Blood in the Water Read online

  Soh could sense the realization dawning on his guest. ‘You were already moving against this man,’ the hirsute giant said in a tone of offense.

  Soh nodded. ‘It will serve our cause under any circumstances.’

  ‘You deceived me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Soh agreed. ‘But in this case, that, too, was a service to our cause.’

  Seven

  Diamond O’Connell sat at the table in her father’s kitchen, staring at her hands. People had always remarked on her hands. Her fingers were long and delicate, her skin porcelain. When she was younger, people often assumed she was a pianist based on the grace with which she moved her fingers. Or maybe a dancer. She had such natural beauty and poise as a child, everyone always said she was destined for a brilliant career in some section of the entertainment industry.

  Few made those assumptions anymore. Now, at nineteen, the tattoos started just above her wrists. Her hair, which had once been light when she was young, was dyed jet black and cut in severe bangs that ended just beneath her eyebrows. Her clothes were dark and layered, and she wore heavy unlaced boots that came halfway up her calves.

  Her beauty, though, was still undeniable. In some ways, her rejection of traditional fashion and make-up and other supposed hallmarks of attractiveness had made her more alluring. People saw strength in her nonconformity, and power in her refusal to bow to the expectations of others. And, she’d come to realize, men assumed her non-traditional appearance advertised promiscuity and a predilection toward sexual experimentation.

  Men were idiots.

  She’d always been willing to use that stupidity to her advantage. She’d been going to bars since before she could drive, and she couldn’t remember ever having to pay for a drink. Notwithstanding her willingness to accept drinks and dinners, though, she was selective with men. She chose only the worst.

  It wasn’t deliberate – at least she didn’t think it was. It was probably genetic. Given her parents, that would certainly make sense. They had hardly been decent role models. Their relationship had lacked any of the traditional hallmarks of stability. No rings, no vows, not even any cohabitation that lasted more than a few nights. And yet they had spent years drawn to each other with a passion that approached violence, crashing into each other’s lives like two storms merging into one, wrecking anyone and anything that happened to have the misfortune of being nearby when the thunder and lightning really got going.

  Diamond had spent her youth caught in their storm.

  Her mother had been a tempest unto herself, always searching in vain for brighter skies. Her few friends called her a dancer. Those who didn’t know her called her a stripper. Many who were less kind called her a whore. She had lived out on the fringe, in a part of the world that polite society ignored, and many thought existed only in films. It was a dark, dangerous, alluring world; one that was never quite suited to raising a daughter. And so it hadn’t surprised Diamond when one day she simply disappeared. It wasn’t even ‘one day’, really, it was more of a process. She had gone out for her shift at the club and hadn’t returned that night, which wasn’t unusual. Nor was it strange that she hadn’t returned that day or the next two nights. It was a pattern Diamond was used to, and she was fine at the time taking care of herself. It took a week without any sign of her mother before she grew concerned and went down to the police station to ask what she should do. She was thirteen years old. After that, she’d been told that she would be living with her father.

  Cormack O’Connell lived on an entirely different fringe. He worked down at the docks, but it was always clear to Diamond that there was more to his business than he let on. He knew too many people, and too many people were deferential to him to be explained by any role as a clerk or shipping manager. It was clear to her that he operated in the shadows of the law. She didn’t care, and she’d learned enough to know when not to ask questions. Whatever his business was, it provided enough for her to be comfortable in the little clapboard house off L Street in the clean middle-class section of South Boston.

  That was where she was now, in his house, at his kitchen table, uneaten eggs sitting on the plate in front of her, figuring out what to tell him when he got home.

  She wondered how he would react, how he would feel, what he would say and do. Her timing was deliberate. He had not come home the night before, which had become a semi-regular occurrence in recent months. It was a sign, she assumed, that he was seeing a woman. She wondered whether he would introduce her to whomever was taking up his evenings. Probably not. It didn’t seem likely that her father would be with someone he would feel was suitable to introduce to his precious daughter. He didn’t travel in any circles where he would meet anyone he would think was good enough. Diamond respected his privacy. She knew enough of the world to understand that, even at his age, men and women have needs.

  And in this instance she supposed that played to her benefit. If he was out getting laid last night – and maybe even again this morning – he might be relaxed enough to deal with her request. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference. He was stoic and hard to read under the best of circumstances. How he would handle this was anyone’s guess.

  She glanced at her hands again. Maybe she could have been a musician. Or an actor. Or a ballerina. It’s funny to think about what a person might have been if they’d grown up in a different fishbowl. She supposed it didn’t matter. You made the most of what you had to work with. There was no shame in that.

  She heard the lock turn in the front door.

  * * * * *

  Cormack O’Connell had been lost in thought on the drive home. It was a dangerous game he was playing, even for someone who had played the game for as long as he had. Boston was one of the largest ports in the country, and for years he’d controlled it with a certainty that was unchallenged. The world was changing, though, and he could feel others jockeying for position behind him. As a result, he’d started to cut some corners and seek help from people he never would have imagined working with before. He wondered whether his luck was running out.

  As he stepped out of his Buick sedan in front of his house, he felt an ache in his back and his knees. Approaching fifty, he was no longer a young man, though he didn’t quite feel old. He sometimes did feel tired, though – particularly after nights like this. He stretched his back as he closed the car door and looked around. It was a modest but pleasant life he’d created – certainly more modest than most in his position would have adopted. He’d never cared about flash. He cared about respect. And he had enough of that to be a burden.

  As he turned the lock in the front door, he felt the familiar satisfaction of coming home. This was his sanctuary. It was the place where the rest of his life melted away and he could be normal. His daughter, Diamond, was a large part of that. He remembered the moment he’d been told that she would have to live with him, after her mother had gone missing. He’d never known real fear until that moment.

  She had always been a part of his life, even before she’d come to live with him. He paid attention to birthdays and holidays, and spent time with her when it was possible. He probably could have contested paternity if he’d really wanted to. Her mother was no nun. But then again, he was no priest, so who was he to judge? And there was never any doubt that she was his daughter. She had his stunning bright-blue eyes and his attractive angular features. He had looked at her the first time, when she was just a baby, and he knew. He’d paid more than required in child support, and kept tabs on her life to make sure she was generally doing all right.

  But there was a big difference between being a part-time father and having full responsibility for raising a thirteen-year-old girl. The prospect had been enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. In those first few months, he’d probably slept less than a few hours a night, constantly worried that he was screwing something up.

  That had passed, though. They had settled into a comfortable routine, and they had come to rely on each other in ways that he hadn’t antici
pated. She was willful and determined, but he liked that about her. He wasn’t thrilled with the tattoos, but she was one of the smartest students in her school. She worked hard, and she had a good head on her shoulders and a solid heart, so he let things like that pass. It wasn’t like she would ever be hanging out with the Daughters of the American Revolution up on Marlborough Street anyway. She was from Southie, and he liked her that way. He sometimes felt like he’d let her down – like she could have been so much more if given the chance. But then he’d look at her and see her smile and realize that she was exactly who she wanted to be.

  That was enough. The time that he had with her, brief though it might be, was enough. He had to be in at work in an hour or so, but even that temporary respite from the rest of his reality would help to serve as his touchstone.

  He walked into the kitchen and saw her sitting at the table, and felt a wave of comfort roll over him. ‘Darlin’,’ he said with a smile. He’d never fully lost the Irish brogue from the land he’d left behind when he was twelve.

  ‘Mack,’ she said. They’d struggled early on over what she should call him. Even as a young child, ‘Dad’ just didn’t fit, but he’d never been comfortable with his own daughter calling him ‘Cormack’. It seemed too common and disrespectful. At some point they’d settled on ‘Mack’. She was the only one who would have ever been able to get away with such informality.

  ‘Good morning,’ she added.

  ‘Morning.’ He moved to the counter and picked up the coffee pot, pulled a mug out of the cupboard and poured. ‘You’re up early. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘OK. You?’

  He couldn’t tell whether there was a hint of reproach in her voice. He supposed it didn’t matter; she was entitled. Most parents didn’t stay out all night with the regularity that he had for most of her life. ‘I grabbed a few winks at the shipyard office. It was a late night.’ He wondered whether she believed him.

  ‘It’s been busy a lot, lately.’

  ‘Aye, it has. Not a bad thing for business, though.’

  ‘That’s good, I guess.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Particularly because I have a favor to ask. I need to borrow five hundred dollars.’

  He was lifting his mug to his lips, and her request caused a hitch; he spilled some coffee on his hand.

  Five hundred dollars, in the grand scheme of things, was a pittance, but he couldn’t recall her asking for money before. She was not materialistic. She had worked from the time she was sixteen, and he generally provided enough spending money to meet whatever additional modest needs she had. ‘Five hundred,’ he said pensively. He licked the spilled coffee off his hand. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  He looked at her carefully. Reading people was a particular strength of his; he could not have succeeded in his line of work had it not been. And yet the one person he found hardest to read was his own daughter. ‘You want me to give you that kind of money without knowing what it’s for?’

  ‘I would, yeah.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can do that.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’

  He thought about it for a moment. ‘I trust you more than I trust anyone else.’

  ‘That’s not saying that much, is it?’

  ‘Maybe not. What’s the money for?’

  He could see her struggle as she weighed whether to tell him or not. And then she took a deep breath and spoke the two words the father of every teenage daughter dreads most.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Eight

  From the outside, the Mariner Tavern looked like it had been condemned and abandoned. The two-story building listed to one side at the base of Pier Six in Charlestown’s old naval yard, its few windows blacked out, the small sign over the door long darkened, lettering missing, clinging to the broken shingles in resignation.

  Inside, the place was dim and poorly insulated. A draft swirled, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, leading most of the patrons to keep their outerwear on. No one cared. They were seafaring men used to living in the same clothes – both outer and inner – for days at a time. They reeked of the sea and all that she brought to them and they brought to her: salt and sweat and fear and diesel and pain and the guts of the animals she nurtured and they hunted. Even if the stench could be borne by tourists, it was not a place outsiders would want to visit. It was a private place: a place of shared experience beyond the grasp of those who had never fought the loneliness of the sea and lost the battle against indifference.

  Cookie Landrigan stood behind the bar, wiping down glasses and keeping an eye on the place. It could sometimes be a difficult task, but at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night business in the place was dying. It was an on-shift bar, frequented by the men who worked by day. Those on leave, with a week or more to blow the cash that slipped so easily into and out of their hands, found nicer places downtown where women were welcome and welcoming. The Mariner was for those who had to work the next day, and the days started early enough on the water that the nights were necessarily short.

  In one corner, a group off a cargo tanker that had pulled in earlier in the day drank with raised Greek voices and tense good cheer. Cookie knew that rowdy celebration could easily turn sour among men who had been confined together for weeks at a time. He’d served for ten years, slinging hash aboard the USS Warrington, a navy destroyer that spent most of her time in the early seventies trolling off the shore of North Vietnam, bombing anything that moved along the trails at the edge of the jungle. He’d seen the stress of close-quarters set best friends at each other’s throats over trifles as simple as a misplaced cigarette. Men who had been together for too long were nitroglycerine – unstable and explosive. The Greeks seemed to be in control of themselves, though.

  They’d better be, Cookie thought to himself. He’d always run a tight ship, and he had a heavy wooden club at the ready under the bar. Anyone stepping out of line at the Mariner was dealt with swiftly and in a manner that left a lasting impression. In that way, the Mariner was like most aspects of life along the waterfront.

  * * * * *

  The office above the bar at the Mariner was small but neat. There was a functional desk with a swivel chair behind it, and two mismatched chairs in front of it. The window behind the desk would have had a good view of the harbor if it hadn’t been caked with twenty years’ worth of diesel soot. There were two doors opposite the desk. One led to the narrow stairway down to the bar; the other led to a narrow hallway off which there was a bathroom and a tiny nook of a room with a cot and a small dresser.

  Cormack sat in the swivel chair, rocking slowly, his hands folded on his lap. He wasn’t a large man, but he was solid through the chest and shoulders, the way men who have spent a lifetime working the sea so often are. The dark beard that had framed his face for at least half of his nearly five decades was full and flecked with grey.

  ‘We go back a ways, Jimmy,’ he said to the man sitting before him, the Celtic lilt ever-present in his baritone voice.

  ‘We do,’ Jimmy responded. Cormack could hear the fear in Jimmy’s throat.

  ‘Long enough for you to know the rules.’

  ‘This was different,’ Jimmy started to say, but Cormack cut him off.

  ‘Different, was it?’ His smile was pure ice. ‘Well, if it was different, I guess the rules don’t apply, do they?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Isn’t it now?’

  Jimmy’s brow was slick, and he shifted in his seat. ‘It’s not. But Cormack, you gotta understand the deal I was gettin’ here, and I needed the help, y’know?’

  ‘Oh, well, you were gettin’ a deal, were you? I guess that’s all I need to know. If you were gettin’ a deal, then everything’s set right, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I just thought—’

  ‘You just thought I wouldn’t find out.’ Cormack’s voice was low and strong, and cut through the man before hi
m. He stared until Jimmy lowered his eyes and looked at the floor. Only then did he relent even a little. He sighed. ‘What are my rules on this, Jimmy?’

  ‘You get a cut of everything that comes or goes.’

  ‘Exactly. And you didn’t give me my cut, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t, but I got it here.’ Jimmy pulled out a stack of bills and held it up for Cormack to see. ‘See, I kept it for you. I would have given it to you sooner, but I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘And you couldn’t tell me because you were breaking one of my other rules, weren’t you?’ Jimmy didn’t answer. ‘What’s my other rule on this?

  Jimmy seemed to struggle as he answered. ‘No human cargo.’

  ‘That’s right. And why is that?’

  Jimmy’s head went even lower. ‘The cops don’t like human smuggling,’ he said.

  At this, Cormack exploded. ‘For Christ’s sake, Jimmy, it’s not the cops, it’s the fuckin’ Feds!’ He lowered his voice. ‘Immigration, FBI, Homeland Security, the US Attorney’s office. Every single one of them has got fuckin’ jurisdiction. And it’s not that they don’t like it – it’s a fuckin’ holy war for them! Do you remember when they found that cargo container full of dead Chinese in the nineties? They shut the whole fuckin’ harbor up for a year. A few hundred kilos of coke – well, they find that, they make a few headlines and bust the people bringing it in, and then they go back to business as usual. But a cargo container full of dead chinks? That gets people really upset, and when people get really upset, the political types see opportunity.’

  ‘These weren’t chinks,’ Jimmy said. ‘These were girls, Cormack! Russian girls, and at a thousand a head, I’m not gonna get cheaper pros.’

  ‘Slaves, you mean,’ Cormack growled. He leaned over the desk so that his face was close to Jimmy. ‘Understand me, Jimmy, I don’t want you putting these girls to work. I hear that any of them are on their backs for you, you’ll be gettin’ a visit you don’t want.’