Charlesgate Confidential

by Scott Von Doviak

  Jackie, though, had brought a Ouija board with her to college, so she must have known about Charlesgate’s checkered past before she ever got here. Otherwise, who would bother? Six of us had gathered to drink some beer, smoke some weed, and summon the spirits of Charlesgate. Seeing as how we were all under twenty-one, we were breaking three Emerson rules all at once. If the RA stopped by, we’d be standing tall before the Man in the morning.

  The Rev had volunteered our room for the occasion. We shared a triple in the southeast corner of the sixth floor with Murtaugh. It was a choice room assignment. Most of the triples in Charlesgate were really doubles with a set of bunk beds crammed into one corner. Once you added bureaus, desks, milk crates full of albums, and all the other crap students haul from home, there wasn’t enough room left for a fly to fart. But room 629 was one of a kind on the sixth floor, because it was actually a suite. In the far right corner, by the foot of my bed, two steps led up to our secret lair, the Love Room, where we kept the stereo, a couple of comfy chairs, a life-sized cardboard Leatherface standee from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and a futon that would fold out on those rare occasions when one of us (usually Murtaugh, truth be told) got lucky.

  The Love Room had been built out on the roof decades after the original construction of Charlesgate. Its walls were concrete, so we could crank the stereo and the RA would never hear it. On this particular night, the Love Room was festooned with candles and burning incense, which was decidedly not our usual style. In addition to the three of us who shared the room, our Ouija group included Jackie, her roommate Dana Perry, and a watery-eyed waif from the all-female seventh floor (“the Nunnery”), whose name I didn’t know.

  “Someone stuff a towel under that door. There’s one in the laundry basket.”

  I waved off the Rev’s joint and went rooting through our filthy undergarments in search of a towel to block the pot smoke from seeping into the outer room, just in case an RA stopped by for a visit. In Charlesgate, we held the Resident Assistants in about the same esteem as the meter maids writing parking tickets down on Beacon Street.

  “Use your boxers, Tommy. No pot smoke could penetrate that wall of stink.”

  “Blow me, Murtaugh.” I found the towel and stuffed it in the crack between the door and the floor.

  “We need some spooky tunes,” said the Rev, stroking his yellow tangle of beard thoughtfully. “Maybe some Crimson?”

  “I’ve got the Halloween soundtrack here somewhere,” said Murtagh with a devilish smirk. He was big on the devilish smirk. It worked for him.

  “No way,” said the waif I didn’t know. “This is scary enough as it is.”

  “ ‘If desired, set the mood by dimming the lights or turning them off,’ ” Jackie read from the inside cover of the box. “Okay, we’ve got that covered. ‘Set the planchette in the center of the Ouija board.’ ” She did so. “So who’s going first? Besides me?”

  I volunteered, of course, because if I was holding the planchette at the same time as Jackie, our fingers might brush against each other, and in my mind, that was the first step in an inevitable chain of events that would end with me waking up beside her in the Love Room wearing only a smile. Pathetic, I agree, but that’s just how 19-year-old guys think. For all I know, it’s how 89-year-old guys think too, but I’m not quite there yet.

  “What are we gonna ask it?”

  “First we have to ask if anyone’s here.” Jackie scrunched her eyes shut and cleared her throat. “Spirits of Charlesgate…are you with us?”

  The planchette began to move under my fingertips. I was applying very little pressure, but I can’t swear that I wasn’t nudging it, ever so slightly, toward the upper left corner. Whether Jackie was helping it along, I could only guess. In any case, the answer was “YES.”

  “How many of you are with us?”

  The planchette slid downward a few inches, settling on “1.”

  “Did you die in Charlesgate?”

  “YES.”

  “When did you die?”

  “1”…“9”…“4”…“6.”

  “1946. Um, let’s see…ask a question, Tommy.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know! Aren’t you a journalism student?”

  “Okay, um, spirit: How did you die?”

  The planchette vibrated under my fingers but it didn’t move.

  “Maybe that’s a sore subject,” Jackie said.

  “Yeah. Um…all right. Spirit: What was your name in life?”

  The planchette moved. Jackie read the letters. “D…O…R…”

  But before Jackie could finish, she was cut off by an ear-splitting squeal. Jackie screamed and jumped back from the board, knocking over one of the candles set up on an end table behind her. By the time it registered with me that the ongoing shrieking noise was the Charlesgate fire alarm, the candle— one of those fat scented deals encased in a glass holder—had shattered against the wall, and the window curtain was going up in flames.

  In the moment, there wasn’t much time to appreciate the irony of a fire that had essentially been caused by a fire alarm. We could laugh about that later, assuming we all got out alive. I grabbed the towel I’d just stuffed under the door and crossed the room in three long strides. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Nobody else had moved except Jackie, who was still screaming, staring at the flaming curtain in horror. I smothered the curtain with the towel, ripped it down off the window, balled up the towel, and pounded it against the wall a half-dozen times for good measure. The alarm was still blaring.

  “Okay, séance over,” I said. “What do you say we get the fuck out of here?”

  ***

  Fifteen or twenty minutes later, we were standing on the sidewalk across Charlesgate East, watching the red lights of the fire engine flash while the inspectors checked the building. When Jackie grabbed my hand and raised it above our heads, I thought I might levitate off the sidewalk and float across the River Charles.

  “Hey!” she shouted to no one in particular, her voice hoarse and sexy after all that screaming. “Hey, this is the guy! This is the guy who saved Charlesgate!”

  A smattering of applause broke out—along with a few sarcastic whoops and whistles, but I didn’t care at all.

  APRIL 22, 2014

  “Where did you see our listing?”

  Rachel O’Brien, assistant manager of Back Bay Modern Living, owners of seven condominium complexes throughout the Boston metro area, including the Charlesgate, led the client down the sixth floor hallway to Unit 67. The client had identified himself as Charles Finley, a lawyer with Goodwin Palmer downtown. Mr. Finley had explained that he was getting divorced and looking to move back to the city after years out in Medford.

  “Actually, I didn’t see a listing. It’s just this building caught my eye. Kind of a…classic, right?”

  Rachel smiled and began fumbling through her substantial keyring. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This is the only one-bedroom we have available with a view of Kenmore Square. I should tell you, since you didn’t see it, that we have it listed at $349,000.”

  “You aren’t scaring me off. I just happen to have 350K put away for a rainy day.”

  Rachel chuckled with no trace of humor. Finding the key she was looking for, she popped open the door to Unit 67 and led Finley inside.

  “There’s that view,” she said, gesturing toward the bay windows in hopes that the sight of the Citgo sign would distract Finley from noticing he wouldn’t be getting the roomiest living space $349,000 could buy. The unit was unfurnished; just an empty living room with hardwood floors, a tiny kitchen behind a bar to the left, and a short hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom beyond.

  “This was some kind of fancy hotel back in the day, right?”

  “Oh yes. The Charlesgate was the destination on the eastern seaboard during the Gilded Age. Only the best people. We like to think that’s still the case.”

  Finley walked to the bay windows and stared out at
Kenmore Square below. It was just past 5:30 in the afternoon, and foot traffic was heavy trailing out of the T station and up Brookline Ave towards Lansdowne Street. The Yankees/Red Sox game would be getting underway in about an hour and a half.

  “But it wasn’t always the best people, am I right?” Finley turned around and flashed a tight grin at Rachel. “I mean, I’ve heard some stories. Didn’t the guy who designed this place kill himself right in this building?”

  Rachel cleared her throat. “My understanding is that Mr. Putnam did pass in the Charlesgate, but I can assure you, it was not suicide. Natural causes.”

  “My bad. Can we see the rest of the place?”

  Rachel took a moment to consider it. Finley certainly wouldn’t have been the first nutjob who wanted to tour “haunted Charlesgate” under the pretense of condo shopping. She’d been impressed with his Hugo Boss suit, but up close he looked rough, like a hardhat playing dress-up. Maybe he’d worked his way through law school on the docks or in a warehouse. But she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, her commission from the sale would pay for another vacation in Belize.

  “Of course. Right this way.” Rachel stepped to the kitchen entryway. “As you see, we have the granite countertops. Real ones, not that faux-granite you often find nowadays. These are all-new fixtures and cabinets, also a brand-new dishwasher and the stainless Bosch refrigerator with French door bottom freezer and ice dispenser.”

  Finley followed Rachel down the short hallway. “Bathroom on the left, with marble tub and glass shower door. Good water pressure, too. All this plumbing is new. And the bedroom is here on the right.” She pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Again the bay windows, and you have a walk-in closet at the other end.”

  “I guess I must have got the story screwed up,” Finley said. “The way I heard it, the architect…Putnam? Way I heard it, he was some kind of high priest of the Black Mass or something. Weird occult shit, human sacrifice, all of that.”

  Rachel sighed. So he was one of them after all. “Mr. Finley, I’m sure you can appreciate that any building with a history as long and colorful as the Charlesgate attracts its share of tall tales and ghost stories. It comes with the territory, but honestly, I am not an expert on the subject. Whatever happened here in the past, the Charlesgate is now one of the most appealing highend residential communities in metropolitan Boston. If you’re really interested in the building’s past, I can recommend the Emerson College library, which I understand has an extensive file on the subject available for in-house study.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. To tell you the truth, I’m really not all that interested in the building itself. Just what’s inside it.”

  Finley closed the bedroom door behind him, blocking Rachel’s only means of exit from the room. For the first time, she noticed that he’d put on a pair of gloves, and spotted a neck tattoo peeking above his collar. She stiffened and clutched the small canister of pepper spray in her pocket. She’d been through this before.

  “Mr. Finley, our tour is over. Please step away from the door.”

  “No problem.”

  Rachel O’Brien had no time to scream as Finley lunged toward her, wrapping his left arm in a tight chokehold around her neck. With his free hand he took hold of her jaw and wrenched her head to the side until he heard her neck snap. He held his hand over her nose and mouth until he was sure her breathing had stopped.

  After her body hit the floor, Finley went through her pockets, tossing the pepper spray aside and taking her oversized keyring. Then he left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  JUNE 10, 1946

  Fat Dave was making Manhattans down at the Red Room Lounge. Fat Dave made the best Manhattans in town, but that’s not why his customers did their drinking at the Red Room. It wasn’t for the atmosphere, either; unless you liked chipped tile floors, hard wooden stools and ripped vinyl booth seats with the stuffing sticking out, the place had little to offer in that regard. Tucked away on quiet Lincoln Street, just a few blocks from South Station, the Red Room had the reputation of a safe, neutral watering hole for what was known in law enforcement circles as the criminal element. The reason for that reputation was Fat Dave, a six-foot-five, 350-pound slab of a man known for keeping the peace. There were no vendettas at the Red Room, no wars. No one ever started anything there. If anyone did, it didn’t last long. For men who wanted a place to have a drink without worrying about taking a couple bullets to the back of the skull, it was the city’s most reliable option.

  As a result of his lounge’s unique appeal to underworld clientele, Fat Dave heard everything. And because he knew Fat Dave heard everything, Dave T dropped by for a Manhattan two nights after his card game got hit.

  “Other Dave!”

  “Ho, Other Dave! What’s the good word?”

  “Drink, drank, drunk. These are good words.”

  “Getcha Manhattan?”

  “I would love a fucking Manhattan. And gimme a Gansett while I’m waiting.”

  Fat Dave cracked open a Narragansett tall boy and set it in front of Dave T, who eagerly swigged from the can. He glanced around the Red Room, saw a handful of regulars and no one he didn’t recognize. If you drank at the Red Room, chances were you’d sat in on Dave T’s card game a time or two.

  “Heard you had some trouble the other night,” Fat Dave said, scooping ice into a mixing glass.

  “I’ve had two straight days of trouble. You hear about that business over at Billy’s Tap?”

  “Think I heard something about that.” Fat Dave poured a half-ounce of sweet vermouth into the glass. “This was last night?”

  “Yeah. See, this is why it’s a good thing you got no dartboards in here, no pool table, none of that crap. Anything that gets the competitive juices flowing is bad for business.”

  “Says the guy with the card game.”

  “Well, that’s different. It’s not physical. Besides, the guys who play my game, they know better. Cuz if they don’t know better, they know they ain’t never coming back. That’s what makes it a friendly game. That’s why I can get North End greaseballs and Southie micks and mutts from Somerville at the same table and there’s never any beef. Same deal you got here. Only Billy, he don’t really operate that way.”

  Fat Dave shrugged, stirring Mount Vernon rye whiskey into the vermouth. “Not my place to say.”

  “Well, you don’t have to say it. Actions speak louder. It’s like this: Do you know my last name?”

  “It’s…T-something.”

  “Yeah. T for what? Tarantula? Tipperary? See, you don’t know. And I don’t know yours either, because we’re not in this thing. This Italian, Irish, whatever the fuck. Tribal shit. My grandparents had their name changed at Ellis Island anyway, so what does it matter? See, we stay out of all that, and it works for us, but guys like Billy…” Dave T shook his head.

  “Anyway, it was darts?” Fat Dave drained the contents of the mixing glass minus the ice into a lowball glass, dropped in a maraschino cherry, and slid it across the bar.

  “Yeah, darts.” Dave T stirred his drink. “So there’s two teams of two, right? And all four of these knuckleheads are Irish, but that don’t even matter, because two of them are with the Killeens and two of them are with the Mullens. And they got beef going all the way back to County Cork or whatever the fuck. But fine, a game of darts, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  “You tell me.”

  Dave T sipped his drink. “That’s a fucking good Manhattan.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  “Anyway. The game isn’t even close. The Killeens are knocking ’em down left and right. Closing ’em out and hitting triples before the Mullens are even on the board. So they start rubbing it in a little bit. More than a little, as I understand it. Maybe getting a little personal. And these Mullen boys, they’re not known for their good sportsmanship in the first place. So the Killeens are ribbin’ them about their aim, you know, and Chris, the crazier one of the Mullen
boys, he says: ‘So you don’t think much of my aim, huh?’ ‘No, I don’t think much of your aim.’ So Chris, he pulls his dart out of the board, he grabs the closest Killeen around the neck, and he jams the dart right in his eye.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Yeah. So now the other Mullen has to jump the other Killeen, and all hell is breaking loose. Now let me ask you this: You don’t know my last name, I don’t know your last name, but what’s Billy’s last name?”

  “Killeen.”

  “You bet your fuckin’ ass it is. So Billy comes flying over the bar with that Bobby Doerr autographed Louisville Slugger of his, and he’s all over those Mullens like they’re batting-practice fastballs. Puts Chris in intensive care, but the other one don’t have to worry about no hospital bills, because he’s dead.”

  Fat Dave whistled. “Sounds like a mess.”

  “It’s a mess all right. I mean, ordinary circumstances, Billy knows the right palms to grease. But this one’s not gonna slide so easy.”

  “Tough break for him, but what I can’t figure is why you give a shit. See, when you came in here tonight, I thought it was about something else entirely.”

  Dave T tossed back the rest of his Manhattan and glanced around, as if to be sure no one was sneaking up on him. Nothing was moving in the Red Room except a small electric fan on a shelf behind the bar. “Yeah. Well, ordinarily, you’re right, I wouldn’t give a shit. Except without getting into specifics here, those Mullen boys were supposed to help me out with something I got in the works. And now that ain’t gonna happen. Which is maybe my good luck, because obviously these guys are a couple of fuckups. Well, one’s a fuckup. One’s a dead fuckup.”