Obit (17 page)

Desmond had resisted the luscious young Evie, showing her snapshots of his family while they danced. That sounded right. Mary Desmond’s diary made it plain: Desmond loved his family. A fun dad, quoting the Irish greats. What had Mary written? He kept them up reading from Joyce on Bloomsday. And what had Brennan’s brother said about Bloomsday? The family observed it unless it fell on the same day as a religious feast, or was it the other way around? Desmond and Declan Burke, not so different from one another perhaps, with one crucial difference: Desmond’s fatal attraction for alcohol. What happened in July of 1952? Desmond lost his job as a port watchman. Just after the incident between Evie and Declan, a rare moment of weakness on Declan’s part. Which may mean Declan was under stress at that time. Or, no, that wasn’t July. What had Evie said?

“Brennan. When did Evie hop the wagon train out west?”

“Summer of ’52.”

“Yes, but when?”

“Didn’t she say something about the first day of summer? It was steaming hot out in —” he shuddered “— Nevada.”

“June then. Just how quickly did your father bundle her off?”

“Days, it sounded like.”

“The middle of June.” I tried to focus my thoughts. “When’s Bloomsday? The same time as, what was it, the Corpus Christi procession?”

“Are you trying to catch me out here, Monty? The old fellow never let me live it down, the time I suggested we spend the day eating, drinking and whoring, when in fact it was Corpus Christi Thursday. But in truth we never actually did anything to observe Bloomsday. It’s just —”

“What’s the date though? Bloomsday.”

“June
16, 1904
. The day James Joyce and Nora Barnacle had their first —”

“June
16.
”

“Corpus Christi, on the other hand, falls on a different date every year because it is the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which in turn is —”

“It wasn’t Desmond.”

“What?”

“The guy in the club that night with your father and Evie, the guy they called Danny. It wasn’t Desmond. We have to start looking for someone else.”

“But —”

“I remember what Evie said. She worked her last four shifts, then flew to Las Vegas the morning of June 21. I think she said she didn’t take any nights off. Worried about money, and no wonder. So her last four nights would have been the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth. Which means the night with Declan was June 16. But we know from the Desmond girl’s diary that Desmond —”

“Spent that night — Bloomsday night — sober and slumped over a cup of cocoa at his kitchen table.”

“Right.”

“So. It was someone else being recruited at the club.”

Brennan got up and went to the bar for a bottle of Jameson’s, raised it, waited for my distracted nod, and poured us both a glassful. He handed me my drink and sat down, lit up a cigarette, inhaled the smoke and let it out with an exasperated sigh. “Are we going to get to the bottom of this, Monty?”

I shrugged and took a sip. And another. “We may have to face the possibility that we just won’t find the answer, Brennan. What have you heard from the police on the shooting?”

“They keep saying they’re confident, but they don’t have a suspect yet.”

“Well, I’m confident they’ll pull somebody in for it. Maybe all we can hope for is that whoever did it will eventually talk. That may be the only way we’ll hear the full story.”

“Maybe we won’t want this gunman to do any talking,” he groused. “And the gunman isn’t the only one who knows the story, don’t forget. He got his cue from that obituary. Or so I assume, given the timing. There must be
something
in that obit, Monty. This fellow caught it; we didn’t.”

“So let’s read it again.”

He pulled out his wallet, unfolded the crumpled piece of paper and began to read. Something struck me, and I realized it had given me pause once before. “Brennan, read the last bit to me again. Start with the ‘members of a generation’ or whatever it said.”

“‘When the members of a generation pass away, the family is often left with little more than its memories; the telling details are locked away in a trunk and never get out of the attic. A better way — Cathal’s way — was to celebrate and live the past as if — ’”

I raised my hand and said: “I must be losing it. Like you. But I heard ‘Attica.’” I reached over and gently slid it out of his grasp. “Locked away, never got out of Attica. Please tell me that doesn’t make sense to you.”

He removed the cigarette from his mouth and looked at me, unsmiling. “I hope we don’t get to a point where it makes sense to either of us.”

Once more, we lapsed into silence. We had limited time, we had an uncooperative client in Declan Burke, we had a gap of nearly forty years and now we were faced with a brand new avenue of inquiry.

“I can’t imagine the authorities at Attica prison helping us with our ill-formulated inquiries,” I grumbled, “especially since we don’t have a name.”

“A name would help.”

“At least we know the time frame, 1952 or 1953, if the guy was caught soon after the event in mid-1952. So. Court records or some slogging through old newspapers.”

“If we want to deploy my little army of Irish Volunteers, namely my young relatives, it had better be the newspapers. In the library. That, they can handle. What should they be looking for? Criminal cases in 1952 or 1953, involving Irish names and —”

“Guns, obviously. To think I ridiculed your suggestion that the names Brendan and Armand meant Bren gun and Armalite rifle. Sure, you’re brilliant when you’re daft. And the New York waterfront, if we haven’t written off Desmond altogether. He did get fired as a port watchman. Of course the story has to end with someone being sent to Attica.”

“I’ll give the young ones their marching orders. Then we’ll have to wait.”

Above us, we heard people coming into the house; then the object of our speculations stumped down the stairs and greeted us.

“You fellows still here? When are your mother and I going to have some peace and quiet without you snooping around?” His face was flushed and his speech a bit slurred; he had been partaking of strong waters. “Go away and do good deeds.”

“We’ll be gone when we think you can take care of yourself, Da. When you come clean about who your enemies are, so we can help the police track them down, put them on trial and send them away where they can’t harm a hair on your dear old head. The sooner you talk, the sooner we’re out of your life.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. As I may have stated recently, I don’t know who shot at me.”

“He didn’t shoot
at
you. He shot you. Nearly killed you. Now, who do you think it was?”

“Have you lost your hearing, Brennan? I said I don’t know.”

“Someone in the Corialli organization?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know. Forget it.”

“How
do you know, is what I asked you.”

“And I told you I
know
. I got a message from Corialli after we went to the club. It wasn’t any of his people. He made that clear.”

“What about somebody else from your days at the club?”

“Like who, for Christ’s sake?”

“How about that fellow Raoul?”

“I never heard of any Raoul.”

“Not Raoul, Ramon. That was it. Could it have been this Ramon?”

“That gutless little gouger. He wouldn’t have the bollocks to shoot me. Now piss off, the pair of you.”

“Well, was there some —”

“Find yourselves another topic of conversation. Nobody’s ever been at a loss for words in this house. Call on that gift now, why don’t you.”

“Let’s try some other names.”

“What did I just fucking say, Brennan?” The patriarch thumped
his hand, hard, on the table. “Leave me alone. If I knew who was responsible, I’d have told the police. Eventually I expect the police will tell
me
.”

“I wonder if the police have had any luck finding that mandolin player who gave us a song at the reception.”

“They haven’t. Oh, you had a phone call.”

“Who from?”

“A Father Mac — what was it? Mackasey?”

“Dave Mackasey?”

“That’s the man.”

“What did he want?”

“He wants you to do what you’re trained to do. Say Mass, perform the sacraments, not skulk around into things that are none of your affair. I wrote his number by the phone in the kitchen.”

“At Holy Trinity?”

“No. He says he’s at Saint Kieran’s now. Pour me another thimbleful out of that bottle before you go, will you Monty?”

“Certainly, Declan.”

We went upstairs and Brennan called his fellow priest. He agreed to say a Latin Mass at the crime scene, Saint Kieran’s, later in the week.

“Shite,” he said after he hung up.

“What?”

“That’s the day Leo Killeen is flying home. He’ll be coming over for lunch before his flight. I’ll want to see him before he goes.”

“You’ll have time, don’t worry about it. So. What do we make of that little exchange with your father?”

“That he knows this Ramon and doesn’t hold him in high regard. For some reason.”

“Right. He remembers some guy who was a young waiter at that club forty years ago.”

“And we have the whiskey to thank for letting even that much slip. He considers Ramon gutless. Why? Did he swoon at the sight of steak tartare? Who the hell knows, Monty?”

“Gutless would not be the image he’d be aiming for, if he was really a wannabe, hanging around the fringes of the Mob.”

“Or what he imagined to be the Mob. He may have wanted to
impress them. But surely not by rubbing somebody out forty years after the fact. I have an idea. Terry has friends on the police force. Maybe one of them will bend the rules and run a check on this fellow for us.”

“Good plan. Al at the club said Ramon quit the White Gardenia, then came back again, desperate for money. Maybe his desperation for money brought him to the attention of the
NYPD
.”

Chapter 7

They say there’s bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there;
But I’ll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair.

— Helena Selina Sheridan (Lady Dufferin),
“The Lament of the Irish Emigrant”

March 17, 1991

Sunday morning I was up bright and early, strolling with my daughter on the Upper West Side. We went all the way to the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin, where we walked along the river and speculated about life on one of the houseboats. A couple we saw sitting on bright yellow deck chairs, with a small black puppy frolicking around them, looked as if they had it made. A water view at a fraction of the cost. When we were back in the West Fifties Normie dragged me into a store filled with T-shirts and tacky souvenirs. Half the shop was devoted to all things green, ghastly and faux-Irish. Normie asked for a Central Park Zoo T-shirt and several other items. She and I were haggling when suddenly she screamed and grabbed my hand. An Uncle Sam figure had lunged out at her from the aisle and said: “Boo!”

“Hey!” I remonstrated. The mask was whipped off to reveal a gap-toothed boy about Normie’s age. He grinned and took off behind a rack of leprechaun costumes.

“Who is that guy?” Normie asked.

“I don’t know, sweetheart, just a boy playing tricks on you.”

“No, I mean who’s the mask about? The old guy with the beard and stars on his hat?”

“That’s Uncle Sam. Symbol of the
USA
. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen those old posters: Uncle Sam wants you! Trying to get people to sign up for the Army in wartime.”

“I wouldn’t go in a war!”

“Watch it, kid. You’ll never make it in this town if your loyalty to Uncle Sam is in doubt.”

For some reason this exchange brought my mind back to the Cathal Murphy obituary. What was it? Some line about loyalty. “His loyalty to his Uncle was never in question.” Brennan had interpreted it to mean Declan had stayed loyal to his Irish Republican relatives. But could Nessie Murphy have been making a remark about loyalty to Uncle Sam? Why would that be “in question”? There were a great many Irish Americans with an intense interest in the politics of the old country; such sympathies did not preclude loyalty to the United States.

Back at the hotel, Maura greeted us: “You just missed a call from Tommy.”

“How are things?”

“Great, he says. He and Lexie are going out to dinner tonight. And his band has been asked to play at the Forum next weekend: young local bands playing for kids of all ages. No alcohol. He claims he’s eating properly and getting some sleep. Who knows? Anyway, I’m glad you’re back in time for the parade.”

“Parade?”

“No reason you should know about it,
Collins.
It’s not as if you’ve been in contact with any
Irish
since you’ve been here.”

“Saint Patrick’s Day! That explains — I hope — the ridiculous green items I saw on sale a few minutes ago.”

“Sure and aren’t you brilliant. So we’ll have an early lunch and go to Fifth Avenue to watch it.”

That sounded good to Normie, but she thought we shouldn’t have the parade all to ourselves. “Call Father Burke!” she demanded. “He won’t want to miss this!”

“He didn’t mention it, sweetheart.”

“Phone him, please! What if he misses it? He’ll blame us.”

Obediently I picked up the phone and punched in his number. He answered, and I noticed he didn’t say “Top o’ the morning.”

“I have a little girl here who wants to make sure you don’t miss the Saint Patrick’s Day parade.”

“Ah.”

“Are you people regulars at this event?”

“I think it was only once I went to it. As a child. I’m just back from Sunday Mass, where they were giving out little shamrocks made of pipe cleaners, and a pipe made of what looked like chewed-up white candy. Sure didn’t it make me want to burst out in song, and proclaim to the world that, yes, I am proud to be Bulgarian.”

“You say you were passed over again this year?”

“What?”

“No, of course you’re not too tall to be one of the little people. That’s discrimination. There’s nobody more suited to lead the parade. Yes, I agree. You do look good in a leprechaun outfit; has someone suggested otherwise? No, I understand. It’s a shame. We’ll go along to it anyway. I’ll explain to Normie. What are you up to later?”