by John Shannon
“Maeve!” It was her dad’s voice, invading the basement in a tone of apprehension she hadn’t heard in a long time.
“You need me?”
“Come on up, please.”
“It was nice to meet you,” she said politely to the policewoman.
“Yes. Hold on, hon.” The woman dug something out of the patch pocket of her coat, and as Maeve came around the layout, she handed her a business card with an LAPD badge printed on it. “If you need anything, you can reach me there. Or if your dad needs anything.”
Maeve looked it over neutrally.
“I have a hunch you’re a pretty good caretaker, yourself,” Gloria Ramirez said.
* * *
Jack Liffey stared balefully at the address Ken Steelyard had just written down for him. He knew it, of course, a ramshackle bungalow on the flats overlooking the harbor, down in gang territory. He hadn’t been there in twenty years, by choice and by … something else.
“You want some time with him?” Steelyard asked.
“I guess so. Shit.”
He heard Maeve’s steps coming up briskly. There was something so trusting in the eagerness of the young; it showed in every movement they made. It felt so monstrous to betray it. He had no idea how she was going to react. He had just promised her that the case wouldn’t come home to roost, and now it was going to, after all.
“What’s up?”
Steelyard was watching as Jack Liffey led his only daughter outside without a word, toward the old VW. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Is Mom hurt?” She froze in place on the grass.
“No, no, no. Not at all. Nobody’s hurt. Come on.”
She seemed to consider throwing a tantrum, but then trotted after him. He gave a big strange sigh that confused her further.
“I’ve been keeping something from you all your life, about one thing. Protecting you, let’s say.”
He could see a real terror forming on her face. There was nothing he could do but plunge on.
“You have a living grandfather,” he blurted.
“No, I don’t. Mom’s parents died five years ago and your dad died the same time as your mom.”
He shook his head. “I used to admire him, I think, but he changed. Something changed him as he got older, and it really accelerated after Mom died. We haven’t spoken since I married your mother. She thinks he’s dead, too. We cut each other off like the Hatfields and McCoys.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“You’ll see why soon. If you want to meet him.”
“Of course I do. Dad, this is really rank.”
“I know.”
Dec 16 PM
Today I issued the third warning. The future is never contained entirely in the past. This one may entail a new train of consequences. I am not worried about the police and their pathetic resources, but this man is the father of a detective who has a certain renown in this city. He is, perhaps, a loose cannon, but he is also a veteran of my war. It may not matter in the long run, but I must not underestimate his attendance at the dance.
On July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille was overrun, which marked the beginning of the end of the feudal world in Europe, perhaps the last year in which honor still counted above all else, Louis XVI wrote in his journal only one word: rien.
Was this bravado, or utter ignorance? I cannot allow either.
Six
Declan Liffey
He pointed out a view of the harbor and the sweep of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as they headed down Ninth off the flank of the hills, but Maeve was too busy feeling resentful to look. She kept her eyes furiously ahead. He stopped for the light at Gaffey, where even she couldn’t ignore the young man who strode in front of them in an ankle-length duster coat that was completely covered with light-bulbs. The bulbs didn’t seem to be wired to light up, just sewn on as ornaments.
“One point?” he offered.
She watched grimly.
“That has to be the world’s most fragile body armor,” he pointed out, encouraging a response. His daughter remained silent.
Just before the man mounted the sidewalk, he spun once and the coat rose with centrifugal force and then overswung and swayed back as the bulb man stopped and gave them a small bow. You could imagine the sounds of all the bulbs rubbing and clattering against one another, but the VW idle left nothing to the ear.
“There’s something not quite right with giving points for that,” Maeve finally said.
“Too self-conscious,” he agreed. By consensus, their spotting-oddities game worked best when what was pointed out was naively peculiar, intensely self-absorbed, or else some public anomaly that generally went unnoticed. He still favored the dapper mounted John Wayne sculpture up on Wilshire with the horse under him running about two-thirds scale, like a really big Great Dane. Circus acts or what were probably schizophrenic exploits, like the bulb man’s, were just too easy.
“What’s your dad like?”
“You don’t want to make up your own mind?”
“You could give me some background. Like, if he’s got two noses or something.”
The light finally went green and he motored on with a smile. “Declan is his name; his own dad, Seamus, was the one who actually left the auld sod, and he sometimes makes a big deal out of being Irish, which is one reason I don’t. He fought in Korea, and then worked as a longshoreman for a time. He should have kept the job. It’s an unbeatable union. It turned out to be one of the best jobs in the country after Harry Bridges got through terrifying the shippers into giving his workers a guaranteed annual wage. But Dad quit to go to a community college and study philosophy.
“By some accounts he was thrown out of the JC. Alternately, he dropped out when the teachers didn’t honor his work. Then he did a lot of odd jobs like clerking at the war surplus store, most of which he felt were beneath him. Of course, he’s on Social Security now. We lived back up near Steelyard’s place when I was little, in one of those boxy little tract houses they built out at the rim of civilization in the early 1950s, but he moved down here after Mom died.”
“And then you cut him off.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I can’t imagine ever cutting you off, or Mom.”
What could he say to that? It wasn’t like every crossroad offered you a choice between a glorious rising path toward the Right Thing and a clearly discernible craggy descent toward Shame and Ignominy. Sometimes all the paths were bad and all of them led downward.
“There’s going to be some things about your granddad that you aren’t going to like, hon. Feel free to object, but prepare yourself a bit because I don’t think you’re going to budge him. Lord knows I tried.”
Her head came around to confront him with a glare that was suddenly more curious than angry. The house was just off Centre and Fourteenth, a little clapboard bungalow that badly needed paint, the biggest eyesore in a neighborhood that had more than its share. Half the original buildings here had been knocked down long ago and converted to stucco apartments that now sported a lot of sprayed-on graffiti. Some even had Christmas lights. The curbs were packed with big, scarred 1970s Chevies, and a couple of very old boxy ice cream trucks that offered their wares exclusively in Spanish.
The only place to park was on the next block from his father’s home, and they walked back to the accompaniment of radios thudding out ranchera and banda music. He could sense her trepidation, but this was something she was going to have to confront in her own way, with her own peeled-back nerve endings.
Yellowing weeds were winning the battle with the bungalow’s lawn. There were a few Christmas decorations up and down the block, but none here. The button for the bell didn’t seem to work, so he rapped twice by swinging the big Celtic cross knocker. In a few moments the door came open suspiciously on a chain, and an old man’s eye peered out a narrow slit. Then, as no threat materialized, he closed the door to release the chain and slowly opened the door. Jack Liffey thought
he’d prepared himself for the effects of age, but he hadn’t. The man had shrunk to a raisin state and wore a dirty T-shirt, plaid wrestler’s pants, and rubber flip-flops on his bare feet.
“It’s Jack, Declan. And your granddaughter, Maeve. Detective Steelyard sent us over because of your troubles.” He put a hand protectively on Maeve’s shoulder as the old man looked them over like people he was sure wanted to take something precious away from him.
“You poisoned her against me?” the old man said.
“No, sir. I thought I’d leave that to you.”
There was a repetitive grunting sound from deep within the man’s chest that might have been a private bronchitic laugh, and he backed away to beckon them in. “I’m pleased to meet you at last, Maeve Liffey.”
He held out his hand, and she shook it formally.
“Nice to meet you, Grandfather.”
The room was a shock, too, like the nest of one of those hoarders with a compulsive disorder that you saw on the junk news shows, but Jack Liffey knew better. Chest-high stacks of magazines and books and catalogs made up a maze that left only narrow passageways through the small house. None of the magazines looked quite familiar, and on top of the nearest pile, Jack Liffey nosily peered at a drab, academic-looking journal in buff covers titled Modern Eugenics. He could guess.
On the wall over an old sofa there was a photo of a mossy Celtic graveyard cross, and Jack Liffey had a vague memory that it had been in the den of the family house, and marked some ancestor’s grave near Ballymore. There was also a small limp flag flat to the wall above a desk with a similar cross in a black circle. This one had nothing to do with Ireland. There were no mementos of his mother visible, but he did recognize a lopsided cabinet with big metal Chinese characters for drawer pulls that used to sit in their dining room to hold his mom’s good china and silver, which they almost never used.
“Best we’d all promenade out to the backyard, where there’s some room,” he offered. “I’m not rightly set up for entertaining. And the backyard is where the trouble is at.”
His rubber sandals flap-flapped ahead of them, along shiny bald paths worn into the carpet. The old man had to shoulder open a French door, but when they walked out, the backyard was a bit of a surprise, in contrast. An artificial waterfall, the cheap plastic kind you bought at Home Depot, dribbled softly into a plastic koi pond. The grass there was just as dead as the front lawn, though, and there were four unmatched lawn chairs, undoubtedly salvaged one by one on trash night.
Maeve stood next to the pond, her eye obviously caught by the single big mottled red-and-white fish that was out of the water beside the pond, stabbed right through, along with a playing card, by a long kitchen knife.
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“The cops said not to touch. They think it’s some Jap doing this, but that sounds wrong to me. Japs love koi. The Mexes around here, now, I could see that. Probably try to cook it up for a taco.”
He pronounced it tay-co, though Jack Liffey was quite sure he knew how to do it right. He had seen Maeve stiffen from the first “Jap.”
Jack Liffey squatted to look at the fish without touching it. “This has nothing to do with eating your damn goldfish. It’s a warning shot somebody sent to scare you. And you’re not the first in town to get one.” On the way over, before descending into her angry funk, Maeve had told him the detective’s theory about the cards coming in pairs.
“Sit yourselves. Can I get you some Postum? It’s the only beverage in the house. ’Cept water.”
“I’ll pass.”
“No, thank you, sir.”
“Would you try out ‘Gramps,’ Miss Maeve? See if it works for you. Always thought that would be sweet.”
“Sure, Gramps.”
The old man gave a brief smile and wandered back into the house, apparently to get his own Postum.
“Did he actually say ‘Jap’ and ‘tay-co’?” Maeve whispered.
Jack Liffey waited a moment, considering. “That’s an appetizer.”
“He must know it’s offensive.”
“Being offensive is kind of a point of honor for Declan. The closest thing I can think of is the sentiment behind that old bumper sticker ‘Speak Truth to Power.’ But, of course, he’s punishing the weak, not the powerful.”
She looked back at the fish. “You think race has something to do with these incidents?”
“It’s had something to do with almost everything that’s happened in this country for four hundred years, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”
He heard an engine revving in the neighborhood—a good old souped-up American car by the sound—and then more Latino music. A high fence kept them from seeing into the other backyards, but a couple of two-story apartments rose above the fence, the kind with aluminum foil in the sun-facing windows. Maeve was brooding on something. In a while, his father wandered back out, cradling a steaming mug, and settled into one of the chairs.
“I didn’t know they still made Postum,” Jack Liffey said pleasantly.
“What is it you want from me?” the old man croaked.
Jack Liffey did his best to hold his temper. “I’m trying to help the police on this case, and maybe help you now. There’s somebody who leaves those cards behind as a trademark. He’s gone after the Petricich family already, and one of the cops. Maybe you remember the kid Ken Steelyard I hung out with in grade school? Skinny then with big, sad eyes. Can you think of any connection between you and those families?”
The old man sipped, found his beverage too hot with a wince, and set the cup back down gingerly on the arm of his chair. “Don’t know ’em. Don’t know many people anymore. I didn’t have enough money to stay in the white part of town no more.”
Jack Liffey could see his daughter make a slight face to herself. In fact, the part of town between Gaffey and the channel was pretty thoroughly integrated, but it was also pretty much poor and working-class, whatever the color, and maybe that was enough to relegate anyone to his dad’s out basket.
“Dan Petricich doesn’t live very far from here, if you consider Croatians white. It was his family’s house. His father, Ante, is still living there. Did you know Ante?”
Declan Liffey seemed to chew that over in his mind. “Damn, I think my dad knew an Ante. Seamus Liffey was in that big war, you know, back before they started giving them numbers. He was drafted in ’18, two years after he emigrated, and back then I think you had the choice of skedaddling back where you came from or accepting the draft and becoming a citizen. So he became a doughboy for ol’ Blackjack Pershing. Lucky he missed all the poison gas stuff. I think he was discharged before he had to fight much at all. When I was a boy, he used to hang out at that American Legion hall up on Pacific and tell tall tales the way some professional Irishmen do. I think that’s where I remember an Ante. It was a long time ago.”
Jack Liffey perked up. This might be the first real link. “You think there was a Steelyard in that gossipy group, too?”
“Don’t know. Say, you’re a detective these days, huh?”
“I look for missing children and try to bring them home. I got a call about the Petricich boy.”
“And Kathy’s okay?”
“We’re not together. She remarried. She’s fine. Thanks for asking.”
The old man had never even met Kathy, but he’d remembered the name. His eyes went to Maeve, who, uncharacteristically, was being very quiet and doing her best to keep her head down, but still watching everything like a hawk. “Are you good in school, Miss Maeve?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She gets all A’s except math,” Jack Liffey prompted.
“Try saying ‘Gramps’ again. I like to hear it.”
“I work hard at school … Gramps. I want to go to college and study anthropology.”
This was the first Jack Liffey had heard of it, but her intended major changed every few months—marine biology, photojournalism, political science, English. Now, anthropology.
“Anthropology.” The old man chewed the word around as if it might become something more palatable with a little efficient mastication. “I suppose they teach that guff about the African genesis in the Rift Valley and all that, Lucy’s bones, instead of the glorious history of the northern races.”
Maeve’s eyes were laser beams now, watching her grandfather’s face. “I don’t know.”
It was the first time Jack Liffey had ever seen his daughter back off, and he could tell there was an agenda simmering away.
“Well, you come see me sometime without his nibs here to butt in and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’d like that, Gramps.”
He hated the idea of turning the old man loose on her, but it didn’t look like he’d have much choice. She had her own car, and her own ideas, and anyway, he was pretty sure he could trust her judgment. But in the end she was only sixteen, and it was hard to know what it took to send someone spinning off the merry-go-round of adolescence into some goofball hermetic ideology that would stick with her for years to come.
“That’s fine with me,” Jack Liffey said falsely, just to establish his general evenhandedness. He thought he’d try the word “Dad,” see if it stuck in his throat. “Dad, there’s something else. This thing with the carp is just a warning shot. In every case so far, the guy has come back and done a lot worse. I mean, a whole lot worse.” Here, now, was the worst part. “I think you should come up to Culver City and stay with me for a while for protection. Until this blows over.”
The old man eyed him strangely. “I don’t see hide nor hair of you for twenty years and now you show up, all of a sudden, and want to take care of me.”
“We are flesh and blood.”
“That’s out of the question, boy. This is my home, and if I left this place unguarded for so much as a day, the niggers and spics around here would break in and steal everything I got.”
At those potent words, Jack Liffey could see Maeve stiffen and fidget and almost speak out, but once again she subsided and kept her own counsel.
“I thought you might feel that way. For your own sake, if there’s something you really value in the house, I mean really, Dad, you should give it to me now to keep safe or put it somewhere you trust. Whoever he is, he’s coming back. I imagine Steelyard and the cops will be watching over you, but it didn’t do him much good in his own home. This guy who’s doing this stuff, whoever he is, is something else. He’s mean and he’s smart.”