports, Mr. McKay. Your un-coerced and prompt notification both of bank authorities and federal authorities demonstrates the opposite of said intention." She sat back.

  Otis waited until Roseanne Day, like the others, looked at him. "Well put," he said. He looked at his watch. "Comment?"

  No one spoke.

  "All right, Neville," Otis said, "it's your serve."

  "Just call me Ace," McKay cracked.

  Unknown to the others, Otis moved his foot to the buzzer buried in the rug. A moment later the door opened. Everyone stood. The receptionist appeared, showing in the three officials who, after handshakes all around, took seats on the visitors' side of the table, facing the view, beside Terry Doyle and Bright McKay.

  Doyle listened as John Logan opened, emphasizing the bank's grave concern about irregularities only now apparent Otis added a solemn word of his own before handing off to McKay.

  McKay, carrying himself like a maitre d', passed over copies of the printouts that the others already had: the record of transactions on the Amory accounts in the months since they'd been opened. "Mr. Amory represented
himself as a real estate developer from Florida. You'll note the steady inflow of sizable monies, which was generated, as we were given to believe, by the holdings of his several companies." McKay had fallen back on the stilted manners of the West Indies, and he spoke with more than a hint of Masterpiece Theatre in his voice. "But then I noticed over a period of time that, unlike patterns of income tied to real estate that I'm aware of, there was no monthly cycle here. Huge amounts of money arriving in Amory's accounts at random intervals, and that was what set me to wondering." McKay paused as the three feds flipped through the pages of the transaction record.

  Colin Joyce, the assistant U.S. attorney, removed his eyeglasses to dramatize it when he looked up at McKay. "Set you to wondering about drug money?"

  McKay shrugged. "It's the eighties, isn't it?"

  "What'd you do with your suspicions at that point?"

  "That's what we have you here to talk about. I made a request of the originating bank to provide us copies of the Amory account CTRs, and—"

  "They refused?"

  "Not quite. They said CTRs weren't relevant because all of Amory's money came in deposit sums under ten thousand dollars. Which, of course, given the amounts involved, is ridiculous."

  "When did you make this request?"

  "Today. And we immediately called you."

  Bright looked briefly at Terry, who nodded curtly.

  ***

  Despite all their years, they had not understood what it meant that they were friends until earlier that afternoon.

  Bright, in his office, had a headache that was squeezing his eyes together, and when his secretary had buzzed him that Terry was there, he told her to say he was in a meeting.

  But the son of a bitch had walked right into his office and said, "Come on, I'm taking you to lunch."

  "I don't eat lunch."

  "You do today. Let's go."

  They walked through the canyons of downtown to Quincy Market, hardly speaking. At a food stand, they bought lobster rolls and Cokes, and left the crowded corridor for a corner of the grand rotunda. They sat on stools, off by themselves. Above them, on the wall of acid-washed brick hung an antique sign, SANDERS PROVISIONS.