'A sit-down?' I yelled. 'Who are you, Father Tony Soprano?'
'You don't grow up in Hell's Kitchen without knowing a few people, lad. I called in a few favors. What of it? We're due over there now. It's time to settle this thing man to man, West Side-style.'
'Over where?' I cried.
'The Flaherty house, Mike. Pay attention. And keep your gun handy.'
Chapter 46
How the hell did I get myself into these things?
As I drove toward the Rockaway Inlet for the second time, I couldn't believe I was actually agreeing to participate in some kind of crazy Irish mobster meeting. Had I fallen asleep at work and was I dreaming this? Of course not. You hang with an old-school Irish lunatic grandfather like mine long enough, the surreal becomes your normal.
We heard the fireworks before we turned the corner for the Flahertys' street. There were whistling bottle rockets and deafening strings of firecrackers. A giant flower burst of yellow lit up the sky behind the Flaherty compound's dilapidated split-level as we pulled up in front of it.
'I thought the Fourth of July was over,' I said as we got out. 'Are you sure the Vatican would approve of this?'
'You just follow my lead and keep quiet,' Seamus said. 'These gangster people only listen to man talk.'
I shook my head as I spotted my old pal, Mr. Pit Bull, trying to chew a hole in the chain-link fence as we came up the steps. This time I couldn't actually hear the dog going batshit with all the noise of the ordnance from the backyard.
When no one came to the door, we decided to go around the side of the house to the back. The sulfurous smell of gunpowder hung in the air, which I thought was fitting, since we were now walking through the valley of the shadow of death, straight into the gates of Hell.
The rear of the place was almost completely overtaken by a large deck and one of those cheap aboveground pools. On the deck, the muscle-headed punk patriarch of the Flaherty clan, 'Tommy Boy,' as he was known from his rap sheet, sat with his tattooed brother Billy, book-ending a keg. I realized why no one had called the cops, when I saw the third Flaherty for the first time. I didn't know what his name was, but I noticed that he was still wearing his white NYPD captain's shirt as he tossed a lit bottle rocket toward the house next door.
Tommy Boy looked over with bleary eyes as Seamus cleared his throat by the deck steps.
'What the-?' he said. His pale face split into a grim grin. 'Hey, guys. Check this out. How's this for a joke: A cop and a priest walk uninvited into a private party.'
'We're here to have that sit-down, Flaherty,' Seamus said. 'We've come to work this thing out, and we won't leave until we do.'
'Sit-down?' the illustrated Flaherty brother, Billy, said, balling his hands into fists as he stood. 'Only thing that's gonna happen to you, coot, is a serious beat-down.'
Chapter 47
I followed my courageous, or maybe just insane, grandfather up the stairs onto the deck.
'Murphy sent me,' Seamus said to Tommy Boy, completely ignoring the tattooed man.
'Murphy?' Tommy Boy said, not budging from his cheap plastic seat. 'Frank Murphy? That dirty ol' little Forty-ninth Street bookie I let operate out of the kindness of my Irish heart? News flash, Father Moron. He's less valid on the West Side than you. Now get your scrawny ass out of here before my brother Billy here makes it so that you have to say mass for the rest of your life on a Hoveround.'
As the tattooed brother took a step toward us, I decided it was time to take the lead. My first move was to gently push Seamus to the side. My next and last move was to much less gently kick the seated Flaherty in the side of the head as hard as I could as I drew my Glock.
I helped him up by his long, greasy hair, the barrel of my gun wedged into his ear hole like a pencil into a sharpener.
'Bennett! Whoa, whoa, hold up,' the cop brother said, slowly showing me his hands. 'We don't need this kind of stuff. We're all friends here. You actually worked with my old partner, Joe Kelly, when you were in Manhattan North homicide.'
'That's right, I worked homicide,' I said. 'And I'm not above committing one right about now. Three of them, in fact. How's this for a joke, Flaherty? Three dumb-ass brothers are found floating facedown dead in their own pool.'
'Let me get this straight. You're actually willing to shoot me over this stupid kiddie crap?' Tommy Boy asked from the other side of my Glock.
I nodded enthusiastically.
'Your kid almost killed my seven-year-old tonight at the carnival. To protect my kids, you better believe I'll end your worthless ass.'
'I see,' Tommy Boy said, looking at me sideways across the gun I was scratching against his eardrum. 'I hadn't heard about that. I think I'm starting to understand your position now. I even know what to do. Here, watch. Seany!'
The screen door opened a few moments later, and the fat kid who'd been terrorizing my family stepped out onto the deck. His pudgy jaw dropped in a cartoonish gape when he saw me and his dad down on the deck conversing over the barrel of my Austrian semiauto.
'Uh… yes, Dad?' he said, fear in his voice.
'Come here,' Flaherty senior said.
Quick as a snake, Tommy Boy moved out of my grasp before the kid had made two steps. Before I could tell what was going on, he lifted his portly son up and threw him off the deck. Instead of landing in the pool, like I was expecting, the heavy teen slammed into the side of it with a cracking sound before he fell face-first onto the backyard concrete. Right away he started bawling.
Christ, I thought, standing there shocked, with the gun still in my hand. Now, that's what you call tough love.
'Dad!' young Sean cried from his knees as blood poured out of his nose. Behind him, water began to trickle out of the crack he'd made in the plastic pool.
'Don't you 'Dad' me, you little punk. Stay the hell away from this man's kids, you hear me?'
'But, Dad,' Sean wheezed. 'You told me to teach them a lesson.'
'Yeah, well,' Tommy Boy said, giving me a sheepish look. 'Lesson learned. You don't hurt little kids, shithead. I have to actually explain that to you? Here's the new orders. If one of Mr. Bennett's kids skins his knee, you better have a Band-Aid handy. Any of them gets hurt again, you're going to spend the rest of your vacation in the hospital.'
'Yes, Dad,' Seany moaned as he ran up the deck stairs and back inside.
'Honestly, Bennett,' Flaherty said with his palms up. 'I'm sorry about the whole thing. It really is my fault. My wife went to Ireland for a week to bury her mother. Guess I'm not so great at this dad thing. Everything's just gone to Hell without her here.'
'There's a definite learning curve,' I said reholstering my weapon. 'I'm just glad we could finally work things out.'
'Man to man,' Seamus added behind me.
