Birds of Prey

Glenn took one last mouth-burning sip of coffee and left the cup in the car. There was a short-eared owl he had driven to this abandoned airfield to see, and dawn would soon give way to morning. He was a bad birdwatcher: never up early enough to see what the others did, never as attuned to the one-note chips and whistles that identified species without ever seeing them. Devoting dozens of weekends to it hadn’t made him any better. An undistinguished member of the legendary Brookline Bird Club, just happy to be in the mix.

In a round of post-Gulf War budget cuts two years before, the DoD closed Stourwater Naval Air Station. Since then it had reverted to a feral grassland twenty miles from downtown Boston where coyotes and rare birds mingled with skaters riding the tarmac and punks getting high. The northeast corner had a ditch with sixty years of av gas slurried with good Quincy gravel: a lethal, invincible stew. There was rumored to be several thousand pounds of unexploded ordnance, circa 1942. But if you kept away from the ruined buildings and didn’t visit at night, it was just a park. A mostly deserted park, especially in the morning.

From a distance, it looked like a flat, sparse plain bordered with trees, watched over by the air control tower to the south. The short-eared owl, or “shortie” as the old-timers called it, had been last seen flying low over the field furthest away from the parking lot, directly across from Glenn. But when he tried to walk in a straight line, obstacles emerged: overgrown blueberry thickets, a roped-off area with a graffiti’d shipping container in the middle, and a retention pond with a rainbow gleam of oil in the rising sun. Periodically he’d look ahead with binoculars for the owl: nothing. By the time he was halfway to his goal, he would have been a small stick figure to the occasional car passing by.

A flicker of movement in the woodlands to his left caught his eye. This is what a good birder does, he reflected: spots movement with the naked eye, then pulls out the binoculars to investigate. Only beginners scan and scan through binoculars without a target.

When he focused on the spot, Glenn saw a man rather than a bird. Then two more men behind him, following the first. Christ, he thought. Not other people. In an empty park, three more people felt like a crowd. Probably real estate developers looking to turn this into a godforsaken mall. A streambed some hundred yards away separated him from the distant figures. He looked closer at the two men in back. There was something familiar about how one of them walked. Where did he know him from? The man in front turned his head as if to say something, and that was when the man behind with the familiar walk took his hand out of his pocket and showed a gun.

Glenn’s binoculars thumped against his chest. He lowered himself in the grass. Then he looked again.

Through grass-stalks in the foreground, he saw the three men stop at a ditch. The man with the gun moved his hands: chambering a bullet? Glenn fussed with the focus knob for more detail.

Something was about to happen. One man was standing in front of a ditch. The other two men stood several paces away. One had a gun, which may or may not be loaded.

Glenn decided to scream.

“Hey!” he said. “Hey!”

Even without binoculars, he saw all three figures swivel his way. Then the one with the gun began running toward him.

Glenn thought to sprint for his car, but was nowhere to hide in that direction unless he dove into the retention pond. He scrambled for the woods on the other side of the field: that moved him further from the car, but through the woods was a neighboring subdivision.

He’d try to make the most of his lead while the man with the gun struggled across the streambed. Tearing holes in his khakis as he high-stepped through low thornbushes, he reached the treeline. He saw a series of Quonset huts ahead in the shade: the old barracks, abandoned in the ’70s.

There was a shout behind him. The man with the gun was closer than he expected, and had probably kept Glenn in sight the whole time.

Glenn was about to die, and he regretted everything. He regretted coming here, regretted birdwatching, regretted his khaki vest and khaki pants. Everything he'd ever done was a mistake that increased the leverage on previous mistakes, winching him ever closer to a shameful end. If there was anything he was still good at, it was running, but he couldn’t outrun some two-bit Southie mobster.

He headed for one of the Quonset huts. Maybe the man with the gun would lose his trail in the woods long enough to get hidden. The door was open. Two rows of bunk racks stretched before him. He crouched and peeked out a window. The man with the gun passed his building and looked at the others as if deciding which to check first. Glenn planned to leave the way he came in and make a break for the neighborhood.

He moved toward the door, dodging beer cans and broken glass. When he stepped outside he felt a blow to the side of his head. His ball cap fell to the ground. At first he thought he’d collided with the doorframe, but from the ground he saw two pairs of legs.

* * *

The two men that he’d thought stayed behind had followed him, too. One of them – the taller one who didn’t look terrified – pulled Glenn back inside the Quonset hut, binoculars dragging on the ground, and tied his hands behind his back. After a while, the man with the gun joined them.

“Are you a cop?” he said.

“No,” said Glenn. “I’m sorry. Sorry I’m here.”

“So what are you? You’re looking for birds here? This place is a dump!” said the man with the gun.

“They’ve seen a short-eared … yes, I’m a birdwatcher,” said Glenn.

“You fucking twat, God damn you,” said the man. He was pacing and not looking Glenn in the eyes. “This is serious, what you walked into.”

“I understand that. I’m ready to leave and never talk about this with anybody.”

“I don’t trust you for shit,” said the other man through a wad of gum. Taller than the one with the gun, he kept his hands in his pockets.

“Just keep your mouth shut, Bill,” said the man with the gun. Turning back to Glenn, he said, “You should have just lied and told me you were a cop. We have people we can work with there. If you’re just a civilian, you’re in this now. You should not have seen any of this.”

“I’m sorry,” said Glenn. “I won’t talk about it.”

The man with the gun had stopped pacing and squinted at Glenn. “Fuck, do I know you from somewhere?”

“I don’t know,” said Glenn.

“Yeah—you’re my kid brother’s friend. Glenn Shaughnessy. From Stoughton Street in Dorchester. God damn it, of course I’d know some random fucking birdwatcher. How does some guy from Dot end up doing nerd shit like this?”

Glenn finally connected the man’s face to his friend Paul’s older brother, Sean. When Glenn would hang out at Paul’s house, Sean was never around. He’d see him passing by in a car with older boys, or standing by himself at little league games while other people, some of them parents, walked up to him one by one and shook his hand. Occasionally Glenn benefited from Sean and his friends protecting Paul from rival groups of teenagers looking for prey. After enduring countless beatings in junior high, Glenn told his parents he wouldn't go to the local high school. Glenn’s uncle taught chemistry at B.C. High, which the family finagled into a scholarship. Glenn finagled his decent-not-great high school grades into a full-ride at B.C., his admission essay emphasizing his commitment to Roman Catholicism in an increasingly godless world, etc., etc. Studying biochemistry, he did research with a professor who was also a birdwatcher. This experience landed him a job at a company subcontracting for the Human Genome Project out of an old factory building in Cambridge. Glenn moved to Newton and started birdwatching. His family found a nice place in Medford, away from the mayhem.

Meanwhile, as far as Glenn knew, Paul and Sean stayed in Dorchester.

Glenn said, “I studied science in college.”

“College boy, huh? Lucky you,” said Sean. “That makes it worse. Some Boy Scout like you goes straight to the cops after this, no matter what you promise me.”

“You won’t trust me for Paul’s sake?”

“My brother Paul, who you apparently don’t remember so well? He’s dead, you prick. Cancer. Guess you didn’t feel like you had to keep in touch after you fucked off to college.”

“God, I’m so sorry, Sean, I had no idea. I had to focus on my career and I did, I lost touch with everyone, and I’m not proud of it.”

“You don’t think Paul deserved the chance you got? Smart kid like that? Even with what all our friends could scratch together he still only got the second-string cancer doctor. Didn’t know the right people to survive, I guess.”

Glenn, unsure what to say, offered, “That’s horrible. He deserved better.”

“Yes he did, asshole,” said Sean. He walked to one of the windows. “See, I don't really want to kill you, because that's more liability for me. But letting you go is a liability too. Bill here, I can trust him. He knows who’s keeping his family under a roof. This punk—” Sean gestured with the gun to his captive— “we have to say goodbye to. He started talking to certain individuals about a business venture of ours. Not much leeway there. But you’re a special case. This is why we came out here, to be away from fucking civilians! So thoughtful of us! But you had to come looking for birds. Did you say a short-eared something or other?”

“Short-eared owl,” said Glenn. “They hunt for rodents in the old airfields.”

“This is the dumbest bullshit I’ve ever heard,” said Bill.

“Stop talking to him, Bill,” said Sean. “You’re not helping. A guy like you, Glenn, you’re disconnected. You’re out of it. You don’t owe anyone anything, so you’ve got no reason to work with me. And that is the foundation of all our business arrangements and special understandings. So unless you have something you can offer me, we might have to break up this little reunion.”

Glenn considered his possessions. His car was an old Toyota with a squeaking fan belt. He was renting a place in Newton. His 401k account wouldn’t pay for a trip to Disneyland. Then he remembered a page from his new employee orientation.

“Stock options,” said Glenn.

“You’re trying to sell me stocks, asshole?” said Sean.

“No, see—when I’m vested in my company in two years, I’ll be able to get shares in the company for my retirement package. Thing is, I could just give you my shares!”

“And can you tell me why I care to invest in some company I’ve never heard of? In two years?”

Glenn swallowed. The worst pitch meeting of his life. “Comprehensive Assays might sound like not much right now, but we work with some big players.”

“Assays, the fuck?” interrupted Bill.

“And things are about to grow like people have never seen before,” Glenn pressed on. “Are you familiar with the Human Genome Project?”

“No, I am not familiar with your nerd shit, Glenn,” said Sean. “Care to enlighten me?”

“They’re working on a map of the entire genetic code for the human race — all of our DNA, mapped out,” said Glenn. “They’re reading out all three billion base pairs, one at a time. It’s never been tried before. The government, universities, private industry, they’re all in on it. And they’re splashing around billions of dollars. It’s like going to the moon.”

“But so what, DNA? What does your goddamn science project get me?” said Sean.

“Imagine,” said Glenn, and stopped to catch his breath. “Imagine this. When someone gets cancer, we could look up exactly which gene caused that cancer, and do something about that specific gene. We could make new medicines we can’t even think of now. We'll never get there unless we have a map of all the different genes. That’s what is at stake, and that’s why it’ll grow like crazy in a year or two when it’s done.”

“Your bumfuck company is doing all that?” said Bill. “Bullshit.”

“No, see, this is what I’m saying — Comprehensive Assays is the subcontractor for all these HGP collaborators. We make the reagents for them. Special chemicals they need that are hard to find, you know? When their equipment stops working, we’re the ones they call. We’re the nerd’s nerd, if you want to put it that way. They couldn’t work without us.”

Sean nodded. “I’m getting this. Everyone needs associates. Only idiots do everything in-house.”

“Nerd’s nerd? Fuck this, just kill him,” said Bill.

“Bill, I’ve told you a couple times to shut your mouth,” said Sean. “Okay, I’m listening. You sell to these other big players. They need you. What about the competition? If this scene is so hot, how do I know you’ll even exist in two years?"

“That’s the thing—we have job security because no one else around has this stuff figured out. Comprehensive Assays got started as the company that sold educational lab supplies to all the universities in town. We had all the stock chemicals and lab gear ready when the Human Genome Project started. No one else sits where we do in the market. We’ve got all the connections, all the material. We’re right there in Cambridge. The lab managers, they like us. Starting over with a competitor isn’t worth it to them. If you see a truck behind the lab buildings at Harvard, MIT, BU — it’s us. They like what they’re used to, the people they know. Keeps it simple.”

“That I understand,” said Sean.

“It’s federal money they’re giving us, Sean,” said Glenn. “They have to. If they don’t spend out their budgets, they’ll get less next year. So if they end up with too much, they just overbuy on supplies. Millions and millions.”

“Okay. Okay,” said Sean. “This is good. I can do something with this. But I want you to tell me two things. Since I already know where you work — where you live, and where your parents live. Don’t lie, because I’ll find out.”

After a moment’s pause, Glenn told him.

Bill said, “Sean, the thing about you is—”

A shot rang out and Bill fell to the ground. A pool of blood spread from the side of his head.

Sean put the gun in his pocket. The captive looked at him and began weeping.

The metal walls of the Quonset hut rang and rang with a high-pitched whine. After what could have been a minute or an hour, Glenn said, “Why did you do that?”

“That’s what we came here to do,” said Sean. “He was selling a product we specifically asked him not to. That puts risk on individuals a lot higher up the food chain than me. And we already asked him nicely. This prick here, we own him now. Plus he just became an accessory after the fact, as by the way, you did too. But he’s useful to us. So, asshole,” said Sean to the crying man, “no more little chats with those guys from Eastie, you got it? You’re working for us. You’ll tell us what the Eastie crew is doing. Don’t look for us. Someone will visit the sandwich place every week, and you’ll tell him a thing or two. That’s it. But fuck up again and we kill your whole family. Be cool and we’ll have many happy years together. Okay?” The man nodded. “Then get out of here.”

Then it was just Sean, Glenn, and the body in the Quonset hut. “’Scuse me for a second,” said Sean. Wiping his gun with a white cloth, he set it down in Bill’s open hand. “You might want to sit somewhere else,” said Sean. Glenn saw a rivulet of blood headed toward his shoe and jumped up. “Jesus,” he said.

Sean waved Glenn towards the door. “Yeah, so, guess I’m getting into the biology business, huh? Sean Riley from Dorchester makes it big.”

Glenn wondered if it would be right to smile. He wondered if it was right to continue living.

“What now?” he said.

“We’ll be in touch, of course,” said Sean, stepping behind him. Glenn felt a blade slip between his wrists and the binds release. “Believe it or not, we have a few things going on in Cambridge already. Right now all we have to do is walk out of here. But I’ll just ask you to walk in front of me.”

Glenn stepped out of the woods into the harsh morning light. He pushed through the weedy field, stumbling over hidden dips in the gravelly soil. He crossed the tarmac, taking the long way around the retention pond. Meanwhile, Glenn couldn’t see or hear Sean, and couldn’t bear to turn his head and look. When Glenn reached his car door, he finally turned around. No one was there. As he drove home and for a long time afterward, even after Glenn had been relieved of his shares in Comprehensive Assays, even after the company was bought by a multinational corporation and made its smallest shareholders into millionaires, Glenn had that same sense boarding the train to work or shopping for groceries—of a threat in his blindspot, making no sound, watching.