If there is any redemption in Street Soldier, MacKenzie says, it is in the telling of his story — the unflinching and unadorned portrayal of gangster life. By refusing to analyze himself into a kind of non-complicity, by refusing to fall back on justifications and contingencies, MacKenzie believes he’ll be able to retrieve something worthwhile from the squalor of his life. "I wrote these scenes so graphic and so real because I wanted to bring you into this world," he says. "These people are out there, we are out there, and you need to learn about this. You need to know how these people think and act."

And, of course, Eddie MacKenzie’s candor has guaranteed him plenty of press.

In the space of an hour or so, the former hoodlum’s cell phone rings maybe a dozen times. "I’m doing an interview," he’ll say seriously. "Live interview." During one call, though, his voice grows treacly, and his face breaks into a genuinely sweet smile. "Yes. Yes. All right, sweetie," he says, and then, pointing at the phone, "My daughter."

MacKenzie has five daughters in all, ranging in age from five to 18. Despite obvious parallels to his own parents — his children come from three different relationships — he is determined to be a good father. "My kids," he says. "That’s my salvation. I see my daughters looking at my strength and my confidence and I get goose bumps. My kids know they are with someone who is capable, someone who can protect them, someone who will protect them."

At least one of the MacKenzie girls — the eldest — has read Street Soldier. At a recent book signing, a woman in the audience wondered aloud whether this was a good idea. "She asked me, ‘How do you protect your daughters? How do you shield your daughters?’" MacKenzie recalls. "I said, ‘I don’t shield my daughters from anything. How do I protect them? I educate them. To tell you the truth,’ I goes, ‘to tell the God’s honest truth, when us city kids wanted to get laid, we went to your neighborhoods, because you’re the ones who shield your daughters, these young, naive girls.’"

Indeed, if anyone knows the risks facing young, naive girls, it’s Eddie MacKenzie. "When I was 21, 22," he says, "there wasn’t a high-school kid on the planet I wouldn’t bang." He reveals this fact with a conspiratorial, boys-will-be-boys smile. But boys had better not be boys when it comes to MacKenzie’s own girls. Not if they know what’s good for them.

Over the course of an afternoon, there are very few instances in which MacKenzie loses his affable, lovable-rogue-like luster. At one point, when asked if criminals ought to profit from books like his, he says, "If you feel so bad about criminals profiting from their crimes, don’t buy the fucking book!" Later, asked whether he uses his childhood rape as an excuse for his misdeeds, he snaps, "Turn the fuck over and let me give you an excuse." The only time MacKenzie shows real flashes of the old viciousness, though, is when the possibility of someone messing with his daughters arises. "You harm one of my kids," he says, "and I will have no fucking problem cutting your head off and eating a bowl of Cheerios over your chest."

Eddie Mac is not what you’d call a large man — not tall, anyway. He stands a mere five feet 10 inches, but, at 230 pounds, he has a stocky, beer-keg solidity to him. His engorged arms, each bearing a faded tattoo, jut from the sides of his body to form a kind of arrowhead, pointing the way to a square-ish, smudge-nosed face. "Do I look like a softy?" he asks. He doesn’t. MacKenzie is 45, a doting daddy, published author, guest on NPR, upstanding citizen, but, as he will readily admit, he still harbors traces of the horrible man within. "This goes with me my whole life," he says. "This is almost like AA — there should be a Predators Anonymous."

If MacKenzie is not a redeemed character, then he is at least reformed. The only time he goes to Southie these days, he says, is to play racquetball two or three times a week. Driving along the streets where he cut his teeth as a career criminal, he still sees some of his old buddies hanging around, but he never stops to talk to them. "In order to pull yourself from the neighborhood," he says, "you’ve got to get yourself away from that corner, man. I see people on that same corner that I’ve seen for 20 years. That’s their life. They’ve got no drive, no outlook on life, so that’s where they’re going to be. But I don’t want to be there."

In 2001, MacKenzie graduated with a BA in pre-law from UMass Boston — an achievement of which he is immensely proud. But going straight hasn’t been easy — or profitable. Today, in addition to doing some part-time consultancy work in the construction industry (he laughs at the suggestion that this sounds mob-related), MacKenzie makes ends meet by working as a house painter and construction worker, and by doing the odd DJing gig at private functions. "I’m a jack-of-all-trades, bro," he says. "I do okay."

Okay, but not nearly as okay as he did when in the thick of the South Boston underworld, running his own gym, selling coke at the nightclub he managed, pulling scams and robbing houses. "I’m driving a great big Jag," he recalls. "I’ve got a 12-room Spanish Colonial stucco, half an acre of land. If I want to take the kids to Disney World, I grab 10 grand — no worrying about it three months in advance." There is a wistful edge to MacKenzie’s voice as he describes his old lifestyle, particularly when he starts in about all the women he got back then. But easy love, like easy money, is a thing of the past. Going straight is possibly the biggest fight Eddie Mac’s ever fought. And it’s not over yet.

"There’s always temptations," he says. "There’s always offers. I might trip up. I could fall off the ladder. I hope not. I know I have to be strong for my kids."

To be honest, MacKenzie seems a little unsure of what to do next. He talks of writing another book, which he plans to call Management Secrets of the Mob: How the Dons Wield Power and Succeed. But then he admits he’s not really comfortable being a part of the literary world. "I’m among these more educated people," he says. "For me, trying to hang out with them gets intimidating." Recently, he’s been making appearances at local schools and colleges, lecturing students on the pitfalls of crime. And yet, hearing him describe his pedagogical style, you wonder whether MacKenzie is cut out for this life, either.

"I went to Southie High," he says. "I go and look at the wall, this plaque, and it’s Sing Ling, Too Hung Lo, Sum Yung Dik, or whatever the fuck, all these Oriental names on the honor roll, all going to MIT and stuff. I go to the class and the Irish kids, the white kids, are all going, ‘My cousin works for the Housing Authority and he’s gonna get me a job,’ all psyched up about getting these minimum-wage jobs, these bullshit jobs. The very first thing I say is, ‘Listen, I hear you guys talking about what you’re going to do in life, and there’s all these yellow cocksuckers with names on the honor roll. They’ll be making six figures a year and you fucking idiots are gonna be painting their houses. Did you even think about going to college?’"

Despite his rough edges, MacKenzie is actually a role model of sorts for the kids who lurk on Southie’s street corners, who aspire to the kind of lifestyle he once lived. Very few street thugs, after all, write books, let alone books that receive favorable reviews in the New York Times. He’s been interviewed by Pat Buchanan, he says in a can-you-believe-it? tone. Reporters call him to ask his views on everything from Whitey Bulger’s health to Billy’s Bulger’s honesty. There is even talk of turning Street Soldier into a movie — a prospect that practically has little dollar signs lighting up in MacKenzie’s eyes.

But trouble, it seems, hasn’t finished with him yet.

For one thing, while you might be able to take the thug out of the ghetto, you cannot necessarily stop the ghetto from following close behind. Over the years, MacKenzie has amassed an impressive array of enemies — from jealous boyfriends to nine-fingered bruisers to those who simply cannot stand to see one of their own blabbing in a book — all of whom would be quite happy to find out that MacKenzie has met with an unfortunate accident. "I’m like an old-time sheriff," he says. "Everyone wants to take me down."

It seems fair to imagine that no one would like to see Eddie Mac taken down as much as the Colombian drug cartel he ratted out. These guys, after all, are not known for their forgiving nature. "I don’t think about that," MacKenzie says. "But coming from the world I come from, you worry anyway. You learn to live with fear. See, my back’s to the wall. I can see what’s going on in the restaurant. I may be talking to you, but I just saw that lady over there drop her fork. I don’t do stupid things. I’m not in nightclubs. I don’t put myself out there."

But even in MacKenzie’s world, not all revenge is of the violent, bullet-in-the-head variety. In 2001, following a four-part series on Eddie Mac in the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe published an article in which various sources, on both sides of the law, suggested that he was lying about his connections to Whitey Bulger. For MacKenzie, this was a devastating development — and not only because it could hurt his then-upcoming book. In the mob world, the only thing more humbling than being a rat is being a wanna-be. MacKenzie, for his part, insists the piece came about as a result of the rivalries and grudges that still hold sway in South Boston and beyond. There are people at the Globe, he says, who have friends, and friends of friends, who don’t like what he has to say about the Southie underworld. "They had an interest in discrediting me."

More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that MacKenzie is currently under investigation in a very ugly, very sordid fraud case. "Ah, that’s an ongoing case, so I can’t talk about that," he says. "But I will say this: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." MacKenzie is aware of how disingenuous this sounds. That’s the thing about criminals — they’re always innocent. Eddie Mac has a nine-page rap sheet to his name. Never mind that he’s a college grad now, a published author; he could compose a symphony and serve as ambassador to the Vatican and it wouldn’t really matter. The thing is, when you’ve been immersed in the world of crime as deeply as Eddie Mac has, for as long as Eddie Mac has, resurfacing may not be all that easy.

Before he LEAVES the restaurant, MacKenzie offers one final anecdote, concerning the man who raped him when he was nine. "This is one of those statute-of-limitation things," he says, leaning across the bar. "But I will say that the guy was working in a restaurant years later, and someone bumped into him, and I guess that he was so scared that he, ah, he left home." There is a pause, during which MacKenzie becomes especially attentive, as though searching for some sign of recognition, waiting for the implications of what he is saying to hit home. "He never told his family or anything." Another pause. "He just fled the state."

At this moment, it seems clear that the wounded, insanely furious nine-year-old boy is still alive in Eddie Mac. And once again, you find yourself wanting to avert your gaze from those wide, blue, inquisitive eyes. The tutor disappeared. That’s how easy it is. Perhaps this is the only redemption Eddie Mac will ever know — the purgative of revenge. "He raped me," he says, as if offering an explanation for everything bad he has ever done. There are a few awkward moments of silence before a waitress comes over with the check. "Thanks," MacKenzie says, smiling sweetly. "Thank you very much."