When I wake up, I’m wearing handcuffs.
I’m also seated on a small airplane.
It’s over.
Skunk or the Fishers had sold me out to the cops. I’m an idiot. Truly. What had I expected? They’d set me up to take the fall for the murder of my own son—why would I be dumb enough to think they wouldn’t sell me out to put me back behind bars?
I try to crane my neck to look behind me. It’s hard because I’m also cuffed to an armrest. Two goons—plainclothes cops or federal agents or marshals, I don’t know which—sit in the back and fiddle with their smartphones. Both are bald with black tees and blue jeans.
“When do we land?” I ask.
Without glancing up from his phone, the one sitting in the aisle says, “Shut the fuck up.”
I decide not to antagonize. No point. We land half an hour later. When the plane comes to the proverbial full stop, the two goons unbuckle their seat belts and come toward me. Without warning, one goon throws a black bag over my head while the other snaps off the arm rail restraint.
“What’s with the blindfold?” I ask.
“Shut the fuck up,” Goon One says again.
The plane door opens. I rise. Someone pushes me forward, and I know something is very wrong—even before we reach the tarmac, even with the bag totally blacking out my vision.
We are not at Briggs.
I’m immediately perspiring. It’s hot. It’s humid. I may not be able to see the tropics, but I can smell, taste, and almost touch them. The sun is strong too, slicing through the black bag.
This isn’t Maine.
“Where the hell are we?” I ask.
No answer, so I say, “Aren’t you supposed to tell me to shut the fuck up?”
The two goons push me into the back of a vehicle with the air-conditioning cranked up. The drive is maybe ten minutes, but it is hard to figure out time when you have no watch and are blindfolded and think you may be headed back to prison for the rest of your life. Still, the ride doesn’t feel long. When the vehicle—I’m up high so it must be some kind of SUV—stops, the goons push me out. There is pavement beneath my feet, and it’s so hot I feel the heat coming up through my shoes. Music is playing. Awful music. Some kind of instrumental country-rock mix, like something a Carnival cruise band would play during the poolside “hairiest chest” contest.
I know I seem glib right now. Oddly enough, that is how I feel. Part of me is crushed, of course, because I failed my son again. Part of me is depressed because I seem headed back to prison or worse. Part of me is scared-yet-curious because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing in the tropics.
But part of me, maybe the biggest part, is—just for this moment—letting it all go.
I hopped on this crazy ride when I broke out of prison, and the ride is going to take me where it takes me. Right now, I don’t control it and I’m accepting that.
I wouldn’t say I’m not concerned. I am just doing a major mental suppression. Maybe it’s a survival instinct. The two goons—well, I assume it’s the same two goons, I’m still blindfolded—take my arms and drag-escort me indoors. They throw me onto a chair. Like the vehicle, this room also mercifully has the air-conditioning set on Hi Frost. I almost ask for a sweatshirt.
Someone grabs my wrist. I feel the pinch before the handcuffs slide off me.
“Don’t fucking move,” Goon One says.
I don’t. As I sit in this non-cushioned chair, I try to plan my next move, but the options before me are so grim my brain won’t let me see the obvious. I’m doomed. I can hear people moving around, at least three or four from the sound of it. I still hear the awful music in the background. It sounds like it’s coming over a loudspeaker.
Then, again without warning, the black bag is pulled off my head. I blink through the sudden onslaught of light and look up. Standing directly in front of me, mere inches from my face, is a wizened old man who looks to be in his eighties. He wears a straw hat and a yellow-green Hawaiian shirt blanked with jumping marlins. Behind him I see the shaved-head goons from the plane. Both have their arms folded across their chests and now wear aviator sunglasses.
The wizened man offers me his liver-spotted hand. “Come on, David,” he says in a voice that sounds like threadbare tires on a gravel road. “Let’s go for a walk.”
He doesn’t introduce himself, but I know who he is, and he knows I know. In most of the photographs I have seen of him over the years, he’s a robust man, usually in the center of groups of men, looking more like an explosive device than a human. Even now, with the years shrinking him down, he still has that incendiary air about him.
His name is Nicky Fisher. In another era, he’d have been called a godfather or don or something like that. When I was in school, his name was whispered in the same way a later generation of children would whisper “Voldemort.” Nicky Fisher ran the crime syndicate in the Revere-Chelsea-Everett area from the days before my father joined the force.
He is—was?—Skunk’s boss.
When we step outside, I blink into the sun. I look left and right, and I frown.
Where the hell am I?
These are indeed the tropics, but it looks like Disney-Epcot built a retirement community after a few too many mojitos. I see a housing development and a cul-de-sac, but it all has a round, cartoonish feel, like where the Flintstones live. The homes are all one-level and handicap accessible and built out of some kind of too-clean adobe brick. The cul-de-sac has one of those giant choreographed fountains, forcing the water to dance to the awful music that I guess plays nonstop.
“I retired,” Nicky Fisher told me. “Did you hear?”
“I’ve been sort of out of the loop,” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Right, of course. Prison. It’s why I brought you down.”
“What did you do to my son, Mr. Fisher?”
Nicky Fisher stops walking. He turns toward me, craning his neck so that his eyes, those cold ice-blue eyes that ended up being the last thing dozens or even hundreds of people had seen before meeting their demise, bore into mine. “I didn’t do anything to your son. That’s not how we do things. We don’t hurt children.”
I try not to make a face. I despise that mob-code bullshit. We don’t hurt children, we give to the church, we look out for our neighbors, all of that sociopathic babble to justify being criminals.
“This is Daytona,” Nicky Fisher says to me. “Florida. You ever been?”
“Not before now, no.”
“So anyway, I retired here.”
We circle the fountain. The dancing water splashes onto the faux marble, gently spraying us. The spray feels good. The two men are following us at a discreet distance. There are other old people milling about, seemingly directionless. They nod at us. We nod back.
“Did you see the big sign on the way in?” he asks me.
“I was blindfolded.”
“Right, of course,” Nicky says again. “Not my orders, by the way. My guys, they always go for the drama, you know what I’m saying? And I’m sorry about Skunk too. You know how he is. He was just supposed to put you on my plane. I told him not to damage the package, but did he listen?” Nicky puts his hand on my arm. I try not to pull away. “You okay, David?”
“I’m fine.”
“And having the cops grab you—that was stupid, though you gotta admire Skunk’s flair on that one. He wanted to make you think you were going back to jail. Funny, right?”
“Hilarious.”
“It was overkill, but that’s Skunk. I’ll talk to him, okay?”
I don’t know what to say so I just nod.
“Anyway, the sign out front says ‘Boardwalks.’ That’s it. That’s the name of this village. Boardwalks. It’s kind of a dumb name. I was against it. Lacks imagination. I wanted something fancy, you know, with words like ‘mews’ or ‘vista’ or ‘preserve.’ Like that. But the whole community voted, so…” Nicky shrugged a what-can-you-do and kept walking. “Do you know what retirement village is right down the street?”
I tell him I don’t.
“Margaritaville. Like the song. You know it?”
“The song? Yes.”
“Wasting away again in Margaritaville. Or wasted away. I don’t know. But right, that’s the name of the place. Ridiculous, right? Jimmy Buffett has his own goddamn retirement community. Communities, I should say. They got three Margaritavilles now. This one, another in South Carolina, and I forget where the third is. Maybe Georgia. It’s like someone took one of those crappy chain restaurants and made it into a place to live. Who’d want that?”
I don’t reply because that’s exactly what this place looks like to me.
“Anyway, it gave me an idea. I mean, I don’t know from getting wasted on Margaritas and hanging out on the beach. That’s not my fantasy place, if you know what I mean. So we did something different here at Boardwalks. Follow me, I want to show you something.”
We are on a sidewalk lined with palm trees. There is a sign with bright arrows pointing in various directions. One says POOL. One says FINE DINING. The one pointing left says BOARDWALK. We follow it. Nicky Fisher grows quiet. I can feel his eyes on me. When we break into the clearing, I can see why. He wants to gauge my reaction.
There, spanning as far as I can see in both directions, is a giant boardwalk.
The boardwalk is expansive. It’s also trying hard to feel vintage, but it’s far too neat and clean. Another Disney-like reproduction that may look nice but feels like something out of an old Twilight Zone episode. There are rides and arcades and soda fountains and chintzy shops and a merry-go-round. The rides are moving, but no one is on any of them, adding to the place’s unreal ghostlike feel. A man sporting a bow tie and handlebar mustache is selling cotton candy. Someone is dressed up like Mr. Peanut from the Planters peanut commercials. A sign advertises SKEEBALL-PINBALL-MINIGOLF.
“Boardwalks,” Nicky Fisher says to me. “With an S. We mostly based this place on the Revere Beach one, but we got stuff from Coney Island, Atlantic City, even Venice Beach out in California. And the rides, well, you can see we got coasters and Ferris wheels, but they’re a little gentler than in the old days for our older bones.” Nicky hits my arm, friendly-like, and smiles. “It’s fantastic, right? It’s like living on vacation every single day—and why the hell not? We earned it.”
He looks at me for affirmation, I guess. I try to nod through it, but I’m not sure he’s getting enough enthusiasm from me.
“Oh, and let me show you the main draw, David. Right over here. Man, I wish I could bring your old man down here and see it. I know, I know. We were enemies all our lives, Lenny and me, but come on—tell me your old man wouldn’t love this.”
He gestures to a white booth with a sign reading PIZZERIA NAPOLITANA on top. There are three men behind the counter wearing white aprons. Underneath them, another sign reads “Specializing In Italian Food” and some drink called “C.B. Coate’s Tonic.”
I look a question at him.
“It’s the old Revere Beach pizza stand that became Sal’s Pizzeria!” he exclaims. “Can you believe it? It’s an exact reproduction of what it looked like in 1940. Sit. I ordered us a couple of pies. You like pizza, right?” Nicky Fisher winks at me then, and it’s as creepy as you can imagine. “If you don’t like Sal’s pizza, I’m going to have Joey here put a bullet in your brain just to take you out of your misery.”
Nicky Fisher laughs at his own joke and slaps me on the back.
We sit under an umbrella. Two fans spit cold air at us. One of the aproned men brings each of us a personal-size pizza. We are then left alone.
“How’s your old man?” Nicky Fisher asks me.
“He’s dying.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Sorry.”
“Why am I here, Mr. Fisher?”
“Call me Nicky. Uncle Nicky.”
I don’t reply, but I’m not going to call him uncle.
“You’re here,” he continues, “because you and I need to have a little chat.”
Nicky Fisher talks like a movie gangster. I know a lot of tough guys now. None really talk like this. A hit man serving life at Briggs told me that real-life gangsters started talking like the gangsters in movies after those movies became popular, not the other way around. Life imitated art.
“I’m listening,” I say.
He leans forward and turns his eyes up at me. We are getting to it now. It is quiet. Even the piped-in music has stopped. “Your father and me, we have some bad history.”
“He was a cop,” I say. “You ran a crime syndicate.”
“A crime syndicate,” Nicky replies with a small chuckle. “Fancy words. Your father wasn’t pure either. You know that, right?”
I choose not to reply. He stares at me some more, and even in this humid hellhole, I feel a chill.
“You love your old man?” he asks me.
“Very much.”
“He was a good father?”
“The best,” I say. Then: “With all due respect, uh Nicky, why am I here?”
“Because I have sons too.” There is a small snarl in his voice now. “Do you know that?”
I do—and now I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like where we are going.
“Three of them. Or I had three. You know about my Mikey?”
Again, I do. Mikey Fisher died twenty years ago in prison.
My father had put him there.
Nicky Fisher makes sure I’m looking him in the eyes when he says, “Is it starting to make sense to you now, son?”
And oddly enough, I fear it does. “My father put your son in prison,” I say. “So you returned the favor.”
“Close,” he says.
I wait.
“Your father, like I said, he wasn’t clean. He and his partner Mackenzie arrested Mikey for killing Lucky Craver. Mikey was just supposed to hurt Lucky, but my boy, he often went too far. Did you know Lucky?”
“No.”
“They called him that because he never ever had a moment of luck in his life. Including at the end there obviously. But anyway, your old man arrests Mikey for it. You know the deal. But the problem is, your old man and Mackenzie couldn’t make the case. I mean, everyone knew Mikey did it. But you gotta prove it in a court of law, am I right?”
I stay quiet.
“Your dad had done some solid work on the case. No question. Located some key witnesses. Got Lucky’s ex to testify. But see, the cops have to follow the rules. Me? I don’t. So I sent some of my guys out to talk to the witnesses. Guys like your old pal Skunk. Suddenly, the witnesses’ memories got real hazy. You know what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“Lucky’s ex was a little more stubborn, but we took care of that too. There was some evidence in the police locker. Angel dust. A claw-back hammer. They vanished. Poof. So you see, it became hard for your old man to make a case. Must have been real frustrating for him.”
I don’t move. I barely breathe.
“So that’s when your father and Mackenzie, they crossed the line. Suddenly they come up with new evidence. No reason to go into details on the how. They don’t matter. But the phony evidence that put my son away? Your old man and Mackenzie planted it.”
Nicky Fisher takes a bite, savors it, tilts back in his chair. “You’re not eating?”
“I’m listening.”
“Can’t do both?” He still chews. “I get it. You want to hear the rest, but I think you see it now. My Mikey goes down for the crime, but really, it wasn’t that big a deal. I had it worked out so that the conviction would be overturned by a judge friend. So I told Mikey to just lay low in the joint for a few weeks. But he couldn’t manage that. My Mikey, he was a sweet boy, but what a hothead. Thought he was a tough guy because his father was the boss. So in the yard he got into a beef with two big guys. Gang members from Dorchester. One of them held Mikey’s arms. The other stabbed Mikey in the heart with a shiv. You know about that, right?”
“Yes. I mean, I heard.”
Nicky Fisher starts to lift the pizza to his mouth, but it’s as though the memories are making it too heavy for him to do that. He lowers his gaze. His eyes glisten. When he speaks again, I can hear the sadness, the anger, the raw. “Those two big guys. You don’t want to know what I did to them. It wasn’t quick. I’ll tell you that.”
I wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Did you hurt my son?”
“No. I told you. I don’t do that. I didn’t even blame your father. Not right then and there. But then, you know, years pass. Then I read about how you killed your son—”
“I didn’t—”
“Shh, David, just listen. The problem with you kids today. No one listens. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
I tell him that I do.
“So like I said, your dad wasn’t above bending the law when it suited him. Like with Mikey. We both know a lot of cops push it. They drop the dime bag on the floor of the car. They got the throw-down piece in case they need a reason to blow you away. You know the deal. So after your son—what was his name again?”
“Matthew,” I say, and I swallow.
“Right, sorry. So after Matthew was murdered, a cop found that baseball bat in your basement.”
I make a face. “The bat wasn’t found in my basement.”
“Yeah, it was.”
I am shaking my head.
“You hid it down there. In some vent or pipe or something.”
I am still shaking my head, but again I think I see where he is going with this. I think I’ve seen from the moment we sat down.
“So where was I? Oh, right. The baseball bat. So a cop found it in your basement. New guy on the force. Named Rogers, I think. Why I remember his name, I don’t know. But I do. So Rogers, he wanted to make friends with your old man. Thin blue line, all that. So he told your father about the bat. Your dad, he knows this bat cooks your goose. You’re a dead man walking if the DA finds out about that bat. Your old man can’t have that. He has to protect his boy. But he also can’t get totally rid of the bat. That would be going too far.”
Nicky Fisher grins at me. There is tomato sauce on his lower lip. “You can guess what your dad decided to do, right? Come on, David. Tell me.”
“You think he planted the bat in the woods.”
“I don’t think. I know.”
I don’t bother contradicting him.
“It was smart. See, if you were the killer, the bat would still be in the basement. Hidden. In the vent or whatever. But if someone else was the killer, he would have run away. Dumped or buried the bat somewhere nearby.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what happened,” I say.
“Sure, it is. You, David, killed your son. Then you hid the weapon, figured you’d get rid of it when you had the chance.” He leans across the table and flashes that smile again. His teeth are thin and pointy. “Fathers and sons. We are all the same. I would have done anything to keep Mikey out of prison, even though I knew he was guilty. Your father was the same.”
I shake my head again, but his words have the stench of truth in them. My father, the man I loved like no other, believed that I had killed my own son. The thought pierces my heart.
“The DA had a problem now,” Nicky Fisher continues. “It’d rained that night. There was a ton of mud and dirt in those woods. Forensics, they checked all your shoes and clothes. No dirt. No mud. So once your old man planted that bat—once it was found in the woods—it helped keep you free. That didn’t sit well with me, you know what I’m saying?”
I nod because I see it clearly now. “So you got Hilde Winslow to testify that she saw me bury the bat.”
“Bingo.”
“You set that up.”
“I did, yeah.”
“Because you wanted vengeance for Mikey?”
Nicky Fisher points at me. “You say my boy’s name again and I’ll pull out your tongue and eat it with this pizza.”
I say nothing.
“And for crying out loud, have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” he snaps, pounding the table with both fists. The two goons look over, but they make no move. “This had nothing to do with vengeance. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
“I’m not following.”
“I did it,” he said through clenched teeth, and now there is real menace in his voice, “because you murdered your own son, you sick crazy son of a bitch.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Your old man knew it. I knew it. Oh, maybe you had some kind of blackout or amnesia thing going on, I don’t know. Who gives a shit? But the DA had you dead to rights. Then your father, the decorated cop who used false evidence to put my son away, fixed it so you’d get off. You ever see a statue of Lady Justice? Your old man put his finger on the scale, so what I did is, I put my finger on the other scale to balance it out. You get it now?”
I don’t even know what to say.
“Justice was served. You were doing time like you were supposed to do. There was, I don’t know, cosmic balance or some such shit. But here’s my problem: My son, my Mikey, is still dead. And here you are, David, living and breathing and enjoying a fucking pizza.”
Silence. Dead silence. It’s like the entire boardwalk is trying to stand still.
His voice is low now, but it slices through the humidity like a reaper’s scythe. “So now I have a choice. Do I put you back in prison—I figured a life sentence is as good as death—or do I kill you and have my boys here feed you to the gators?”
He starts to wipe his hands on the napkin as though this is over.
“You’re wrong,” I say.
“About?”
“What you did. It wasn’t the same as with my dad.”
“What wasn’t the same?”
And then I risk saying the name again. “Mikey did the crime. You said so yourself.”
Nicky Fisher scoffs. “Oh, and you’re going to tell me you’re innocent?”
He gestured to the goons with his right hand. They start toward us. I debate bolting. Maybe I have a chance of getting away here at the community. They won’t just shoot me, will they? But I don’t think running will work, so I try another route.
“I’m more than innocent,” I tell him. And I stare directly back into those soulless ice-blue eyes. “My son is alive.”
Then I tell him.
I tell him everything. I make my case and speak with a passion and urgency that surprises me. He sends the two goons back to their posts. I keep talking. Nicky Fisher shows me nothing. He is good at that.
When I finish, Nicky Fisher picks up a napkin again. He studies it for a moment. He takes his time with it, folding it into halves, then quarters, then placing it neatly back on the table.
“That’s some crazy story,” he says.
“It’s the truth.”
“My son is still dead, you know?”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
“No, you can’t.” He shakes his head. “You really believe it.”
I don’t know whether he is asking a question or stating a fact. Either way, I nod my head and say: “I do.”
“I don’t,” he says. His mouth starts twitching a little. “I think it’s crap.”
My heart sinks. He sits back, rubs his face, blinks. He looks off, toward the narrow waterway that pathetically doubles as an ocean. Then he says, “But some things aren’t adding up for me.”
“Like?”
“Like Philip Mackenzie,” he says.
“What about him?”
“He helped you break out of the prison. I know that part is true. So I ask myself: Why? He wouldn’t do that just to help your old man. And why now? And then that makes me wonder about more stuff.” His fingers start drumming the table. “Like once you were out, you could have gone underground, tried to make a new life for yourself, whatever. But you didn’t do that. Like a stupid lunatic, you ran straight to our phony witness. Why? And then after you see her, you’re stupid enough—check that, you’re suicidal enough—to come at my people in Revere. Skunk, of all people.”
I don’t interrupt. I let him keep going.
“So here’s my problem, David: If you’re telling the truth, then I helped put you in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Not that I’m above that. I mean, we’ve had people take the fall before. But not—I mean, not for something like this. Bad enough to lose a child. To be put in jail for killing him? I don’t know. Right now, that doesn’t sit right with me. See, I thought I was balancing the scales. I wanted justice for myself, my Mikey—and, I don’t know, the world. You know what I’m saying?”
He hesitates, waiting for a response. I nod slowly.
“I was sure you did it. But if you didn’t, and if somehow your boy is maybe still alive…”
Nicky Fisher shakes his head. Then he stands. He looks off toward that ocean-cum-lagoon again. His eyes still glisten, and I know he’s thinking of his Mikey.
“You’re free to go,” he says to me. “My guys will fly you wherever you want.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says this. I don’t risk saying anything back.
“I’m an old man. Made a lot of mistakes. I’ll probably make a few more before I’m done. I’m not trying to make it right with the man upstairs. Too late for that. I think…this place. It’s not just about nostalgia for me. It sometimes feels more like a do-over. You know what I’m saying?”
I don’t. Not really.
“If your old man feels better, I’d like to fly him down here. As my guest. I want to sit right here and have a pizza with him. I think we’d both like that, don’t you?”
I don’t, no, but again I keep that to myself.
And then Nicky Fisher leaves me.