The Nameless Ones by John Connolly
Chapter LXVI
The Great Lost Bear had been in business since 1979, when Dave Evans, along with his wife and a cousin, had arrived in the city of Portland from North Conway, New Hampshire, and decided to open a bar of his own after years of working for other people who did a lot of stuff right and, sometimes, even more stuff wrong.
During those decades in Maine, Dave had seen just about everything, or thought he had until the Fulci brothers came into his life. Since that fateful event, Dave had been forced to reconsider his attitude to existence, and now steeled himself each morning to face the possibility of some degree of social interaction with Tony and Paulie Fulci. Such a day would potentially be open to chaos and destruction, and cause Dave to go to bed that night wondering if there really was a God and, if so, what had He been thinking when He created the Fulcis.
The Fulci brothers had once tried to agree on how many jails and prisons they’d been inside, but had lost count once the total reached double figures. Dave was surprised they could even count that high, but decided this was why God had opted to go with ten fingers, just so the Fulcis could divide aspects of their world into Things That Numbered Up To Ten, which were easily reckonable, and Things That Were More Than Ten, which were not. They’d run into similar difficulties coming up with an estimate of the number of psychiatrists who’d treated them, and the number of heads they’d busted over the years. As for the quantity of different pharmaceuticals they’d been prescribed, mostly unsuccessfully, during their long and fraught relationship with the medical profession, it easily ran into three figures, although Dave thought that might be erring on the low side, even if he chose to keep this opinion to himself.
The Fulcis were by now in middle-age, and no longer busted quite so many heads as they once had. Neither had they seen the interior of a cell for a number of years, a development due in no small part to their involvement with the private detective named Charlie Parker and his colleagues, Angel and Louis. The Fulcis looked up to all three of them: Parker with a deep respect, Angel with much affection, and Louis with an awe approaching that of the centurion Longinus upon having his blindness cured by the blood of the crucified Christ.
Dave Evans was far from an ingénue, and had no illusions about the natures of Parker, Angel, and Louis. He liked all three of them, and was close to Parker in particular, but he recognized that these were violent men, and not, therefore, ideal role models for the Fulcis, who were easily led. On the other hand, it could not be denied that Parker and the others lived by a moral code and – if even a fraction of the stories, both reported and unreported, were true – had brought a great deal of wickedness to an end. If they were not strictly good, they were whatever was required to face down evil. This, Dave accepted, sometimes necessitated methods that were not entirely legal or, in the case of Parker’s occasional utilization of the Fulcis, even strictly wise.
The Fulcis were not without some admirable personal and professional qualities. They loved their mother. They were unswervingly loyal to their small circle of friends. They only busted the heads of those who were asking to have their heads busted. They were kind to animals. After this, the list of positives petered out, but as Dave’s wife Weslie liked to remind him – a lot of people in the world couldn’t boast even that many decencies. This, Dave had to admit, was certainly true, but as far as he was aware, the majority of those dubious individuals did not drink in his beloved Great Lost Bear, whereas the Fulcis practically lived in it.
Views differed on which of the brothers was the least unbalanced, an argument so esoteric, the differences involved being minute, that even St Thomas Aquinas himself might have elected to take a pass on it. Those familiar with the Fulcis felt that Tony, the older of the two, was now marginally less crazy than Paulie, and kept his brother somewhat in check. Since they looked almost identical (each being roughly as wide as he was tall), dressed in the same clothes, spoke in similar tones, and held interchangeable views on the world, the point was probably moot – especially if one of them was hitting you, since they also punched with indistinguishable force, like being hit by a cement block carved into the shape of a fist.
Currently Paulie Fulci was curled up on a bench beneath the bear head that was the bar’s mascot, working on a crossword puzzle. Dave, who was checking accounts at the bar, had almost fallen from his stool in shock upon being told this, only to discover that it was a crossword puzzle in a comic book with a pony on the front cover. Still, it represented progress, of a sort.
The bar was quiet, even for early on a damp Sunday afternoon. Dave enjoyed this time. He found it conducive to the kind of concentration the accounts required, which was why, once a month, he liked to come to the Bear to do them. But once evening arrived, Dave would be gone. The Bear didn’t need him around at night, and the line chefs would only stress him out.
In a corner booth, Charlie Parker was speaking softly with a young woman, most likely a client, who was obviously in difficulty if Parker was meeting with her on a Sunday. Parker often received clients, prospective or otherwise, at the Bear. He didn’t have an office of his own and his home was out of bounds. Dave knew that Parker occasionally used the premises of his lawyer, Moxie Castin, if circumstances required it, but preferred more informal settings. Moxie ate at the Bear a couple of times a month, usually with Parker. He seemed to be the unhealthiest man Dave had ever met, because his diet would have frightened Ronald McDonald, but he continued somehow to walk the earth. Dave had even started to use his services because Moxie’s legal connections were second to none, and being a bar owner in this town meant dealing with the cops and the courts on a regular basis, whether one liked it or not.
The young woman with Parker had begun to cry. Parker caught Dave’s eye, and Dave told one of the staff to take her a glass of water and see if she wanted a coffee or a soda, too. Parker’s face was alive with feeling for the woman opposite him: not pity, or not solely that, but more a profound empathy. It was why Parker did what he did, why he was good at it, why Dave would never wish for Parker’s absence from his life, and why Dave would never judge him harshly for any of his actions. As long as the Bear existed and was under Dave’s control, Parker would always be welcome; Angel and Louis, too. And okay, fine, even the Fulcis, although Dave expected time off in purgatory for what he’d endured on earth as a consequence of their presence.
Speaking of which, Dave wondered what Tony was up to. Tony and his brother were usually inseparable, but Tony had headed out two hours earlier and not been seen since. This was potentially bad news for civilization, depending on what he was doing. Dave glanced over again at Parker and the young woman. Cupcake Cathy had arrived with a glass of water, as well as two empty mugs and the coffeepot. Dave trusted that the young woman would be okay. She was with Parker now. He would do his best for her.
Dave returned to his accounts, but Tony Fulci’s absence continued to nag at him. He hoped Tony wasn’t in any trouble, because if Tony was in trouble, it would certainly be as a result of causing trouble for someone else. Dave wasn’t sure how he had ended up feeling some responsibility for the Fulcis’ actions, but that had come to be the case. In his weaker moments, he even worried about them. He hoped he wasn’t becoming fond of them.
Dear God, he thought, not that.