22. Consequences
Chapter twenty-two
Consequences
MICK
Moonlight leaks through the gap between O’Grady’s curtains and falls across the bed.
He sleeps too soundly for a man who spent the afternoon watching Kenneth Shaughnessy bleed out on the Bunker stage.
I lean against the wall near the foot of his bed and flick a rat pellet from my fingers.
It lands on his cheek.
O’Grady smacks at his face and snuffles, but does not wake.
I flick another. This one settles on his eyelid.
Still nothing.
The third lands in his open mouth.
He inhales sharply. I send another after it before he can breathe again.
His body jerks. The snore cuts off and he comes awake choking, clawing at his throat as he tries to sit up. His legs tangle in the sheets. He coughs without enough air behind it, eyes wide and watering.
I cross the room at an easy pace.
When he pitches forward, I strike him between the shoulder blades.
The pellets shoot from his mouth onto the blanket.
He drags in a ragged breath, then another.
I let him. I am not ready for him to die. "You don’t like your food?"
O’Grady's body stiffens, terror emanating from him in waves. "Mick."
"It’s designed especially for rats." I pick up the pellet that rolled nearest my boot and hold it between my thumb and forefinger. "Perfect balance of protein and fibrous nutrients."
"What are you doing here, you psycho?"
"Why do people say that like it’s an insult?" I quote Kara.
For my exceptional wife, it is a term of endearment.
O’Grady scrambles backward until his shoulders strike the headboard. The pungent smell of piss joins the sour stench of fear coming off him. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Feeding another rat."
"I’m no rat." His voice cracks. "I’ve never informed on anyone."
Wraith would disagree. O'Grady told Kenneth that áine was converting the books from his former businesses to a digital system. Knowing what she would find, Kenneth set up another, last desperate attempt to eliminate áine before she could reveal what he'd been up to.
It didn't succeed, but that doesn't make Kenneth, or this man, any less culpable.
I don't bother bringing that up though. Tonight's visit is personal.
"You want me to believe you knew nothing about Kenneth’s plans to hand me over to the FBI?"
"I didn’t. I swear to you!"
"I know better."
His eyes dart toward the bedroom door. No help is coming. He doesn't have on site soldiers. And after her son was fostered to another mob, Mrs. O'Grady took their daughter and went to visit her parents in Boston. Indefinitely.
She's less of a fool than her husband, but women often are.
"If Kenneth told you different, he was lying."
"Here’s the thing." I push away from the bed and stroll toward the dresser. "I don’t believe you."
His breathing speeds up.
"Sucks to be you, I suppose. Because I’m sure you know what that means."
"Stop trying to scare me." His words come faster now, desperation pretending to be defiance. "If you were going to kill me, you would’ve done it in front of the whole mob."
"That’s where you’re wrong."
I lift the framed photograph on his dresser.
O’Grady and his wife at some charity dinner, both of them smiling for the camera. He has one hand at her waist and the expression of a man who believes his life is secure.
I put the photograph back.
"Six years ago, we had too many rats. Psychologically, it would be bad for morale if the men thought we had another infestation."
O’Grady’s mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
"I’m not about to let the mob see that Kenneth sowed his rotten seeds of insurrection among men my soldiers call brother."
"They’re not your soldiers." He latches onto the words like they can save him. "They’re Brogan’s soldiers."
I smile.
His gaze drops to my mouth and his face loses what little color remains.
"I’ll let you in on a secret. The rest of the mob finds out on Labor Day." I draw my skean from its sheath and flip it once into the air. The blade shines in the moonlight before I catch it by the handle. "Brogan is stepping down, and I’m taking over the Shaughnessy Mob."
O’Grady stares at me.
"We’ll all celebrate." I slide the knife back into its sheath. "Well, all of us except you, Kenneth and that idiot at the tribunal who claimed Shaughnessy blood should run the Shaughnessy mob."
His lips tremble.
"You know what that means?" I wait for him to answer.
But he just shakes his head.
"That implies my son, Brogan's grandson, isn't Shaughnessy blood. Feckin' idgit."
"I never said that," he lies, his body shaking hard enough to rattle the headboard. "You can’t kill me without Brogan’s sanction. You’re not Boss yet."
"I can do whatever the fuck I want." I grab two more pellets of rat food from my pocket. "And I will always do whatever I need to do to protect my family and its legacy."
His eyes lock on the knife in my hand.
I'd like to stab him through the heart with it like Wraith did to Kenneth. It's poetic and I'm an Irishman. Sociopath, or not.
"You and your shite conspirators threatened my son’s future. I won’t allow a threat to Kara or any of my chislers to stand."
"I didn’t threaten your kids," he lies again.
"You conspired to remove me."
He shakes his head violently. "That’s not the same thing."
"It is." If I fall, there's no one to stand between my son and any man who wants to usurp him before he's old enough and strong enough to protect himself.
He's stronger and smarter than other kids his age, but he's still a chisler. He still needs protecting.
O'Grady starts crying.
Not loudly. His face crumples and tears spill over as he looks at me like there is still a version of this night where he talks his way out of the grave he dug.
"If you had been smart enough to understand that," I say, "you never would have joined Kenneth’s attempt to push me out."
"Mick, please."
I am finished with the conversation.
I hold out my hand. "Eat your food, little rat."
He stares at the knife in my other hand for long seconds, but then takes the pellets and chews them, gagging as he forces himself to swallow.
"Please, Mick. I'll never go against you again. You're my boss," he pleads. "I'll eat all the rat food you want me to, but don't kill me. I learned my lesson."
What does he think this is? A learning moment?
Fuck that. But I pretend to think about it and nod. "Don't forget it again."
He's blubbering his thanks as I walk back toward the door.
He'll be dead dizzy and disoriented in ten minutes and dead in an hour. It will look like a heart attack.
There will be men in the mob who know better.
Some of them listened to Kenneth and his cronies when they spouted off about how I should never have been made underboss. They'll hear about O'Grady's death.
And Noah's basketball buddy who will tragically die tomorrow night in a home invasion gone wrong, shot with a gangbangers gun linked to an armed robbery and the murder of a rival gang member.
Those men will lie awake for the next year wondering when I will learn their names.
Some of them, I already know. They are not a danger to me and mine though. That does not mean they escape consequence.
Every bad assignment I give them, they will know why they got it. When they lose rank, they will understand the demotion even if their lieutenants provide another reason.
When their children are rejected from St. Patrick’s, they will know who closed the door. When their wives discover the mistresses they thought they hid so carefully, they will understand exactly how the information reached them.
They will spend every day waiting for me to decide they have suffered enough.
Maybe one day I will give them peace.