24. Finn
Finn
To My Face
Damien Tooley from the bakery is watching me train. He’s a trusted captain who would never talk about my form outside these four walls or use it to get a leg up in the stakes.
Which is an important detail now that the betting books are up and running. And so am I up and running—doing laps around the warehouse.
Bright arc lights glare down on the octagon and throw everything else into darkness. No natural lighting comes into this place unless someone opens a door.
I lope around in the shadows. Head down. Breathe. Run.
My track sneakers shriek when they come into contact with the painted concrete.
I’ve always been a darkness and light type of guy. Black and white with no gray areas. It makes it easier for me to make a judgment call that way.
It makes me stronger when there’s only two sides to a coin. And it also makes me appear as ruthless, but I’ve never been one to care about appearances.
Damien’s conversation with Mickey goes in and out of earshot as I run around and around.
“I dunno how he’ll take it—” That’s what I hear Damien saying to Mickey during my first lap.
“Best not to make that decision yourself—” That’s coming from Mickey during my fourth lap.
“Doesn’t want to get caught—” Damien. Seventh lap.
“Fuck it. Just tell him—” Mickey checks the lap counter on his phone when I slow down and stop. “That’s only ten, son.”
I grab a towel and throw it around my neck. “What are you talking about?”
This isn’t the sort of establishment where my captains string me along or avoid answering. Damien comes straight out and tells me.
“The bakery’s still considered to be neutral territory, Boss. Declan thinks I’m on the level, even after those bastards killed my nephew so they could blame it on you.”
Yet another reason why I have to lie low. Until I rise high enough to get all the cops over to my side, I’m a possible suspect in that homicide.
“How did you convince Declan that you were okay with it?” I use the towel to wipe my face.
Mickey walks to a row of chairs by the octagon and fetches a sweatshirt for me.
I’m listening to Damien as I pull it on.
He winces, shakes his head. “I had to pretend the lad had been stealing from me. It nearly killed me to tell that lie. And I haven’t even been able to confess it.”
In the Five Boroughs, it’s a well-known fact that no mob business gets put into a confession. Not to save our souls, but to save Father O’Malley over at St. Brendan’s. No true Catholic would jeopardize a priest’s life by telling him gang secrets.
Mickey clicks his tongue and sucks his teeth. “I’ve already vetted Damien! He’s sound, I’m telling you.”
“Sure.” I rotate my hand to let Damien know he can carry on.
“The reason I emphasized the bakery’s neutral status, Boss, is because Mrs… Saoirse came by my house.”
That gets my attention. “Yeah? Did she walk?” I’ve got to be sure her driver isn’t a loose end.
He gives me a devout nod. All my men know how Saoirse figures in my priorities.
“This is my impression, and not a cold hard fact.” Damien makes that clear up front. “She came across as secretive. Arrived late at night. Walked from wherever she was dropped off. Had a fancy scarf hiding her hair. No phone.”
Mickey comments. “She’s secretive for good reason. Got to be. But it’s a bleeding bold move to come knocking on your door at night all the same.”
“Not really.” Damien defends Saoirse. I admire him for doing that. “I’m a married man with two daughters and a wife in the house. I still pay my dues as a supporter of Patrick Byrne, and Saoirse’s taken over from her Da.”
Twisting the cap off my bottle of water, I get the feeling something highly significant was told to Damien during Saoirse’s visit.
“She wanted me to give you a message, Boss.”
It catches me off guard. I choke on the water a bit and spend a few minutes coughing. The girl tried to beat me to death the last time we hooked up. What changed?
I didn’t think she was going to make it this easy for me.
Mickey sees the catch first while I drink more water to clear my throat.
“Does she know that you’ve swapped sides, Damien? Holy Mother of God. If they suspect you—”
Damien calms down Mickey. “No, it was before your time, but Saoirse and Finn used to meet up at the apartment over the bakery. They were rumbled. Someone peached. But Saoirse must still see me as a link to our boy here.”
Things have felt kind of flat since that night on the church floor. Knowing that Saoirse wants to see me again puts some life back into me.
“Spit it out, Damien. It’s dying I’m fecking doing while you hum and ha.”
He chuckles. “That’s where the story begins and ends. I pretended I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. She was gracious and accepting. And she left soon after I told her that.”
Why do I feel so deflated? It’s not like Damien could admit to being a captain in my ever-expanding army of working class supporters.
But he’s not done yet. “Guess who turned up at the bakery the following morning?”
I can get real cranky when my hopes are up. “If you don’t want me to send you out for your last tea, Damien, it’s spitting out the fecking facts you’ll be doing.”
Mickey places a soothing hand on my arm, but doesn’t add to what I’m laying down. He knows I’ve locked on Saoirse.
Damien starts talking real fast. “A civilian came and asked me to set up a meeting with you… if I can. No connection to Declan or Patrick.” He holds out a business card. “He’s a realtor over in the Bronx. I swear the lad wouldn’t know the taste of blaas and pan if it were thrown at him.”
Realtor. That’s Saoirse. Clever girl.
I’ll meet him face to face. Not just to see if he’s on the level, but to listen to Saoirse’s message.
After weighing it up, I’m not jealous of a man being her messenger, not now that I know everything that goes on inside Declan’s domestic bliss of a mansion. Heh.
I’m glad this is being said in front of Mickey. I might need to run it past Johnny too. I don’t trust anyone coming from the other side yet, not with unsolved murders hanging over my head.
And not with the bite marks from Saoirse’s teeth still etched on my cheekbone.
Since our last meeting, Saoirse’s had plenty of time to figure it out. How to recruit someone to take me out. How to lure me into letting down my guard.
No need to overthink it. If she wants me dead, I have a feeling she’ll want to do the dirty deed herself. After what happened in the chapel, our girl is better than average at dirty deeds.
“Call—” I look at the name on the card. “Jack S. Clegg, and tell him you’ve put out the word. If he asks for a date or a time and place, smack him down. Let him know that we control this little scenario Saoirse wants to set up, right? Tell him to stand down until we say so.”
That should give Saoirse a clue as to how busy I am.
“Back to training?” Mickey makes the suggestion.
Giving Damien a fist bump and a nod, I get back to running.
***
The word is out. No bets except through my bookies. I’ve told them to pay out winners in cash and offer favorable odds.
There’s nothing better for a working man than holding a wad of greenbacks in his hand after risking a flutter.
A slow, steady trickle of cash has started to come in.
The East Coast yatcha club has added the O’Shea docklands to the circuit. We get two bouts a week. One bout for all-comers, and one bout as a prize fight with circuit champions only.
It has the Irish pride pumping to see me get in the ring with another pro fighter. I don’t mind facing off against a large fella such as myself. It’s the small, scrappy fighters I have to watch out for.
Let one of those motherfuckers get me in a neck lock and it’s like trying to prise a piano wire out of a concrete block.
Johnny, Mickey, and myself sit down with the union bosses. I promise to sponsor five hundred men’s joining fees in return for them giving one of my representatives a seat at the table.
We shake on it like I knew they would. I could already see them spending the money in their eyes. In ten years, they’ll all be dead and my man at the table will be perfectly positioned to take over.
“I’m told you’re the man to talk to if we needed a favor, Finn.” One of the bosses corners me after the meeting.
“Name it.” I like to get to the point.
He doesn’t beat around the bush.
“We need the property developments around the docklands to stop. Everyone is being priced out of the market. You’re not going to believe it, Finn, but those idiots buying their million dollar condos want us to prioritize saving the seagulls!”
Death, taxes, and seagulls aren’t going away anytime soon.
Johnny agrees. “Yep. I heard the gentrification of the docks was aided by lawyers strong-arming local residents into selling for cents on the dollar.”
“Or else what?” There’s always a threat.
“Or else the house gets burned down when the homeowners step out for any reason.”
Shit, Saoirse. You’ve gone hardcore, girl.
I leave the meeting having made no promises I can’t keep.
“Johnny, run over to Damien’s and give him an update. And tell him to set up that meeting with Jack S. Clegg.”
Johnny’s curious. “So you can find out if the lawyers belong to Declan?”
He has no idea how much Saoirse must hate the Docklands. Not just what it represents—my kingdom—but what must’ve happened here in the past.
Saoirse, bags packed, fake ID in her small hand, waiting to board a boat that would never sail away with her on it.
“It’s not Declan who wants to destroy the docklands, Johnny lad. Maguire might be an evil fecker, but he’s not spiteful.”
“You mean it’s—”
“I mean it’s a woman. A woman who’s long overdue a fecking landslide correction.”
I’m looking forward to punishing Saoirse… again.