Free Brighton by Michael Harvey Page A

People in line stole quick glances Kevin’s way, anticipating his counterattack. After all, he’d put in his time, shuffling forward a foot or two every couple of minutes for the better part of an hour. And yet he felt none of the unarticulated and consuming rage that was the province of Boston and its proud inhabitants. Instead, he wandered ten more feet, then twenty, past the end of the line and out the door. So what if he didn’t have a valid driver’s license from the Commonwealth? He was the Pulitzer Prize winner for best investigative piece of the year, 2001. That would be the first line in his bio. The first sentence in his obituary. His career would never be the same. His life, forever changed. At least that was the hype. Why, then, didn’t he feel any different? Or, for that matter, anything at all?

13
    HE DROVE west on Soldiers Field Road, the Charles River twisting and turning alongside, afternoon sun glancing daggers off his windshield. Kevin exited at Market Street and climbed the long hill toward Brighton Center. He’d avoided driving through the center for more than two decades and wasn’t sure why he was making the detour now. The storefronts of his youth had mostly disappeared, Woolworth’s and Brigham’s gone, five or six bars and half as many packies history. There were still plenty of places to get lit, but they looked cleaner now, safer, gentrified. And probably not nearly as much fun. Kevin drove past Daniel’s Bakery, where his sisters had spent their youth frosting cakes for minimum wage. Next to it was an Indian take-out place that had once been the Blue Bayou. Kevin had been a month shy of eleven and hanging around outside the Bayou one Sunday afternoon when Shakey Callahan walked in and fired a gun between Sean Bryant’s legs. Bryant pissed himself and fainted dead away off his bar stool. Shakey rifled Sean’s pockets, left a few dollars on the bar for the tab, and walked out whistling. After the cops left, Kevin and his pals snuck into the bar and took turns sticking their fingers in the bullet hole Shakey had leftin the stool’s green padding. All in all, not bad for a Sunday. Just past the Indian joint was Mandy and Joe’s deli, Fleet Bank, and a CVS. Kevin pulled into the bank’s parking lot, slid a MEDIA placard onto the dashboard, and walked into the CVS for a pack of gum. He listened from the next aisle as an old man explained to a female clerk how he had to put a two-by-four under the toilet seat to prevent his balls from taking a bath. He was unbuckling his pants to show off the low-hangers when Kevin left. Outside, traffic was snarled for a block and a half. People leaned on their horns and hollered at anyone who’d listen while no one went anywhere. Kevin walked over to the cause of the tie-up—a homeless man wrapped in a long rubber fireman’s coat and lying on his side in the middle of the street. A woman came out of the CVS, took one look, and crossed at the light. More people walked past as Kevin rolled the man over. He was wearing leather suspenders with no shirt under the coat, and his eyes were nailed wide open.
    “You okay?” Kevin said.
    “I don’t know.” The man blinked once and looked at Kevin as if to say “What next?” Just then a siren whooped, traffic cleared, and a squad car pulled up. A cop with a meaty Irish face got out, took one look at the man on the ground, and started cursing. Kevin was pushed to the periphery of the crowd and watched as an ambulance arrived. The homeless man departed on a stretcher, waving at his fans and trying to shake hands with the cop. There was a pleasant buzz now, everyone happy to have another person’s misfortune to talk about. That much, at least, hadn’t changed. Kevin walked back to his car and drove down Parsons Street, headed toward Electric Avenue. Already he had a headache.

    Electric Avenue bellied up to the Mass Pike before curling off into a dead end that was more of a mercy killing. Kevin parked in