“I. . . I saved ye life twice,” Brosnan manages to say to Barry over the sound of the struggling diesel engine and the gargling propeller. “When I found ye in the collapsed tenement, then again after the White Hand beat ye on Hoyt Street. Daniel, tell him.”
“No Dad,” Daniel says from behind. “I’m not here to save ya. Wolcott told us all o’ the crazy myths about death exchanged for life durin’ the storms an’ whatnot.”
Life is due when death is wrought, the words ring in Brosnan’s head.
“Ya crazier than ya lead on, ya know that? But it turns out ya was right, I s’pose. Someone does have to give their life after all. A Brosnan. But ya can’t undermine destiny. That ya can’t do.”
“Daniel, the house in Peekskill—”
“Luckily we haven’t told Doirean about it yet,” Daniel keeps himself out of the view of Brosnan’s eyes. “She’ll never even know when I get power o’ attorney over the property. Ya know how it is ol’ man. The less ya tell that little Doe, the better off she is. We got that in common, at least. Now get on ya knees.”
“No, I can’t let ye do this son.”
Wisniewski steps forward and with two giant paws, he forces Brosnan to his knees. Saltwater in the bottom of the tug wets Brosnan’s pant legs. Wisniewski then ties his hands behind him as out on the water a lighter barge is being dragged north through the fog toward the Brooklyn Bridge. But no one is on the deck to see him, hoo-hoooo goes the harbor tug up the old river.
James Cleary rolls an empty wooden barrel on its side to the stern of the tug and rights it next to Brosnan.
Is that from the cooper by the Baltic Terminal, Brosnan wonders.
Above, Garry Barry winds the hand-scythe behind his head and swings down toward the old man with a grunt.
The world goes upside down and twirls at least four times until Brosnan is able to focus again. With one eye submerged in the two inch saltwater at the bottom of the tug, he sees his headless, flaccid body twitching a few feet away as it reddens the saltwater.
I never knew, death was always my duty. My role cast in memory, Brosnan thinks, then closes his eyes and mouths the words, my little Doe, life is due you.
Fear of A Blood Feud
Dinny’s chair sighs when he sits at the desk between the two big arched windows. A low groan rumbles his chest as he holds court from the perch overlooking the East River and Manhattan’s skyline, “They may try an’ make our ways illegal accordin’ to their laws an’ send us the way o’ the dinosaurs, but as o yet they haven’t. I called yaz all for a meetin’ ‘cause we have to thresh out the wheat from the chaff on a few things—”
Blam, blam, blam, someone bangs on the door and scares me half out of my boots.
“I have news!” we roll our eyes when we realize it’s the old man Beat McGarry’s muffled voice on the other side. “Ya gotta know this! It’s important!”
The Swede wears a terrible air and plaintively declares, “Fookin’ useless as a one-legged man at a shit-kickin’ contest.”
The men in the room look to Dinny, “Let him in before he hurts himself.”
Vincent saunters over and fiddles with the chain, but before letting him in he looks back at us with a wry smile, “Who is it?”
Big Dick Morissey’s laugh grinds like a winch engine and The Lark barks out, “We ain’t buyin’ no bibles t’day!”
The two burly longshoremen giggle like school girls as they had when they used to prank Lumpy Gilchrist, the savant. All nine of us in the room smile and for a moment we are our old selves again. But since The Swede’s left arm has withered, he cannot cross them over his chest as he was known to while standing to the right of Dinny. With Harry banished, I can’t enjoy much of anything. I want answers about his departure, and I plan to get them. The new face among us, replacing the beloved Harry, inspires nothing but unease; Tanner Smith.
Tanner cloaks himself off to the side in the office above the Dock Loaders’ Club. Better off obscured if you ask me. He is not well-liked here. In his early thirties and older than the most of us, he wears a soiled cravat at his neck and a coat that hides his suspenders and outlines the muscle in his upper arms. His dark hair curls at his forehead and the cleft at his stubbly chin where his powerful jaw meets gives him a jaded countenance in the half-light.
Beat McGarry pounds on the door again, “Ok, ok, jape’s over. Let me in. I have news.”
The Lark’s belly jiggles and Big Dick’s laugh grinds away at each of Beat’s whiney solicitations.
“Just let him in,” Red Donnelly cries in Vincent's direction as his righthand from the Navy Yard, Henry Browne watches with nervous eyes to take note of all round him.
Vincent hardly has the chain undone when Beat bursts in, “Listen, listen—”
“Brosnan’s gone missin’,” Dinny finishes the sentence.
Beat stands upright, out of breath, “How’d ya know it?”
Cinders Connolly stands up to throw a hand-rolled cigarette out an open shutter window, “I saw’r all the tunics outside their tenement early this mornin’.”
“Oh, any idear where he is?” Beat prods.
The Lark snorts.
“Do me a favor,” Dinny says.
“Anythin’.”
“Go downstairs an’ help Paddy behind the bar.”
“Well Din I thought I’d be more of a help decidin’ things up here wit’ ya guys. See, I gotta lotta experience wit’—”
“Get out!” The Swede yells. “Every time ya mouth breaks wind the whole fookin’ room smells o’ shit.”
Beat glowers at The Swede and slowly turns where Vincent ushers him out.
When the door closes, I speak up, “There’s only one thing to do here. And I’ll do it myself. I’m going to go talk to Patrolman Daniel Culkin, alone.”
“Really?” Red tilts his box-head.
“What would ya say to him?” Cinders asks.
“I’ll talk to him, man to man. He needs to hear that we have nothing to do with his father-in-law’s disappearance. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it, too.”
“Naive,” The Swede says.
Dinny clears his throat, “Don’ rush in, Liam. Think it through first, eh?”
“Why? Culkin’s mostly quiet, right?”
“Beware the quiet one; when ya rest, he strikes.”
Cinders mumbles his grief, “Brosnan’s daughter Doirean; she’s the real victim here. I feel so bad for her. She was a puddle this mornin’. We gotta help her.”
“How?” The Swede shows disgust on his long face. “More importantly, why? Brosnan arrested ya three times, like, remember?”
“He was just doin’ his job.”
“She’s a tunic’s daughter who’s married to a tunic to boot? We got bigger fish. Forget about Doirean Culkin.”
“I won’t. On top o’ all the things she’s goin’ through, she’s in an interestin’ condition, ya know what I mean?” Cinders motions with a circle in front of his belly. “It hurt seein’ her like that, cryin’ an’ whatnot. Johanna gave birth four times an’ thank god she never had nothin’ so disturbin’ that she had to cry like that. Sobbin an’ losin’ her breath an’ shit. If we don’ help her she’ll go stir crazy. She was close to her father. People need people an’ she’s all alone up there. No matter if she’s a tunic herself, she’s still Irishtown born an’ bred. Some o’ yaz’ve known her since ya was kids, Big Dick? Lark? Red? Ya just gonna leave her alone in her time o’ need now?”
“What do ya want we should do?” Red shrugs.
Cinders was waiting for that question. He turns to Dinny, “God is good, but he couldn’t be everywhere, so he created women. I wanna send Johanna, my wife to help her wit’ the kids, cookin’, laundry, ironin’. . . an’ a shoulder to cry on. At St. Ann’s Father Larkin brings Johanna in to help people through their mournin’ when fam’ly members die, like Mrs. Lonergan, ya know? She understands people, my wife, like inner thoughts an’ motives, like. She read that ya gotta bring ya repressed conflicts to
consciousness, right?”
“Ya what to where?” The Lark side-smiles.
Dinny nods, “It’s a nice thing ya offer, but Johanna can’t get in that home wit’ Connolly as her last name. Her maiden name though, it’s Walsh right?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell her to just drop in, but not wit’ Father Larkin since he knows she’s married to the White Hand. Her name’s Johanna Walsh for this. Tell her an’ she’s got my blessin’.”
The Swede says nothing, but nods when he puts it together that we’ll have someone on the inside of Patrolman Culkin’s home. A better idea than mine.
Cinders nods to Dinny, “This mornin’, when Doirean was so upset, the red head Maureen Egan shows up. Like a wild woman, she was. Wit’ a cast on her arm. Moanin’ like a banshee. But all the tunics kept her from speakin’ to Doirean an’ hurried her away.”
“They was best friends at primary school, them two. Moe an’ Doe,” The Lark says, tapping Big Dick’s arm. “Remember them two?”
“The most beautyful girls in all o’ P.S. Five. Most popular too. But that was a long time ago. They went in very different directions afterward.”
The room turns to Red Donnelly.
“What? We all make mistakes, right?”
The Swede’s face pinches, “Red on red. They should make it a punishable offense. A redhead’s got no business marryin’ another redhead. Ya shoulda known better, Red.”
“I shoulda, sure, but I ain’t no catch.”
“Then why do they call ya Cute Charlie?” The Lark sniggers.
Red looks with reproach toward The Lark, then bows his head ashamedly, “An’ anyway, she was—”
“Sleepin’ around,” The Swede interrupts. “Ya was one o’ many, but somehow ya thought givin’ Moe a ring would change her ways. A woman may love a ring, but it don’ magically turn vice into virtue.”
“She’s troubled,” Dinny says. “Ya don’ kick troubled people, ya help them up.”
“I’d feel bad for her if she hadn’t made me look like a fool,” Red says.
“That don’ take much,” The Swede mumbles.
Big Dick voices in with a baritone, “I hear Moe just wanders around now. Some say she lives in Green-Wood Cemetery. But not long ago she was datin’ Garry fookin’ Barry the day we beat his head in on Hoyt Street. A year or so later he was pimpin’ her outta their room when a tunic an’ a big man came durin’ the storm. Left her wit’ a broken arm an’ took Barry an’ Cleary wit’ them.”
“She was a bedraggled mess this mornin’,” Cinders says. “But why would she show up at her ol’ friend’s home when Brosnan disappears? She know somethin’ we don’t? Is that why the tunics shut her up an’ hurried her off?”
“Maybe we should ask her,” says I. “Where does Maureen Egan live?”
“Nowhere, she just wanders around,” Red says with bitterness on his mouth. “Don’ waste ya time on her. She ain’t reliable. She hears voices, ya know? She’s just. . . She’s just a person who brings misfortune to all around her. Like a witch. It’s best to steer clear. Everything she touches bursts into flames an’ turns to ashes. Some people create. Some destroy. Them people ya just gotta stay away from. Let Moe Egan spread her black magic to others so they can suffer the misfortune she conjures.”
A cold wind slips through the iron shutters and runs up my legs and into my back. The smell of old and damp wood fills my nose as Dinny speaks, “Brosnan is our biggest concern. We may see him as a tunic an’ a souper, but when a policeman goes missin’, the earth shifts beneath our feet.”
“Hate to say it, but Brosnan probably went the way o’ Mickey Kane,” Cinders shakes his head.
“We need to hit back at Lovett once an’ for all,” The Swede says. “He takes out Mickey, annexes Red Hook from our partner an’ disappears a tunic? He’s outta control. We’ll look like heroes for takin’ him down.”
“Ya sure it was Lovett did this to Brosnan?” The Lark wonders.
“Lovett comes back from the war an’ the bodies start pilin’, who else would it be?”
“Hold on,” I step away from the window, “What if it wasn’t Lovett?”
Dinny leans back, “G’on.”
I turn to The Swede, “Think about it. Last year Wolcott got a reporter from the Daily to write a piece on police corruption in Brooklyn, remember?” I look to the rest in the room. “After that Brosnan refused to go on the tug with us any longer. Maybe he wanted to break clean from Wolcott too? A fat man gets angry when someone at his table doesn’t ask to be excused. We have to put it all together,” I realize my earlier mistake. “There’s too much to lose here. I lose sleep thinking about what would happen if we lost what we have. Or worse. They know where I work. Where I live. What would my Mam do if. . . I can’t even say it, but we need to puzzle this out. When Maureen Egan had her arm broken, a tunic and a big man took Barry and Cleary during the storm, right? Well which tunic was it?”
“Dunno,” Big Dick says. “Short fella. Some kids witnessed it from a window above Hoyt Street. They said it was a short tunic. But everyone’s short next to a big man.”
“So who was the big man?” I interrupt, but get only shrugs. “Was it Wiz? Wolcott’s lump? Because we saw Wisniewski with Barry together after the storm.”
The Swede cuts in, “Where ya goin’ wit’ all these questions? Ya’re always wit’ the questions, Liam. Where’s ya little buddy Burke? We summoned everybody t’day. Burke ain’t everybody?”
“Don’t worry about him,” I answer, but in truth I don’t know where he is.
“Not that it’d matter, that fookin’ little poltroon is nothin’ but a empty coat.”
“Stop changing the subject,” I raise my voice at The Swede. “If we don’t figure this out, we’re done.”
“Now he’s a expert, look at him,” The Swede motions.
Beat McGarry bangs on the door again, blam, blam, blam. “I have news!”
“An’ this fookin’ guy,” The Swede points at the door. “Can we have a moment o’ silence for him? He’s dyin’ for attention.”
Beat is allowed to pass and rushes in like a flood to drop the afternoon edition on Dinny’s desk, “There’s a long article about Brosnan in the papers. They’re blamin’ his disappearance on us. Captain Sullivan says that Brosnan reported to him recently that the gangs offered him a whole rake o’ money, but he refused.”
“We didn’t offer him nothin’,” The Swede says.
“Brosnan’s daughter Doirean is quoted too, she says the gangs must have done somethin’ to her father,” Beat looks up. “But we didn’t do it, right? Did we?”
A silence takes the room until Beat turns his eyes back to the newspaper and points at the print, “Look here, it says Daniel Culkin is headin’ up the investigation.”
“Culkin? He’s just a patrolman,” I grab the paper.
The Swede laughs, “Ya still plan on talkin’ to him man to man?”
Underneath the article there is another about a cub reporter that was stabbed to death with some strange weapon, maybe a sickle blade, in his own room downtown. He had been chopped up, and parts of his body were strewn across his room and a hand was drawn on the wall in white paint.
“Jesus wept,” Beat says.
Cinders slams his fist onto the paper, crumples it and throws it on the floor. “They’re tryin’ to dump it all on us.”
The Swede begins pacing in the room, “They’re closin’ in. Fuck, fuck. . . We didn’t do any o’ this.”
“Let’s just keep calm. Let’s figure this out,” I say. “The day before Brosnan disappeared, I saw him at the Atlantic Terminal.”
The Lark speaks up for both he and Big Dick, “We saw’r him at the Baltic Terminal too, wit’ Culkin. They kept goin’ south.”
“Together?” The Swede demands. “A day before Brosnan’s daughter reports him missin’?
I sit in the chair and lean a finger on my temple, “They’re against us too.”
“The law’s alwa
ys been against us.”
“Not when we paid them off. Now they’re coupled up with the Waterfront Assembly. This is a big move,” I point to the crumpled paper on the floor.
“Ya don’ know that for sure,” The Swede cuts in. “Ya whole argument’s based on the fact Culkin kills his own father-in-law. An’ the Captain o’ the Poplar Street Station’s in on it too? All the way up to Wall Street? No fookin’ way. Ya really want us to believe that?”
“What I am saying is we have to know who is behind it. There is great danger in not knowing what we don’t know. We’re trying to survive here, as a group. All of you in this room understand that if we don’t keep things together, we lose everything?”
The Swede raises his voice in the echoless room, “We understand it, Liam. But tunics, they get the benefit o’ the doubt. Ya gotta have evidence before ya make a claim like that. The fact is we didn’t do this an’ that’s all there is to it. The truth sets ya free, not lies.”
The Swede and I both move our eyes from each other, to Dinny. The rest of the room does as well.
“Anyone have anythin’ else to add?” Dinny looks at each individual in the room, then folds his hands together on the desk when he receives no answer. “We should assume Wolcott an’ the Waterfront Assembly are behind the Brosnan thing—”
“There’s no evidence o’ that,” The Swede cuts in.
“They want us gone, that’s evidence enough. Bill’s got as much motive as we do,” Dinny says and nods toward me. “Let the kid speak, he’s got more to say.”
The room turns to me.
“Say ya peace,” Dinny signals in my direction. “G’ahead, I know what’s really botherin’ ya.”
I lean a hand on the desk, “You banished an honorable man, but you let another in who dishonored you. Dishonored all of us. What did Harry even do to deserve getting banished? We can’t afford to break ourselves apart before even we get started fighting Lovett or. . . or dealing with this Brosnan question. Now that we know we have enemies everywhere, we need to be united. Without Harry, we’re weaker. The White Hand has never been this weak. Thousands of people depend on us. We owe it to them to make sure we’re ready to fight and able to provide for them.”
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 21
