red cross on a gold shield, a black lion standing on its hind legs in the left quadrant of the cross, and, atop the shield, a seated and chained mountain cat. Mr. de Burgh had once told him that the cross on the coat of arms came from the time of the Crusades and that it had originally been painted with the blood of a slain Saracen.
On the paneled walls on either side of the crest were pictures of Mr. de Burgh himself and his family, the wealthy merchant barons of Galway, an oil painting of traditional Irish sailing boats on the Atlantic with their red sails bowed by the wind, another of white swans gliding atop the Corrib River in the Claddagh. Butler would often stand before these images for some time—it became a ritual, like lighting votive candles and then stepping into a pew to pray.
He checked all of Mr. de Burgh’s rooms, made sure the refrigerator was stocked with food—they had delivery service from the local A&P—and shortly after four o’clock, he locked up the house again. He stared briefly out over the Atlantic, inhaling the scent of the sea, and then got into his own car—a dilapidated end-of-the-war Chrysler New Yorker—and headed back through the late-afternoon commute into Boston, the sun still battering the flat coastal expanse and the waters of the bay off to his right like a hammer on steel, and to his house in Chelsea, with its crumbling red-brick steps, asbestos shingles, bowed roof, and patch of scorched and withered grass at the rear for a yard. Here, beneath the hulking shadow of the Mystic River Bridge, his brother waited in his forever state of waiting—a limbo that, when Martin considered it, very nearly broke his heart, but as they said, God prefers prayer to tears—and attended by the Irish day nurse that he’d hired because she only rarely spoke, and then only in Irish.
9
_________________________
North End
OFF OF SALEM Street, Dante pulled his Ford into the small lot next to North End Auto Body. He parked beside a dumpster, got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and listened to the Ford’s engine ping and hiss and what sounded like a steel ball ricocheting inside a hollow metal tin. Most likely it was the oil pump going to shit. He wondered how much juice the car had left, if any.
There were a few other cars in the lot but they were in far worse shape than Dante’s. A junked-out Chevy with its windshield cracked and spiderwebbed, the bumpers hanging off, and four flat tires. A Chrysler DeSoto that had been in a car wreck, the passenger side smashed in as if the metal were no more solid than a foil gum wrapper. And the husk of an old Hudson passenger car from the Depression era, its sides pockmarked with blistering rust, the front hood no longer covering an engine but a family of raccoons.
Dante walked across the lot toward the building. One of the circular lamps above the gas pumps remained on, occasionally flickering as if in some secret code. The garage in back was covered in darkness, the metal dock door rolled down and chain-locked. Tufts of weeds and crabgrass came up through cracks in the concrete. Broken glass shimmered along the walkway leading to the front door. The two large windows were cluttered with advertisements yellowed and wrinkled from the sun: Golden Shell. Veedol. RPM. Johnson Motor Oil. Phillips 66. Dante peered between the gaps to see if the owner was still in the back office, but the place had been shut down for the night.
Dante tried the door anyway. It was locked.
He’d done a bit of work over the past six months for the owner, a lean and weathered Sicilian who called himself John even though his real name was Gianni. Changing oil, filling tanks, doing some spot-welding, soldering, touch-ups, and all-out paint jobs. Just last week, he’d spray-painted a pristine red Plymouth all white. He’d known it was hot, probably stolen the night before from one of the suburbs bordering the city, but he was getting twenty-five dollars for it so he kept his
On the paneled walls on either side of the crest were pictures of Mr. de Burgh himself and his family, the wealthy merchant barons of Galway, an oil painting of traditional Irish sailing boats on the Atlantic with their red sails bowed by the wind, another of white swans gliding atop the Corrib River in the Claddagh. Butler would often stand before these images for some time—it became a ritual, like lighting votive candles and then stepping into a pew to pray.
He checked all of Mr. de Burgh’s rooms, made sure the refrigerator was stocked with food—they had delivery service from the local A&P—and shortly after four o’clock, he locked up the house again. He stared briefly out over the Atlantic, inhaling the scent of the sea, and then got into his own car—a dilapidated end-of-the-war Chrysler New Yorker—and headed back through the late-afternoon commute into Boston, the sun still battering the flat coastal expanse and the waters of the bay off to his right like a hammer on steel, and to his house in Chelsea, with its crumbling red-brick steps, asbestos shingles, bowed roof, and patch of scorched and withered grass at the rear for a yard. Here, beneath the hulking shadow of the Mystic River Bridge, his brother waited in his forever state of waiting—a limbo that, when Martin considered it, very nearly broke his heart, but as they said, God prefers prayer to tears—and attended by the Irish day nurse that he’d hired because she only rarely spoke, and then only in Irish.
9
_________________________
North End
OFF OF SALEM Street, Dante pulled his Ford into the small lot next to North End Auto Body. He parked beside a dumpster, got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and listened to the Ford’s engine ping and hiss and what sounded like a steel ball ricocheting inside a hollow metal tin. Most likely it was the oil pump going to shit. He wondered how much juice the car had left, if any.
There were a few other cars in the lot but they were in far worse shape than Dante’s. A junked-out Chevy with its windshield cracked and spiderwebbed, the bumpers hanging off, and four flat tires. A Chrysler DeSoto that had been in a car wreck, the passenger side smashed in as if the metal were no more solid than a foil gum wrapper. And the husk of an old Hudson passenger car from the Depression era, its sides pockmarked with blistering rust, the front hood no longer covering an engine but a family of raccoons.
Dante walked across the lot toward the building. One of the circular lamps above the gas pumps remained on, occasionally flickering as if in some secret code. The garage in back was covered in darkness, the metal dock door rolled down and chain-locked. Tufts of weeds and crabgrass came up through cracks in the concrete. Broken glass shimmered along the walkway leading to the front door. The two large windows were cluttered with advertisements yellowed and wrinkled from the sun: Golden Shell. Veedol. RPM. Johnson Motor Oil. Phillips 66. Dante peered between the gaps to see if the owner was still in the back office, but the place had been shut down for the night.
Dante tried the door anyway. It was locked.
He’d done a bit of work over the past six months for the owner, a lean and weathered Sicilian who called himself John even though his real name was Gianni. Changing oil, filling tanks, doing some spot-welding, soldering, touch-ups, and all-out paint jobs. Just last week, he’d spray-painted a pristine red Plymouth all white. He’d known it was hot, probably stolen the night before from one of the suburbs bordering the city, but he was getting twenty-five dollars for it so he kept his
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