We Were Kings (32 page)

_________________________

O'Flaherty's Funeral Home, Dorchester

“HOW MANY HEARSES
does it takes to move five tons of guns and explosives?” Cal asked. He and Dante sat low in their seats, not out of an attempt to remain unseen, but because they were tired. It was dark and they were parked outside the address from Jacob Anielewicz's work order, the same funeral home where Cal had, a week before, sat watching the living grieving for the dead. They were waiting for the funeral home to close and sharing a six-pack. Cal was feeling punch-drunk from the heat, and the beer didn't help.

“I don't know,” Dante said, going along with the joke. “How many?”

“All of them.”

Looking down the Avenue, they saw the neon of bars and taprooms and the lights of the Fields Corner Theater, at the intersection of Adams and Dorchester, which was showing a stage production featuring Howdy Doody and Clarabell the Clown and Chief Thunderthud, head of the Ooragnak tribe of American Indians. Farther down the road was Charlie's Ice Cream Parlor, where young men and women mingled, and the sounds of their talk, animated and loud, came to them on the night air.

Earlier that day they'd circled the block and spotted two of the gleaming hearses in the back lot. There was a wake taking place, and Cal had entered, written his condolences in the funeral home's guest book, and then paid his respects to the dead stranger, the way that his father had taught him, while Dante crawled under the hearses and confirmed the work Jacob had done on their chassis.

Cal sipped his beer and then sat up straighter and put most of the whole can back when, across the street, the front doors opened and the funeral attendants left, followed by the director, O'Flaherty, and the mortician. They watched as O'Flaherty locked the front doors, and then he and the other man stood talking at the edge of light cast by the streetlamps for several minutes before heading south along the Avenue.

Cal and Dante climbed from the car. Cal emptied what was left of his beer into the gutter. They crossed the street and went along the outside of the building in the dark. At a side entrance Dante watched as Cal tried the door. Cal turned the knob, his hand working something at the latch, and then he was grinning and the door swung open. He held up a business card with the O'Flaherty's Funeral Homes logo on it. “Took this earlier,” he said, “and placed it over the latch hole. I was hoping it would hold.”

The interior of the building was still lit, lights turned down low in wall sconces, creating shadows in the corners, but gradually their eyes adjusted. They passed through the lobby and the viewing rooms smelling of fresh-cut flowers and the extinguished beeswax candles and incense. There were coffins in two of the rooms, chairs arranged with funeral cards on them, the first row with a placard that read
Family
.

They walked the carpeted floors quickly and quietly, along a vestibule to the office, through a room for casket and urn selections, past the chapel, and to the rear of the building, where an anteroom led to stairs going down to the loading room, the prep room, and the crematorium.

In the prep room, smelling of formaldehyde and methanol, the naked body of an old man, embalmed and prepared for the next day's service and disposition, lay on the mortuary table, a modesty cloth placed over his genitals. He looked jaundiced from the embalming fluid and they had yet to apply makeup. Cal glanced at the face and quickly blessed himself; the man looked extremely tired, extinguished after a life of struggle that had also included the minor and remarkable successes that are part of a life. Cal knew that in the morning, the mortician's heavy makeup would, sadly, wipe all of that from his features.

The loading room smelled of diesel and oil, and four coffins sat gleaming beneath the diffuse light. Cal looked to Dante and gestured for him to turn on the lights. They waited as the fluorescent bars above them hummed into life and the room was bathed in their stark, white glare. Taped to the top of the first coffin was a transfer-of-remains certificate and a shipping bill of lading. Dante looked at the paperwork. “It says Michael Cleland,” he said. “Boston to Galway aboard the Cunard vessel MV
Georgic
via New York and Liverpool.”

“And the others?”

Dante walked the row of coffins, glancing at their bills of lading. “They're the names that Owen gave us of the shooting victims, all bound for Galway.”

“What are they waiting for? Why haven't the bodies already shipped? The funerals were more than a week ago.”

Dante shrugged. “Someone's holding them up.”

“Someone or something.” Cal tried to lift the coffin lid but it was locked. He nodded toward the supplies rack. “Give us that church key.”

He took the key from Dante and with a couple of cranks there was a hiss of air as the vacuum seal of the coffin was broken. They slowly pried the lid back, and they were staring at Michael Cleland, done up in a charcoal-gray three-piece suit. Heavy wax filler had been used for the part of his face that was missing, and on top of the wax was a trowel's worth of makeup and powder, but it looked as if at some point the mortician had simply given up. The dust of the powder clouded the air. Only his hair seemed real, combed and gleaming with pomade. They stood before the coffin and stared at the man. “They weren't going to show him after a bullet to the head anyway,” Dante said.

“No, I suppose not.” Cal waited for the smell of the perfume and powder to dissipate. He frowned and then looked at Dante. Dante went to the corner of the room for the rolling examining table. He pulled it alongside the casket, its casters squealing across the tile, and then went to the bottom of the coffin and took the man's feet.

“Ready?” Cal said, and he grasped the shoulders of the suit tightly. “One, two, three,” he called and they grunted and swung the body up and out of the casket and onto the metal table. They looked at each other. Cal exhaled deeply. “Jesus,” he said. Sweat had broken out on his brow. Dante ran his forearm across his face. “That fucker is heavy,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cal said and he moved to the coffin, tried lifting one end of it. “But this coffin is heavier.”

He reached into the interior and tapped on its bottom, which echoed hollowly, then he tore through the lace cloth, grasped the wood, and pulled it up.

“Bingo!” he said and they looked down into the deep belly of the coffin where four recently oiled German StG 44s, four Russian Kalashnikovs, and two Bren guns arranged in two parallel rows gleamed up at them. Beneath the smuggled assault rifles they could make out ammunition, bullets sparkling dully, small arms, land mines, grenades.

“All that's missing is a bazooka,” Dante said. “And I'll guarantee that there are other O'Flaherty's Funeral Homes in Southie and Dorchester with similar coffins going back to Ireland on the same ship later this month. Five tons of the stuff.”

Cal grinned. “De Burgh,” he said. “You are a sneaky bastard.”

He stared at Dante and then asked, “Who do we know who could move something like this?” even though he already knew the answer. There was only one person in Boston who could move stuff like this, one man who, even with all the heat that was coming down on local mobs, would get a kick out of it, and that was Shea Mack.

_________________________

Everett

THE SISTERS OF
Mercy home was a squat, miserable block of a building, its brick sapped of its crimson and its windows appearing impenetrable to light, as though they were shielded from the sun by black paint. Over the phone, Father Nolan had told Dante it was a “quaint, peaceful place,” but here before Dante now, it looked like an asylum or a school for delinquents. What exactly had it been, he wondered, before it became an orphanage for girls?

“You don't have to do this, you know?” Cal framed it as a question, although to Dante it sounded more like a command.

“There may be no other way,” he said, still looking through the windshield to the building atop the hill.

“Claudia…she'll come back, won't she?”

“I can't say,” Dante answered. “I hope she does.”

He could tell that Cal's curiosity was in high gear; he was still waiting for a clear answer as to what had happened and why they were sitting before an orphanage.

“Cousins in Rhode Island, eh?”

Dante corrected him. “Cousins in Connecticut. Greenwich.”

“That guy must have really broken her heart. Just getting up and leaving her like that.”

“Yeah, I never liked him. Could tell he was up to no good. She'll be better off, though. She just doesn't know it yet.”

Cal's voice was congested, as if he were in the grip of a bad head cold. “She seemed so happy last time I saw her. Like a new person.”

“Well, that didn't last long.”

Cal sneezed, blocking his nose with his forearm. Dante appreciated the distraction and lit up another cigarette.

“Fucking allergies up here. It's like we're in the deep woods of New Hampshire or something.”

Dante leaned back in the passenger seat, his hat on his knee, his right elbow resting atop the door with the window rolled down. “It does feel different here, doesn't it? And it's only Everett. So close to Boston.”

Cal sneezed again, took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He crumpled up the linen and, with his knuckles, wiped at the persistent itch that burned his eyes. He looked over at Dante with a bloodshot gaze. “I can go in there with you.”

“No, you've done enough. Asking Father Nolan to help me out, and the ride here…that's enough.”

Dante took his jacket and hat and stepped out of the car. The gray jacket was severely wrinkled, and Cal wondered if Dante had ever used an iron in his life. The poor guy looked a mess. Even though he had shaved, a rash of razor bumps scattered along his neck. Dante tucked in his white shirt and then put on his jacket. He checked to make sure his zipper was up—miraculously, it was.

“You don't mind waiting?” Dante asked again.

“No, I don't mind.”

He leaned in the open window, seemed like he was going to say something but then paused. Cal could tell he was stalling.

“If I don't come out soon, call the cavalry. You know those nuns and me never got along so well.”

Cal laughed. “Like oil and water. They didn't like me much either. Just don't curse, and remember, you're here to find out about the place, see if it's what's right. You don't have to make a decision today.”

“I know,” he said.

Cal watched Dante walk away. He avoided the set of crumbling stone steps and labored up the grassy hill. Cal thought about how Dante never did anything easy, always took the route that pained him the most—perhaps the suffering reminded him that at least he was still alive.

In the lobby between two sets of double doors, Dante stood and waited. Despite the damp air, it felt far cooler here than it did outside. He took off his hat and fingered its brim. Glancing back through the door's windows to the outside world, he noticed Cal's white car reflecting the sun and blazing as if it were heaven-sent. He could turn around and get in the car and get back to his life—he didn't have to do this.

Two teenage girls came through the doors, each wearing a wool dress that looked to be secondhand, most likely donations from a church.

“Excuse me, sir,” one of them said with what seemed to be feigned politeness.

The other one had a narrow face and a hawkish nose and was cursed with bad acne; her skin had an oily sheen to it. Dante and she exchanged glances. “Do you need help, mister?” she asked. Dante could tell she wasn't from Boston, was perhaps from the South.

“I'm looking for the headmistress.”

“She's on the second floor, on the other side of the building.”

“Thank you.”

Before she and the other girl went out, he asked, “Strange question, perhaps, but do you like it here? I mean, is it a good, safe place to be?”

He knew it must have been an odd question because she grinned and then looked at her friend in an inquisitive way. “I guess it is what it is. It could be better, it could be worse.”

The other girl laughed. “If you're here to fix things, mister, you should start with the food.”

The two of them left, and Dante could hear their laughter fade away as he walked deeper into the building.

There was a churchlike silence to the place. The corridor floors were as dark as obsidian, and the tiles gleamed from a wax polish. A peculiar array of scents came to him, of pencil shavings, mildewed books, candle wax, the subtle sourness of children in need of a bath. He remembered some of Margo's stories about her many stays at different orphanages when she was a child. In their first year of marriage, he had asked her what it was like to never have a home; how could people remain hopeful when they knew that the place they were living was only temporary? Margo had grinned in that crooked way and said she'd gotten used to it because she had no choice.

She had no choice
.

“May I help you, sir?”

Startled, Dante looked up and saw a nun standing beside him, hands clasped at her waist, a smile on her rounded, cherubic face.

“Oh yes, I'm here to speak with Mother Counihan.”

Even in the shadows, the woman's eyes shone a bright emerald. Dante noticed that her upper lip was dewed with sweat, her cheeks flushed from the heat. He had no idea how old she was—the outfit made her age ambiguous, anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. But she looked kind, gentle, not like the sisters he remembered from his own childhood.

“Please follow me, then. She's up on the second floor.”

There were classrooms on his right. He peered into one and saw two children cleaning a chalkboard with wet rags. Holding a mop far taller than she was, another girl wiped at the floor with great, sweeping arcs. Dante could smell the ammonia, felt it sting at his nostrils.

“Do the children take classes here?”

“Yes, the younger ones do. After age twelve, they are bused to schools in Malden, Chelsea, Charlestown. It's good for them to be around other children.”

“So this was a school before?”

“Yes, a private one for girls. The building was vacant for a long time before the church came in and made it Sisters of Mercy. There's not too many places like this left, Mr.…”

“Cooper.”

“Mr. Cooper. We take great pride in the alms of Our Father. For the children. As long as we can take care of them, this place will remain a haven for the lost wanderers of a burdened youth.”

They walked up a staircase to the second floor, where there were bedrooms, their doors left open. Looking into one of them, Dante saw four small beds, each of them with a wool blanket tightly tucked in beneath the mattress and a pillow squared at the top. The walls were painted a pale institutional green, and there was only one window, which was curtained with a heavy material and allowed in meager light.

“Some of the rooms are empty now,” she said, watching him. “Please, follow me.”

She led him to a wooden door, the carvings intricate and shadowed by the dark amber of the finish. “Mother Counihan is in her office expecting you. Good day, Mr. Cooper.”

“God bless,” Dante said, watching her walk back the way they had come.

Suddenly alone, Dante felt that heavy weight return to his chest, and in his gut, his stomach tremored and threatened to heave bile. There was a morbid feeling surrounding him, the sensation of a hushed collective, as though unseen but very close by, a group of children hid and waited, holding their breath as they peered out and watched him.

Cal was right. He didn't have to do this. But these women knew how to care for a child. How could he raise a child on his own? A man who just the other night had killed another in cold blood and dumped his body where hopefully nobody would ever find it? A man who hadn't asked for a child, although he'd taken on the task as best as he could?

The doorknob in his hand felt warm, clammy. He thought of things he wanted to say but nothing seemed right. Inside, there was a pleasant musky odor, and he imagined a masculine presence inhabited the office until a large-boned woman got up from her desk and approached him, her hand reaching out to shake his. “Mr. Cooper, it's a pleasure to meet you today.”