The Guardian (7 page)

‘And what of the relic?’ Safraz asked.

‘Akhtar is correct,’ Gamol responded. ‘If it has been taken to America, we will suffer the wrath of Allah, and of the people.’

‘What shall we do?’ Akhtar asked.

‘Your family has always had the honor of protecting it, has it not? You shall go to Boston,’ Gamol said, looking at the young man. ‘And you shall take it back.’

Cianna Phelan’s bleary eyes stared up at the paint peeling off the ceiling in her cramped living room. The dream-faded memory of the young soldier lying on top of her
pressed down on her chest as though it had real weight; as though the past were reaching forward to pull her back, heartbeat by heartbeat.

The sofa had shot its springs back in a time before Reagan was President, and it was impossible to get comfortable as the cushions lurched and bucked in uneven spasms with her every movement.
She forced herself to take a breath, and was amazed at the effort it required. When she exhaled, the edges of the paint bubbles above her on the ceiling fluttered.

‘Morning.’

She looked toward the bedroom. Charlie was standing in the doorway, his short reddish hair riotous from sleep. She ran a hand over her own head and could feel her hair in fits. She supposed they
looked alike. They were even around the same size, though that was no doubt a sore subject for her brother. Looking at him now, she could see the sharp bones of his elbow, and the shirt draped over
his shoulders as if on a wire hanger. She wondered how he’d ever survived in the Army. Even in the Quartermaster Corps, where he’d spent his tours overseeing the movement of men,
machinery and supplies, he must have stuck out as a target for tyrants and bullies.

‘Morning,’ Cianna replied. She swung her legs off the couch and rubbed her face.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked her.

‘Sure,’ she lied. ‘There’s instant coffee in the cabinet.’

She stood and went into the bathroom. It took her three minutes to shower, brush her teeth and pull on a pair of cargo pants and a torn sweatshirt. She was used to moving quickly in the morning;
extended bathing was permitted neither in the Army nor in the prison. She ran a towel over her hair for fifteen seconds and emerged before the water for the coffee was boiling. Charlie had pulled
on some loose jeans and found two mugs.

‘So,’ she said. ‘What now?’

He looked over at her and smiled. She’d always loved his smile. It hadn’t changed since he’d been a tiny boy. ‘You want some sugar and milk?’

‘I don’t have either.’

‘I could run down to the street. There’s still a Tedeschi’s on the corner of Mercer and Eighth, right?’

‘There is, but black is fine with me.’

‘For me, too.’ He walked over and handed her one of the mugs, sat in the chair to the side of the sofa. He raised the mug to her, and she lifted hers with less enthusiasm.

‘I thought you were going to sign up for another tour,’ she said. ‘I got your letters when I was . . .’ She paused. ‘I got your letters.’

‘You never wrote me back.’

She looked at her coffee. ‘I didn’t have much to say. Besides, I figured it’d be better for you if you weren’t getting letters from me. You never know who’s looking
through your mail over there. Letters from a convict wouldn’t have helped you with the brass.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘It still would’ve been nice to hear from you, though. Even if just to know you were all right.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘The thing is, I wasn’t all right. What happened over there . . . it’s hard to explain. They took away everything I was, and everything I wanted
to be. I had it all planned out. Then . . .’

‘I understand. But I’m your brother.’

‘I’m sorry. I just couldn’t talk to anyone. I still don’t feel like a real person again, yet.’ Neither of them said anything for a moment. She decided to try to
change the subject. ‘So what happened to re-upping?’

He sipped his coffee. Now he seemed to be avoiding her stare. ‘I was done with it,’ he said. ‘I only joined up to follow you. I didn’t know what else to do with my life
back then. Once you were gone, it didn’t seem to make sense anymore.’

‘What are you going to do now?’ It was more than an idle question. Her pay barely kept her above the poverty-line; it could never support the two of them.

He sipped his coffee, looking straight ahead. ‘I have some leads,’ he said.

‘What sort of leads?’

He shrugged, and the shadow of a smile appeared on his lips. ‘I’ll let you know when I figure out whether they’re gonna work out.’

She frowned. ‘Why not tell me now?’ she asked.

‘Because I don’t want to yet.’ His tone turned defensive. ‘It’s something I want to do on my own,’ he said. ‘But if it works out, I’ll be set for
a while.’ He was no longer smiling. If anything he looked nervous. ‘We’ll both be set for a while,’ he added, looking around the tiny apartment.

Cianna put her coffee down. ‘Tell me what this is all about, Charlie,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t like the sound of it.’

Charley frowned. ‘Tough shit,’ he said angrily. He put the mug down and the coffee slopped over the edge onto the crate that served as a table. ‘You’re not my mother,
Cianna,’ he said.

‘I’m the closest you’ve got,’ she replied sharply.

‘I can take care of myself,’ he protested.

‘Since when?’

‘Since two and a half years ago, when you went to prison,’ he said.

It stopped the conversation cold. They sat there in silence for a little while. Cianna tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to her. He was right, after all. Any claim she’d
had to being the responsible sibling was gone. Any right she had to advise him about how to live his life had been lost.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said after a while.

‘Yes, you did.’

‘I’m sorry, I . . .’

‘It’s okay. You’re right. You’ve been taking care of yourself for a while now. I’ll leave you be.’ She stood up and walked over to the front door, took her
leather jacket off the peg on the wall. ‘I don’t have any food in the house,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go out and get some things. Is there anything you’d
like?’

‘I have to take care of a few things today,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be here for lunch.’

‘If you are, the food will be here.’ Cianna opened the door.

‘Sis,’ he called after her as she stepped out of the apartment. She turned to look at him. ‘I’m sorry I said that. I’m a little on edge. Let me take care of a few
things and then we can talk. You’ll be proud of me. I just don’t want you to worry, okay?’

‘Me worry?’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘I’ll be here when you want to talk.’ She closed the apartment door behind her.

The Southie streets were busy and crowded. In the autumn chill the steam rose in delicate wafts from sewage grates and street vendors’ carts. The sounds of kids playing
stick hockey on the cement rink down by the highway carried sharply on the crisp air. Hockey was more popular here than basketball, in part because body checking and fighting were built into the
rules. Blood was a part of business down in the projects; it was a part of play, too.

Cianna was comfortable here. It had taken some time after her release. She even considered moving someplace new – someplace where no one would know her or care about her past. In the end,
though, she knew she could never live anyplace but here. And fortunately for her, a stretch in prison had never been viewed with any particular sense of shame in this neighborhood. It even gave her
some credibility in certain quarters.

The Tedeschi’s on the corner was like a thousand others across the city. It had narrow aisles filled with low-end staples. Soft, starched-white bread, generic soda, peanut butter and
various cheap canned goods were lined along the shelf-space. The store survived, though, on the goods sold behind the counter. Cigarettes and lottery tickets were the items that moved the fastest,
most purchased with government-issued EBT food-stamp credit cards.

Cianna picked out some eggs, butter, and bread, and a plastic pack of processed bologna. The girl behind the counter was twenty pounds overweight and in her early-twenties, with bad skin and
worse teeth. A look of recognition came over her face when she saw her. ‘You’re Cianna, right? Cianna Phelan?’

Cianna said nothing.

‘I grew up in the building next to you in the Colony. I was about five years younger, but I remember you. You had a brother a little closer to my age. What the fuck was his name, Chucky or
something like that, right?’

‘Charlie,’ Cianna said.

‘Right, Charlie. He always got picked on ’cause he was so fuckin’ small. You used to stick up for him, but there’s only so much you can do, right? How’s he
doin’ now?’

‘He’s good,’ Cianna said. ‘He just got out of the Army.’ She pulled out her wallet and gave the girl an impatient look in the hope that it would spur her to start
scanning her groceries.

The girl took the hint and looked slightly offended as she started ringing up the purchases. ‘I heard you went away for a while. And now you’re doing that parole-guard shit?’
Cianna said nothing. ‘Some fuckin’ thing that happened last night to Vinnie Bronson at the projects, huh?’ she asked knowingly.

Cianna recognized the girl, but had no idea what her name was. She certainly didn’t know her enough to make any admissions to her. ‘I’m not sure what you’re talking
about,’ she said.

The girl winked like she was in on a secret. ‘Uh huh, I’m not surprised. Vinnie’s got some friends. Better not to know anything. They say it was a chick that broke his nose.
They say he’s pissed ’cause he’s always been vain about his looks, and now his face is all fucked up. Most people think Vinnie’s an asshole, though, so he’s not gonna
get a whole lot of sympathy, y’know?’ She was ringing up the purchases as she talked. Cianna wished she would hurry up.

‘Like I said, I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Yeah,’ the girl said, trying to make eye contact. ‘Like I said, that’s probably better.’ She was done ringing up Cianna’s purchases, and Cianna ran her debit
card through the reader. She held her breath, hoping that she had enough in the account to cover the nine dollars’ worth of food. She felt the same worry whenever she was at the store. Living
paycheck-to-paycheck caused her more stress than she cared to admit.

‘Did your friend find you?’ the girl asked as Cianna held her breath waiting for the transaction to clear.

‘Sorry?’

‘There was a guy here yesterday looking for you. Did he find you?’

‘Oh, yeah, that must have been my brother,’ Cianna said, giving a polite smile. ‘He found me.’

The girl waved her hand at Cianna. ‘No, not your brother. Unless your brother grew about two feet, hit the gym and shaved his head.’

Cianna frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I remember your brother. He was short and skinny. I used to watch the neighborhood kids kick the shit out of him. The guy in here looked more like the kind of guy who does the
shit-kickin’, if you know what I mean.’

‘I don’t,’ Cianna said.

‘He was a fuckin’ monster, this one.’ The word came out as
monsta
. ‘Shoulders like out to here.’ She held her hands far apart and over her head.
‘Totally bald, too. I don’t know, some chicks like that look, but not me.’

‘Someone besides my brother was here yesterday?’ Cianna frowned again. ‘He was asking for me?’

The woman shrugged like it was no big deal. ‘Yeah. He was asking if I knew where you lived and where you worked.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I didn’t tell him a fuckin’ thing.’ She looked at Cianna and put a finger on the side of her nose. ‘For all I knew he was a cop, and it ain’t my business.
That’s the way it works here. Maybe you should remember that when you bust into people’s apartments when they don’t want to be found.’

Charlie Phelan was shaking as he walked into the Iron Cross Tavern in South Boston. It was a dark place where people minded their own business. At ten-thirty Miles Gruden was
already sitting in his corner booth, three newspapers spread out in front of him, two plates cluttering the table, and a stained coffee cup in his hand. It looked as though he’d been there
for a while. Two men sat a few tables away. They were rough-cut and heavily boned, and they exuded menace. There was no question they were Miles’s men.

Charlie walked over to the table. ‘Miles,’ he said, trying to keep the warble out of his voice.

Gruden glanced up at him like he was looking at a gutter that needed cleaning. He had a weathered, round face, and the pits in his nose testified to fifty-five years of hard living. He was
wearing a short-sleeved, button-down shirt, open enough to show a dirty undershirt underneath. He said nothing for a moment, then looked back down at the newspaper in front of him and continued
reading.

‘It’s Charlie,’ Charlie said stupidly. ‘Charlie Phelan. I grew up in the Old Colony. Chris Connell gave me your number, said you might be able to help me? I
called—’

‘I know who ya are,’ Gruden said, cutting him off. He was still reading the paper. ‘Siddown.’

Charlie did as he was told. Behind him he could feel Miles’s men move closer, sitting at the table behind him, facing his back.

‘You fuckin’ believe this?’ Gruden grunted. Charlie wasn’t sure whether he was talking to himself. ‘Economy’s still not right and they’re talkin’
about raising taxes again. Motherfuckers.’ Charlie was sure that Gruden had never paid a dollar in taxes in his entire life, but that seemed to be beside the point. ‘Gonna bleed the
fuckin’ country dry.’ He shoveled a fork full of cold egg and potatoes off one of the plates into his mouth and looked up at Charlie as he chewed, letting his lips separate enough to
give Charlie a view of the semi-masticated breakfast. ‘You bring it?’ he asked after a moment.

Charlie shook his head. ‘I didn’t think—’

Gruden put his head back down in the paper without hearing the rest. ‘You catch this shit, Joe?’ he said into the table. ‘Kid asks for my help, and then he doesn’t even
bring the shit with him.’

‘Fucked-up world, Mr Gruden,’ said a voice from behind Charlie. Apparently one of the men sitting behind him was Joe. Charlie wasn’t sure which, though he supposed it
didn’t matter. He was guessing he’d have a hard time telling them apart anyway.