Desmond Spellacy let the conversation wash over him. It was always this way with Dan and Sonny. First one, then the other pressing the advantage. There was no need to bring up Jack until an opening was presented. He sank his putt, then watched Sonny three-putt for a bogie six. A bad two holes for Sonny.
Dan T. Campion was still chattering. There was something on Dan Campion’s mind, Desmond Spellacy was sure of that. When Dan Campion babbled, there was something he did not want anyone to know. That was one thing Desmond Spellacy had picked up in the years he and Dan had worked together. And Dan was babbling like a brook lately. Especially about Tommy. And what a fine detective he was. Such a grand Catholic. A credit to the force. A credit to the Church. A credit to Ireland. When the fact was, Dan T. Campion could not stand Tommy and Tommy returned the compliment.
Desmond Spellacy wondered what was on Dan’s mind. As long as it doesn’t concern me, he thought, I don’t really care.
“G’wan, Sonny,” Dan T. Campion said. He was sitting in the shadow of a shade tree, fanning his face with a white straw hat. “ ‘I planted Carole Lombard,’ is probably what you told them. Listing your credits, that’s your best sales pitch. Isn’t that right, Des? Fatty Arbuckle. Rin Tin Tin of the canine family. All the stars of the animal kingdom. Black Beauty. My Friend Flicka. Nanook of the North.”
“That’s an eskimo, you dumbbell,” Sonny McDonough said. He was washing the dirt from his golf balls, not looking at Dan Campion.
“Buy by the acre, sell by the foot,” Dan T. Campion said. “I know the rules of your business.”
“The only rule of my business is I’d like to put you in the ground right now,” Sonny McDonough said. He turned to Desmond Spellacy and with an elaborate pretense of ignoring Dan Campion, said, “I keep reading about your brother the policeman.”
“And doing a grand job he is,” Dan T. Campion said. He rose from the bench and took a club from his bag. “The backbone of the city, our policemen. You’d have to agree to that, Sonny. You, too, Des. If we didn’t have any policemen, we’d have a lot more crime than we have now. And that’s a well-known fact.”
“There’s always the types likes to run them down,” Sonny McDonough said.
“The Mexicans, usually, and the colored,” Dan T. Campion said.
“I seen him fight once, your brother,” Sonny McDonough said. “Over to the Legion Stadium in El Monte there. Eight-round semifinal. He was fighting a colored boy.”
“He won, did he?” Dan T. Campion said.
“Lost,” Sonny McDonough said. “Split decision. A dirty fight it was, too. Lots of rabbit punches.”
“They’re good at the rabbit punches, the colored,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Tommy Jefferson,” Desmond Spellacy said. “That was the name of the boy that beat him.”
It was the only time he had ever seen Tommy fight.
“A terrible thing the way they take the names of our presidents,” Dan T. Campion said. “Eye-talian names, they should take, the colored. Or Polish.” He turned to Desmond Spellacy. “That fellow Jefferson ever sticks up a bank, he won’t try the rabbit punches on your brother if he’s there.”
“What’d he be doing there in the first place?” Sonny McDonough said. “He’s not a bank guard.”
“Using his noggin is what he’d be doing there,” Dan T. Campion said. “It’s why he’s such a grand detective, the way he uses his bean. There’d be no bank stickups from this Jefferson with Tom Spellacy on the job.”
“You make him sound like Sherlock Holmes,” Desmond Spellacy said.
“Oh, that’s grand, Des, grand,” Dan T. Campion said. “A grand policeman, Sherlock Holmes, and that’s a well-known fact.”
Desmond Spellacy parred the ninth and tenth holes, double-bogied the eleventh and birdied the twelfth. On the thirteenth tee, he was a hole up on Sonny McDonough and even with Dan Campion. Over the previous four holes, the two men seemed to have reached an accord about the mortuary business.
“I did her for free, you know,” Sonny McDonough said. “One of your beautiful thirty-footers.”
“How did you get that one past Shake Hands?” Dan T. Campion said. “A tight man with a dollar, Shake Hands McCarthy.”
“The argument we had,” Sonny McDonough said. “ ‘You give away a thirty-footer here and a thirty-footer there,’ Shake Hands said, ‘pretty soon you got an acre full of nothing but deadbeats.’ ‘Just one plot,’ I says. ‘A twenty-seven footer,’ he says.”
“That’s what he’ll be remembered for, Shake Hands, the twenty-seven footers,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Them three square feet give you twenty more plots to the acre,” Sonny McDonough said.
“A revolutionary idea,” Dan T. Campion said.
“A great man, Shake Hands,” Sonny McDonough said. “For a bookkeeper. It’s the long-range planning he has trouble with. ‘Think of the publicity,’ I says to him. ‘Twenty thousand new people moving here every month. This is where they’re going to stay until they pass away. What a way to introduce them to McDonough & McCarthy, giving this poor girl a free send-off.’ “
“I give you that, Sonny,” Dan T. Campion said. “You got to think of the population trends these days. Isn’t that right, Des? You got to think of the population trends.”
“There’s something else we’ve got to think of,” Desmond Spellacy said. His voice was so soft the other two men had to strain to hear. “We’ve got to think of a way to cut Jack Amsterdam loose.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Holy Mother of God,” Sonny McDonough said.
There did not seem much point in continuing the game. They left their clubs with the caddies and walked back to the clubhouse. By the time they reached the pro shop, Desmond Spellacy had filled them in on the Protectors of the Poor. In the bar they ordered beer and sandwiches.
“We could let it go is my advice,” Dan T. Campion said.
“It’s not as if he done anything illegal,” Sonny McDonough said.
“Only profitable,” Desmond Spellacy said. His sarcasm seemed to escape them.
“He’s done a lot of good works, Jack,” Dan T. Campion said.
“That sheeny halfback, it was Jack got him to transfer to Notre Dame,” Sonny McDonough said.
“He was going to go to SC is what I hear,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Then Jack bought him a car,” Sonny McDonough said.
“A convertible Studebaker,” Dan T. Campion said.
“I thought a Jew would want a Cadillac at least,” Sonny McDonough said. “A Jew canoe, that’s what they call a Cadillac, you know.”
“Oh, that’s grand, Sonny,” Dan T. Campion said. “A Jew canoe.”
“It’ll be a coon quarterback next,” Sonny McDonough said. “You mark my words. There’s eleven Protestants on the team already. I did a check.”
“What’s Frank Leahy thinking of,” Dan T. Campion said.
Desmond Spellacy took the toothpick from his club sandwich and placed it carefully on the side of the plate. He knew that Dan and Sonny would do anything to avoid the issue.
“He still goes.”
“You’ve thought about it then, Des,” Dan T. Campion said.
“I’ve thought about the headlines, MORON PASTOR. AMBULANCE CHASER CARDINAL’S PAL.”
“I think you’re a little overwrought about this, Des,” Sonny McDonough said.
“It was sound business practice is what it was,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Like Ferdie Coppola’s cranes,” Desmond Spellacy said. “And the ton of asphalt.”
“Was it your brother the policeman told you this?” Sonny McDonough said.
“No.”
“I hear there was a run-in between Jack and your brother the policeman not long ago,” Dan T. Campion said.
“You were calling him Sherlock Holmes on the eighth hole,” Desmond Spellacy said. It was time to get rough. “When we were talking to Sonny there about Corky Cronin.”
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The point was made. Sonny and Dan each picked at their sandwiches in silence.
“What’s he got outstanding?” Sonny McDonough said finally.
“He’s supposed to finish San Pedro Klaber in July,” Desmond Spellacy said. “He’d better. His Eminence dedicates the seventeenth and holds confirmations the eighteenth. And he’s the only bid on Saint John Bosco.”
“Can you extend the bids?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Sonny McDonough said. “I can get Neddy Flynn to put one in. You work on Emmett Flaherty, Dan.”
“He likes living too much, Emmett,” Dan T. Campion said. “He hates getting his bones broke, I hear.”
Sonny McDonough ignored him. “You know a lot of people in the police department, Dan. Maybe you can put in a word, tell them not to mention the Protectors. His Eminence wouldn’t want to be embarrassed, you tell them.”
“I know what to tell them,” Dan T. Campion said. He was suddenly furious. “I was telling them when you were still planting poor people.”
A look of hurt crossed Sonny McDonough’s face. “There’s no reason to get personal.”
“There’s no chief is the problem,” Dan T. Campion said. His voice was so loud that people were looking at him. “There’s no one to talk to.”
Sonny McDonough leaned across the table. “This fellow Fuqua’s a comer, I hear. I’m on the Select Commission picking the new chief and he’s impressed me.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “That’s confidential, of course.”
“Meaning I should mention it,” Dan T. Campion said. Sour resignation seemed to have replaced his fury. “Meaning I should tell him Sonny McDonough, the famous harp undertaker, says you’re a hot prospect, you learn how to keep your lip buttoned.”
Sonny McDonough pretended not to hear. He turned to Desmond Spellacy. “Maybe we don’t have a problem. He was in to see me the other day, Jack. He wanted a plot for himself.”
“He must expect some shooting,” Dan T. Campion said.
“Not for him and the Mrs.,” Sonny McDonough said. “Just for himself. In the Celebrity Circle, that’s where he wanted it. Under a palm tree. Can you beat that? Like he was Al Capone.”
Desmond Spellacy wiped the beer foam from his lips. “I don’t think we should count on Jack using the Celebrity Circle right away.” Although he knew that nothing would make Dan and Sonny happier. Divine intervention. The sure hand of God. There would be no volunteering from those two to tell Jack the archdiocese didn’t want his business anymore. “I’ll talk to him.”
“That’s grand, Des,” Sonny McDonough said. His relief was almost visible. “There’s a lot of grand ways to handle it. So his feelings won’t be hurt is what I mean. We can give him a dinner.”
“Catholic Layman of the Year,” Desmond Spellacy said drily.
“A grand idea, Des,” Sonny McDonough said. “His Eminence can give him a sash. Something green. Or purple. Or we can name a wing at Saint John Bosco after him. The Amsterdam Orthopedic Wing.”
“For all them bones he broke in the old days,” Dan T. Campion said.
A lot of grand ways to handle it, Desmond Spellacy thought. Sonny had the chairman’s mentality already.
Dan T. Campion pushed away his sandwich. “I’d like to know who named that girl that.”
There’s where the trouble began all right, Desmond Spellacy thought.
“I’d like to know who got her into the Protectors is what I’d like to know,” Sonny McDonough said.
Sixteen
The roller coaster hung for a moment at the top of its climb, hung as if it were going to slide back, and then with a sudden lurch, plummeted over and down the gorge. Nuns screamed. Black veils snapped straight back, the wind tore at white cowls.
“They got ears,” Crotty said. He was eating a hot dog and leaning against the vendor’s stand, watching the roller coaster. “I was a kid, over to Saint Patricia’s there, I always used to wonder, you know, if they got ears. Like other people. And hair. I always heard they had to shave it off, when they become sisters. They’re all bald-headed, nuns, I hear. And another thing I hear—”
“I know what you hear,” Tom Spellacy said. The roller coaster had momentarily disappeared down a gulley. The normal noises of the arcade level at Ocean Park replaced the roar of the tr^in. Hawkers, drummers, vendors, tattooed men, mustachioed ladies, hot-dog stands and shooting galleries filled for the silence until the roller coaster drowned them all out once again. “You hear, they got to wrap something around themselves, the sisters, when they take a bath.”
“You ever want to check that out with the monsignor, Tom, don’t let me stop you. I’d take the mortal sin, I could find that out, and go right to confession afterwards.”
“As a matter of fact, it did come up,” Tom Spellacy said.
Crotty was incredulous. “You asked your brother, Tom?”
“He said most convents don’t let the priests watch the nuns take a bath,” Tom Spellacy said. “Most of them got rules about that. He said if he ever found one that didn’t, though, he’d let me know.”
“Shit.” Crotty’s huge hand speared a drop of mustard before it lighted on his white suit. He licked the mustard from his finger and then swallowed the last half of the frankfurter. “I heard him speak last night, your brother. At the Catholic War Veterans Din-ner. I roared. Every time he jumped out of the airplane, he said, he landed in the water. And this Protestant says to him, he says, ‘From the frequency of your immersions, Father, you must be a Baptist.’” Crotty started to laugh and nearly lost part of the hot dog. Tom Spellacy pounded him on the back. “Isn’t that a grand story, Tom?” Crotty said when he caught his breath. “He tells a grand story, your brother.”
“He tells it often enough.”
“You must roar every time.”
Tom Spellacy nodded. He wasn’t up to discussing Des with Crotty. Or Corinne, either. Especially Corinne. Not after last night. She was such a goddamn fool. He wondered if he would ever understand women. He checked his watch. The puppet maker was late. The puppet maker was someone Crotty had dug up. Name of Shopping Cart Johnson. He carved and sold puppets to the shooting galleries at Ocean Park. Tom Spellacy suspected that Crotty just wanted to spend half a day at the beach. It was all right with him. He watched a pyramid of cotton candy melt in the sun.
“What were you doing at Catholic War Veterans?”
“It was honoring Cosmo Gentile.”
“The labor statesman,” Tom Spellacy said sarcastically. Cosmo Gentile ran the building trades. “Kickback Cosmo.”
Crotty ignored him. “His union built all them barracks during the war.”
“And that makes him a Catholic war veteran.”
“He did a grand job.”
“He got indicted.”
“He might’ve got indicted,” Crotty said. “But he never did anything wrong.”
Tom Spellacy lit a cigarette. You want to build a motel, he thought, you go watch Cosmo Gentile named Catholic war hero of the year. He wondered what excuse Des had.
“He gave himself a dinner, Cosmo, is all he did,” Crotty said.
“The Builders Association gave it to him, you want to be accurate about it,” Tom Spellacy said. “A hundred a plate, 340 guests. Extortion I think the DA called it.”
“It was a Welcome Home Dinner, Tom.”
“He’d only been to Yellowstone Park.”
“There’s a lot of bears in Yellowstone Park,” Crotty said. “Man-eaters is what they tell me.”
“Five days. That’s all he was gone.”
“You go to Catalina for the day, boyo, and I’ll toss you a Welcome Home Dinner, too,” Crotty said. “They’ll be glad to see you home safe and sound, your many friends in the community, and not a victim of the Pacific winds and those terrible ocean tides they have over there. Sweet Mother of God, Tom, it’s like the China Sea and the Mindanao Deep and awful places like that, is what I hear about the boat trip to Catalina there.”
; The roller coaster suddenly careened around a bend not thirty feet from where they were standing. Over the din, Crotty yelled into his ear, “It keeps the labor costs from going up.”
Tom Spellacy nodded and smiled, all the while watching the nuns clutch the safety bars of the roller coaster. They seemed terror-stricken. It gave him a small sense of satisfaction. They had never been that way giving him the rubber hose at Saint Anatole’s.
When the roller coaster had passed, he said, “Where’s this puppet maker?”
“Don’t worry, he’ll show up,” Crotty said. He was watching a girl in a two-piece bathing suit on the beach. “You ever see a nun didn’t have a mole on her nose?”
“My daughter.”
“Jesus, Tom, I forgot about Moira and her being a nun. Sister Angelo, isn’t it.”
“Sister Angelina.”
“She’s a perfect nun type, Moira. She must be very happy.”
He knew Crotty meant that Moira was fat. A light heavyweight.
“Listen, I got this letter yesterday.” Crotty was trying to change the subject. “Green ink. Pink stationery with little red curlicues all over it. ‘Dear Frank,’ it says. Personal. Like I know someone uses pink paper. *I killed the V-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash Tramp.’ Can you beat that? Can’t even bear to spell the word. Even the nuns don’t say The Blessed V-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash. They say it right out. The Blessed Virgin.”
“Priests, too,” Tom Spellacy said. He liked to give Crotty the needle.
“His Eminence.”
“What else did he say?”
“The Cardinal?”
“The letter-writer.”
“Oh,” Crotty said. “ ‘Stop me before I kill again.’ It was a fairy, I figure. So I bring it down to handwriting. I get the analysis this morning.”
Crotty patted his pockets until he found a piece of paper. “ The fluctuating baseline of the writing reveals the writer to be affected by extreme fluctuations of mood, dropping to melancholy,’ “ he read. “Blah, blah, blah, blah. Here it is. ‘Because the last letters of many words are larger, it reveals extreme frankness. There is a fine sense of rhythm present, showing the penman to be either a musician or possibly a dancer.’”
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