Todd Robinson - The Hard Bounce

“Or epilogue.”

“Which one is before?”

“That’s prologue”

“That one.”

“So we’re in the epilogue, then?”

“No… we’re… shut the fuck up and listen to me. The main word here is ‘we.’ I hear one more line about your situation and your problems, I’m going to hurt you in the groinal area, buddy. A lot.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He turned the key and Miss Kitty, our war engine, roared. We could have used a better name for our war engine.

There he was. My heartbeat tripled its tempo, breath short in my chest. I’d never had a panic attack before, but I felt close to having one. It wasn’t easy looking into the face again. The last time I’d seen it, I thought I was seconds away from a bullet to the skull. The picture was a low-res scan, grainy, but the loose, friendly smile was there, the oyster of a blind eye.

“This the guy?” Ollie asked, looking from the computer screen and back to me. I think my expression was answer enough.

Something spiky had nestled in my throat so I just nodded limply.

“Who is he, and where do we find him?”

Junior was ready to go out and draw some payback. Junior hadn’t seen the guy. How coolly he’d pulled the trigger on me. How casual it would have been for him to put another bullet into my skull.

Ollie grimaced. “See, now this is where we may run into some trouble.”

“How’s that?”

“This is a blowup from a picture I found in the Herald ’s archives. The guy’s name is Louis Blanc.”

Louis Blanc. The name scratched at the back of my memory.

“Do I know that name?” asked Junior. “Why do I think I know that name?” He tapped a finger on the glass of the computer screen. “I think I’d remember that face.”

“Please don’t touch the screen,” Ollie said impatiently. He pulled a wipe from a box sitting next to the monitor and rubbed the point of contact until it squeaked.

“The name sounds familiar. Why would I know it?” I asked.

“You would have heard it,” Ollie said, matter-of-factly. “Look at the rest of the picture.” Ollie tapped a few buttons on the keyboard and double-clicked his mouse to show us the full picture. “You tell me why we have a bigger problem than we may have suspected.”

The shot was of a restaurant opening in Southie. An Irish Shebeen called Conor’s Publick that got a lot of press when it opened. The restaurant was bought for and operated by one Mr. Conor Cade. In the picture, Louis was standing behind the owners. Conor’s son had his arm draped around the old man, smiling. The only other face I recognized in the shot was Conor’s son, Francis.

Frankie “the Mick” Cade.

“Aw, fuck me,” Junior and I said at the same time.

“His nephew?”

“It’s pretty simple, Boo,” Ollie said. “Mr. Cade’s sister let a guy named Bevilaqua stick his pee-pee in her. They had a bouncing baby Bevilaqua. Named him Derek.”

“I was being rhetorical, prick.”

“So, Snake is The Mick’s nephew?” Junior was having no easier a time than I was processing the information.

“Supposedly, it was a bit of a controversy within the ethnic circles when an Irish lass got herself knocked up and married to an Italian.”

I could only imagine. The only people Boston’s tried and true Irish hated more than the Italians were… well, they hated everybody. “So, we put the rings to the nephew of this town’s top organized criminal. That’s just peaches.”

“And probably I’m next on the hit list,” Junior said. A brief flash of pleasure passed over Junior’s face. I think he’d always dreamed of making somebody’s hit list. Then the blunt rock of reality bounced off his skull. “Aw shit. I don’t wanna get shot.”

“Guess what, Junior. It wasn’t part of my life’s ambitions either.” I grabbed Ollie’s phone and dialed Twitch.

“County Morgue.”

“It’s Boo. How much do you know about Louis Blanc?”

“Wow! I was right! So it was Lou Blanc. I mean… wow!”

Great. I’d been shot by the right-hand man of the local Irish kingpin, and Twitch was star-struck. Too bad I hadn’t had time to ask for an autograph. “Yeah, it was a real honor, Twitch. Maybe I’ll have the bullet bronzed.”

Twitch chuckled. “You have no idea. Blanc is as cold-blooded as they come. Completely heartless son of a bitch. Like I told you earlier, you’re one lucky bastard you even got to ID him. There’re about three dozen others under construction sites around town who never got the chance. Lou Blanc. Wow.”

I gritted my teeth with impatience, sending a bolt of pain into my skull. “Hey, Twitch, you want to go jerk Blanc off or you want to tell me what you know?”

“He’s Cade’s numero uno enforcer. Has been since the late eighties. Nobody knows for sure why, other than Blanc is still standing and so is Cade, which means he does his job well. Pretty much everyone agrees Blanc’s got more balls and brains than Cade and the old guard put together.”

“Why isn’t he boss, then?”

“There are two rumors on that one.”

“And they are?”

“One is that Cade’s pop saved Blanc’s on the islands during Dubya-Dubya Two. You know, the old Irish code of honor bullshit.”

“What’s the second?”

“The second is the one I’m more inclined to believe. And it’s that Blanc just likes doing what he does. Bosses don’t get their hands dirty, and that’s what Blanc likes to do.”

An entire flock of geese and a fair-sized turkey walked over my grave as I remembered the cool gunmetal pressing against my head and the words that followed.

Be easy…

“Another popular belief is that the guy’s got something seriously wrong with his head.”

“No shit.”

“Seriously. Urban legend is the bullet that creased his head took out something in him. Like the part of his brain that controls remorse and stuff.”

And stuff. Well, wasn’t that just ducky. “Thanks, Twitch.” I was cold all over.

“There is a silver lining, though.”

“What is that?”

“Death is expensive, even for these guys. This was light retribution. They probably just wanted to give you back a taste of what you served the nephew. Because, believe you me, Boo. And if you’ve ever believed anything I’ve ever said to you-ever-believe this. If they wanted you out, you’d be wearing a toe tag right now. It’s probably over.”

The fuck it was.

Junior parked on the opposite side of the street, parallel to the long windows of Conor’s Publick. I could clearly see Cade leaning over a plate at a table in the back. I guess when you’re the last man standing like Frankie was, you didn’t have to worry as much about sitting at dark and secluded tables like the old guard used to. A cherry-colored Caddy was parked in front, a dinosaur in a cheap suit leaning on the hood.

Lou Blanc was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t help but contrast the pair of duos we’d dealt with. Donnelly and Barnes. Cade and Blanc. On one side of the law, the brains ran the show, the muscle performed the errands. From what I knew about Cade’s side of the fence, the vulgar strength called the shots. It bothered me to recognize which side I lived on.

We decided it would be just the two of us. Ollie never was much of a tussler, and I couldn’t trust Twitch not to pull the trigger on Cade simply because the opportunity arose.

We also decided, much to Junior’s dismay, that it would be me who went in. Alone. I’d already been shot. I was walking wounded. If something went horribly wrong and I didn’t come back out of Conor’s, Junior was more physically able to enact the retaliation that would follow. We may have been understaffed for an all-out street war against the Irish, but my army would at least make sure Cade followed me soon after.