Макс Коллинз - Road to Perdition

“’spect you’ll be leavin’, soon,” she said.

O’Sullivan knew what she meant.

“We’ve enjoyed our visit,” he said. “I should be strong enough, by tomorrow... Don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

“No trouble a’tall.”

“Thank you for not asking questions.”

“Our own business is enough to keep us occupied.”

“But you took us in — strangers. Bullet holes in our car... bullet in me.”

A smile grooved her face, a thousand smile lines joining it. “This is Oklahoma, mister. We don’t like the banks much.”

O’Sullivan didn’t correct her false assumption.

“You know,” she said, “that boy Choctaw’s from around these parts.”

“Pardon?”

“That Floyd fella.”

Now O’Sullivan knew: Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd.

“He’s a wild one,” she continued, “but he helps folks out. Law says we oughta give him up — so far nobody has. Sayin’ is around these parts, sometimes a person’s got to sift the law.”

O’Sullivan said nothing.

Then Mrs. Baum, her smile almost glowing, said, “Boy of yours — he’s a good worker.”

Nodding, O’Sullivan felt a smile of his own blossom — he was enjoying his son’s antics out in the field. He asked the woman, “Any children of your own?”

“No... Bill and me hooked up a little late in life, for that. This is a family farm, though, Bill’s people — once was right somethin’ to see. No, no children... Can’t have everything.”

These people had next to nothing, O’Sullivan thought; and yet they were grateful for their lot in life...

Almost too casually, the woman said, “Dotes on you, you know.”

“Pardon?”

She turned her smile on the confused O’Sullivan. “Boy of yours! Worships the ground you walk on... Don’t you see it?”

Frankly, he didn’t, and just shrugged by way of response; but the next moment, his eyes caught Michael’s, the boy looking up from his work, joy in his face, and he threw a casual wave at his father, before returning to his digging.

O’Sullivan did not understand the rush of emotion. It came up somewhere deep inside of him, rolling with an awful warmth up his chest into his face and moisture welled behind his eyes, overtaking him. He excused himself and went back into the house.

He did not want these kind people to see him weep, nor did he want his son to witness that shameful action.

Michael awoke on the sofa, startled out of sleep by a dreadful dream.

In the dream — the nightmare — he’d been in the Looney mansion, and he and his father were kneeling at the coffin again, like at the wake. But when Michael peeked inside the box, his father was inside — with pennies on his eyes! And when Michael looked to his side, where a moment before Papa had been kneeling, too — it was Mr. Looney now, smiling in that grandfatherly way, his arm around him. Then the boy ran away and Mr. Looney started to chase him; at some point Mr. Looney turned into Connor Looney and then Michael ran into a room and it was the bathroom of their own house, white tile and red blood and dead Peter and dead Mama and he made himself wake up.

He stumbled over in his pajamas to where his father sat at a table, going over books and records in the light of a kerosene lamp. Papa was in his T-shirt and suspenders and trousers, his bandaged arm showing, blood dried there, a reddish brown.

Papa looked like he was having trouble — it reminded the boy of himself, trying to do his schoolwork, really struggling.

When Michael approached, Papa looked up — the boy had been expecting reproval, for not being asleep, but instead his father’s expression was warm, the man obviously pleased to see him.

That really helped, after the bad dream.

“Hello,” Papa said. “What are you doing up? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Nightmare.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

The boy shook his head.

His father pulled out the chair next to him at the table. “Come. Sit with me... if you want.”

Michael sat. The papers his father was going over were figures, numbers in columns and rows.

“Math, huh?” the boy said, making a face.

Papa smiled at him. “Yeah — I always hated that subject, in school.”

Michael had never thought about his father ever having been a kid at all — let alone in school. This was a minor revelation... and sudden common ground.

“Me, too,” Michael said, and grinned.

Then his father stopped and he had a funny look — almost like he felt guilty about something. “I... I guess I never took time to find that out, son. What, uh, subjects did you like?”

That came out of left field! The boy thought for a few moments, then said, “Bible history, I guess.”

This seemed to really surprise Papa. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the stories. I always liked stories.”

Papa smiled again, then asked, “You like stories with happy endings?”

“Sure... but not all good stories have happy endings. The ones in the Bible have really bad endings, sometimes, sad endings.”

O’Sullivan thought about that, then he nodded. “But maybe they teach us something... the sad-ending ones.”

That seemed reasonable to Michael. “Yeah... Pop?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t get mad.”

“I won’t.”

“... Did you like Peter better than me?”

His father’s expression was blank; but something in the man’s eyes made Michael wish he hadn’t asked the question.

“Oh Michael, no,” he said, and he touched the boy’s arm. “I loved you both the same.”

“But you couldn’t have.”

“... Why?”

“Because if you loved us the same, you wouldn’t treat us different.”

His father blinked. “Did I do that, son?”

“... Well. Yes. Sure.”

Papa sighed, then he said, quietly, “I didn’t love you the same... I loved you equally. Understand?”

“I think so.”

“I may have seemed to love Peter more, because... ”

“Because he was the baby?”

Papa swallowed. “Yes. Because he was the baby, and... he was just a sweet boy. You know? Sweet.”

“He never hit you with a snowball.”

Though his eyes remained sad, Papa laughed, once. “No, he didn’t. But he did have a sweetness about him that... you and I don’t have, son.”

“We don’t?”

“You were more like me. Peter was more like Mom.”

The boy thought about that.

Then his father said, “I didn’t mean to treat you different.”

This was getting hard on both of them, so Michael just shrugged and said, “Okay. It’s okay... ’Night, Papa.”

And, on impulse, he hugged his father around the neck, being careful not to hurt the man’s sore arm. Papa hugged back, not being so careful.

After his son began softly snoring on the couch, O’Sullivan was able to get his mind back on the task before him. Something Rance had said — or maybe it was something about the accountant’s attitude — made O’Sullivan think an answer of sorts might be waiting to be found in these figures.

So he sorted through the documents, setting some aside, looking at others, overwhelmed, out of his element. Finally a buff-colored file almost seemed to appear in his hands...

... CONNOR LOONEY, it was boldly marked.

Surprised, interested, he began to look carefully through it — at letters, accounts, bills of lading, receipts, dockets, and more. He pushed the other books and ledgers and files aside and concentrated on this one.

And when the sun came up, O’Sullivan — fully dressed, ready to ride, 45 under his arm, new information in his brain — gently shook Michael awake, saying, “Up up up.”

The bleary-eyed boy leaned on an elbow and asked, “Where’s the fire?”