A Town Called Malice Read online

  “Fuck you, you’re a pigeon,” I say, take a deep breath, and grunt into the lift. Maybe somewhere in China a bee pollinates a flower, which triggers an earthquake in Bolivia, but the bar doesn’t budge, it only laughs at me. At least until I realize it’s Jhochelle laughing.

  “Zesty, what a pleasant surprise and a happy coincidence. I was about to call you.” Jhochelle is Zero’s Israeli wife and mother of my nephew, Eli, who must be napping in his crib upstairs in Zero’s office. Prior to her pregnancy, Jhochelle was dark and lean, retaining the body honed in the mandatory two years of service in the Israeli Defense Forces. She looks no different now, a little more than a year into motherhood, except around the eyes, which are the same color as my father’s, ocean-bottom black and impenetrable, now stamped with the tired half-moon imprint of every new parent’s.

  “Do you think you could lift this?” I ask her.

  “Why on earth would I try?”

  “I dunno, to impress yourself?”

  “I could use a little of that,” Jhochelle admits. “There’s nothing quite like having a child to make you question your self-worth. Or sanity, for that matter.”

  “The kid didn’t come with instructions? What kind of baby factory did you get him from?”

  “Considering his lineage, a shady one.”

  I grunt into the lift once more. This time the bar vibrates. Progress.

  “Anyhow, I don’t rely on brute strength, you know that.”

  It’s true. Jhochelle, in addition to being a general badass, was trained as a sniper and could assemble an Uzi with her eyes closed. But barring firearms, she’s also one of those women who prides herself on the well-placed knee or chop to the larynx, moves I’ve seen deftly employed in crowded bars on men with grabby hands.

  “Come.” Jhochelle leads the way upstairs and I follow into Zero’s cluttered office, where feng shui must have crawled up and died. Aside from the tidy crib with a mini Calder mobile suspended above it, the office is populated by a dizzying array of rejected knickknacks, cast-off furniture, and incomprehensibly bad original art.

  “What’s with this crap?” I sidestep a pair of rust-streaked oxygen tanks and a palette-size rack of caged lighting, like the type you’d see illuminating a ballpark. Over the tanks, on a bicycle hook screwed into the ceiling, hangs a bulky yellow suit that looks more hazmat than diving, the helmet, nearly box-shaped with a large plexiglass shield riveted along the seams and attached by a bungee cord, giving the appearance of someone who’s nodded off standing up.

  “Those?” Jhochelle dismisses the mess with a backward wave of her hand. “They’ve been there for weeks. I keep waiting for Zero to add a captain’s wheel, some plastic lobsters, and fishing nets to complete the scene.”

  “Who’d the boys move, Jacques Cousteau?”

  “Possibly.” Jhochelle peeks in on Eli, who’s asleep, before seating herself behind my brother’s desk. “So.”

  “Is it safe, keeping the tanks in the office? They look pretty rusted out.”

  “I’ll have Zero or one of the guys move them if you’re concerned.”

  “What kind of suit is that? Not warm-weather, it looks—”

  “Zesty, enough about the gear already. I haven’t seen you in months. What’s prompted this visit?”

  “You go first,” I say. “I need a favor but you said you were about to call me.”

  “Yes. Perfect. So it’ll be a trade, then.”

  Only I’m uncomfortable with Eli in the room and keep the stained paper bag with Charlie’s gun in my pack. “Is there somewhere you can put Eli for a minute?”

  “Why?”

  I tell her.

  “Really?” Jhochelle’s eyes widen.

  “It’s not loaded,” I add hastily. “Don’t ask me where I got it but I need to put it in the safe, at least temporarily.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Jhochelle reads something in my reaction and then adds, “Allow me to clarify. I literally can’t do that. I don’t have the combination.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since Zero changed it last week.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did he change it or why doesn’t he give me the combination?”

  “Both.” Though I know better to expect transparency in regards to my brother’s relationship with his mercurial wife. My relationships with women have never lasted long enough to confirm this, but I’ve long held the view that the daily lives of every married couple are governed by a communicative series of hieroglyphics rendered in smoke signals, forever changing in the breeze. In simpler terms: Who the fuck really knows what goes through the minds of two people who’ve conjoined their lives to such a degree that they’ve created another human being?

  “It’s not a matter of trust, Zesty, if that’s what you’re thinking. But the alternative, if you ask me, is actually worse.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Obviously there’s something he’d rather I not see. He’s protecting me from something.”

  “From what?”

  “If I knew—”

  “Come on, Jhochelle. You married the fucker, I thought you had him figured out.”

  “As if.”

  “So are you worried or just pissed?”

  “Considering the last couple of years…” Jhochelle contemplates the question, swaying lightly from side to side like a scale adjusting to an unbalanced weight, a movement that conveys neither anger nor pressing concern. “Let’s just say I’m wary. Zero is not impulsive, your father had trained that out of him at an early age. You must have been sleeping during those lessons. I’m assuming he’s decided to lock the safe to protect me from something. Making this not the first time he’s chosen to shield his family, would it?” Jhochelle referring to both my parents’ role in the Bank of Boston robbery, knowledge Zero had kept to himself until things began to spiral beyond his control.

  “I won’t lie and say it doesn’t bother me, but now is not the time to press the issue. Is the gun you have registered?”

  “The serial numbers have been filed off.”

  “Has it been fired recently?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Wonderful.” Jhochelle shakes her head. “That’s why I love you, Zesty, you’re a paragon of responsibility.”

  “Hey,” I say. “Since when did you master sarcasm?”

  “When I married your brother. And irony as well, you’ll soon see. I need you to go pick up Zero.”

  “From where?”

  “The Lounge in Charlestown. Do you know it?”

  “I know of it.” Only I preferred to frequent bars where women with teeth might show up. And then stay long enough for me to show off my tough guy scars. “What’s he doing at the Lounge in the middle of the day?” Zero’s not a boozer; aside from occasional beers with his work crews after a job I’ve rarely seen him drink in daylight hours.

  “Last I was informed, he was tearing the place apart.” Jhochelle smiles bitterly. “I’d have called Sid but he’s covering your father right now and as you saw from the empty garage, all the men are out. Which leaves you.”

  “Has he done this before, Jo?”

  “Done what?”

  “Gotten plastered in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “I never said he was drunk, Zesty, I just told you where he is. But I do think perhaps the combination of fatherhood and your father’s steady decline have brought up issues for him which I don’t think he can rampage his way through. Try as he might. Talk to him, Zesty, he’ll listen to you. And get him out of that fucking bar before the authorities have to. The last thing we need is the Boston Police Department all over our business again; god only knows what Zero is really up to.”

  “Will do,” I say. “But quick question. You still keep up the logbook for the storage bins downstairs?”

  “Of course. It’s part of the rental contract.” With a two-signature itemized list so Zero is held accountable for the belongings while simultaneously the rent
er can’t take something out and claim the movers stole it.

  “Can I see it?”

  Jhochelle starts studying me anew, like she missed something in the first read; as if asking her to stash a stolen gun wasn’t troubling enough. “Why?”

  “It’s probably nothing, but…” I fill Jhochelle in, her eyes darkening, recalculating at the mention of Brill and Wells; like Zero is wont to do, weighing the opportunity against the risk as I report Sam’s prolonged absence and his tenuous connection to Rambir Roshan.

  “So Wells hasn’t been able to get ahold of Sam since this young man was murdered and this was how long ago, two weeks?”

  “To the day. But I’m not sure how long after he was killed that Wells established the connection to Sam.”

  “Well, personally, I didn’t see your friend, but as you know I’m not here full-time.…” Jhochelle selects a binder from a shelf and flips pages, running her eyes down each one until she comes to a stop. “He was here.” She spins the book so I can see. “And if it’s been two weeks precisely since Mr. Roshan was killed, it was the day after.” She pins the date with her finger, Sam’s signature and an item marked box/miscellaneous added to the storage bin.

  “There a backup of this in the computer?” I close the binder.

  Jhochelle smiles at me without meaning. Record keeping at Zen Movers is a nebulous matter, cash payments encouraged and generous discounts offered to customers who are willing to forgo any formal bill of service.

  “Can I get into the bin?” I ask Jhochelle.

  “You’re concerned?”

  “Too many coincidences, considering the timing of Sam’s visit and ghost act.”

  “Zesty, I sympathize but you know damn well going into a bin runs counter to policy and violates the renter’s bill of rights,” Jhochelle admonishes me with a mother’s tone. “It also happens to be against the law.”

  Which is probably why the hard snap of the bolt cutters feels so satisfying to her. I kick the lock aside, roll up the door to the unit. The cardboard box is at the front on the floor, marked textbooks in black Sharpie ink.

  I pick it up and can tell immediately it’s not full of textbooks. Any experienced mover would have come to the same conclusion, especially if the contents are purported to be made of paper. Porn is especially easy to gauge—though sometimes we’re fooled by National Geographic—gay porn heavier than hetero, don’t ask me why, it’s something about the paper stock. Imported Swedish gay porn is even heavier, they might as well just print it on the tree trunk.

  Jhochelle opens the box with three quick slashes of a box cutter. At the top is a rough draft of Sam’s dissertation, the exact opposite of porn. Buried under the papers is an aluminum poker chip case with a little bit of heft to it. I bring it over to the weight bench where there’s a fresh de Kooning swirl of white and green pigeon dropping hardening on the bar. I open the case, run my fingers over the full rows of chips, and look up. The pigeon inches a few steps to the right, trying to line me up.

  “Don’t even fuckin’ think about it,” I say, pulling out a random handful of chips, and show Jhochelle the markings.

  “They’re real?” she asks.

  “I think so. They’re all Vegas casino chips.” Caesar’s. Mandalay Bay. The Venetian. No chip has a valuation under a thousand dollars. With space now between the rows, I run my fingers down them again. Not a single chip matches the chips Brill had described Oleg Katanya using for the poker game he ran for Jakub Namestnikov and which Rambir Roshan had hidden in his shoes when he was killed.

  “You’ll take care of the box and the lock?” I return the chips to the case, slide the case into my bag.

  “Of course. And perhaps it’s best you keep the gun,” Jhochelle says, pragmatically.

  “Like I’ve got a choice.” I hear the pigeon cooing directly above me now and step swiftly beyond its target range before noticing it’d already scored a hit; something green and slimy on my sneaker. “Fuckin’ bird,” I mutter aloud before recognizing what it really is: seaweed.

  And it’s wet.

  TEN

  There are some places, entire blocks in Boston’s older, traditionally ethnic neighborhoods—Southie, Dorchester, Charlestown, Roxbury, even—that seem to exist in a parallel dimension, entered only through some time-bending portal where you’d swear you’ve stepped into a land preserved in soot-stained amber circa 1980.

  Somehow, these streets have remained invisible to the deep-pocketed developers who prowl the city like hyenas and you can thank places like the Lounge for scaring them off. It’s a squat dark bar sandwiched halfway down a block of three-deckers that lean in above it like shoulders reflexively bracing for a direct body blow. It’s a drinking bar that attracts no new customers, welcomes no new blood, but every once in a while someone stumbles in and their life changes forever

  Here’s how it happens: You’ve gone to Notre Dame, maybe even local BC or BU, played a little varsity lacrosse or some D-1 football, showed some measure of controlled aggression on the field that got you a pat on the ass, a chest-thumping ovation from teammates. Hell, maybe there was even more savage in there; knocked some skulls in that drunken frat rumble that spilled out of Mary Ann’s in Cleveland Circle or was it Bill’s Bar on Lansdowne?

  And now, look at you, pulling down that white-collar bread, got your first big-city apartment, worked hard and followed that righteous path your parents laid out in front of you. You’re out drinking with your buddies, your broken-in Levi’s and BoSox T-shirt betrayed by your four-hundred-dollar Aldens; you might as well have a neon sign blinking above your head that reads, SLUMMING.

  You’ve heard of this neighborhood before, of course, read up on the depravity of Devlin McKenna, Jerry Dapolito, and any number of psychopaths who’d somehow escaped the classification of serial killer because the mask was always off. And for damn sure you’ve watched Good Will Hunting, seen the interior of a bar like this in The Departed, and you’ve had a few too many and to be honest, you’re not entirely sure how you got here—this dark street, this darker bar.

  But by the time you realize you’ve been left alone, recognize that the mick who’s been staring at you with eyes that have the warmth of icicles, the one with the strange S-shaped part in that permafrost hair, which is actually a massive pink wormed scar running from his forehead down behind his ear like some crazy Boston street, it’s way too late. You make a move to leave but your legs are filled with sand just as the guys playing pool start to move with the measured precision of wolves eyeing fresh meat, the last break on the cue ball sounding like someone’s neck snapping.

  Your head starts to pound and the smell from your armpits is one you don’t recognize, because it’s straight-up fear, and it’s too late, you know it’s too late, and when you wake up from this with tubes in your arms, your eyes reduced to maraschino slits, your head screwed into a mobilizing halo—you’ll never look at the world the same way again. Your hair will grow back to cover where they shaved to drill a hole into your skull to relieve the swelling on your brain, but in a weaker shade, thinning to a premature gray. Your friends will become uncomfortable with your prolonged silences, with how you probe their soft layers with your faraway sleep-deprived eyes; what now passes for Morpheus’ thin blanket always bringing you back to that place where they didn’t even bother to wipe up your blood before reopening the door to the public and downing their next drink.

  The Lounge in Charlestown is one of those places and Zero preferred to do his casual drinking in these types of bars where a brawl is tolerated, if not expected, and I push through the door with my eyes closed so they’ll adjust quicker to the darkness, in case I have to start ducking haymakers and beer bottles. Only my precaution is unnecessary. Aside from someone who has the dimensions of an oil tanker pressing an ice-filled rag to his bloodied face, the place is calm, back to its midday rhythms. On the bar, in front of the large man, sits a short stack of twenty-dollar bills, likely Zero’s monetary apology.

  Zero h
as blood streaked across his swollen knuckles, a large red welt at the side of his neck, someone getting in a good one that was repaid in spades. His throwback Yastrzemski jersey is ripped at the sleeves revealing an alternative color scheme of tattoos printed on coiled muscles built through years of hard labor and supplemented by the weights.

  Two guys are out cold in the corner, one in a smear of vomit, another scrabbling the floor on his hands and knees either looking for lost contacts or missing teeth. For a place where all hell broke loose, it looks relatively in order and it takes me a moment to figure out why. The bar stools are deflated red pads atop swivel stools screwed into the floor. Same goes for the linoleum-topped tables, the chairs tethered by heavy chains to D-rings covered by small metal plates. Aside from the bottles of liquor themselves, there’s not a glass in the joint, all the beers on tap, the drinks served in lightweight plastic cups. In fact, on the whole, the bar is the drunken equivalent of childproof, a high scissor gate fronting stairs to the basement, the swinging door to the back kitchen sporting stained pillows duct-taped to the tops and bottoms; the bar itself is protected by worn leather padding riveted along its length.

  Zero doesn’t say anything or turn to look at me as I plunk myself down next to him. There’s no doubt he tracked me in the dark bar mirror as soon as I opened the door, the lessons imparted by our father at the poker table still in full effect, the feints and jabs ignored to watch for the damaging haymakers.

  “Jhochelle called me.” I waste an explanation, point to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s behind the bar figuring, when in Gomorrah.

  The bartender stands impassively with his arms pretzeled in front of him. He shakes his head. I take a deep breath and place money on the bar. The bartender shakes his head again.

  “He won’t serve you,” Zero says. “I’ve been officially eighty-sixed from the worst fucking bar in Boston.”

  “That’s a bad thing?” Growing up, Zero and I had been kicked out of countless clubs and bars, unwelcome until my father’s influence kicked in or a changing of the guard was at the door. Meaning someone who Zero hadn’t punched in the face, which sometimes took a while. I swear, Zero’s rung more bells in Boston than Anita Ward.