The Dorchester Five

PROLOGUE

I am Nightingale—

What follows is the story of a boy who was driving around Boston in his brother’s auto when a lady came out into the street. He hit her. She died on the spot.

Before her death, the lady had been one of the church grannies you see everywhere in Dorchester, Roxbury, and the like, this particular granny being of the brittle, skin-and-bone variety, with the half-rim spectacles and the humped back and the little phrases like praise be and Lord willin’ spat out like cusswords at the tail end of whatever else she may say. Her name was Hepsibah Oleander Tidwell, called Oleander by those who adored her, which, once she was dead, included just about every black person in Dorchester and certainly every black politician on Beacon Hill. One stands up for one’s own—la fidélité du clan—I find no fault in that. At the time the boy hit her, this Oleander was dressed in her best—a bright yellow suit trimmed in white piping, plus gloves and a double row of beads round her neck that such ladies favor. Also a hat with netting across the rim. She was carrying a shiny handbag in one hand and her Bible in the other—the bag flew off, but she held onto that Bible. No doubt she realized in that instant that she would be passing from swaying and singing about the Blessed One to meeting the very Guy face to face. She got hit across from St. Brigid’s, the side entrance with the spiked gate. You could see it all quite well in the video they played at the trial, regardless of the jiggling. This was some years ago, before every cell had vid, but a guy had one out and caught much of the action.

The boy’s car was one of the ancient bugs, a ’97 punch buggy to be precise, faded aqua in color, an unnoticeable thing—not a car you would imagine could kill someone. It looked like the old lady rolled over the hood, her weight mostly on a shoulder, and when she disappeared it was head first, feet following, to land on the side of her face. This, as it happened, transected her spinal cord at the base of the skull above the fifth cervical vertebra, resulting in spinal shock and, as I mentioned above, instant death. The kid did not know much, but he must have known that he had, in fact, just killed that old lady.

The kid’s name was Jake Rodney Culligan. We will call him Jakey. He was, in truth, a bit stoned at the time of the accident, or so his people concluded when talking about it later, as it was his habit when he was driving his brother’s car to dip into the ashtray and smoke the nub of any joint he might happen upon. Ashtray roach belonged to the person behind the wheel—such was Jakey’s ethical code. As a result, he may not have had much of his wits about him, and this explains why he panicked and tried to get away after he hit the old lady.

And this, then, would be when the guys surrounded his car and started beating on it. Of course Jakey locked the doors and would not get out. I mean, we are all aware of what your average street mob will do when presented with a righteous excuse to beat up some punk, are we not? Plus it was a hot summer day, long into the afternoon, and everyone was just hanging around looking for a reason to get mean. L’ennui tue—the boredom kills—oui? So you know that if they could have got at him, they would have murdered Jakey Culligan on the spot for thinking he could get away with a hit-and-run on the neighborhood granny. That is a fact, and all the neighborhood morons hanging around watching would have cheered, and in fact did cheer, right into the camera, too, as the event grew nastier.

So all these angry guys yelled at Jakey and kicked at the windows of the VW and rocked it so that the tires lifted from the street. He tried to call his brother on his cell, but he could not reach him. As it happens, his brother was in the process of stealing some thirty cases of Jameson whiskey from a truck in Arlington Heights. This was a random, just-happy-to-be-there felony, not material to this story except that big brother Dylan had his cell muted. Jakey left a voice message in which he sounded quite desperate. Unfortunately, he dropped the n-bomb, perhaps twice—something the lawyers enjoyed playing endlessly during the trial, although it was of little relevance, as no one outside the car could possibly have heard him. Perhaps they were intimating that Jakey hit the old lady because she was black—such rubbish. Of course, his language is not to be excused, but I would like to know who wouldn't lose it under such circumstances, particularly when a bit high and talking to his own blood? Also, I could add that in the video, although the guys beating on the car were not of one particular race or another, you do see one very dark fellow up on the hood of the VW, screaming as if crazed and kicking at the windshield with both feet, and inexcusable words do come to the mind uninvited. The truth is that the hideous word entered the thoughts of every man in that courtroom, white and dark alike. This I know, for I was there, and I observed this.

After the angry mob tipped the VW, the fuel line breached and the car went up in flames—actually, just a touch of flames, but a great deal of thick, yellow smoke. The kid inside smacked his head and passed out while the morons cheered. You do not see Jakey hit his head in the video, but that is what the doctor said. On the stand, she said there had been physical trauma resulting in a subdural hematoma followed by prolonged hypoxia. This meant that Jakey was brain damaged with severe burns to over fifty percent of his body. Who could doubt this, looking across the courtroom at him sitting there?

So now we have reached the end of Jakey Culligan’s story… almost. But this unfortunate man-child is not the primary subject of this memoir. This is the story of the righteous mob—or at least the five men who got charged—the Dorchester Five, in what we might call the media-speak. These guys got off with slaps on the wrist for what they did to Jakey Culligan, while he got shuffled off to live out his existence at his ma’s house on Fifth Street in Southie. Here, we must admit, Jakey’s life was not altogether glum. After all, he had three prepared meals per day, which arrived in a van, sealed in plastic, piping hot. He had daily massages and whirlpool baths, light-resistance weight training, and long, aimless wheelchair walks in the windy harborside park. He also had the very best in home entertainment systems and amassed a huge library of favorite films that he would watch over and over, never tiring—grand horror classics, such as Faces of Death, Dr. Giggles, Tokyo Gore Police, Ichi the Killer, Twisted Sisters, The Midnight Meat Train, House of 1000 Corpses, Nekromantik, Man Bites Dog, Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, Strange Circus, and many, many more. And so this brain-damaged and disfigured fellow lived out his life in peaceful coexistence with his loving ma, who was most often passed out snoring on the couch, or else hanging out on the front steps with a case of Labatts and a couple of the other neighborhood lushes, smoking the countless Pall Malls (and bitching about how the container flats from the docks roar by non-stop, which they did not used to do back in the day, but the pols, oh how those fucks will screw the good folks of Southie every time!).

Still, this is an inspirational story, because after eight years, when Jakey finally died quite young (a near inevitability given his condition), someone—patient, wary, and wily, like all predators—set about settling the score with the guys responsible for Jakey having lost out on the life full of hope and chance and lust and rage that every young waster craves and deserves. So in a way it is an art piece, much like a film from Jakey’s own collection, this tale of five killings.

All that, yes, but now I must cut the pies. This is labor that requires undivided concentration, as the servings must be uniform in size, for otherwise our charges may grow disgruntled. Perhaps dangerous. Well, we know how guys can get when they believe themselves to have been unjustly slighted, do we not? One thousand peanut butter creme pies—eight identical wedges each. And so we maintain order, we bearers of the blade. One delicate, dedicated slash at a time.

Très sincèrement,

Nightingale

ONE

I am Nightingale—

Elliot enters The Underground and pauses to observe the vast, low-slung space held up by bulging pillars. The room has been fitted out with a scattering of scarred pub tables and a thirty-foot bar, manned by bullish men in vests and white sleeves who splash out drinks with more grace than their physiques might suggest. The place is jammed with guys in ties and ladies in slacks, all fresh off work and roaring with gaiety as they gulp at cocktails and poke their thumbs at their cells.

Elliot feels a little self-conscious, I notice, a little old—it’s new for him, this question about his stamina. Still, as he descends into the throng, I sense the corners of his lips twitching and catch a ghost of a dimple, creasing his cheek. Ah, yes, Elliot knows the game. He is a womanizer—un coureur de jupons—by instinct. Indeed, he is here to meet me, although he has not yet realized this.

He knocks a few shoulders, just for kicks, glad that he made the last-minute decision to drop in. It is energizing to know that people are out, second wind in full tilt, on a weeknight, looking to score. It revives his faith in the human animal.

He is thinking this when a blonde in the crowd twirls about, giggling madly. She is one of the drones from his firm’s trust department, common and buck-toothed but decidedly arousing. She spots him and her hand goes up, fingers twiddling. Then she hesitates as her mind clicks in on the fact that he might not know her, or at least might not choose to acknowledge her while out. A man hovers behind her, presumably the lothario who got her spinning on her heel. The man is young like she is, with a weak chin and a double-breasted glen plaid suit, of all the getups. His eyes bead in on Elliot even as he laughs forcedly, as if to remind the girl of his presence. Elliot remembers that she has a little-girl name—Patsy? Dee-Dee? He makes his way over; he is tall with a solid build, and although he is always studiously polite, it is other men who give way. The girl’s eyes harden with interest.

How are you? he asks casually. Elliot has never used a clever line on a girl; the idea does not appeal to him.

Mr. Becker, she says, still sober enough to smother the fancy meeting you here that wants to bubble out. Penny. From the trust department? Her accent allows him to capture her entire life growing up: the oily stink of the airport in her nostrils, brutal father, sadsack mother, slew of gum-cracking girlfriends, and the growing conviction that maybe she had it in her to sleep her way toward something better. The tip of her tongue rubs the rims of her freshly lasered pearlies.

He starts a meaningless conversation, at the same time dropping his gaze to her chest, just for a millisecond, just a flutter of his eyelids as if reacting to a mote of dust, but enough to signal her that, even if he had not placed her on sight or known she was alive before this moment, he is interested in bedding her tonight. She sips, her eyes locked on his as she nods along with whatever he is saying, her body taut, game for whatever he has in mind. He knows that she is checking out the grooves that score his forehead and the grey that laces his sideburns and that she approves of these signs of maturity because they mean that, unlike men her own age, he will not care whether she admires his foreplay. He will not want her to sit waiting for the call he will not make tomorrow. He will bed her, slowly and competently, and then allow her to go home and snatch a few hours of sleep without feeling like a whore for being satisfied with exactly that. He glances over her shoulder at the other man, reminding her.

Oh, she says sweetly, making as if to step to one side, but barely. This is Todd. Todd, Mr. Becker. She does not explain.

The younger man tries to prove something or other with a crushing handshake. Elliot had thought that this feint at machismo had gone out of style, but maybe it’s back. Todd’s palm is soggy from his beer bottle. He barks out whatever his last name is and then something else. The name of his firm, perhaps? Why the hell would Elliot want to know that?

What are you drinking? Elliot says pleasantly. May I get you one? He includes both of them in the offer. The girl is clearly thrown—should they not be sending Todd off on this errand? But she hangs in there, lifting her nearly full glass to her chin and rolling her eyes like marbles. Todd, likewise, displays his bottle, his wet-lipped smile smug.

Feeling pleasantly detached, Elliot makes his way toward the bar, where he jockeys for position. He is scanning the top-shelf options when, finally, he spots me. Actually, it is more that he spots a bit of leopard print and one grey eye, rather tired, and a pair of decidedly down-turned lips painted a bleary shade of mauve with a dark mole just off to one side, all of these slivers of womanhood fractured in the mirrors that form the backdrop of the bar. He ducks his head, squinting, pressing hard against the man to his right and automatically placing a placating hand on the guy’s shoulder. He spots me again! I am sitting six or seven stools from where he stands. My ashy hair shields my face. The leopard print belongs to a gauzy scarf that wraps around my neck and trails down my back. He can barely make out more than the melancholy lips and the mole, but those are the parts of me he wants to see again.

He shakes his head as a bartender makes eye contact, then maneuvers his way over to me. Other bodies pass between us, but by the time he gets to me he has seen what there is to see—a woman with elbows on the bar and rounded back, wearing some sort of quilted suit, a skirt and buttoned-to-the-high-collar jacket in grey suede that attempts to double for work and after-work and thus more or less fails at both. My pumps are leopard print, matching the scarf. As he slides into the narrow space beside me, I turn and he smells the odor of freshly smoked cigarette, and suddenly he wants one even though it's been years.

I don’t mean to crowd you, he apologizes.

Think nothing of it.

He notes my voice, low and unaffected. My glance, too, is indifferent. It occurs to him that my face, aside from the bee-stung lips, is not interesting, although I am sexually appealing nevertheless. My dangling earrings gleam from within my thick, colorless hair.

He says, But don’t you know me?

I glance sideways.

I’m sure we know one another, he says.

I do not think so, I say without enthusiasm. He catches a slight accent—something nasal about my vowels.

I’m quite certain, Elliot says, casting his mind back. I never forget a face.

Let me guess, I say. I am Joan of Arc. And from the moment you saw me you pictured me nude and tied to a stake.

He jerks his head back, then laughs spontaneously. In part, he is impressed that a woman as unanimated as I would pop off a remark that cheeky. Please don’t misunderstand, he explains. I really do know you from somewhere. Were you ever…?

Unlikely, I interrupt. I allow him the tiniest flicker of my eyebrow. I don’t travel much, I say in acquiescence. Then I meet his gaze. Now is your chance.

He frowns innocently. My chance at what?

At getting what it is you are here for.

He smiles, charmed. And what, pray tell, am I here for?

I tip my forehead toward the bar. A drink, I would have supposed.

Elliot looks around; sure enough, the bartender is handy. He orders a whiskey and throws a thumb in my direction. And another of whatever my friend here is drinking.

I am just leaving, I say. Settle up? The bartender nods and turns away.

Look, don’t run off on account of me, Elliot says. You don’t want to talk, I can collect my drink and move along. I’m a very good boy like that.

He watches me shell some bills off a roll I have half-extracted from an evening bag. My nails are lacquered a dark purple, like my lips, with the tips left unvarnished and the edges cut flat across in the European fashion. The makeup on my eyelids is a violet-grey, and rather laid on. The mole just off my mouth might be a decal. It occurs to him that people may snicker behind my back—the office character, dwelling in a time warp. He watches me thumb the bills, catching them smoothly between two fingers and extracting them without disturbing the roll. How does he know me? He senses that his sketchy memory of me has to do with himself, and thus it interests him greatly.

I am quite sure that you are brilliant at taking the hints, I assure him. I drop my bills on the bar and snap my bag. In fact, I am sure that you are brilliant at all things you do. I swivel past him. Nevertheless, at the moment I need a smoke.

A smoke? he repeats stupidly.

I shrug. Not nearly my greatest vice.

Heartening to know, he banters back. And where do you commit this particular sin?

There is a designated area. I raise my chin for a moment, indicating the ceiling. On thirty-two. A roof patio. I pause as if struck by this. "One trifles with one’s mortality under the stars. La destinée, eh?" I smile, fleetingly, for the first time.

Elliot smiles back, encouraged, but he is not the one to blunder back into the ring at a flicker of the crimson muleta, and as I drop from my stool, he eases round to face the bar. His whiskey has arrived. It is chilly, the old-fashioned cubes melded together. He raises his glass and sees me in the mirror. I am looking back at him, my expression bemused. He turns.

Maybe I can handle one more after all. Are you still buying?

What’s it going to be?

An Irish coffee. Make it a double, won’t you? It will be chilly up there.

When Elliot turns with the steaming glass, I am walking off, glancing over my shoulder at him, the smile still playing on my lips. Beyond me, he spots the trust department girl eyeing him expectantly, her dog-in-heat still at heel. He smiles and winks across the expanse. On her part, she spies the two drinks in his hands, sticks out her skinny little tongue, then turns her attention to the lucky lad who has earned her affection for the evening.

Unburdened by the idea that he may have inflicted some momentary wound, Elliot turns back to his new conquest. But I have disappeared. He scans the crowd, moving forward with his elbows out to protect his drinks, and happens to go eye-to-eye with a wolf wearing an ascot and a suit with a tight silhouette. The man palms his hair and looks away sharply, as men will do when they are caught displaying curiosity in another male. Elliot, without formulating a thought, follows the man’s gaze in time to catch a glimpse of leopard print gauze as I exit through the doors to the hotel lobby. Elliot sees no reason to abandon the chase.

Out in the lobby, he is momentarily conscious of the fact that he is toting a couple of alcoholic beverages and, strictly speaking, ought to be waylaid for a polite scolding. But he is not the type minions take on. So he strides across the busy carpet, comfortable in his eight-hundred-dollar pinstripe. He scores an empty elevator and rides straight up, all paranoia squelched by his image in the antique-mirrored doors. Death is near, but he does not sense this. The Irish coffee vibrates, sending its acid aroma up to his nostrils.

On the thirty-second floor of the Hampstead Arms, an emergency spotlight aims a cone of light down at a stark circle of flowered carpet in front of the elevator. Otherwise the place is black. Elliot steps off. The doors thump behind him. To his left, a pair of massive doors—a ballroom, no doubt. To his right, a door is open, vague light oozing from beyond. I am calling him, you see, though his ears hear nothing.

Elliot saunters through to a small room, its bar stripped to the shelves. City lights do not quite pierce the windows, creating a murky half-glow that causes the draped tables to shimmer. At the far end, the French doors are ajar. Elliot can discern a terrace, one or two wrought-iron tables with stools arranged around them. A glass ashtray glimmers in the night, a yellow spark playing above it. Yes, he has found me, tapping at my precious cigarette. I turn away as he steps onto the patio.

Is that my Irish, then? I ask over my shoulder.

He crosses the tiles, feeling the night breeze riffle his hair. It is chilly, as I forewarned. He leans a palm against the stone railing, careful to keep his clothes from touching it, sips his whiskey and surveys the city. It is not a particularly scenic venue. Tremont Street looks gridlocked; he can hear the distant honks and, fleetingly, an angry voice that disappears into the air exactly as it reaches him. Still, there is something erotic about the scene. A hidden den of eros above the cruel, cold city—that manner of tripe.

I gesture with the cigarette. He shakes his head.

I’m Elliot, by the way. He offers his hand.

I touch his palm with icy fingers. Florrie, I say.

The name means nothing to him. Still, I pronounce it with my vague lilt and am more attractive to him for doing so. He watches as I expel smoke from my mouth; it rolls forth in splashy clots, evaporating before it can douse my chest.

You’ve lost your scarf, he observes.

I gesture with my coffee. He spots it, tangled among the flourishes of the stone cornice that trims the edge of another level of the roof, down a story from where we stand. You would not mind retrieving it? I ask.

He snorts. Then you blow me and we’ll call it an evening.

I jerk my head as if to toss the smoke I exhale over my shoulder. You’re on.

He laughs, liking me for not shying away from his schoolboy humor. Afraid I’m not that hungry for it, he says amicably.

A shame. There was a time when you would have risked life and limb for some lipstick round your manhood, eh? I pause to duck my head and light myself a fresh cigarette. I fail twice, my lighter sending harmless spatters of sparks into the breeze.

May I?

I look up at him, then pass over lighter and cigarette. He rolls the cigarette between his lips, enjoying the feeling, then cups his palm and defies the wind by firing it up on his first try. He passes it back to me, ignoring the fact that I touch his hand with mine a little longer than necessary during the exchange.

You are the—how do we call it—the self-made man, I say.

What makes you think that?

A man does not carry himself like you do when it is family money, and so…

He interrupts with a sharp laugh. I strike you as having crept in through the kitchen?

I answer logically. You carry yourself as if you have had the opportunity to discover your capabilities. You are cavalier, and you have earned it.

He smiles. Never thought of a supercilious attitude as something a person rates.

Mmm, but it is, I say assuredly. So tell me, Elliot, what made you who you are? I do not mean your life story. I mean… I circle a hand, the big break. The event you knew would jumpstart your career, propel you to where you are today.

He thinks, studying the city windows beyond me, then bringing his gaze down to my eyes. When he speaks, his tone is even and casual. You’re working, he says simply.

I am taken aback—so this is how he interprets my dead-on Jeanne Moreau! After a moment, I recover. We are all working for something, Elliot, are we not?

He gestures back at the hotel, equally pleasant. What, do you have some sort of arrangement with the hotel detective?

I’ve learned my way around, I say opaquely, turning to gaze at the city.

He snaps a finger. The guy watching when you left the bar. Has a lot of styling going on, maybe a goatee and some sort of neck scarf. That the house dick?

I murmur noncommittally. In truth, I have no idea who he is talking about.

He chuckles. Never realized a stuffy joint like this would allow hookers. But I guess men who stay in nine-hundred-dollar rooms have the same needs as anyone.

Men are men, I agree. "Look, Elliot, I can assure you that I meant you no insult—pas du tout. I merely came across an attractive man who looked like he could use some company."

He is irked by my trade patter, but lets it slide as he realizes that in fact he is not wholly uninterested. In any event, he is all the more curious about where he’d set eyes on me before. Had I been on the arm of one of his partners at a function? Elliot is not a man who has natural allies. Blackmail of an informal nature is certainly in his line.

I sigh. I will leave you to your thoughts, I say, easing my weight off the wall.

You asked about my big break, he says into the night sky.

I pause. I did.

Probably less long ago than you’d think. Spent the first decade of my law career kicking around as appointed counsel to lowlifes I wouldn’t have recognized the day after I got them their plea. Graduated to rich chumps and their controlled substances. This case marked the end of all that. Got in on something big, used the opportunity, and haven’t looked back since.

Intriguing. I slip back to my former position. What sort of case was this?

Assault trial, he says. He glances at me. I was hoping for attempted murder at the time, but it turned out even better as it was. Heard of the Dorchester Five?

I have read that name, certainly, but it was quite recently.

Yeah, you’re talking about the drive-by shooting down by Savin Hill, he says. Con just out of Walpole took a bullet in the skull, maybe six weeks ago. Terence D’Amante was one of the Five, so the local stations revived the old story. Personally, I barely remembered the man’s name until I read it in the papers, and I sure as hell didn’t realize he’d been inside all these years. World’s better off with him dead, frankly. Guy was an animal.

But the Dorchester Five case itself, I steer him gently.

Short version: eight years ago some schmuck ran over the neighborhood saint and then tried to blow the scene. Crowd turned, car tipped and burned. Mess all around.

I remember now, I say in a low, distant voice. Those men were local heroes.

He scoffs. "You flip a car with someone inside, don’t expect a parade. You should have seen this kid. One of his ears gone, half his face a molten mess. Like out of Friday the 13th."

"Nightmare on Elm Street, I correct him automatically. Freddy Krueger resembles the burn victim. In Friday the 13th, Jason wears a hockey mask." I may be circling in on my first kill—a delicate proposition indeed—but horror was Jakey's personal ballad.

Right, he says, not caring. Anyway, at trial, we played some vids of the kid from a couple weeks before he hit the old bird. Happy as a pup, lip-synching to his favorite bubblegum pop with his shirt off. What was that song—‘Numa Numa’ something—had the tune bopping around in my skull for the duration of the trial.

‘Dragostea Din Tei,’ I say. The Moldovian hit from some years back. A favorite of Jakey’s. I hum a few bars of the chorus.

Elliot smiles. He has always been charmed by a woman singing. Point was to display this so-called hit-and-run killer as nothing like the charred wreck sitting in that courtroom. Something like that happens to a kid, intentional or not, someone’s got to pay.

I nod, smoking. But the Dorchester Five walked. So who, then, paid?

He takes my cigarette from me and has a drag. Fuel line manufacturer.

I try to look thoughtful. I suppose the fuel line ruptured, causing the car to go up in flames and burn this poor fellow?

He snorts a laugh. No car should need to withstand being bounced around by a bunch of dumb bastards, but you better believe that those pasty engineers in their short-sleeved dress shirts, trying to explain solder reflex and shock delays in open court, looked guilty as hell.

He drags on my cigarette and then pinches it, sending it pinwheeling into the night. This is a trick from his past—he realizes that he is flirting. Elliot Becker, Esquire is considering doing the deed with a high-priced hooker! And she’s French, by God!

So the Five walked because you maneuvered it so this company took the blame, I say.

He grants my summation. More or less covers it.

Which of the Five did you represent? Not Terence D’Amante, I gather?

Oh, I didn’t represent any of the baddies. I stood for the vegetable, he says.

My voice fails me as I tamp down a flame of rage in my chest, but delicately, only to a point. Rage will be useful, quite soon. By this you mean the victim?

"What victim? Originally they charged the punk, too, while he’s still in intensive care getting skin grafts. Those charges got dropped, but it wasn’t because he hadn’t broken any laws. Anyway, not