Back Bay (10 page)

“We can tell all those people that the E. and E. wing has a lock on the NASA Venus program,” said Carrington.

Calvin shook his head. “That’s our big item, but it’s still a year away.”

“Gentlemen,” said Soames, “I think we’re forgetting the most direct way to keep Mr. Rule out of this office.”

Philip Pratt had cooled off. “We haven’t forgotten, Bennett. Rule has given us a deadline, and we’ll meet it. We find that tea set in ten days, he’s finished, and we stay right where we are.”

“We should be proceeding very carefully in this tea-set business, gentlemen,” cautioned Calvin.

“We should be proceeding as businessmen, not treasure hunters,” said Christopher. “We’re being totally unprofessional.”

Philip turned angrily on the young man. “You’re the one who discovered Abigail Pratt’s diaries, Christopher. You led us into this. You have the most to lose if Rule takes over. So do what we ask you.”

“When Abigail Pratt B–tley wrote about the Golden Eagle, she was a crazy old lady filling the pages with daydreams. I’m convinced that the tea set has been found, and William Rule found it.”

“If he did, he’s going to make us look much worse than we do already.” Philip Pratt looked at his father’s portrait. Artemus Pratt IV seemed sated, almost serene, like a man who had just finished a good meal. Philip shook his head in disgust. “The old man would just shit.”

Peter Fallon hadn’t thought of the Golden Eagle, Gravelly Point, or DL in almost twenty-four hours. It was eleven o’clock the next evening when he lurched out of a subway in South Boston and into a quilt of humid air. He needed a shave, he had a black eye, his shirt was filthy, and his pants were torn at both knees. During his ten-minute subway ride from downtown, the first heat wave of the summer had arrived, and that called for a beer.

The Rising Moon, near the union hall on Broadway, was a neighborhood bar with a set of regular drinkers and local drunks who
thought of their saloon as a sanctuary, a place for guzzling beer and downing shots, for watching sports on color TV and escaping the wife when she began to nag. It was a narrow, crowded dump, with a row of booths along one wall and a few tables in the middle of the floor. Three fans blew hot air around, and when the Rising Moon didn’t smell like stale beer, it stank of fresh piss.

For some reason, Thursday nights were usually slow. Somebody was asleep at one of the tables. A few regulars sat at the bar and watched glumly as Luis Tiant, in pinstripes, pitched against the Red Sox. Jackie Halloran and Denny Murphy nursed their beers and strained to hear a conversation between two men in the corner booth.

Kenny Gallagher stood behind the bar and swatted flies with a wet rag. A smiling balloon of a man with a whiskey-red complexion that looked permanently sunburned, he had tended bar at the Rising Moon six nights a week for the last eleven years. When he saw Peter Fallon in the doorway, he drew a draft and placed it on the bar. “Right over here, Pete. Sit down and beat the heat with a brew on the house. No Yankee fans or beer farts allowed, but anything else is all right with old Kenny.”

Fallon approached the bar very slowly. “Hi, Kenny.”

Gallagher knew that Fallon was drunk and that Fallons were mean drunks. Whenever he had to handle one of them, he thanked St. Jude that the Fallons didn’t drink too often. “Now, Peter, sit down and relax and tell me what you’ve been up to the last few months.” Gallagher had a smile for everyone, but he genuinely liked Peter. He’d known him since the day he was born.

“Has my brother come in here tonight?” Fallon was in no mood for pleasantries.

Gallagher leaned across the bar and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. If he’d wanted, he could have broken Fallon’s collarbone, but Gallagher was always gentle with children, animals, and drunks. “Sit down, Peter.”

“Where’s my fuckin’ brother?” Fallon pulled away.

“Now don’t let’s have no trouble, Peter,” pleaded Kenny. “Every damn time you come in here, there’s a fight.”

“I’m over here, Peter.” The voice came from the corner booth.

“I want no trouble,” warned Kenny.

“No trouble,” said Fallon.

The man seated with Danny Fallon moved over, and Peter slid into the booth opposite his brother. The Fallons were both Irish, but there the tribal resemblance ended. Peter, with dark hair and wiry build, was one of the Black Irish, as his father liked to say. Danny, at thirty-two, was the beer-and-potatoes South Boston Harp. His face was weathered from years of outdoor work. His hands were large and callused. His body was solid, and even his gut looked like muscle.

Peter smiled drunkenly at his brother.

Danny didn’t smile back. He was half-drunk himself. “The rah-rah boy from Harvard, all messed up and lookin’ like a goddam rummy. You been on another bender or somethin’?”

Peter continued to smile. He love to hear his brother’s South Boston accent. He imagined the words traveling out of Danny’s throat, stopping in his sinuses to drop off all the r’s, then squirting out into the air. “Why is it that half the guys in Boston sound like they’re holdin’ their nose when they talk, Dan?”

“Cut the shit. I asked you a question. Have you been on another bender?”

Fallon was annoying his brother, and that was the whole purpose of his visit. “I spend most of my life looking through the wrong end of the telescope, Dan. Every so often, I like to see life up close. So I go on a bender. I’ve been drunk, I was almost rolled in the men’s room of Kelleher’s on Summer Street, and now it’s time to go back to work.”

“So I ain’t stoppin’ you. Go back to work. If that’s what you call it, sittin’ in a library all day readin’.”

“Since I spent all my money on Jameson’s and beer, I need twenty-five bucks till the end of the month.” Peter held out his hand.

The little man sitting next to him in the booth began to laugh. In his maroon double-knit suit, Jerry Sheldon looked like a bookie, but tonight he was the mouthpiece for a local loan shark. “Your brother could use twenty-five bucks himself, kid. He could use twenty-five thousand bucks eight or nine times over.”

Danny turned angrily on Sheldon. “You’ve had your earful. Now shut the fuck up and beat it.”

Sheldon squeezed past Peter and headed for the door. “Remember our offer.”

“Fuck the offer,” said Danny.

“Do what you want.”

“I really like your suit,” said Peter.

“Your brother’s a smartass, Danny. Teach him a few manners.” Sheldon left the bar.

For a moment, the brothers stared at each other across the table, each waiting for the other to speak.

As usual, Danny gave up first. “When was the last time you talked to the old man?”

Peter had to think. He didn’t enjoy conversations with his father and tried not to remember them. “A month, maybe.”

“A month.” Danny shook his head. “And you haven’t talked to me since the last time you were in here.”

“The phone works both ways.”

“If you stuck your nose into the family business a little more often, you’d know that Fallon and Son Construction Company is on the ropes.”

“That’s happened before.” Peter seemed unconcerned.

“Not like this time,” said Danny bitterly. “The old man bit off too much, he’s got no place to spit it out, and the fuckin’ creditors are climbin’ down his throat. Things look bad.”

“That’s for fuckin’ sure,” said Jackie Halloran from a nearby table.

“Who asked you?” snapped Danny.

“If your old man goes under, I lose a job, and so do most of the guys who come in this bar.”

“Well, then you can spend your afternoons in here too, so cheer up.”

“Shoot the shit with Jackie later,” cracked Peter. “I’m getting sleepy.”

“Sheldon’s right, Dan. Your brother’s still a smartass,” said Jackie.

“Nobody’s talkin’ to you, Jackie. Watch the ballgame.” Danny turned to Peter, whose disinterested gaze always made him mad. His brother never seemed to care about anything but his history books, his benders, and the undergraduate girls he went through
like beers on Gallagher’s bar. “You walk in here stiff drunk, you treat Kenny and Jackie like shit.” Danny lowered his voice. “You insult Sheldon, not that I give a fuck, and you aren’t even upset to find out that we’re up to our asses in debt. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Peter shrugged. “We all got our problems, Danny.” As he spoke, he began to duck. He knew what was coming.

Danny snapped a backhander across the table and caught Peter off the side of the head. Peter tumbled onto the floor, rolled quickly to his feet, and swung. He caught Danny under the chin and almost lifted him out of the booth. Anybody else would be gone for the night, but Danny hit his brother with a shoulder about waist high and the two of them flew halfway across the barroom.

“I told you two, no trouble,” shouted Gallagher, while Halloran, Murphy, and the other regulars got out of the way and watched the fight.

Peter clipped Danny with a left that slammed him against the bar. Danny countered with a right that knocked Peter on his tail and knocked the wind right out of him. Before they wrecked the Rising Moon, Gallagher jumped between them and straight-armed Danny to the bar.

“You stay right where you are, Peter,” he growled. “Every goddam time you come in here, there’s a fight.”

Fallon smiled and leaned back on his elbows. “You can relax, Kenny. It’s all over.”

“Just like that?”

“Once in a while, I need to blow off some steam, Kenny. So I come over to Southie and pick a fight with my brother.”

“Well, stop pickin’ it in here. I’m gettin’ old.” Kenny released Danny.

“Bring us two cold ones.” Danny seemed as relieved as his brother.

“No sir. If you boys want any more to drink tonight, you take it here where I can keep my eye on you.”

The Fallons sat at the bar like a pair of chastened schoolboys, and Kenny drew two drafts.

“I gotta straighten you out,” said Danny. “Every couple of months, you go on a bender and get into a fight. You better watch
out, because someday you’re gonna pick a fight in the wrong bar and they’ll carry you home in a plastic bag.”

“I don’t pick fights with anybody but you, and it’s the benders that straighten me out.”

For the next half hour, they sipped their beer and talked about the fortunes of the family company. Fallon and Son was a small contracting outfit that specialized in masonry, carpentry, and plumbing. In the last year, with rising costs and lack of work, they had sunk slowly into debt. Now they owed their creditors $150,000, they were facing bankruptcy, and Jerry Sheldon had offered a short-term solution.

It was midnight when Danny finished the story. The ballgame was over, and most of the regulars had gone home. Jackie Halloran was sitting with the Fallons. Kenny Gallagher was cleaning up.

“I’m sorry that you’re goin’ down the drain, but there isn’t much I can do to help, Dan.” Peter sounded depressed. His drunk was over. He would have to face his work again. “I feel like I’m goin’ down the drain myself.”

“Just come around more often, kid. Tell the old man you’ll do what you can, even if you can’t do anything.”

Peter looked into the bottom of his beer glass and laughed softly. “Then he’ll say, ‘If you want to do somethin’, go to law school.’ ”

Danny placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “He’s on your side, no matter what you think.”

“Always slow on Thursday nights,” said Kenny. “I think I’ll close ’er up and take a few shots myself.”

“You nip all night, Kenny Gallagher,” said Jackie.

“I sip beer. There’s a difference.” Kenny flipped off the neon sign in the window and began to sweep the place out.

A young man of about thirty appeared in the entrance. He was slender, with an angular face, pockmarks, and a receding hairline. Fallon glanced at him briefly and noticed that he was wearing a heavy tweed sportcoat, despite the heat.

“Hey, buddy, we’re closed,” said Gallagher.

“I’m looking for Kenny Gallagher,” said the man.

“You’ve found him, mister.” Kenny approached the man. “What can I do for you?”

Fallon heard a noise like a firecracker going off under a pillow. Kenny Gallagher’s body snapped as though someone had hit him in the stomach, then a patch of red appeared just below Kenny’s left shoulder blade. Two more muffled explosions, another blossom of red. Even at close range, only two of the .22 caliber slugs made it through Kenny’s bulk. The gunman was gone before his victim hit the floor.

The three men at the bar stood in shock until a rush of adrenaline sobered them up. Danny and Jackie went after the gunman. Peter sprang to Kenny’s side and rolled him over. Kenny was dead. There was nothing Fallon could do. He sat back on his heels and cursed softly to himself.

Danny and Jackie returned without a clue. No gunman, no gun, no license number.

“Who the hell would want to kill Kenny Gallagher?” said Jackie.

Peter Fallon spent the night at his brother’s house in South Boston. Danny, his wife Sheila, and their three children lived in a comfortable semidetached house on Pleasure Bay, with a view of the harbor, the container storage facility on Castle Island, and the Columbia Point Housing Project. Peter’s parents, Tom and Maureen Fallon, lived on the other side of the house.

At seven o’clock that morning, little Jimmy Fallon burst into his parents’ room with the morning paper. Daddy and Uncle Peter were on the front page, witnesses to a murder. Jimmy didn’t notice until later that Kenny Gallagher, who always brought him candy, was the victim.

“Jesus Christ,” said Danny at breakfast. “Our pictures and your name.”

Peter looked at the photograph. It showed himself, Danny, and Jackie standing over the shrouded body of Kenny Gallagher. “ ‘Peter Fallon of Cambridge,’ ” he read, “ ‘was in the Rising Moon at the time of the shooting, but he could not provide an accurate description of the gunman.’ That’s because I was drunk.”

“And as far as the cops are concerned, you stay that way. You didn’t see a thing, Peter. That guy gets it in his head that you got a fix on him, he may try to fix you.”

“What do you mean?” Sheila stopped washing dishes for a
moment. She was an ex-cheerleader a few pounds on the wrong side of voluptuous.