Maybe it wasn’t the time to get into it, I said
“You won’t tell me where he lives. I don’t know what he looks like, so how am I going to do anything?”
We both let that scenario dance a little then she stood up, said
“I have to go, pick up Sean. Let me drop you at your apartment.”
I said no, I’d some stuff to do and we did an awkward hug, Jeff right in there with us.
Outside, I checked up and down, damn foolish. Jeff was hardly going to show himself. I hailed a cab, had him take me to Boyle’s place, time to report in.
The driver was sussing me in the mirror, asked
“Yankees fan, huh?”
Did I want to get into sports with some guy who’d be rabid in his view on how to improve the team? I said
“Naw, I borrowed the shirt.”
His face showed what he thought of that and he shut down. We got to Boyle’s. I overtipped and the cabbie looked pointedly at my shirt, said
“Give it back.”
And was gone.
Another fine start to a day, piss off a Yankees fan. My shoulder throbbed and I dry swallowed some pain killers though I’d a feeling I’d need to mainline heroin to be numb enough for Boyle and Griffin.
I knocked on the door to the office and heard
“Yeah?”
Boyle was nose deep in the good book, Griffin reading the Daily News. They surveyed me, hard to read their expressions, but if I had to, I’d say Griffin was, as ever, amused. Boyle, he was just unpredictable. He closed the Bible with a slow grace, gave it a touch and then blessed himself, said
“So they shot yah?”
They?
I nodded and he indicated the chair before him and I sat. He turned to Griffin, said
“Grab us some Java.”
You could see that Griffin was not fond of being treated like the messenger boy but he headed out. I nearly shouted
“Yo, fellah, a cheese Danish.”
Boyle lit up a cigar, took a long draw, then
“The cops been to see you?”
“Yes, sir.”
The sir definitely helped. He seemed to uncoil and with his cigar, signalled for me to continue so I did.
“They asked me if I knew who did it, why anyone would want to shoot me and I gave them nothing.”
Boyle smiled, said
“That’s me boyo.”
Griffin returned with a Starbucks tray, a mess of to-go cups on there, plunked it on the table. Boyle grabbed a grande something and Griffin had an espresso. I took the last one which was some kind of Vanilla hotchpotch. Boyle sipped, made a grimace and reached in the drawer for the Jameson. Leaned over and with out asking, poured a healthy slug into my cup. Vanilla and Irish, sounds like a hooker’s special. I took a taste and it killed off the sweetness. Sometimes that’s all you need. Boyle said
“Ah, that’s an eye opener. So me wild colonial boy, who shot you? That Red Sox whore maybe?”
Call it reckless, but Griffin sitting there, his eyes locked on me, like some superior cobra was dancing on my nerve endings, but I went for it
“I thought Mr. Griffin might have done it.”
The expression “you could have heard a pin drop” only applies if you’re talking about the pin in a grenade. Griffin actually stiffened, a flash of fire in those dead eyes then Boyle laughed, loud and nasty, turned to Griffin, asked
“That true, Frankie, you shot our lad?”
Frankie?
Griffin put down his coffee, leaned over towards me, said
“I shot you, they’d be putting you in the cheap box about now.”
Boyle loved that, said
“He’s right, lad. Griffin only needs one shot and they don’t get up but why would you think he’d shoot you? Aren’t you one of our own? You are, aren’t you?”
The threat was implicit and I tried for hard, said
“Mr. Griffin doesn’t like me.”
Boyle was having a high old time. After wiping his eyes, he finally said
“Jaysus, if Frankie shot everyone he didn’t like, there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day.”
So, against my better judgment, I mentioned Jeff. Boyle said to Griffin
“Find out who that cunt is, cut his balls off.”
I raised my hand, asked
“Mr. Boyle, I’d like to take care of this on my own tab. I think you’ll understand that.”
He considered it, then
“Okay, don’t let it become a problem, capisce?
I capisced.
He told me go home, get some rest and tomorrow, he had a new assignment for me. I was at the door when he asked “Your old man, he take money?” I didn’t like the slur but I was in Judas mood, said “Doesn’t everyone?”
As I walked down the corridor, I could hear Boyle say “That kid, cracks me up.”
Maybe it was the crack from Boyle about my old man, or just feeling a bit lost but what the hell, I decided to go visit my parents.
Our house was quiet. Usually it was suppressed bedlam, a tension you could cut with a knife, even a blunt one. I could hear my mother in the kitchen and announced myself. She came out, wiping flour from her hands, exclaimed
“Are you alright, why aren’t you still in the hospital?”
I was already sorry I came. I asked
“Where’s Dad?”
She involuntarily rubbed her eye and how had I missed it at the hospital? A shiner, fading but still visible. She said
“He’s staying, um, at his buddy’s place for a few days.”
Rage engulfed me and before I could explode she said
“He’s going to AA. The drink got out of hand and when he gets his ninety days, he can come home. He’s trying Nicky. Honest to God, it’s a disease.”
I stared at her, stated
“He hit you. The bastard hit you.”
Now she was wringing her hands, dry washing them, said
“He didn’t mean it. I said prayers and they were answered. He agreed to go to them meetings. Lots of his cop buddies are in it. They said he’ll be fine.”
Not if I could track him down first.
My mother said she’d go fix me some coffee and a bowl of porridge, keeping it Irish. The only way you can eat that shit is to douse it in Jameson. My old man, he had a work station in the garage and I headed out there, expecting to find empty bottles strewn about. Maybe I’d bag the suckers, give my mother a break.
No bottles.
In the center of the floor was a three-foot rendition of the North Tower, made of matchsticks. I moved closer and it was incredible, painstakingly constructed, and so like the real thing that I let out an impressed, “phew”. It must have taken him months. I looked around and sure enough, a book of matches on the shelf. I grabbed them, approached the tower, and fired up the whole book. Let it sit on top of the edifice. The wood and sulfur caught quickly and then with a whoosh, the whole thing went up, like some damn funeral pyre.
I moved back a step and marvelled at how it burned.
Tops, four minutes, it was just a husk, smoking, and a rising smell of burnt ash. I waited a few more minutes and stared at the small mound of what used to be the North Tower then, very deliberately, I lashed out with my right foot, sending embers and ash across the floor.
Back in the kitchen, I sipped my mother’s coffee, left the porridge untouched and she asked
“Is it okay?”
I waited a beat then said
“It burns.”
“There was a gothic quality to the neighborhood and the cast iron colonnettes, stone gargoyles, the Italianate palaces, the ornate metal canopies, the broad-shouldered textile buildings were redolent with a sense of history I could feel and admire. And yet, there were shadows, and broken windows, razor-wire, wide cracks in the pavement, and failure and loss. And there were ghosts...”