Boston Noir 2 Read online

  This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Akashic Books

  ©2012 Akashic Books

  Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple

  Boston map by Aaron Petrovich

  "Femme Sole" @2010 by Dana Cameron was originally published in Boston Noir and is presented here with the author's permission. All Rights Reserved

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the stories in this anthology. Bait (excerpt) by Kenneth Abel was originally published by Delacorte Press in 1994, © 1994 by Kenneth Abel; Blanche Cleans Up (excerpt) by Barbara Neely was originally published by Viking Penguin in 1998, © 1998 by Barbara Neely; Infinite Jest (excerpt) by David Foster Wallace, Copyright © 1996 by David Foster Wallace Literary Trust, reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY, all rights reserved; “Driving the Heart” by Jason Brown was originally published in Driving the Heart & Other Stories (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999), © 1999 by Jason Brown; “Home Sweet Home” by Hannah Tinti was originally published in Animal Crackers: Stories, used by permission of The Dial Press/Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc., © 2004 by Hannah Tinti; “Townies” by Andre Dubus was originally published in Finding a Girl in America, reprinted by permission of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. and Open Road Integrated Media, Copyright © 1980 by Andre Dubus; “Lucky Penny” by Linda Barnes is reprinted by permission of the Gina Maccoby Literary Agency, Copyright © 1985 by Linda Barnes, “Lucky Penny” was originally published in New Black Mask Quarterly, No. 3, 1985; “Mushrooms” by Dennis Lehane was originally published in Coronado (New York: William Morrow, 2006), © 2006 by Dennis Lehane; “Night-Side” by Joyce Carol Oates was originally published in Night-Side (New York: Vanguard Press, Inc., 1977), © 1977 by Joyce Carol Oates; “Surrogate” by Robert B. Parker was originally published in Surrogate (Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1982), © 1982 by Robert B. Parker; “The 5:22” by George Harrar was originally published in Story magazine, Autumn 1998, © 1998 by George Harrar; “The Balance of the Day” by George V. Higgins, Copyright © Loretta Cubberley Higgins, first published in GQ magazine, November 1985, reprinted with the permission of the Albert LaFarge Literary Agency; “The Marriage Privilege” by Chuck Hogan was originally published in Boston College magazine, Summer 2006, © 2006 by Chuck Hogan; “At Night” by David Ryan was originally published in BOMB magazine, Fall 1998, © 1998 by David Ryan.

  eISBN: 978-1-61775-146-2

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-136-3

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-145-5

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012939265

  All rights reserved

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  Table of Contents

  ___________________

  Cover page

  Introduction

  PART I: BROKEN FAMILIES

  THE MARRIAGE PRIVILEGE

  BY CHUCK HOGAN

  West Roxbury

  NIGHT-SIDE

  BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

  Quincy

  HOME SWEET HOME

  BY HANNAH TINTI

  Route 128

  SURROGATE

  BY ROBERT B. PARKER

  Watertown

  PART II: CRIMINAL MINDS

  MUSHROOMS

  BY DENNIS LEHANE

  Dorchester

  LUCKY PENNY

  BY LINDA BARNES

  Beacon Hill

  BLANCHE CLEANS UP (excerpt)

  BY BARBARA NEELY

  Brookline

  THE BALANCE OF THE DAY

  BY GEORGE V. HIGGINS

  Roxbury

  BAIT (excerpt)

  BY KENNETH ABEL

  South Boston

  PART III: VOYEURS & OUTSIDERS

  TOWNIES

  BY ANDRE DUBUS

  Merrimack River

  DRIVING THE HEART

  BY JASON BROWN

  Boston General Hospital

  THE 5:22

  BY GEORGE HARRAR

  Kendall Square

  INFINITE JEST (excerpt)

  BY DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

  Brighton

  AT NIGHT

  BY DAVID RYAN

  Back Bay

  About the Contributors

  Also in the Akashic Noir Series

  Bonus Materials

  Boston Noir Excerpt

  About Akashic Books

  for Max

  INTRODUCTION

  THEY LOOK LIKE YOU AND ME

  There's a mysterious phenomenon particular to Boston involving the network of underground and above- ground trains that form the spiderweb of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, known colloquially as the T. The city's subway employs a directional concept known as Inbound and Outbound, which confounds and baffles tourists and transient college students alike, since it's not readily evident what exactly Inbound and Outbound are in relation to. Any number of theories persist: toward the Atlantic Ocean means Inbound, away means Outbound; toward the gold- capped State House in Beacon Hill designates Inbound, away from it is Outbound, and on and on. All guesses are reduced to just that when the Inbound train you're riding on suddenly and inexplicably transforms into an Outbound train by passing through some magical plane of existence.

  What is noir and what is not inhabits a similarly gray area. Its definition is continually expanding from the previous generation's agreed-upon notion that noir involves men in fedoras smoking cigarettes on street corners. Noir alludes to crime, sure, but it also evokes bleak elements, danger, tragedy, sleaze, all of which is best represented by its root French definition: black. We used this idea as our guide for this sequel to the best-selling Boston Noir anthology, which was originally published in 2009. Whereas Boston Noir comprised brand-new pieces commissioned for the anthology, our charge here was to scour the body of Boston literature for previously published short stories and novel excerpts that best illuminate the dark corners of the Hub.

  While the tales told within take place in the Boston metro area and its exburbs, the first story we agreed should be included unfolds north of the city, Andre Dubus's "Townies." One of the modern short story masters, Dubus's work is filled with grim circumstances and ersatz characters. His fiction could fill an entire volume of noir, and the unforgettable protagonist of "Townies" and his irrevocable act are as haunting as any ghost story.

  Our search deep into the archives of Boston fiction turned up a priceless find: Robert B. Parker's short story "Surrogate," which features an early appearance of Spenser, his famous detective. It's rumored that "Surrogate" was commissioned by Playboy but never published there, appearing only in a limited-edition volume, then later in an anthology published in England. You're among the first to read it in a very long time.

  We uncovered other gems as well: "The Marriage Privilege" by Chuck Hogan, which was previously published in the Boston College alumni magazine; and Linda Barnes's short story "Lucky Penny," which won a 1985 Anthony Award and also marked the first appearance of the towering cop-turned–private detective Carlotta Carlyle, who would star in ten of Barnes's hard-boiled detective novels; and Joyce Carol Oates writing occult fiction. You read that right.

  The vast treasure trove of George V. Higgins's work made for long stretches of interesting and entertaining reading and when the arguing was over, "The Balance of the Day" became our favorite, second only to our desire to reprint Higgins's entire novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

 
Barbara Neely's four novels featuring Blanche White, a sharp-tongued, middle-aged black cleaning woman, are sadly out of print. The excerpt from Blanche Cleans Up anthologized here features an amateur private detective in the unique position to investigate the death of a young black man from the inside of the Boston Brahmin politician's house she's currently cleaning.

  Kenneth Abel's novel Bait, also unfairly out of print, shows us a gritty Boston populated by fascinating characters: brilliant (and not so brilliant) mob bosses and thugs, recovering alcoholic cops and the women who love them, and government officials trying desperately to look like they know what they're doing.

  The late David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest is set partly in Enfield, a fictional Brighton. (Wallace lived for a time in Boston.) The novel is full of comedy, but is also filled with blackness, and the excerpt we've chosen is singular in its depravity.

  Knowing that Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, the witch-burning capital of the country, won't prepare you for the grand noir soap opera she unfurls in her story "Home Sweet Home."

  In the gradations of noir, the stories by Jason Brown, George Harrar, and David Ryan are perhaps on the subtle end, but they fall in the final act of this volume because they are deeply unsettling. That's fair warning.

  For those of us lucky enough to call Boston home, the commonwealth is an endless source of fascinating landscapes: the autumnal light spreading across the Charles River; the ice floes in the wintry Boston Harbor; a spring air tantalizing leaves in Harvard Yard; the salty taste of summer as sunbathers peer into the horizon, shielding their eyes from the glare, squinting into the middle distance. Beyond the postcard fabric, though, lies a community populated by broken families, criminal minds, voyeurs, and outsiders. They look like you and me. These are their stories.

  Jaime Clarke, Mary Cotton & Dennis Lehane

  Boston, MA

  September 2012

  PART I

  BROKEN FAMILIES

  THE MARRIAGE PRIVILEGE

  BY CHUCK HOGAN

  West Roxbury

  (Originally published in 2006)

  At home in Beverly Farms, sitting in his father's study, Miles Bard Jr. looked small in the oversized calfskin chair. Fellowes, the attorney, said yes to a whiskey, but hadn't touched it yet. The father, Miles Bard Sr., owner of Bard Industries, walked around and around them, remaining on the periphery of the problem.

  "Motor vehicle homicide, operating under the influence," said Fellowes. "This is not going to go away. You are looking at eight hard years, minimum. Minimum. That is, if you plea out. If the media heat doesn't inspire the DA to go after you with straight-up murder. And if your previous DWIs are allowed in? Then much more. You got into a fight earlier that night."

  "It wasn't a fight," said Miles. "We passed this wedding reception. I went in, asked if I could kiss the bride."

  "It was a gay wedding and you popped the guy on the button. Hilarious. Juries love rich kids. They'll laugh right along with you."

  "I was drunk. Blame the state of Massachusetts."

  "Yes. We'll put the state on trial. Your personal distress over same-sex marriages caused you to go out and consume eleven Stoli-and-Sprites over a four-hour period and jump the median, killing a man in a Sentra."

  Miles Bard shrugged. He was a pretty kid of twenty-three, sharp-featured, hair shiny and black as the wings of a crow. The soft brace on his arm was all he had to show for the head-on collision.

  Fellowes said, "The man you killed was a newlywed. Home from his honeymoon less than two weeks. Married his college sweetheart."

  "Dumb-ass should have swerved."

  "Maybe you should have stayed awake."

  "A deer ran out."

  "Yes. A deer on Massachusetts Avenue. The first such sighting in Cambridge since the advent of the motor car."

  "It's my word against hers."

  "Ah. The victim's sister. Do you know where they were coming from? Do you have any idea? An alumni Mass at Boston College. They were driving home from church, brother and sister. You, mister Stoli-and-Sprites? Your word against hers?"

  Fellowes eased his grip on the chair back. This was not what he was paid to do. Lecture. Admonish. That was the father's responsibility. Whether he realized it or not.

  "A man is dead, and his twin sister is paralyzed from the waist down," said Fellowes. "A twenty-six-year-old woman, a social worker, confined to a wheelchair for life, pointing her finger at you in open court? Have I painted the picture? There is nothing any lawyer in the country, myself included, can do to inoculate you against that. You are going to prison, young Miles. All I can do is gum up the process. Delay the inevitable. Giving you maybe a year or so of freedom."

  The chair groaned as Miles sat up, searching out his father. "I had enough trouble in lockup," he said. "This face, what are they going to do to me in prison?"

  At least young Bard was afraid of something. Fellowes looked at the father, who had stopped his circuit of the room.

  Ice cracked in Bard Sr.'s glass. He nodded.

  Fellowes reached for his whiskey, downed it, then transferred the check from his folder into his suit pocket. "Maybe there is something you can do," said the lawyer. "Maybe one thing. A longshot. One in a million, perhaps. But your only chance."

  Miles looked up at him, then at his father. A scared little boy, his hands clawing plump armrests. "We're going to kill her?"

  Fellowes had never seen a father look at his own offspring with such disgust.

  * * *

  The morning Nicole was released from the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Spaulding Rehabilitation, she returned to her rented West Roxbury house to find a brand-new, fully customized, wheelchair-accessible Toyota Rampvan idling at the curb. The driver, upon her inquiry, explained that he was there at her service. But after learning who had hired him, Nicole angrily declined the ride.

  Every morning the van would pull up, the driver tipping his cap, and every morning Nicole refused his offer—sometimes rudely, though the driver's courtesy never wavered. She insisted on taking a taxi van for the disabled to her various appointments: physical therapy, occupational therapy, counseling.

  Friends visited frequently, bringing dinners, movies. A small circle, they even set up a schedule to ensure that Nicole would be occupied nightly. The drop-off in participation, which her friends pledged would never occur, inevitably did.

  Miles mailed Nicole a letter every day. The first arrived from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Arizona; later, from his father's home in Beverly Farms.

  Depression came and went in cycles, each one stealing away another little piece of the old Nicole.

  One hot day, the taxi van did not show up. The Rampvan driver was so patient, so pleasant, Nicole decided to accept his ride, just this once.

  A gentlemanly retiree with an ailing wife, he and Nicole struck up a rapport. Nicole accepted another ride, and another, and soon began relying on the van full-time.

  Miles stopped mailing his letters, instead trusting them to the driver to be hand-delivered. Nicole accepted them wordlessly, and, if she opened them, never did so in the driver's presence.

  Six months after the accident, Fellowes petitioned the court and somehow got Miles's driver's license reinstated.

  One morning, as Nicole rolled up the side ramp, she noticed that the regular driver was not there. Realization bloomed into horror as she recognized Miles and, shaking, demanded to be let out. Miles went around to help but she yelled at him to get away, demanding that he call her a taxi van.

  The driver's wife was ill, Miles told her. But Nicole would not look at him. She would not speak to him. The taxi arrived and she wheeled aboard.

  She refused the Rampvan for the next few days, punishing the driver for his absence, but eventually resumed their comfortable routine.

  Two weeks later, Miles was back at the wheel. "Please," he said.

  Nicole would not get inside.

  "Have you been reading my letters?"<
br />
  "Why are you doing this?" she said. "Haven't you the human decency to stay away?"

  Three weeks later, he was back again.

  "What is it you want?" she demanded to know.

  "To help you."

  It was late. Waiting for a taxi van to be dispatched would mean missing therapy. "Don't you talk to me," she said, as the ramp lowered. "Don't look at me."

  Her physical therapy session took place at a local gym. From his stool at the juice bar, Miles saw her through the glass door. Saw her struggling.

  "If you want a better therapist," he said, on the way home, "I could get you one."

  "Leave me alone."

  "Please. Let me do something for you. Anything."

  "Stay away. And you can keep your van."

  "This van is yours. The driver too."

  "You can't buy your way out of this."

  "I don't want to. I mean—I don't intend to. I don't expect anything. Please. Just let me help."

  Nicole said, "You killed my brother."

  * * *

  Miles remained patient and penitent. Every now and then he drove. One day Nicole returned home to find the bumpy, insurer-provided front-door ramp gone, and a smoother, wider ramp built in its place. Miles watched her stop before it, then roll up to her door without a word.

  Another day, the Rampvan broke down. Furious at having to spend time with him, Nicole occupied herself by grocery shopping. "You seem to be getting around better," Miles said.

  She was at the deli counter, trying to get the server's attention. "Don't talk to me."

  In the cereal aisle, he said, "I was terrified of going to prison."

  "Good."

  "But not anymore. I just mean that I no longer dread it. It's an opportunity. That's how I look at everything now. Every day, every minute."

  A taxi van returned them to West Roxbury. The grocery bags were too heavy to hang on the baßck of her chair, so, for the first time, Miles set foot inside her home. Old and small-windowed, with push-button light switches and iron radiators that hissed. Miles noticed gouge marks on the narrow walls, from her chair. "May I use your bathroom?"