S Rozan - Absent Friends

On the ballfield, Jimmy tosses the ball high in the air, watches it streak straight up. He waits for that breathless instant at the top when it's not going in either direction. Then here it comes cutting back down through the blue sky, thumping into his glove.

He says to Tom, No, thanks, man, I'm not much good at that kind of thing, know what I mean?

Tom nods. I hear you, he says.

And that's the end of it. The kids get older, start to drink in the bars, Jimmy goes to the Bird, stays out of Flanagan's, like his dad. Tom, he's in and out of the place, happy to hang at the Bird with everyone, but Sunday afternoons now, you're looking for Tom, you can find him at Flanagan's, watching the game.

Jack likes Flanagan's best; almost always, that's where Jack is.

And since that day on the ballfield, Mr. Molloy still grins at Jimmy when he sees him, waves his cigar, asks him, How's it hanging? Gives Jimmy a bottle of single malt when he graduates from the Academy, a whiskey so expensive Jimmy doesn't know anyone who's ever tasted it, except Mr. Molloy. Tells Jimmy how proud he is, he always knew Jimmy would do great, get to be just what he was born to be.

So here in Flanagan's, Jimmy watches Mr. Molloy slip the second cigar back in his pocket like he knew all along Jimmy wasn't going to want it. Jimmy thinks about this, thinks about Mrs. Molloy, her smile, and her sad eyes.

Well, he says, and drinks more beer. Well, he says, anything I can do.

Thanks, Jimmy.

It surprises Jimmy that Mr. Molloy actually sounds relieved, as a man would who'd been worried he'd be refused.

Mr. Molloy wraps his huge hands around his beer mug, leans forward again. It's Jack, he tells Jimmy. I got a problem with Jack.

October 31, 2001

Marian tore herself from the grip of memory, from the empty darkness of long ago, and forced herself to return to this sunlit room, her room in this office that was hers.

This morning, unlike that desolate night, she was not alone. Here, unlike in that desolate place, she had work to do. Work: always, before, the rescuer that had saved her. Work. Yes; all right; this was familiar, putting her own needs aside to do important work. Breathe in, out, slow the heart, calm the panic.

“Someone killed Mr. Randall?” Marian spoke tranquilly, gazed directly into this thin reporter's eyes. “I haven't read that. The papers all say it was… that he took his own life.”

“The circumstances were suspicious. I'm sorry-the police would rather we didn't discuss any details. But that's why I'm here. My paper's following the story.” Stone stopped, frowned at her recorder, poked a button. In her silence, Marian watched her, thinking, The police?

Stone glanced up again. “He was following a few new leads,” she said. “They had to do with the McCaffery stories.” She paused, looked at Marian expectantly.

“What are you saying?”

“Well”-almost apologetic-“a lot of people were upset about what he'd been writing.”

“One of us ?” Marian pitched her voice to sound truly aghast. “You think someone Mr. Randall was writing about could have killed him?”

Stone said, “It's the current thinking,” the way she might have suggested Marian carry an umbrella because, though neither of them liked it, it was raining. “He'd caused trouble for some people by exposing secrets. Maybe he was about to expose others.”

“In my experience,” Marian said, restraining her voice, keeping it calm and deliberate, “it's only in books that people kill other people to keep secrets from being exposed. Generally, in life, if people are afraid they're about to be found out ” - she put a sarcastic, Victorian weight on the words-“they either run away or kill themselves.”

She watched the young woman flinch and felt bad for her. But it was necessary. This talk of secrets, of exposure. To assuage this young lover's heart? To fulfill her aching, forlorn need to believe her beloved had been taken from her, rather than that he chose to leave her?

No. Too much was at stake.

“I'm sorry,” Marian said. “But I find this ‘current thinking' absurd. And I haven't heard this theory on the news, or in the papers, or anywhere except from you.”

Surprisingly, Stone's face lit with a satisfied smile. “The police haven't been here yet?”

“No. No, they haven't.”

“They hate it when I do this.”

“Do what?”

“Beat them to an interview. Let's go on before they get here and throw me out. What can you tell me about the death of Jack Molloy?”

“Before they get here?”

“Well, of course they'll want to talk to everyone Harry Randall did. I was just hoping you might be able to point me in a useful direction first. So: Jack Molloy?”

Marian had a sense of rounding a bend in the road into a landscape that had changed without warning, where withering trees stood isolated on hills grown bare and bleak.

“Jack?” Marian spoke calmly but thought quickly, weighing options, making choices. “I went over that with Mr. Randall. I don't know anything about it except what was in the news at the time.”

“You were all friends back then, weren't you? James McCaffery, the Molloy brothers, Mark Keegan, you. You were dating McCaffery. Or is that wrong?”

“No, that's correct,” Marian said. Except that she and Jimmy had not “dated” since they were fourteen. “Going together” was what people said then, and that covered everything from the crisp fall days when Marian wrapped herself in Jimmy's varsity jacket, with its C for Captain, to the evening she arrived at his basement apartment-the month he'd entered the Fire Academy-with a spare toothbrush, a comb, and two brand-new nightgowns to fold into his bureau drawers.

“Why did Mark Keegan kill Jack Molloy?”

Marian considered the young woman. What was this?

And what could it become-be made to be? In this bleak landscape, could Marian plant seeds?

“You think Markie shooting Jack has something to do with Mr. Randall's death?”

“It's the story he was working on.”

Marian sat back. She paused, as though reluctant to go on, and said, “It's the money. The payments to Sally. You think there's something wrong there. Mr. Randall thought so, too.”

“Well, it's clear some people were lying about it, so something's obviously wrong somewhere. What can you tell me about it?”

“Nothing. Just that the payments came. We all thought they were from New York State.”

“Who told you that?”

“Sally. It's what her lawyer told her.”

“Phillip Constantine?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know where the money really came from?”

“He had to, don't you think?” Marian sipped at her coffee. It was bitter; had she forgotten sugar? “Have you talked to him?”

“I will.”

She would; of course she would. “He'll lie to you.”

“Why do you say that?”

Bitter or not, Marian drank. “Because he lied to me.”

“What did he say?”

“That he got the money from Jimmy.”

“How do you know that's not true?”

“Because it's ridiculous.”

“In what way?”

“Every way! Jimmy was a firefighter, where would he get so much money? And why on earth this absurd charade? He was Markie's closest friend. If he had money and wanted to help Sally out, why not just give it to her?” With horror Marian heard her own voice rising. She tried for a look of righteous indignation. “He's hiding something. Phil,” she added, to make sure this reporter, who seemed a little dim, would understand. “He's trying to blame something on Jimmy because Jimmy's dead. And because Jimmy's a hero, so whatever he was up to-Phil-if he can hook it to Jimmy, it won't look so bad.”