Free Boston Cream by Howard Shrier

a fed in the eye, other than to spit in it. Never say a word. Do your time like a man, we’ll look after the missus. Above all, never rat.
    All while singing like a diva to the FBI. For years.
    An epic Wagnerian song cycle, performed by Whitey and his partner Steve Flemmi. They informed on rivals and friends alike to keep their own trade humming, killing prodigiously all the while. Stevie especially. Even killing killers who killed for them. Killing girls. The details on some of the girls, when that all came out, were sickening, even to Sean. But even as the warrants were being issued, Whitey’s pals in the FBI warned him off and he stayed free another fifteen years.
    Mad Mickey had been dumb enough or strong enough to believe in the Charlestown code and went to prison rather than deal with the feds. The feds got pissed enough to send him to Milan, Michigan, a rathole if ever there was one, a snake pit like Bedlam, only Bedlam wasn’t eighty per cent black. Mickey kept his mouth shut from the time he was swept up, never said aword in any interrogation room, courtroom or pretrial cell. Kept his idea of honour and did his time like an all-star, wouldn’t back down from a Panzer division, until he got into a fight where he brought fists and the brother had a knife, stabbed him deep through his ribs into the lungs, and the life whistled out of the slick bubbling hole in minutes. His father had stuck to the Town code and it got rubbed in his face like road rash. So excuse Sean if he didn’t feel sentimental about Charlestown. He got a kick out of seeing it from his balcony and never having to live there again. Once a square mile of mayhem and thievery and now a pocket of real estate deals.
    Whitey’s treachery, his hypocrisy, his shattering of so many hearts had decimated the Irish Mob. It had never quite recovered. When Sean came out of prison last year, a lot of people thought he might make a move—he had the genes and savage temper for it—but he had stayed quiet. Not because he lacked anything for balls. His were big as Mickey’s and no less brass. It was because he was going to bust in the back door when he was good and ready.
    Sean had a secret. One that meant he could stay clear of his old ways, anything that could take him back to Cedar Junction. His four-year bit there had cured him of any desire to get strip-searched and hosed down again. To miss his family and the other things that mattered. Now clear of probation, he was building something so new, so far under anyone’s radar, that not one of the many agencies that had pursued him over the years had a clue he was back in business. All because of Michael. A gift brought to his doorstep by his own beloved boy. His opening was coming. Out of the ashes of Whitey’s great deception, he was rebuilding. Gathering steam fast, with loads of cash coming in, untraceable. Soon he’d have enough to make his mark on the town. To carry a big enough stick that he could speak softly as a prayer.

CHAPTER 8
    I f there was anywhere in America you had to fall sick, you would want it to be on Francis Street. Every building fronting on either side was a hospital, specialist centre or office building housing doctors. So was every other building for eight blocks. This was the place to be if your heart seized up, your legs gave out, an organ failed or a stroke left you needing a bedpan and a bib for meals. Or a woman with a barbell gave your head a whack.
    I walked past a group of smokers all facing south so the wind was at their backs, pursing their cheeks as they sucked the last gasp of smoke they were going to have until their appointments or visits were over. I ducked between idling taxis waiting for people to ease out of wheelchairs and into back seats. Once I was inside Sinai Hospital, the first smell that hit me was not the usual mix of disinfectant, body fluids and anesthetics, the anxious odours and stale breath of the sick—it was coffee. Fresh coffee. Sold out of a