A Town Called Malice Read online

  His father was a loser. My landlord’s words, not mine, but his tale illustrates one of the things that makes Boston so special and potentially dangerous: It’s a small town, karma lurking around every corner and often firing with both barrels to make up for her lousy aim.

  What’s my point? That maybe in light of Devlin McKenna’s return, the way I continue to view my father is naive, a self-deluding narrative that enables me to see him in only the most positive light, like choosing to focus solely on the brightest of colors refracted through a dark tinted prism. At the very least, I’ve come to understand that my father was many things. And as his Alzheimer’s has worsened, a deepening silence settling in, I make little effort to unravel the secrets that used to spill from his lips, separate fact from fiction, and parse his conversations with the spirit world, my mother chiefly, her ghost-love last to fade.

  The irony of my father’s new, more permanent silence doesn’t escape me. My father’s always been fluent in silence, valued experience over words, even if it came with a few lumps. Here’s what was important to him: Loyalty. Music. The languid rhythm of a baseball game, the brutal honesty of a boxing match. Awareness: Know who you are.

  Zero and I grew up at the poker table, where we sat behind our father—always behind—and watched him work the turn of the cards, the pressurized silences and muttered curses that followed. But he also exposed us to other places where we were less welcome and had to weather the hostile stares of Baby Doc–scarred Haitians, or the snarl of the old Irish guard holding up the bar at the local VFW, the open condescension of the silver-haired patricians snacking on shrimp cocktails in the marbled dining rooms of the Parker House Hotel. High and low. Watch and listen. Keep your mouth shut until I tell you otherwise. Pay attention. Who are the dinosaurs? Who will be here in twenty years? Who will adapt? Tell me now. Tell me why. What’s that riff? Who’s blowing that horn? What song did that sample? Why did Lady Day die penniless? How come Evan Dando broke out of the pack?

  The Rat was just one of the many bars and clubs my father operated out of after-hours, the games lining the pockets of the club managers and owners, who were happy to keep the lights on as the rest of the city snoozed, content with the knowledge that they could count on him if they needed a favor down the line, an ear at city hall, a beef smoothed over.

  Sometimes we would arrive well before closing, greeted at the door like royalty by Mitch Cerullo, the club’s longtime doorman who always sported a gray Wolf Man beard and matching three-piece suit regardless of the weather or how rough the crowd was. That suit was always a mystery to me as it was never wrinkled or torn as he “escorted” sporadic trouble out the door, though the rumor that he was wired into the Boston Mob probably tempered much resistance to his rough embrace on the rare occasions he had to employ it.

  A stained soul and a clean suit was how my father described him years later without elaboration, as was his way.

  The greeting between my father and Cerullo took the form of ritual, a brief hug followed by a warm handshake with a discreet exchange of bills and a detailed account of the evening’s highlights, which always included an assessment of the energy in the room, for my father believed strongly in such things where poker was involved. Poker is foremost a game of skill and nerve, but sometimes that slim margin between winning and losing comes in the ability to tune in to something less tangible, the karmic vibrations of the night itself, not only the players, camouflaging themselves in thickening smoke while lobbing up false signals like hand grenades, trying in every conceivable way to separate you from your money.

  “Tonight’s a special night,” Cerullo would broadcast through the metallic voice box he required and would sometimes let me hold to his throat, the robotic vibrations thrilling me, “as we were treated to the musical styling of Willie Alexander followed by the always energetic Nervous Eaters, who opened with ‘Loretta’ to great aplomb.”

  “Energetic, huh?” My dad’s sly grin lit up the jagged barbwire scar under his bottom lip. “Willie manage to keep his shirt on tonight?”

  “He didn’t even make it through ‘Mass Ave.’” Cerullo chuckled without the box, a silent pantomime of laughter. “Paid the price for it, too. Some chickadees jumped onstage and burned him good with their cigs.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” my father said. “Least his shirt’s in one piece.” Which in itself was an accomplishment at some shows at the Rat, where you could come out looking like you’d been fed headfirst through a wood chipper.

  “Ah, but what fun he had.” Cerullo shrugged up his sleeve to glance at his watch. My father’s game would start after the club closed at 2 A.M., the staff diligently cleaning around him as he prepared the octagonal table that was stored above the bar, sorting and stacking the heavy clay chips he’d had custom-made for his games while Zero and I broke the seal on two brand-new decks of Bicycle playing cards, removed the Jokers, and shuffled.

  After an hour of cleaning the staff would depart, though from the results of their labor you’d never guess they’d even made the effort. The walls wept beer. The air held the perpetual tang of sweat and smoke. The carpeted stairs to the basement were petri dishes of sweat-glopped hair gel, spilled alcohol, wads of gum. If a pandemic ever broke out in Boston, the first place the CDC would have quarantined was the Rat.

  “They rowdy down there?” my father would inquire even though we would be playing upstairs.

  “No more than usual, but The Real Kids haven’t gone on yet. Your boys will like them, especially that one.” Cerullo pointed at Zero. “He’s got that hellion look in his eyes, I’m telling you. Well, if he’s itching to brawl, this would be the place and the band for it. He can just say he’s slam dancing. All will be forgiven.”

  To understand why the Rathskeller was my father’s most frequent location for his cash-heavy games, you would have to understand how divided Boston was in the early nineties, a city of closed neighborhoods and fiercely protected fiefdoms. I suspect that the Rat benefitted from its proximity to Fenway Park, one of the few Boston institutions that could be claimed by all its residents, no matter where they rested their heads at night. Kenmore Square was therefore something of an island, not out and out claimed by the DeMasi crime family, who controlled the Italian North End and most of downtown and were making inroads to the rapidly gentrifying South End. Neither was it territory ruled by Devlin McKenna, who had garnered a vise grip on South Boston, Charlestown, and Somerville, or Jerry Dapolito, who ran Revere, Chelsea, and an all-black Roxbury, the Big Dig yet to carve up the city and change its borders forever.

  For whatever reason, the black box of the Rat was a safe haven and proving ground for my father, where he could sharpen his skills at the green felt docket of the poker table, practice stilling the blood coursing through his veins, erase any trace of light from his midnight eyes. As it was, too, for the hundreds of local bands who tore it up nightly, sometimes in front of only a dozen fans, which was no less than acts like Metallica, The Police, or the Beastie Boys drew to that basement stage as they were starting out. Some of these acts—Human Sexual Response, The Bosstones, just to name a couple—went on to long careers and gained national recognition while others equally talented—La Peste, The Titanics, The Blackjacks—rose not much further than local fame and notoriety before imploding or just disbanding, done in by shady record deals, bad timing, drug addictions, and ego; the music business, like poker, chalked a thin line between busting loose or busting out.

  Today, sometimes still, when the stars are aligned just right, you can hear the echo of that Bosstown Sound in places like the Paradise, the Middle East, and T.T. the Bear’s Place, though technically, the latter two clubs reside on the Cambridge side of the Charles River.

  What’s sacred anymore in Boston? Nothing. Especially when prime real estate is involved: The hallowed Boston Garden replaced by an arena with all the charm of an ATM. The Charles Street Jail converted into a luxury hotel where bars on the windows will set you back a few extra do
llars. Fenway’s Green Monster topped by seating for people who must be made out of money.

  The Rat was demolished over a decade ago. In fact, practically the entire block had been torn down to accommodate construction of the Hotel Commonwealth, where, if you ignore the ghosts of rock and roll past, you can snag a seat at the Standard, groove to piped-in music with an algorithm beat designed to stimulate spending, and sip a fourteen-dollar ethically sourced cocktail served up by a bartender—excuse me, mixologist—who couldn’t even fake you a solid Boston accent. Who the fuck lives in this city anymore? Where do they all come from?

  I’d ask the mocha-skinned, chardonnay-eyed woman who opens the door to the adjoining office, but she’s on me too fast.

  “Hey, I appreciate you coming in. It’s Zesty, right? Alianna Solarte.” She walks our handshake all the way to her desk, the door to the outer room left open behind us. “It’s good of you to come in so quick. I know I was insistent. Please, have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? I hear you messengers drink a lot of coffee.”

  “I’m all set, thanks.”

  Alianna Solarte’s dark eyebrows jump in astonishment, revealing she knows something about bike messengers.

  The Tao of Zesty goes something like this: high-quality coffee, any quality marijuana, just about any woman foolish enough to roll the dice. I explain to Solarte that I’d already had my defibrillating two mugs this morning. What I leave unsaid is that I would have accepted a third if the machine on the windowsill weren’t one of those instant-cup contraptions that I consider to be to coffee what Keanu Reeves is to acting.

  “That’s for me? Thanks.” Alianna Solarte accepts the offer of my standard courier contract and list of fees, which she then drops onto the keyboard of her open laptop without a second glance.

  “I hope your dispatcher didn’t think I was being pushy, asking you to come in personally, but I’m, like, sort of a people person. You?” Ms. Solarte’s People Person smile is bright and wide, an open invitation to share. She’s a compact woman yet sitting doesn’t seem to make her any smaller; she sits as she stood, tilted minutely forward with a therapist’s posture.

  Outside the windows I can hear the gentle ebb of the city, a staccato of beeps as cars and trucks move through the square, foot traffic picking up as fans head toward Fenway Park for early batting practice. There’s a rare late-September day game left on the Red Sox schedule due to a rainout, a trickle of bobbing heads that will soon turn into a swarm of unwavering loyalists, of which I am one.

  Go Sawx!

  “Me what?” I say.

  “A people person.”

  “I charm the living hell out of receptionists and front office staff,” I boast. Only it’s probably on account my visits last only a few minutes at a clip. Ask anyone else, especially some of the women I’ve dated, and they’d pitch you an entirely different story.

  “I imagine that’s a requisite skill in your line of work.” Solarte troubles herself for a brief smile that doesn’t transfer to the rest of her body.

  “Integral.” I dust off my big-boy words. “Only you should know up front if we end up working together I won’t be the only messenger you see.” I point to the contract and list of fees drooping off the side of the keyboard. There’s a sizable oil stain on the bottom of the front page that must have come from the bag with Charlie’s gun in it, only Alianna Solarte doesn’t make note of it when she picks it up from her keyboard and sets it even further aside.

  “So tell me about yourself, Zesty. Why should I hire Mercury Couriers?”

  “This is an interview?” I sit up straighter. “Had I known I would have worn fancier shorts.” As it is, I’m dressed in my standard outfit of black Lycra racing tights under paint-spattered cut-off black jean shorts, white Trefoil Adidas T-shirt under a gray and white Trefoil hoodie sweatshirt, and a pair of black high-top Adidas basketball sneakers. If I had an agent, Adidas would be covering my expenses. As it is, I’m Boston’s cheapest billboard.

  “I mean, I looked online.” Solarte forms a steeple with her hands. “There are plenty of courier outfits out there, pretty much all of them bigger. And cheaper…”

  Two years ago I would have told Alianna Solarte that hiring me guaranteed her Boston’s fastest bike messenger—one-way streets, squirrel crossing pedestrians, and bike patrol cops be damned—only I still wasn’t back up to full speed, opting to spend as much time as I could handle with my father, the job of caregiving draining me even though I have more help than most.

  “So why didn’t you call them instead?” The words come out sharper than I’d intended.

  “Because they’re not nearly as intriguing as you are.” Solarte squints me a forgiving smile, accentuating the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. Her brown hair pulled tight in a ponytail has the hard shine of lacquered wood and makes it seem as if her whole face is being pulled back, the skin smooth over high rounded cheekbones, those light wine eyes almost with an Asian slant; pretty in the way older women who don’t fight aging age, a dab of makeup meant to accentuate, not conceal.

  “You mean you’ve read my press clippings.” I’m paying more attention now, not enjoying the direction this conversation is going.

  “Sure. You got the touch of celebrity about you. Come on, Zesty. I can’t be the only star fucker in this town.”

  No, I decide after a moment, I couldn’t have heard right. She wouldn’t have said that.

  “Excuse my French.”

  Or not.

  I need to start focusing. Only it’s hard as another 45 drops between my ears, my head-wax DJ deciding there’s no better time to spin The Outlets’ “Knock Me Down” just loud enough to startle everyone meditating on Walden Pond.

  Solarte’s on-point, though. After my highly publicized run-in with McKenna I did record a temporary uptick in my love life, bullets and beatings working as some strange aphrodisiac on a select type of girl. Only lately I’ve been back to spending nights alone with my cat, still trying to figure out how to put a positive spin on broke, college dropout, and according to Martha, the forthcoming behind in my rent.

  “Hey, Zesty.” Solarte snaps her fingers in my direction. “You still here?”

  “I’m with you.” Only not to talk about my suitability as a mate or of my past. And according to the clock on the filing cabinet, I am due to meet Detective Wells in the South End in less than an hour. “What can I do for you, Ms. Solarte?” I’m on high alert now, the song receding as quickly as it came, leaving only the empty-groove hiss of needle on wax. “I don’t mean to be rude but I have another appointment I have to get to.”

  “Call me Alianna.”

  “That’s okay.” I rise from my seat, Solarte watching me carefully from under lifted brows, not budging an inch as I reach over her computer, lifting the contract I’d given her before folding it back into my pack next to Charlie service revolver. “I’m getting the sense you don’t really need a messenger, Ms. Solarte.”

  “Not exactly. But please stay a few minutes, Zesty. I’ll pay you for your time if that’s the issue.”

  “That’s not necessary. It’s always good to meet new people.” I look around the office, no longer distracted by the song or my desire to hook a new client, paying more attention to what I was looking at but not really seeing: Alianna Solarte’s body language, the framed photographs hung behind her, a local celebrity in each one, the elaborately carved ornamental base centered on the cracked ceiling overhead, which would be the room’s only pristine reminder of old-world charm had it not been desecrated by a tiny camera pointing toward the door.

  “Are you some sort of PI, Alianna?” I sit back down.

  “Now what makes you say that?” Alianna turns up the wattage of her grin, unduly pleased about something.

  “Well, because if you’ve done your homework on me as I think you have, then you know I’ve had my share of law enforcement in my life.”

  “You mean on account of your mother’s role in Bank of Boston? Or your
brother—”

  “Take your pick.” I fight the urge to bolt out the door, picturing Martha’s wrath if I came back to the office empty-handed.

  “Timing really is everything in life, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m talking about your father now. Imagine where he’d be today considering his skill set. Probably on TV, selling baseball caps, mirrored sunglasses, and subscriptions to Internet poker sites. Why do you ask if I’m an investigator?”

  “Because I think you used to be a cop.”

  “Okay.”

  “And a lot of cops go into security, consulting work, after they retire. Only you’re a little young to be retired.…”

  “Aren’t you sweet.” Solarte’s voice is playful, only I’ve already noted the shift in her energy, as if she’s joined me in doubling down on her focus. “What gave me away? Or are you inclined not to tell?”

  “I’m not a magician.” I shrug. “Two things, mainly. I didn’t pay it any mind at first, but when you sat down at your desk you cleared your jacket like most detectives do. At least those who are right-handed and are used to carrying their service revolver on their left hip. Only you’re not carrying, so it must be a habit you haven’t shaken or didn’t even notice you have.”

  Solarte frowns. “And the second?”

  “Those pictures behind you. Most people look into the camera for those types of celebrity photos, but even though you’re smiling, it never makes it to your eyes. And it doesn’t matter who you’re with, Ortiz, Wahlberg. You did some work for Aerosmith?”

  “Yep. You can’t see it, but at that very moment there, Steven Tyler was grabbing my ass.”

  “Well then, all the more power to you. It doesn’t make it into the picture.” In every photo Solarte was looking beyond the lens, scoping her surroundings, clocking people outside the frame. “I’m assuming you were working.”

  “I was. And let it be noted, the concert that night, Tyler only handled the mic with his left hand.” Solarte winks at me.