David Hosp - Among Thieves

Finn looked at Devon. “We’ll stay here,” he said.

Kozlowski disappeared down the hallway. It seemed as if he was gone for a long time, though it was probably only a minute or so. He came back out and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. He motioned toward the kitchen door and gave a signal for Finn and Devon to remain where they were. He slid along the wall, his gun still at the ready. Then he swung around the corner, pointing the pistol in front of him as he went, and disappeared through the door. A moment later he yelled, “Found it!”

Finn glanced at Devon and then the two of them moved toward the kitchen. The stench intensified as they approached the door, until it grew overpowering. Then they stepped into the room.

The kitchen was small, little more than a galley, and Kozlowski was standing in the middle of it, making it difficult to see. Moving to the side, though, Finn could see what was causing the stench.

The refrigerator door was standing open, and there was food on the counter. Flies buzzed around a smorgasbord of hamburger meat and ham that had been left out.

“That fuckin’ bitch,” Devon said. He moved around Kozlowski to get a better look. “Fuckin’ Shelly. She did this on purpose.”

“Probably,” Finn said.

Kozlowski opened a window. “It can be cleaned.”

“I know, but still,” Devon said.

“You left her with your mess for a couple of days,” Finn pointed out. “She probably figured turnabout was fair play.”

“Fuck,” Devon said.

“You’ve got bigger problems than this,” Kozlowski pointed out. That brought them all back to reality.

“The money,” Finn said to Devon.

Devon pulled some paper towels off a roll on the counter and swept some of the mess into a nearby garbage can. “This is fucked up,” he said, holding his head away from the smell.

“I’m serious, Devon,” Finn said. “We don’t get paid, and we don’t move on from here.”

Devon threw the paper towel into the garbage can. “You’re a bloodless shit,” he said. “You wait here. I’ll be right back. It’s in back.”

Finn shook his head. “Do we look stupid?”

“I swear to God, it’s in back,” Devon said. “I just don’t want you to see where.”

“That’s too bad,” Finn said. Devon hesitated. “All we want is what you owe us, but we’re not letting you out of our sight until this is settled. I don’t give a shit whether you trust us or not. If you want to get your daughter back, we’re doing this right now.”

“Fine,” Devon said at last. “Knock yourself out.” He walked out of the kitchen and around into the hallway. As Finn and Kozlowski followed, Finn took a good look at the place for the first time. As bad as it looked from the outside, it got worse the deeper into the apartment he traveled. The living room was tiny, and the furniture was fraying and stained. The back hallway had been carpeted sometime in the 1950s, from the look of it, and there were places where it had worn through entirely. Everywhere the walls were stained and shedding paint. Finn shuddered to think of Sally living there.

Devon walked halfway down the hallway and then turned into the bathroom. Finn and Kozlowski would have followed him in, but there wasn’t enough space for two grown men inside. They kept an eye on him from the hallway.

Devon stood on the edge of the tub and reached up to what looked like a vent in the ceiling. He pushed the vent cover up gently, then slid it to the side. Reaching into the opening in the ceiling, he withdrew a sack. He held the sack in front of his body, away from Finn and Kozlowski so that they couldn’t see. After a moment, he reached up again and replaced the sack, then slid the vent cover back into place.

He stepped down off the tub and walked back out into the hallway. Holding out his hands, he said, “There’s thirty-five thousand there.” Finn looked at the stack of cash. It was tightly packed, wrapped in orange bands denoting five-thousand-dollar bundles. There were seven bundles. “That’s five thousand for the bond, twenty thousand for the work you’ve done so far, and another ten to cover the next bit. That gets you all in,” Devon said.

Finn slapped the money out of his hands. The bundles fell to the floor, and Devon reached for them instinctively. “What the fuck!” he yelled.

“You stupid, lying motherfucker,” Finn said.

“What? Count it, it’s real!”

“I don’t give a shit about the money, you stupid asshole.” Finn reached out and grabbed Devon by the shirt and threw him up against the hallway wall.

“What do you mean?” Devon ’s voice was cracking, and he looked confused as he tried to wrestle away. Finn held his neck, though. “What the fuck are we here for?”

“Where are the paintings, Devon?”

Devon ’s confusion morphed to panic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Still holding on to Devon ’s neck, Finn leaned back and punched his client in the face. Devon crumpled to the floor. “Don’t give me that shit, Devon. We know.”

Devon jackknifed on the hallway floor in front of Finn, his hands covering his head. “Know what?” he choked out. “I don’t understand!”

“Cut the shit, Devon, or I’ll turn this over to Koz here. He was a cop for twenty-five years; you don’t think he’s got some experience getting people like you to talk?” He knelt down, putting his face right up next to Devon ’s. “We know you were the one who offered to sell the paintings. You gave potential buyers photographs and paint chips to prove the offer was real. That means you know where they are. Now you’re going to tell us.”

“Fuck you!” Devon yelled. “You don’t know shit!”

“I know that you live in a shithole roaches wouldn’t set foot in for all the fuckin’ mess. I know you haven’t been doing any steady work for Murphy or Ballick or anyone else for years. I know that you just reached into your ceiling and pulled out thirty-five thousand dollars without batting an eye, and if you’d had that kind of money for any amount of time, you wouldn’t be living here. And I know that the IRA paid someone one hundred thousand dollars for confirmation on the paintings. It doesn’t take a fuckin’ rocket scientist to put all this together, Devon. Are you really this stupid?”

Devon was still lying on the floor. It seemed as though the physical pain had subsided, but he looked utterly defeated.

“I also know that this Kilbranish out there has got your daughter, and he’s going to kill her if he doesn’t get these paintings. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It means everything to me!” Devon yelled. “It’s the only goddamned thing I care about. I’m giving myself up. I’ll trade myself for her, and I’ll take the pain! Even death!”

Finn shook his head in confusion. “But don’t you understand? You don’t have to. He doesn’t want you, he wants the paintings. If we give those to him, he’s not gonna give a shit about you anymore.”

“Fuck you,” Devon said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Finn looked at Kozlowski. He was staring at Devon, his eyes narrowed. It was clear that he had no better insight than Finn about what was going on.

“Where are the paintings, Devon?” Finn asked again at last.

Devon looked up at him. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.

The last time Devon saw Whitey Bulger was in December of 1994. It was a dangerous time in Southie; a dangerous time for everyone with connections. The tension in the projects and down along the water crackled as the crisp New England winter set in. There had been a crackdown in recent months on bookmakers across Boston, and people-connected people-had been slipping out of sight. There were whispers everywhere that something was coming. No one knew what or when or how, but that didn’t stop people from believing. They talked about it as if it were an impending apocalypse; a nameless threat hovered everywhere, making everyone jumpy. There’s nothing more dangerous than a community of nervous gangsters.