We Were Kings (23 page)

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The Intercontinental Club, Dudley Square

MARTIN BUTLER LISTENED
to the music playing from the ballroom, but tonight it offered him little peace. He was thinking about the call he'd received from the bank, and now Donal had mentioned seeing the detective at the wake. Donal was standing in the shadows against the far wall, his arms crossed, the light from the sconces highlighting the severe edge of his jawline. The fan thumped steadily above their heads. Donal had just come from evening services, and Butler could smell the incense and beeswax on him; it clung to the fibers of his jacket like a second skin. He imagined a room as smoky as a bar and the low chanting of a hundred mendicants with their arms uplifted to heaven, and heaven oblivious to their pleas. Butler had left God behind a long time ago but out of respect acted as devout as he could around Donal. Still, sometimes he wished the religion would temper the man some.

“Well?” Donal said.

“Well what?”

“Brennan was right about that detective—I doubt it was a coincidence that he was here the night of that dance.”

Butler waved him away. “There was no other reason for him to be here and the rest is merely him doing his job. But you're right not to underestimate him, and now that we know that he's connected with this other fellow—”

“O'Brien.”

“O'Brien. And you say the priest knows him?”

“Yes, him and his father played their part back in the day.”

“Any point in reaching out to the priest, convincing him to talk some sense into this O'Brien?”

“I think we're past that. I thought he'd take my warning, but that didn't work. He's a right hard case, that one, and he's got a death wish. I think that he's in it just for that, for the trouble that he enjoys stirring up—can you believe a man coming into a church and expecting to be shot?”

Donal shook his head, his brow creased and his lips pursed. “I don't trust this at all. The two of them there, together. And now you say the detective's been looking into Mr. de Burgh's finances.”

“There's nothing there that would warrant much attention—Mr. de Burgh spreads his money far and wide. He owns much but he gives much.”

“Something's going on,” Donal said, “and we need to fix it before it gets out of control.” He stared at Butler, absently touched the pin on his lapel. “Why haven't the guns been moved yet?” he said. “They're getting impatient.”

“The guns are going out within the week. We had to wait for the right passage aboard a boat that no one will suspect, but that doesn't change a thing. You're right, this does need to get fixed. What else do you know about this O'Brien fellow?”

“He served in the war and runs a security business in Scollay Square. They say the mob killed his wife.”

“So he has nothing to lose,” Butler said.

“Nothing at all.”

“How do he and the detective know each other?”

“They're related—cousins, I think.”

“If we bring one to heel, the other might follow, perhaps.” Butler sat back in his chair and turned so that he could see out the window. From the street, music came up to them, the sound of a woman's voice in laughter, the clanging bell of a trolley. In the other room there was a cessation of sound, a break between sets.

“How are our friends settling in?” Butler asked.

“As I said, sure they're getting antsy. They feel like we're wasting their time.”

“Us? We're wasting their time?”

There was the almost imperceptible movement of Donal's shoulders shrugging. His face remained indifferent, cold. The planets revolved around the sun; the sun moved through the cosmos; stars died in distant galaxies and flung their last light toward Earth, and through it all, Donal Phelan remained immutable, unchanging. The glow from the sconce at his back burned a corona around his head and shoulders.

“Not much longer,” Butler said.

“They need to know.”

“Will they take things into their own hands if we keep them waiting?”

“They will if they feel they have to.”

“We need to be the ones in control of what happens here. Tell them they have leave to go ahead.”

“You're sure?”

“I am. The guns are going home, Donal, and, in the end, that's all that matters.”

“Is maith Dia.”

“He is good,” Butler said, nodding in agreement. “He is good.”

An arc of lightning illuminated the dark rooftops and caught his eye. The shape of a chimney, a water tower, a group of young men on the tarpaper passing a bottle back and forth, and then the scene faded into blackness again. He could feel the floorboards trembling beneath him with the vibration of a hundred dancers. It merged with the vibration of close thunder so that for a moment he could no longer tell the difference between the two. He thought of his brother at home in his wheelchair in the dark, trembling with fear as the night thundered about him, no one there but the old woman asleep in her cot, and him with no voice to call out for help, to tell the world or another of his fear. “For the love of Christ, Donal,” he said, “will this heat never break?”

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South Boston Aquarium, Marine Park

IT WAS EARLY
Sunday morning, and, in the final days before the aquarium's doors closed forever, the place was mostly deserted. Cal, Dante, and Owen walked the shattered galleries where fish and marine animals had once been, rare species imported from the corners of the globe. This had been a mainstay of all their childhoods, even Owen's, despite the fact that he was younger. For him it had always existed in squalor but it was, nonetheless, something distinctly Southie's, and there was still a sense of pride that it was theirs, even in its neglect by the city.

Cal and Dante had seen it in better times and both felt a certain melancholy as they peered at the empty tanks covered with slime and stained dark by dirty water, at the unwashed glass and cracked plaster and the rusted, incessantly dripping pipes, the sound of which reverberated throughout the cavernous space. The dank, slightly putrid smell reminded Cal of mudflats at low tide. It was Boston's but Boston had also been its ruin. And, to them, it mirrored all beautiful things in the city that had over the years gone to ruin, including many of the old neighborhoods.

They had brought the girls with them—Owen's four-year-old, Fiona, and Dante's Maria—and the children ran ahead, Maria limping slightly from her stitches and with the bandages showing above the top of her saddle shoe. They were eager to look at the displays, excited to be free of adult constraint, and didn't seem to care about the building's decrepitude or its smell; their voices rose, high-pitched and joyful, up through the basilica-like caverns and grottoes. The once-elaborate entrance portal still showed a semblance of its rich past, with its wide ornamental pillars and intricate wood carvings of fish, sea turtles, sharks, dolphins, and mermaids that opened onto the grand space of the cupola in the main viewing room and the seal pool beneath the dome.

Dante called out to Maria, and she stopped and looked back. “Don't run, Maria, your foot is still healing. Go slow.”

She nodded, smiling, and dramatically half skipped, half limped to Owen's daughter, who stood, openmouthed, staring at a rusting display embedded in the wall two feet above the floor and from which a green light glowed. The tanks were lit by the skylights above them and by electric light diffused through the water, but the water was so unclean, the whole place seemed to shimmer unpleasantly with an algae-tinged light.

At one time the aquarium had attracted over fifteen thousand people a day but during the Great Depression and through the Second World War it had been neglected, and it had declined quickly. Now, almost half the tanks were empty, and besides a small group of tourists from Canada—Cal could tell from their accents—they were the only ones here.

The Canadians turned away from the fish tanks with looks of disgust on their faces, and he didn't blame them. The place was depressing. It seemed as if the building were collapsing around them from the inside out. Corroded pipes slowly leaked rusty water across sections of the once-remarkable terrazzo, leaving long black runnels. The mayor had refused to appropriate funds for the building's repair and within weeks it would be closing. Cal knew that this would probably be their last time here.

Only one seal of the colony remained, flapping and barking in its open pool beneath the dome, plunging suddenly into the water, surging around its circumference, paddling onto its rocky island, and then doing it all over again. It didn't seem to be aware of any other part of its environment. Maria and Fiona cooed and called to it and then watched for a bit, but when the animal failed to respond to them they moved on to the other exhibits and tanks.

As they walked, Owen caught Dante and Cal up on the case. He told them the names of the murdered on the night of the Fourth and said he was at a roadblock and didn't know what to do next.

“The dead,” Dante said. “They were all Irish, like you thought?”

“They were all Irish. And all situated locally. They had different jobs around town.”

“The type of jobs where they might have access to the boat, the way Flynn did?”

“Longshoremen, dockworkers, truck drivers, laborers, thieves—what you'd expect. A couple worked on local fishing vessels, so they might have been part of the crew who brought in the guns. We got word from New York that two of their locals with ties to the IRA may have been on the boat, but there's been no sign of them. Between us and New York and the Rhode Island and Connecticut authorities, we might still find more bodies.”

“Ready-made production line to move heavy guns and transport them,” Cal said.

“Yeah, the Feds think the Irish are planning something big. They've intercepted four boats in the last year smuggling arms and they assume they've missed at least twice that many.”

“Were any of the other victims musicians?”

“I checked the list I got from the Intercontinental, and two of them played at regular gigs around town.”

“Just like Flynn,” Cal said.

“Just like Flynn, but that's not enough to think there's some kind of connection. A quarter of the Irish in town play out at the local halls. For every musician, there's a dozen who know one or two of their fathers' old tunes on the accordion or tin whistle.”

“Did you ask the wives if they knew any of the other deceased?”

“They knew them, all right, but only casually, through the dance-hall scene and the Irish social clubs. A few attended classes at the cultural center or were a part of the Gaelic Athletic Association games out in Brighton. There's all manner of connection, and none of it stands out.”

“Someone is pulling the strings here, someone's giving the orders,” Dante said. “Someone who has the same type of connections.”

“That's an awful wide net, and I don't see a way of narrowing it.”

“We need the name of your informant,” Cal said.

Owen paused to look at a tank and peered, squinting, into the murky water. Something there glided briefly into view; it was translucent and pale, a gelatinous eye on the end of a thinly veined protuberance. He looked up at Cal and shook his head.

“Jesus, Owen, you want our help—”

“I do and I'm glad for it, but that name is staying in the books. Even if Giordano asked for it, I wouldn't give it up. I'd be putting him at too much of a risk, him and who knows how many more people with him who have access to the same info. I don't want another night like the Fourth. There's a reason he trusted me in the first place. I won't jeopardize that.”

“Yeah, and there's a reason the guns were gone before you got there and there are now six people dead, maybe more. Whose side is this informant playing on, anyway? How do you know he wasn't playing you all along?”

“I know, trust me. He wasn't. He's fed me stuff before and it's always been straight. So, discussion over. No informant's name.”

“What has he fed you?”

“Stuff.”

Cal looked at Owen. Dante watched as they stared each other down. Owen was the first to blink. He pursed his lips and his cheeks hollowed.

“Little stuff, all right? A year ago it was a stolen car carrying small arms, the same six months later. Both times we set up a sting with the Staties and nailed them. His word is good.”

“You ever wonder why he was doing this?” Dante asked.

“Why he was doing what?”

“Ah, will you stop!” Cal said. “Why he was giving you the shit in the first place.”

“That's how you build trust, slowly, over time. You know that. He gave me the stolen cars with the guns and it led to this, a huge arms shipment.”

“Yeah, but what's he getting in return? He throws you a couple of bones—no skin off his nose—but now the big one, and they know they've been tipped off?”

“Not by him, they weren't. I won't give him up.”

Owen looked from Dante to Cal. Squinting, he rubbed at a spot above his right temple.

“Are we good?” he asked. “Are you two still with me?”

A strange and unpleasant odor passed through the gallery, as if sewage water had suddenly been released into the aquarium's reservoir and tanks. Dante held a handkerchief to his mouth and Cal's face blanched. His eyes watered as he nodded, but it took him a moment to speak.

“Yeah,” he said, “we're all good. If we don't have the informant, we'll pretend he doesn't even exist and we'll go at it another way.”

“How?”

“I don't know yet.”

Fiona and Maria stood quietly before the tank that contained the five giant turtles. They stared through the plate glass as the turtles rose and fell and glided through their murky world. One, the giant green female weighing over four hundred pounds, came close to the glass and held the children's gaze with her own, and held in fascination, they were stilled by it.

The men watched the children and the turtle and they too were momentarily transfixed by the image—the two girls with their hands upon the glass in silent communion with the quiet behemoth that had emerged from the murk. Sunlight from the skylights above cast a flickering illumination down through the water, and for a brief, transitory moment they could forget the decaying state of the building around them, the killings, their conversations of death, and their separate places in all of it.