A Drink Before the War

  Angie said, “Do it, Patrick. Now.”

  Socia glanced at her, then over to me, his eyes a blank. I don’t think he understood the concept of my question. He stared at me, waiting for me to elaborate. After a minute or so, he held up the photocopies. His thumb rose up the front one, pressing between Roland’s bare thighs. He said, “Kenzie, is this all of it or not?”

  “Yeah, Socia,” I said, “this is all of it.” I raised the gun and shot him in the chest.

  He dropped the photocopies and raised a hand to the hole, stumbling back but staying on his feet. He looked at the hole, at the blood on his hand. He seemed surprised, and for a brief moment, terribly afraid. “The fuck you do that for?” He coughed.

  I pulled back on the hammer again.

  He stared at me, and the fear left his eyes. The irises peppered over with a cold satisfaction, a dark knowledge. He smiled.

  I shot him in the head and Angie’s gun went off at the same time. The bullets hammered him back into the salt pile, and he rolled onto his back and slid to the cement.

  Angie’s body was shaking a bit, but her voice was steady. “Guess Devin was right.”

  I looked down at Socia. “How’s that?”

  “Some people, you either kill them or leave them be, because you’ll never change their minds.”

  I bent down and began picking up the photocopies.

  Angie knelt by Eugene and cleaned his nose and face with a handkerchief. He didn’t seem surprised or elated or disturbed by what had happened. His eyes were glazed, somewhat off-center. Angie said, “Can you walk?”

  “Yes.” He stood up unsteadily, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then exhaled slowly.

  I found the photocopy I was looking for, wiped it off with some gravel, and placed it in Socia’s jacket. Eugene stood firmly now. I looked at him. “Go home,” I said.

  He nodded and walked off without a word. He climbed the incline and disappeared on the other side of the shrubs.

  Angie and I took the same route a minute later, and as we walked toward my apartment, I slipped my arm around her waist and tried not to think about it.

  30

  His last week alive, my father’s six-foot two-inch frame weighed 112 pounds.

  In his hospital room at three in the morning, I listened to his chest rattle like shards of broken glass boiling in a pot. His exhalations sounded as if they were forcing their way out through layers of gauze. Dried spittle whitened the corners of his mouth.

  When he opened his eyes, the green irises seemed to swim, anchorless amid the white. He turned his head in my direction. “Patrick.”

  I leaned in toward the bed, the child in me still cautious, still watching his hands, ready to bolt if they moved too suddenly.

  He smiled. “Your mother loves me.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s something to—” He coughed and the force of it bowed his chest, brought his head off the pillow. He grimaced, swallowed. “That’s something to take with me. Over there,” he said and rolled his eyes back into his head as if they could catch a glimpse of where he was going.

  I said, “That’s nice, Edgar.”

  His feeble hand slapped my arm. “You still hate me, do you?”

  I looked in those unhinged irises and nodded.

  “What about all that shit the nuns taught you? What about forgiveness?” He raised a tired, amused eyebrow.

  “You used it all up, Edgar. A long time ago.”

  The feeble hand reached out again, grazed my abdomen. “Still mad about that little scar?”

  I stared at him, giving him nothing, telling him there was nothing left to take anymore, even if he were strong enough.

  He waved the hand in a dismissive gesture. “Fuck ya, then.” He closed his eyes. “What’d you come for?”

  I sat back, looked at the wasted body, waiting for it to stop having an effect on me, for that poisonous sludge of love and hate to quit sluicing through my body. “To watch you die,” I said.

  He smiled, eyes still closed. “Ah,” he said, “a vulture. So you are your father’s son, after all.”

  He slept for a while after that, and I watched him, listening to the broken glass rattling through his chest. I knew then that whatever explanation I’d been waiting for my whole life was sealed in that wasted frame, in that rotted brain, and it was never coming out. It was going to ride with my father on his black journey to that place he saw when he rolled his eyes back into his skull. All that dark knowledge was his alone, and he was taking it with him so he’d have something to chuckle about during the trip.

  At five-thirty, my father opened his eyes and pointed at me. He said, “Something’s burning. Something’s burning.” His eyes widened and his mouth opened as if he were about to howl.

  And he died.

  And I watched him, still waiting.

  31

  It was one-thirty in the morning on the fifth of July when we met Sterling Mulkern and Jim Vurnan at the Hyatt Regency bar in Cambridge. The bar is one of those revolving lounges, and as we flowed around in a slow circle, the city glittered and the red stone footbridges on the Charles seemed old and good and even the ivy-covered brick of Harvard didn’t annoy me.

  Mulkern was wearing a gray suit over a white shirt, no tie. Jim was wearing an angora crewneck sweater and tan cotton pants. Neither of them looked pleased.

  Angie and I wore the usual and neither of us cared.

  Mulkern said, “I hope you have a good reason for calling us out at this hour, lad.”

  I said, “Of course. If you wouldn’t mind, please tell me what our deal was.”

  Mulkern said, “Come now. What’s this?”

  I said, “Repeat the terms of the contract we made.”

  Mulkern looked at Jim and shrugged. Jim said, “Patrick, you know damn well we agreed to your daily fee plus expenses.”

  “Plus?”

  “Plus a seven thousand dollar bonus if you produced the documents that Jenna Angeline stole.” Jim was irritable; maybe his blond Vassar wife with the Dorothy Hamill do was making him sleep on the couch again. Or maybe I’d interrupted their bimonthly tryst.

  I said, “You advanced me two thousand dollars. I’ve worked on this for seven days. Actually, if I wanted to be technical, this is the morning of the eighth, but I’ll give you a break. Here’s the bill.” I handed it to Mulkern.

  He barely glanced at it. “Ludicrously exorbitant, but we hired you because you allegedly justify your fees.”

  I sat back. “Who put Curtis Moore on to me? You or Paulson?”

  Jim said, “What in the hell are you talking about? Curtis Moore worked for Socia.”

  “But he managed to begin tailing me about five minutes after our first meeting.” I looked at Mulkern. “How convenient.”

  Mulkern’s eyes showed nothing, a man who could withstand a thousand suppositions, no matter how logical, as long as there was no proof to back them up. And if there was proof, he could just say, “I don’t recall.”

  I sipped my beer. “How well did you know my father?”

  “I knew your father well, lad, now get on with it.” He looked at his watch.

  “You knew he beat his wife, abused his children.”

  Mulkern shrugged. “Not my concern.”

  “Patrick,” Jim said, “your personal life is irrelevant here.”

  “Somebody has to have a concern here,” I said. I looked at Mulkern. “If you knew about my father, Senator, as a public servant, why didn’t you do something about it?”

  “I just told you, lad—not my concern.”

  “What is your concern, Senator?”

  “The documents, Pat.”

  “What is your concern, Senator?” I asked again.

  “The Commonwealth of course.” He chuckled. “I’d love to sit here and explain the utilitarian concept to you, Pat, but I haven’t the time. A few cuffs on the side of the head from your old man is not a call for action, boy.”

  A few cuffs. Two hospital
stays in the first twelve years of my life.

  I said, “Did you know about Paulson? I mean, everything?”

  “Come now, boy. Complete your contract and let’s go about our separate ways.” His upper lip was slick with perspiration.

  “How much did you know? Did you know he was fucking little boys?”

  “There’s no need for that sort of language here,” Mulkern said and smiled, looking around the room.

  Angie said, “Tell us what sort of language fits your sense of propriety and we’ll see if it applies to child molestation and prostitution and extortion and murder.”

  “What’re you talking about now?” Mulkern said. “Crazy talk is what I’m hearing. Crazy talk. Give me the documents, Pat.”

  “Senator?”

  “Yes, Pat?”

  “Don’t call me ‘Pat.’ It’s something you do to a dog, not something you call a person.”

  Mulkern sat back and rolled his eyes. I obviously had no grip on this edge of the planet. He said, “Lad, you—”

  “How much did you know, Senator? How much? Your aide-de-camp is doing little kids and people end up dying all over the place because he and Socia took a couple of home movies for themselves and things got out of hand. Didn’t they? What’d Socia blackmail Paulson so he’d change the nature of his pressure on the street terrorism bill? And Paulson, what’d he have a few too many drinks mourning his lost innocence, and Jenna found them? Found photos of her son being molested by the man she worked for? Maybe even voted for? How much did you know, Senator?”

  He stared at me.

  “And I was the magnet,” I said. “Wasn’t I?” I looked at Jim and he stared back, blank-faced. “I was supposed to lead Socia and Paulson to Jenna, help them clean up the mess. Is that it, Senator?”

  He met my anger and indignation, and he smiled. He knew I had nothing on him, just questions and suppositions. He knew that’s all anyone ever had, and his eyes hardened in victory. The more I asked, the less I’d get. The way of things.

  He said, “Give me the documents, Pat.”

  I said, “Let me see the check, Sterl.”

  He held out his hand and Jim put a check in it. Jim was looking at me as if we’d been playing the same game together for years, yet only now was he realizing that I had no grasp of the rules. He shook his head slowly, a den mother’s motion. Jim would’ve made some fine convent a good nun.

  Mulkern filled in the “pay to the order of” part of the check but left the amount blank. He said, “The documents, Pat.”

  I reached down to the seat and handed him the manila envelope. He opened it, took the photos out, held them on his lap. He said, “No copies this time? I’m proud of you, Pat.”

  I said, “Sign the check, Senator.”

  He leafed through the rest of the photos, smiled sadly at one, put them back in the envelope. He picked up the pen again, tapped it against the tabletop lightly. He said, “Pat, I think you need an attitude adjustment. Yes. So I’m going to cut your bonus in half. How about that?”

  “I made copies.”

  “Copies don’t mean a thing in court.”

  “They can make a hell of a stink though.”

  He looked at me, sized me up in a second, and shook his head. He bent toward the check.

  I said, “Call Paulson. Ask him which one’s missing.”

  The pen stopped. He said, “Missing?”

  Jim said, “Missing?”

  Angie said, “Missing?” just to be a smart-ass.

  I nodded. “Missing. Paulson can tell you there were twenty-two in all. You got twenty-one in that envelope.”

  “And where would it be?” Mulkern asked.

  “Sign the check and find out, dickhead.”

  I don’t think Mulkern had ever been called a “dickhead” in his life. He didn’t seem too fond of it either, but maybe it would grow on him. He said, “Give it to me.”

  I said, “Sign that check, no ‘attitude adjustments,’ and I’ll tell you where it is.”

  Jim said, “Don’t sign it, Senator.”

  Mulkern said, “Shut up, Jim.”

  I said, “Yeah, shut up, Jim. Go fetch the senator a bone or something.”

  Mulkern stared at me. It seemed to be his main method of intimidation and it was lost on someone who’d just spent the past few days getting shot at. It took him a few minutes, but I think he got it. He said, “Whatever happens, I’ll ruin you.” He signed the check with the proper amount and handed it over.

  “Shucks,” I said.

  “Hand over the photograph.”

  “I told you I’d tell you where it was, Senator. I never said I’d hand it over to you.”

  Mulkern closed his eyes for a moment and breathed heavily through his nostrils. “Fine. Where is it?”

  “Right over there,” Angie said and pointed across the bar.

  Richie Colgan stuck his head out from behind a fern. He waved to us, then looked at Mulkern and smiled. A big smile. The corners of his mouth damn near reached his eyelids.

  Mulkern said, “No.”

  Angie said, “Yes,” and patted his arm.

  I said, “Look on the bright side, Sterl—you didn’t have to write Richie a check. He fucked you over for free.” We stood up from the table.

  Mulkern said, “You’re done in this town. You won’t even be able to get welfare.”

  I said, “No kidding? Hell then, I might as well just go over to Richie and tell him you gave me this check for my help in covering up your involvement in this whole affair.”

  Mulkern said, “And what would you have then?”

  “I’d have you in the same position you’re ready to put me in. And hell if it wouldn’t make my day.” I reached down, picked up my beer, finished it. “Still want to wreck my name, Sterl?”

  Mulkern held the envelope in his hand. He said, “Brian Paulson’s a good man. A good politician. And these photos are almost seven years old. Why bring this to the surface now? It’s old news.”

  I smiled and quoted him: “‘Everything but yesterday seems young,’ Senator.” I nudged Jim with my elbow. “Ain’t that always the way?”

  32

  We tried to have a conversation with Richie in the parking lot but it was like trying to talk to someone as he passed by on a jet. He was rocking forward on his feet and he kept interrupting to say, “Hold that thought, would you?” Then he’d whisper something into his handheld tape recorder. Probably wrote most of his column standing in the parking lot of the Hyatt Regency.

  We said our good-nights and he bounced on the balls of his feet all the way to his car. We might have killed Socia, but Richie was going to bury Paulson.

  We took a cab home; the still streets were littered with the residue of fireworks; the wind carried a bitter tang of gunpowder. The rush of burying Mulkern’s whipping boy in front of him was already beginning to dissipate, leaking out of the cab onto those desolate streets, drifting off somewhere into the shadows that swept over us between the streetlights.

  When we reached my place, Angie went straight to the fridge, took a bottle of zinfandel from the door. She took a glass too, though after watching her drink it, there didn’t seem much point; the only way she could have gone through it any faster would have been intravenously. I took a couple of beers and we sat in the living room with the windows open, listening to the breeze blow a beer can down the avenue, tipping it against the asphalt, rolling it steadily toward the corner.

  I knew that in a week or so, I’d look back on this with pleasure, savor the look on Mulkern’s face as he realized he’d just paid me a large sum of money to blow a hole in his life. Somehow I’d managed to pull off the rarest of feats—I’d made someone in the State House accountable. In a week or so, that would feel good. Not now though. Now we were facing something else entirely, the air heavy with the impending weight of our own consciences.

  Angie was halfway through the bottle when she said, “What’s going on?”

  She stood up, the wine bott
le hanging loosely between her index and middle fingers, tapping against her thigh.

  I got up, not sure I was ready to face this yet. I got two more beers, came back. I said, “We killed someone.” It sounded simple.

  “In cold blood.”

  “In cold blood.” I opened one beer, placed the other on the floor beside the chair.

  She drained her glass, poured some more. “He wasn’t dangerous to us.”

  “Not at that moment, no.”

  “But we killed him anyway.”

  “We killed him anyway,” I said. It was numbing and repetitious, this conversation, but I had the feeling we were each trying to say exactly what we’d done, no bullshit, no lies to come back and haunt us later.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he repulsed us. Morally.” I drank some beer. It could have been water for all I tasted it.

  “A lot of people morally repulse us,” she said. “We going to kill them too?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not enough bullets.”

  She said, “I don’t want to joke about this. Not now.”

  She was right. I said, “Sorry.”

  She said, “In the exact same situation, we’d do it again.”

  I thought of Socia holding up the photograph, running his finger between his son’s legs. I said, “Yes, we would.”

  “He was a predator,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “He allowed his child to be molested for money, so we killed him.” She drank some more wine, not quite inhaling it anymore. She was standing in the middle of the floor, pivoting slowly on her left foot every now and then, the bottle swinging like a pendulum between her fingers.

  I said, “That’s about the size of it.”

  She said, “Paulson did similar things. He molested that child, probably hundreds of others. We knew that. We didn’t kill him.”

  I said, “Killing Socia was an impulse. We didn’t know we were going to do it when we met him.”

  She laughed, a short harsh sound. “We didn’t, huh? Why’d we take a silencer with us?”