Tower: A Novel (13 page)

Rest of my routine was less exciting, but no less fun. Was at the bookstore every other day buying whatever the earth momma suggested. It got so that I barely watched the ginormous TV in the apartment. Ate at the barbeque place almost every night. Realized this was the first time since I was a kid that my life had settled into a pleasant rhythm. As a kid, there was school, ball, and TV. Every day when I woke up, I knew what was ahead.

But unlike when I was a kid, I knew this pleasant rhythm would come crashing down around my head. Can’t lie to you. The clock was ticking. Heard it louder by the day. Understood that this wasn’t some paid vacation, that Rudi would come calling, that Leeza wouldn’t, that Nicky, Boyle, and Griffin were still back home. Worst was waiting for O’Connor. The tick-tocking was loudest for him. It was near closing time and I was in the back room of the bookstore when the clock stopped.

“Find what you’re looking for, lad?”

O’Connor.

“Didn’t expect to find you. Not here, anyway.”

“And why not here?” He seemed hurt.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s been a spot of trouble, son. Time to close shop and get you home.”

“But—”

“But nothing. We’re pulling you. Don’t worry, you’ll get your shield.”

“Don’t give a shit about my shield. What the fuck happened?”

“Seems the Boston PD sprung a leak and you might have been compromised.”

“Does Rudi know? Boyle?”

“We don’t think so, at least not yet. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if they did. That’s why we’re moving you out. Go get your stuff. Here’s a ticket for the air shuttle out of Logan for tomorrow morning. There’s a reservation for a Bob Smith at the Holiday Inn. Stay there tonight. And don’t worry, we’ve got your back. There’s two men on you. Sorry, lad.”

He left. I was frozen in place. Didn’t want to go. Liked my life as it was, artificial as it might be. On my way out, leaned over and kissed the earth momma goodbye.

“No books today. Didn’t find what you wanted?”

“Yes and no,” I said. “Yes and no.” Not that I ever got mail, but still always checked as I made my way up to my apartment. This evening there was an envelope. No stamp, no return address, just a bloody thumb print. Inside the envelope was Kathleen’s square badge and a scrap of paper with an address on it. Suppose the smart thing would have been to throw it in the trash, get to the Holiday Inn, and try hard to forget Boston. Like I said, I wasn’t as smart as my mom.

Spotted the two cops in an unmarked unit across the street from my apartment. Went out the back, climbed the fence, called a cab. Gave a false destination to the dispatcher. When the hack showed, shoved a hundred dollar bill in the cabbie’s hand, gave him the real address, asked him not to put this ride on the meter and not to write it down on his trip sheet. Didn’t have to ask twice. Also asked him to stop at a payphone when we got close to the address.

“We’re about two miles away,” he said and handed me his cell phone.

Dialed the number wrong a few times, then got it right. Whispered into the mouth piece. Erased the call off his phone and handed it back.

“How close are we now?” I asked.

“Two blocks.”

“Stop and point the way.”

He was happy to oblige, especially after I put another hundred in his hand. As he turned back around, pressed the cold muzzle of my .38 to the nape of his neck.

“If you fuck with me and I find out you took my money and opened your mouth, I’ll hunt you down and shoot you through the liver. Do we understand one another?”

He nodded that he did. When I got out, he didn’t wait to see if I was moving in the right direction. Soon the only trace of the cab having ever been there was the faint smell of its exhaust.

Street was a fucking wreck. Every other house had a foreclosure sign up on its dirt and hardscrabble lawn. And it wasn’t like the rest of the homes were candidates for a glossy photo shoot. The second most popular sign on the block was BEWARE OF DOG. Would have to be aware of more than just pit bulls and Rottweilers. There were tire-less cars up on cinder blocks behind the cyclone fencing in nearly every yard. The one good thing about the ruined landscape was that I could very clearly see the house that belonged to the address written on the scrap of paper in my pocket. It was the only well-lit place on the block.

Finney’s rusted piece of shit was parked out front. A guy whose face I could not make out, but who was way too thin to be Finney, was pacing a rut in the broken sidewalk. The red glowing tip of his cigarette zigzagged back and forth, back and forth. My bet was there was at least one other guy around beside the one out front and Finney. Not like I was a novice at this crap. When I did “jobs” for Boyle, he didn’t send his whole crew. Usually two or three guys, four at most. The more people you involve, the greater the chances are that someone will fuck up. The more people involved, the harder it is to keep control. Conversely, the fewer people in on a job, the fewer that can get caught or flip.

Had to move fast. Got down in a crouch, moving quickly and quietly along the same side of the street as the house in which I assumed Kathleen was being held. Passing each house, I’d silently swing open their front gates. Then I’d pull the gate close to me so that I was sandwiched between the gate and the fence at my back. First and second houses yielded nothing. House number three? Bingo! A humongous Rottweiler came barreling through the open gate. Made an attempt to get at me, but after snagging a tooth on the fencing, he gave up, moving on to the next best target; the shithead pacing in front of the target house. Let the massive fucker get a good twenty feet ahead of me before following. Didn’t want him to change his mind or direction.

The relative silence of the night was broken by a sickening scream. The dog was all over the cigarette smoker. The Rottweiler growled as he tore into the man’s flesh. Got close enough to see the blood come shooting out of the guy’s thigh. The thin bastard was smart enough to try and guard his throat from the dog, but made the mistake of going for his piece. As soon as he removed one hand from his throat, the Rottweiler went for it. Now the man was flailing aimlessly, panic having overwhelmed him.

Another man, big, built like a middle linebacker, came charging out of the house, a 9mm or .40 caliber in his hand. He tried pulling the dog off his friend with his free hand, but when he saw that wasn’t going to work, he blew a hole through the Rottweiler’s massive head. The dog collapsed and the shooter pushed him off his partner. The thin guy’s body was twitching, blood pouring out of his neck with decreasing force. When the big guy knelt down to see if he could help, I whacked him across the back of his skull with a chunk of concrete. He went down but not immediately out. Took care of that with a kick to his jaw. Heard his neck snap. Added both dead men’s guns to my collection.

Thought about throwing something through the front window and sneaking around back. Didn’t have the time. Charged through the front door, a pistol in each hand. Nothing. Then the house went dark. Blackness. Heavy steps. Floorboards creaking. Heard a sound that would make even the bravest man shiver.
Cha-ching! A
shotgun being racked. Something hard and round pressed into my ribs.

“Move asshole!” Finney.

Got me to the basement door and shoved me down the steps. Didn’t lose consciousness when I hit the wet floor, but I was a little disoriented. Listened to his heavy steps behind me. Smelled him as he stepped over me. Beer, sex, and onions. His meaty paws yanking out the guns still clutched in my hands. He tossed them. Stepped away. A switch clicked. Lights came on. Wish they hadn’t.

The basement floor was wet not with water but with blood. A foot or two away from me was a very naked, very dead man. Even in my hazy state of awareness, I could tell he was worse for wear. There was a hunting knife sticking out from where his left eye used to sit. There were burn marks and welts all over his body. And as my eyes refocused, I noticed his ears had been crudely sliced off. The thickened blood on the sides of his head told me that he’d been alive when the ears were removed. Another part of his anatomy had also been removed and relocated to his mouth. Was glad to have missed the butchering.

Heard something, a muffled moan.
Kathleen!

“Get up, pig!” Finney ordered, shotgun pointed at my chest.

Kathleen was nude, tied down to a workbench with wire that had cut through her wrists and ankles. Her head was clamped in a vise. Duct tape covered her mouth. She too had cigarette burns on her body.

Charged. “You motherfucker! I’ll—”

He swung the butt of the shotgun and caught me in the jaw. I staggered backwards nearly tripping over the dead man, but didn’t go down. My back was now against the wall of the basement.

“Shut the fuck up!” he barked. “You piece a shit cop. See that rat on the floor there? That snitch fuck was Rudi’s favorite boyo. Good thing I know people on the cops who like to earn on the side or that cocksucker woulda brought us all down. Take a good fucking look at him. That’s where you’re headed in a few minutes. But first I’m gonna make you watch me kill your girlfriend here.”

“Leave her the fuck alone!”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” He waved the shotgun at me again. “Besides, she’s already asked me to kill her about twenty times already. The first time I stuck my cock in her asshole, she practically fucking begged me. She didn’t like it too much either when I squeezed her head a little. Like this.”

He stepped by the bench, took a hand off the scatter gun, ripped the tape off her mouth, and twisted the vise handle. Kathleen’s squealed. Her body jerked with pain, the wire biting further into her flesh. A car pulled to the curb outside. Finney heard the car too. He looked up. Had to move now.

Reached behind me and retrieved the .38 tucked between my belt and the small of my back. The stupid fat fuck had neglected to roll me over when he took the guns out of my hands. First shot caught him slightly above the heart. He twisted to his right. The shotgun flashed, then roared. Second shot caught him in the side of the head. He was on his way to hell before he hit the floor. Heard voices upstairs, feet rushing, pounding. Finney had fulfilled Kathleen’s wish. He’d killed her. The shotgun blast had torn away the left side of her chest. By the time they pulled me off Finney’s lifeless carcass, I had nearly cut his head off using the hunting knife. And by that time, I had come to realize I’d done as much as Finney to seal Kathleen’s fate. Griffin’s words about violence rang in my ears.
Once you cross the line, you cross the line.

“Ah, jaysus!” Rudi.

Turned to see him crossing himself. That was the last bit of humanity in him.

“Start talking, boyo.” He eyed me coldly, pressing the still smoking shotgun to my temple. I’d seen more compassion in the eyes of an insect.

“Well, I served my purpose. There’s your rat,” I said, pointing at Finney. “This dead guy here missing his ears and the eye was like that when I got here. Finney didn’t mention his name.”

“Tommy Mac,” Rudi obliged.

“Tommy Mac found out about Finney from a source inside the cops. At least that’s what Finney said. So Finney killed him and then lured me down here by… Well, you can see how. He was going to set it up that Tommy Mac was the rat, that I found out about it. Finney was gonna make it look like Tommy Mac killed me and the girl. Finney was gonna come to the rescue, but too late. Then he would prove his loyalty to you by torturing the rat to death. His ass would be covered and he’d be even closer to you.”

Story had holes, but it was pretty good given that I’d just killed my first three men and was half crazy with guilt. Rudi wasn’t buying it.

“Might believe it if it were any man but Finney.”

“You said it your own self, Rudi. You underestimated him.”

Nothing convinces a man better than his own words thrown back in his face. I saw Rudi’s eyes return to their mammalian incarnation and knew I had saved my fairly worthless life. He pulled the shotgun away.

“Ya done good, pal. There’ll be a bonus in it for ya.”

Not an “I’m sorry about the girl” or “What a terrible price to have to pay”, but a bonus.

“Take him back to the safehouse and get him fixed up,” Rudi said to one of his minions.

Felt hands lifting me up and moving me along.

“What about—?”

“Quiet now, boyo,” he shushed me. “I’ll clean up the mess.

In that second, I came to hate Rudi more than I could ever hate Finney or anyone else. Ever!

“What did their purpose conceal

If not the simplest units of friendship?

Like a ship returning in a foreign language

They have turned into beasts, conscious only

Of one another, blind to perfection,

Finding peace only in each other’s arms.”

—John Koethe, from his poem “The Friendly Animals”

N
EVER BELIEVED IN ABSOLUTES
before Kathleen’s murder. Did now, absolutely. Was FFL. Fucked for life, that was me. There was no escaping culpability. Her blood was on me sure as my own skin. But her death led to a kind of clarity about the universe that had until then eluded me. When my mother took her own life, it was as much relief as loss. Only my dad cried. Then, for himself, really. This was different. Death and me, we were no longer going to stare at each other from across the dance floor. Once you feel loss, you always feel it.

O’Connor was neither fool nor saint. Let me be for a time. Drifted back into my life in New York like carbon monoxide: deadly and colorless. Boyle, Nicky, and Griffin folded me back under their wings without a second thought. In fact, I was treated with a newfound respect. Obviously, Rudi had let word leak back home about my making my bones, about the scene in the basement. Found myself wondering sometimes if Rudi hadn’t had his boyos take pictures of the carnage. Had an image of him staring at photos of Kathleen’s decimated body and masturbating. Christ, those were the nights I drank myself to sleep. As angry as I was at him, it wasn’t Rudi who killed her.

My two-week grace period was over and O’Connor had me meet him at the Einstein gravesite. Never would have visited my mom’s grave if it wasn’t for O’Connor. Was like a fringe benefit.