We Were Kings (12 page)

The bartender started laughing, and Jennings joined in. “If I change my mind, I'll let you know, David.”

“It's Dante.”

“Yeah, okay, Dante,” he said.

Dante lit a cigarette, walked back to the entrance, and dropped the cigarette to the floor, where it smoldered and singed the lush crimson carpet. He angled his hat over his eyes and left.

Back outside, he found himself pacing the sidewalk, feeling the heat and humidity weigh down on him. He walked across Park Street to a circle of shade under the branches of a large maple tree that fanned out over the black iron fence bordering this side of the Common. He took off his tie, folded it and shoved it into his jacket pocket, unbuttoned the top two buttons at his collar, and right away felt he could breathe easier.

A tired breeze stirred the leaves above him and cooled the sweat on his brow. He left the shade and walked along the fence. A group of bums, burnouts, and wet-brains gathered on the park benches. Some were asleep, laid out like bags of trash left on the curb. Barefoot and blistered, one man in a tattered business suit sat with his head in his hands, stunned from the heat and from dehydration.

Walking across Tremont before the traffic lights turned green, Dante realized what his next step would be and where he had to go.

Cal had offered him a job. And even though it sounded downright foolish, nothing but trouble, he began to think it was something he had to do. The Irish in this city worked among themselves, made big decisions from the stools of little bars and pubs, and inside the union halls and backroom dens of dance halls, they worked out the new avenues of commerce, verbally laid down their own laws, and argued about how the power would be shared and divided. But there was a big problem. There was no boss in charge anymore, no emblematic figurehead to keep people in line and put the fear of God in those who betrayed them. The empire no longer had a king, and that vacancy would only stoke the fire until the flames couldn't be controlled. Dante knew well enough that Boston was a powder keg. Add in a long, ruthless summer, and it would no doubt be a ripe fucking mess by the time September came calling.

He reached into his pocket for some spare change, pulled out two dimes and a nickel. He needed to find a pay phone, first to call his boss at the garage and tell him that he wasn't coming in today, and second to call Pilgrim Security and let Cal know that he was in.

_________________________

Fenway Park

“FUCK JOE DIMAGGIO!
Fuck Joe DiMaggio!”

Standing five rows back from Cal and Dante, the man cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed at the empty field. He wore a pair of mail-order sunglasses, the kind with a white plastic nose shield attached to the bridge, a tight oxford shirt, and a checkered clip-on tie that looked as if it belonged to a Catholic schoolboy rather than a middle-aged man. He hacked and spit on the ground, and then, slightly swaying, grabbed his 'Gansett and sucked half of it down before he continued on with his chant. “Fuck Joe DiMaggio! Fuck the Yankees and fuck New York! Fuck you, DiMaggio!”

With the worn nub of a pencil, Dante was hard at work setting up what he thought would be today's starting lineups. Drops of sweat fell off his brow and blotted the paper on his lap. A cigarette was angled behind one ear and a half-smoked one hung unlit from his mouth. In a casual manner, he said, “Somebody has got to tell this drunk shithead that DiMaggio retired in '51.”

Cal said, “He knows damn well that Joe doesn't play anymore. He thinks he's a real comedian.”

If anything was restraining Cal from going at the man, it was the four women sitting in the row ahead of him. Four nuns, side by side and leveled off like a neat row of bowling pins, each wearing identical, round wire-rimmed sunglasses. One fanned at herself with a folded newspaper; the one next to her sipped from a bottle of Moxie. The two closest to the aisle shared a bag of peanuts, the laps of their habits dusted with salt and bits of shells.

Across the field, the Yankees' batboy came out of the visitors' dugout, his pin-striped shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders, his trousers billowing about like pantaloons, and crossed the green behind home plate. Taking aim at the child, who couldn't be any older than twelve, the man screamed even louder. “Hey! Hey! Kid! Do me a favor and go tell DiMaggio to go fuck himself!”

All four of the nuns turned around. Cal did the same. But the man didn't notice.

Cal took a deep breath and stood up from his seat. Before he could make a move, a lithe young man with a severe crew cut rushed down the steps. Without saying a word, the man brought a hard left fist across the loudmouth's jaw. Like a puppet with half of its strings cut, the loudmouth staggered sideways but didn't go down; his sunglasses hung crookedly off his face, and his eyes crossed as though his vision were on the precipice of going black. The man followed with a right hook dead center and then a quick left to the temple. The loudmouth's head twisted and snapped back, his eyes rolled up into his skull, and he hung in the air for a brief moment before tilting over and crashing shoulder-first into several empty chairs. Some of the surrounding fans cheered and clapped. And then there were those who didn't even notice, or perhaps just didn't care—a drunk with a big mouth getting his comeuppance was a common sight to many of the Fenway faithful, nothing all that special.

Two ushers came down the stairs and grabbed the unconscious man by the shoulders. A nasty wound split the skin above his left eye, and when he opened his mouth, Cal could see that his teeth were stained with blood. Once the ushers had squared him up in an empty seat, they slapped at his cheeks until he fully came to and then helped him to his feet and escorted him to the nearest exit.

“That's what you get, you loudmouth piece of shit!” one spectator yelled out.

A drunk woman in the next section hollered, “What you gonna say now, you no-good jackass!”

Cal sat back down, softly punched Dante's shoulder. “You missed it. Some jarhead kid just went savage on that prick.”

Dante sighed. “I've seen plenty of loudmouths go down before. It's all the same to me.”

“Well, I think somebody should buy that guy a beer.” Cal watched the young man walk up the opposite aisle and over into another section, where he sat down next to a woman holding a baby wrapped in a bright pink blanket. The infant squirmed in her arms and she rocked it violently until the baby began to squeal. Squinting against the sunlight, Cal couldn't tell for sure but it looked as if the woman sported her own bruised eye and swollen upper lip. Suddenly his gratitude to the fighter waned. He turned back around and he saw that one of the nuns was looking right at him. She offered a gentle, knowing smile, as if she were telling him to mind his own business. He nodded and gave her a tired smile in return.

The uncomfortable quiet returned and the temperature climbed even higher into the red. Cal found it hard to breathe.

“Only idiots like us have a death wish to sit out in this heat.”

“Dedication, I guess,” Dante said, finally relighting the cigarette in his mouth.

“Stupidity is more like it.”

The attendance was well below eight thousand, and most of the crowd was scattered about the ballpark, where empty seats far outnumbered those that were occupied. Those lucky enough to have tickets for seats in the shade were a few degrees less miserable. Fifteen minutes past what should have been the first pitch, the game was delayed and Cal had no clue why. People walked up the ramps and went through the gates into the ballpark, saw that the field was empty, checked their watches, and then made their way back down to the humid but cooler concourse, where the concession stands served up soda, beer, peanuts, popcorn, and hot dogs, but not much else.

Cal slipped a capsule of Benzedrine from his shirt pocket and washed it down with his beer, which was already piss-warm and had his stomach turning sourly in the heat. He downed the rest, crushed the empty cup, and let it drop to his feet. The ground was covered in peanut and red pistachio shells and several ends of cheap, foul-smelling cigars. He wondered which was a bigger dump, Fenway or the Boston Garden.

“This is just something special, a grand old time. I should have told Shaw to meet us somewhere else.”

With eyes not moving off the score sheet, Dante said, “C'mon, Cal. Get in the spirit.”

“Then what's the holdup?”

Dante turned to Cal. “Maybe Mantle is still sleeping off a hangover. Or maybe Yogi Berra is taking a big shit. How do I know?”

Cal lit a cigarette even though he didn't want one. It was something to do, something to help kill time.

Across the infield and the lustrous emerald that defined the outfield, the Green Monster undulated with heat-soaked ripples. Cal stared at the thirty-seven-foot green wall and thought of the two poor saps stuck inside at ground level, the scorekeepers working in the narrow passageway behind the scoreboard.
Must be a fucking oven in there,
he thought,
at least one hundred and twenty–plus.

He'd been behind the scoreboard once, back in 1946 when he was still a cop. Working the game was a gig coveted by all on the force, and even though he was more of a Boston Braves fan, he didn't mind the shift. An easy way to slack off, take in a game, and get paid for it. The narrow space lacked a proper toilet so the scorekeepers pissed in a bucket they kept in a corner, and he remembered hearing rats scurry in the darkness in search of food. On the way out, before he reported to his post by the bleachers, he spotted a section of the wall with checkmarks and lines crossed out in pencil. It was like something out of a prison cell, somebody checking off the days before he went free. When he saw a dead rat with its spine snapped, most likely by the head scorekeeper's thick-soled boot, he realized that the markings weren't days but this season's dead rats; almost too many to count.

“I think it's starting,” Dante said beside him. “Finally.”

The stadium speakers rattled with static and feedback. Once the line cleared, the announcer welcomed the crowd and then proceeded to read off the starting lineups.

“McDougald, Collins, Mantle, Berra, Bauer, Woodling, Carey, Rizzuto, and, pitching for the New York Yankees, Allie Reynolds.

“Bolling, Goodman, Williams, Jensen, Olson, White, Lepcio, Hatton, and, pitching for our own Boston Red Sox, Frank Sullivan.”

And then it was time for “The Star Spangled Banner,” sung by a local woman who worked for the Red Cross. She began off-key and without much range. Somebody behind Cal and Dante called her a commie. Another said he had heard crows sing better. Cal stood, placed his hand over his heart, and sang the words to the remainder of the anthem while Dante stood beside him, hat in one hand and score sheet in the other.

By the time the game started, both Cal and Dante had unbuttoned their shirts and rolled up their sleeves. They'd grabbed some beers and were sharing a bag of popcorn. A few rows to their right, an old woman sat with a transistor radio on her lap tuned to the WHDH-AM 850 broadcast of the game. The voices of Hussey and Delaney discussed the day's lineup, and with the first pitch approaching, Curt Gowdy came in to call the play-by-play. The four nuns blessed themselves and then stood up in unison to applaud their home team as they took to the field.

Just as Cal started to relax, he heard a familiar voice come from behind him, loud and shrill. “Hey, Cal! Dante! I was looking for you two bastards. I got a row in the shade, first-row grandstands. Come get out of this fucking sunshine and join me and my boys.”

Dante hadn't seen Shaw in years. He had gained weight, especially in the face. His orange-ginger hair was thinning, and a bald spot grew wide on the top of his scalp, leaving the skin there speckled and blotched. He had the look of a man who knew he was sick but feared going to the doctor to find out what ailed him.

A burgundy Cuban shirt pressed tight against his stomach, and a pair of baggy khaki shorts showed his disproportionately thin legs. Despite all the times he and Sully's boys had knocked Dante around, Dante couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him.

“So it's been a damn good year for me,” Shaw said. “My hands are in so many places, I forget how many deals we got going.”

Off to the side, two of his men sat and watched the game with apparent indifference. They too looked miserable. Years ago, when Sully had full power over the city, he'd given Shaw some of his toughest men to help get things done. Now, by the looks of it, the men he got were solely the bottom of the barrel.

One of the men had a neck so fat that he couldn't fully turn his head to watch the ball come off Ted Williams's bat and twist foul into the box seats to their right. His face was crossed up with scars, and showed it had taken some serious punishment. The other was about sixty years old. Irish-looking. His skin was weathered like a farmer's, and he had a sad, faraway look in his eyes as though every shitty moment in his life was playing over and over in his head. Occasionally he tried to spit but his dentures were so ill-fitting that when he did, spittle clung to his lips and flecked against his chin. He'd leave it there until he thought nobody was looking, and without much nuance, he'd wipe at it with his knobby wrist and try to clear it off.

Cal went for beers and came back with only three. He handed one over to Shaw, who nodded appreciatively. “Next round on me,” he said for the second time during the game. He raised the cup toward Dante. “No hard feelings,” he said.

Dante raised his cup. “None taken.”

On the field, Olson chipped an outside pitch that rolled to second for the final out of the inning.

“Things are looking messy,” Cal said.

Shaw sucked at his teeth. “Yeah, this game is shit.”

“I wasn't talking about the game. I was talking about the killings.”

“I knew there had to be a reason you wanted to see me.” Shaw smirked. “Don't tell me you're trying to play Dick Fucking Tracy all over again? Remember, you're not a cop anymore.”

“I'm doing somebody a favor by asking around. So let's just say it's part of the job.”

“That's what they all fucking say. Whatever you're asking, we got things under control. Nothing's changed there.”

“From where I'm watching, you and Sully are in as piss-poor shape as this year's Red Sox.” He gestured toward the field and grinned.

“What the hell's that supposed to mean?”

“It's common knowledge how far you boys have fallen. You've given up and let a new generation of scum come in and walk all over you, right? The old Boston is wondering who the fuck is in charge these days.”

Shaw finished his beer and sucked at his teeth again. “C'mon, Cal. If we knew who was behind all those killings, we'd have them hung up by their balls and skinned them alive.”

“Just saying, nobody who's from here would do something so stupid as wipe out a bunch of their own in one night. If somebody in Boston is behind this, I bet they're paying others to do it.”

“Cal, I'll say it again: We don't need your help.”

Dante leaned in. “Out with the old, in with the new. I think it's time to admit defeat, no? So you can get back to robbing stagecoaches, or better yet, get a safe job being a clock watcher on the Schrafft's assembly line. I hear they're hiring. You can eat all the candy you want, isn't that nice?”

“Fuck you, Dante. If you're so bright, who do you think is behind it?”

“I don't know. I'm not a criminal. But maybe it could be the Italians. It's not the first time they fucked things up for you.”

“No way. That's too easy. Sully got a promise from them. It can't be the Italians. No way. There's too much that'd come bite their ass in the end.”

Dante leaned in farther. “Or could it be somebody from New York? Boston's a small city, but our shipping ports are big. Just think of all the junk coming in and out of Gloucester, New Bedford, even our own waterfront. Not as much heat as it would be down on the Hudson.”

“Look at you. Think you're a smart man now that you're off the junk, is that it?”

Cal lit Shaw's cigarette and then one for himself. “Or it's the Irish, fresh-off-the-boat types, wide-eyed and hungry. Men who don't give two shits, it's all a joke to them. They'd wipe their asses clean with the Stars and Stripes if they had to.”