Shame the Devil (33 page)

Boyle nodded. “Pete and Joey Recevo had both worked for Burke at one time, just after the war. Something bad happened between
Pete, Joey, and Burke. Burke had your father’s leg busted up pretty bad, and then Pete was out. Big Nick Stefanos gave him
a job in his hash house, over on Fourteenth. In nineteen forty-nine, your father died in a gun battle in Burke’s row house
in lower Northwest. Joe died beside him. I always figured the whole thing had to do with Karras turning in Gearhart. And I
felt plenty bad about that.” Boyle looked at Stefanos. “But then Costa, the little guy who worked with your grandfather, set
me straight.”

“Costa?” said Stefanos. “When was that?”

“Right before he died from cancer, a few years back. I went over there to see him at his place. He wanted to get some things
off his chest before he passed. He didn’t know if it was right to tell you. I was the regular coffee-cop at Nick’s Grill all
those years, and he knew I was one of Pete’s old friends.”

It was warm in the room. Stefanos wanted a beer. He wanted to smoke a cigarette. He looked at Karras and for the first time
noticed the skin scraped from the knuckles of Karras’s right hand.

“What happened?” said Karras.

“Burke had been shaking down Nick for protection money all along. He sent some men he knew from Philly to talk to Nick, and
they pushed him too far. Pete and Nick and Costa slaughtered those men in the back of the grill, late one night.”

Karras and Stefanos said nothing.

Boyle cleared his throat. “Burke must have found out that they killed his associates. He couldn’t let it lie. I figure he
planned to take down Nick and burn his place to the ground. Joe Recevo knew it and tipped Pete. Joe and Pete stood together
and turned Burke’s row house into a battlefield. They stepped in and stopped it all right there.”

“Dimitri’s father saved my grandfather’s life,” said Stefanos. Boyle nodded. “What they did was beyond the scope of the law.
But the law isn’t always the answer. What they did was
necessary.
And it’s important that you know. That who they were is passed on to their own blood. If it’s not passed on, then their lives
meant nothing.”

Stefanos glanced up. Karras was staring at him, and he looked away.

“I’m tired,” said Jimmy Boyle.

“We’ll leave you now,” said Stefanos.

Karras squeezed the hand of his father’s friend.

They found Dan Boyle in the day room, sitting beside a bloodless, gray man in a wheelchair. Both of them were drinking beers.

“Come on,” said Karras, putting his head in the doorway.

“Right,” said Boyle.

The three of them left the building. Darkness had fallen. They walked across the parking lot to the car.

“I could use a drink,” said Karras.

“Now you’re talkin’,” said Boyle. “Guess we’ll head back to the Spot. Okay by you, Nick?”

Stefanos didn’t answer. He was thinking of his grandfather, Nick Stefanos. He was thinking of Dimitri’s father, Pete Karras,
and Jimmy Boyle, the man facing death back in that bed. Knowing with certainty that nothing was accidental. That everything
started long ago and led to something else and couldn’t be stopped. Knowing now, too, that he and Dimitri Karras were linked
for life.

Stefanos, Karras, and Boyle entered the Spot. Karras and Boyle found two stools in the center of the bar. A small man wearing
a beret drained his beer, put his coat on, and waved good-bye.

“Good night, sweet princess,” said the man.

“See you, Charlie,” said Mai.

Closing time at the Spot was anywhere from seven-thirty to eight o’clock — an unusual arrangement for a bar. But the Spot’s
drinkers were working people and cops who got plowed early and made their way home, stopping at other joints along the way.
The neighborhood juicers were hip to the house hours and went elsewhere late at night. That was how Phil Saylor wanted it
to go.

“I got it, Mai,” said Stefanos, walking around the bar.

“Thanks, Nicky.” She reached behind her, undid pins, and shook out her hair. As she did this her breasts jiggled inside her
marine T-shirt.

“Do that again,” said Boyle.

“Do what, Danny?”

“Go on,” said Stefanos, “get out of here. Say hello to Sergeant Slaughter.”

“It’s DeLaughter. And I will.”

She kissed Stefanos on the cheek and bolted out the door. Stefanos set Karras up with a beer and put a Jack and a beer in
front of Boyle. Boyle picked up the A section of the
Post.
He read intently, chuckling under his breath as Stefanos finished up with Mai’s closing procedure.

“Here’s one for you,” said Boyle to Karras. “Ah, jeez. The press dug up some internal memos on the mayor’s million-dollar
security detail. This story talks about how the guys on the detail drive the mayor around town, drop him off at ‘unscheduled
stops,’ and sit out on the street and wait. Sometimes they check on him, and he comes to the door ‘partially clothed.’ The
mayor says he’s just visiting ‘associates and political supporters’ and looking for ‘some good conversation.’ The taxpayers
are footing the one-million-dollar bill for the mayor to whore around, and the schoolkids in this town can’t get protection
or books or roofs that don’t leak. Yeah, and that general they got to run the schools, he’s doin’ a
real
good job. And you know what? If the mayor runs again he’s gonna get reelected. And if he gets reelected, the people who voted
him back in won’t see Home Rule again for a long while.” Boyle lit a cigarette and talked through the smoke. “Funny city you
guys live in, right?”

Neither Karras nor Stefanos replied.

Boyle folded the newspaper and tossed it aside. Stefanos pulled the green netting off the inside lip of the bar, rinsed it,
and laid it out on the service area to dry. He put
Jacks & Kings,
an old Night-hawks tape, into the box. A guy named Hap had left it one evening in the bar.

Boyle got up, went to the phone, and called William Jonas. He told Jonas he’d be over to his house shortly. Then he went back
to the bar and had a seat.

“My wife worries about me,” said Boyle before killing his shot of Jack.

“I’ll bet,” said Karras.

Stefanos cracked three more beers. He served Karras and Boyle. He opened a bottle for himself, tipped it back to his lips,
and drank hungrily.

“Hey, Nick,” said Boyle, “hit me with another mash.”

Stefanos poured Jack Daniel’s into Boyle’s shot glass.

“Christ,” said Karras, “you guys like to drink.”

“Think we might have a problem with it?” said Boyle.

Karras sipped his beer. He was no drinker, but it tasted good tonight.

“Turn this up,” said Boyle. “I remember seeing these guys at the old Psychedelly. ’Bout time you played some good music in
this joint. And they say white boys can’t play the blues.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Boyle, but it’s blacks and whites playing together on this one. Muddy Waters’s backup band. Guitar
Jr. and Pinetop Perkins on the ivories.”

“Pinetop Perkins,” said Boyle. “Who the hell is that?”

They drank some more. They listened to Boyle talk about the jungle out there and his daughter’s third-world boyfriends and
how Keith Van Horn was going to dominate in the NBA. Karras said little, smiling strangely at Stefanos until Stefanos had
to look away. Then Boyle looked at his watch and told them he had to go.

“I’m baby-sitting tonight,” said Boyle, winking at Stefanos as he slipped into his wrinkled raincoat. He left money on the
bar, clapped Karras on the shoulder, and left the Spot.

Baby-sitting, thought Karras. Couldn’t Boyle come up with anything better than that? Who in the hell would ever leave a baby
with Boyle, anyway?

He relaxed. He was glad that Boyle was gone. Karras finished another beer.

Stefanos poured three fingers of Grand-Dad into a heavy, beveled shot glass and set it next to his bottle of Bud. The lights
went out in the kitchen, and Darnell walked from the darkness. He adjusted his leather kufi on his head and buttoned his coat.

“Late for you to be getting out,” said Stefanos.

“Was waitin’ for your redneck friend to leave,” said Darnell. “He asks me if I can dunk again, me and him are gonna have it
out.”

“Can you?”

“Funny.” Darnell looked at the bourbon-and-beer setup in front of Stefanos. “Want me to hang around? You could drop me uptown.”

“We’re gonna be a while,” said Stefanos.

“Let me get on out of here, then,” said Darnell. “Dimitri. Nick.” Stefanos locked the front door behind Darnell and went back
around the bar.

“Darnell tries to pull me out of here every night,” said Stefanos.

“He doesn’t have too much luck, I take it.”

“Not too much. I guess I’m one of those guys who can’t be saved.” Stefanos put one foot up on the beer cooler and raised his
glass.
“Yasou, re.”

“Yasou, patrioti.”

Karras touched his bottle to Stefanos’s glass and the two of them drank.

An hour or so went by. Slowly and quietly the edge came off, and they drifted toward the soft world. Cigarette smoke hung
in the light falling from the Spot’s conical lamps. Stefanos put on an old Otis Redding, and it was beautiful and sad. Karras
sang “You Don’t Miss Your Water” while Stefanos smoked a cigarette. Stefanos thought Karras’s voice was pretty nice. Neither
of them said a thing after that.

Stefanos finished his shot of bourbon and poured another, knowing that he was coming to that place where he would talk. After
the nursing home, there was never any question that he would tell Karras about Wilson and the men who were in town. That time
had come. He looked at Karras and Karras was smiling in that way again and Stefanos leaned his elbow on the bar.

“Dimitri.”

“What?”

“Look here, man. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

Karras laughed and shook his head.

“What’s so funny?” said Stefanos.

“This about Thomas Wilson?”

“Yes.”

Karras smiled. “I’ve been wondering when you were gonna come to that.”

SO THOMAS SPILLED
it,” said Stefanos. “I’m a little surprised.”

“So was I.”

Stefanos raised his chin. “What’d you do?”

“I hit him,” said Karras. “He let me hit him. I hit him in the face and I kept hitting him until I had nothing left. I left
him there in the hall of my apartment building.”

“What happened then?”

Karras studied his skinned knuckles. “I went into my place and I sat on my bed. I talked to myself and rubbed my face and
got up and stared out the window. I washed my hands and paced around the apartment and then I went back out to the hall. I
thought I might have killed him, but he was conscious. Sitting up, with blood on his lips and a gash on his cheek from where
my ring had caught him. One of his eyes had begun to swell shut. He reached out his hand, and I took it and lifted him up.

“We went back into my apartment and I gave him a towel. I waited for him to get clean. He came out of the bathroom, and we
sat in my living room and talked.”

“About what?”

“About what we were going to do next.”

“And?”

“Detective Jonas is Boyle’s baby-sitting job, right?”

“That’s right.”

“The men who killed my son are in town because they want to hurt Bill Jonas. They’re here to do another job, too, and they
think that Thomas is setting it up.”

“What are you going to do about it, Dimitri?”

“What I’ve been hoping to do for the last two and a half years. I’m going to kill those men.”

Stefanos looked into his drink. “What about the law?”

“Like the man said. The law isn’t always the answer.”

Stefanos finished his bourbon and put another glass on the mahogany. He free-poured two shots and slid one glass over to Karras.
He uncapped two more beers.

“You know what it is to kill a man, Dimitri?”

“Do
you?
” Karras had a sip of bourbon and held the glass up to the light. “I suppose you’re going to tell me now.”

“Crack wise if you want to. But I’m trying to talk you out of it because I know what it’s like. You’re talking about taking
a life. You can’t reverse it. And after you’ve done it, you’re never the same.”

“I do know what it means,” said Karras. “But it’s not going to stop me from killing those men.”

“You must have a plan,” said Stefanos.

“A plan?”

“How’s it going to work?”

“Thomas Wilson is going to bring them to me.”

“Don’t count on it. Wilson’s weak.”

“He’s strong enough.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Think what you want. He asked me for another chance, and I’m going to give it to him. He’ll do fine.”

Stefanos rubbed his thumb along his lower lip. “You going to tell the waiter’s father? How about Stephanie Maroulis?”

“I’m not going to tell either one of them a thing. Bernie’s found his peace and so has Stephanie. This is for them, too, but
they’ll never know. And I’m trusting you to keep it from Bill Jonas — and Boyle. I don’t want to have a thing to do with Boyle.”

“You’re not going to make it,” said Stefanos. “These guys will kill you before you have a chance. You’re going to die and
get Wilson killed, too, and for what? I’m telling you, man, this idea of yours is bullshit. It’s fucked.”

“All right, you’ve said it. Now leave it alone. You’ve got nothing to do with it, hear?”

“We’ve got too much history between us for me to leave it alone.”

“You heard Boyle’s uncle. Your grandfather gave my old man a job when he was a washed-up cripple. My old man stopped those
loan sharks from burning down your grandfather’s grill. I’d say our slate is clean. We owe each other nothing.”

“You’re drunk,” said Stefanos, looking into Karras’s waxed eyes. “Yeah, I’m drunk.” Karras had a swig of beer, keeping his
eyes on Stefanos.

“You better pray to God that you know what you’re doing.”

“God,” said Karras with contempt. “Now you’re going to tell me you believe in God.”

“I’m like most men, I guess — that is, if they’re honest enough to admit it. I believe some days and some days I’m not so
sure. The truth is, I’m just trying to figure it all out.”