Shame the Devil

THIRTY-FOUR

Boyle and Stefanos were at the bar drinking when Karras arrived, late in the afternoon, at the Spot. Stefanos was working on a beer, and Boyle was tipping a shot of Jack Daniel’s to his lips. Karras put his hand on Stefanos’s shoulder and nodded at Boyle. Stefanos turned his head; Karras’s face was tight-jawed and pale.

“Anything wrong?” asked Stefanos.

“Not a thing,” said Karras.

Boyle drank off the rest of his beer and stashed his Marlboro reds in the side pocket of his tweed while Stefanos went around the bar and grabbed a six-pack from the cooler. Mai made a couple of hash-marks on his tab. Stefanos, Karras, and Boyle exited and got into the Coronet 500 out on 8th.

The nursing home, a one-story, white-brick affair fronted by a flat, brownish lawn, was in the town of Greenbelt, in Prince George’s County. They signed in at the desk under the scrutiny of a chubby receptionist, who was eating a late lunch from a sectioned foam tray. Boyle had two cans of beer tucked beneath his raincoat.

They walked down a carpeted hall, the smell of soiled diapers cutting the still air. They passed a room where a woman sat with her face down on a table. A man’s gravelly voice came loudly from another of the rooms: “Nurse… nurse… nurse,” over and over again. The nurses on shift, black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa, stood together at the end of the hall, conversing, ignoring the man’s plea. Television sets, the volume turned unnaturally high, blared from every direction in the home.

“In here,” said Boyle, and they followed him through an open door.

A heavy, shapeless old man was lying in a railed bed, his head elevated by pillows. He stared through a large window, shafts of sunset streaming across his body. Next to his bed was a small table on wheels, on which sat a tray of cold, untouched, pureed food. The stench of urine drifted off the bed. The room had the unmistakable smell of death.

“Uncle Jimmy,” said Boyle, and the man turned.

“Danny.”

Jimmy Boyle smiled. His face was fleshy, his jawline nearly invisible. Ashen baggage hung beneath his faded brown eyes. A thick hearing aid had been surgically implanted in one of his ears. His dome was covered with brown spots, and the strands of hair that remained were like brittle thread, both yellow and gray in the light.

“This is Dimitri Karras,” said Boyle. “And this is Nick Stefanos.” Jimmy Boyle looked directly into Karras’s eyes as he shook his hand.

“Good to meet you,” said Karras.

“And you.”

Jimmy Boyle made a tired gesture with his fingers. “Come on, fellas, have a seat.”

Stefanos pulled up the room’s sole chair, and Karras had a seat on the edge of the bed.

“It’s too crowded in here for me,” said Dan Boyle.

“Go ahead,” said his uncle. “Give us some time alone.”

Boyle kissed his uncle on the top of his head. Before he left he said to Stefanos, “I’ll be down in that sitting room by the reception desk.”

“Close the door on your way out,” said Karras. He couldn’t stand to hear the voice of that man, still calling for the nurses.

When Dan Boyle was gone, Jimmy Boyle said, “Well. Always nice to have visitors. Thanks for coming out.”

“My mother spoke of you often,” said Karras.

“Your mother was a fine woman.”

“Thanks. She said you were one of my father’s closest friends.”

“Going back to the Depression,” said Boyle. “We were a gang who all grew up in Chinatown together. Sons of immigrants, all of us. Your father and a kid named Billy Nicodemus, who was killed on the beach at Anzio, in the war. Joe Recevo, an Italian boy. Perry Angelos. Perry’s still around.”

“What happened to Perry?”

“He got rich. Opened a few carryouts and bought the properties early on. He’s got nine grandchildren or something, and he’s been with the same girl, Helen, for over fifty years. Perry always was the smart one of the bunch.” Boyle smiled weakly. “Didn’t look for trouble like the rest of us. But he’s a good egg.”

“Do you have children of your own?” asked Stefanos, who noticed the absence of cards, candy, and photographs in the room.

“I never married,” said Boyle. “Except for a spell when some pharmacist got me hooked on pep pills, I’ve always been fat. A helluva lot fatter than I am now. The ladies didn’t much care for men built like me, but the fact is I had my special preferences myself. I always did crave the company of colored women, see? But back then, well, you’d never think to bring a colored girl home to meet your father. Funny, here I am getting sponge baths from dark-skinned gals every day. What I dreamed of my whole life, right? Trouble is, I can’t get the equipment to come to attention anymore. But it’s still pleasant. I do look forward to those baths, every day.”

“Speaking of the nurses,” said Karras, “why don’t they respond to that guy yelling for them right now?”

“Ah,” said Boyle with a dismissive wave of his hand. “There’s nothing wrong with that guy. He’s just afraid to be alone. How a man faces death is as important as how he lives his life. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so,” said Karras.

“Sure you do. You’re your father’s son. And your father feared nothing, to a fault. Hell, Pete’s the man responsible for getting me my gold shield.”

“I heard something about it from my mother,” said Karras.

“There was this killer named Gearhart, a big dandy who worked for a loan shark named Burke. Pete tagged Gearhart as a killer and handed me the collar. I was made detective straight away.”

“Burke,” said Karras.

“You know the name,” said Boyle.

“I know that someone named Burke killed my old man.”

Boyle nodded. “Pete and Joey Recevo had both worked for Burke at one time, just after the war. Something bad happened between Pete, Joey, and Burke. Burke had your father’s leg busted up pretty bad, and then Pete was out. Big Nick Stefanos gave him a job in his hash house, over on Fourteenth. In nineteen forty-nine, your father died in a gun battle in Burke’s row house in lower Northwest. Joe died beside him. I always figured the whole thing had to do with Karras turning in Gearhart. And I felt plenty bad about that.” Boyle looked at Stefanos. “But then Costa, the little guy who worked with your grandfather, set me straight.”

“Costa?” said Stefanos. “When was that?”

“Right before he died from cancer, a few years back. I went over there to see him at his place. He wanted to get some things off his chest before he passed. He didn’t know if it was right to tell you. I was the regular coffee-cop at Nick’s Grill all those years, and he knew I was one of Pete’s old friends.”

It was warm in the room. Stefanos wanted a beer. He wanted to smoke a cigarette. He looked at Karras and for the first time noticed the skin scraped from the knuckles of Karras’s right hand.

“What happened?” said Karras.

“Burke had been shaking down Nick for protection money all along. He sent some men he knew from Philly to talk to Nick, and they pushed him too far. Pete and Nick and Costa slaughtered those men in the back of the grill, late one night.”

Karras and Stefanos said nothing.

Boyle cleared his throat. “Burke must have found out that they killed his associates. He couldn’t let it lie. I figure he planned to take down Nick and burn his place to the ground. Joe Recevo knew it and tipped Pete. Joe and Pete stood together and turned Burke’s row house into a battlefield. They stepped in and stopped it all right there.”

“Dimitri’s father saved my grandfather’s life,” said Stefanos. Boyle nodded. “What they did was beyond the scope of the law. But the law isn’t always the answer. What they did was necessary. And it’s important that you know. That who they were is passed on to their own blood. If it’s not passed on, then their lives meant nothing.”

Stefanos glanced up. Karras was staring at him, and he looked away.

“I’m tired,” said Jimmy Boyle.

“We’ll leave you now,” said Stefanos.

Karras squeezed the hand of his father’s friend.

They found Dan Boyle in the day room, sitting beside a bloodless, gray man in a wheelchair. Both of them were drinking beers.

“Come on,” said Karras, putting his head in the doorway.

“Right,” said Boyle.

The three of them left the building. Darkness had fallen. They walked across the parking lot to the car.

“I could use a drink,” said Karras.

“Now you’re talkin’,” said Boyle. “Guess we’ll head back to the Spot. Okay by you, Nick?”

Stefanos didn’t answer. He was thinking of his grandfather, Nick Stefanos. He was thinking of Dimitri’s father, Pete Karras, and Jimmy Boyle, the man facing death back in that bed. Knowing with certainty that nothing was accidental. That everything started long ago and led to something else and couldn’t be stopped. Knowing now, too, that he and Dimitri Karras were linked for life.

Stefanos, Karras, and Boyle entered the Spot. Karras and Boyle found two stools in the center of the bar. A small man wearing a beret drained his beer, put his coat on, and waved good-bye.

“Good night, sweet princess,” said the man.

“See you, Charlie,” said Mai.

Closing time at the Spot was anywhere from seven-thirty to eight o’clock – an unusual arrangement for a bar. But the Spot’s drinkers were working people and cops who got plowed early and made their way home, stopping at other joints along the way. The neighborhood juicers were hip to the house hours and went elsewhere late at night. That was how Phil Saylor wanted it to go.

“I got it, Mai,” said Stefanos, walking around the bar.

“Thanks, Nicky.” She reached behind her, undid pins, and shook out her hair. As she did this her breasts jiggled inside her marine T-shirt.

“Do that again,” said Boyle.

“Do what, Danny?”

“Go on,” said Stefanos, “get out of here. Say hello to Sergeant Slaughter.”

“It’s DeLaughter. And I will.”

She kissed Stefanos on the cheek and bolted out the door. Stefanos set Karras up with a beer and put a Jack and a beer in front of Boyle. Boyle picked up the A section of the Post. He read intently, chuckling under his breath as Stefanos finished up with Mai’s closing procedure.

“Here’s one for you,” said Boyle to Karras. “Ah, jeez. The press dug up some internal memos on the mayor’s million-dollar security detail. This story talks about how the guys on the detail drive the mayor around town, drop him off at ‘unscheduled stops,’ and sit out on the street and wait. Sometimes they check on him, and he comes to the door ‘partially clothed.’ The mayor says he’s just visiting ‘associates and political supporters’ and looking for ‘some good conversation.’ The taxpayers are footing the one-million-dollar bill for the mayor to whore around, and the schoolkids in this town can’t get protection or books or roofs that don’t leak. Yeah, and that general they got to run the schools, he’s doin’ a real good job. And you know what? If the mayor runs again he’s gonna get reelected. And if he gets reelected, the people who voted him back in won’t see Home Rule again for a long while.” Boyle lit a cigarette and talked through the smoke. “Funny city you guys live in, right?”

Neither Karras nor Stefanos replied.

Boyle folded the newspaper and tossed it aside. Stefanos pulled the green netting off the inside lip of the bar, rinsed it, and laid it out on the service area to dry. He put Jacks amp; Kings, an old Night-hawks tape, into the box. A guy named Hap had left it one evening in the bar.

Boyle got up, went to the phone, and called William Jonas. He told Jonas he’d be over to his house shortly. Then he went back to the bar and had a seat.

“My wife worries about me,” said Boyle before killing his shot of Jack.

“I’ll bet,” said Karras.

Stefanos cracked three more beers. He served Karras and Boyle. He opened a bottle for himself, tipped it back to his lips, and drank hungrily.

“Hey, Nick,” said Boyle, “hit me with another mash.”

Stefanos poured Jack Daniel’s into Boyle’s shot glass.

“Christ,” said Karras, “you guys like to drink.”

“Think we might have a problem with it?” said Boyle.

Karras sipped his beer. He was no drinker, but it tasted good tonight.

“Turn this up,” said Boyle. “I remember seeing these guys at the old Psychedelly. ’Bout time you played some good music in this joint. And they say white boys can’t play the blues.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Boyle, but it’s blacks and whites playing together on this one. Muddy Waters’s backup band. Guitar Jr. and Pinetop Perkins on the ivories.”

“Pinetop Perkins,” said Boyle. “Who the hell is that?”

They drank some more. They listened to Boyle talk about the jungle out there and his daughter’s third-world boyfriends and how Keith Van Horn was going to dominate in the NBA. Karras said little, smiling strangely at Stefanos until Stefanos had to look away. Then Boyle looked at his watch and told them he had to go.

“I’m baby-sitting tonight,” said Boyle, winking at Stefanos as he slipped into his wrinkled raincoat. He left money on the bar, clapped Karras on the shoulder, and left the Spot.

Baby-sitting, thought Karras. Couldn’t Boyle come up with anything better than that? Who in the hell would ever leave a baby with Boyle, anyway?

He relaxed. He was glad that Boyle was gone. Karras finished another beer.

Stefanos poured three fingers of Grand-Dad into a heavy, beveled shot glass and set it next to his bottle of Bud. The lights went out in the kitchen, and Darnell walked from the darkness. He adjusted his leather kufi on his head and buttoned his coat.

“Late for you to be getting out,” said Stefanos.

“Was waitin’ for your redneck friend to leave,” said Darnell. “He asks me if I can dunk again, me and him are gonna have it out.”

“Can you?”

“Funny.” Darnell looked at the bourbon-and-beer setup in front of Stefanos. “Want me to hang around? You could drop me uptown.”

“We’re gonna be a while,” said Stefanos.

“Let me get on out of here, then,” said Darnell. “Dimitri. Nick.” Stefanos locked the front door behind Darnell and went back around the bar.

“Darnell tries to pull me out of here every night,” said Stefanos.

“He doesn’t have too much luck, I take it.”

“Not too much. I guess I’m one of those guys who can’t be saved.” Stefanos put one foot up on the beer cooler and raised his glass. “Yasou, re.”

“Yasou, patrioti.”

Karras touched his bottle to Stefanos’s glass and the two of them drank.

An hour or so went by. Slowly and quietly the edge came off, and they drifted toward the soft world. Cigarette smoke hung in the light falling from the Spot’s conical lamps. Stefanos put on an old Otis Redding, and it was beautiful and sad. Karras sang “You Don’t Miss Your Water” while Stefanos smoked a cigarette. Stefanos thought Karras’s voice was pretty nice. Neither of them said a thing after that.

Stefanos finished his shot of bourbon and poured another, knowing that he was coming to that place where he would talk. After the nursing home, there was never any question that he would tell Karras about Wilson and the men who were in town. That time had come. He looked at Karras and Karras was smiling in that way again and Stefanos leaned his elbow on the bar.

“Dimitri.”

“What?”

“Look here, man. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

Karras laughed and shook his head.

“What’s so funny?” said Stefanos.

“This about Thomas Wilson?”

“Yes.”

Karras smiled. “I’ve been wondering when you were gonna come to that.”