The Fighting O'Keegans

by Aaron Kennedy

  O’Keegan stood alone, waiting for each of his guys to come back. Shorty was off following the Supervisor around Boston, Flannery and Alteri busy looking for a base for the O’Keegan gang, the rest of the crew scouting for any useful information they could pick up.

  They were all due back soon.

  O’Keegan paced, thinking through all the things that needed still to be done, concentrating on the chess game going on in his head.

  O’Keegan was looking forward to getting things moving, he could think of nothing else. Calming himself down he stopped his pacing, the only movement he allowed himself was his foot tapping as he went through everything he had learnt so far.

  Looking around, he took in the Boston skyline, the buildings reaching up higher than most he had briefly seen in London, and that city had overwhelmed him after his small town in Ireland.

  Everything he had heard about America and Boston was reinforced, money was everywhere, sprinkled liberally amongst the immigrant poverty.

  There was plenty to be made here but he knew any place would offer more opportunities and look better than where he was born and grew up.

  It wasn’t that he had anything against where he had grown up but he couldn’t help feeling that it was slowly dieing. Any place where most of the young had either left or were on their way didn’t have much time left, America was everything his part of Ireland wasn’t. Thousands of people came to make a new life here ever month, testament to the fact that there was no other place O’Keegan could imagine where a fortune could be made if you were prepared to sweat blood.

  O’Keegan would have preferred to make his enemies do the sweating but he was under no illusions that if the time came, he would give up whatever he had, even his life if it meant he had the chance to make a life finally worth losing.

  He sat on one of the waterside’s stone bollards waiting for the boys to return, at ease for the first time in months.

  O’Keegan felt someone close by, almost a breath on the back of his neck, his tuned reactions giving him a brief glimpse of something as he sensed and moved, already turning as he felt blow glancing of the side of his head, and continuing down his back. Not connecting fully. Who ever it was hadn’t got a perfect hit.

  For as long as he could remember being completely aware, being ready for every threat had been central to his life, a reputation required it as there was always someone ready to take their shot. O’Keegan twisted, years of instinct making sure his body moved before his mind had a chance to catch up. Then his synapses began to fire, someone had just tried to knock him down and they would try again. His body continued to move, his torso turning towards his attacker, trying to ensure a second attempt would have even less luck than the first.

  His mind still moving slower than his body registering surprise that someone had managed to get close enough to make the first attempt without his alarm bells ringing. His attacker stepped back, surprised that O’Keegan hadn’t gone down at the first strike, raising the black jack up as high as he could, summoning all his energy to for the next swing.

  Meehan had made his orders to Reilly explicit, give the Mick a good going over, make sure his friends get the message Meehan doesn’t appreciate anyone screwing with his businesses or his people.

  Reilly stepped forward again, trying to finish off the job before O’Keegan could completely shake off the dizziness from the first blow, his arm all the way back, he tightened his grip on the black jack and viciously brought his arm down.

  But O’Keegan had been on the wrong end of plenty of attacks, both failed and successful, every muscles and fibre strained in concert to protect as he saw the fast moving cosh coming down from the side of his blurred vision.

  O’Keegan raised his arm, getting a brief chance to bring his head beneath it as Reilly’s arm smacked down across O’Keegan’s fore arm, the black jack didn’t stop but wrapped over O’Keegan’s effort to block until it connected with the top of O’Keegan’s head. As it connected O’Keegan’s left fist was travelling through the gap under his right blocking arm, his knuckles exploding into Reilly’s stomach.

  The next moment O’Keegan dropped his right elbow and turned fully, reaching up to grasp Reilly’s throat. He allowed himself to fall backwards, still holding onto Reilly as he lifted his heavy booted foot straight into Reilly’s groin. Reilly’s brain registered the impact, the world turning into blinked snapshots as the force of O’Keegan’s boot kicking with full force into his balls, lost maybe forever into his stomachs recesses.

  Reilly blanked, the pain cresting over him as O’Keegan sent three fingers straight into his throat. Reilly’s brain went into pain overload and for the sake of his sanity collapsed, allowing him unconscious freedom as he sank into blissful darkness.

  O’Keegan lay there for a second his chest raising and falling as he took a few careful breaths. Were there more? Carefully turned his still ringing head from side to side, feeling like it was going to fall off if he moved it too fast.

  O’Keegan looked around for more contenders, seeing people quickly shuffle past, eyes doing their best to ignore him and Reilly, he could have killed his attacker right here, in the middle of the street and everyone’s eyes would be firmly focused on something, anything else. Perhaps if they didn’t look at them then they weren’t really there.

  Content that this was it for now, O’Keegan allowed himself a second to lay back. Despite his head ringing like a church bell, he was happy, he had come out on top again, relieved that this time there had only been one goon. A few seconds more and O’Keegan raised himself up on his elbow, looking Reilly over.

  A pair of large hands took hold of his shoulders and began to forcefully pull him upwards, O’Keegan tensed, ready again to fend of this next threat. Flannery’s smiling face came into view as he was pulled back onto his feet. Flannery made a show of dusting O’Keegan off then whistled between his teeth to show his appreciation of O’Keegan’s handy work,

  ‘Couldn’t you have left something for me? Flannery prodded Reilly with his foot. ‘What, you can’t keep out of trouble for even an hour? Who is this guy, a tourist?’ O’Keegan looked down at the crumpled Reilly.

  ‘Yeah, thought I would try to earn a few bucks and roll a local while I waited for you.’

  His fingers touching the sensitive spot at the back of his head, feeling the bump that was starting to push through his matted hair.

  Flannery gave Reilly another half hearted kick.

  ‘This guy wasn’t after your money, look at his clothes, he’s too well dressed, you should be the one mugging him by the looks of you two.’ Flannery reached down, flipping the jacket over from the unconscious Reilly’s chest, the dark gun metal instantly visible.

  ‘What have we here? A nice little piece, all oiled and ready for use…and this guy tried to hit you with a black jack?’ He pulled the gun out, weighing it in his hands.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense does it? The only thing that does is this guy must belong to Meehan…a warning.’

  ‘You reckon? It didn’t take him long to throw something at us, he obviously thinks and acts fast. You sure this is a message from Meehan?’

  O’Keegan reached down to pick up the black jack before taking the gun from Flannery.

  ‘Who else have we pissed off? This isn’t just some welcoming committee. Yeah, this piece of shit is Meehan’s…He’s sending us a message. This guy was right behind me, it would have been easier to pull the trigger than smack me upside the head. This is Meehan saying Keep Off’

  ‘Are we going to?’ O’Keegan shook his head then winced as his head reminded him he was still fragile.

  ‘I don’t know about you but I don’t listen to message like this. He may act fast but he isn’t acting smart. He doesn’t know us yet, didn’t talk to us, didn’t try to find out if we could be useful. Fast but no subtlety, Meehan’s just made his first mistake. I say you and me figure out how we can win this one then send him a message straight back.’

  ‘Subtlety, now that’
s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.’

  ‘Don’t fuck around Flannery’ O’Keegan gave him a shove, laughing. Flannery returned both before they relaxed, giving themselves a few seconds. O’Keegan spoke first.

  ‘Well…at least we know were pissing the right people off, but it would have been nice to have got a little settled in before we started a war. We’ve got way too much to get organized before we can even begin to tackle someone like Meehan on his own turf.’

  ‘Your right, let’s hear what the rest of the boys have to say when they get back, but what about that message?’

  O’Keegan gave the unconscious Reilly a kick, thinking it through. They both looked at each other knowing they were both inclined to send this guy back to Meehan in pieces. Flannery broke the silence.

  ‘We use this guy as the message?’

  O’Keegan thought about it for a second or two.

  ‘No, that would bring down too much heat, we’re not ready for it yet.’

  ‘That subtlety word again?’ He grinned.

  ‘If you like…The way I see it, we have two choices. We can give this guy back to Meehan minus a few digits or we can just send him back with a headache in a day or two so Meehan can wonder if I just got lucky this time.’

  ‘That makes sense. Let’s keep him guessing…’

  ‘So we’re agreed, we let the little fish go until we’re ready to start reeling in the big fish. We need more people…maybe the Supervisor will come through for us. We’ve made a good start but we need more and anyway, we don’t know enough about Meehan yet…aside from the fact that he acts fast.’ Flannery leant down, picking up Reilly’s discarded blackjack, slipping it casually into his back waistband. O’Keegan kept talking.

  ‘How did you get on at your Cousin’s place? Where’s Alteri? You got him killed already?’

  ‘No, not yet…left him there to get everything ready.’

  ‘Tell me about it’

  Flannery shrugged. ‘Everything was good. It’s a butcher shop in Southie, a large back room mostly used for storage and a part time office. He used to live above the shop but business isn’t so bad, so he found himself somewhere else to live. He’s happy for us to use it all as long as we don’t get in the way of the business.’

  ‘So you and me have a place to stay…that’s good. We can be close to our ‘business’.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s happy to let us have use of it, the only problem we might have is that right now he’s paying Meehan to keep his shop nice and protected and the way my cousin sees it, if we’re there full time he doesn’t need to pay for it to stay protected anymore. So, it’s ours, it’s free and it’s right in the middle of things. The only catch is we make sure no unnatural disasters happen to it. You want to take it on?’

  O’Keegan nodded. ‘Whether we like it or not, Meehan’s going to be looking to even the score with us anyhow so we may as well get something out of the aggravation. When do Meehan’s boys collect?’

  ‘Next Saturday, sometime in the morning.’

  ‘OK, that gives us a few days to get ready. I sent Shorty to follow the boiler supervisor. Given the little warning we gave him for the Sunday meeting, I figured as soon as he was off the ship he would go looking for Meehan. The fact this guy’s here…’ His eyes flicked down to the still unconscious Reilly ‘…say’s the Supervisor has already seen Meehan and told him about us. As long as Shorty didn’t screw up, and stuck with the Supervisor then he can tell us where we can find Meehan.’

  ‘Good…then we can deliver a little package to Meehan.’ Flannery said.

  ‘No, if Shorty has found Meehan’s place then we should give him a little surprise during our Sunday meeting, if we deliver this piece of shit sooner it will spoil the surprise.’

  Reaching into Reilly’s jacket pocket O’Keegan pulled out a bill fold and a few betting slips made out to ‘Reilly’, he whistled in surprise,

  ‘These guys get paid good money, no wonder they do what they’re told. When some of the boys get back, take our friend Reilly to your Cousin’s place. Make sure he’s kept safe and sound, we’ll need him delivered just after we go visit Meehan.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll make sure he’s nice and safe.’

  ‘Good. Also, pick two or three of the guys that can handle themselves and have them start helping your cousin out around the shop, we want to be ready when Meehan’s people come by for their money. Tell them that when Meehan’s boys turn up, their not to get into any scraps, their just to tell Meehan’s boys that they are looking after the shop now and we don’t need their services.’

  ‘Meehan’s people won’t like it’.

  ‘They’re not meant to like it but that’s the deal you made with your Cousin. We’ll just have to make sure that nothing happens to your Cousin’s shop. By saying ‘No’ to Meehan, his next move will be to either try to put the squeeze on your Cousin or to knock over his store, Meehan won’t want word getting around that people can refuse his protection without consequences. He’ll hit back and he’ll hit hard. We need to be ready for that too.’

  ‘No problem…one more thing, me and Alteri met a few of the locals and if they have any sense, they’ll be coming by later to join up. Thought we could use a few heads that know their way around Boston.’

  ‘That’s smart, let’s hope they don’t cause more trouble than their worth. Get them to prove themselves first, we’ll need guns and fast. Meehan will wise up soon and when he does, we’ll need all the firepower we can get. At the moment we’re just one more daily irritant, soon he’s going to figure out that we’re more than that, we need to make sure that we are.’

  ‘Right. Anything else?’ Flannery smiled, he could already see it all working out, if they could get through the next few months anyway.

  ‘Yeah, we need a place to stay for the boys. When Shorty gets back, have him go look for a place close to your Cousin’s shop. Here’s some money I just found’. O’Keegan handed over the money he had taken out of Reilly’s wallet.

  ‘OK, Boss…we’re going to war aren’t we’.

  ‘Some things don’t change Flannery, doesn’t matter whether we’re in the old country or in Boston. We’ve always been at war, now there’s just something worth fighting for…’

  Flannery grinned. O’Keegan smiled back, it was slowly coming together.

  Chapter 22

  The few rooms above the shop that Flannery had described were slightly more than that. O’Keegan sat in one of the threadbare armchairs, the light streaming into his and Flannery’s new home.

  He pushed his feet along the rug, watching it ripple up, then taking in the pictures hanging on the wall, the large round clock and radio tucked against a corner wall on top of a small wooden side table.

  It all made him feel good, Ireland and his Father further away than they had ever been before. He could hear Flannery moving around in the kitchen next door, a tea spoon clattering as Flannery made himself a hot drink.

  ‘Hey Flannery, get in here, we’ve got things to do’

  ‘Alright, I’ll be there in a minute…’ Flannery yelled through the wall.

  O’Keegan slide down further in the chair, stretching out his legs in front as he relaxed for the first time in what seemed like month, his mind turning to Meehan.

  Meehan was established, he had more boys, more guns and more money than they did. But Meehan wasn’t expecting anyone to be stupid enough to try muscling into his businesses and his territory so soon off the boat.

  Was it stupidity for him to give Meehan a hard time so soon after he’d arrived or was him not expecting it one of the few advantages they had? He also had a reputation to maintain, that was something O’Keegan understood better than anyone on the planet…perhaps that was his Achilles heal. Am I afraid? No, it wasn’t that, Meehan was just one more tough guy.

  O’Keegan hadn’t yet found anyone too tough or too smart, but he needed to make sure he didn’t take Meehan for a fool. He lit a cigarette, watching the smoke travel in curls to the ceil
ing before turning back to Meehan.

  The fact that he had sent someone out to give him a ‘friendly’ little warning meant a few things. First Meehan wasn’t happy that O’Keegan had roughed up one of his representatives, even if it was the fat little Supervisor. Second, Meehan must have heard that O’Keegan had a few boys walking around asking too many questions. These whispers had got to Meehan in under an hour, Meehan was obviously tight with his territory, anything said and done out of the ordinary found its way back to Meehan fast. O’Keegan would need to make sure his boys didn’t say too much or ask too many stupid questions otherwise Meehan would put two and two together before he and Flannery were ready.

  Mentally checking off the list he needed to know more about his and Flannery’s boys. Were they all prepared to do whatever it took to make it here in Boston and as part of the O’Keegan gang? How could he figure out who had it and who didn’t?

  Then it occurred to him, perhaps the solution to it all. ‘Flannery…get your arse in here…’

  O’Keegan stood and began walking around, not able to sit. One thought running around in his head, drowning out all others with it’s yell. This is it, this is it. A fight, a FIGHT, one against the other, reputations can be made with a fight. I know that better than anyone. My god, that’s it. Meehan has a reputation to keep, everything he has is based on it. Take the reputation away and he loses all respect, take or build a reputation, that’s the fucking answer. If he could pull Meehan’s away then it all falls apart.

  ‘Flannery, Flannery, FLANNERY, get the hell in here, I think I’ve got the answer…’

  Flannery came through, hot mug in hand. ‘Yes, Boss.’ This time he wasn’t smiling, he knew O’Keegan’s had something and it was serious.

  ‘Did Shorty come back yet?’

  ‘Yeah, then I sent him off to find a place for the boys to bed down, he got back a little while ago. I gave him Reilly’s money so there should be no problems with that. He sent some of it to your Brother in Ireland as you told me too. He’s going to be the richest bugger in your village...’