Nicky Fisher laughs at his own joke and slaps me on the back.
We sit under an umbrella. Two fans spit cold air at us. One of the aproned men brings each of us a personal-size pizza. We are then left alone.
“How’s your old man?” Nicky Fisher asks me.
“He’s dying.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Sorry.”
“Why am I here, Mr. Fisher?”
“Call me Nicky. Uncle Nicky.”
I don’t reply, but I’m not going to call him uncle.
“You’re here,” he continues, “because you and I need to have a little chat.”
Nicky Fisher talks like a movie gangster. I know a lot of tough guys now. None really talk like this. A hit man serving life at Briggs told me that real-life gangsters started talking like the gangsters in movies after those movies became popular, not the other way around. Life imitated art.
“I’m listening,” I say.
He leans forward and turns his eyes up at me. We are getting to it now. It is quiet. Even the piped-in music has stopped. “Your father and me, we have some bad history.”
“He was a cop,” I say. “You ran a crime syndicate.”
“A crime syndicate,” Nicky replies with a small chuckle. “Fancy words. Your father wasn’t pure either. You know that, right?”
I choose not to reply. He stares at me some more, and even in this humid hellhole, I feel a chill.
“You love your old man?” he asks me.
“Very much.”
“He was a good father?”
“The best,” I say. Then: “With all due respect, uh Nicky, why am I here?”
“Because I have sons too.” There is a small snarl in his voice now. “Do you know that?”
I do—and now I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like where we are going.
“Three of them. Or I had three. You know about my Mikey?”
Again, I do. Mikey Fisher died twenty years ago in prison.
My father had put him there.
Nicky Fisher makes sure I’m looking him in the eyes when he says, “Is it starting to make sense to you now, son?”
And oddly enough, I fear it does. “My father put your son in prison,” I say. “So you returned the favor.”
“Close,” he says.
I wait.
“Your father, like I said, he wasn’t clean. He and his partner Mackenzie arrested Mikey for killing Lucky Craver. Mikey was just supposed to hurt Lucky, but my boy, he often went too far. Did you know Lucky?”
“No.”
“They called him that because he never ever had a moment of luck in his life. Including at the end there obviously. But anyway, your old man arrests Mikey for it. You know the deal. But the problem is, your old man and Mackenzie couldn’t make the case. I mean, everyone knew Mikey did it. But you gotta prove it in a court of law, am I right?”
I stay quiet.
“Your dad had done some solid work on the case. No question. Located some key witnesses. Got Lucky’s ex to testify. But see, the cops have to follow the rules. Me? I don’t. So I sent some of my guys out to talk to the witnesses. Guys like your old pal Skunk. Suddenly, the witnesses’ memories got real hazy. You know what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“Lucky’s ex was a little more stubborn, but we took care of that too. There was some evidence in the police locker. Angel dust. A claw-back hammer. They vanished. Poof. So you see, it became hard for your old man to make a case. Must have been real frustrating for him.”
I don’t move. I barely breathe.
“So that’s when your father and Mackenzie, they crossed the line. Suddenly they come up with new evidence. No reason to go into details on the how. They don’t matter. But the phony evidence that put my son away? Your old man and Mackenzie planted it.”
Nicky Fisher takes a bite, savors it, tilts back in his chair. “You’re not eating?”
“I’m listening.”
“Can’t do both?” He still chews. “I get it. You want to hear the rest, but I think you see it now. My Mikey goes down for the crime, but really, it wasn’t that big a deal. I had it worked out so that the conviction would be overturned by a judge friend. So I told Mikey to just lay low in the joint for a few weeks. But he couldn’t manage that. My Mikey, he was a sweet boy, but what a hothead. Thought he was a tough guy because his father was the boss. So in the yard he got into a beef with two big guys. Gang members from Dorchester. One of them held Mikey’s arms. The other stabbed Mikey in the heart with a shiv. You know about that, right?”
“Yes. I mean, I heard.”
Nicky Fisher starts to lift the pizza to his mouth, but it’s as though the memories are making it too heavy for him to do that. He lowers his gaze. His eyes glisten. When he speaks again, I can hear the sadness, the anger, the raw. “Those two big guys. You don’t want to know what I did to them. It wasn’t quick. I’ll tell you that.”
I wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Did you hurt my son?”
“No. I told you. I don’t do that. I didn’t even blame your father. Not right then and there. But then, you know, years pass. Then I read about how you killed your son—”
“I didn’t—”
“Shh, David, just listen. The problem with you kids today. No one listens. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
I tell him that I do.
“So like I said, your dad wasn’t above bending the law when it suited him. Like with Mikey. We both know a lot of cops push it. They drop the dime bag on the floor of the car. They got the throw-down piece in case they need a reason to blow you away. You know the deal. So after your son—what was his name again?”
“Matthew,” I say, and I swallow.
“Right, sorry. So after Matthew was murdered, a cop found that baseball bat in your basement.”
I make a face. “The bat wasn’t found in my basement.”
“Yeah, it was.”
I am shaking my head.
“You hid it down there. In some vent or pipe or something.”
I am still shaking my head, but again I think I see where he is going with this. I think I’ve seen from the moment we sat down.
“So where was I? Oh, right. The baseball bat. So a cop found it in your basement. New guy on the force. Named Rogers, I think. Why I remember his name, I don’t know. But I do. So Rogers, he wanted to make friends with your old man. Thin blue line, all that. So he told your father about the bat. Your dad, he knows this bat cooks your goose. You’re a dead man walking if the DA finds out about that bat. Your old man can’t have that. He has to protect his boy. But he also can’t get totally rid of the bat. That would be going too far.”
Nicky Fisher grins at me. There is tomato sauce on his lower lip. “You can guess what your dad decided to do, right? Come on, David. Tell me.”
“You think he planted the bat in the woods.”
“I don’t think. I know.”
I don’t bother contradicting him.
“It was smart. See, if you were the killer, the bat would still be in the basement. Hidden. In the vent or whatever. But if someone else was the killer, he would have run away. Dumped or buried the bat somewhere nearby.”