Obit

by Anne Emery

  Here they were. Patrick, born November 1965: string of car thefts, parole violations. Too young. Sean, born May 1959: sex offender. I saw that Sean was in prison at the time Declan was shot. I skimmed through the other names. Albert Willman, born 1922: murder, still inside. Gehrhart, born 1930: porn. Gerard, born 1953: house breaks, assault in the second degree. Norman, born 1961: rape, ten years. Trevor, born 1970: drugs. William, born 1942: racketeering and related offences. Nobody with a conviction relating to firearms.

  But we knew somebody who did have a gun. Brought in specially from Ireland. I made up my mind. It was time to confront Francis Burke. I got the car and drove across the river once again, to Astoria, so I could ask him in person why he had given me Sullivan’s name. But I didn’t find the answer. I found something else: a For Rent sign on his apartment door. Francis was gone.

  Chapter 10

  Some on the shores of distant lands their weary hearts have laid,

  And by the stranger’s heedless hands their lonely graves were made.

  — John Kells Ingram, “The Memory of the Dead”

  March 29, 1991

  That Friday evening, Patrick and I were seated in Colly’s, pints in front of us, talkin’ blues. I didn’t mention Francis. I was telling Pat about my band, Functus, and what a great time we had once a month on Mondays. “If not for blues night, I’d be balled up on a couch talking to a guy like you.”

  “Blues night sounds like a better time, with better results.”

  “So how do you work out your frustrations, Patrick?”

  “Who says I have any?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “You must meet even more aggravating people in the run of a day than I do. I can’t imagine how you put up with them all.”

  “I’m a very, very patient man.”

  “I’ve noticed. Don’t you wish, deep down, that you could lash out at the next family luncheon? You’re the one who tries to keep the peace, to keep the others from doing too much damage to each other. Wouldn’t you like to get up and let ’er rip?”

  “Only when Francis is there. No need otherwise. But what could I say to him that hasn’t been said by everyone else? That scene you witnessed — you may not believe it but that’s the first time in years that Brennan has lost it with Francis. Poor Fran. In big families there always seems to be one who gets lost in the shuffle. I’m actually working on a paper on that very subject. For an American Psychiatric Association conference. Hope Francis doesn’t get wind of it. He’ll have an even bigger chip on his shoulder.”

  “Is that a psychiatric term, ‘chip on the shoulder’?”

  “Sometimes a homely cliché serves the purpose better than a mouthful of psychiatric jargon! Fran just never carved out a unique role for himself in the family. Molly, Brennan and I were top students. Of course Bren only studied when he felt like it. But still. Molly became a professor, Brennan entered the priesthood and went to study in Rome. And of course he has all that musical talent. I became an MD and then a psychiatrist. Brigid was the baby of the family and the youngest girl. Everyone doted on her. Terry was the youngest boy, and he was cheerfully indifferent to school. He never wanted to do anything but fly airplanes, and who can blame him? Francis is just a year older than Terry. He wasn’t blessed with Terry’s nonchalant attitude to life.”

  “Terry’s the kind of guy I’d like to have along on a road trip.”

  “Oh, yeah. And he can provide the transportation. Poor Fran. Nobody would want to be with him on the road. Even as a little kid, he felt out of things. He ran away a few times when he was really small. Somebody must have made fun of him or something. Problem was, the first couple of times he took off nobody noticed! So what’s the point?”

  “How come nobody realized he was gone?”

  “He and Terry shared a room with bunk beds. Francis slept in the bottom bunk and he liked to turn his bed into a tent, with sheets hanging down. Sometimes he would hide in there all day, and he kept nearly everything he owned in there with him. So once it was lights-out, nobody would notice if he sneaked off.

  “A couple of times he got caught sleeping in the car. That was okay till he peed on the car seat; that was the end of that. He told me he spent the whole night in the car. He didn’t wake up till morning, when he heard the front door bang shut and the engine start up. Declan was at the wheel. Francis slid down behind Da’s seat and didn’t make a peep. Apparently, Da drove all over hell and creation before pulling in at a church for early Sunday Mass. He parked and went inside. Fran stayed in hiding for a few minutes, then ventured into the church. He had to pee. But he couldn’t figure out where the toilets were and got all upset. So he went back to the car, where he couldn’t hold it in.”

  “There must have been hell to pay that time.”

  “So you’d think. But I remember Fran telling me Dec was in a forgiving mood that day. The grace of God working in him! He just told Fran not to mention it to anyone and neither would he. Which, as you can imagine, suited Fran just fine. It was years before he told me the tale. Just the thought of anyone — especially Brennan — hearing that, instead of embarking on a big adventure of his own and having the family worried sick, Fran slunk back to the car and peed on the seat —”

  “But Francis was just a little boy at the time. Brennan would not have ragged him about it surely.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t! But Francis couldn’t see that. He used to worship the ground Brennan walked on. Anything Bren did, Fran wanted to do. They were far apart in age so that wasn’t very realistic. When Brennan went into the sem, Francis didn’t know what to do. He started acting out, getting into trouble, the usual.”

  “If he couldn’t be as good as Brennan, he’d damn well be bad, eh?”

  “Well, that was part of the problem. The family already had a black sheep and that was Brennan himself. Until God booted him into the seminary. Up till then, if anyone was a likely candidate for the priesthood, it was me, not Bren. You name it, he’d done it. And he’d done more of it than all the rest of us combined. So Fran could not even be as bad as Brennan, let alone as good. Any time they’re in the same room together, it sets Fran off. He can’t help himself.”

  “And then there’s Declan,” I added.

  “What do you mean, ‘and’?” Patrick said with a laugh. “Let’s get things in perspective here. In the beginning, there was Declan. And all who came after him would bear his mark.”

  “With a father like that, it wouldn’t be easy for some guys to stand up and be counted.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What was it like growing up with him glowering at you from the head of the table?”

  “Actually, he’s not as much of a hard-ass as he might seem. He’s tough, no question. But very loving in a gruff sort of way. He wasn’t one of those distant fathers who never showed affection or anything like that. I see a great many patients who grew up with that sort of parent. And he was never the kind of man who always had to win, or prevail on every point. I’m sure you know that type. We all argued with him, once we got old enough to take our chances. And he would give in on occasion too. Now he might not say: ‘I’ve considered your arguments, my son, and I can see that you are right. I’m wrong and I apologize.’ It would more likely be: ‘Go ahead then, you stubborn little gobshite, but don’t come wailing to me afterwards.’ Of course we did go wailing to him afterwards but —”

  “He wouldn’t say ‘I told you so’?”

  “Of course he’d say ‘I told you so’! But then he’d help us out of whatever scrape we were in. Our mother is a very strong woman and so we grew up knowing there was a counterweight to the old fellow. We could handle him. Or the rest of us could. Francis had the roughest time with him, not that Declan singled him out. Hell, it was Brennan who got knocked around the most. In those days it was just accepted, in many families anyway, that your father would give you a clout if you didn’t behave. I don’t condone it, of course, but in those times it was the norm. He threw Bren up again
st the wall a few times and smacked him, when he caught him misbehaving.”

  “Did Brennan hit him back?”

  “Are you well? Of course not! I was spared most of the time because I was a goody-two-shoes. Terry got whacked the odd time. The girls never. No matter what they said or did! But poor Fran. He used to see this going on, with Bren and the old boy. One time Fran did something bad. Told Declan to fuck off; maybe even took a swipe at him. Declan hauled off and clocked him, gave him a black eye. And he felt terrible afterwards. Took Francis for an outing. All day, just the two of them. But the thing was, all Fran boasted about was the shiner, not the trip to Coney Island or wherever it was. ‘Look at this, the old man gave it to me.’ Fathers and sons, Monty, fathers and sons.” He shook his head.

  “How many children do you have, Pat?”

  “Two girls. I’m the biggest pushover that ever lived. I’ve got to watch it or they’ll be spoiled princesses. Unfortunately they live half the time with my wife. Former wife. I didn’t live up to her social ambitions. We share custody.”

  “I hear you. I’m in the same boat, though not for the same reason. Any chance of you getting back in the matrimonial bed?”

  “I’d rather be home with a glass of Jameson’s in one hand and myself in the other.”

  “Well, that pretty much sums it up.”

  “Mmm. Before I forget: I did some detective work on yer man Cathal’s death. He really died, last fall.”

  “Of what?”

  “Congestive heart failure.”

  “That’s a relief, I suppose. Do we know anything else?”

  “Not about his medical condition. He had a funeral but nobody went. Or almost nobody. I spoke to the funeral director. The old lady insisted on a church funeral, but the place was empty apart from her, an elderly woman who accompanied her, the priest doing the Mass, and an ancient priest in a walker, who hobbled to the front and gave a little eulogy. What a faithful and generous parishioner Murphy had been. Attended Mass several days a week. That was it. Oh, and one other man who came and sat in the back of the church. The undertaker wasn’t sure whether he was part of it.”

  I thanked Patrick for his investigative work, and wondered about the man who sat at the back and observed the funeral of Cathal Murphy, formerly known as Charlie Fagan.

  †

  I got to bed late and slept till mid-morning. In that confused state between sleep and wakefulness, I heard one phrase echoing around and around in my head: “Fathers and sons,” Patrick’s voice was saying, “fathers and sons.” A memory surfaced, of my own father sitting beside me in a movie theatre, as we watched some kind of historical saga. He was saying: “Kill the father, kill the son.” Otherwise, he explained, you never knew when the son would return to avenge the father’s death. What sons did we have in our own saga of death and retribution in New York? Cathal Murphy didn’t have a son. Judy Willman, widow of Gerald Connors, had a son and two daughters. I remembered the photo of one girl who had done well in life, another who hadn’t, and Private Willman with Garth in their Army togs. Willman’s son would not be out to avenge his mother’s first husband. My mind returned to the daughters, and I imagined the tongue-lashing I would get from Professor MacNeil for concentrating on sons and dismissing daughters as possible actors in the drama. She’d have a good point: why wouldn’t a woman take revenge for the loss of her father? And then there was the Desmond family. Mrs. Desmond certainly blamed Declan Burke for her husband’s downfall. The drunkenness, the loss of his job on the waterfront. And we knew from Mary Desmond’s diary how profoundly the girl had been affected by her father’s return to the bottle. Desmond had sons, too. Brennan and I had spoken about them recently. What was that conversation about? Right. Young Desmond being dispatched by his mother to drag his father home from the bars. Kevin. No, Jimmy was the older boy. And then we had Francis, prime illustration of a whole other chapter of father–son relations. I slipped beneath the rim of consciousness.

  I was jolted awake in the morning by a knock on the door. I tried to ignore it, but there it was again. I stumbled from the bed and realized I was still in last night’s clothes. It was Brennan at the door. Great. Another encounter with a member of the Burke family and I still had not come clean about Francis. I stood there trying to think of something intelligent to say. Brennan helped me out: “Are you going to invite me in?”

  “Come in.”

  “Looks as if you had a good time for yourself.”

  “Drinking with Patrick. Have a seat while I take a shower. Help yourself to a cup of coffee or whatever you can find in the little fridge.”

  When I was clean, bright and dressed, I sat down and looked at my guest. “What’s up?”

  “I want to lean on that old boot Nessie. She knows more than anyone, with the exception of the man with the gun.” The gun. When was I going to lay it all out for them? “Let’s go over there and rattle her chain.”

  “Brennan, do you really have the balls to show up there again, after telling her off and being kicked out of her house?”

  “I’ve been turfed from better places, by better people. Let’s go.” It was worth a try. If she would talk to us, I might get some sense of how the obituary fit in with Francis and the gun. Or was it conceivable that the two events — the publication of the obituary in December and the shooting in March — were unrelated?

  We left the hotel and got into a small silver car, which Brennan had left double-parked in the street. “Whose car have we got today? This isn’t Terry’s.”

  “Paddy’s.”

  “Good thing they didn’t come along and tow it away.”

  “Doctor’s plates. Everyone should have them.”

  He pulled into the line of traffic, and someone leaned on his horn; Brennan ignored it.

  “Did we ever establish whether Nessie knew any of the players, besides her own brother?” I asked, trying to recall our conversation with the old woman. “Did she know Desmond, or Gerard Connors, or —”

  “Gerald Connors.”

  “Hmm?” “Gerald Connors. You said Gerard. And who knows whether she was acquainted with any of them? We’ll make it our business to find out.”

  It was a brilliantly sunny day. I rolled my window down but the din of traffic, horns and air brakes was deafening, so I rolled it up again.

  “I got a call from Brigid,” Brennan remarked as we headed onto the bridge. “I think you can imagine how unimpressed she was with what happened the other day. She delivered herself of a few choice words about male aggression and competitiveness. Well, what could I say? To have her embarrassed like that in front of you, and Leo, and the rest of us — but, mirabile dictu, the arsehole called and apologized to her.”

  “Did you get an apology yourself?”

  “Did the sun become black as sackcloth and the moon become as blood, and the stars of heaven fall unto the earth?”

  “I’ll put that down as a no. You certainly let him have it in return. Can’t say I blame you.”

  “Leo took me to task for that. Gently.”

  “Sent you off to say three Hail Marys, did he?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I don’t know what sins you might have confessed to him. But I’d move heaven and earth to hear Leo’s confession.”

  “I didn’t hear it, I can tell you that much.”

  “Just as well.”

  “Given the identity of his accomplices,” Burke acknowledged. “Right. Speaking of which, should we come right out and ask oul Nessie if she knows the other names we’ve come up with?”

  “Mr. Desmond and Gerard Connors. Gerald, I mean. We’ll play it by — Brennan, pull over!”

  “What?”

  “Pull over to that pay phone.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  He gave me a raised left eyebrow but turned into a parking lot and stopped the car. I walked to the pay phone, saw with relief that it was in working order, dialled directory assistance, got the number I need
ed and then stood outside the booth, waiting. She came along about two minutes later: a tough-looking young woman with a case of beer under one arm and a set of car keys in her other hand. I could see Burke peering at me from the car.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the girl. “Would you do something for me?”

  “In a phone booth?” she asked incredulously, in a strong Brooklyn accent. “What are you, some kind of weirdo?”

  “No, no, I’m not. Really. I just need somebody to help me make a call.”

  “Why can’t you make it y’self? Is there something wrong with you?”

  “I don’t want her to hear my voice. It’s personal.”

  “Yeah, right, isn’t it always? Gimme the number. And don’t even think about rubbing up against me in that booth.”

  I showed her the number I had written on my hand. “Just ask for Gerry Willman, then hand me the receiver.”

  “What if he’s there? You gonna go over and beat the shit out of him? In front of her?”

  “No.”

  “‘Is Gerry Willman there?’ That’s all you want me to say?”

  “Yes, but if you could say it . . . in perhaps a more friendly tone.”

  “Now he gets picky. You’re not from here, are you?”

  “No. So I have to rely on the kindness of strangers.”

  She gave a bit of a laugh, shook her head and dialled the number. In a perkier tone than I would have hoped for, she asked if she could speak to Gerry Willman. She looked at me and shrugged. Nothing happening.

  I took the receiver. After a few more seconds of silence I heard Judy Willman’s quiet voice: “I’m sorry. Gerry doesn’t live here anymore. He hasn’t lived here for a long, long time.” Then she clicked off.