Small Mercies

Thursday morning, after Bobby gets all he needs from Narcotics, he and Vincent and two other detectives, Colson and Ray, knock on the front door of the GLLF and are welcomed inside by Rufus Burwell. The other two who take up the masthead, Ozzie Howard and Simeon Shepherd, are waiting in a large study that has only a few books on the shelves and smells of incense and pot.

“We’re here for the guns,” Bobby says once they’re all seated.

Rufus strokes his Vandyke like he watched too many Charlie Chan movies as a kid. “We have no guns.”

“Yeah, you do,” Bobby says. “Look, we can go back and forth and then drag you down to the station and lose your booking slips for a few days while we toss the shit out of this place and any other places you’re associated with. We can go that route. Or you can just give up the guns that Brian Shea and Marty Butler gave you and tell us why they gave them to you, and we’ll never speak of it again. You won’t do a night in jail, you won’t get charged with anything.”

Rufus, Ozzie, and Simeon exchange smug, lazy looks before Rufus turns back to Bobby. “I remain unconvinced of your sincerity or, frankly, your power.”

“Okay.” Bobby reaches into his pocket. He removes the booking photos of Rufus’s nephew, Ozzie’s girlfriend, and a yellow-eyed kid rumored to be Simeon’s boyfriend. He lays the photos down amid the coke dust on the coffee table. “Those were taken half an hour ago. We’ve got every single one of them dead to rights on narcotics trafficking. Not possession, Rufus. Not possession with intent, Ozzie. Not intent to distribute, Simeon. Straight-up, good, old-fashioned, made-in-America motherfucking trafficking. That’s a nickel each hard time before we even consider their priors. So you want to spend the rest of this decade visiting your nearest and dearest in prison? Keep telling me you got no guns.”

Rufus and the other two share a few looks.

“They’re in the basement,” Rufus says.

While Vincent, Colson, and Ray go to the basement with Ozzie and Simeon, Bobby has a chat with Rufus.

“What were you supposed to use the guns for?”

“We still in the realm of no pending charges, Detective?”

“We are.”

“You wouldn’t be the first cop to break his word.”

“Be the first time I broke mine, though. Rufus, I knew you back when you were running numbers for Red Tyler. I ever do you the wrong way?”

Rufus says, “Always a first time.”

Bobby already owns this asshole for sitting on a box of illegal automatic rifles, and Rufus thinks Bobby needs more to send a black man with a record up the river?

“What,” Bobby says very slowly, “were the guns for?”

Rufus sees something in Bobby’s gaze that speeds up his answer. “They want us to shoot up the high school.”

“Which high school?”

“South Boston High School.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.” Rufus chews a hangnail for a bit. “Said to shoot some white kids if we’re of the mind.”

“Were you gonna do it?”

“Ain’t answering that, Detective.”

“And what were they gonna pay you?”

“Two kilos Mexican brown.”

“And who was it who hired you for this job?”

Rufus snorts. “Gonna pretend you didn’t even ask.”

“I can apply plenty of pressure to get my answer.”

“You go right ahead, Detective. I’d rather die, go to Walpole for ten, you name it. I ain’t saying shit about it.”

“We witnessed one of his employees hand you the weapons.”

“And that employee, what’s he say about who he works for?”

Bobby says nothing.

Rufus says, “Uh-huh.”

Colson, Ray, and Vincent come back up the stairs, each carrying an M16.

“Those them?”

“Yup,” Vincent says. “Serial numbers filed off, fully automatic. What were they supposed to use them for?”

“To start a race war,” Bobby says, his eyes on Rufus, who tries not to look ashamed.

“Shit,” Vincent says, “if we ain’t already in a race war, what the fuck are we in?”

28

The line about Frank Toomey you always hear around Southie is that he’s not all that hard to find because who, in their right mind, would go looking for him? But now, with everyone on high alert for a sighting of Mary Pat, her milling about anywhere near Frank Toomey’s known hangouts or places of business is out of the question. And she has to figure if they assume she’s coming for him, visiting the street where he makes his home is out of the question too.