“I’m your biggest fucking nightmare, asshole. Now open up the door and let’s go up to your place nice and quiet like, so I can explain the world and the way it works to you in a civilized manner, without beating the shit out of you or far worse. You don’t want worse, do you, O’Connell? What do your friends call you? OC? Or maybe just plain Mike? What is it?”
O’Connell started to twist, which only made the pressure on his arm tighten, and he stopped. Before he could answer, Murphy thrust another rapid series of questions at him.
“Maybe Michael O’Connell doesn’t have any friends, so no nickname. So, tell you what, Mike-y boy, I’ll just make it up as we go along. Because, trust me, you want me to be your friend. You want that more than you’ve ever wanted anything in this world. Right now, Mike-y boy, that’s your absolute, top, number-one need on this planet: making sure that I remain your friend. Do you get that?”
O’Connell grunted, trying to turn enough to get a good look at Murphy, but the onetime trooper stayed right behind him, leaning in, whispering into his ear, while all the time keeping a steady pressure on his arm and in the small of his back, pushing him forward.
“Inside. Up the stairs. Your place, Mike-y boy. So we can have our little chat in private.”
Half-pushed, half-forced, O’Connell was steered through the entranceway and up to the second floor by the constant pressure from Matthew Murphy, who kept up a cold, mocking banter with each step.
Murphy increased his grip, squeezing at the muscle as they reached O’Connell’s door, and he could feel O’Connell react to the sharp pain. “That’s another thing about being friends, Mike-y boy. You don’t want me angry. You just don’t want me losing me temper. Might force me to do something you’d later regret, if you had a later in which to regret it, which I would sincerely doubt. You understand? Now open your door slowly.”
As O’Connell managed to get the key out of his pocket and into the lock, Murphy looked down the hallway and saw the neighboring old lady’s cat collection scurrying about. One even arched its back and hissed in O’Connell’s direction.
“Not too popular with the locals, are you, Mike-y boy?” Murphy said, twisting the younger man’s arm again. “You got something against cats? They got something against you?”
“We don’t get along,” O’Connell grunted.
“I’m not surprised.” Murphy gave the younger man a vicious shove, sending him stumbling ahead into the apartment. O’Connell tripped over a thread-bare rug on the floor, sprawling forward, thudding hard into a wall, twisting around to try to get his first real look at Murphy.
But the detective was on top of him with surprising quickness for a middle-aged man, looming over O’Connell like a gargoyle hanging from a medieval church, his face set in a half-mocking grin, but his eyes wearing a look of harsh anger. O’Connell scrambled to rise at least to a half-sitting position, and he stared up at Murphy, locking his eyes on the ex-detective’s.
“Not too happy, are you, Mike-y boy? Not accustomed to being tossed around, are you?”
O’Connell didn’t reply. He was still assessing the situation, and he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.
Murphy took that moment to slowly pull back his suit coat, revealing the.380 in its shoulder harness. “I brought a friend, Mike-y boy. As you can see.”
The younger man grunted again, shifting his eyes between the weapon and the private investigator. Murphy swiftly reached inside his jacket and removed the automatic. He had not been intending to do this, but something in O’Connell’s defiant stare told him to accelerate the process. With a rapid movement, he chambered a round and rested his thumb up against the safety catch. Slowly, he moved the pistol down toward O’Connell, until he finally rested the barrel up against the younger man’s forehead, directly between the eyes.
“Fuck you,” O’Connell said.
Murphy tapped the gun barrel against O’Connell’s nose. Just hard enough so it would hurt, not hard enough to break anything. “Poor choice of words,” Murphy said. With his left hand, he reached down and grasped O’Connell’s cheeks, pinching them between his fingers, squeezing tightly. “And I thought we were going to be friends.”
O’Connell continued to stare at the ex-detective, and Murphy abruptly slammed his head back against the wall. “A little more politeness,” he said coldly. “A little more civility. Makes everything go much smoother.” Then he reached down, grabbed O’Connell’s jacket, and lifted him up, keeping the handgun firmly planted on O’Connell’s forehead. Murphy maneuvered the younger man into a chair, half-tossing him so that O’Connell crashed back, the chair lifting on its back legs, and he had to struggle to keep his balance. “I haven’t even really been bad, yet, Mike-y boy. Not at all. We’re still just getting to know one another.”
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
“You know cops, do you, Mike-y boy? You’ve sat across from a cop more than once or twice, haven’t you?”
O’Connell nodded.
“Well, you’re absolutely fucking one hundred percent correct,” Murphy said, smiling. He had known this question was coming. “You should wish I was a cop. I mean, you should be praying right now to whatever God it is that you think might just listen to you, praying, ‘Please, Lord, let him be a cop,’ because cops, they’ve got rules, Mike-y boy. Rules and regulations. Nope. Not me. I’m a lot more trouble than that. Much worse. Much much worse. I’m a private investigator.”
O’Connell sneered, and Murphy slapped him hard across the face. The sound of his palm striking O’Connell’s cheek resounded through the small apartment.
Murphy smiled. “I shouldn’t have to explain these things to you, not someone who thinks he knows his way around like you do, Mike-y boy. But, just for the sakes of our little discussion this evening, let me explain a few items. One, I was a cop. Put in more than twenty years fucking with folks a whole lot tougher than you. Most of those tough guys are sitting in stir, cursing my name. Or else they’re real dead, and not thinking too much about yours truly because they probably have much more significant problems in the hereafter. Two, I am duly licensed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States federal government and fully authorized to carry this weapon. Now, you know what those two little things add up to?”
O’Connell didn’t reply, and Murphy slapped him again.
“Shit!” The word burst out of O’Connell’s lips.
“When I ask you a question, Mike-y boy, please respond.”
Murphy pulled back his hand again, and O’Connell said, “I don’t know. What do they add up to?”
Murphy grinned. “What it means is that I’ve got friends-real friends, not like our little play friendship here tonight, Mike-y boy, but real friends who owe me all sorts of real favors, whose butts I might just have pulled out of one fire or another over all those years and would be more than willing to do absolutely fucking anything for me, and who are gonna believe everything I say about our little get-together here tonight if it comes to that. They aren’t going to give a damn about a punk like you, no matter what happens. And when I tell them that you came at me with a knife or just about any sort of weapon that I can plant in your dead and lifeless hand, and I tell ’em it was just some damn tough luck, but I just had to blow your sorry little ass away, they’re going to believe me. In fact, Mike-y boy, they’re gonna congratulate me for cleaning up this world a little bit, before you had a chance to make any really big trouble. They’ll file it away under preventative maintenance. So, that’s the situation you’re currently in, Mike-y boy. In other words, I can do just about anything I fucking well want to, and you can’t do a thing. Is that clear?”
O’Connell hesitated, then nodded when he caught sight of Murphy pulling back his hand for another slap.
“Good. Understanding, they say, is the path to enlightenment.”
O’Connell could taste a little blood on his lips.
“Let me just repeat this so that we are completely clear: I am free to do anything I might think right, including send your sorry little life straight to kingdom come or more likely hell. You get this, Mike-y boy?”
“I get the picture.”
Murphy started to walk around the chair. He kept the barrel of the automatic in contact with O’Connell’s skin, occasionally tapping it painfully against his head, or digging it into the soft space between
