OVER HERE, MAUREEN.” JOYCE WAS SITTING IN THE dingiest, darkest corner of a dark and dingy bar. “Do you want a beer or something?”
“No. Not right now.”
Sometimes Maureen could go days without having a beer or even thinking about having a beer, but once she started, there was no guarantee when she was going to stop. She knew she would be in much better shape to go down to the cop shop in the morning if she wasn’t suffering from a vicious hangover. Joyce looked at her watch, looked at Maureen and didn’t say anything. What the fuck? Maureen’s mind thought. But Maureen’s voice said, “Well, Joyce, what do you want?”
“Nothing,” Joyce said.
“Nothing? You got me down here at—what is it now—midnight?”
“Ten to,” Joyce said.
“Okay. Ten to midnight. For nothing?”
“I got something to tell you, Maureen, but I can’t tell you yet.”
“Jesus in the breadbox, Joyce, what?”
Joyce looked quizzically at Maureen.
“You know, Mom says it all the time, ‘Jesus in the breadbox, eatin’ all the cheese, didn’t leave none for the poor Chinese,’” Maureen said.
“That’s fox.”
“What?”
“That’s fox.”
“Fox Albert?” said Maureen.
“No. You know, it’s fox in the breadbox, eating all the cheese.”
“I don’t think the Chinese even eat cheese, do they? Anyway, look, Joyce, I got things I got to be at.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like getting ready to talk to the cops tomorrow, for one thing.”
Joyce’s eyes opened really, really wide but she didn’t say a word.
“Okay, fuck it, Joyce. I’m going.” Maureen got up.
Joyce leaned across the table and grabbed Maureen’s arm with that surprisingly strong grip of hers. “Please, Maureen, just wait; it’s only another five minutes or so.”
Maureen sat down. Joyce looked at her watch again. It was a big watch with big numbers on it, just like a man’s watch.
“Nice watch,” Maureen said. For a fella, her mind said in that irritatingly relentless way it had.
“Yea, it’s Dad’s. He gave it to Carleen for a good luck charm when she went up to Expo. The boys had them send it back with some of her other stuff from the jail. Dad won’t wear it anymore, can’t stand the sight of it now, he says.”
Maureen remembered the watch now, sitting huge on Carleen’s pencil-thin wrist. She remembered feeling jealous that Carleen had a father who even had a watch, let alone would give it to her as a good luck charm when she was going away.
But Carleen’s mother is an awful old bag and a drunk on top of that, Maureen’s mind interjected.
But Carleen had her dad, Maureen argued with her mind, and he loved her even though he was always at work ’cause they lived in on the back of town on one of those expensive tree streets, those Father Knows Best kind of streets, where the Leave It to Beaver crowd lived. Maureen could feel herself getting angry at the thought of all that snooty crowd going around with their noses stuck up in the air, that crowd who thought they were so much better than her—
Joyce interrupted Maureen’s rising resentment: “Okay, now it’s time. We got to go across the street to the DAFT office.”
“No way, José. I’m not going over there, Joyce.”
“I’ve got something I want to show you, Maureen, but it’s over there. So you’ve got to come.”
“What something?”
“Something to do with Bo and all that, something important.”
Joyce looked at her watch again, then grabbed Maureen by the arm.
“Come on, we don’t have much time.”
She ran Maureen across an almost empty Duckworth Street and opened the door to the DAFT shop with a key.
“Why do you have a key, Joyce?”
“I just borrowed it.”
“Borrowed it from who?”
“Oh, shut up, Maureen. Come on.” Joyce locked the door behind them.
“I really, really don’t want to be here, Joyce, and I’m not going up over those stairs until you tell me what this is all about.”
Joyce, already halfway up over the stairs, came back down.
“All right. Upstairs in Deucey’s office, there is proof of what happened to Bo.” She grabbed Maureen again and practically hauled her up over the stairs. It was dark up there except for a dim light leaking out from under Jack’s door. Joyce opened it and pushed Maureen through, almost into the arms of Jack Dunne.
“Oh, what a pleasant surprise. Look, it’s our new little AA first-timer. Well, we meet again,” Jack said, holding on to Maureen.
Maureen turned to Joyce. “But Joyce, you said—”
“I’m sorry, Maureen. But Carleen . . . she could be down there . . . I—”
“Get the fuck out, Joyce,” Jack said. “And lock the door after you.”
Maureen’s mind couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but her feet seemed to understand, because they started moving backwards, fast. But Jack had her, and as he was bolting the door, he said, “Now, Maureen, what in the fuck are we going to do with you?” He pulled her deeper into the room and sat her down in a chair, hard.
Maureen was speechless. She couldn’t believe that Joyce would . . . Well, she couldn’t believe any of it; it all seemed like a story. She could see herself in the room, in the chair, listening to Jack, and she could feel her legs shake with terror, but at the same time, a big part of her could not believe that this was actually happening to her. Stuff like this didn’t go on in St. John’s. Your best friend’s big sister didn’t trick you and leave you in a room in danger of . . .
Oh, come on, Maureen’s brain kicked in, normal up. It’s hanging around with George and all that Mickey Spillane murder book stuff. The reason this doesn’t seem real is because it’s not real. Jack’s just gonna tell you what really happened to Bo and then . . .
Maureen decided to get up and get the fuck out of there, but Jack, with just one hand, kept her on the chair. She struggled, but he had so much strength in just that one hand. Then he grabbed Maureen’s wrists and hauled them behind her. He tied them together with a rope and fastened her hands to the back of the chair. Then he used the same rope to tie her feet. Maureen kicked as hard as she could, but Jack was determined. He tied one foot to each chair leg, way too tight, and the rope was itchy and sharp.
So this is what being tied up is like, Maureen’s mind said. And where in the fuck did that rope come from?
“Jack, come on. What are you doing? I mean, you can’t just—”
“What I can’t just do, Maureen, is let you go to the cops tomorrow morning. So I’m just going to make you disappear.”
Her mouth opened up without her knowing it and just started screaming, loud, ear-shattering screams that were louder and higher than Maureen thought she was capable of producing.
“Not disappear for good,” Jack said. “Jesus, Maureen, shut up. Shut up! Just disappear for a couple of days.”
She was not reassured and the high, piercing sounds kept coming. Jack clapped a hand over her mouth. She kept screaming and bit down hard on his hand.
“Owww! Jesus, Maureen, shut up!” In desperation, he kicked off his shoe, hauled off his sock and shoved this dirty sock into Maureen’s mouth and halfway down her throat.
Oh my God, oh my God, I got Jack Dunne’s dirty sock in my mouth.
Maureen started to gag but then she stopped the reflex. She knew it could be deadly; she could choke and die on a dirty sock and her own vomit. Big, hot tears rolled down her face. She felt so sorry for herself. She had thought that getting the piss pounded out of her every other day by someone she was supposed to be in love with but who, in fact, turned her stomach had been the low point of her entire life, and that once she got away from Bo, then maybe she’d piece her life, her shitty, shitty, shitty life, back together again. But apparently, her shitty life, unlike shitty lives in books and movies, her shitty life just kept getting shittier, ’cause now here she was, tied to a chair on the second floor of a building on Duckworth Street, choking on a dirty, big sweat sock. The big tears kept rolling down her cheeks, and she thought, Maybe I’ll cry so much, I’ll just drown here in my own tears. That thought made the tears come even faster and harder.
She heard a key in the lock, the door opened and an overhead light came on. It was Fox. He looked around the room and said, “What the fuck are you doing, Jack?”
“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing, Fox?”
“What? Are you just going to go ahead and murder her too?”
Maureen’s eyes widened. She was so alarmed, her tears dried up immediately. If she could have gasped, she would have.
“Jesus, Fox, I told ya—I never murdered Bo. When I left him in the apartment, he was still alive. Like I told ya a hundred times, I just went over there to put the fear of God in him for what he did to Deuce. You know Deuce, he’s not up for that kind of stuff; he can’t take that. I couldn’t let Bo just get away with it.”
Fox looked over at Maureen as Jack was busy reassuring him that he wasn’t a ruthless killer, just somebody’s big brother doing what any decent big brother would do. Maureen tried to beg with her eyes, beg Fox to get her out of there.
“Jesus, what’s that you got stuck in her mouth?”
“My . . . a sock.”
Fox moved toward Maureen like he was going to haul the sock out.
“No, Fox. Don’t, for fuck sake, take that out of her mouth. She’ll just start in screaming and screeching, and I . . . I can’t take it.”
“Then what’s this all about,” Fox said, pointing to Maureen, “if you didn’t murder Bo?”
“I got my reasons.”
Fox was getting angrier. “Oh yea, reasons like you are a lying cocksucker and you did murder Bo?”
“No. Just reasons. That’s all. Leave it at that.”
Fox looked hard at Jack. “No, Jack—”
“Just leave it, Fox.”
“You’re not going to throw everything away again just—”
“Shut up, will you, Fox.”
Maureen could see on Fox’s face that something had just dawned on him, and he did shut up and just stared at her for a moment.
“So what’s your plan for her? You do have a plan, don’t you, Jack?”
“I just wanted to stop her. She’s supposed to go down to the cop shop tomorrow. She’s going to tell them about overhearing us in the apartment that night . . . I just wanted to stop her from talking to the cops tomorrow, that’s all, so I can get a chance to think, to figure something out.”
“And then what? Then you’re just going to let her go? ’Cause what’s going to stop her from talking to the cops on, say, Wednesday?”
“Fuck off, Fox. Stop being a patronizing prick. I was just going to keep her for a couple of days up in the old man’s shack in Hogan’s Pond, ’cause maybe by that time, we’ll have it all figured out. Maybe we’ll fly the fuck out of here. The Ikaros is set to sail for Colum—” Jack shot a look over at Maureen. “Down south early next week. We’ve got friends down there. Who knows? Maybe I could run part of the business outta there?”
“Yea, sure. What are you, fuckin’ retarded? Our ‘friends’ down south, it’s not their hospitality and welcoming nature that they’re known for.
“Well, maybe I’ll just keep her up to the old man’s shack until the heat dies down.”
“The heat doesn’t die down when one of the suspects in a suspicious death disappears. The heat turns up then, way up, and everyone around the heat gets burnt. Get me?”
“I get ya,” Jack said. “But what the fuck am I s’posed to do, then?”
There was a knock on the door, and then the handle started to rattle and the knocking got louder.
“Jack, Jack, it’s me, Joyce. I know you’re still in there . . . Listen, Jack, let me in, will ya? Jack? Jack?” She was getting louder. “Jack!”
Fox stomped over and hauled open the door, and just like in a movie, Joyce came flying in. She must have been taking a run at the door when it opened. She fell down hard on the battleship linoleum. Fox burst out laughing, even though you could see he didn’t want to, and even Jack was fighting back a guffaw. Joyce stood up fast.
“What is this?” she said, staring at Maureen. “You told me you only wanted to talk to her, to explain a few things to her.”
“Yea, and that’s what I’m doing: explaining a few things.”
“Well Jesus, Jack,” Joyce said, “you can’t do this. You can’t just kidnap and tie up everyone who gets in your way.”
Jack looked at Fox and said, “What the fuck?” Then, to Joyce, “What do you think you’re talking about, Joyce?”
“Oh, fuck off, Jack.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.
Maureen felt her heart sink. Jack took a step toward Joyce. Fox stepped in between them and put the flat of his hand on Jack’s chest to push him back, not hard but definite.
“I’m calling the cops,” Joyce said from the door. “And I’m telling them everything. Everything,” she said, looking right at Fox. “The boat, the connections in Colombia, the names of all the ‘solid men of business’ guys who invested—”
“That won’t be necessary, Joyce,” Fox said, “because Jack is going to let Maureen go, apologize to her for his rough handling, and tomorrow morning, he’s going to walk right into the cop shop and tell them his whole story.” Fox looked over at Jack. “Or tell ’em the truth—whichever he decides.”
“Yea, right,” Jack scoffed.
“Yea, it is right, Jack. It’s right, because we all got big money, capital B Big money invested in—fuck, why couldn’t you have stuffed a couple of socks in her ears?” Fox said, nodding toward Maureen. “Millions of bucks. And our business can’t bear the scrutiny of a police investigation. Do you see what I’m getting at here, Jack? We got people invested in the success of our latest operation, and if the heat moves in and the pigs start bearing down, well there goes our latest operation, and millions of bucks up in smoke—and not the kind of smoke we were planning on.”
“Yea, fuck that and fuck you, Fox. Who died and made you the boss?”
“We had a meeting.”
“I wasn’t at a meeting.”
“No, we couldn’t find ya. I guess you were busy making a bad situation”—he looked over at Maureen—“a hundred times worse . . . Listen, Jack, don’t worry. We’ll get you the best lawyers in the whole country. If it was an accident, the evidence will show it was an accident. Fuck it, we’ll get Clarence Darrow or one of them, or whatever the fuck his name is, and he’ll make sure that you won’t even have to do any federal time, if you even have to do any time at all.”
“Time? Time for what?” Jack was furious. “Time for doing back to that crazy fucker exactly what he did to Deuce?”
“Let me explain it to you, Jack, as simply as I can.” Joyce was practically spitting. “You would be doing time for kidnapping and forceful confinement causing death.” Joyce’s expression grew more sympathetic. “Everybody knows, Jacky, that you were out of your mind because of what Bo did to Deuce that day.”
“Yea,” Fox said. “That day after Deuce had to explain to Bo that he was too volatile to become a partner, that he got angry too fast, that he was too much of a greaseball to get the job he wanted crewin’ on The Ikaros, going down south to pick up the”—he shot a look at Maureen—“goods. Yea, ironic,” Fox said almost to himself. “We could have avoided all this. Too bad Bo was always so fuckin’ out of control. Nothing we could do. We couldn’t just let him jeopardize our whole operation . . . Now the bastard is doing it from the grave.”
“We know it wasn’t right, Jacky,” Joyce continued, trying to bring him round with understanding. “Everybody knows it wasn’t right what Bo did, giving Deucey a beating, tying him up, putting him in the trunk of his car, driving around with him for the weekend. It was a bad thing to do to anyone, but to do it to Deucey . . .”
Maureen, again, would have gasped if she could. The truth was slowly dawning on her. She had a sudden flashback to the afternoon that Bo had told her about Jack looking for Deucey:
“What the fuck are you at?” Bo said.
“I’m just trying to get into the trunk.”
Maureen was going to have a snoop around the trunk of the car, seeing what she could see while waiting for Bo, who’d gone back into the apartment to get something he’d forgotten. Why was the trunk locked? Of course, she was supposed to be sitting in the car now like a good girl, waiting, waiting for her man, and keeping her mouth shut—and all the time holding her pee, she guessed, like a good dog. Three of the many things Maureen just wasn’t very good at. Oh, fuck . . . he didn’t like her not doing what he told her to do.
“I think I got my old sweater in the trunk, and I need it, I’m froze. Remember when we went down to Motion that time and it was so hot and we went for a swim, but I didn’t want to just leave my purse and that in the car, so I put it and my old sweater in the trunk and then—”
“Jesus!” Bo said. “It’s not in the trunk.”
“Then where is it?” Maureen said, proud of herself for being so bold.
“How the fuck would I know?” He took a menacing step toward her. “I thought I told you to wait in the car.”
“Yea, it must be in the house somewhere.” Maureen tried to smile.
“Yea, it must be,” Bo said.
Maureen stood there, frozen, with her hands on the trunk, unable, for some reason, to get the message to her legs to get in the car.
“Come on back inside. I’m not going now,” Bo said.
“But your mother—” Maureen started to protest.
“Fuck it. Get your hands off the fuckin’ car, Maureen.” Bo moved toward her and Maureen, despite her best effort, cringed.
That’s why he’d been so vicious that day: because Deucey was probably already in the trunk. And that’s why Jack put a beating on him and why Bo ended up in the back of his own car, tied up and dead, up on The Brow.
“I’m not doing it,” Jack said. “I’m not taking the fall.”
“Well, Jack, someone’s gonna have to take the fall. What’s your decision?” Fox paused for a moment, staring hard at Jack. “You don’t have to fuck up your life again—”
“Shut up, Fox. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“All right then. I don’t care who it is, it’s not going to be her, but somebody’s got to go to the cops. Because if someone doesn’t step up and take responsibility, well, the company is going to have to step off. And then that’s it for us, Jack. We cut off all ties with you and Deuce, and we wipe the slate clean. And within a half-hour, one of the DAFT executive goes to the police, horrified to have learned that one of his former business partners was caught up in what looks to be a murder, or at the very least, manslaughter. DAFT had no idea, but as soon as it had an inkling, we came right to the cops, etc., etc. You see what our approach will be, do ya, Jack? We put a shitload of distance between you and DAFT, you go down and down hard and we finish our latest operation. But if you turn yourself in, if you confess to tying him up, say you put him in the trunk of his own car and left him there, and you tell them you acted out of brotherly outrage, you had no idea that what happened could even happen, because Bo had done the same thing to Deuce, and Deuce had come out of it all right. And tell ’em about how even though your brother had continuing issues with mental illness and will probably never be the same again as a result of the kidnapping, he did come out of the trunk very much alive. When you left Bo in the trunk of his car, he was yelling and definitely breathing, and when you came back . . .” He gave Jack a pointed look. “If you do that, whatever money and resources the company has, we’ll pour into finding you the best defence. We will buy expert witnesses, we will put up your bail, all the things that without us, you’ll have a hard time taking care of.”
Jack put his hand up to silence Fox.
“What about her?” he said, pointing at Maureen. “What about her going to the cops in the morning?”
“Well, you go to the cops tonight. Tell ’em the whole, sorry story, and then what’ll she have to tell ’em?”
“About all this. She’ll tell ’em about all this!”
Fox had hauled the filthy sock out of Maureen’s mouth by this time, and between gagging, coughing and gasping, Maureen was saying, “No, no, promise soul to God, Fox, I won’t say a word . . . I’ll never . . . I’ll just, I was never here tonight.”
“Yea, well, maybe, maybe . . .,” Jack was saying. “But she can’t shut up, Fox. She’s all mouth and she can’t keep it shut about anything.”
Fox squat down next to Maureen, who was still tied to the chair. “What is it that you want, Maureen? What is it you want that DAFT can help you get?”
All eyes were on Maureen, expectant, waiting for her to have an answer, but she just sat there because she didn’t know what she wanted. She never did know what she wanted. In fact, she was half afraid to ever want anything for fear she’d never get it. Maybe all she wanted was everything, to be someone else, to have a whole other life. Then, without even thinking about it, Maureen blurted out, “I want to find my baby.”