Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“Yeah.”

“You found those two animals.”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Jimmy’s got the knife in him before Matty can say “Gosh and begorra.” Sticks the blade in under the left pectoral and shoves it upward. Rolls the blade around a little to make sure there’ll be no difficult ethical decisions at the hospital.

Fucking knife gets stuck in Sheehan’s ribs, so Jimmy has to put his foot into the man’s broad chest and shove to get the blade out. Sheehan hits the floor so hard the pictures on the walls shake.

Fat guy who let him in is standing in the doorway.

Not looking like he wants to do anything.

“How much you owe him?” Peaches asks.

“Seven-five.”

“You don’t owe him nothing,” Peaches says, “if he disappears.”

They cut Matty up and take him out to Wards Island, dump him into the sewage disposal.

On the way back, Peaches is singing,

“Anybody here seen my old friend Matty…

Can you tell me where he’s go-o-o-one?”

A month after what has come to be known in Irish Hell’s Kitchen as the “Rising of the Moon River,” Callan’s life has changed a little. Not only is he still living it, which is a surprise to him, he’s become a neighborhood hero.

Because while Peaches was flushing Sheehan, he and O-Bop were taking a black felt-tip pen to Matty’s little black book and literally settling some debts. They had a great goddamn time-eliminating some entries, reducing others, maintaining the ones they figured would give them the most swag.

It’s fat times in the Kitchen.

Callan and O-Bop set themselves up in the Liffey Pub like they own it, which if you look carefully at the black book, they sort of do. People come in and practically kiss their rings, either they’re so grateful they’re off the hook with Matty or they’re so scared they’re still on the hook with the boys who took down Eddie Friel, Jimmy Boylan and very probably Matty Sheehan himself.

Someone else, too.

Larry Moretti.

It’s the only killing Callan will feel bad about. Eddie the Butcher was necessary. So was Jimmy Boylan. So, especially, was Matty Sheehan. But Larry Moretti is just revenge-for helping Eddie cut up Michael Murphy.

“It’s expected of us,” O-Bop says. “It’s a respect thing.”

Moretti knows it’s coming. He’s holed up in his place on 104th, off Broadway, and he’s been drinking on it. Hasn’t made a meeting in a couple of weeks-he just stays drunk-so he’s an easy mark when Callan and O-Bop come through the door.

Moretti’s lying on the floor with a bottle. Got his head between the stereo speakers and he’s listening to some fucked-up disco shit with the bass booming like distant artillery. He opens his eyes for a second and looks at Callan and O-Bop standing there with their guns pointed at him, and then he shuts his eyes and O-Bop yells, “This is for Mikey!” and starts shooting. Callan feels bad about it but he joins in, and it’s weird, blasting a guy who’s already down.

Then they got the body to deal with, but O-Bop’s come prepared and they roll Moretti onto a sheet of heavy plastic and Callan now realizes how strong Eddie Friel had to be to cut meat up like that. It’s hard fucking work and Callan goes into the bathroom a couple of times to throw up, but they finally get Moretti into enough pieces to get him into garbage bags and then they take the bags out to Wards Island. O-Bop thinks they should put Moretti’s thing into a milk carton and walk it around the neighborhood, but Callan says no.

They don’t need that shit. The word gets out and a lot of people come into the Liffey to pay tribute.

One guy who doesn’t come in is Bobby Remington. Callan knows Bobby is scared that they think he gave them up to Matty, and he knows that Bobby didn’t.

Beth did.

“You were just trying to protect your brother,” Callan tells her when she shows up at his new apartment. “I understand that.”

She looks down at the floor. She’s come looking good; her long hair is brushed and shiny and she’s wearing a dress. A black dress cut just low enough in front to show the tops of her white breasts.

Callan gets it. She’s come over prepared to give it up to save her life, her brother's.

“Does Stevie understand?” she asks.

“I’ll make him understand,” Callan says.

“Bobby feels awful,” she says.

“No, Bobby’s good.”

“He needs a job,” she says. “He can’t get a union card…”

Callan feels weird hearing this addressed to him. It’s the sort of favor people used to ask of Matty.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Callan says. He’s holding paper from union officers in teamsters, construction, whatever. “Tell him to come around. I mean, we’re friends.”

“How about me?” she asks. “Are we friends?”

He’d like to make her. Shit, he’d love to make her. But it would be different, it would be like he was taking her just because he can, because she owes him. Because he has power now and she doesn’t.

So he says, “Yeah, we’re friends.”

To let her know it’s all right, it’s cool, she doesn’t have to put out for him.

“And that’s all we are?”

“Yeah, Beth. That’s all.”

He feels kind of bad because she’s dressed up and put on makeup and everything, but he doesn’t want to go to bed with her anymore.

It’s kind of sad.

Anyway, Bobby comes around and they hook him up with a job that his new boss assumes is a no-show-and Bobby doesn’t disappoint him in this regard-and other people come in to pay their vig or look for a favor, and for about a month Callan and O-Bop are playing junior godfathers from a booth in the Liffey Pub.

Until the real godfather calls.

Big Paulie Calabrese reaches a hand out and demands that they come to Queens to explain to him personally why (a) they are not dead, and (b) his friend and associate Matt Sheehan is.

“I told them it was you guys whacked Sheehan,” Peaches explains. They’re sitting in a booth at the Landmark Tavern, and Peaches is trying to eat some fucking lamb shit with potatoes and greasy brown gravy poured all over it. At least at the sitdown with Big Paulie, they’ll get a decent fucking meal.

It might be their last, but it’ll be decent.

“Why did you do that?” Callan asks.

“He has his reasons,” O-Bop says.

“Good,” says Callan. “What are they?”

“Because,” Peaches carefully explains, “if I told him I did it, he’d have me killed, no question.”

“This is a great reason,” Callan says to O-Bop. He turns back to Peaches. “So now he’ll just have us whacked.”

“Not necessarily,” Peaches says.

“Not necessarily?”

“No,” Peaches explains. “You guys aren’t in the family. You’re not made guys. You’re not subject to the same discipline. See, if I were going to kill Matt Sheehan, I’d have to get Calabrese’s permission, which he would never give. So if I went ahead and did it anyway, I’m in serious trouble.”

“Oh, this is good news,” Callan says.

“But you guys don’t need permission,” Peaches says. “All you need is a good reason. And the right attitude.”

“What kind of attitude?”

“Toward the future,” Peaches says. “An attitude of friendship. Cooperation.”

O-Bop gets seriously geeked. This is like a dream come true.

“Calabrese wants to hook us up?” he asks. He’s practically coming out of his seat.

“I don’t know if I want to be hooked up,” Callan says.

O-Bop says, “This is our shot! This is the fucking Cimino Family! They want to work with us!”

“There’s another thing,” Peaches says.

“That’s good,” says Callan. “I was hoping that wasn’t, you know, everything.”