Jan Burke - Bloodlines

O’Connor shifted in his seat, then said, “I’m tall for my age, so I fibbed to get the job. I’ll be nine soon. Are you going to peach on me?”

Jack rubbed his chin. “No. Go on.”

“Well, I wanted to see Yeager for myself, so I asked Duffy if I could just take a peek from the balcony.”

“Duffy?”

“He’s one of the guards at the courthouse. He buys his papers from me.”

“I should have known. We’ll skip the matter of truancy for the moment. This Duffy agreed to let you ‘peek’ at a real, live mobster on trial?”

“Yes, sir. Only I couldn’t see Yeager so good-so well. I saw you-at least, I saw the back of your head.”

“How could you possibly know it was the back of my head?”

O’Connor blushed again. “I saw the lady with the fur coat sitting next to you.”

“Ah, yes, your benefactress.” When O’Connor looked puzzled, Corrigan said, “The lady who gave you the big tip.”

“Yes, sir. What was that other word, please?”

“Benefactress.” Corrigan waited while the boy repeated it to himself several times, then prompted, “You were saying?”

“Oh. Well, mostly I could see the jury. I could see all of them. This one lady kept glancing up at the balcony, and it seemed to me that something was making her nervous.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She would twist her handkerchief. Not all the time, just after she glanced at the balcony.”

Corrigan looked away, blew out a mouthful of smoke. O’Connor watched him stub out his cigarette and grind the butt into the glass ashtray. He smiled ruefully at O’Connor. “I suppose I’m going to have to ask Lillian to stay home. Apparently she’s too much of a distraction.”

“Lillian is my benefactress?”

He pronounced it perfectly, Corrigan noticed. “Yes. Miss Lillian Vanderveer. Of the Vanderveers, you understand.”

“Oh.”

“So go on, Mr. O’Connor.”

“I figured out that the nervous lady was looking at the men sitting next to me. A big fellow and a little fellow.”

Big Sarah came by and refilled Jack’s coffee. O’Connor covered a big yawn beneath a small hand. Jack took out his pocket watch. “Holy-it’s ten o’clock, kid.” He tucked the watch away. “Let me give you a ride home.”

“Wait! I haven’t told you the most important part.”

Jack stopped in the act of pulling out his wallet.

“I kept looking at the little fellow and at the lady juror, and I realized that they might just be what my da calls me and Maureen-two glasses poured from the same bottle. They look alike.”

Jack frowned. “As much alike as you and Maureen?”

“More. I think he’s the lady’s brother-she’s pale and skinny and has frizzy red hair and freckles and a kind of pointy nose. So does he.”

Jack put his wallet back and took out his notebook. “Describe these people to me-the big man, the juror, the little fellow.”

Fifteen minutes later, he was shaking his head in wonder. He knew exactly which juror the kid was talking about and was fairly sure he knew which of Yeager’s men had been sitting up in the balcony. The kid was a natural.

“I had to leave before court was over,” O’Connor was saying. “I had to go get my papers. But I did see one other thing.”

“Much more of this, kid, and I’ll have to trade jobs with you.”

O’Connor pushed up the left sleeve of his jacket-a jacket that had once been Dermot’s. Jack stared at his forearm. “His license number,” O’Connor said proudly. “I saw the big man leave the courthouse with the brother. They got into a black two-door Plymouth sedan.”

Jack was still staring.

“I didn’t have any paper-I mean, I only had my copies of the Express, and I had to sell those. So I wrote it on my arm.”

Corrigan reached over slowly and gently took the boy’s hand in his. “The bruises. Who gave you these bruises?”

O’Connor tried to yank his hand back, but Corrigan held on.

“It’s nothing.”

Corrigan waited.

“A kid at school,” the boy murmured.

“Bigger than you?”

O’Connor nodded.

“You fight back?” Corrigan asked, releasing him.

O’Connor squirmed a bit, then lifted one shoulder. “I tried. But I’m no good at it.”

“What’s wrong with your old man that he hasn’t taught you to defend yourself?”

“It’s not his fault,” O’Connor said quickly, and looked down at the table, avoiding Corrigan’s gaze.

O’Connor’s view of the tabletop began to blur. He scrunched his eyes shut, only to feel hot tears rolling down his face. A baby, he thought. Always acting like a baby. And he was crying in front of Jack Corrigan, of all people.

“Conn,” Jack said quietly. “Conn of a Hundred-and-one Battles.”

“My father got hurt,” the boy said softly, speaking down at the table. “He’d been hurt before, even lost a finger, but this last time-it’s his back. He can’t stand up straight. Can’t even be on his feet for more than a minute or two before the pain…well, anyway, he can’t work.” He pulled out his handkerchief, realized it was still damp from the sink and put it away again.

After a moment, O’Connor heard Corrigan writing in his notebook and looked up. Without glancing up, Corrigan reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a clean white handkerchief and offered it across the table.

O’Connor took it and loudly blew his nose into it. He heard Big Sarah walk out of the kitchen, but saw Corrigan wave her back.

“Fine,” she called over her shoulder, “but the shifts are going to be changin’ and fellers are gonna be showin’ up here any minute. I ain’t turnin’ away business, even for you, Handsome Jack.”

Jack smiled. “Wash your face, kid, and we’ll get out of here before those spies from the News can figure out what’s up.”

Jack made a phone call while O’Connor washed up. When O’Connor came back out, Jack was saying, “No surprise, is it? Yes, I’ll be by later tonight. Hell no, I won’t disclose my source, and shame on you for asking.”

He hung up and smiled at Conn. “A detective friend of mine. Turns out that Plymouth is registered to one Mitch Yeager. Good work, kid.”

O’Connor thanked both Corrigan and Big Sarah before they left. She told him to come in and see her again soon. Jack seemed preoccupied; hands in his coat pockets, he didn’t speak as they walked back to the paper.

Jack insisted on driving him home, although O’Connor protested more than once that he didn’t live so very far away and could walk. O’Connor didn’t often ride in cars, and under other circumstances, the offer of even the shortest trip in Jack’s Model A would have been snapped up in a minute. Instead, O’Connor was busy seeking the intervention of all the saints and angels, praying that his father had downed enough cheap whiskey to fall asleep, and that Jack Corrigan would let him off at the curb and drive off before seeing the hovel where they lived.

The small apartment building wasn’t far from downtown. O’Connor hated the place. He was glad Corrigan was seeing it at night-when he might not notice that its dull pink paint was peeling, that the lawn was brown, that the walkway was choked with weeds. As Jack, in defiance of heaven, not only pulled over to the curb but turned off the motor, O’Connor thought that even in darkness, everything about the place said no one would live there unless he couldn’t do any better for himself.

Corrigan was watching him, though, and not the building. “Would it help if I went in with you, explained-”

“No,” O’Connor said quickly, for though the place was kept neat and tidy, his father did not allow strangers past the door, would not let anyone who was not a priest or a family member see what he had become. “No, thank you. I’ll be all right.”