We Were Kings (18 page)

In the bathroom, she stood beside the claw-foot tub and pointed to the water and all the steam coming off it. He turned the brass knob the other way, and the tap stopped running, and he reached inside to pull out the plug but reared back quickly and shook his hand. The water was scalding. He hurried over to the sink and held his hand under the faucet, letting the cold numb the pain.

“I'll fix it,” Maria said. And on her dirty face, dried syrup glistening along her cheeks, a look of worry took hold. “Let me fix it.”

“It's okay, love. It's fine.”

His heart was breaking again, just like it had when he was with her in the emergency room, but as he kept on talking, he felt a desperation tear into him and open the hole so wide that he was afraid something would get inside that he wouldn't be able to get rid of.

“I got an idea. Just me and you, just the two of us, we'll get dressed nice and go see the matinee. There's one movie that just came out about giant monster ants, called
Them.
How about that? Then, later, a sundae at Brigham's. We'll get jimmies, caramel, hot fudge, the works—”

“Vinny says ice cream is bad for me. Vinny says my teeth will fall out.”

“What does Vinny know about anything?” Dante took a deep breath and sighed, grabbed a towel and dried his hands, then picked Maria up, embraced her, and brought her out to the kitchen, where the kettle whistled with a horrible, foreboding pitch.

_________________________

Cedar Grove Cemetery, Dorchester

CAL HADN'T TENDED
his father's grave in over a dozen years, but someone—perhaps a family member of someone in a nearby grave who'd been embarrassed or ashamed by the state of the plot—had taken it upon himself to cut the grass, pull the weeds, occasionally place a potted flower before the stone, and, on St. Patrick's Day, lay a wreath of shamrock there. Cal knew these things because, though he'd convinced himself that he didn't care, he often stopped by to look at the stone, consider his father's life, and wonder about the man. He didn't talk and he didn't pray the way he often saw others do at the graves; he merely looked and thought and wondered, as if somehow, one day, he might be granted the answers to his questions, as if his father might rear up out of the grave and say,
All right, now it's time, a mhac,
come with me and I'll tell you what you want to know, what it is you're looking for.

He didn't talk and he didn't pray, not as he did at Lynne's grave, and he was thankful that they were in separate parts of the cemetery—his father on the bank beyond the cedars that sloped to the broad, almost regal width of the Neponset before it became a trickle and leaked defeated into the harbor and the sea; Lynne on the other side of the train tracks that bisected the grounds and along one of the paths that wound through small undulating knolls filled with flowers and copses of hardwoods, closer to the chapel.

He stood at his father's grave—his funeral, the plot, and the stone of Connemara marble had been paid for by his mother with most of the funds from his father's pension and donations from various unions about the city. The grass had been cut and was brown, scorched from the sun. Blackened and withered flowers stood in front of the headstone; Cal couldn't even tell what they were. Hornets buzzed the air, savagely going after the apples that had fallen from the trees and were rotting sweetly on the ground. Crickets and cicadas and other flying things thrummed and pulsed electrically in the denser foliage.

“What secrets did you keep? You bastard,” Cal said aloud. He sighed and stared about him.

The Old Colony Railroad trolley from Ashmont rumbled through the cemetery, just out of sight beyond the rolling knolls of the grounds. Cal watched an old man in a decrepit rowboat pulling up traps on the far bank of the river. Tree branches, granting Cal welcome shade from the sun, stirred above, making a sloughing sound as they rubbed together gently.

Father Nolan strode up the path between the greenhouse and the stables coming from the riverside, having, Cal guessed, walked along the Neponset from St. Gregory's and Lower Mills Falls. He looked as strong and lean as ever, his stride that of an ex-soldier, quick and purposeful, and his white hair slicked back, but to Cal, he seemed older somehow, a barely perceptible weariness to his face and as if he were pulling his shoulders in against some deep, internal cold. Sweat trickled down Cal's spine. He wiped at his brow and waved and then stepped back into the shade beneath the cedars, and Father Nolan met him there.

“I spoke to your man and he's agreed to a meeting at St. Anthony's shrine on Tuesday evening at seven, after confession and vespers.”

“Why the church?”

“He didn't tell me why and I didn't ask—neutral ground, I suppose. He's a churchgoing man, a God-fearing man. He'll respect the sanctity of the church.”

“How will I recognize him?”

“He'll be downstairs by the votives. He's a tall, thin fellow. He'll be wearing a Pioneer pin on his lapel. You'll know his look from your own history, from the war. You can't mistake it.”

The priest lit a cigarette and Cal was surprised to see the shakiness in his hands as he brought it to his lips and deeply inhaled.

“It's like a black stain upon all of us, Cal,” Father Nolan said, smoke streaming from his nostrils. “It's as if something dark touched your soul and not even the light of God can bring it back. Do you believe that? Sadly, God forgive my soul, at times I do. It's my own weakness, my own lack of faith, perhaps. My own soul is tarnished the same way. There's a place there that even God has no access to, no ability to mend. I have to live with that—we all have our own secret burdens—just as you have to live with those things from your past.”

He glanced at the grave and then toward the river where the sun struck the water in dappled lances, making it seem as if it had more movement than it did. “Hopefully you'll get the information you need and then you can put it to rest.”

“You make it sound simple, Father. I only wish it were that way.”

“God help us, Cal, go easy. This is all I could do, and dear God, I wish I hadn't done it at all. I don't know what is the right thing anymore. You don't have to meet with him, you know. It can end right here”—and he glanced to the headstones that stretched down to the river—“before your father's grave.”

“You know I can't do that, Father.”

“Then God be with you, Cal.” The priest put out his hand and Cal shook it.

“And you, Father. Thank you.” For a moment they regarded each other and Cal thought Father Nolan might say something more, but then the man nodded serenely, an acceptance, perhaps of things no longer in his control. He turned away and then paused. The light through the swaying branches dappled his black shirt, blazed in his white hair. He looked at Cal and forced a smile. “I'd better see you in Mass after this,” he said, and he strode off.

Cal watched him make his way to the arboretum and the cemetery greenhouse and then take the lane to the towpath and the river. He wondered at what risk to himself the priest had arranged the meeting and if that assignation had brought back dark memories from his past that he'd worked so hard to keep hidden and tamped down. Cal had perhaps asked for too much from him, but he needed to talk to this man who'd known his father and who might allow him and Dante a particular access to de Burgh's world and to the IRA in Boston.

Nothing had changed, and neither had he, Lynne would have said. But she would have been wrong—he almost said it aloud:
You're wrong, Lynne.
He knew that he had only to convince her and, in so doing, he might convince himself. He walked the winding path to her grave, away from the river, and at the watering station he filled a plastic pitcher and watered the perennials he'd planted before the stone. The ground took the water quickly, and he refilled the pitcher and did it again. He said nothing for fear that the guilt he felt for his past actions and the actions yet to come were a betrayal of the promise he'd made to her and for fear that if he talked, he'd hear her voice coming to him in response. So he remained quiet—the first time since her death that he'd failed to speak to her—until, with lowered head, he said, “I love you,” and walked back to the entrance and Cedar Grove Station.

_________________________

Chelsea

EVENING AND THE
sun just fading over the city rooftops, beyond the drawbridges and shipping cranes, slipping down into the west. In Martin Butler's kitchen there was a general air of jubilation, the type that comes after a hard workday in the summer. He had been playing the accordion for his brother and Donal when some of the neighbors stopped in, as had Father Langton from the East Boston Parish of the Holy Name. There was Michael Michalczyk and his wife and two day laborers who'd just come with their father from a meeting at the Polish American Political Club on Broadway.

The woman wore a babushka around her head even though she was only in her thirties, but once the music started playing and her husband pulled her to her feet, she loosed the knot under her chin and let the headscarf fly off as he spun her around, laughing, and the other men in the room clapped their hands and stomped their feet. Martin looked at his brother, who sat with his eyes closed, the hair plastered to his damp forehead and the veins rigid in his forearms as he clenched and unclenched his fists—Martin knew this was a sign of his enjoyment and smiled as he played.

The sound of his playing drifted from the windows on the heavy night air and down the street, pressing back the sounds of the cars thrumming over the Mystic River Bridge—a ceaseless vibration like the electricity pulsing through the overhead wires and the insects buzzing in the trees on Admirals Hill, always rising in pitch at the onset of thunder and lightning and only quieting when the air cooled.

The priest had imbibed a small glass of brandy, and his cheeks sparked red. Tea was laid out on the counter as well as some bottles of porter and beer. The older Pole brought out his spoons and played them on the knees of his paint-spattered work pants and everyone laughed when he completed a rill of percussion, slapping the spoons off his thighs, that sent Martin playing faster on the accordion.

“Oh, you ol' devil, you!” he hollered, and his fingers danced across the mother-of-pearl keys and he worked the bellows so that sweat shone on his forehead.

A knock came at the back door, reverberating softly in the hallway, and through his exertions, Martin looked at the clock above the sink, then glanced at Donal and nodded.

Donal closed the kitchen door behind him, stepped into the hallway, and went to the back door, where the streetlights shone through the window and illuminated the silhouettes of four men outside. He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and into the backyard, where the men stood in the shadows.

“Donal,” their leader said.

Donal took a look at each of the men. He hadn't been told who was coming, but he knew Kieran Fitzgerald and the slim, light-haired fellow at the back, Bobby Myles. The other two were strangers to him.

“Kieran,” he said. “How was the ride across?”

“A right bitch, that's what it was,” said Fitzgerald. “The boat tossed us about so much I didn't know what was up and what was down, and Egan on the rail throwing up the entire time. His stomach still isn't right.”

“Ah, go mind your own stomach, you,” the one called Egan said. “My stomach's made of cast iron, so.”

“And you, Bobby,” Donal said, “you still have it in you? I didn't think they'd send you, not after what happened.”

“I'm here, aren't I? They wouldn't send me if I didn't have it in me.”

Donal nodded. “Are the lodgings suitable?”

The men grunted their assent.

“I'm assuming O'Flaherty gave you the locale to find the second car and the guns. Any difficulties?”

“No difficulties. The driving on these roads is another thing.” Fitzgerald gestured toward Bobby with his head. “Our driver is still getting the hang of it.”

“I'll be able to drive these roads with my eyes closed in no time. That's not a problem.”

“Good. If there's anything else you need, per Mr. de Burgh, you're just to ask.”

“The cargo,” Fitzgerald said, “is it safe?”

“It is. And it'll be on its way soon. Mr. de Burgh just wants to make sure everything is in order before it's sent.”

Fitzgerald stared up at Donal and scratched absently at the stubble on his cheeks. Farther down the side of the house, a slant of light from the kitchen sliced out into the night. It arced over two trash barrels and showed the withered grass and weeds heaving up from the dirt. The sound of an accordion came to them along with a fine voice singing the plaintive “Glen of Aherlow” and then another voice joined in, rougher, gravelly, but filled with passion.

“Donal,” Fitzgerald said. “We're here with orders. We're not concerned with what de Burgh wants or doesn't want, we're concerned only with what he does. Do I make myself clear?”

Donal looked at him and let the stillness hold for a moment before speaking. In that tension, the sound of the music and the cars upon the bridge above them seemed to ebb, like a radio being turned down, as if the space before them had suddenly become larger and more expansive than the world beyond. “You've only just arrived,” he said. “Don't presume to think you know a thing about what's going on here. Your orders are your orders, but the last time I checked that didn't include a charge to get the cargo home. If you want to take that on as well, even though you know no one here, we can contact the man back home. I'll be glad to wash my hands of it.” He turned and stepped onto the porch.

“All I'm saying is that they don't like this situation being left in the hands of Americans.”

“Americans?” Donal smiled coldly. The Fáinne and the Pioneer medal on his lapel glinted for a moment as he squared his body. He bent his head slightly, listening to the melody from the kitchen, and then said, “You must all be tired. You'll need to get your bearings and your feet under you, and then we can talk some more.” He put his hand on the door and then looked back at them standing there. They could see only the pale gleam of his face with all of its narrow, hardened angles. “Go on now and get some rest,” he said. “You're going to need it.”

The four of them started to make their way out, but then Bobby stopped and said he was going back to the yard to relieve himself. Driving these Boston streets with a full bladder would be an unwise decision, and as they were bound to get lost again, he thought it would be best to relieve himself right away instead of holding it in and suffering through one wrong turn after another.

He moved through the weedy backyard, unclasped his trousers, and did his business, hearing the din of the music as it rose and swelled from the kitchen. At the window, the warm light framed the scene as if it were a living painting, and it was a strange sensation to Bobby once he realized that they were completely unaware of his gaze. He felt that feathery twinge of homesickness tickle his throat, and he swallowed with regret that he couldn't join these people, share a pint, and play just one song.

Myles noticed they were all celebrating except for one. He sat just outside the circle, settled on a chair lower than the others. There was an odd stillness to his limbs, and he was canted slightly to the side, perhaps from too much drink. It took Bobby a moment to see that the man sat in a wheelchair.

Bobby fastened his pants and stepped closer to the window, and he could see that below the man's combed-flat hair, a bright scar knotted along his temple and down to his jaw. His eyes were closed and dark with shadow, and his mouth was partly agape, one side weighed down as though by the gravity of a stroke. His clutching the armrests of his wheelchair was the only appearance of life. It was clear that he was the victim of some manner of trauma, and most likely that scar told the story of a horrible accident.

The song ended. One of the men left the kitchen. Another grabbed a bottle from the icebox. The accordion player, broad-shouldered and with his sleeves neatly rolled up on wide forearms, stood. He placed the instrument on the seat and went to the wheelchair, put his hand on the man's head and stroked his hair. The wheelchair-bound man didn't show any reaction whatsoever but there was something brotherly about the gesture, and in another time, another place, Bobby would have seen it as a special moment. But then the accordion player squinted and leaned forward to look out the window into the darkness, his mouth set in a grim line, and Bobby could tell his eyes were focused right on him—somehow the man could see him out here; he knew he was being watched. And then Bobby recognized the man's face. A car horn blared from the front of the house—most likely Fitzgerald, always impatient. Bobby hurried to the car, but even though he was away from the window, he still had the sense that Martin Butler's eyes were following him every step of the way.