“She looks wonderful, Mr. Kelly,” I heard a woman I don’t know say to my stunned big brother, who stood next to the coffin with Ed.
Ann and I sat on a couch a few feet away, hidden by a line of tall floral pieces, set like a wall around the coffin. A far cry, this whole shebang, from the home wakes common in Bridgeport before I had left for Paris.
Leave it to Ed to know the coming thing and take advantage of it.
“I own the building,” he’d told me, “and rent out the ground floor to Lallys, who put in a grocery store. Jim Quinn took the basement for a tavern, but no one wanted the upper floors. Then Jim Doran came to me and said he’d gotten his undertaker’s license, and would I like to go into business with him. I thought people might like to say goodbye to their loved ones in a place they know, without the trials of a home wake.”
“Loved ones”—another term, like Viewing Room, that seemed part of funeral home vocabulary, I thought.
“Also, a way for the mourners to duck downstairs for a quick shot and a beer,” I’d said.
“Of course Jim Quinn had to close the tavern when Prohibition became law,” Ed said.
“Of course,” I’d said, though both of us knew full well that, while the Quinn’s Tavern sign was gone, anyone wanting a drink only had to walk around to the back basement entrance and knock on the door. Either Jim Quinn or his partner, George Keefe, would be behind the bar, drawing beers and pouring shots.
And I’d say quite a few of the men standing talking to each other now at Mame’s funeral had made such a visit—because Ann was right, they were laughing and chatting to beat the band.
Though this woman, who was now pressing Michael’s hand, looked suitably solemn. I kept my arm around Ann and didn’t greet the woman, but she came over to us.
“I’m Mrs. O’Donnell,” she said. “Jim’s wife.”
I nodded. Ed’s sister, Ella, married an O’Donnell, so I assumed this woman was part of that clan.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Ella’s not here right now. She’ll be back soon. Should I tell her her sister-in-law was here?”
“Ella?”
“Ella O’Donnell,” I said. “Ed Kelly’s sister. His mother’s sister is a Larney, and her son married Rose, Mame’s sister. So…” Surely enough people to make a connection from.
“Oh, we’re not those O’Donnells,” she said. “My husband’s family are from St. Rose of Lima. And I grew up in St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Oh, so you must know the Garveys,” I said.
“St. Elizabeth of Bohemia,” she said. “I’m not Irish.”
“Oh,” I said. And now Ann stopped crying to listen. Even at nine, she understood the Chicago two-step of “what parish?”—which told everything about someone’s background. But I didn’t know how to decode a Bohemian parish, and so there was silence.
“I didn’t understand Irish wakes, either,” the woman said to Ann, patting her shoulder, looking into her red eyes, and glancing at the handkerchief Ann clutched in her fist.
“When Jim’s mother died, I was horrified. Ten in his family, and with all the wives and children and friends piled into the house, it was like a big party. A hooley, as you Irish say. ‘What’s going on?’ I’d asked Jim. ‘This is terrible.’ ‘Ma deserves a great sendoff,’ he’d told me. ‘And didn’t she have a grand life? And not one of her sons dead before her. A great accomplishment, considering our business.’”
Our business? Maybe the O’Donnells are all firemen or lumberjacks.
“But today,” Mrs. O’Donnell went on, “a mother with small children. So sad. I thought things would be more subdued. But…”
I moved over on the couch, where Mrs. O’Donnell sat on the other side of Ann. It was as if the three of us were huddled together in a small boat, afloat on an ocean of laughter and chat. Rose had taken Rosemary and the three younger children home, after they had said a prayer at Mame’s coffin. I’d been against them even coming to the wake. But Michael was in a daze, and somehow Henrietta got to him and convinced him that it would be good for the children to say goodbye to their mother, and to see how many people came to pay their respects.
Henrietta had shown up at Michael’s house only hours after Mame had died, making a great fuss over “these poor motherless children.” Why he put up with her, I don’t know. He was eight years older than she, so I wondered if it wasn’t some childhood habit, taking care of his little sister. It was beyond me. But at least he hadn’t let Henrietta move back in, though I wondered how much longer Rose could live apart from John. Impossible for John to move in with her, because Chicago policemen had to live within the city limits.
Ed had told me there were a lot of politics in the police department, and some begrudger could very well turn John in if he moved into Michael’s house in Argo. Lots of knives out for John anyway since his brother, Tom, had been assigned to work with Elliot Ness and his Feds. Not popular with the Chicago police force, that Mr. Ness.
I’d insisted to Henrietta that the children leave with Stella Lambert after an hour. But Ann had wanted to stay with her father. Early evening now, the air thick with smoke and the smell of beer. Time to get her away.
“I think I’ll ask John Larney to take us home,” I said to Mrs. O’Donnell.
“He’s the police detective. Right?” she asked. “A decent enough fellow according to my husband, though he doesn’t play ball.”
“No. John’s not an athlete. Maybe you’re thinking of our cousin, who played for the White Sox, but he was called Michael Kelly, and…”
A fellow, her husband, I supposed, joined us now.
“This is my husband, Jim,” she said. “And this is…”
“Nora Kelly,” I supplied.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Sorry for your troubles. And is this Michael’s little girl? Your father did a grand job putting in the plumbing in my house.” Ann nodded.
“Thanks for coming. I think Ann and I will be going,” I said. He reached out his hand. Helped me up. And then Ann. And then his wife.
“We could drive her home. Couldn’t we Jim?” Mrs. O’Donnell asked.
“Sure. Sure,” her husband said.
“That would be kind of you, but we’re out west, Argo.”
“Okey dokey,” her husband said.
We’ll just slip out, I thought to myself. Get Ann out of there without a lot of goodbyes. And I was just at the door when who stopped me … only Henrietta.
“So you’re leaving,” she said. “It’s just like you to think only of yourself, and leave me here to support poor Michael on my own.” She was talking loud enough so that two or three men turned around, and Ann started sniffling again.
“Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell have offered me a ride, and I think Ann’s had enough.” Henrietta looked behind me at the couple. She lowered her voice and clenched her teeth. “So now you’ve taken up with another gangster,” she said, looking at Jim O’Donnell. “Spike O’Donnell, how dare you come here!”
“Henrietta,” I started, but Spike only shrugged as she stomped away from us.
“A man pays his respects,” he said to me.
“He does indeed,” and it was the voice I’d heard in my nightmares for ten years. Please God, no. Please. But there he was, my own personal demon, Tim McShane. Or, at least, Tim McShane was somewhere inside that fat old man, shrouded in smoke from his own cigar, who blocked the door.
“Hello folks,” he said. “Welcome home, Nora,” and I couldn’t say a word.
Ann grabbed my hand. Spike O’Donnell’s wife looked at me. “Hello, McShane,” Spike O’Donnell said. “Didn’t know you were a friend of Michael Kelly.”
“Not his friend,” Tim said. “Hers,” and he took my arm. And now, I did start to talk.
“Not here, Tim, please. Not here. Come outside. Please.” Henrietta had seen him. She was on her way back toward us. “Go to your aunt,” I instructed Ann and pushed her toward Henrietta, then slipped my arm through Tim’s. “Please,” I said to h
im, and he let me turn him, lead him out the door and down the stairs.
I held the dark wood railing with one hand, pushed Tim with the other. Please let me get him out of here. Please. No one was coming up the stairs, thank God, and we were out and onto the front stoop. Tim had stopped resisting, and smiled at me now. A flicker of the fellow who had lifted me onto Johnny Murphy’s old horse tram all those years ago.
“Take it easy now, Nora,” he said. “No reason why two old pals shouldn’t have a chat. Only trying to do the decent thing and pay my respects to Mame. Here,” he said, pointing to the gangway that ran between the two buildings. “A private word after all these years.”
He pulled me into the brick passageway between the Kelly–Doran Funeral Home and the three-flat next door. So narrow. Only the width of my outstretched arms. Almost like a tunnel. Hard to see the alley at the end of it in the gathering dusk.
I stopped and turned. But Tim pushed me hard. I put my hand against the uneven brick, trying to get a hold in the crumbling mortar. No pretense at manners now from Tim. No soft talk. Shoved me further down the gangway.
He blocked the entrance to the street with his bulk. Grabbed my wrist. “You bitch. You jumped-up, full-of-yourself bitch. Who do you think you are, anyway? Standing up there at the casket. Still holier than thou. Fooling that lot upstairs, when I know you’re nothing but a slut. A double-crossing, two-timing slut.”
He pushed me up against the brick wall, holding me by the neck, and slapped me. His thick hand covered my face from forehead to chin. He’s going to break my cheekbones, my nose … I thought. I got my free hand up to deflect the next swing, but he only laughed.
“Go on. Fight back. More fun for me.” He took my arm, bent it behind my back.
All my horrors came alive. The fear I’d fought off in Paris, when my mind was telling me Tim was far away and couldn’t get me. But still, I’d wake up with my mouth dry. The blood pounding in my temples. That clutch in my stomach. And, now … this was real.
Say something to him, I thought. Say something. Don’t scream … he wants that. Talk to him. You escaped him once with words. Come on, Nonie.
“Geeze Louise, Tim,” I managed. “You’ve certainly stayed fit. You almost took my head off, and now you’re going to snap my wrist in two. More bones in the wrist than in any other part of the body. I learned that when I was nursing in France. Soldiers. French, American, and even Irish fellows. Who knows—I might have taken care of some relative of yours, Tim. Where are the McShanes from again, in Ireland?”
“God how I hated all your palaver,” Tim said. “Forgot how annoying you are with all that gabbing.”
But he’d loosened his grip on my throat the slightest bit. “Throwing around big words, and pretending to know something about everything.”
“True enough, Tim. That’s me. Why, you should have heard me in French. Rattling on, and half the time not sure of what the words coming out of my mouth meant. I once said to a woman, ‘Comprendez vous?’ and she said ‘Oui. Je comprends. Mais vous parlez en Français bizarre.’ Wasn’t that funny, Tim? My French was bizarre.”
“You are nuts.”
“That’s me. Bizarre.”
He leaned forward. Close enough so I could bring my knee up. “If they catch you, go for the bollocks,” Cyril Peterson had told me when we were running from the Black and Tans in Ireland. I’m not afraid of him, I thought … Jesus, it’s true. I’m furious. So mad that if I had a knife, I’d push it right through his heart and not think a thing about it.
How dare he put his hands on me? Using the strength he has, only because he’s a man. Muscles giving him the last word in every argument. No risk to him, and me going along, letting Tim trap me because I was worried about what the neighbors would think.
Where are you Queen Maeve? Come on Grace O’Malley, pirate queen of Connacht.
And I roared. Not the high-pitched scream Tim was hoping for, but a war cry rising up from somewhere deep inside me as I brought my knee up with all the anger I felt at Tim, the Black and Tans, and all the idiots who bullied us into the Great War then watched from the sidelines as young men died and women and children starved. Starved as my own family had done in Ireland.
I remembered the story of the battle rage of Cúchulainn; even his hair became a weapon, standing out around his head, every strand razor sharp. A jolt went through my whole body, and my knee connected with something soft and fleshy between Tim’s legs. He yelped, let go of my neck, and cupped his hands over his balls.
“Go for the bollocks and run,” Cyril had said. So I headed toward the street but I stumbled, and Tim managed to grab the hem of my skirt. I went down facefirst into a patch of dirt on the side of the gangway.
Fool. Fool, a voice inside me said. You’ve lost all chance to sweet-talk him. He’s an animal now. And I knew that Tim would strangle me as he had Dolly and her maid Carrie, and leave my body right here in this dark gangway. Another death for Michael’s children to absorb. The final proof that the world was a brutal place.
No. No. He pulled me back toward him, but I found the buttons at my waist. Undid them, until it was only my skirt he had in his hand. Then, I was up and running, almost to the street, when again Tim grabbed me from behind, wrapping his arm around my middle, and lifting me up.
“Let me go. Let me go!” I said. But he shook me up and down—the way a bear must do before he crushes the life out of a baby fawn.
“Put her down.” A fellow stood on the sidewalk in front of the gangway—a command. Too dark to see his face. “Do it, Tim,” he said.
“Get out of here, Spike,” Tim said.
Spike O’Donnell, and his wife behind him. “Help me! Please,” I tried to yell, but Tim squeezed me so hard the words came out as grunts.
Spike’s wife stepped toward me, but Spike stretched out his arm, stopping her.
Is Spike O’Donnell going to leave Tim to it? Some man–woman Donnybrook going on, and he’s not going to involve his wife in something ugly.… Plenty of Bridgeport couples tussle back and forth, and a fellow raised to use his fists sometimes forgets himself … though not in public and not when both are well into middle age.
I heard Spike tell his wife to go back to the wake. “Bring the Larney brothers down.” Tim heard that, too.
“Calling in the coppers, are you Spike?” Tim said. “A good joke to tell the fellas. Big, bad Spike O’Donnell crying for the cops. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
And now, Tim laughed, a horrible sound. Spike came forward. “You’ve gone nuts, Tim. Let her go. I’ll take you for a beer downstairs.”
But Tim was backing up, all the time braying in my ear and squeezing the breath out of me.
“That’s enough, McShane.” John Larney’s voice. He and his brother, Tom, were there with Spike. Thank God. They’ll stop him. But I mustn’t pass out. I mustn’t. “Nothing lower than a man who beats a woman,” John Larney said.
“Feck off, Larney. This bitch has had it coming to her for years. No broad makes a chump of Tim McShane. Dolly McGee tried, and where is she now? Burning in Hell with all the other mouthy dames who tormented their husbands. Got away with it, didn’t I? Fooled all of you.”
The two Larney brothers stepped into the gangway, and Tim eased his grip for a minute. I managed a breath. Twisted my shoulders, but then I felt something cold pressed against the back of my neck. Dear God. A gun. And I knew Tim was going to shoot me. Right there with the Larneys looking on, he’d kill me. Beyond any calculation.
“A gun,” I managed to get out. “He’s got a gun.”
“Move, and you’re dead,” Tim said to me. “My car’s parked in the alley, and the two of us are going for a spin, Nonie dear. I remember how much you liked riding with me.”
We backed away from the Larneys. Getting further from the street, and any hope. He will get away with it. Dump my body somewhere and take off.
“It’s over, Tim.” The voice came from behind us. “Drop her, and get out of here.”
Tim turn
ed, still holding me, and there was Spike O’Donnell only a few feet from us, holding a pistol with two hands. “Go on, Spike, fire, and you’ll kill her, and I’ll kill you,” Tim said.
Spike lowered the pistol and stepped to the side of the gangway. “Leave her and go.”
Tim laughed again, pushed me forward. I managed to get my feet down, and we were parallel with Spike when I saw the barrel of Spike’s gun come up a few inches. I swung my legs toward the wall, and pushed hard. Tim staggered. A gunshot. “My knee,” Tim yelled. “You bastard.” I dropped to the ground.
Tim fired at Spike O’Donnell. But the bullet hit the wall. Spike fired again, not aiming at Tim’s knees anymore, but trying to kill him. He did. Four more shots into Tim’s chest, and now I was screaming.
The Larney brothers ran in from the street. Tim was a heap, wedged between each side of the walkway. John knelt down, put his fingers on Tim’s neck, and shook his head.
“Self-defense,” Spike O’Donnell said. “You both saw.”
I crawled away from Tim’s body and stood up. All I felt was relief. I’m alive. Thank you, God. I’m alive. And Tim McShane was dead. I’m alive. I looked up at Spike O’Donnell, who was talking to John and Tom Larney now. “Self-defense,” John Larney said, nodding his head.
“Three witnesses,” Spike added.
“You saved my life,” I said to Spike. “I’ll tell…” I stopped. Witnesses. I’ll be in court on the stand, telling the whole world about my relationship with Tim McShane.
“And he confessed to killing Dolly McGee,” John Larney said.
“Poor old Dolly,” Spike said. “My mother took me to hear her sing at McVickers. Lovely woman. Beautiful voice.”
He put a foot on Tim’s shoulder. “A bully. No jury in Chicago will convict me. Probably congratulate me for avenging Dolly McGee.”
“True enough, Spike,” Tom Larney said. “A waste of time and money to bring you to trial. I think John and I heard shots, and found McShane dead in the gangway. Not a surprise these days.”
“Not a surprise at all,” Spike said. “Might find my body like this one of these days.”
Irish Above All Page 4