Road to Perdition

by Max Allan Collins

  When he heard the footsteps at the hall, he’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes shut tight, praying for his father—at this point, just that his father would return. Never mind any of the rest of it.

  And then he opened his eyes, the footsteps very near, surprised to see light coming in the window—dawn—and the key turned in the lock…the boy’s hand moved toward the small revolver on the nightstand…and the door opened.

  Papa.

  The man shut the door behind him and rushed to the boy, dropping to his knees, and Michael threw himself into his father’s arms. Had their embrace been any tighter, it would have hurt.

  Then Papa held him by the arms and looked into the boy’s face. “The man who killed your mother and your brother,” he whispered, “is dead.”

  “Good…Did he suffer?”

  “Not enough,” Papa admitted. “But the world is rid of him.”

  “And…Mr. Looney?”

  “He’s gone, too. It had to be, son. Don’t ever ask me of it.”

  “I…I won’t, Papa.”

  His father sighed, smiled tightly. “…And now we can finally go on with our lives.”

  “To Perdition, Papa?”

  “Yes…but together.”

  They hugged again. Michael closed his eyes, blinking away tears—and the brightness of the dawn. The way the sun was pouring in the window, you would never know how hard it had rained last night.

  EIGHTEEN

  My memories of the drive to Perdition may be less than trustworthy. Everything I remember prior to that day is a winter memory—largely in black and white, like old movie footage, or some people’s dreams.

  But the drive to Perdition, in my mind’s eye, is in full color, dominated by the clear blue of the sky and the green of a world that had had been bleak winter yesterday and was glorious spring today.

  Surely these recollections are influenced by emotions and time—the last day of winter is not a dead thing, with the first day of spring an explosion of life.

  Yet that is how I remember it. And while I have endeavored in these pages to provide the reader with factual background material, the most valuable commodity I have to offer is my memories—however accurate or inaccurate they may, at this late stage of my life, be.

  I am, after all, the only one left. I’m in my winter now, recalling the spring day we drove to Perdition.

  They had spoken little, on the first day of the trip to Perdition, but a new warmth seemed to bind them. Smiling like the child he still was, the boy was enjoying the spring day, drinking in the sun, hanging his head out the window, letting the wind skim over him and roar in his ears. That his son had retained a certain innocence after this ordeal was a small miracle—that the little revolver O’Sullivan had given Michael had never been used gave O’Sullivan strength, and hope.

  The man did not want to spoil the boy’s joyful disposition with what he knew would be disappointing news. He intended to leave Michael with Bob and Sarah—just for a while—until he had started a new life, perhaps in the old country. He wanted to make sure this was really over—that Capone’s people indeed weren’t after them…and that Frank Nitti could be trusted.

  Michael would be disappointed, but O’Sullivan would make him understand that this was only a temporary state of affairs. In six months, a year at the most, he would send for his son; and they would start over—clean, fresh…a second chance.

  They stayed at a motel in Missouri, knowing they would be at the farm on the lake by the next afternoon, evening at the latest. And now, gliding down paved roads—the sun reflecting off the green leaves so brightly, the man had to stop and buy sunglasses—they began to talk. For the first time, the father and son seemed to share something beyond blood—they liked each other. They were comrades who had shared hardship and weathered adversity, who had helped each other through a difficult, even tragic time.

  But there was nothing serious about their conversation, with only a few passing references to Annie or Peter. Michael asked him what it was like growing up as a boy in Ireland, for example; and O’Sullivan was only too glad to tell him. And somehow his son seemed instinctively to know not to ask about his combat experiences in the Great War. They both had had enough of their own war, in recent days.

  Then O’Sullivan—feeling more than an occasional twinge of guilt over how little he really knew about the boy—would question his son about his likes and dislikes. He heard the entire story of how the Lone Ranger was the last of a band of Texas Rangers who had been “betrayed and bushwhacked by the Cavendish gang.” He heard about Tom Mix, and Mickey Mouse, and Little Orphan Annie.

  And that the boy, it turned out, was really interested in sports—an enthusiasm of Michael’s that O’Sullivan had only been vaguely aware of.

  “I’m a good shortstop, you know,” Michael said.

  “I bet you are. Are you fast?”

  “You couldn’t beat me.”

  “Ha. Care to wager?”

  “Save your money, Pop.”

  “Did you play at the Villa?”

  “No…the diamond’s over at Longview Park.”

  That cast a slight pall—Longview Park was on 20th Street, across from the Looney mansion.

  “Well, maybe I’ll take you to a big-league ballgame,” O’Sullivan said, shifting the subject slightly. “We could see the Cubs play.”

  “But we’re going to Kansas.”

  “We’ll have our car…Anyway, Kansas is still America, last time I looked.”

  The boy was shaking his head. “They don’t have a team.”

  “They have a minor league team.”

  “What’re they called?”

  O’Sullivan shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “See what I mean? They don’t have a team.”

  “I’ll take you to see the Cardinals in St. Louis.”

  That excited the boy. “Really? They could take the pennant this year—they’re really good!”

  Later, Michael asked his father about music. The boy approached this delicately, and finally O’Sullivan figured out why: Michael only knew his papa could play piano because of the duet O’Sullivan and Looney had played at the McGovern wake.

  “Did you take lessons?” the boy asked.

  “No…I just picked it up. By ear, they call it.”

  “Really? You could hear the notes?”

  O’Sullivan, driving casually, one hand on the wheel, shrugged. “Well, you just sort of hit keys and listen and remember…It takes time. My grandmother had a piano.”

  Michael’s eyes were wide with interest. “I never met her.”

  “No you didn’t. But she died on this side of the ocean.”

  “The Atlantic.”

  “That’s right, son.”

  Somehow it bound them further, this sudden realization that they both had lived lives filled with incident and interests; O’Sullivan looked forward to getting to know his son even better. And he could tell, from the boy’s questions, that Michael felt the same.

  By late afternoon of the second day they were on a rural gravel road, surrounded by startling foliage.

  “How can Kansas be so green?” Michael asked, as his father pulled up alongside the road, near a dirt trail through high grass leading to lush woods.

  “It’s always green, near any lake, this time of year,” his father said.

  “…Why are we stopping?”

  “Because we’re here.” O’Sullivan considered taking this moment—alone together—to tell his son about his need to leave; but he couldn’t bring himself. Anyway, maybe he could stay on at Perdition. Open a shop in the little town. Or find a farm of his own…

  “We’ll walk the rest of the way,” O’Sullivan said, getting out.

  Michael closed his door, and was half-standing on the road, half in the ditch. “Why don’t you drive right up to the house?”

  O’Sullivan was locking the car. “Son, we still need to be careful.”

  His wheelman thought that over. “S
neaking up to check and see if cars are there, huh?”

  “We’re not sneaking up—just trying not to be stupid.”

  O’Sullivan still had his .45 holstered under his left arm, beneath his brown suitcoat.

  The boy shrugged, said, “Okay,” and soon they were angling down a hillside—no topcoat for the father, no jacket for the son, in this inviting weather—emerging from the woods, where a beautiful if oddly desolate landscape awaited.

  Dusk was dispensing shadows to soften the view, touching the stretch of beach along the lake with cool blue; a light breeze blew in off the lightly whitecapped water. The cabin-like farmhouse had no barn next to it; the farm was across the road, out of view. No sign of any car except a battered pick-up truck that belonged to Uncle Bob.

  Looking toward the house on the beach, Michael asked, “Is that it?”

  “That’s it. Ring any bells?”

  “Sort of…I’m not sure.”

  “Here comes somebody that’ll jog your memory.”

  From around the house a big mutt came loping, floppy ears and lolling tongue, a friendly conglomeration of breeds whose tail was wagging at the sign of company. Michael ran to meet the dog, and immediately they began to play, running toward the beach.

  O’Sullivan did not join them. He merely stood and watched his son behaving like the boy he was.

  “Forgive me, Annie,” O’Sullivan said softly, “for the dangerous road I’ve taken him down.”

  Then he loped on toward the house, allowing his son to caper on the beach with the hound. Up the porch and through the open screen door O’Sullivan went, following light at the end of a hallway to the kitchen. He called to Sarah and Bob, announcing himself, but received no immediate answer.

  And the kitchen was empty. He looked around—the evening dishes had been put away, the room clean and white. Over the sink, sheer curtains billowing, was an open window onto the lake, where he could see Michael on the beach, bending to pet the dog.

  “Hey!” someone said, and O’Sullivan whirled, already sensing something, but his hand hadn’t reached his holstered weapon when the first shot punched him in the chest.

  Three more followed—single claps, echoing a bit in the kitchen, ironic applause—and it took the fourth one to knock him back into the windowed wall. He slid to the floor, leaving a smear of red, fighting to retain his consciousness, hoping to summon strength to go for the gun…

  The man in the bowler—only he wasn’t wearing one now—stood before him, a nine-millimeter automatic pistol in one hand, his camera in the other. His eyes were unblinking and crazed in a face whose boyish handsomeness had been replaced with a ravaged welter of scars, the aftermath of that shattered crystal lamp in Rance’s suite.

  “You disappointment me, Mr. O’Sullivan,” the photographer said, and he put his gun on the kitchen table.

  Good, O’Sullivan thought, only he was fading…could he even move his arm…?

  Harlen Maguire—who had stowed the bodies of Bob and Sarah McGinnis in the pantry nearby, just about an hour before—moved in closer, positioning his camera, and began to focus it. He had paid an awful price for this picture—his face would never be right, even with plastic surgery—but this would be the crowning portrait for his gallery of death.

  O’Sullivan—lying on the kitchen floor, life oozing out of him—would make an excellent subject, a special study in death, since a succession of photos would record the stages of dying… one photo would have the glimmer of life in those eyes, the next would show the blankness of death.

  The photographer—studying the upside down image of the slumped, bleeding man—framed his subject carefully…no rush…

  He took his first shot and a bright, hard flash filled the room.

  “Try not to blink next time,” Maguire advised his subject, who seemed barely conscious now.

  A tiny noise behind made Maguire spin toward the doorway…

  …And just behind him stood O’Sullivan’s son—who had taken Maguire’s own gun off the kitchen table, and now pointed it right at him.

  Maguire had been in tight situations before—in the Rance suite, among others—but in those instances he’d been armed. Now he stood helpless, and a nausea-like wave of fear such as he’d never known rose up inside him. And Harlen Maguire suddenly understood that his fascination with death did not extend to experiencing his own…

  Michael had known there was trouble when that dog ran up to him on the beach, and the boy had seen orange-red-brown dirt or something, streaked and caked on the animal’s paws… blood.

  He’d already been running toward the house when he heard the shots…

  …and now the boy stood pointing the pistol, shaking not with fear for himself but for his father—his wounded father, bleeding on the floor, defenseless, barely awake…a fallen soldier. That this could happen to Papa, the boy of course had contemplated; and yet seeing this terrible tableau before him, he wondered how it could be possible…was this another nightmare?

  Whatever it was, he was in it, and his father was in trouble, and Michael cocked the automatic and the sound was just a click…but it made the man, whose face was all scarred up now, jump.

  And Michael almost pulled the trigger.

  For once, the man blinked. “Hey!…Easy, son.”

  “I’m not your son.”

  “No…you’re Michael, aren’t you?” The scarred man had his hands up, and he was smiling a sick sort of smile. “This isn’t about you, Michael…Your father’s gone. This is over.”

  Michael aimed the gun. “It’s not over yet.”

  The man was really, really afraid. “Don’t…don’t do this…It’s Frank Nitti you want…he hired me…I’ll help you get him…”

  Michael shifted his gaze to his father, for guidance. Should I shoot him, Papa? his eyes asked, but Papa’s response, a sort of weave of his head, didn’t tell him anything.

  “Kid…,” the scared, scarred man said. “Please…it’s a human life…it’s a sin…don’t…please!”

  So many feelings pulsed through the boy—rage, determination, fear, desperation…Then his finger tightened on the trigger.

  Two shots rang in the small room—tiny cracks louder than any thunder.

  The scarred man looked at Michael, his eyes still pleading; then, like a light had switched off, the eyes were empty, and the man dropped to the floor, a puppet with its strings snipped, landing on top of his camera, making a crunch. A corpse now, the scarred man lay in an awkward, artless sprawl.

  Michael, who had not fired, ran to his fallen father, who had. Smoke spiraled out of the snout of the .45 in Papa’s hand, making a question-mark curl.

  “I could have done it,” the boy said, kneeling next to his father. “I could have!”

  “But…you didn’t,” Papa managed, with a trace of a smile.

  Michael took his father in his arms and held him, held him close but not tight, not wanting to hurt him, cradling Papa’s head against his chest, getting blood all over himself, not caring.

  The boy looked around them, dead body on the floor, smell of cordite in the air, his father bleeding. “What should I do, Papa?”

  “For…”

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “Forgive me.”

  And his father died there, in the boy’s arms; yet the boy kept rocking him, for a long time, as if the dead man were a baby he was soothing to sleep.

  Out the window, where the wind whispered through, making ghosts of the sheer curtains, the vast, peaceful expanse of blue that was Fall River Lake glistened in the dying sun.

  But by the time Michael moved from his late father’s side, easing the man gently to the linoleum floor, the moon was bathing the gently rippling lake in ivory. Michael removed his father’s coat, bundled it up into a makeshift pillow, and placed it under Papa’s head, so he could rest better.

  A scratching sound caught Michael’s attention—the dog at the front door; and when he let the animal in, it led the boy back into the kitchen, and the
pantry, where he found the bodies of his uncle and aunt, on the floor between walls of shelved canned goods. He was surprised to see them, but he didn’t look at them close, or touch their bodies—just shut them back in, almost apologetically, as if he’d opened the wrong door and disturbed somebody. The dog positioned itself at the pantry door and whined.

  Then Michael took stock of the situation, thinking it through as best he could. Finally, he took the car keys from his father’s right-hand trouser pocket, and lifted the gun from Papa’s stiffening fingers, and stuck it in his waistband. After kissing his father on the forehead, Michael left the kitchen, not even glancing at the sprawled scarred dead assassin in the center of the floor.

  The dog scampered after him, and followed him through the woods to the car. From the back, Michael gathered what he needed, putting the stack of newspapers on the seat behind the steering wheel and affixing the blocks to the pedals. As the boy drove off, he was not thinking about where he was going; nor was he crying. He was worried, deeply worried…

  …about his father. Papa had asked Michael’s forgiveness, and Michael would gladly have forgiven his father anything, even though the boy didn’t feel there was anything that needed forgiving.

  But Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.—like his late father—was a good Catholic; and he knew that he couldn’t give his father forgiveness…only a priest could do that. If a priest had been there, Papa would have been forgiven, that was certain. Last rites…absolution of his sins. And with no priest present, did that mean his father was in hell?

  The boy and the dog slept in the car that night, in a park called Indian Foothills outside Marshall, Kansas; and in the morning Michael remembered the sealed envelope with his name on it, which Papa had put in the glove box, saying, “That’s for you…in an emergency.”

  Seeing his father’s handwriting made the boy simultaneously happy and sad, but—along with a fat wad of money and some keys—the sheet inside was not a letter, not even a note, just a list of banks with some numbers…wait! There were also instructions; Papa had even drawn a little map for him…