Роберт Паркер - All Our Yesterdays

“What did you say,” Mary Ellen asked, “to make the waiter change his mind?”

“Sweet reason,” Conn said. “I explained to him that while Prohibition was the law of the land, Knocko and I were the law of the city.”

Mary Ellen smiled and took another tiny sip of her drink and tried to keep from wrinkling her nose at the taste.

“It’s lovely, the way you speak, you’re born in Ireland.”

“In Dublin,” Conn said. “Left ten years ago.”

“Was it the troubles?”

Conn smiled at her.

“I was hoping to meet you,” he said.

“You’re very gallant,” Mary Ellen said.

“Just ask the waiter,” Knocko said. He had drunk two whiskies since the waiter brought the glasses, and his face was bright.

“Oh, Francis,” Faith said.

“You live at home?” Conn said.

“Yes, and I work for Judge Canavan.”

“Secretary?”

“Yes. He’s a friend of my father’s.”

“Judge Murphy?”

Mary Ellen nodded.

“You know my father?”

“Just by reputation,” Conn said. “He’s a defendant’s judge.”

“My father is very softhearted,” Mary Ellen said.

Knocko mixed up another whiskey and soda. His tie was loosened, his collar open, and his vest gapped above his belt. He gestured the waiter to them.

“We’ll have oysters,” he said.

“For four, sir?”

“Yeah, bring them for the table.”

“Would you care to order anything else, sir?”

“Just bring the freakin’ oysters,” Knocko said. “We’ll let you know what we want next.”

Faith leaned forward across the table toward her husband. She spoke softly with her lips barely moving.

“Francis, you straighten out.”

Knocko smiled and drank his drink. But he seemed uneasy. Pussy whipped , Conn thought. He swallowed some whiskey, felt it cold at first, then warm. He smiled to himself. Aren’t they all?

The oysters came, on a silver platter served on a bed of ice. Mary Ellen eyed them uncertainly.

“Was a brave man, first ate an oyster,” Conn said. He put one on Mary Ellen’s plate, and a tiny dab of horseradish, then he offered her the meat on the small fork provided. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth and Conn popped it in. She swallowed without chewing.

“Like communion,” Conn said.

Mary Ellen drank some from her whiskey and soda to wash it down.

“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” Conn said.

Mary Ellen smiled. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

“Next time you might chew it,” Conn said. “In time you might like it.”

“I’m learning,” Mary Ellen said.

“You certainly are,” Conn said.

“You’re a good teacher,” she said.

“Yes,” Conn said. “I am, in fact.”

Conn sat quietly beside Mellen at Mass on a warm June morning. He enjoyed the scent of her: the soap she’d used in her morning bath, the floral shampoo with which she’d washed her hair, the perfume she’d sprayed lightly in the hollow of her throat. He liked the seriousness in her face as the Latin Mass rolled sonorously on. He liked the clear polish that made nails gleam as she fingered her rosary, and, when she knelt, Conn remained seated and studied the contour of her buttocks under the white summer dress. Kneeling enhances a woman’s ass .

The parish was Irish. The sermon was about the Blessed Virgin and her Beloved Son. He could hear the reverential capital letters in the priest’s smug voice. Mother love and virginity. Echoes of his childhood. He could have been in Dublin. It’s not whiskey , Conn thought, keeps the Irish from ruling the world . The smell of incense, and the ringing of the bells, the impenetrable rhythmic Latin, the cassocks, and organ music, the dreadful martyrdom, the resurrection and the life, prayer, confession, contrition, the collection baskets passed by men in ill-fitting black suits that smelled of camphor, the flat wafer on the tongue, ohmygodIamheartilysorry. Conn smiled to himself. Foolish bastards .

They walked afterwards through the red-brick-and-wrought-iron South End in the fresh June sunshine. He put his hand down beside hers and she took it.

“Do you like going to Mass, Conn?” Mellen said.

“Yes,” he said, and smiled down at her. He was nearly a foot taller. “You?”

“Yes. It’s very comforting. I always feel closer to God when I’ve been.”

“Yes,” Conn said. “And I like the sense of connectedness. People heard that Mass in Ireland when Hugh O’Neill was a boy.”

“Who’s he?” Mellen said.

“First earl of Tyrone,” Conn said. “The last great leader of Gaelic Ireland.”

“I don’t know much about history,” Mellen said.

“‘Tis a pity,” Conn said, “that you were brought up here, darlin’. Had you been brought up a proper Irish girl, you’d know more than you wanted to about Hugh O’Neill and Cuchulainn and the dear Battle of the Boyne.”

Conn could go in and out of stage Irish dialect at will. When he wished he could conceal his brogue almost entirely, though he could never say Massachusetts quite right.

“I know about Parnell,” Mellen said. “But the nuns told us he was an adulterer.”

“He was that,” Conn said.

“And Mr. De Valera.”

“I knew him.”

“Did you, now?”

“Him and Michael Collins, Mulcahy, the whole bunch.”

“Oh, my,” Mellen said. “I think I’m with a hero.”

“I think you are,” Conn said.

They took a subway together to Park Street and walked past Brimstone Corner, along Tremont Street to the Parker House. Breakfast at the Parker House was something they had done for several Sundays after Mass.

“Would you like to talk about the troubles?” she said to him over shirred eggs and broiled tomato.

He smiled at her and shook his head.

“I’d rather talk about you,” he said, “and maybe me.”

“Why, Mister Sheridan,” she said, and cocked her head, like a proper virgin, the way her mother had no doubt taught her. When she smiled her cheeks dimpled.

Conn’s face became suddenly solemn.

“I know,” he said. “We’ve been so, sort of, you know, carefree , up to now, I guess it seems a little odd to suddenly start talking about, ah, us .”

“Oh, no, Conn, dear. It’s not odd. I think about us too.”

“Ah, Mellen, that’s good to hear.”

“Have you doubted that I like you, Conn?”

“I knew you liked me... as a friend. I guess what I have wondered is, if I was” — Conn shrugged and dropped his eyes slightly — “more.”

She blushed. Conn’s face remained solemn. She put her hand across the table and rested it on his. She was quite red now.

“Of course... you are more than a... friend,” she said. “I like you very much.”

He raised his eyes slowly and met hers. They looked at each other for a moment.

“Good,” Conn said. “I’m glad.”

Their eyes held. Conn waited. He’d learned patience in Kilmainham Jail. The lesson had been valuable. He drank some coffee. She turned her attention to the eggs, eating properly, taking small bites, her back straight, bending forward slightly from the waist, her left hand in her lap. Proper upbringing . Conn drank some more coffee. Mellen took a tiny bite off the corner of a piece of toast and chewed and swallowed and patted her lips carefully with her napkin.

“How could you not know that I care about you, Conn?”

Conn put the coffee cup down. He nodded gently.

“I know. It’s my own foolishness. But you’re so attractive, and I’m just an immigrant Paddy copper.”

“Oh, Conn, don’t be silly. You’re the handsomest man I know, and you’re very learned. And my father says you are the best detective in Boston.”