David Hosp: Among Thieves

Now, thirty-five years later, he knew the leader of the death squad had been right. It hadn’t ended, even now that the politicians had signed their unholy alliances and smiled their oily smiles at each other across mahogany conference tables. It would never end; not as long as he lived.

He took a deep breath and brought his pistol up, leveling it at the man on the ground in front of him. Blood had soaked through what was left of the man’s shirt and there were places on the man’s face where the skin had been ripped so thoroughly that bone flashed through.

“Mr. Murphy, I’ll give you one last chance,” he said. “Tell me what I want to know.”

The man sobbed. “Please… I don’t know.” He had his hands up in supplication, the blood dripping down from the holes in his palms and running off his elbows.

“That’s too bad,” Liam said.

He pulled the trigger and the man’s head snapped backward, one last spray of blood coating the wall behind him. Liam walked over and fired another round into the pulp that remained above the man’s shoulders. It was unnecessary, but he was well trained. He reached down and dipped a gloved finger into the pool of blood by the body. He took a step away, and wrote two words in blood on the floor. Then he stood and nodded to Sean Broadark, who remained by the doorway. Few words had been exchanged between the two of them. They weren’t friends, they were professionals.

“Why?” Broadark asked, looking at the bloody scrawl.

“I want to send a message to the others.”

Broadark holstered his pistol. “There’s more, then?”

Liam nodded. “There’s more.”

Broadark asked no more questions. He watched Liam as he took one last look around the garage. Then Liam walked past him, to the door, and the two of them walked out into the cool South Boston evening.

Scott Finn trudged up the front steps of the Nashua Street Jail. A thin streak of sunshine poked through the clouds, drying the cement in uneven lines. It was the fourth week of spring, but a few isolated piles of brown snow could still be found dying slowly in the cervices of Boston’s streets and alleys, and the city smelled of dog shit and winter rot-an oddly satisfying sign that warmer weather was on the way.

Tucked behind North Station and the Garden, the jail was not a place stumbled on accidentally. You had to be looking for it, and even then it wasn’t an easy find. To make the effort less inviting, there was no public parking. None. Not that it was a problem for Finn, of course. Every month he slipped the parking attendant at the rehab hospital across the street fifty dollars to let him park his battered MG there when he needed to. It made his life easier. He was a lawyer; he made life easier when he could.

He walked into the lobby of the jail, a tall, narrow, yellowy space occupied only by two uncomfortable metal benches, and headed to the front desk. It was a holiday morning; the place was empty. Finn was dressed casually in a polo shirt, khakis, and a spring overcoat. He was heading out to the Sox game later that morning, and he’d vowed that the trip to the jail wouldn’t interfere with his day.

“Officer Hollings,” he said to the uniformed woman standing at the front desk. Her face was down, and she was churning through paperwork.

She looked up and smiled. “Attorney Finn,” she said. She had a pretty smile that made it easy to overlook the acne scars on her cheeks. Her polyester uniform tugged at her tight curves, and she had an admirable sense of humor for a corrections officer.

“You here for Malley?” She chuckled as she asked the question.

“Yeah,” he admitted, throwing his bar card and driver’s license on the counter. “How’d you guess?”

“You’re a sucker for the hard-luck cases. His is as hard as they come.” She laughed again as she picked up his identification and handed him a locker token and a yellow laminated lawyer’s pass to hang around his neck.

Finn slipped the pass over his head and took the token over to the wall lined with dented steel lockers, sliding it into the key slot of one and opening it. He knew the drill by heart: he took everything out of his pockets-wallet, keys, phone, BlackBerry-and tossed them into the locker. Then he took a legal pad out of his briefcase and slid the case into the locker. Only the pad was permitted into the jail.

He put his overcoat on top of the pile before he closed the door and turned the key, hearing the token drop into the lock. He tugged once on the door to make sure it was secured, and walked over to the metal detector. Carol was waiting there for him.

He stepped through the archway and the metal detector buzzed once. She beckoned him forward, and he moved toward her, keeping his feet shoulder-width apart and putting his arms out to his sides, palms up. She picked up a handheld security wand and began running it over his torso. She was still chuckling softly to herself.

“It’s not nice to laugh, you know that, Hollings?” he said.

“How can you not laugh?”

“He’s my client. At least, he may be.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not funny.” She passed the wand over his belt buckle and it gave a chirp. She looked down at his crotch and passed the wand over the front of his pants a few times. The wand whined rhythmically in time with the motion of her arm. “You got anything in your pockets, or is that just the buckle?” she asked.

“You’re welcome to check.”

“Tempting, but I’m engaged.”

“Really? Tragic. Still, it’s your job to make sure this facility is safe. For the inmates, for the city”-he winked-“for me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “My fiancé’s a Statie. SWAT team. If you’re worried about your safety, the last thing you want is me digging around in your pants.” She put the wand down and waved to another guard behind four inches of bulletproof glass that separated the lobby from the rest of the jail. “He’s good,” she called.

The guard pressed a button, releasing a hydraulic lock on the steel door that led into the jail. Finn walked through.

“Good luck up there,” Hollings said.

“You’re all heart.” Finn looked back, admiring her uniform again. Well, maybe not all heart.

He stepped up to the small window that separated him from the interior guard. The door behind him closed again, and Finn was now trapped in a tiny vestibule between two three-ton steel doors. One led back out to freedom. The other didn’t. It felt like a decompression chamber. He put his arm through the small window where the interior guard was sitting and the guard stamped the back of his hand with fluorescent ink, marking him as a visitor.

“Don’t wash that off ’til you’re out,” the guard said. Finn had seen him before, but didn’t know his name. He made a mental note to find out what it was. In his line of work it was always good to be on terms that were at least cordial with the corrections guards.

“Thanks. Good advice.”

“You know where you’re going.” It wasn’t a question. The guard recognized Finn.

Another buzzer sounded and the bolt slid free on the interior door. Finn walked through it and into a small elevator lobby. He pushed the button and the elevator door opened. He stepped in and pressed the button for the second floor.

When the door reopened, he exited and walked down a long empty linoleum corridor. At the end was another thick metal door. Behind that, two guards sat on a raised platform looking out through more heavy glass into the cell block. From where Finn stood, he couldn’t see the cell block itself, but he didn’t need to; he’d seen it before-from both sides. It was a crescent-shaped area with two levels of cells opening into a large, high-ceilinged common area. The guard station was at the center of the crescent, allowing the corrections officers a good view of every area on the block.