Sacred

The North End was where each successive wave of immigrants had left the boat and dropped their bags. So the Jewish and then the Irish and finally the Italians had called this area home and given it the distinctly European character it retains today. The streets are cobblestone, narrow, and curve hard around and over and through each other in a neighborhood so small in physical area that in some cities it would barely constitute a block. But packed in here tight are legions of red and yellow brick rowhouses, former tenements co-opted and restored, and the odd cast-iron or granite warehouse, all fighting for space and getting really weird on top where extra stories were added after “up” became the only option. So clapboard and brick rise up from what were once mansard roofs, and laundry still stretches between opposite fire escapes and wrought-iron patios, and “yard” is an even more alien concept than “parking space.”

Somehow, in this, the most cramped of neighborhoods in the most cramped of cities, a gorgeous replica of an Italian village piazza sits behind the Old North Church. Called the Prado, it’s also known as the Paul Revere Mall, not only because of its proximity to both the church and Revere’s house, but because the Hanover Street entrance is dominated by Dallin’s equestrian statue of Revere. In the center of the Prado is a fountain; along the walls that surround it are bronze plaques testifying to the heroics of Revere, Dawes, several revolutionaries, and some lesser-known luminaries of North End lore.

The temperature had risen into the forties when we arrived at noon, entering from the Unity Street side, and dirty snow melted into the cracks in the cobblestone and puddled in the warps of the limestone benchtops. The fresh snowfall that had been expected today had turned into a light drizzle of rain due to the temperature, so the Prado was empty of tourists or North Enders on their lunch breaks.

Only Manny and John Byrne and two other men waited for us by the fountain. The two men I recognized from last night; they’d been standing to my left as John and I dealt with Officer Largeant, and while neither was as big as Manny, they weren’t small either.

“This must be the lovely Miss Gennaro,” Manny said. He clapped his hands together as we approached. “A friend of mine has a few nasty welts on his head because of you, ma’am.”

“Gee,” Angie said, “sorry.”

Manny raised his eyebrows at John. “Sarcastic little strumpet, isn’t she?”

John turned from the fountain, his nose crisscrossed in white bandages, the flesh around both eyes blue-black and puffy. “Excuse me,” he said, and came out from behind Manny and punched me in the face.

He threw himself into it so hard his feet left the ground, but I leaned back with it, took it on my temple after it had lost about half of its velocity. All and all, it was a pretty shitty punch. I’ve had bee stings that hurt more.

“What else your mother teach you besides boxing, John?”

Manny chuckled and the two big guys snickered.

“Laugh it up,” John said and stepped in close. “I’m the guy who owns the paper on your entire life now, Kenzie.”

I pushed him back, looked at Manny. “So this is your computer geek, eh, Manny?”

“Well, he’s not my muscle, Mr. Kenzie.”

I never saw Manny’s punch. Something in the center of my brain exploded and my whole face went numb and I was suddenly sitting on my ass on the wet cobblestone.

Manny’s buddies loved it. They high-fived and hooted and did little jigs as if they were about to piss their pants.

I swallowed against the vomit surging up through my alimentary canal and felt the numbness leave my face, replaced by pins and needles, a deep flush of blood rushing up behind my ears, and the sensation that my brain had been replaced by a brick. A hot brick, a brick on fire.

Manny held out his hand and I took it, and he lifted me to my feet.

“Nothing personal, Kenzie,” he said. “Next time you raise a hand to me, though, I’ll kill you.”

I stood on wobbly feet, still swallowing against the vomit, and the fountain seemed to shimmer at me from underwater.

“Good to know,” I managed.

I heard a loud rumble and turned my head to my left, watched a garbage truck lumber up Unity Street, its body so wide and the street so narrow that its wheels rolled along the sidewalk. I had a horrendous hangover, a probable concussion, and now I had to listen to a garbage truck clang and wheeze its way down Unity Street, banging trash cans against cement and metal the whole way. Oh, rapture.

Manny put his left arm around me and his right around Angie, guided us to sit beside him around the fountain. John stood over us and glared down at me, and the two steroid cases remained where they were, watching the entrances.

“I liked that shit you pulled with the cop last night,” Manny said. “That was good. ‘Manny, you sure you’ll take him to the hospital?’” He chuckled. “Christ. You’re very quick on your feet.”

“Thanks, Manny. Means so much coming from you.”

He turned to Angie. “And you, going right for those diskettes like you knew where they’d be all along.”

“I had no choice.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I was trapped in the back office by the laser light show you had in the main office.”

“Right.” He nodded his huge head. “I initially thought you’d been hired by the competition.”

“You have competition?” Angie said. “In grief therapy?”

He smiled at her. “But then John told me you were looking for Desiree Stone, and then I discovered you couldn’t even get past the computer password, so I realized it was just dumb luck.”

“Dumb luck,” Angie said.

He patted her knee. “Who has the discs?”

“I do,” I said.

He held out his hand.

I placed them on his palm and he tossed them to John. John placed them in an attaché case and snapped it shut.

“What about my bank account, credit cards, all that?” I said.

“Well,” Manny said, “I thought of killing you.”

“You and these three guys?” Angie laughed.

He looked at her. “That’s amusing?”

“Look at your crotch, Manny,” I said.

He looked down, saw Angie’s gun there, the muzzle a tenth of an inch from Manny’s family jewels.

“That,” Angie said, “is amusing.”

He laughed and she laughed too, holding his eyes, the gun never wavering.