Ocean Park Page 2

  “Who knows what that bird is capable of? I’ll tell you one thing. He hasn’t been to a Mass in twenty years at St. Ambrose. I’d know. Maybe he’s taking communion at St. Margaret’s with the rest of our traitorous parishioners.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him, Father.”

  “I’d say send my regards, but I make it a habit not to fib when I’m standing directly in front of the altar.”

  “What about the girl, Father? Do you know her? Her name is Channary.”

  “Never seen the poor thing, but I recognized the tongue. Cambodian.”

  “I know. Health and Human Services is already looking for a translator.”

  “She probably lives down near the Saugus River, you know, where those Asians have taken over. Buddhists, all of ’em. Temple in the house and all that, can you believe it?”

  Father McCarrick held the rail for balance, his knock-knees struggling to carry his five-foot-six, two-hundred pound frame. They passed the seat where the victim had been found, the man who’d been identified as Victor Rodriguez.

  “How’s Lisa, Matt? How’s that business going?”

  Business? You mean my marriage, Father? If it truly were a business, we’d be declaring bankruptcy.

  The thought of his failing marriage tightened his throat.

  “Fine, Father. We’re working things out.”

  “It’s not easy to lose a child. God’s the comfort you need.”

  “Tell Him that.”

  McCarrick breathed a long sigh and laid his beefy hand on Conley’s forearm. “Matt, I’d like you to be in charge of the investigation. The Church needs someone who’ll fight hard to right this desecration.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Father. The Essex County District Attorney decides.” Conley pointed at a man in a suit. “The D.A. assigned the case to the Massachusetts State Police. Captain Stefanos is in charge.”

  “But it’s my church. I’m officially requesting you.”

  “I’ll be on special assignment under Stefanos because I was first on the scene. That’s protocol. But don’t worry, the staties are lazy by nature. They rely on locals like me to do most of the work.”

  McCarrick nodded. “Good. We need someone who respects the Church, who knows its people. That’s important.”

  McCarrick stepped out onto the small porch at the top of the steps to the sacristy. A frigid wind greeted them, wrapping the bottom half of the priest’s cassock around his stubby legs.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Matt. I’m worried. Very worried.”

  “About what, Father?”

  “Something’s wrong with Ocean Park, Matt. A priest learns a lot about what’s going on if he keeps his ears open. My days are spent at wakes, weddings, family counseling…” McCarrick shrugged, lowered his voice—“gin mills, even. The life of the community unfolds like a Martin Scorsese movie—sometimes joyous, sometimes a glimpse of hell. Develops the instincts, teaches you to know things just by rubbing your belly.”

  He looked down at his ample belly as if he’d just discovered it.

  “I think you’re wrong, Father. Ocean Park is getting better. Don’t give up on it. You’re just upset because the church is closing.”

  McCarrick shook his head. “I don’t think so, Matt, but I know those turkeys at the Archdiocese have made a very bad decision. Something’s wrong. I feel it. Drugs. Gangs. Prostitutes. Murder in St. Amby’s. Jerks like Father Frank poking around.”

  The breeze blew the priest’s hair back and framed his round face in a fuzzy black halo, as the statue of St. Francis in the garden cast a long, dark shadow over them both.

  Chapter 3

  The whore opened the motel room door, the light snapped on, and Vithu clutched her collar, his fist full of red pleather and fake fur. Samay saw that the tattooed letters on the back of his mentor’s fingers spelled LOVE. The irony wasn’t lost on him—the whore suddenly sported a human-hand necklace that advertised her trade.

  She almost escaped before Vithu slammed the door. In fact her hand was flat on the guest instructions—CHECKOUT AT 11:00. ICE MACHINE DOWN THE HALL. Samay and the eleven others, ethereal in a cloud of hash smoke, stood around a bed with a nappy ivory spread and watched Vithu trap the girl for bauk.

  Bauk—the Cambodian practice of gang raping a prostitute, was the first initiation rite for the Ocean Park Asian Boyz. Samay found her surprise exciting, delicious, as if she’d stumbled onto her own party. But tonight the party was for him, and they were guaranteed privacy. Two Ocean Park policemen, paid off by Vithu, stood sentry outside the door, easy duty on a slow Monday night.

  Seconds later the girl nodded, knowing her choices were rape or a beating—and then rape. Samay was glad. They’d already spent too much time waiting. Smoked a lot of hashish and drank sweet wine. Talked too much about gang fights and Pon, the legendary Asian Boyz gang leader traveling to Ocean Park from Long Beach.

  Laughter rippled, surrounding the girl as she stripped with the resignation of a prisoner walking to the gallows. She lay on the sagging mattress. Pale skin peppered with freckles and moles. Samay was first, and though he was a stranger to white women and the company of others to so intimate an act, he had no trouble performing. His friends cheered, congratulated him when he was done, then jockeyed for their place in line. The girl’s musk and sweat mixed with the sweet smoke.

  There was trouble once—a question of place in line, booze-fueled threats, shoving. Vithu stepped forward and surprised everyone with a vicious chop to an ear that knocked the troublemaker down and drew blood from a gash on his scalp. The Boyz candidates quieted.

  The sex was exciting, but not the way he thought it would be. Camaraderie was the high, the laughter and joy of his new friends, the ones he was pledging his life to.

  When Vithu helped himself to the girl and spread his other hand next to her head, Samay saw HATE tattooed on those fingers. Vithu was a strange man.

  No matter. This was the greatest night of Samay’s young life.

  Bauk was good.

  Brotherhood was good.

  ****

  Samay trudged through the muddy banks of the Saugus River, the crooked finger that poked the coastline just north of Boston before meandering through Ocean Park. He and Vithu waded through ragweed and cattails, each with a hand grasping chain links on the curving, rusted fence around North Shore Auto Salvage. Their feet plunged into sandy gray mud that sucked nosily and stank like something alive—or dead.

  Samay scratched his arm. He’d been tattooed the night before, right after bauk, and the skin was irritated. A row of Khmer letters, whimsical curls and wavy lines, ran the length of his arm. Two of his three rites of initiation were complete—the Brotherhood of Bauk and the branding of the Khmer sign of the Asian Boyz. Only the Lesson was left.

  Not that the Lesson was much. They were to retrieve guns because Pon said a war was coming. A simple, boring task, hardly worthy of the term Lesson. Samay was more anxious to learn the Asian Boyz trade—jacking cars and pulling B&Es. He’d been recruited because of his speed and athleticism, and he was anxious to prove himself.

  “Maybe they’re not here yet. We should go,” Samay said, shaking his bothersome arm as if he could flick the ink off.

  Vithu continued, pushing back a big swath of weeds with his free hand. Dusk approached, and if they timed this right, the day’s last light would help them find what they were looking for and oncoming darkness would hide their leaving.

  The tick of an outboard engine grew loud. They sank behind the growth. Samay’s buttocks touched the ground and the moist soil wet his pants like a cold sponge. A skiff puttered by, captained by an old man wearing a knit cap. He navigated the shallow channel, weaving toward the Saugus marshes.

  Vithu clapped the shoulder of his sore arm. “If Pon said they’re here, then there’s no doubt. None.”

  They continued on the cloying soil. The sun was almost down, streaks of yellow and red reflecting its last light. The temperature dropped so fast it
felt as if they’d walked into a freezer.

  Samay zippered his coat to the collar and thrust hands into pockets. Without the aid of the fence, he stepped awkwardly, bushwhacked by tall weeds Vithu let swing. “Pon,” he said louder, stretching the name in a high voice. “Everyone talks of Pon. Everyone fears him. Why can’t he carry his own guns? Is he afraid?”

  Vithu cocked his head for an instant, but kept moving and answered.

  “My friend, Pon is an avenging angel, and everything he does has meaning. When Buddha acts, Pon is his hand. You have been chosen. Feel fortunate. You ask if he is afraid? The only fear he knows is the one he brings.”

  Fortunate? For an arm that screams pain? A silly mission? And Vithu—he was different now that he’d recruited Samay and the initiation was almost over. Quiet. Serious. Samay looked at the old man in the boat, a speck in the distance, and wished he were riding with him. Maybe not, he thought. Rivers have ends, and right now he felt like traveling far. He glanced the other way to the open ocean.

  “You made your choice,” Vithu said. “Never regret it. And never disrespect Pon. His ears are everywhere.”

  Samay shuddered, not because he was cold, but because Vithu had just read his mind. Coincidence? Samay’s legs were still shaky from squatting, and he almost stumbled.

  Near the corner of the junkyard fence, in the shadow of a rusting sandwich of Dodge Diplomat, Ford F-150, and a late model Sentra, three gray suitcases sat, handles up. Vithu flipped the hinges on one and let the top fall to the ground. Automatic pistols gleamed from cutouts in hard foam, out of place in the mudscape of the river bank. He snapped the suitcase shut and stood silently until the last light disappeared.

  “See?” He nodded toward the last rays of the day. “Everything is as he said. Even the sun is commanded by Pon.”

  “So this is the Lesson?” Samay asked and shrugged, palms up.

  Vithu hoisted the smallest suitcase, cradled it on his forearm, flipped the latches, opened the top. A pair of severed hands lay in a foam cutout, closed in tight fists, thumbs clenched around the first and second fingers. Flesh and bone had been cut clean at the wrists.

  Vithu clutched Samay’s tattooed arm and pulled him close. The hands looked fake, but Samay knew otherwise when he smelled an odor like uncooked steak. He tried to step back, his gorge rising.

  Vithu’s face was as tight as the fists, inches away from Samay’s.

  “He doubted Pon too, my friend. You’ve been given a second chance by our merciful leader. Witness the Lesson.”

  ****

  That same evening, Channary walked in a quiet, spacious courtyard. The American woman—Shee-la—held her hand in a warm, gentle grip. Strange. Shee-la was white but spoke Khmer perfectly. She walked straight and tall like a model, a woman of importance, but she treated Channary like a princess.

  The courtyard was surrounded by flat-roofed buildings so high they blocked the sun and cast cool shadows. Porches lined each floor, their railings grinning like smiling teeth.

  They came to a tall building, a great green box as big as a temple. An old Cambodian woman on the bottom landing wore a red sampot that touched her sandaled feet, a loose white blouse, and a krama scarf that hid her neck. Her long hair, parted in the middle, was pulled back tight like a working woman’s.

  “Chhmua ei?” the woman called, stretching the words.

  “Channary,” she answered.

  Shee-la led her up the steps and into a house with hallways the color of rainbows. The familiar scent of incense greeted them, then the mouth-watering smell of meat cooking in oil. They passed a prayer room with a golden Buddha sitting on a table. A kitchen next, with more women, and Cambodian children and teenagers at tables, working and eating.

  So this was America. Different. But the same.

  They stopped at the end of the hall and the beginning of a narrow staircase. A bright round light shone from a ceiling high above and made the stairs and railing gleam.

  Shee-la loosened her grip, kissed the top of Channary’s head, and backed away. The Cambodian woman clasped Channary’s hand in a grip that was hard, firm, and strong, and together they climbed the stairs.

  Chapter 4

  His wife’s campaign headquarters reminded Conley of an after-prom party. Staffers, mostly kids, nailed posters of Lisa to the wall, slouched behind flimsy tables in folding chairs, and talked on phones in happy, sing-song voices.

  He sat in a metal chair and waited near a picture window that framed the snarled traffic in City Hall Square. Car exhaust swelled from the cold and billowed like clouds that had fallen to earth. A pretty young blonde named Mandy kept smiling at him and asking if he wanted coffee. Three cups later, his face hurt from smiling back and the caffeine rush was making the hair on his arms tingle.

  Lisa snuck up behind him and whispered, “Jail bait, Detective Conley.”

  His wife hugged him and he hugged back, smelling the lavender shampoo heʼd bought her last Christmas.

  “But she gives such great coffee,” he said.

  Lisa strode to her office, a jerry-built structure with temporary walls and a window to the busy staff area. He was close behind, drinking in the scent of good perfume and savoring the sight of his wife’s magnificent glutes.

  God bless Stairmaster machines.

  She sank into the black leather office chair and he sat on the corner of the desk near the window. Her strawberry hair fanned the top of the chair, looking richer than the dark leather. She stretched her legs in front of him and he saw lean muscles tense. Lisa was Sicilian, blessed with mocha-colored skin. Her legs were as smooth as her campaign speech, with nary a freckle or blemish.

  Mandy stuck her head in the open doorway. “More coffee Mr. Conley? Mrs. Conley?”

  “We’re good, Mandy. Matt’s beautiful blue eyes are turning brown.”

  Mandy giggled and trotted back to her desk, blonde ponytail flashing.

  Lisa picked up a rubber band and twirled it on her long index finger. “Mandy has a crush on you.”

  They laughed together. He couldn’t remember the last time that happened. When the baby died, their marriage started to die too, and the memory of the infant struggling in its incubator became a recurring nightmare.

  Brandon. He had a name—Brandon.

  A name neither of them spoke during two years of emptiness and paralysis. But he still craved Lisa’s presence, her touch, her voice, a primeval ache that never stopped. If only he could make her feel the same.

  Today was their one-month separation anniversary. Other than quick, tense phone calls, the only time they communicated now was during their bizarre marriage counseling sessions with Dr. Larkin. The doctor was convinced marriage problems were caused by one-word virtues and vices, and finding the right ones was the key to fixing relationships. The word jumble was driving Conley crazy.

  Sex, Dr. Larkin? That surely isn’t the trouble with our marriage. If anything, sex was the glue.

  Money? No problem there either. Lisa’s salary as an attorney and my detective pay bought us twin Beamers and a condo at the beach.

  She put her hand over his and he felt electricity, and fantasized her saying, “Let’s forget this bullshit, Matt. How about a nooner?”

  “Lisa, there’s something I’ve got to tell you about—ˮ

  “I heard about the murder in St. Amby’s,” she interrupted.

  He nodded. “Two days ago. I need to give you a heads up about what happened. Eddie and I were called to investigate—”

  “Your priest friend must be freaked.”

  “Father McCarrick acts like he’s in charge, but I know when he’s upset. Talks like he’s high on helium. A guy named Victor Rodriguez was the vic, Puerto Rican with a big insurance business. Insured most of the Hispanics in Ocean Park.”

  She leaned forward, looked interested, concerned, caring, which made him think about…

  Unselfishness. “Marriage is not all about you, Matt. Think about your wife.”

  “Congressman
Conley,” he said. “That has a ring to it, Lisa. Think you have a chance?”

  She flattened her hands on the desk and hunched forward as if sharing a secret. “Special elections are always tough and I’m fighting an incumbent, but I’m polling in first place, Matt. Ahead of Congressman Diaz. Lots of rumors around his extracurricular activities. Nasty stuff. Kinky sex.”

  “Are they true?”

  “I have no idea.” She winked. “But my campaign manager—Bill McNulty—takes every opportunity to remind voters.”

  Ambition—that’s certainly a candidate for the cause of our troubles. Lisa is married to me and a couple of careers—Essex County prosecutor and aspiring politician.

  “If you got in, it’d be great for Ocean Park. You’d help turn it around.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Bill says Marblehead and Swampscott are the key towns—places to build a political career. Do you remember Bill? You met at the District Attorney’s Christmas party.”

  “I think so. Skinny guy, porn star mustache, wimpy handshake. Kind of a pretty boy.”

  Jealousy? Be careful. He imagined Larkin wagging his index finger and shaking his head in warning.

  The corner of her mouth twitched and she squinted mischievously. “Bill and I don’t shake hands and I haven’t seen a lot of pornos, Matt, so I really can’t compare. He’s pretty trim, though.”

  “Lisa, let me tell you about that night in the church.”

  The hollow door to her office swung open. Bill McNulty strode in and threw Monday’s Ocean Park Gazette on her desk. The paper scattered, tumbling as if he’d brought a windstorm. Lisa sat upright, hands folded, elbows planted on the edge of the desk.

  McNulty spoke before she got a chance to.

  “Disaster, Lisa. Potential fucking disaster.”

  Smiling didn’t seem a natural reaction to that, but Lisa did it anyway. She smiled like a marionette—upturned mouth and dead eyes. “Bill, you remember Matt.”

  His wife was practicing Self-Control. Very good, Lisa. Wait, that was two words, couldn’t be one of Dr. Larkin’s babies. Did hyphenated words count?

  Conley stuck his hand out, determined to show…