by Ace Atkins
“You know Gerry’s in his forties,” I said. “Why’s everyone call him a kid?”
“That motherfucker got back into it last year,” Tony said. “I thought it was a joke. Don’t think it’s a joke no more. Especially now he thrown in with Flynn.”
“Dorchester.”
“Five people dead.”
“What was it over?” I asked.
“What the hell you think?” Tony asked. “Drugs.”
I nodded and Hawk nodded. He removed his sunglasses.
“What’s Flynn’s deal in this?” Hawk asked.
“You know Jack Flynn?” Tony asked.
I nodded.
“He been out of the joint a few years,” Tony said. “Figure he out of the life till I heard about him openin’ that bar in Southie with Broz’s kid. One got more money than sense. Other bring a lifetime of respect and fear.”
“Partners?”
“You got to ask them that,” Tony said. “Didn’t study their got-damn business plan. And I don’t give a shit. I just know I can’t have any of you Irish motherfuckers thinkin’ you gonna run some skin, too. You see?”
“Jack Flynn is not my people,” I said.
Tony leaned in. He threw back his whiskey. “How long I been in the life?”
“Long time,” Hawk said.
“Yep,” Tony said. “And I’ll say this. Jumpin’ Jack Flynn is the craziest, most fucked-up son of a bitch I ever known. That a thing, ain’t it?”
Hawk nodded.
“Your problems may be over soon,” I said. “The Feds are all over Broz and Flynn.”
“They been all over me for years. Doesn’t change shit. Whores need to be run. I know how to do the runnin’.”
“They want to shut down Broz,” I said. “And close the case on the old man.”
“That what you heard?” Tony asked. His mouth pursed into a tight smile.
I nodded.
“Well, you wrong,” Tony said. “They ain’t after Broz. They after the Italians and Gino Fish.”
I looked to Hawk. Hawk looked back to me. He lifted his eyebrows.
“Jack Flynn did five years for one murder,” Tony said. “I know for a fact that sociopath killed at least fifty. I ain’t shittin’ you, man.”
“You think he cut a deal?” I asked.
“What’s it look like to you, Irish?”
“You got proof?”
“Man, I just counting my money and taking it day by day,” Tony said. “God willing.”
I nodded.
“What if they come for you next, Tony?” Hawk asked.
“Reason I got Ty-Bop and Junior,” Tony said. “Nobody likes no gang war. But they happen from time to time. I got other people, too. I hold my fucking ground.”
“Gino know about this?” I asked.
“Since that shooting, the territory’s been up for grabs,” Tony said. “You better believe ole Gino is holding on to his nuts. Or having someone hold them for him.”
I nodded. Hawk looked to me. He put his sunglasses back on.
“I’m glad you got back the bar’s original name,” I said. “It’s what kids today call retro.”
“Glad you like it, man,” Tony said. “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.”
Tony did not stand. He did not shake hands with us. He just kept that look of humor on his face as we exited from the darkness of Buddy’s Fox.
43
Since when does Tony go to church?” I asked.
“Tony always go to church.”
I nodded.
“Even pimps got faith.”
“You think Junior and Ty-Bop go with him?” I asked.
“Nah, man,” Hawk said. “Probably steal the collection plate.”
My cell rang in my coat pocket. I answered.
“We got to talk,” Mattie said.
“Okay, talk.”
“Right now,” she said. “In person.”
“I’m with Hawk.”
“Meet me at the playground at the McCormack.”
“Hawk will like that.”
I made a U-turn and headed toward the bridge.
“Southie?” Hawk said.
“Yep.”
“Mattie?”
“Yep.”
“What she want?”
I shrugged and headed that way. It had started to rain, but it felt warm and pleasant inside the car. I turned on the windshield wipers as Southie passed in the washed-out hues of an old Polaroid. Old brick and chain-link fences. Churches and donut shops. Abandoned storefronts and renovated condos. The road was slick but not yet iced.
We parked in front of the small playground. There was a swing set with heavy chains and thick rubber seats laden with wet snow. Small metal animals with handles for ears and springs for feet poked from the white ground.
Cold rain pelted the windshield. We got out and stood with Mattie.
“You want to sit in the car?” I asked.
“Theresa Donovan is fucking missing,” Mattie said. “It was all people were talkin’ about at Mass. People tried to shut up when I was around. I guess they thought it might freak me out.”
“What did you hear?”
“That she’s gone,” Mattie said. “You know she about shit a brick when you started asking about my ma. And I know Mickey is saying she was with my ma the night she died.”
“You spoke to Mickey?”
Mattie nodded.
Hawk stood close on the sidewalk and leaned against a wrought-iron fence. Rain beaded down his bald head. His arms folded across his chest. He looked completely at home.
“You know it was Red and Moon,” Mattie said. “You got to do somethin’. Her little sister is my age. She puked her guts out this morning.”
“If she’s with those two,” I said, “we’ll know.”
“Let’s go,” Mattie said. “Come on.”
“I love a spunky kid,” I said.
“I wanna watch you guys stomp those animals,” Mattie said.
“We good at the stompin’,” Hawk said.
“Years of practice.”
The rain turned to sleet and felt like tiny needles on my face. The expanse of the housing projects seemed to grow quiet and still. It felt as if we were the only three present.
“You don’t go off half cocked,” I said. “You move when the time is right, not when you’re mad. You go clearheaded and with a plan.”
Hawk nodded. “If they got this girl, we get her.”
Mattie shook her head. “Must be easy for you two to be cool,” she said. “How can you? You just stand around and move slow and make jokes. How can you joke around? What are you thinking?”
“Hawk and I have been up against a lot worse,” I said. “We watch and wait. We rush in and scare them, we’ll never find her.”
“She’s fucking gone,” Mattie said. “They’ll kill her.”
“If they wanted to shut her up,” I said, “she’s already dead.”
Mattie’s face had grown red. Her hands balled into fists. She was doing that biting thing with her cheek again. “Jesus. Neither of you know what it’s like. I lost my mother.”
“I lost my mother, too,” I said.
“It’s not the same,” Mattie said. “Your mother died. Mine was killed. You don’t know what that feels like. It fucking hurts.”
The air seemed to drop a few degrees. Sleet fell harder than rain. We all stood there, stubborn. Two cars passed, rolling slow, down the road through the projects.
Hawk turned to Mattie. “I know.”
I had known Hawk most of my adult life. He’d never mentioned a family. For all I knew, he’d just appeared fully formed like a Greek god.
“I was older than you,” Hawk said. “A bad man killed her.”
“What happened?” Mattie said. She dropped her fists and stood in the sleet in her misshapen coat and ridiculous cap. She studied Hawk with an open mouth. She breathed as if just finishing a marathon.
“Doesn’t matter,” Hawk said.
<
br /> “Did you find him?”
Hawk nodded.
“Did you get even?”
“Oh, yes.”
Mattie wet her mouth. Her face had gone from bright red to colorless. Sleet salted the shoveled pathways, crooking in broken mazes. I kept quiet.
“How’d that feel?” she asked.
Hawk moved from the fence toward us. He looked down a few feet at Mattie. Without much emotion, he said, “Perfect.”
44
Mattie sat in the backseat. Hawk rode shotgun.
She had removed her soaked Sox cap. Her jacket was weatherproof and slick. She chewed gum and smiled, leaning into the seat between us. “Where we headed?”
“We goin’ on a stakeout, missy,” Hawk said. “Sit back and enjoy the excitement.”
I turned on the car’s heat. The sleet pinged off the road ahead. Bringing Mattie along contradicted every microfiber of good judgment I had. But she’d asked to watch us work. And watching and waiting wasn’t a dangerous gig. And since I wasn’t going to teach her how to box or build a house, maybe this was something.
“This is fun to you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because it feels like I’m doing something,” she said. “They’re not making the rules. Feels like we’re in charge.”
I nodded.
“So why don’t you just snatch up those two bastards and beat their ass?” Mattie said.
“That’s what I keep on telling Spenser,” Hawk said.
“You should listen to Hawk more,” Mattie said.
Hawk smiled.
I followed Dorchester Avenue up to West Broadway and took the main thoroughfare over to G Street and Red Cahill’s three-decker. I parked down the street in a neat, unobtrusive spot between two cars still blanketed in snow. The rain and sleet had done little but pockmark the mounds of snow and ice. The sleet prattled on the windshield as I turned off the ignition. Hawk leaned back in the passenger seat. The rental felt warm and somewhat homey on a winter day.
“Did Theresa’s family have any ideas about where she might have gone?” I asked.
“Nope,” Mattie said. “Finished up her shift and was gone.”
Mattie leaned in again. She blew a large pink bubble. “She and her kid sister are real close. They were really freaked out.”
Mattie was quiet for several moments. Hawk shut his eyes.
“So what do you two do on stakeouts?” she asked.
“Sometimes Parcheesi,” I said. “Sometimes Hawk likes to sing to me.”
Hawk did not open his eyes as he hummed a few bars from “Old Man River.”
“So you sit around, drink coffee, and bullshit.”
“Kid’s good,” Hawk said.
Thirty minutes later, Red and Moon were on the move. I started the car.
I waited a beat and then followed the Range Rover out of Southie and over the Summer Street Bridge. When Red took Atlantic toward the North End, I half expected to learn of some kind of Irish-Italian collaboration. But Red kept on driving north over the Charlestown Bridge, past the Garden and up over Old Ironsides. They parked in Charlestown across from a stretch of public housing and walked into a pool room cleverly named A-1 Billiards. In a few minutes, they walked back to their car and drove off.
I hoped Mattie was getting bored.
She wasn’t.
She studied how I drove. I lagged far behind on straightaways but followed close at lights. If Red stopped at a business, I kept going. I’d circle the block, make sure they were off the street, and find a place. We blended in. We flowed with traffic.
At one point, Mattie thought we’d lost them. I jockeyed for position on a bridge and came up two cars behind them.
I smiled with satisfaction.
“Not bad,” she said.
We weaved in and out of traffic along the JFK. I would slow to five, six, eight cars behind Red’s Range Rover. I would speed up and pass them and fall back behind.
“He just showin’ off,” Hawk said. “Besides, those two wouldn’t know if they was bein’ followed by the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.”
“You saying they’re dumb?” Mattie asked.
“If those boys any dumber, someone need to water ’em,” Hawk said.
We followed them onto Storrow Drive along the river. Red left Storrow and headed south, back to the Fenway. He slowed in the neighborhood around Boston University. I was caught at a stoplight as he turned onto Kenmore Square. The huge Citgo sign stood proud over the red-brick bookstore on Beacon.
Pedestrians navigated the ankle-deep mess, umbrellas in hand, huddled under their hoods and ball caps. The light turned. I followed and caught up.
“Lovely day,” Hawk said.
“Just why do we live here?”
“To appreciate the full beauty of the seasons,” Hawk said. “But if they hoof it, you follow. Can’t ruin my new boots.”
“That may be the most unthuggish thing you’ve ever said.”
“Shit,” Hawk said. “These boots cost more than everything you got in your closet.”
“Over there,” Mattie said.
The Range Rover U-turned on Beacon and pulled in front of a sad-looking bar advertising two-for-one chicken wings. Green paint molted from the old wooden façade. A half-dozen neon beer signs blazed from the window. Busted-up metal garbage cans sat on the curb.
Red and Moon got out of the car. Moon stretched and scratched his fat butt.
We parked off Yawkey Way near the big Sox team store that was larger than the stadium. Hawk had his eyes closed. Mattie leaned up between us, and I heard her breathing against my neck.
She was popping her gum. The windshield wipers swiped every few seconds.
I folded my arms over my chest and watched the bar. I left the car running. After ten minutes, I killed the engine.
Everything grew very quiet. Sleet and rain tapped at the windows.
“I can take you home if you like,” I said.
“No, this is cool.”
“Got school tomorrow.”
“You trying to get rid of me?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said.
Hawk grinned.
A few minutes later, Red and Moon hustled out of the old bar. They dragged a very short, very skinny gray-haired man behind them. I thought I knew him. I elbowed Hawk to confirm.
Hawk leaned up to the windshield. He did not speak. He stared and then nodded.
“Right?” I asked.
“It’s him.”
“It’s who?” Mattie asked. “You two always speak in code?”
“Chico Hirsch.”
“Who the hell is Chico Hirsch?” she asked.
“Big-time bookie,” I said. “Been around since the Braves were in Boston. Jesus. How old is Chico?”
“Got to be around ninety,” Hawk said. “I thought that motherfucker was long dead.”
Moon gripped Chico’s upper arm and shoved him roughly into the back of the Range Rover. He said something harsh and unpleasant, and then slammed the door. Red and Moon piled into the Range Rover and took off.
We followed. Mattie was absolutely hooked.
In the rearview, I saw an honest-to-God smile.
Good judgment be damned.
45
They didn’t drive back to Red’s three-decker. Red and Moon hustled Chico Hirsch into a pleasant two-story house on Third Street in Southie. It was getting dark and very cold. Sleet fell in the failing light.
“Shoulda got some of them chicken wings,” Hawk said.
“Two for one,” I said.
“I could go for food,” Mattie said. “There’s a corner store close across the street.”
She pointed to a convenience store within sight, so I gave her some money for some sandwiches and coffee. The sleet tapped harder against the windshield. Streets were icing. Melting snow banks solidified.
“What you think they doin’ with Chico?” Hawk asked.
“Asking him about th
e good ole days,” I said. “They want to learn from the wealth of his experience.”
“Bullshit pickin’ on an old man,” Hawk said.
“It is.”
“What we gonna do?”
“I could knock on the door and shame them to death.”
“Or we could bust in the front door and say, ‘Give it up, motherfuckers.’”
“You’re dying to try that out, aren’t you?”
Hawk grinned. “Yep.”
Mattie returned with the coffee and sandwiches. The sandwiches were the premade kind, wrapped tightly in cellophane for long life. I think King Tut was wrapped in the same manner. The mustard pack was the only nourishing part of the meal.
“You owe me,” Hawk said, checking out what was between the bread.
“You are not enjoying the bounty we have provided for you?” I asked.
“Sitting in a Ford sedan, drinkin’ bad coffee, and eating a shit sandwich ain’t exactly my idea of heaven.”
“Where’s Chico?” Mattie asked.
We didn’t answer. Hawk leaned forward and rolled his shoulders. He lolled his neck until it cracked. His Mossberg pump lay against his right leg.
“Where is he?” Mattie asked.
“Hasn’t come out,” I said.
“What are we gonna do?”
“Natural selection,” Hawk said. “Chico is a bookie. Bookies got to play the game.”
“He’s an old man,” Mattie said. “They’re gonna kill him.”
“Chico know what it’s about,” Hawk said. “This ain’t his first shakedown.”
“Well, you got to do something,” Mattie said. “Call the cops. Or something.”
I took a deep breath. I wadded up the rest of my sandwich. I opened the door and tossed out the remaining coffee onto the street. Steam rose from the asphalt. I closed the door and looked to Hawk.
“We take you home,” I said to Mattie. “Then we’ll do something.”
“That’ll take too much time,” she said.
We didn’t say anything.
“I won’t get out of the car,” she said. “I swear. If something happens, I’ll call the cops. Can’t you just check? Please just check.”
“This isn’t why we’re here,” I said. “We check on some bookie, we might not find Theresa.”
I turned around and looked at Mattie. She said please again. The please wasn’t something that came naturally to her.
