“Just to be clear, we’re not here to play politics,” Brill began, his trademark cigar stinking up Lee’s room. He’d shaved recently, even suffered a haircut, but still exuded tired and grumpy. “Governor Hibert and the brass played the tune the way they wanted to hear it, but let’s not bullshit each other, okay?”
“What he means is we’re not here to fuck you.” Wells looked every bit as sharp as the day I met him, his George Hamilton glow matched only by the gloss of his chocolate wingtips. “Mess with whatever arrangement’s got you both keeping your mouths stitched about what really happened out there on the boardwalk.”
“I cut a deal in the high three digits.” I turned lazily to Lee. “You?”
“Shut up, Zesty.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Damage control from the top was expected. And though you obviously got a wild streak in you, Lee, we figure you’re most likely getting back up that career ladder, a company man through and through; just needed a little adjustment. But what got us thinking, what kept eating at us, knowing Zesty like we do now, is what could the bureau possibly have that could compel Zesty here to keep his big mouth shut, knowing what he does all the way back to 1986, especially considering Papa Meyers is beyond reach of the courts, on account of his Alzheimer’s, and Mom’s still in the wind. Ain’t nothing to hold over Zesty at the federal level, seeing as they can’t prosecute him over a file that doesn’t exist, and all his, ah, poor choices more or less local chickenshit no DA in his right mind wants to touch.”
Lee: “So you’ve concluded what?”
“Zesty’s protecting someone,” Brill said. “Ain’t that right, Zesty?”
“Spell it out for me. They’ve been diluting the morphine drip daily, but it’s not exactly Starbucks they’re pumping through these tubes.”
“LP Enterprises. It was pretty smart, your dad playing the game like he did, paying out the storage units, arranging for the coded ads in the Times—one more cash location released to McKenna as long as your mother was safe. But at some point, the sicker he got, he must have realized he couldn’t keep doing it on his own, that he had to hand responsibility over to someone to protect your mom from McKenna, keep her out of his reach but still dipping into his money. Isn’t that right, Zesty? It’s got to hurt a little, maybe a lot I figure, your dad looking at Zero as the responsible son, still feeling the need to protect you from his past? But the thing is, the thing me and Wells admire about you, Zesty, is you got no bitterness in your heart, no jealousy whatsoever. You’ve been kept out of the loop for years, and just as it’s about to close around Zero’s neck, you cut a deal with the feds to protect him.”
“He’s my brother,” I said. “What kind of deal?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something along the lines of your mouth closed about your mom’s file, how McKenna was fished back to town by Lee, and who really put the bullets in him. And in exchange, Zero doesn’t see bars, no aiding and abetting, no felony mail fraud and money laundering charges; that Wells Fargo cash is nowhere to be found, and Britta Ingalls is in the wind. Take your pick, there’s probably more. Hell, Zesty, someone could even make the argument you coldheartedly chose Zero over your mother, considering she’s off the hook for Bank of Boston. Not that the public knows anything about it or likely ever will.”
“It wasn’t a choice. I don’t even know if my mother’s alive.”
“No, I guess you don’t. Although Lee thinks she is. Unless he doesn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lee.
“No reason you should,” Wells said. “But really it’s all about the video and what you did for Leila Markovich and why.”
“Lee doesn’t know who sent him the video,” I said, and then I got it, their visit clear to me then. “But you do.”
“That we do,” Brill said. “And, Zesty—believe me when I say this—I’m sorry it wasn’t your mother. True, your mom, if she’s still out there, knew all those storage locations paid out by your dad through those LP Enterprises ads, knew where the money was and helped herself to plenty of it. Just not the money in the Kansas locker.”
“You can’t be sure of this,” Lee said. “The storage facility has no video of its own, and nobody knew of the location except for her. She could still be alive.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong, and you know it. There was one other person who knew, had to have known. Maybe only this location, but one was enough. But we figure it just wasn’t in your best interest at the time to go knocking around to find out for sure.”
“Yes.” Lee acknowledged the point. “I had my suspicions. But I couldn’t be sure Zesty would aid me if he did not hold out hope that his mother might be actively involved. I’m not proud of that.”
“I’m lost. If my mother didn’t send Lee the video, who did?”
“That is a question you could ask your father, Zesty,” Lee said. “If he truly lives in the past, perhaps he still remembers. If you recall, when McKenna fled the indictments, he left all his associates behind, including Ritter. While Ritter fared better than everyone else McKenna betrayed, his ten-year deal followed by admittance to witpro, he never forgave McKenna for abandoning him. Your father must have known Ritter on some level, and known McKenna was only securing money for his own solo run.…”
“Somehow,” I said, “he got inside Ritter’s head.”
“That would be my conjecture.”
“And I guess Zero knew where McKenna would pick up the next bundle of cash, so he got word to Ritter, led him to the locker.”
“Yes. Hoping Ritter would either kill McKenna—though it would be difficult since he’s watched closely—or do as he did, which was to rig the camera and send me the video to renew the dormant bureau hunt for him, at least unofficially.”
“And, Zesty,” Brill said, “like I told you before, I knew your father. But I also got some face time with Ritter back when I was a patrolman, and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you he was the coldest motherfucker I ever laid my eyes on. The fact that your daddy put a screw inside Ritter’s head and twisted it all these years later is the damndest trick I’ve ever seen. Fuck poker.” Brill points his cigar in my direction. “I wouldn’t sit at the table with your daddy for a game of Go Fish. And by the way, in case you’re wondering where the feds have had Ritter stashed these last few years? Just click your heels, Toto. Ritter was an army brat. He was born in Leavenworth. Who says you can’t go home again?”
Well, Mario Spagnola for one, who made good on his threat and evicted my roommates and me from our Thayer Street loft. David and his girlfriend packed up and moved to San Francisco; Nicolette opted for Northampton, and I haven’t had any contact with them since.
For now I’m subletting a one-bedroom apartment overlooking Union Square, but it’s more of a glorified closet than a place to live, the rent is astronomical, the cat resents the low ceilings, and I’m beginning to realize that the South End of my youth is no longer there, that with all the money, all the new people moving in, I’ve become a stranger in my own neighborhood. To my surprise, I’m not bitter about it. I guess I’m learning to accept change, to embrace the uncertainty of the future; it keeps me moving, and movement for me is life.
Mercury Couriers is still in business, though my time on a bike has been limited since that three-day span in which I was run over, doored by my man Cedrick Overstreet, and stabbed and shot by Devlin McKenna. There’s only so much abuse a body can take. I hired Charlie, the former doorman at 38 Newbury, and a couple more experienced couriers to fill in for me until I’m able to get back up to speed, and I’ve been helping Martha out in the office, though I doubt she’d characterize my presence in that fashion. I still have a soundtrack that plays in my head intermittently; the MRI Sam wanted me to undergo came up with some unusual electrical activity, but nothing definitive or worrisome unless the format changes and starts cranking out Rihanna or the Black Eyed Peas.
Speaking of music, Darcy’s started her own little indie la
bel, running it for now out of her North End apartment. We hang out from time to time, but I’ve yet to get another couch invitation. Our get-togethers all fall under the banner of the newly formed Celibate Slut Club, which I’m trying my hardest to quit. Don’t believe the hype: Not all celebrity comes with groupies.
As for my dad, he’s still sticking around, though where exactly he is on a day-to-day basis is anybody’s guess, myself, Zero, Sid, and a couple other guys still providing him with the round-the-clock care he needs. It’s not an easy job, caregiving, even just for a few hours at a time. The task is made more difficult by my father’s continued decline, his inability to do some basic self-sustaining tasks, and the long bouts of silence where he seems to withdraw even farther inside himself, a look of fear and confusion playing on his scarred and weathered face. A face that mine now mirrors—a lightning-bolt scar under my lower lip, off-colored bonding on my shattered front teeth.
To be honest, it’s downright heartbreaking, and I can’t help but wonder whether he forever replays those steps he took on that sunny October day with the duffel bag crammed full of the stolen Bank of Boston cash and then retraced twenty years later to do what he probably wished he’d done in the first place: stick Devlin McKenna into the ground and let the rats chew through him as they eventually chewed through the cash itself, a million rabid nibbles shredding a worthless dream.
But I like to tell myself this isn’t the case, that my father’s recollections are happy ones, that his mind is busy reliving the short but joyous times with my mother, his loyal and resilient children, the ghosts of his family and friends, and poker games where all the cards fell just right, that confluence of luck and skill that sometimes takes you on a run that falls only a pixie dusting short of magic.
Zero claims I’m one lucky bastard, that he twice almost found and derailed my father before he reached the banks of the Fort Point Channel—there was that sighting of him in Chinatown and again at the corner of Arch and Summer Streets, but he disappeared in the downpour—and that maybe I should consider taking a run at the World Series of Poker in Vegas (Zero would front me the ten grand buy-in for a percentage, of course), that my very existence defies the odds, makes a mockery of Lady Luck who, for me, turned monogamous.
It’s an unusually optimistic thought for Zero, and I’m inclined to roll with it. But reality doesn’t play out like that too much around the octagonal green felt table we bought for our father and where we sit with him and a deck of cards as often as we can manage. Our father seems at peace at the poker table, more present, clicking the heavy clay chips between his fingers, shuffling the cards absently with his badly shaking hands, every so often spinning them expertly across the table to where we sit, spinning them through the smoke, through the years, an act as familiar to us as a bedtime kiss, a tug on our ear. Once in a while, out of the blue, out of his silence, he announces the hands before us in a voice much younger than his own.
“Seven Stud, gentlemen,” he says, the brightest of lights shining in the darkest of eyes. “Poker. Get your lies ready. Not that they matter, the cards speak for themselves. Queen bets. Queen. Luck be a lady tonight.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book doesn’t get written without the safety net of my family—my boundless gratitude for letting me do things the hard way.
To my mother, Devora Abramowitz, first reader and moral compass, and the entire Gleich clan of Brighton Third, not a conformist among them.
To the Doctor of Good Ideas and the funniest man I know, my father, Martin Abramowitz.
To Yosef and Susan, support and encouragement bordering on ludicrous.
To Blake Voss, dad #2, always ready and willing.
To Ralph Parks, who gave me my first inside look. To Lee Grove at UMass Boston, who woke me up. To Deborah Dapolito, my ticket to the South End and Thayer Street.
To Irene Wagner. To Pat and Pat Ansalone.
To the editors at St. Martin’s Press: Jamie Levine, who recognized the potential, and Will Anderson, who made me turn the screws.
To Meg Ruley and Rebecca Scherer, true believers and agents extraordinaire. To everyone at the Jane Rotrosen Agency even as the house was burning.
To the Monday night poker crew: Eddie Brill, J. R. Havlan, Hank Gallo, William Stephenson, Pat Dixon, Jon Keim, Joe Mulligan, Vic Henley, Bruce Smolanoff, Costaki Economopoulos, Louis C.K., Sarah Silverman, et al., no better place to hold a losing hand.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADAM ABRAMOWITZ grew up in Allston and Boston’s South End, working as a courier, bartender, doorman, and longtime mover at Nick’s Cheap and Friendly Moving Company. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Adam currently teaches at the Amani Public Charter School in Mount Vernon, New York. He lives with his wife, the poet Adrienne Abramowitz, and their two children in Irvington, New York. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
BOSST
OWN. Copyright © 2017 by Adam Abramowitz. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from the following:
“Just What I Needed,” words and music by Ric Ocasek. Copyright © 1978 by Lido Music, Inc. Published worldwide by Lido Music, Inc. All rights controlled and administered by Universal Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
“On Dogz,” words and music by Edo. G (Edward Anderson) from the album The Truth Hurts. Copyright © 2001. All rights controlled and administered by Edo. G. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Ed O Music BMI.
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Cover design by James Iacobelli
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07629-8 (hardcover)
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First Edition: August 2017
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