“Thanks for coming back to the old neighborhood here to meet me, Father,” I said, vaguely wondering why he suggested such.
He gave my back some dutiful, fluttery pats, then broke free of my clutch. He pushed up one of his frayed coat sleeves and squinted at a gold Rolex underneath, his retirement gift from the Hell’s Kitchen CYO. “What’s this big ugly thing say?” he asked, raising his wrist for me to see the gaudy dial. “I forgot and left my cheaters up at home.”
I thought, Where have I heard that before? I said, “Coming onto half past five.”
“What time’s your flight, Neil?”
“Eight … and how did you know about that?”
Father Tim wiped his mouth, like maybe he wanted a nip so bad he thought he might taste whiskey on the back of his hand. “Well, look, I have recently been on the horn over there to Patrick Snoody, you know … about poor Liam and all,” he said. “Snoody, he mentioned how you’re soon on your way to Dún Laoghaire.”
“Did he now?”
“He did. He said you and some woman would soon be there. Who’s the woman?”
“Who’s this Snoody?”
“A friend.”
“So he says. How come I never heard of him?”
“Your uncle has many friends on the other side. You can’t have heard of them all, see.” Father Tim squinted again at his Rolex, for what it was worth. He muttered, “There’s precious little time for a proper chat, Neil. Kindly don’t be sounding so much like the cop with me today.”
“Let’s go someplace for a jar,” I said.
“Coffee’ll do.”
We left the church and walked slowly along Forty-second Street over to Pete Pitsikoulis’s All-Night Eats & World’s Best Coffee, which is how the orange neon sign reads. We had to stop for a minute halfway up the block so that Father Tim could rest up his heart, as he put it. “Satan made off with my strength, leaving me cursed with this decrepitude,” he complained, leaning against a mailbox and wheezing like a freight train. “It seems only yesterday when I was chasing you little shits from the choir all’round the churchyard, eh?”
We made it to Pete’s, finally, and settled into a window booth. Wanda the waitress sponged the Formica tabletop, wiped it dry, then splattered it generously when she set down our ice water, two cups of coffee, a sugar bowl and creamer. “Enjoy it, you’s couple of big spenders,” she said, turning and then waddling off. I sopped up the spillage with paper napkins.
Father Tim spooned three mounds of sugar into his cup, and stirred in plenty of cream. I left mine black, which made Father Tim twist up his face with disgust. I asked, “What’s the matter?”
“You’re drinking Protestant coffee now? How can you stand it?”
“I live, I let live.”
“Oh, I see. How very liberal, Mr. I-think-I’ll-just-be-taking-along-some-woman-on-a-jet-airplane-trip-without-benefit-of-holy-matrimony.”
“The lady’s name is Ruby Flagg, we’re both over twenty-one, and you and I aren’t here to talk about that.” I took a long, slow sip of black coffee. Father Tim looked away, shuddering. I asked, “What’s with the praying to St. Jude?”
“I’m despairing of my health.”
“Maybe so, but it seemed like something more.”
“I want to be in the pink.”
“Sure you do, but isn’t going to St. Jude a little drastic?”
Father Tim looked very tired then; his eyes wandered, unfocused, unable to see beyond his screen of painful thought. He said, mechanically, “Well, there’s St. John for matters of general health …”
“Whoever.”
“That’d be whomever.”
“Skip the grammar lesson,” I said brusquely, in hopes of reducing Father Tim to the obvious. “Tell me what’s eating you.”
“Let’s remember it was you who called me.”
“I wonder if you know why.” I reached into my jacket, pulled out Aidan Hockaday’s soldier portrait, and held it up between us. “See this?”
Father Tim glanced at it, then dropped his head and sipped his creamed, sweetened coffee. He said, “I see that you’re showing me some picture. I don’t see what of.”
“You ought to, you’ve seen it a million times before. Think back to when I was still singing soprano for you, and you still had your health. And you’d come visit my mother and me—and your friend Liam, too, whenever he came to town. Especially then …”
I paused, realizing that I sounded more like a cop than a friend; realizing, too, how this did not bother me. I said to the priest’s bald, bowed head, “Think of the photograph that was always on top of the radio in our parlor. Remember, Father? And isn’t it that photograph that’s troubling you now?”
Father Tim said nothing. For endless seconds he did not even look up. When he at last did, his face was as blank and closed as it had been in the church, after his novena to St. Jude.
“I went to the movies yesterday, Neil,” he said, with a faraway and long ago sound to his words. “We’ve got a first-rate revival house up in Riverdale, you know. I went there. They were showing John Huston’s Beat the Devil, from 1954.”
“Some title for a priest to be seeing.”
“Oh, but it’s a wonderful picture. There’s Bogart in it, and Gina Lollobrigida, and Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre. Truman Capote wrote the screenplay, not many people remember that. He wrote this great line about time that Lorre delivers. It goes, ‘Time—what is time? The Swiss manufacture it, the French hoard it, the Italians squander it … The Americans say it’s money.’” Father Tim sighed. “And would you like to know what I think time is, Neil?” I shrugged. At the moment, this did not seem important.
“Time is a vandal,” said the troubled priest.
And now I gave him the blank look. And said, “There’s a poem on the back of the photograph, Father. Would you like for me to read it?”
“No!” Father Tim’s eyes welled with tears, and he placed a hand over his heart. I was only adding to his troubles, whatever they were.
“I’m sorry, Father …”
But was I?
“You see how come they went and retired old Tim Kelly,” he said, daubing his face with a napkin. He rose stiffly from his side of the booth. His black vest had bunched up over his soft belly, and he smoothed it down, then buttoned his coat over it, and struggled to put some dignity back into his voice. “I’ll now be returning to the home for us used-up priests. And if you don’t mind my thanks, Neil, the coffee’s on you.”
“Wait.” I stood up, and put money on the table. “How are you getting back to Riverdale?”
“Subway, same as I come down. I’ve made a big success of the poverty vow.”
We walked out to the street, Father Tim unsteady on my arm. Then in a surprising rush, he wished me well on the trip, and with Ruby, too, of whom he said, “It’s better a man’s with a woman, best he’s married to her, son.” But of his old friend Liam, he said nothing.
I flagged a taxicab at Tenth Avenue and, over his mild protests, put Father Tim inside. I gave the driver thirty dollars, and he squawked about having to go all the way up to the Bronx with the likely prospect of dead-heading it back to Midtown. So I showed him my shield and my NYPD bracelets and reminded him about my very generous advance payment, as well as the public conveyance laws of the City of New York. He stopped squawking.
Father Tim rolled down a back window and told the driver, “Hold on a second, son.” Then he went to his pocket, the one with the rosary in it, and pulled up a medallion about the size of a silver dollar. He gave this to me.
“You’ll find Ireland’s so full of unluck and storming rain that Jesus Christ Himself would need an umbrella,” he said. He touched the medallion in the palm of my hand. “Always keep this in your pocket while you’re on the other side, Neil. And for the sake of your life with Ruby Flagg, remember it’s there when you need it.”
He rolled up the window, staring at me with wet eyes. He said something I could not hear, and crossed h
imself. Then he tapped the driver’s shoulder and the taxicab drove away.
I stood there, frozen in reflection of all that Davy Mogaill and Father Tim Kelly had told me that weekend, and all they had not. And the mood of my reflection was a betrayal, for I thought, Can you ever really know about your friends?
Chapter 7
“Take a right at Forty-fourth street.”
“How come?”
“Never mind, do it.”
“What happened to the Bronx?”
“That’s not where we’re going.”
“Okay, no sweat off my nuts. So where to?”
“Double back around to Holy Cross Church on Forty-second.”
“You forget something there, padre?”
“Just take me there. You can keep the whole thirty bucks.”
“No problem.”
Father Timothy Kelly stepped out of the taxicab in front of Holy Cross, and walked up to the black wrought iron gate that encircled the wide stoop. He leaned against a post for a minute or two, to rest up his heart. A teenage girl with a swollen stomach stopped on her way up the stairs.
“Are you all right?” she asked the resting priest.
“Bless you, darlin’, I’m well enough,” Father Tim said. He gave her belly a suspicious look.
The girl went on ahead into the church. In another minute, Father Tim took the eight steps up to the big blue doors himself, pulled one of them open, and entered the dimly lit sanctuary for the second time that Sunday.
He crossed himself, then sat down in a pew. The girl sat a few rows up from him, deep in prayer. The tower bells struck a quarter past six o’clock. Father Tim dozed off for a time.
When he woke, he looked over toward the confessional near the statue of St. Jude. He noticed the tiny cross over the curtained doors had lit up, meaning that a confessor was inside, making his peace with a priest. He waited.
A tall brown-skinned man left the confessional, and the little cross went dark. Then the girl rose from her pew, and walked slowly to where she could be absolved of her sins, if not of her baby. When she finished, she sat down again and prayed. Three more made confessions by the time the tower bells rang out the eighth hour of the Sabbath night. Then, when he was certain that Neil and Ruby would be in the air, Father Tim headed for the confessional.
He pulled open the purple curtain. Purple, the color of penitence. He drew the curtain closed behind him, then lowered himself to the kneeler, which activated the cross light outside. Inside, in the waxy-smelling darkness, he faced the grille between himself and the unseen parish priest, and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was this Wednesday past. Since then, I have lied.”
“How many lies?” asked the unseen priest.
“It’s the same lie to others as to myself, it’s always the one big lie.”
“Have you made an examination of your conscience?”
“Indeed I have.”
“For your sin, you may say ten Hail Marys.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“I’ll hear your act of contrition now.”
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all of my sins, because of Thy just punishment—the loss of heaven, and the pain of hell. But most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life … Amen.”
“Go now in peace and absolution, my son.”
Father Tim rose from the kneeler. His knees ached, his chest pounded. He stood in the confessional doorway, frozen there, his left hand clutching at the half-drawn purple curtain. Two men and a teenage boy in nearby pews watched him as he said ten times in rapid succession, “Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus … Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death … Amen.”
Then, with his right hand, Father Tim raised a Mauser WTP .25 caliber automatic vest-pocket pistol to his mouth, shoved it in, and fired.
Chapter 8
The stewardess wore a crisp green uniform, with the name Deirdre stamped on a silver, wing-tipped brooch pinned over her left breast. “If you don’t mind my saying so,” she said, “you look familiar.”
She was young, slim waisted, and russet haired, with moss-colored eyes and an accent not unlike my Uncle Liam’s. I enjoyed looking at the splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and also down around her slender kneecaps; for a heartbeat or two, I imagined the freckles that lay between.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
At that wistful moment, with the warm sensation of my own rushing blood and the first light of Europe’s dawn breaking midway over the Atlantic, Ruby lifted her head from my shoulder, shaking off a nap. She noticed young Deirdre beaming her own brand of sunshine my way, and it somehow felt to me that Ruby minded this very much indeed.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Deirdre asked.
“Sorry, no,” I answered.
Ruby turned to me and said, “Do try to remember, dear.”
Deirdre, oblivious to Ruby, said, “Oh, but I’ve seen you, I have. I wouldn’t forget you, sir.”
“You wouldn’t?” I said.
Ruby said, “Don’t get too excited, Hock. She called you sir.”
Deirdre said, “You’re in television, is that it?”
I told Deirdre it was not.
“The movies?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re not likely a musician.”
“Not likely.”
“But you are famous, aren’t you?”
“Not really.”
Deirdre was disappointed. I hated to see her that way, so I suggested, “You might have seen my picture in the newspapers, back in New York.”
“You’re so helpful,” said Ruby.
Deirdre thought for a moment. “Aye, that’s it! The Post is where I know you. You’re the policeman! The one what dealt with the mad killer.”
“I’m the one.”
“A brave man you are.”
“He is indeed,” Ruby said, a little steam building.
Deirdre answered Ruby, “I admire brave men. Don’t you, ma’am?”
I said to Ruby, “She called you ma’am.”
“I’m so happy that’s settled,” Deirdre said. “I’ll now be getting back on the job.” She smiled at us both, a little differently at me than at Ruby; she tilted her head prettily and said “Ta,” then breezed up the aisle toward the service galley. There would soon be soda bread with Kerrygold butter and marmalade and watery orange juice to deal out.
Ruby wagged a finger in my face and said, “Let’s you and I get this straight: look around all you please, but I see you with another woman and I kill you.”
“It’s so nice to be the object of your desire.”
“I am not kidding.”
“What about vice versa?”
“That’s fair.”
“Okay. But what we have here is a murder pact.”
“What’s wrong with that? Weren’t you married once?”
“I didn’t kill my wife.”
“You never thought about it?”
“Let’s just say I went to confession a lot.”
A crafty dance played over Ruby’s lips. She had wormed us around to that topic of conversation again. And she wasted no time getting right down to it.
“Tell me something awful about her.”
“About who?”
“You mean whom.”
“Whatever.”
“Tell me about that Judy person. Give me some dirt and I’ll leave it alone all the way to Dublin.”
“You realize this is sick?” But Ruby only shrugged and said, “I don’t care.” And I realized there was no way out. “All right,” I said, “there was the time we divided up the property. What was left of it once the Queens County Civil Court gave her my house and m
y life insurance, and even my little dog Buster …”
“So, tell me.”
“So I’m looking around at all these earthly possessions, and there wasn’t much I really cared about besides the books, which was okay by Judy. The Cuisinart, though—that I wanted. I don’t know why.”
“But you didn’t get it?”
“I got half.”
“Half? How do you split up a Cuisinart?”
“She took the blades, I got the rest.”
Ruby thought this over, and when the full ramifications had sunk in, she said, with great perception, “That’s very scary.”
“That’s very Judy.”
Deirdre and her freckled kneecaps happened by. I flagged them and ordered a drink. Ruby, pointing out the cabin window to the brightening sky, said, “Don’t you think it’s a little early?” I thought about real time and said, “Not in New York it isn’t.”
And then when I was finally sipping Johnnie Walker red from a plastic cup full of ice, I got us off the disagreeable subject of Judy McKelvey by switching over to the troubling subject of Aidan Hockaday. I told Ruby about the conversation with Davy Mogaill up at the bar in Inwood, and the one with Father Tim after the mass that afternoon at Holy Cross.
It seemed strange now, at thirty-thousand feet over the ocean in a jet airplane, to recount disquieting moments back in New York: the forbidding presence of Finn at Nugent’s; Mogaill’s oblique political references, and his warning; Father Tim’s praying to St. Jude, and his tears, and another warning, his in the form of a medallion; and, unless I was only imagining it, the reluctant way in which both old friends dealt with my father’s photograph.
“Sounds cryptic to me,” Ruby said.
“I was hoping I wasn’t the only one who thought so.”
“The medallion, let me see it.”
I felt for the right side flap of my secondhand Harris tweed jacket, the one I had decided at the last minute was just the thing for arrival in Ireland. With little more thought, I had slipped Father Tim’s medallion into the pocket. I pulled it out now and passed it to Ruby. She put on her reading glasses, the thick ones she always said made her look froggy, and inspected the medallion front and back. Then she looked up at me and asked, “Have you studied this thing?”
Drown All the Dogs Page 4