David Hosp - Among Thieves

“You sure?” The woman’s voice sounded sad. Relieved, too, though.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“Okay, then,” the woman said. “You take good care of yourself, and I’ll come visit, okay?”

“How will you know where to find me?” Sally asked.

The woman waved her hand again. “Don’t be silly, a mother always knows.”

They stood there in silence for another moment, with Sally looking at her mother and her mother avoiding her daughter’s eyes. Finn looked at the ground. Finally Sally said, “Okay, Mom, I gotta go.” She turned and walked away before her mother could say anything more.

Finn caught up to her and walked beside her. “You okay?”

“Fine.” She was walking quickly, back to Lissa and Kozlowski, who were standing by the side of the car, looking back at them.

“You sure?”

“Fuck her,” Sally said. “I’m better off alone.”

Finn put a hand on her shoulder as he walked. “You’re not gonna be alone,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her as he said it. As they walked, he saw her arm come up and wipe something away from her eye.

Kozlowski bought the drinks at the pub back in Charlestown: a scotch for himself, a beer for Finn, and a Coke for Sally. Lissa ordered a glass of merlot, which brought a look of surprise from Finn.

“Doc said a glass of wine every once in a while wouldn’t hurt the baby,” she said. “Feels like a day when a glass of wine wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“This doctor any good?”

“Yeah, he is. You got a problem?”

Finn shook his head. “No.”

“My mom smoked crack when she was pregnant with me,” Sally said. Everyone at the table looked at her, unsure what to say. “Of course, it’s not like I’m a poster child for reproduction.” She stood up. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Back around down the hall to the left,” Lissa said.

Once she was gone, Kozlowski asked, “We gonna talk about it?”

“Not today,” Finn replied.

“We gotta talk about it at some point,” Kozlowski said. “We need to find a place for her to live.”

“I’m not putting her in the system,” Finn said. “Not right now. She can stay with me for a little while.”

“She’s not a puppy,” Kozlowski said. “You can’t just keep her for a little while and then take her back to the pound when she shits on the rugs.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to help.”

“Trying to help?” Kozlowski looked at Lissa. “You believe this?”

She looked down at her belly. “Yeah, I do. Let’s leave it for another day.”

“You too?” Kozlowski shook his head.

“Another day,” she repeated.

“Fine,” Kozlowski said. “What about the other thing that no one wants to talk about? We gonna keep ignoring that, as well?”

“Works for me,” Lissa said. “ Devon ’s dead. Kilbranish is dead. Half of Bulger’s old crew is dead. Doesn’t seem like anything good’s gonna come from talking about it.”

“Something good could come from it for Sally,” Kozlowski said. “Reward’s five million. We find the paintings, and that’s a lot of good.”

“You’re not gonna find the paintings.”

“How do you know? Devon had them two weeks ago. Maybe he moved them.”

“I don’t see how Devon could have moved them,” Finn said. “He was with us from the minute he got out of jail.”

“He could have moved them before he went in,” Kozlowski said. “Then he led us to the self-storage knowing they weren’t there.”

“But why?” Finn asked.

“Because they were worth half a billion dollars,” Kozlowski said. “Maybe he still wanted them for himself. Maybe he still wanted them for the girl.”

Finn shook his head. “He knew what was at stake, and he cared too much about his daughter to take that risk. For Christ’s sake, he went into that river after her with a bullet in him. Besides, he knew he was dying. If he’d moved them he would’ve told me where when he had the chance.”

“What other possibilities are there?”

“We know what other possibilities there are. Devon said Bulger told him there was one other person who knew where the paintings were.”

“Porter?” Kozlowski offered.

“No,” Finn said. “Did you see him with Devon down at the river? He was having a breakdown when he realized the paintings weren’t there, and I don’t think he’s a good enough actor to pull off that kind of performance if he was the one who moved them himself. I think he’s genuinely obsessed with finding the goddamned things.”

“Who, then?”

“Hewitt.”

“No,” Kozlowski said. “I know him; he’s not behind this.”

“Come on, Koz,” Finn said. “I know you’re friends with the guy, but he was working on the organized crime task force back in the eighties and nineties. He would have had plenty of opportunity to get to know Bulger. He had contacts that he could have used to orchestrate the whole thing.”

“I don’t buy it.” Kozlowski wasn’t budging. “There were plenty of others who would have had just as much motive, just as much opportunity.”

“How many of those others were involved in this investigation? How many of them were there when Devon was killed? How many of them shot Kilbranish?”

“Fuck you, you’re wrong.”

“How can you say that?”

“Enough!” Lissa interjected. Her voice was loud enough that the bartender turned and looked at them. She lowered the volume. “Who cares?” she demanded. “These are just paintings we’re talking about. Who the fuck cares where they are now?”

“They’re not just paintings,” Finn objected.

“Yes, they are,” she said. “They’re just paintings. They’re expensive paintings. They’re nice paintings. But they’re just fucking paintings. And they’re paintings that have gotten people killed. Whoever has them now will kill whoever they have to to keep them, and I’m not letting either of you be next on the list. It isn’t our problem anymore. Do you two understand me?”

The two men looked at the table, not answering.

“I’m serious about this,” she said. “I want both of you to just fucking drop it. We have a law firm to run, we have a little girl to deal with, and we have a baby on the way. This ends now.”

Kozlowski looked at her and took her hand. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll drop it.”

She looked at Finn. “You?”

He didn’t look up at her, but he nodded. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll leave it alone.”

“Do I have your word?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You have my word.”

Lissa and Kozlowski got married a month later. The ceremony, such as it was, took place in City Hall, that great monument to Brutalism in the center of nine acres of cold brick and cement. Finn wondered whether Lissa and Koz had considered the symbolism. Probably not. Their minds weren’t drawn to such mischief in the way his was.

It was just the four of them. Finn served as best man and Sally as maid of honor. The officiant, a young woman who worked as an assistant clerk for the city, was a justice of the peace. She held a laminated card in front of her eyes and chopped through sterile questions with all the emotion of a telephone operator. As she ticked through the ceremony intended to bind the lives of the people before her, Finn couldn’t help hearing her voice as he had thousands of times before: “For English, press ‘one’ now; para espanol, apreiete ‘dos’ ahora.”

That was okay with Finn. In reality the Commonwealth had no power to tie Lissa and Koz together. That decision was theirs alone. Whether the union was blessed or consecrated or legally binding was bunting and little more. If they were solid together, the rest would take care of itself. If not, no piece of paper-not even one signed by an assistant clerk of the City of Boston-would do them any good.