Small Mercies

She pivots to her right as best she can and then he’s brushing past her, his big bearish body sliding against her own, close enough for her to notice the smallest flecks of gray beginning to find his sideburns, and then he’s moved on. And right behind him, hands in their jacket pockets on a summer night, are Johnny Polk and Bubsie Gould, two headbreakers who run South Shore Sand & Gravel and several porn shops in the Combat Zone.

Before the crowd can close, she steps into their wake, staying right on their heels, as Frank, two steps ahead of them, parts the crowd like the prow of a boat. She wishes she hadn’t chosen a powder blue pantsuit — it seems the kind of detail people will remember later — but then she reminds herself she has no other endgame. Her primary objective is not to kill Frank Toomey and escape. It’s simply to kill Frank Toomey. Which, arguably, she could do right now — just pull out the gun and shoot all three assholes in the back. But who would be the true asshole then? Bullets could pass through their bodies; a panicked stampede could leave people trampled; she could miss. No, here was not the place.

The crowd surges forward as one, and Mary Pat is spun halfway around so that she’s involuntarily facing the courthouse again. The life-size dolls are hanging from the flagpoles and lampposts now with signs around their necks. One reads sen. kennedy, another judge garrity, a third mayor k. white, and a fourth william taylor, a name she doesn’t recognize. The men who carried the effigies stand below them with lighters in their hands. As the crowd bellows its approval, they light the dolls on fire.

It takes a minute. The flames dance along the edges of the effigies, some blue, some yellow. One of them — Garrity’s — goes out, and they have to start again. But then...

The light from the flames washes over the crowd closest to the courthouse. It bathes them in red and yellow and blue light that floods their heads and faces like liquid. The air smells of lighter fluid and fury. The effigies twist on their ropes and burn.

The crowd chants, “Southie won’t go!”

The crowd chants, “Niggers suck!”

The crowd chants, “We are one!”

For a moment Mary Pat’s vision turns telescopic, and all she can see are the faces surging forward on necks that strain from the stretching, red mouths slick with spittle, signs thrusting into the air like pitchforks, legs of children draped down their parents’ shoulders and chests. Moving through the thickness of the crowd and the thickness of its rage is like trying to squirm her way between freshly laid brick. Her lungs ache as if she chain-smoked half a dozen cigarettes in a row, and her head grows light.

Just when she thinks she might pass out, she clears the crowd. Pops out on the corner where West Broadway meets East.

Across Broadway, Frank Toomey reaches a cherry red Caddy with a white hard plastic roof. He chats easily with Johnny Polk and Bubsie Gould. He grimaces comically, and they share a laugh. He says something that makes both of them cock their heads. He nods several times so they’ll accept that he means what he says. Then he gets in the Caddy and pulls off the curb. He U-turns and heads up West Broadway.

It’s fucking agony as she waits to see what Johnny and Bubsie are going to do. They seem to be wondering themselves. Then they nod and walk three doors down to a bar.

Mary Pat runs full out for two blocks, hops behind the wheel of Bess, and stands on the gas. Bess putters out of the parking space. Begins to gain speed. Nears a stop sign. Mary Pat cranes her neck — nobody around — and blows the stop sign. She blows the next stop sign and reaches West Broadway with some momentum. At this point, all she’s got are guesses. If Frank were heading home, he’d have taken a side street that ran parallel to Dorchester Street and worked his way over to his house on West Ninth. But he didn’t. He drove up Broadway toward the bridge. Mary Pat lays all her chips on the table and decides he’s heading into the city itself, downtown somewhere.

If that had been the case — and someone hadn’t lit a car on fire and left it at the intersection of Broadway and E — she would have lost Frank Toomey for the night. But she reaches the intersection just as the traffic begins to snake around the burning car, and she catches sight of that white roof and cherry red frame as it passes the flames — is everything on fire tonight? — and keeps the car in sight until it turns right at the I-93 on-ramp.

She’s three cars back by the time the Caddy exits at North Station and then crosses the bridge into Charlestown. The two cars between them pull over at City Square, so she plays it safe and lets Frank get way ahead of her. Too far ahead, it turns out, but she doesn’t panic. Doesn’t allow the fear to rule her. It’s Charlestown — one mile square and not known for having covered garages. If he’s staying in the neighborhood, she’ll find him.

And she does.