Obit (32 page)

“Did Brennan hit him back?”

“Are you
well?
Of course not! I was spared most of the time because I was a goody-two-shoes. Terry got whacked the odd time. The girls never. No matter what they said or did! But poor Fran. He used to see this going on, with Bren and the old boy. One time Fran did something bad. Told Declan to fuck off; maybe even took a swipe at him. Declan hauled off and clocked him, gave him a black eye. And he felt terrible afterwards. Took Francis for an outing. All day, just the two of them. But the thing was, all Fran boasted about was the shiner, not the trip to Coney Island or wherever it was. ‘Look at this, the old man gave it to me.’ Fathers and sons, Monty, fathers and sons.” He shook his head.

“How many children do you have, Pat?”

“Two girls. I’m the biggest pushover that ever lived. I’ve got to watch it or they’ll be spoiled princesses. Unfortunately they live half the time with my wife. Former wife. I didn’t live up to her social ambitions. We share custody.”

“I hear you. I’m in the same boat, though not for the same reason. Any chance of you getting back in the matrimonial bed?”

“I’d rather be home with a glass of Jameson’s in one hand and myself in the other.”

“Well, that pretty much sums it up.”

“Mmm. Before I forget: I did some detective work on yer man Cathal’s death. He really died, last fall.”

“Of what?”

“Congestive heart failure.”

“That’s a relief, I suppose. Do we know anything else?”

“Not about his medical condition. He had a funeral but nobody went. Or almost nobody. I spoke to the funeral director. The old lady insisted on a church funeral, but the place was empty apart from her, an elderly woman who accompanied her, the priest doing the Mass, and an ancient priest in a walker, who hobbled to the front and gave a little eulogy. What a faithful and generous parishioner Murphy had been. Attended Mass several days a week. That was it. Oh, and one other man who came and sat in the back of the church. The undertaker wasn’t sure whether he was part of it.”

I thanked Patrick for his investigative work, and wondered about the man who sat at the back and observed the funeral of Cathal Murphy, formerly known as Charlie Fagan.

†

I got to bed late and slept till mid-morning. In that confused state between sleep and wakefulness, I heard one phrase echoing around and around in my head: “Fathers and sons,” Patrick’s voice was saying, “fathers and sons.” A memory surfaced, of my own father sitting beside me in a movie theatre, as we watched some kind of historical saga. He was saying: “Kill the father, kill the son.” Otherwise, he explained, you never knew when the son would return to
avenge the father’s death. What sons did we have in our own saga of death and retribution in New York? Cathal Murphy didn’t have a son. Judy Willman, widow of Gerald Connors, had a son and two daughters. I remembered the photo of one girl who had done well in life, another who hadn’t, and Private Willman with Garth in their Army togs. Willman’s son would not be out to avenge his mother’s first husband. My mind returned to the daughters, and I imagined the tongue-lashing I would get from Professor MacNeil for concentrating on sons and dismissing daughters as possible actors in the drama. She’d have a good point: why wouldn’t a woman take revenge for the loss of her father? And then there was the Desmond family. Mrs. Desmond certainly blamed Declan Burke for her husband’s downfall. The drunkenness, the loss of his job on the waterfront. And we knew from Mary Desmond’s diary how profoundly the girl had been affected by her father’s return to the bottle. Desmond had sons, too. Brennan and I had spoken about them recently. What was that conversation about? Right. Young Desmond being dispatched by his mother to drag his father home from the bars. Kevin. No, Jimmy was the older boy. And then we had Francis, prime illustration of a whole other chapter of father–son relations. I slipped beneath the rim of consciousness.

I was jolted awake in the morning by a knock on the door. I tried to ignore it, but there it was again. I stumbled from the bed and realized I was still in last night’s clothes. It was Brennan at the door. Great. Another encounter with a member of the Burke family and I still had not come clean about Francis. I stood there trying to think of something intelligent to say. Brennan helped me out: “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Come in.”

“Looks as if you had a good time for yourself.”

“Drinking with Patrick. Have a seat while I take a shower. Help yourself to a cup of coffee or whatever you can find in the little fridge.”

When I was clean, bright and dressed, I sat down and looked at my guest. “What’s up?”

“I want to lean on that old boot Nessie. She knows more than anyone, with the exception of the man with the gun.” The gun.
When was I going to lay it all out for them? “Let’s go over there and rattle her chain.”

“Brennan, do you really have the balls to show up there again, after telling her off and being kicked out of her house?”

“I’ve been turfed from better places, by better people. Let’s go.” It was worth a try. If she would talk to us, I might get some sense of how the obituary fit in with Francis and the gun. Or was it conceivable that the two events — the publication of the obituary in December and the shooting in March — were unrelated?

We left the hotel and got into a small silver car, which Brennan had left double-parked in the street. “Whose car have we got today? This isn’t Terry’s.”

“Paddy’s.”

“Good thing they didn’t come along and tow it away.”

“Doctor’s plates. Everyone should have them.”

He pulled into the line of traffic, and someone leaned on his horn; Brennan ignored it.

“Did we ever establish whether Nessie knew any of the players, besides her own brother?” I asked, trying to recall our conversation with the old woman. “Did she know Desmond, or Gerard Connors, or —”

“Gerald Connors.”

“Hmm?”
“Gerald
Connors. You said
Gerard.
And who knows whether she was acquainted with any of them? We’ll make it our business to find out.”

It was a brilliantly sunny day. I rolled my window down but the din of traffic, horns and air brakes was deafening, so I rolled it up again.

“I got a call from Brigid,” Brennan remarked as we headed onto the bridge. “I think you can imagine how unimpressed she was with what happened the other day. She delivered herself of a few choice words about male aggression and competitiveness. Well, what could I say? To have her embarrassed like that in front of you, and Leo, and the rest of us — but,
mirabile dictu,
the arsehole called and apologized to her.”

“Did you get an apology yourself?”

“Did the sun become black as sackcloth and the moon become as blood, and the stars of heaven fall unto the earth?”

“I’ll put that down as a no. You certainly let him have it in return. Can’t say I blame you.”

“Leo took me to task for that. Gently.”

“Sent you off to say three Hail Marys, did he?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I don’t know what sins you might have confessed to him. But I’d move heaven and earth to hear Leo’s confession.”

“I didn’t hear it, I can tell you that much.”

“Just as well.”

“Given the identity of his accomplices,” Burke acknowledged. “Right. Speaking of which, should we come right out and ask oul Nessie if she knows the other names we’ve come up with?”

“Mr. Desmond and Gerard Connors.
Gerald,
I mean. We’ll play it by — Brennan, pull over!”

“What?”

“Pull over to that pay phone.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

He gave me a raised left eyebrow but turned into a parking lot and stopped the car. I walked to the pay phone, saw with relief that it was in working order, dialled directory assistance, got the number I needed and then stood outside the booth, waiting. She came along about two minutes later: a tough-looking young woman with a case of beer under one arm and a set of car keys in her other hand. I could see Burke peering at me from the car.

“Excuse me,” I said to the girl. “Would you do something for me?”

“In a phone booth?” she asked incredulously, in a strong Brooklyn accent. “What are you, some kind of weirdo?”

“No, no, I’m not. Really. I just need somebody to help me make a call.”

“Why can’t you make it y’self? Is there something wrong with you?”

“I don’t want her to hear my voice. It’s personal.”

“Yeah, right, isn’t it always? Gimme the number. And don’t even think about rubbing up against me in that booth.”

I showed her the number I had written on my hand. “Just ask for Gerry Willman, then hand me the receiver.”

“What if he’s there? You gonna go over and beat the shit out of him? In front of her?”

“No.”

“‘Is Gerry Willman there?’ That’s all you want me to say?”

“Yes, but if you could say it . . . in perhaps a more friendly tone.”

“Now he gets picky. You’re not from here, are you?”

“No. So I have to rely on the kindness of strangers.”

She gave a bit of a laugh, shook her head and dialled the number. In a perkier tone than I would have hoped for, she asked if she could speak to Gerry Willman. She looked at me and shrugged. Nothing happening.

I took the receiver. After a few more seconds of silence I heard Judy Willman’s quiet voice: “I’m sorry. Gerry doesn’t live here anymore. He hasn’t lived here for a long, long time.” Then she clicked off.

I went back to the car. “What was that all about?” Brennan demanded.

“Got any quarters?”

He dug around in a small pullout container beneath the car radio. “Who are you calling?”

“Right now I’m going to call Terry. Where can I reach him?”

Brennan gave me the phone number and started to speak, but I ran off with an assurance that I would explain later. I called Terry. The person who answered gave me another number, and I reached Terry there. I filled him in and asked if he would be willing to get hold of a skip tracer to track down Gerard Willman. Then I returned to the car.

“I got the name Gerard from notes Terry took of all the Willmans the police checked out. When we were at the Willmans’ place, Judy told us about her daughters. And I saw the photo of a young guy in uniform with Garth. Private G.G. Willman; I thought he was Garth’s own son. But no. Terry’s notes show that Gerard Willman was born in February 1953. That makes him Gerald Connors’s son, born after Connors went to Attica.”

“Jesus. What now?”

“Now we deal with Nessie. And we’ll ask her if she knows a Gerry Willman.”

†

Nessie was sunning herself on the stoop like an old lizard when we arrived. She shaded her eyes as she looked up.

“You again. Didn’t I put the run to you before?”

“You did,” I admitted.

“Well? To what do I owe this imposition today?”

“We’re helping the police with their inquiries. This may not be your last interruption.”

“A fine lot of help you two must be. Well, the police are welcome to stop by. I’ve done nothing more than write up an obituary for my dearly departed brother — God rest his soul.”

“Do you know someone by the name of Gerry Willman?”

She looked from me to Brennan and back. “Help me up here.” Brennan took her arm and steadied her while she stood and reached for her cane. “It’s a gentle touch you have, Mr. Burke; I wouldn’t have expected it. Come inside.”

When we were seated, she said: “So you’re on to young Gerry. Very well, no need for me to protect him anymore!” And, leaning forward in her chair, she began the tale she had been longing to tell us from the start. After all, it showcased her craftiness, and she seemed to think we wouldn’t try to implicate her when we had better suspects in our sights.

“This fellow came to see us, well, to see Cathal. But Cathal had gone out to do the shopping. I can’t get around, as you know. So we got talking, and it turned out this Gerry was trying to find out what happened to his da many years ago. The lad had put together part of the story, that his da — also named Gerry, though I think he was a Gerald and his last name was different — had got caught up in a gun-running operation that went wrong. My brother was involved in it somehow. It seems the young fellow got Cathal’s name from someone in the old country. I suspected young Gerry had made a few gun runs himself, if he had contacts like that in Ireland. Anyway, somebody over there knew Charlie Fagan was Cathal Murphy. Gerry seemed to know that whatever part Cathal had played, he was not the one who
had got the father in the soup. Or maybe he just told me that. Anyway the father, Gerry the elder, had gone to prison and didn’t last a year in there. This boy was born when his father was in the stir.

“So we waited for Cathal, and young Gerry told me a bit about himself. His mother had taken up with a man by the name of Willman after her husband died. Willman was an old Army man, served in the Pacific during the Second War. He tried to make young Gerry over in his own image. The two of them clashed from day one; the old man made life hell for his stepson. Gerry got into trouble with the law; after that, Willman finally frogmarched him into the Army. Gerry went into ‘Intelligence work,’ as he called it. He didn’t last long in the Army, but he loved codes and word games, puzzles, that sort of thing. I told him all I could do in that line was the cryptoquotes in the paper.

“Anyway, Cathal came in with the shopping and I introduced him to the young fellow — well, he would have been in his thirties. Cathal looked so miserable. He wanted to talk to this fellow but not in front of me. So, a lady first and last, I announced that I was tired and headed off to my bedroom to rest. Really, to eavesdrop. In the apartment where we lived then, my closet bordered directly on the living room wall. And poor Cathal, bless his soul, was going deaf at the time. Like many deaf people, he thought he had to talk loud to make himself heard. So I settled in and listened.

“Somebody had run afoul of the
IRA
, and was anxious to put himself right with them. My brother didn’t say who. No informer, our Cathal. This unnamed individual — I later figured out it was Declan Burke — had assassinated someone in Ireland, an
IRA
informer. Then he botched some other assignment, or refused to carry it out, and was under suspicion himself. He absconded and took a bit of start-up money with him, out of the organization’s coffers. With one thing and another he managed to wind up with a price on his head. From the moment he arrived in New York, he was looking for a way to make amends. Eventually he learned of a shipment of guns that was supposed to be going overseas somewhere. Declan came up with a plan to steal the guns and reroute them to Ireland. There was some man he knew who worked as a port watchman on the waterfront here in Brooklyn. This fellow, again unnamed —”