Brighton (15 page)

THE DEVELOPERS
had come in. The developers had left. They’d pulled down most of the frame housing on the adjacent blocks, transforming monthly rentals into what passed these days for the American dream—townhomes and condos, one redbrick building after another, stacked with row after row of tinted windows looking back coolly at the street. Inside, the march of the mundane rolled on: granite countertops, stainless steel fixtures, a small, phony fireplace, and, if you really made it big, a master bath with the spa package. Kevin stared at the patch of weeds growing in the middle of this suburban wet dream. Fidelis Way. In the 1970s, there’d been no mistaking it. Loud and black and poor and sweaty. Drug-ridden and desperate. Do-rags and homies hanging on the corner, selling blow for a dime a bag; teenage moms sitting on the stoop in the early evening, watching their kids and waiting for the bullets to fall; old black men playing speed chess and slugging malt liquor out of paper bags; brothers driving ten miles an hour down the street in pimped-out rides, hands on the wheel in their best gangsta lean. That was Fidelis. The life. A siren’s song, luring young men with a little cash they thought was a lot and depositing them in an early grave for their
trouble. In the ’80s, the city threw a bunch of money at the problem, giving Fidelis a new name and transforming it, along with Columbia Point in Dorchester and the D Street projects in Southie, into “mixed income” housing. Underneath the skin of fresh paint, however, Fidelis remained Fidelis. Young professionals who paid a half-million dollars to live a block away drove past with their windows up and doors locked. That was as close as any of them wanted to get to anything real, unless, of course, it was Friday night and they were looking to score an eight ball or a bag of weed. Kevin held a different view. He was fifteen the last time he’d visited Fidelis. And the peeled eyes of a dead man followed him everywhere he went.

Mo had left him the file on Chrissy McNabb. He flipped through it one more time, then packed it away beside the materials he’d taken off Lisa’s computer. As usual, Mo was right. McNabb looked like she might be part of the pattern, killed by the same person who did Sandra Patterson and Rosie Tallent. McNabb also had a connection to Fidelis Way, which brought Kevin full circle to Curtis Jordan. And Bobby. He could have just straight out asked Bobby about the thirty-eight. Where was it? Who had it now? How was it mixed up in all this? Maybe he should have, but Kevin was still hoping for another way out. So he’d settled on Fidelis. He was about to get out of the car when his phone buzzed and his youngest sister’s name flashed up on the screen.

“Colleen.”

“Is it true?”

“What’s that?”

“The Pulitzer.”

Kevin leaned back against the headrest. “How’d you hear about that?”

“Never mind. Is it true?”

“Yeah.”

“Amazing. Will you meet anyone famous?”

“I don’t know, Coll.”

“Everything you touch turns to gold. That’s what I tell everyone. Everything you touch turns to gold.” His sister’s voice ran circles around him, gaining speed with each revolution.

“Let’s just keep it between us for now.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I just want to low-key it, you know?”

“I understand.” The merry-go-round sagged, slowed, then wheezed to a halt.

“Thanks, Coll.”

“No problem. You know me. Get excited at the drop of a hat.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“We’re all proud of you, Kev. Mom and Dad would be, too.”

His parents had passed the year before Shuks—his father first from a massive heart attack, his mother six months later when her car skipped off the Jamaicaway and hit a tree. Kevin’s was the wooden face at the back of the church as they sprinkled holy water over his father’s coffin and Colleen walked up to the pulpit and looked at him in the narthex and smiled but did the favor of not mentioning him in her eulogy. For his mother, it was back to the basement at McNamara’s and fifteen minutes alone with her before they closed the lid. He remembered sitting at her feet and staring up the length of her broken body, thinking about her washed-out eyes twenty years earlier and the
blood on his hands, then mother and son walking up the stairs to his grandmother’s apartment. He knew he should have been touching her cheek, kissing her fingers, trying to crawl in the coffin with her, but all he could think of was the opening line of Camus’s
The Stranger
.

Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.

“Where are you now?” Colleen’s voice cut through the tissue of memory.

“Actually, I’m sitting in front of Fidelis Way.”

“What are you doing over there?”

Kevin glanced across the street at the squat outline of the projects. “Nothing, really, just working a story. Was thinking I might stop by Champney later.”

“Seriously?”

“Thinking about it.”

“It’d be great if you went back, Kev.”

He had no idea why it would be “great,” and no idea why he was even thinking about it. But he was. “I assume Bridget’s still living there.”

“She is, but I’m not sure she’s home right now.”

“Is the key in the same spot?”

“Yes. Can you believe it?”

“I can believe it.”

“Bridget’s doing so well, Kev. She really is.”

“How about you?”

“What about me?”

“How’s life treating you?”

Colleen was married to a guy named Scott Carson. They had one kid, a thirteen-year-old named Conor, and lived in Newton. He’d met Conor once and never been to their house.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Scott and Conor?”

“Everyone’s great. Just great.”

Kevin could hear the shift, her voice squeezing and tightening, hardening to a fine sheen.

“I gotta get going,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll swing by your place after Champney. Say hello.”

“Probably not the best day for that. Listen, I’m in line at the bank and this teller is staring at me . . .”

“No problem.”

“I’ll call you next week. We can grab lunch downtown.”

“Sounds good.”

“Perfect. Congrats again, Kev. I’m really happy for you. And be careful. It’s still the projects, you know.”

She hung up and he thought about the baby sister he’d never been able to do enough for. And the tickle at the back of his brain that told him it was too late in the game to make up the difference. Kevin shoved the phone in his pocket and got out of the car, walking up the grade toward Fidelis. He brushed past the fresh-looking community center the city had built and cut between two buildings into the core of the projects. Hidden from the street, this was the old Fidelis, the Fidelis of the ’70s, what the locals called the “FWP.” Two young girls, probably sisters, were framed in a window to his left. Kevin made eye contact and they ducked out of sight. A kid with a Yankees hat on sideways stepped out of a doorway.

“Five-O?”

Kevin shook his head.

“You buying?”

“No.” As a journalist, Kevin’s job was to visit the nastier parts
of the city, places people discussed from a distance but actually knew very little about. For the most part, he’d always felt safe. Reporters had no skin in the game and weren’t considered targets by gangs. This time, however, might be different. He wasn’t there for a story, no matter what he said. And bangers had a way of seeing right through that shit.

“If you ain’t buying, then why you here?” The kid with the Yankees hat was maybe thirteen and weighed less than a hundred pounds. His movements were quick twitch. All Kevin could think of was a young Mickey Rivers.

“I just want some information.”

“Fuck information.”

“You don’t even know what I want,” Kevin said, which had to be true because Kevin didn’t know what he wanted. Mick the Quick lifted a corner of his shirt. He had a heavy pistol stuck in his belt.

“You gonna shoot me?”

Mick seemed surprised. Most white people probably saw the piece and ran.

“I’ll pay you,” Kevin said. “Just let me talk to someone.”

Mick glanced behind him. Kevin could see more heads periscoping up in windows. Liquid shadows collected in breezeways.

“Be careful what you wish for, Casper. Come on.”

He led Kevin down a turning path to the building Curtis Jordan had died in. By the time they got to the door, the shadows had soaked back into the flat brick walls. Mick stepped inside. Kevin followed. An older kid with skin like cocoa and shoulder-length dreads laid a gun up against Kevin’s cheek. Behind it, he spoke with a thin Jamaican accent.

“You looking to get clipped, brother?”

Kevin licked his lips. “I’m just looking for information.”

“Fuck him.” That was Mick. He had his gun out as well and seemed to like waving it around.

“Shut up.” The Jamaican crowded Kevin up against a row of mailboxes. Slashes of graffiti scored the walls here and there. A set of eyes burned from beneath a stairwell, then blinked out. “What sort of information?”

There was intelligence in the Jamaican’s voice. Kevin took out a picture of Chrissy McNabb on the slab.

“She don’t look too healthy.”

“She was one of your customers. They found her body downtown.”

The Jamaican shrugged. Kevin pocketed the photo. “How about a guy named Curtis Jordan? He was shot in this building.”

“Lots of people got shot in this building.”

“I’m a reporter for the
Boston Globe
. Maybe I can help find out who killed him.”

“Why you care who killed Curtis?”

Bingo. A gangbanger who wasn’t even twenty knew about a nothing murder twenty-six years cold. That meant something. Had to. “It’s what I do,” Kevin said. “It’s a story.”

“Let me pop this motherfucker,” Mick said, hot to get in on the fun. The Jamaican motioned for quiet with two fingers, then raised his gun, butt first, cracking it like a whip across the side of Kevin’s skull. He dropped to a knee, the scuffle and squeak of sneakered feet all around him. It was young Mick, rounding first and digging hard for that extra base. A second blow drove Kevin to the lobby floor.

“Look at me.”

Kevin looked up at a forest of waving dreadlocks, a diamond-encrusted grill gleaming in the very middle.

“What’s your name?”

“Kevin.”

“I think you want to hurt someone, Kevin. Kill someone, maybe.”

“I’m just looking for a story.”

“Your eyes say something else. You been here before?”

“No.”

The Jamaican’s face narrowed at the lie. He rifled Kevin’s pockets, taking the morgue shot of McNabb, then disappeared up the stairs, young Mick nipping hard at his heels. Kevin struggled to his feet, a lump already starting to swell at the back of his head. His phone buzzed once in his pocket. He flipped it open and read the text that was waiting there.

GO C BRIDGET. SHE’S DOING GREAT . . . AND GET OUT OF THE PROJECTS!! LOVE, COLLEEN

This time Kevin took his little sister’s advice to heart, snapping the phone shut and hauling ass out of Fidelis as fast as he could.

The Jamaican’s name was Deron. He walked up two flights to an apartment at the end of the hall. A woman stood there, staring out a window as the white boy left.

“What did he want?” She spoke without turning. Deron
thought a lot about shooting her, but only late at night and only when he was by himself.

“He’s a reporter. Asked me about a girl.” Deron pulled out the morgue shot. The woman took a look.

“We know her?” she said.

“Junkie. No one’s seen her in a long time.”

“Guess we know why. Anything else?”

“He asked about Curtis. Said he wanted to do a story.”

“He’s lying.”

“He knew this place.”

“Everyone knows Fidelis.”

“He knew this building. I think he knew Curtis.”

“What’s the problem, Deron?”

“You know the problem. Cops tweakin’. My crew tweakin’.”

“Your job is to handle the street. If you can’t do your job, I’ve got plenty of pups down there that wanna eat.”

Deron could feel the heat rising in his chest, but kept his face still. Now was not the time and this was not the place. He ducked his eyes and headed for the door.

“Deron.”

He turned. She had a small gun in her right hand and he realized his hesitation had cost him. The truth was bosses didn’t hesitate. And Deron was a born lieutenant. He knew that now. And that was a good way to die. The Jamaican’s teeth sparkled as he took two neat slugs in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. The woman bent over the corpse, prying its lips open and plucking out the diamond grill with two fingers. Then she left.

IT WAS
quarter past two and Bridget Pearce was looking to tear someone a new one. She banged her shopping cart through the swinging doors at Horrigan’s and bumped across the rutted lot. A grocery clerk offered to help with the bags, but she waved him off, stopping at Friendly’s to get a vanilla Fribble before lugging everything out to her car. The witches behind the deli counter hadn’t helped matters. That was for damn sure. She’d felt her face flush when they asked about her brother’s Pulitzer. She’d played it off as shock, surprise, joy, but inside her stomach was churning, and she wondered what they saw in her, how much they knew, and why she cared at all. But she did. Always had. She couldn’t get her key out of her purse so she put one of the bags on the hood of the car and the other at her feet. Then she popped the locks and loaded up the backseat. She’d just slid behind the wheel when the passenger’s door snicked open and Obie Liston slipped in beside her.

“Hey, Bridge.”

She hadn’t seen the bookie from Chelsea in at least five years. Back in the day, Obie liked to drink Kahlua and cream at the
Fish House in Lynn. One night he’d grabbed Bridget’s ass in the bar there and she’d bounced his balls up into his tonsils with a wicked knee. She leaned down to help him up off the ridiculous disco dance floor they had in the place and told him next time she’d cut off whatever he had hanging between his legs (if he had anything left hanging between his legs) and use them as fuzzy dice for her rearview mirror. Then, for no goddamn reason at all, she went outside and cried in an alley, with the music playing and laughter from the club floating all around her. But that was a long time ago. Didn’t mean she still didn’t hate the little prick. Just that it was a long time ago.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Obie pulled out a half pound of sliced cheese wrapped in deli paper and opened it on his lap. “Land O’Lakes white, the good stuff. You want some?”

“I’ll pass, thanks. Now, tell me what you want or get the fuck out of my car.”

Obie folded up a slice and popped it in his yap. “Funny thing. I’m driving around town, thinking about a meatball sub for lunch, when I get this call. Rhode Island number. It’s a guy I know who’s hooked up with Cakes Grisanti. You know Cakes?”

“Not personally, no.”

“So this guy tells me one of Cakes’s boys is on his way up here. Gonna pay a visit to your boss.”

“I don’t have a boss, Obie.”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

“Why would Cakes Grisanti care about Bobby?”

Obie grinned.

“Damn, what’s wrong with your teeth?”

“What?” He pulled over the rearview mirror and took a look.
“Fuck. My gums bleed when I get nervous. You got a tissue or something?”

Bridget shook her head. Obie the asshole tore off a piece of deli paper and did the best he could. When he was satisfied, he turned back to Bridget and smiled.

“How they look now?”

“Like they’re rotting out of your head. Christ, your breath is awful.”

“But the blood’s gone?”

“Yeah, it’s gone. Get back over to your side of the car. And open the window.”

She cracked the driver’s-side window. Obie picked up the thread of his story.

“So my buddy asks if I could find Bobby Scales. Like right now.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you think, why? So the guy coming up from Providence could pay him a visit.” Obie made his finger into a pistol and dropped his thumb like a hammer.

“You’ve been watching too much
Sopranos
. What’s Providence care about Bobby for?”

“This is what the guy told me. Said something happened this morning.” Obie tilted his head and studied Bridget in a way that gave her a chill. When you came right down to it, he was cunning in his own piece-of-shit way. Nasty, too.

“You think I know something about that, Obie?”

“You tell me.”

“What do you want?”

“Holy shit, I haven’t seen one of those since I was a kid.” Obie pointed out the window at a mechanical horse tucked between
a rack of Horrigan’s shopping carts and an ice machine. “The Smiling Mustang” was painted in big blue letters across the side. “We had one called Trigger. Gray with a red mane. Ten cents a ride. Damn, I loved that thing.” Obie gobbled up a couple more slices of Land O’Lakes and began to bounce in his seat.

“Sorry, Obie, I don’t have any change.”

He stopped bouncing. “I wasn’t gonna ride the thing. I’m just saying, takes me back. You know what? Fucking forget it.” Obie’s gums were bleeding again, filming his teeth and leaving a glisten of red along the edge of a half-eaten piece of cheese he held in his hand.

“Let’s get back to Bobby,” Bridget said. “You want my help, tell me what happened.”

“I told you, I dunno.”

“Then get out of the car.”

“Fine. I heard they found two of Cakes’s guys dead this morning down at the produce market.”

“The produce market?” Bridget knew Bobby had clients down there. Still, it didn’t make sense.

“Someone cut their throats.”

“And you think that someone’s Bobby?”

“I don’t think nuthin’. Providence thinks it’s Bobby.”

“How did you find me?”

“Luck. I figured I’d cruise Brighton, swing by Bobby’s place maybe. But first, I needed something to eat so I came down here for the cheese. And there you were.”

She didn’t believe him, but what did it matter? He wanted Bobby. And was willing to make a deal.

“How much do you know about Providence, Obie?”

“It’s the mob. Prostitution, loan sharking. These days they launder a lot of cash through legit businesses. Drugs.”

“Bobby doesn’t deal in girls and he doesn’t push dope. That’s Fidelis.”

“Around here, sure. But Providence handles all of New England and down the East Coast. Big coin.”

“And what’s that got to do with Bobby?”

“I’m just saying, that’s what they do.”

“What time will they be here?”

“Who knows? Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe they’re already here.”

“And you want me to rat him out?”

“Don’t get so fucking dramatic. Just tell me where he is. Maybe all they want to do is talk.”

Bridget stared out the window at “The Smiling Mustang,” white metal teeth curled in a goofy grin, paint peeling in a half-dozen spots, and the springs all shot to hell. Bridget bet the thing didn’t even work. “What’s in it for me?”

“If I handle this right, Providence is gonna give me Bobby’s book. Set me up with some money, really expand.”

“You live in Chelsea.”

“That’s where you come in. Day-to-day management of everything in Brighton and Allston. You get a cut up front, make double, triple anything Bobby ever made.” Obie rolled a couple more slices of cheese into a tight torpedo and popped them in his mouth.

“And if I say no?”

He shrugged. “I find him anyway. And you’re out of a job.”

“How about I warn Bobby, he bugs out, and Providence thinks you tipped him.”

Obie shook his head. “That ain’t you, Bridget. First of all, you’re greedy as fuck. Plus you’re ambitious and smarter than even Bobby. Why do you think I picked you?”

“So you did follow me here?”

“Followed you around that fucking supermarket for a half hour.”

“I bet you’re the one who called Providence. Probably saw Bobby in the market this morning and figured why not.”

“They called me.”

“Why the fuck would Providence call you?”

“Does it really matter? Either you step up or you don’t. That’s how these guys work. So what’s it gonna be?”

“Get out.”

“You serious?”

“You’re right, I won’t say a word to Bobby. If he got himself in deep with those guys, he’ll have to get himself out. But you’re wrong about the rest. Yeah, I like money, but I’m not a fucking rat. You know why? Cuz rats wind up working with scum like you and then one day you’re having a conversation in a car about me and I wind up on the wrong end of a visit from some guido. So get out of my car and take your fucking cheese and shitty-ass fucking breath with you.”

Obie gave her the finger and climbed out. Bridget rolled down her window the rest of the way.

“And Obie . . .”

He stopped and turned.

“If you think those guineas won’t make a meal out of someone like you, you’re even stupider than I thought. Do yourself a favor. Tell them you couldn’t find Bobby and go home. Lock the
door, turn out the lights, and be happy you did something halfway smart for once.”

Bridget watched Obie make his way to his car, then pulled up Bobby’s number on her cell. Her finger played across the SEND button but didn’t push it. She put the phone away and started to back out of her space. Asshole Obie nearly sideswiped her, laying on the horn and laughing like a maniac as he peeled out of the lot. Bridget hit the brakes, causing one of the shopping bags to topple and the top of her Fribble to pop off. The milkshake spilled all over the floor where it mixed with the unspooled yolks of four or five broken eggs until you couldn’t tell one from the other in a sprawling, sticky mess.

“Fuck.” Bridget leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and felt trembly, like she was gonna start crying for no reason at all. Fucking Fish House all over again. A young couple who looked like they were from Cambridge or Wellesley or Connecticut or some goddamn place stopped in the parking lot to stare at her.

“Mind your own fucking business,” Bridget screamed through the open window and watched the young couple stuff themselves into their Subaru and peel out into traffic without even looking. That made her feel a little better. Bridget pulled some paper towels from one of the bags and cleaned up the backseat. Then she ran into Friendly’s and bought another shake. It was 3:15 by the time she got back in her car. Depending on traffic, the drive across town was a half hour. And she was running late.