The Power Of The Dog (43 page)

No, the guy came to work, and he came to learn.

Callan finds he likes working with his hands.

At first he’s all thumbs—he feels like a jerk, a mook—but then it starts coming along. And McGuigan, once he sees that Callan is serious, is patient. Takes the time to teach him things, brings him along, gives him small jobs to screw up until he gets to the point where he can do them without screwing up.

Callan goes home at night tired.

End of the day, he’s physically worn out—he’s sore, his arms ache—but mentally he feels good. He’s relaxed, he’s not worried about anything. There’s nothing he’s done during the day he’s going to have bad dreams about that night.

He stops going around to the bars and pubs where he and O-Bop used to hang out. He don’t go around the Liffey or the Landmark no more. Mostly he comes home and he and Siobhan have a quick supper, watch some TV, go to bed.

One day O-Bop shows up at the carpentry studio.

He stands there in the doorway, looking stupid for a minute, but Callan ain’t even looking at him, he’s paying attention to his sanding, and then O-Bop turns around and leaves, and McGuigan thinks maybe he should say something but there don’t seem to be nothing to say. It’s like Callan just took care of it, that’s all, and now McGuigan don’t have to worry about the West Side boyos coming by.

But after work, Callan goes and searches out O-Bop. Finds him on the corner of Eleventh and Forty-third, and they walk over to the waterfront together.

“Fuck you,” O-Bop says. “What was that?”

“That’s me telling you that my work is my work.”

“What, I can’t come say hello?”

“Not when I’m working.”

“We ain’t, what, friends no more?” O-Bop asks.

“We’re friends.”

“I dunno,” says O-Bop. “You don’t come around, no one sees you. You could come have a pint sometimes, you know.”

“I don’t hang in the bars no more.”

O-Bop laughs. “You’re gettin’ to be a regular fuckin’ Boy Scout, aren’t you?”

“Laugh if you want.”

“Yeah, I will.”

They stand there looking across the river. It’s a cold evening. The water looks black and hard.

“Yeah, well, don’t do me any favors,” O-Bop says. “You’re not any fuckin’ fun anyway since you’re on this working-class-hero, Joe-Lunchbucket thing. It’s just that people are asking about you.”

“Who’s asking about me?”

“People.”

“Peaches?”

“Look,” O-Bop says. “There’s a lot of heat right now, a lot of pressure. People getting edgy about other people maybe talking to grand juries.”

“I’m not talking to anybody.”

“Yeah, well, see that you don’t.”

Callan grabs Stevie by the lapels of his pea coat.

“Are you getting heavy with me, Stevie?”

“No.”

A hint of a whine.

“Because you don’t get heavy with me, Stevie.”

“I’m just saying … you know.”

Callan lets loose of him. “Yeah, I know.”

He knows.

It’s a lot harder to walk out than to walk in. But he’s doing it, he’s walking away, and every day he gets more distance. Every day he gets closer to getting this new life, and he likes this new life. He likes getting up and going to work, working hard and then coming home to Siobhan. Having dinner, going to bed early, getting up and doing it all over again.

He and Siobhan are getting along great. They even talk about getting married.

Then Neill Demonte dies.

“I have to go to the funeral,” Callan says.

“Why?” Siobhan asks.

“To show respect.”

“To some gangster?”

She’s pissed off. She’s angry and scared. That he’ll slip back into all of it. Because he’s struggling with all the old demons in his life and now it seems like’s he just walking right back into it after he’s worked so hard to walk away.

“I’ll just go, pay my respects and come back,” he says.

“How about paying me some respect?” she asks. “How about respecting our relationship?”

“I do respect it.”

She throws up her hands.

He’d like to explain it to her but he doesn’t want to scare her. That his absence would be misunderstood. That people who are already suspicious of him would get more suspicious, that it might cause them to panic and do something about their suspicions.

“Do you think I want to go?”

“You must, because that’s what you’re doing.”

“You don’t understand.”

“That’s right, I don’t understand.”

She walks away and slams the bedroom door behind her and he hears the click of the lock. He thinks about kicking the door in, then thinks better of it, so he just punches the wall and walks out.

Hard to find a place to park at the cemetery, what with every wise guy in the city there, not to mention the platoons of local, state and federal cops. One of whom snaps Callan’s picture as he walks past, but Callan don’t care.

Right now he’s like, Fuck everybody.

And his hand hurts.

“Trouble in paradise?” O-Bop says when he sees the hand.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“That’s it,” says O-Bop. “You’re not getting your Funeral Etiquette Merit Badge now.”

Then he shuts up because it’s clear from the darkness on Callan’s face that he ain’t in the mood for humor.

It seems like every wise guy that Giuliani hasn’t already put in the slammer is here. You got your Cozzo brothers, all razor-cut hair and tailored suits, you got the Piccones, you got Sammy Grillo and Frankie Lorenzo, and Little Nick Corotti and Leonard DiMarsa and Sal Scachi. You got the whole Cimino Family, plus some Genovese captains—Barney Bellomo and Dom Cirillo. And some Lucchese people—Tony Ducks and Little Al D’Arco. And what’s left of the Colombo Family, now that Persico is doing his hundred, and even a few of the old Bonanno guys—Sonny Black and Lefty Ruggiero.

All here to pay respect to Aniello Demonte. All here to try to sniff out how things are going to go now that Demonte is dead. They all know it depends on who Calabrese picks to be the new underboss, because with the likelihood that Paulie’s going away, the new underboss is going to be the next boss. If Paulie picks Cozzo, then there’ll be peace in the family. But if he picks someone else … Look out. So all the goombahs are here to try to suss it out.

They’re all here.

With one huge exception.

Big Paulie Calabrese.

Peaches just can’t believe it. Everyone’s waiting for his big black limo to pull up so they can start the service, but it doesn’t arrive. The widow is appalled, she doesn’t know what to do, and finally Johnny Cozzo steps up and says, “Let’s get started.”

“Guy doesn’t go to his own underboss’s funeral?” Peaches says after the service. “That is wrong. That is just wrong.”

He turns to Callan. “I’m glad to see you here, anyway. Where the fuck you been?”

“Around.”

“You ain’t been around me.”

Callan’s not in the mood.

“You guineas don’t own me,” he says.

“You watch your fucking mouth.”

“Come on, Jimmy,” O-Bop says. “He’s good people.”

“So,” Peaches says to Callan, “I hear you’re supposed to be what, a carpenter, now?”

“Yeah.”

Peaches says, “I knew a carpenter got nailed to a cross.”

“When you come for me, Jimmy,” Callan says, “come in a hearse—because that’s how you’re leaving.”

Cozzo moves in between them.

“What the fuck?” he says. “You wanna make more tapes for the Feds? What do you want now, the ‘Jimmy Peaches Live Album’? I need you fucking guys to stick together now. Shake hands.”

Peaches puts out his hand to Callan.

Callan takes it and Peaches wraps his other hand around the back of Callan’s head and pulls him close. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry. It’s the tension, it’s the grief.”

“I know. Me, too.”

“I love you, you dumb fucking mick,” Peaches whispers in his ear. “You want out, good for you. You’re out. You go build your cabinets and desks and whatever and be happy, all right? Life is short, you gotta be happy while you can.”

“Thank you, Jimmy.”

Peaches releases Callan and says loudly, “I’ll beat this drug thing, we’ll have a party, okay?”

“Okay.”

Callan’s invited back to the Ravenite with the rest of them, but he doesn’t go.

He goes home.

Finds a parking spot, walks up the stairs and waits outside the door for a minute, working up his nerve before he can turn the key and go in.

She’s there.

Sitting in a chair by the window, reading a book.

Starts to cry when she sees him. “I didn’t think you were going to come back.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to be here.”

He bends over and hugs her.

She holds him very tightly. When she lets go he says, “I was thinking we could go get a Christmas tree.”

They pick a pretty one. It’s small and a little sparse. It isn’t a perfect tree, but it suits them. They put some corny Christmas music on, and they’re busy decorating their tree the rest of the night. They don’t even know that Big Paulie Calabrese has named Tommy Bellavia as his new underboss.

They come for him the next night.

Callan’s walking home from work, the front of his jeans and the tops of his shoes covered with sawdust. It’s a cold night, so he has the collar of his coat pulled up around his neck and his watch cap pulled low over his ears.

So he doesn’t see or hear the car until it pulls up beside him.

A window slides down.

“Get in.”

There’s no gun, nothing sticking out. It’s not needed. Callan knows that sooner or later he’s going to get in the car—if not this one, the next one—so he gets in. Slides into the front seat, lifts his arms and lets Sal Scachi unbutton his coat and feel under his arms, the small of his back, down his legs.

“So it’s true,” Scachi says when he’s done. “You’re a civilian now.”

“Yeah.”

“A citizen,” Scachi says. “The fuck is this? Sawdust?”

“Yeah, sawdust.”

“Shit, I got it on my coat.”

A nice coat, Callan thinks. Has to be five bills.

Scachi pulls onto the West Side Highway, heads uptown and then pulls under a bridge and stops.