“Johnny won’t turn,” he said. “Because he didn’t do nothing.”
“Well,” I said. “Whatever happens, I think your hopes of working for Boston Fire aren’t looking so good.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Screw ’em.”
“Do some good,” I said. “You tell them how Johnny burned that church and killed three of their people. Stand up.”
“And make Ma proud of me?” Teehan said. He grinned sarcastically when he said it.
“Exactly.”
He shook his head, spit on the ground, and brushed past my shoulder. He slammed his car door behind him and took off so fast out of the cemetery that a kitchen chair fell from the trunk and cracked onto the road. He left it there and sped off.
I watched him go and turned on the tracking app on my telephone.
Someday the human spirit will prevail over technology. But in the meantime, it made my job much easier.
Kevin met Johnny down in the Seaport where the city had dumped a mountain of snow that winter. It was late June, but some of the black snow hadn’t melted. They parked their cars on the perimeter of the chain-link by a sign that warned people against dumping shit. But shit had mixed in with the black snow: parts of cars, traffic signs, old bicycles lay in useless heaps like a scrap yard. Kevin looked all around the wide open space and across the harbor and the big warehouses packed close by. Nobody had followed. Seagulls picked scraps out of the mess and flew away.
He got out of the Crown Vic, still loaded down with clothes and his mom’s old furniture, and walked up to Johnny’s red Blazer with the fire department logo on the door. He tapped on the side window and Johnny opened up.
He had on a baseball cap and sunglasses, listening to the news.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Johnny said.
“As far as I can until the money runs out.”
“You run and they’ll find you,” he said. “There’s no way they know what we’ve been doing. Don’t get all squirrely.”
“That guy Spenser found me,” Kevin said. “He knows you killed Featherstone and set the Holy Innocents fire.”
“Bullshit.”
“He says cops know it, too,” he said. “They’re looking for you.”
“Ain’t it funny,” Johnny said. “I just got a call from Big Ray. He wants to meet and talk about things. I wonder how stupid these cops think I am? I said, ‘Sure, Big Ray, I’d be happy to meet anytime and anyplace.’ You know why? Because they got nothing and I’m not saying jack shit. If they pull you in, kid, you keep your mouth shut. Ray’s a nut. He’s gotten in trouble with the cops before. Any halfwit attorney could tear him a new asshole. He’s a bad cop.”
“Where’s he want to meet?”
“Where else?” Johnny said. “The fucking pastry shop. But as soon as I get there, me and him are going for a ride and to have a serious talk. I’m going to give him a chance to stick with things, stick with our plan. Boston Fire should be kissing our ass for all we done for them. At the end of the year, the city will be cleaning up those disgraced firehouses, put those old engines out of service. This is a turning point for all of us. We can’t let Ray or some old man fuck it all up.”
“Why’d you have to kill that fucking guy?”
Johnny reached for a pack of cigarettes and a Bic lighter on his dash. He lit one up and shook his head. “’Cause he wouldn’t shut up.”
“What about the church?” Kevin said. “This was supposed to wake up the mayor’s office, not kill some firemen.”
“Let me tell you something,” Johnny said. He pointed the glowing end of the cigarette at Kevin’s chest. “Ain’t no such thing as a bloodless revolution. If people get hurt, that’s because they need better training. Better equipment. When this is all over, I’m going to meet with Commissioner Foley and let him know my findings of the last four years. Somebody in that department needs some goddamn brains.”
“Don’t hurt Ray,” Kevin said. “Okay?”
“I’m not going hurt the moron,” Johnny said. “I’m going to give him a chance to go out on top. If they got something on him. Or you and me. This isn’t the way it all ends. All this stuff. The stupid Dumpsters and old buildings. It’s all been small. The church was something special. The church had meaning. You got to build something that everyone in Boston will see. Like a symbol for people to talk about.”
“Somebody must’ve seen Ray in the South End while we lit up the detective’s building,” Kevin said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Biggest goddamn fire you ever saw,” Johnny said. He jutted his chin toward a long row of brick warehouses against the harbor. “It’ll light up the whole harbor. It’s packed with nothing but boxes and wood, old pieces of furniture. I couldn’t have rigged it better myself. Probably don’t even need nothing more than a kitchen match.”
“Ray would never talk about us,” Kevin said. “Ray’s stand-up.”