S Rozan - Absent Friends

Kevin nodded.

Jump, Phil told himself. The net will appear. Or it won't. Looking into Kevin's eyes, so like Sally's, he said, “I met with Jimmy McCaffery every couple of months for eighteen years. Sometimes in a bar like this, sometimes in my office. Once at one of your games. The Tornados, a play-off game. You tripled. Do you remember?”

Kevin looked blank, then he shrugged. “They were always good. The Tornados. We played them lots of times.”

Phil nodded. The waitress brought his Guinness, but she didn't stick around. Story of his life.

Kevin said, “Why'd you meet with Uncle Jimmy?”

A sip of beer. “He gave me money. Cash. I'd put it in a bank account, an escrow account in your mother's name, and write her a check every month.”

“From the State.”

“Well, obviously not. But yes, those checks.”

“Why?”

“Your father was dead. You were a baby. Your mother needed the money.”

“Goddamn it, Uncle Phil!” At Kevin's shout the waitress's head whipped around like a searchlight. The bartender's, too, in case something was blowing up he'd need to take care of. Phil raised an apologetic hand, shook his head. The bartender nodded: Okay, but watch yourselves. Screw you, Phil thought, that was more action than you've seen in here all week.

Kevin leaned forward. If this were a negotiating session, Phil would have pulled back and also leaned a little to one side. That way he'd control the distance between them and make it clear, too, that he was the one controlling it. But he didn't do any of that. There was too much distance already.

“I mean, why you and Uncle Jimmy?” Kevin lowered his voice, but now it wore a sharp and ragged edge. “I thought you didn't even like each other. Why the bullshit?”

Of course that's what he meant. “Jimmy said your mother wouldn't have taken the money from him. From anyone.”

“Bullshit,” Kevin repeated.

Kevin drank. Phil waited. Never offer information, never answer the question that wasn't asked. “Why did the paper say the money might have come from Eddie Spano?” Kevin demanded.

“It had to come from somewhere. They don't think it could have been Jimmy's. It's too much money.”

“Where did it come from?”

Answer half the question: “What Jimmy gave me, I don't know where it came from.”

“What the fuck do you mean, you don't know?”

“I never asked him.”

“He just hands you thousands in cash every couple months for eighteen fucking years, and you never ask where it comes from?”

“Kev, I work with criminals. There are a lot of things I'm better off not knowing.”

“Criminals?”

“I don't mean Jimmy!” Like hell you don't. “Generally, always, all I want to know is that I'm not involved in anything illegal. Beyond that, sometimes the less information I have, the better.”

“If you were thinking like that, you were thinking there was something bad to know.”

Phil said nothing, spiraling down.

“If you never asked him”-this sarcastically, a tone he'd never heard from Kevin before-“how could you know you weren't involved in anything illegal ?”

“My job…” Phil drank, a stall while he tried to find a way to regain altitude. “Your father asked me to look after you and your mother while he was gone.”

“I still-”

“Your father was my responsibility, Kev.”

Kevin's answer was what he'd been taught, but with a new, unsure note. “You did everything you could. Mom always said.”

Okay, Kevin. It's been nice knowing you. “I let him-I encouraged him-to plead to something I was sure he didn't do.”

Phil watched that hit Kevin like arctic air. Then he said: “I don't think he shot Jack Molloy. I never did.”

“If my dad-then who do you think did?”

It wasn't really a question, just an automatic reaction. Like a blink to clear your eyes when you're not sure what you're seeing. Phil let it go, waited for the next one.

“No one else was there,” Kevin said. “Just them. Jack Molloy and my dad.”

“I think someone else was.”

Kevin stared, and drank, and stared, and said, “Uncle Jimmy? You think Uncle Jimmy was there? You think Jimmy did it?”

No answer from Phil.

“Oh, fuck you, Uncle Phil! Fuck you, that's nuts!”

“It was his money.”

“Or someone else's. You just said.”

“Or someone else's. But it came through Jimmy. Why? If he didn't know something?”

“Something like what?”

“If he didn't do it, he knew who did.”

“My dad did it. By accident. Uncle Jimmy was my dad's best friend!”

“Everyone says that.”

“You don't believe it?”

“That's not what I mean.” No? Then why did you say it like that, that icy edge?

Phil waved to the waitress, who nodded and went behind the bar to the tap, didn't even approach. Thanks a lot, honey. “I didn't meet any of those people-your father, Jimmy, any of them-until after Markie was arrested. I was new in private practice, but everything I'd done since the day I left law school was criminal defense. I didn't know whose friend was whose around here, but I knew Markie was lying. I could smell it.”

“And you didn't do anything?”

“He wouldn't let me. He told me exactly what he'd told the police, and his story never changed. ‘Jack shot at me, I shot back, I was scared, I never thought I'd hit him.' In the end I was goddamn grateful to be offered the plea on the gun charge, because Markie was ready to go to trial.”

“Because he thought you'd get him off. Because he trusted you.”

That was a punch in the gut. “Kevin-” Thank God, the waitress and the new beers. She gave them one each, grabbed up the empties, and left. Come on, honey, don't you want to sit and chat?

“Kev, for God's sake. He kept insisting he'd done it. What the hell defense did I have? Insanity? I'm not a magician.” Oh, but that's wrong. Ask anyone on the other side. They'll tell you: Constantine's a sorcerer, a conjuror, a spell-caster. Rabbits from hats, pickpockets from jail, gangsters from prison and flash! into the Witness Protection Program because, presto change-o, Phil Constantine can turn drug dealers into cooperators and accused murderers into innocent men.

But only since Markie. Only since he'd started to see Markie Keegan's eyes looking out of every new client's face.

The waitress made a circuit of the room, bringing fresh drinks to men who hadn't called for them. It was likely that outside the sun was moving across the sky but in here the light didn't change and the silence didn't change and nothing changed except the way Kevin looked at Phil.

Phil turned from that look, focused on the names and dates and loves dug into the table.

“The front booth,” Kevin said quietly. Phil looked up. “My dad carved his initials and my mom's in a heart in the front booth. Did you ever tell my mom my dad was lying?”

“She didn't believe it, he wouldn't admit it. I stopped saying it.”

“Did you tell Uncle Jimmy?”

Guinness, thought Phil, used to taste better than this. “In the beginning. When I still thought if I could find the truth I could get Markie off. I tried, Kev. I tried to find the truth.” Why had he said that? What would Kevin care, what he'd tried, what he'd failed at?

“What did you say to him? Uncle Jimmy, in the beginning?”

“I told him I was sure Markie was lying. I asked him if he knew what really happened. Because everyone told me he was Markie's friend. I asked if Markie had said anything to him. I asked…”

“What?”

“I asked if he knew who Markie was trying to protect. He said no. He asked me how light a sentence I thought I could get Markie. I said I didn't think Markie was guilty and I wanted the truth. Jimmy said, What if what Markie's saying is the truth? Or it's not but he keeps saying it? What will happen to him?