Providence Noir

by Ann Hood

  Near the end, they kept her at home. Lara and Mark together held her close, turned up the morphine and the heroin. Then in the center of one night, a sudden storm, fingers of lightning, thunder; in the excruciating rapture of a heroin OD, Hannah reached out and grabbed Mark’s and Lara’s hands. She looked at their tear-lined faces and smiled a medicated smile. Sinatra sang in the background, and Hannah, just like that, was gone.

  The following morning, Brendan McKenna, the narcotics officer, called. He was beside himself. “You better sit down,” he said. “We identified the bombers.”

  Mark told him that during the night, they had lost Hannah.

  “Oh Mark,” Brendan gasped over the phone, “I am so sorry, what a horror.” For years after Brendan had stopped drinking he could be easily brought to tears. “Would you like me to come by?” he asked.

  “We’re okay, I’ve been expecting this for a while,” Mark told him.

  “The Boyle girl, she’s still with you?”

  “Lara is part of my family now, Brendan. So tell me,” Mark said, “can we put these animals in the penitentiary?”

  “We know who they are Mark, it’s who we expected.” Then he added in a particularly cynical way, “There’s not another FBI agent in the world I’d tell this to.”

  Mark cleared his throat to remain calm. “C’mon, cut it out, what is it?”

  “The information came off a bad wire, a narcotics tap without a court order. We collar them, they’ll walk. We have nothing—no witnesses, not one forensic that ties them to the killing. Zero.”

  “Mickey Reno,” Mark said.

  “Right, and two of his slammers, Sonny Mullen and Freddie Bordure.”

  Mark was quiet for a long time, then, “Ahhhh—this is bullshit,” he snarled into the phone, “murdering bastards, evil sonsabitches.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me, pal,” Brendan replied.

  * * *

  One morning, Mark awoke to find Lara in his study; somehow she had gotten hold of his case folder. There were photographs of Tommy and Callie Boyle, pictures of their incineration. Composed, Lara fingered one of his guns. Although Mark had locked it away, she’d found the key to his safe.

  Suicide, he thought. Lara was about to shoot herself. She sat cross-legged on the sofa, looking at pictures of her parents and studying the nine millimeter in her hand. “You’re not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?” Mark said, taking the gun from her.

  “Them,” she responded. “I want to shoot the people that did this to my mother and father. I want them to suffer and I want them dead, I want to help make them dead.”

  “You’re twelve years old,” he told her.

  “I’ll be thirteen in a month. I can do it.”

  Mark believed her.

  During the ensuing days and painful, sleepless nights, no matter how he asked himself the question, he kept coming back to the same conclusion: he would become his own government, dispensing his own justice. It was what he and Lara both wanted. What Lara wanted was what he wanted, and he said it out loud now, because he felt it deep in the marrow of his being, a need to say it, as much for Lara as for himself. Justice, pure and simple. Honorable vengeance was what they both needed.

  The following week in Olneyville, Sonny Mullen stalked the street like a hunter on a track. Head bowed, he moved slowly to Olneyville Square. He found a bench and sat. His eyes were black, a gold chain hung from his neck. He was nicely exhausted with little energy to bring to bear. Two days and nights at Foxwoods, and he’d won big time.

  He lit a cigarette.

  Sonny had been sitting for a short while when Lara walked up to him.

  “Please, can you help me?” she said.

  His fatigued, tanned face put on a show of weary amusement.

  Lara showed him a dog’s leash, then pointed to a nearby alleyway and looked as though something had made her suddenly sad. “My dog ran off, he’s hurt, he’s down there and I can’t carry him.”

  “Your dog?”

  “She’s strong.”

  “It’s not a pit bull?”

  “A yellow lab.”

  He folded his arms and leaned back against the bench.

  “I don’t like dogs and they don’t like me. Maybe you should call your folks. Or the cops.” An unhurried hoarse voice with that Providence tough-guy street accent he’d picked up at the ACI.

  “I thought you’d help me,” Lara said, her voice catching.

  He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then quickly got to his feet. “Oh man, fuck it,” he said. “C’mon, let’s go and get your stupid mutt.”

  Lara smiled and handed him the leash.

  It was quiet in the alleyway and the far end was dark as a mineshaft. Sonny sensed something was prowling and hiding out among the cardboard boxes behind the dumpster.

  “Hey, kid, this mutt of yours, what is it, a male or a female?”

  Sonny heard, “Why would it matter to you, hot shot? You got no problem killing either one.”

  Instantly, Sonny’s mind went to the gun in his pocket, then he thought he recognized the man standing next to the dumpster, the guy holding the nine millimeter like he knew how to use it. The nine millimeter with a professionally fashioned silencer attached.

  The kid smiled at him.

  “Do you know who I am?” Sonny said.

  “You think that makes a difference to me?” the man answered.

  “You’re not fucking with some bullshit guy, some bust-out nobody.” Sonny put his hand in his coat pocket, slowly felt his automatic, knew he’d have to push the safety off and then cock it. It would take way too long. He knew that too. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

  “Take your hand out of your pocket,” Mark said.

  Sonny brought his hand from his coat pocket to his side.

  “It’s about you and two of your buddies, Reno and Freddie Bordure. Your lunatic band of killers,” Mark said.

  Sonny folded his arms, looking down the alley then out toward the street, wondering where everyone was. “Don’t know who you’re talking about, never heard of those guys.”

  “You killed my mother and father,” the kid said. “I was there, you put a bomb in our . . .” In that moment she heard the voices gather, soft sounds of laughter or wailing.

  Sonny said, “I got my ATM card. I could probably get you a few thousand, maybe more. This way everybody earns and just goes home.”

  Mark said, “Not about money.”

  “The fuck it’s about then?”

  “You have a filthy mouth,” Mark said. And then he fired his gun.

  Lara watched Sonny, his eyes wide open, spring back, hit the ground, and roll over. There was an anguished and fearful sound and Mark shot him again.

  After pulling and dragging Sonny behind the dumpster, Lara said, “He was scared, I like that he was scared.”

  * * *

  It was almost dark when Lara knocked on the door to apartment 2B. Nothing. She knocked again, harder this time. Mark stood nearby, out of sight. The fish-eye in the door slid open. A voice from behind the door, a woman’s voice: “Whadaya want?” There was a dog barking a tiny bark, a puppy’s bark. The voice saying, “Adorable uniform, you a Girl Scout?”

  The door opened halfway, a redheaded woman stood leaning against the doorframe, smiling. “Aren’t you a cute one,” she said.

  Lara said, “It’s my last box. Chocolate mint. Everybody loves them.”

  A man’s voice mumbled angry things. “Ey,” he said, “tell her we already gave; tell her, will ya?”

  Lara handed her the box, “Open it,” she said. She paused with her hands on the door, then brought them together as if in prayer.

  A man sitting across the room on a sofa shouted, “Freddie, come out here and give this kid a few bucks, get her the hell outta here!”

  The woman said, “Look here, check this out, there’s a wedding picture in the cookie box, a beautiful couple.”

  “My mom and dad,” La
ra said.

  The man on the sofa stood up and walked to the woman, took the photo from her hand, went back to the sofa, and sat down. At first he seemed calm. But as soon as he looked at the photo, he didn’t seem calm anymore.

  Freddie came in from the bedroom, a puppy tumbling around his feet. “Smokey,” he said, “cut it out.” The puppy was gray and black, a pit bull.

  Freddie, his hands on his hips, saying, “What’s goin’ on?” The man on the sofa wiped his mouth with his forearm, looked up as Mark came though the door and shot him in the neck right below his chin.

  The woman put both hands over her mouth and held her scream. Freddie reached for the pistol he had tucked in his belt. Mark took him with a clean blast in the forehead, proving once more that Mark Perino was one hell of a pistol shot.

  The bookkeeping was real, all debts were paid. Lara picked up the puppy.

  “Please don’t shoot me,” the woman begged.

  “She saw our faces,” Lara said.

  “I didn’t see any faces, I wasn’t even here, how could I see a face?”

  “What are you doing with these animals?” Mark said.

  “Earning five hundred dollars, thank you very much. And, by the way, there’s a suitcase full of cash in the bedroom. Take it.”

  “You take it,” Mark told her. “Give us twenty minutes before you call anyone.”

  “I’ll give you twenty years, I’m calling no one.”

  Lara saying now, “Your friends murdered my mother and father.”

  “My friends,” the woman countered, throwing her arms in the air, “no, no, no, not friends. You can trust me, trust me, you can trust me. I’m going to throw up.”

  Mark said, “We’re not murderers.”

  “I hear you. I’m so happy to hear you. Maybe God is with me today, maybe God has finally shown up. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “You give him some of that money,” Mark said.

  “You bet I will. Yes, I certainly will.”

  Lara said, “I’m taking the puppy.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later they were in the car heading south. The pit bull sat in Lara’s lap, licking, squirming. She held him tight to her breast. “I feel good, I feel good now.”

  Mark took a moment then said, “Lara, I know, I know how you feel.”

  A motorcycle sped past, swerving close to their car. Lara turned and set a rigid stare on the driver, pointed her index finger at him, went, “Boom.”

  The puppy growled.

  Mark’s attention fixed on the highway in front of him, an odd sense of uncertainty began to rise. He could feel it taking hold. “Lara,” he said, “I love you. Please believe that I love you. I want you to know that no matter what, we share this road together.”

  When he turned to her, Lara was staring at him. Her stare made him feel cold and he shuddered. She frowned and pulled at her collar. Her expression was entirely without emotion, without sentiment. He might have been a total stranger. She stroked the dog in her lap.

  WALTZ ME ONCE AGAIN

  BY LASHONDA KATRICE BARNET

  Mount Hope

  When the shot went off and R.C. fell to the floor, Gussie shook awake.

  Min lay beside her, reading with the penlight required in early-autumn New England mornings, strangely comforted by the little noises of their Mount Hope home: the drip-drip faucet in the en suite bath, the sputtering hot-water tank off the kitchen in what used to be the maid’s room, back in 1886 when the house was built. The curtains behind their bed, slightly parted, let through enough light to tell on their recent household neglect. Min could live with the dust but knew Gussie would have to go over every piece of furniture with a rag and a little Lemon Pledge before the sun set that day.

  “Same dream?” Min said, touching Gussie’s shoulder.

  “It’s Willadeene’s boy. He’s in our house. Don’t know why he’s here, but he’s asking for trouble and you give it to him. You shoot him, Min.”

  “What you dreaming like that for?” Min said in agitated Kriolu, the Cape Verdean dialect Gussie had fallen in love with. “You know I’ve never fired that gun. Only reason I hold onto it is ’cause it meant so much to Daddy. I don’t even know where the damned thing is.”

  “Watch it now. Don’t go starting the day off with ugly language.”

  “It just makes me nervous, Gussie—you dreaming something like that. Make it so bad, you keep dreaming it over and over. Just gets me riled up.”

  Gussie raised a large veiny hand to work at the kink in her neck. “I don’t know why I’m dreaming it either. Maybe I feel bad for Willadeene. Bragged on that boy so tough when he finally got himself situated at the halfway house over on Friendship Street. Now he’s back home. She says he on that stuff. Say he’s lost his mind. Cracked out. That’s what the youngsters call it. Cracked out.”

  “R.C.’s dough never was quite done but I don’t think he’s on that stuff. Just can’t handle his liquor,” Min said, drawing the curtains. “But R.C.’s not behind your nightmares, Gussie. Willadeene neither. You know I told you to stop eating after eight o’clock. You can’t sit up all hours of the night, watch reruns of no-good shows, and eat too.”

  “I been snacking well into the night all my life.”

  “You call what you do snacking?”

  “I tell you that ain’t got nothing to do with it.” Gussie threw back her half of the quilt and frowned. Everything was dull and gray, even her toenails, she thought, wiggling her feet. Did Father Time really think he could win without a fight? Might not dye my hair ’cause it can’t take it, thin as it is, she thought. But I can paint these yellow toes staring up at me, making me feel old.

  “That was my cachupa you got into last night, wasn’t it? You think I could sleep through that aroma? The spices in the linguica could wake the dead. With your indigestion you’d think you’d know better than to fool with sausage after eleven o’clock.”

  Gussie yanked the covers, disgusted she had finished the delicious soup and none remained for today’s lunch, but grateful Min hadn’t also smelled the peach cobbler.

  “Eating late doesn’t have anything to do with anything. That’s just something folks say to keep old folks from enjoying the little bit of juice left to squeeze out of life. Now if I tell you a hen dips snuff, look under her wing: I’m not dreaming that dream in vain. Something’s going on with R.C.”

  “What’s on your dance card today?” Min asked.

  “Thought I’d shovel the drive. Don’t feel like doing much of nothing, but somebody needs to do some dusting.” Catching another glimpse of her toes, she added in a disgusted tone, “Need to go over to White Cross and pick up my prescriptions and some nail polish.”

  Why a woman needed to polish her toes when everybody was in boots was beyond Min. “If you’re going to Randall Square, could you pick up my eyeglass prescription?”

  Gussie nodded. “Well, minha flor, you ready to go get this day?”

  “I’m ready and I ain’t gonna let nothing get in my way.”

  The two took their time getting out of bed, little chuckles for all the effort it required—the twinge of muscles still asleep; the memory of a time those creaks didn’t fill the room or the bones. Min paused at the dresser crammed with treasures—perfumes and lotion decanted in ornate crystal bottles, a jewelry box filled with little value except for the pair of sapphire rings they had exchanged years ago—to glance in the mirror and pat down the cropped downy hair framing her smooth brown face. Gussie—apt to catch a chill no matter the season (for thirty-two years she had complained their stately Greek Revival had never been “wired right”; she blamed Min for insisting they buy an historic home, which had made foreign travel nearly impossible)—tied the belt of a mint-green robe around her thick waist. From the doorway they went separate ways: Min to the kitchen, Gussie to the bathroom.

  Second on the list of life’s most important things, after welcoming each new day with Gussie, was brewing coffee. Min dumped th
ree scoops of Brasileiro Cerrado—how anybody in Providence could buy coffee sold anywhere other than the Coffee Exchange was lost on her—into the filter, added water, and turned on the radio. After starting her bath, Gussie joined Min in the kitchen to set the table, then poured herself a cup and returned to the bathroom. She placed her mug on the corner of the tub then gripped the long chrome handle recently installed on the tiled wall. She leaned back in a bergamot-scented bath, closed her eyes, and listened as the radio announcer finished the harrowing report. Yesterday’s news was today’s blues—that made two black boys taken in a couple of months by two white cops and no indictments. The ticking of the stove top went on too long because Min either liked to annoy her or needed reminding to gauge the fire under the skillet. Soon after, though, Min started to hum because breakfast could not come together without a song.

  Min sang “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” with such feeling it made up for all of the missed notes. “Now in a cottage filled with lilacs and laughter. I know the meaning of the words ever after. And I’ll always see polka dots and moonbeams. When I kiss my pug-nosed dream.”

  Gussie liked to recall the day she first heard that song.

  * * *

  After graduating from Rhode Island College, she had filled a post at Moses Brown, the Quaker school. In her apartment that August, the mercury climbed to 103 while one oscillating fan took on a job for a 5,000-Btu air conditioner. Too hot to think, let alone read, she had laid her book aside and reached for the envelope on the table to fan herself. She reread the Women’s Auxiliary Mission’s invitation given to her by a student’s mother, which promised “a break from the heat and plenty to eat” that day. Later, as Willadeene Rutherford, proud Tennessee transplant, ushered her through the air-conditioned foyer straight to the patio, it was hard to hide her disappointment.

  “Miss Hewett, I want you to know I don’t blame you the teensiest bit for giving up my Robert Calvin to that remedial program. The head of the school himself explained it to me. It just seems to me they should’ve let R.C. finish the year out. But what do I know? Now don’t you be shy, Miss Hewett. Go on. You’ll fit right in. Sure hope you’ll want to join the church and WAM one of these days. If you need anything, tap on the kitchen window and I’ll run out,” the happy hostess said, leaving her in the middle of the garden. Gussie had dabbed at the corners of her forehead with a handkerchief, listening as a woman came to Willadeene’s defense.