El Paso: A Novel (12 page)

The Colonel wasn’t at all satisfied with the way his grandson was developing, which he long ago concluded was a direct reflection on Arthur. The Colonel’s granddaughter, Katherine, going on thirteen and a true blond beauty, was coming along just fine. She rode with distinction, shot, fenced, and played a spectacular back on the girl’s field hockey team. Katherine was immensely well poised for her age—everyone said so—and, except for her blondness, it was easy to see the resemblance to her mother. She was going to be tall—was already tall, in fact—a “leaf-eater,” as the Colonel was fond of saying. She had gone immediately to the stables where one of her two black geldings was kept.

“Pull!” the Colonel shouted again, and Bomba, who was wearing a seersucker suit and a Panama hat, let loose two more clay targets. Colonel Shaughnessy easily blasted them into little wisps of black dust.

“John—must you?” Beatie wailed. “We were so enjoying the quiet of the morning.”

Bomba glanced back, noticed Arthur standing on the terrace, and broke out into a big grin. Arthur had long ago concluded that Bomba understood everything on earth.

Bomba had been hired—if that was the word for it—thirty-three years earlier when Colonel Shaughnessy fell off his yacht while drunk one night during a marlin-fishing trip in Samoa, and Bomba, then a sixteen-year-old dockhand, jumped in and rescued him. For this the young Samoan was rewarded with the splendors of the Boston world.

The Colonel had read too many stories about anarchist assassinations in Europe and figured it wouldn’t be long before the practice reached across the Atlantic. As the owner of a railroad, he feared he would be a prime candidate, so he felt he needed someone around to act as a bodyguard.

Bomba wasn’t his real name but the Colonel bestowed it on him because whatever he was called in Samoa was unpronounceable in English but one part of it sounded like “Bomba,” the name of one of the old-time kings of Naples.

Bomba’s countenance was remarkably fierce but belied a more genial disposition. His grandfather had been a cannibal but Bomba’s favorite food was ice cream. He spoke little English, but understood more and, when he had to, probably could say a lot more than he let on.

At meals at home, Bomba often sat on the Colonel’s left, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He never used a fork, though he did use a knife and spoon, except for soup—which to Beatie’s disgust he drank from the bowl and the Colonel forbade her to correct him. Around Bomba’s waist was always strapped a holstered revolver and he kept a variety of throwing knives in the lining of his jackets.

Colonel Shaughnessy was stewing about young Timmy’s reticence with the skeet shooting . . . such a reclusive boy, bookish and tentative about horses and guns and other manly things . . . wouldn’t do—just wouldn’t do. If the Colonel hadn’t succeeded in making Arthur a mirror image of himself, he was determined to have a go at his grandson. He shouldered his gun.

“Pull!” the Colonel shouted.

ARTHUR, STANDING ON THE TERRACE
with his drink, thought for some reason about Mick Martin, and wished he’d had his old friend down for weekend. He couldn’t understand why, when he mentioned inviting him, Xenia had burst out the way she had and paled. Arthur had kept his friendship with Mick through the years, though there were times their lives diverged and they didn’t see each other for months.

Two years before Arthur entered Boston College, a depression closed down a shoe factory where Mick had been working and Arthur talked the Colonel into giving Mick a job in the railroad’s freight department. In summers, they worked together; evenings, they went to the boisterous saloons across from the yards to drink beer, play darts, and on more than one occasion to chase girls, an occupation in which Mick succeeded and Arthur often failed.

Once Arthur met a girl, Betty, who was a secretary at a life insurance company. He took her out on a date to a show in the park and later they met Mick at one of the saloons.

Then one afternoon Arthur was returning from school early on the trolley when he saw Mick and Betty walking on the Common, arm in arm, she leaning against his best friend’s shoulder and petting his hair. The trolley had turned a corner by then, so Arthur had to crane back to see them, not knowing what to think. The office where Betty worked wasn’t far from there; maybe they’d just met on the street and decided to take a walk. But obviously they weren’t walking like simply good old friends.

Arthur quit seeing Betty after that, and didn’t blame Mick; he blamed her instead—she was just a passing fancy, anyway. Mick’s life had been hard and his own was soft, and he’d always felt a little guilty about it.

One day, however, Mick made an astonishing announcement to Arthur.

“I’m going to become a lawyer,” Mick said.

“Why, for heaven’s sake? How . . .”

“You leave the
how
to me,” was the answer. “And the
why
, well, it’s because lawyers have the power, you see. If you’re a lawyer, you can do anything. You know all the answers. You’re above it all. The only thing better is being rich.”

To Arthur’s amazement, Mick managed to find a Boston law firm that let him “read” the law for four years and he managed to pass the bar exam. Arthur never knew exactly how Mick accomplished this moneywise, but suspected it had something to do with his employment with the Irish gang. Arthur heard rumors in the old neighborhood that Mick was in thick with a very rough bunch and part of his job was serving as a strong-arm man. He was said to be extremely handy with fists, knives, and even guns, but he was also said to have earned a reputation for fairness. It was even rumored that he’d killed a man.

The year after Timmy Shaughnessy was born, Michael Martin hung out his shingle in a small office across from a small park in South Boston.

By now Mick had become a fixture in the Shaughnessy families’ households. He wasn’t invited to the fashionable parties and dinners the Colonel and Beatie threw, which Mick good-naturedly understood, and even joked about. But he soon became a regular at Xenia’s intellectual salons and the free thinkers delighted in his good looks, irreverent wit, and a few even used him as a lawyer when they had a problem. Every few weeks he had dinner with Arthur and Xenia, and became “Uncle Mick” to Katherine and Timothy, always bringing them delightful little gifts when he came to the house. He brought presents for Xenia, too—flowers, perfumes, “whatnots” he’d picked up along the way. It had pleased Arthur that even his father would occasionally remark to him, “Say, where’s old Mick? We haven’t seen him lately.”

Then Arthur would call Mick and invite him down to Cornwall on slack weekends.

As the years passed, Mick began to establish himself as more than just an ordinary lawyer. Mick’s background excluded him from joining any of the old-line Boston firms, and even more naturally his first clients were people from the Irish gangs who found themselves in difficulty with the law. Eventually the gang leaders themselves began to use Mick for counsel. Then, in the summer of 1910, the same year Pancho Villa had seen Halley’s Comet, an event occurred that propelled Mick into a new and highly profitable area of the law.

A leader of the principal Italian gang in Boston had kidnapped one Bobby “Bobbin Boy” O’Reilly, a onetime spinning-mill worker, whose numbers racket the Italians felt was spilling into their territory. A ransom of ten thousand dollars was demanded. Bobbing Boy O’Reilly was popular and also first cousin to the head of the main Irish gang and, with paying the ransom out of the question, the Irishmen went to Mick Martin for advice. He counseled them to negotiate and they agreed, but the first meeting nearly ended in disaster, with guns drawn and threats hurled and the Irishmen storming away in a huff. Mick then offered to conduct the negotiation himself.

It took nearly three weeks, but in the end Bobby O’Reilly went free and the Irishmen had parted with only two thousand and a promise not to encroach on Italian turf. Two thousand was about the average man’s yearly salary in those days. Mick got paid a hefty fee of five hundred and a party was thrown in his honor by the gang. After that, he became firmly entrenched as official arbiter for the Irishmen, and in time his particular services were in demand from other quarters as well. Kidnapping had become a popular pastime, and during the years that ensued he negotiated the release of kidnap victims from Trenton to Chicago. In time he arbitrated for everybody as well: Irish, Jewish, Italian, and even a Chinese gang in San Francisco. The U.S. Department of State even employed Mick’s services in a secret deal to secure the return of one of their diplomats in Guatemala.

“Would you believe it,” Mick once said to Arthur, “I’ve carved me out a new niche in the law!”

“Yes, I’ve heard you’re more in demand than Clarence Darrow,” Arthur told him. They were having a late lunch at McSweeny’s Restaurant and Mick was on his eighth highball. For several years, Arthur had been concerned that Mick drank too much, but his success in the law was undeniable. He now had a fine set of offices, a powerful Stutz motorcar, and a fine set of rooms at the Copley House.

“Way I see it,” Mick told him, “if everybody goes away a little unhappy, but not really mad—then I’ve accomplished my purpose.”

“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” Arthur said. “Just like King Solomon.”

“You see, all it comes down to in my business is trust. When these guys try to work something out, nobody believes anybody. But when I step in, they know they’ll get what’s promised. Everybody knows Mick Martin can be trusted.”

Mick was wound up and Arthur noticed he was slurring his words a little. To placate him, Arthur said, “I’d trust you with my life.”

“I know you would, my bucko,” Mick replied. “But let’s hope it never comes to that.”

ARTHUR HAD RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY
when his father came in.

“Well, Arthur, your boy’s not afraid of that gun anymore. He’s hitting things, too.”

“Thank you,” Arthur said.

“Your mother thinks I’m crazy, but the boy’s got to learn to shoot sometime—just like you did.”

“I don’t shoot very well, Papa,” Arthur said.

“Because you never do, anymore,” replied the Colonel.

Arthur turned for a moment and looked out the window. A cloud bank had gathered and the sea was gray and running high. Arthur really didn’t mind that his father was teaching Timmy how to shoot; in fact, he thought it was a good thing. The boy needed pursuits like that—manly amusements that Arthur hadn’t really taught him.

“Maybe you’re right, Papa.” Arthur stood by the window with his hands behind his back, ready to get on with it. It was always the same; when the Colonel got angry about one thing, he began with a prelude over something minor—like skeet shooting—then built it up so that eventually the real anger burst out. This time it wasn’t long in coming. He closed the pocket doors that led to the foyer and spun around.

“All right, Arthur, all right, dammit!” the Colonel growled. He pulled the rumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and thrust it at Arthur. “Just what in tarnation is this?”

Arthur glanced at the wireless message and was annoyed at what it contained: “Bank of Boston holds collateral on steam yacht known as
Ajax
,” registry such and such, description thus and so; “under agreement per,” blah, blah, blah . . . “said vessel may not be removed from Territorial United States waters while agreement still in force,” etc. “Imperative vessel return to said U.S. waters immediately,” and so on. A lawyer had evidently drawn up the cable. Arthur had hoped the bank president himself would have sent a more friendly, personal telegram. But what the hell, maybe this was what the Old Man needed.

“I’ll have an explanation!” the elder Shaughnessy seethed.

“Isn’t it plain, Father?” Arthur asked calmly.

“Goddammit, Arthur, do you realize what you’ve done?” He pointed toward the cable as if it were a serpent. “What have you done?”

“Done? I got us a six-month extension. I had to sign papers.”

“By signing exactly what kind of papers?” the Colonel demanded.

“I had to put up
Ajax
as security. Would you rather I’d signed over our rolling stock and rights-of-way? At least if the worst happens and we have to default, the company could still operate without having a bank as our partner. It was the only way they’d do it, Papa,” Arthur told him.