16. Finn
Finn
Appetite or Hunger?
“It’s to Eamon’s funeral I’ll be going, lads.” I jog upstairs to make the announcement.
I’m dressed in Brooklyn camouflage, which means I’m wearing a dark brown leather bomber jacket, aviator sunglasses, and matching trilby.
Mickey and Johnny are sparring next to the ring where they’ll be out of the way of the builders. The new octagon cage is taking shape. The floors are slanted so the boys at the back will be able to see.
There’s an extension out back for a restroom and bar.
Did I bother getting a permit to build this?
Did I, fuck.
I own the docks and every warehouse close to it. I dare a bleeding bureaucrat to try sticking his nose in here. He’ll be having his tea in heaven five minutes later, I swear it.
Johnny and Mickey drop their hands to look at me.
“Jaysus, lad, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb wearing that.” Johnny doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to fashion. “You look like a fecking Ruski pimp. It’s summer and you’re dressed for a Moscow winter.”
Mickey agrees. “Ah, if you plan on going out during the daylight, son, you should show some skin.”
I don’t take offense. “Like a tee-shirt?”
Mickey nixes the suggestion. “Your arms and ink will turn folks’ heads. Make it a long-sleeved tee-shirt. And a baseball cap.”
I trot downstairs again and start throwing clothes off hangers and shelves; manage to find a black Henley shirt with long sleeves. The only cap I have has a Knicks logo.
The shirt pulls tight over my chest, shoulders, and biceps. I roll my neck and stretch. I do a few squats until my powerful thighs stretch out the denim too.
The band of my briefs is hidden under the shirt, so I skip wearing a belt.
Training bulks me out, but it also triggers all that aggression I’m usually able to keep fairly well-hidden. There’s only so many times a man can punch a bag before he wants heads instead.
I punch the air using my fists. Straight right, left hook, too fast to be more than a blur. It feels marginally better.
Johnny checks me going out again, points at my cap. “The Knicks?” He shakes his head, goes back to sparring with Mickey.
It’s been a busy couple of days. Johnny and Mickey visited Fourth Avenue to harvest names and numbers from Eamon’s staff.
That night, we visited a good many homes where retired O’Shea soldiers live. They took one look at me and turned pale. “An t-anam!”
Some thought I was back for vengeance. Or fierce pissed that they’d given up on the family.
I explained a few things. I wasn’t a ghost. Nor did I blame them for taking one look at what Connor and Eamon had become and going straight off to hang up their hats.
“The O’Sheas are back. If you want fecking tea parties and business mergers, go to Maguire. But if you want a stake in the game at play, take this.”
Every last one of them got a burner phone with my number on it.
I’ve got over a hundred messages now, and each one pledges me allegiance.
I catch Liall, the barman outside the O’Shea pub, on his way to work. He gives me the nod. I give it back.
He’s on board—sent me a message to say so last night.
“What’s the story?” There’s a fair bit of news I have to catch up on.
Liall gets right on and tells me.
“Connor lost most of his soldiers after you left, Boss. He sent them to do your work and they weren’t ready for it. Those who weren’t identified and jailed ended up as targets themselves.”
“And the unions?” They weren’t only a source of income but the main source of our power.
“Fees stopped coming in, so the union bosses had no choice but to start selling leases and land to cover expenses. One of the dockworkers got injured, and that’s how they found out the insurance lapsed.”
That makes me halt. “Who the feck had the brass balls to buy O’Shea property?” And when I fucking find out who it is, it’s a proper gutting I’ll be giving them.
“Saoirse Byrne-Maguire. It was she who purchased the land and bought up many of the leases.”
I think this is what business folk call problematic. I call it… poetic justice?
Brutal. Yeah. It’s a slap in the face for me, for sure.
Liall steps back a pace when he sees me looking wicked raging. I reach over and pat his back.
“I’m grand. I won’t give out to you, Liall.”
“Th-thanks. O’Shea soldiers had to give up and leave, Boss. Don’t hold it against them. No one feared the name, so no one paid the name. It’s as simple as that.”
We part ways. I’ve got a lot to think about as I walk to the cemetery. Head down to hide my face—I’m just another man with his hands in his pockets and his head in the clouds.
I’m hoping for a chance to see who’s got the guts to mourn an O’Shea in public. Fuck knows that none of them mourned me until it was too late.
I’m less like the Prodigal Son and more like the Holy Ghost this time around. People need a Savior, and I’m going to be there for them.
Not because I care. Certainly not because I want power and money.
Because it’s my fucking birthright.
***
When I look up to see where I’m going, people react differently to my face. Men cross over to the other side of the road; younger women smile and walk as close as they dare.
A few old ladies look over their shoulders and quicken their pace when they see me coming from behind.
Animal instinct.
I don’t look like a thug or a gangster. I register as dangerous on their predator-meter.
None of their prey mindset would help if I’d marked them. All that shite about key fobs and eye gouges never works—it only prolongs the inevitable.
And if I want someone dead, they won’t see me coming.
Eamon’s driver died in silence, his ability to cry gone when I sliced his voice box. After I dropped off Eamon’s body at his home, I used an earth mover to bury the car with the driver in it.
I’ve come to the cemetery early to pick a spot. Hidden by trees, quick exits available. It won’t be me standing at the gravesite with my hands clasped in silent prayer, that’s for sure.
They’re using an excavator to dig the grave. It’s one of the smaller model earth movers.
I learned how to operate one before I turned eight—already working construction in the old country. Boys grow up fast over there.
One man is on the ground checking the grapple doesn’t miss its mark. It would be a shame to dig up some sainted parishioner’s bones for the likes of Eamon O’Shea.
The man hunkers down next to the hole and uses a weighted measuring tape to check the depth. He gives the excavator operator the thumbs up when it reaches the right depth; where the scent of decomp can no longer rise out of the soil.
They pack up and move out of the sun.
It’s not long before the hearse creeps close enough for the casket to be offloaded. The driver gets out, sees the two gravediggers standing under the tree smoking, and calls them over.
No one else is here. It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate man—Eamon locked in his box, heading for heaven on a wing and a prayer with no one to mourn his passing.
I hear their voices.
“Can you lend us a hand, fellas?”
The man who manned the excavator shakes his head. “My union would hear about it and that would be bad for me.”
The hearse driver breathes out loudly. It’s a hot day and it looks like he’s wearing a wool mix suit.
“I won’t tell anyone. It’s just that this one didn’t have any pallbearers. And the funeral director’s already pocketed the funeral fees.”
The teamster shrugs. “Get this one to help. He’s the sexton.”
The two men watch the teamster walk away.
So do I. He’s the sort of man I need on my side. Pretty damn ruthless.
The driver checks that the casket goes in the hole before he fucks off. The sexton bulldozes the soil over the coffin, lays the sod over it, and starts neatening the grave site.
I’m about to leave when movement catches my eye. A slender female approaches.
One of those wide-brimmed floppy sun hats covers her long black hair. One hand holds a bouquet of red roses and the other hand grips a cotton pouch purse with a tasseled drawstring.
The straps of her gold sandals are so thin it looks like she’s barefoot until she gets closer. A thin black nylon dress shirt flaps open, all the buttons undone.
She could be naked, because her skin is so pale under the white lace of her mini dress.
A flash of red where her full lips and cheeks catch the sunshine.
Saoirse.
She lays the bouquet on the uneven sod and chats with the sexton for a while.
He touches the brim of his cap and returns to the chapel. Saoirse watches him go before getting down to do what she came here for.
A flash of silver as she takes a hipflask out of her purse. Instead of pouring one out for the corpse in the box, she up-ends the flask and drinks the contents in one long pull.
I can see her throat swallowing as she tips her head back. Her hat falls off, but she doesn’t bother picking it up.
She wipes her red mouth with the back of her hand and sways while staring at the gravestone.
And then she throws off the thin nylon shirt coat and starts dancing.
She is naked under the white lace dress. I know this, because she scopes out the cemetery quickly before slipping out of her panties.
In the hot sun, with the only shadows under the trees, she cavorts and gambols like a fawn under the summer sky. Her body is tight and flawless, but clearly that of a grown woman.
My eyes are drawn down to the triangle of dark pubic hair, and up to the sharp points of her nipples hidden like two brides by the lace.
Something stirs inside me. And it’s not my cock. I got rock hard the second I saw her coming.
What stirs me so deeply is seeing her dancing with no cares left in the world.
Saoirse means freedom.
It looks like she’s finally found freedom. She’s free.
Free from me.
I can’t be having that. That’s wrong on so many levels.
Do I need to remind her that she belongs to me?