Cormac
I’m standing at the docks, leaning against a crate and wondering if I’m going to meet with a bullet to the face today, or do something useful instead. It’s been two days since Scar and I returned to New York, and all we’ve done is fuck and lie in bed together, until we both agreed it was time to get some real work done. At least staying at Moira’s is safe, or at least it hasn’t become dangerous yet. The congressman came back last night—a man of forty-five who didn’t want anything to do with us, locking himself away with Moira. I don’t like the thought of it, but it’s safe place to stay, and he’ll be gone tomorrow. Stuffing my hands in my pockets and watching the ships drift by, I think of Scar, think of the sex, and think of the hugging. I guess the hugging is what’s surprised me most of all. I never thought a man like me would be big on hugging. But I’ve got to admit, it makes me feel closer to her.
I light a cigarette, because Moira isn’t the only one who smokes when she’s stressed out. All my life I’ve been in this game, and now I’m getting nervous about meeting a man I’ve known since I was a kid. Finally, Patrick O’Hara comes walking across the parking lot. He’s an older man, around fifty, wearing a green army-style jacket and thick cargo pants. His face is scarred down one side where he was glassed in a bar fight before I was born, and on top, he’s bald as an egg. He was one of my father’s closest friends and allies, and there’s no way in hell he’s gone over with Mickey. I hope, at least. The closer he gets, the more I have to tell myself that he’s on my side and that he isn’t going to pull a gun on me or anything. Being out in the open like this is making me twitchy.
Tossing the cigarette to the sun-burned concrete, I approach Patrick. “How’s it going, Pat?”
“Cormac, lad.” Patrick throws his arms around me. “Fucking animals. Fucking animals for what they did to your old man. Makes me fucking sick.”
He releases me and we walk into a warehouse we’ve used for stowing all sorts of merchandise over the years. Right now, dad’s last shipment of illegal cigarettes sits ignored in the corner. Otherwise, it’s empty, wide and looming, sunlight coming in through high-set windows. It’s the sort of place a man like Patrick would take a man like me if he wanted to murder me quietly. I prepare myself for a fight, but when we find two chairs and sit down opposite each other, I realize there’s no need for that. Patrick looks old and tired.
“Fucking Mickey,” he says, shaking his head.
“You might be angry,” I reply. “But the rest of the family seems to be pretty goddamn okay with it. If Mickey killing my old man is such a problem, why is he still breathing?”
Patrick wriggles awkwardly. “It’s not as simple as that, Cor. Not even close.”
“Explain it to me, then.”
“Mickey didn’t just kill your old man and that was that. He came in with backup, men from all other the states, as far as I can tell. His own personal army. All sorts of men—homeless men and ex-soldiers, bored construction workers, and all sorts. He’s been off recruiting for years, it seems like, trying to make a bid for Don. He has the numbers, and you’ve gotta understand, Cor, that most of the lads have families, wives, and kids, and they don’t wanna go to war unless there’s good reason to.”
I stand up, kicking my chair back. It screeches as it slides across the warehouse floor. “And killing the Don isn’t good reason?” I roar, looming over this man who once gave me a dollar for the arcade machines. “Murdering the Don and taking over the fucking family isn’t good reason?”
Patrick slumps his shoulders. “I know, I know. I agree with you. And a lot of the guys probably agree with you too. But you’re not gonna catch them tellin’ me that, or nobody else for that matter. Everyone’s all paranoid. Everyone’s lookin’ over their shoulders, you know. Don’t know who to trust. Can’t trust no one. Because everyone thinks everyone else is working with Mickey or wants to be with Mickey.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a family,” I say, lowering my voice. Seeing a man like Patrick get small and scared makes me feel like shit. “Listen, I want you to be ready, Pat.”
“For what?”
“For me,” I say. “When I come through, whatever I’m doing, you need to be ready to back me up. If that means taking out one of Mickey’s thugs, all right. If it means just not shooting me when he asks you to, all right. You get it? You’re on my side now. For the love my pa had for you. For the love I have for you, old man. You’re on my team.”
Patrick rises to his feet, face hardened now. He looks a lot less timid than he did a second ago. “I can get onboard with that. I’ll wait for you, Cor. I’ll be ready.”
The next day, I arrange to meet Smiley at a bar downtown, a dingy, grimy place called Lit with a faded picture of a lighter hanging above the door. The floor is sticky and the smell of weed is thick in the air, but it’s quiet and out of the way and nobody around this way knows me. Smiley—whose real name is Charles Gregory and who once knocked out a man’s two front teeth for calling him Charles Gregory—comes walking into the bar like a man ready to piss his pants. Smiley is lanky with a skinny, hollow-looking face. He looks like a meth-head, even if he’s never touched it. It’s strange to see him looking so scared, since once I saw him floor two men twice his size without blinking.
He sits opposite me, looking up and down the dimly-lit room. There’s nothing to see except for a few old people drinking alone.
“Cor,” Smiley says. This close, I can see the scars which run up either side of his face, which is why they call him Smiley. “It’s good to see you, man. Course it’s good to see you. But I gotta say I’m a little—what’s the word—I guess you could say I’m a little apprehensive about being here. I just don’t wanna get into any bad shit, ya dig? It’s just …I’m not scared, I wouldn’t go that far—you know I got married a couple of years back? Of course you do. You were there. Sheila’s pregnant, is the thing, and I can’t be doin’ any undercover sort of work or nothin’ like that.”
“But you’re here,” I say. “Which means you must care some.” I grab the whisky bottle from the other side of the table and pour us two glasses. “Here.” I slide his across. He takes a long sip; when he places the glass down, he’s not fidgeting as much. “I don’t want to get your wife or kid hurt, Smiley. I’d never want that. But you’ve got to understand that working for Mickey, you’re not going to be around to protect them very long. Maybe he’ll hurt them just for the fun of it.”
He flinches, and I know I’m onto something.
“He’s an asshole,” I say. “But lately, I bet he’s become more than that. An asshole everyone can ignore is one thing. An asshole who’s in charge—”
“He beat him,” Smiley whispers, a faraway look in his eyes, like he’d rather not remember but can’t help it. “He had this little kid, you see—must’ve been like five or six—and he just beat the hell outta him because—we were at a bar, all of us, and this barmaid had her kid with her. And Mickey didn’t like that the barmaid wasn’t ... he was all kissing on this barmaid and she didn’t like it none, so Mickey just smacked her kid five, six times across the face. Broke his nose, knocked out a couple of his teeth. He’s an animal, but he’s got goons all around him. They worship him, Cor. They worship that ogre fuck.”
I pour Smiley another whiskey. “Listen,” I say, sliding the glass across to him. “I don’t need you to do anything. All I need from you is a promise. If some shit goes down—might be tomorrow, might be in a month—you’ll be ready to back me up. No undercover stuff. No sneaking around. Just promise to be on my side and not Mickey’s.”
“Well, shit, Cor.” Smiley knocks his whiskey back. “You know you can count on that.”
I meet Trevor, Dylan, and Liam behind a kid’s school during recess, sitting behind some bike shed,s knowing that Mickey would never think to look here. They have similar stories to tell me about Mickey. “He just put his hand up her dress, right there, right in front of everybody and when her feller came up and got in his face, one of his goons just blew his fucking head off, Cor. I ain’t no pussy when it comes to women, but fuck, putting your hand up another man’s wife’s skirt like that. That’s somethin’ even an animal wouldn’t do. Makes me sick.” They all agree that they’ll help me, or at least not shoot at me, if it ever comes to a head with Mickey.
I get seven more men on my side over the course of the next couple of days, returning exhausted in the evenings, knowing that any of one those men might go and tell Mickey what’s going on to try and earn some brownie points. But when I look into their eyes, I see love for my old man in there.
I get back to the penthouse one late afternoon with my head aching like hell. I don’t know what it is, and then I’m in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, terrified that I might cry. I hunch over, clench my fists, and tell myself I have to be strong now; a Don has to be strong. Scar enters the room quietly, a cheeky smile on her face. I know she’ll want to fuck. We’ve been fucking like mad, even though both of us are tired from our separate investigations. But when she reaches me, the smile falters.
“Cormac?” she says uncertainty. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I nod, but I can’t look her in the face. I’m afraid if I do I’ll break down. What the hell is happening to me? “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”
“What is it?” She speaks softly. I think that’s what makes me start talking—the softness.
“Meeting with the guys, hearing them talk about dad ... Some of them don’t even mention dad, but I can see it in their eyes. I can see it, just by looking at them. All of them loved him, Scar. All of them respected him. One of the fellas told me earlier about the time dad stood outside a woman’s house for thirteen hours straight holding a bunch of flowers because he wanted to go on a date with her. This was before he became Don. It’s just ... Fuck, I just miss him, Scar. I miss him.”
The tears get dangerously close when Scar puts her hand on top of my hand, but I cough and force them back. I won’t cry. I can’t.
“You’re allowed to be upset, Cor,” she says, running her thumb along my knuckle.
“Cor,” I echo. I look into her face and see that she’s watching me with a wounded expression. It’s like she can’t help but comfort me, but knows she shouldn’t. Maybe it’s all that FBI stuff kicking in. Maybe the knowledge that, even if we’re on the same side now, one day soon we might be enemies. I force that from my mind. “Cor. You’ve never called me that before.”
She smiles. Her sea-green eyes light up mischievously. I’m constantly surprised this past week with just how quickly Scar can change. One second she’s serious, the next she’s playful and flirty. It’d give me whiplash if I didn’t love it so much.
“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” She kisses me on the nose. “Don’t think you have to be so strong all the time. You’re only human, Cor. You can’t help it if you’re sad, can you?”
I stand up and close the door. When I turn back to Scar, her chest is rising and falling. She’s leaning back, her legs opening. All this happens naturally. I bet she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. We want each other on such an instinctive level, it just happens. Like a natural force, once it’s set in motion, it’s almost impossible to stop.
“I don’t want to be upset,” I tell her, my hands moving through her hair. “I want you.”