“Marrin residence.” A man’s voice. Sleepy, not tired.
“Lemme speak to my sister.”
There was a pause, a hesitation. “She ain’t here right now, Mr. Madden.”
“What do you mean she ain’t there right now? Where the hell is she?”
“Out. She said she was going out.”
“You let your wife go out this time of night and you don’t do nothing about it? What kind of a man are you?”
I could feel his embarrassment over the wire. “You know May, Owney,” said Jack, getting familiar with me. “She’s got a mind of her own—”
“You were supposed to fix that,” I reminded him. “That’s what I pay you the ten grand a month for, remember?”
“I know, but…”
“Find her and have her call me.”
“Well…I’ll try, but—”
“Don’t try, Jack. Just do it.”
I slammed the receiver back in its cradle. I was still sitting there, trying to decide what to do next, when my doorbell rang. I was mighty popular this evening.
I slipped my .38 into my dressing gown pocket and walked slowly to the door. Off to one side I put my ear to it but didn’t hear anything. Then I peeked through the peephole, and that’s when I saw it was her.
I flung open the door so fast it almost come off its hinges. And then she was in my arms, hugging me the way she used to, before all this happened.
We held each other for a long time, and I realized how much I’d missed her. All because I was mad.
“Take off your coat and stay awhile,” I finally managed to say.
She gave me one of her May looks. “He’s a good man, Jack.”
“That’s why I picked him.”
“I’m only sorry I lied to you.”
“What do you mean?”
She sat down and I poured us both a drink. Even though I didn’t drink no more, sometimes I had to.
“What I said about Jack.”
Now I was confused. She could always read my mind.
“About Jack Diamond. Sure, he was pestering me there for a while. But I never had anything to do with him.”
I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear that. The thought of my baby sister sullied by that bum was almost more than I could bear. Even if he didn’t deserve to die, he did, just because of what he made me go through.
“I was just trying to make you mad.”
“You sure succeeded.”
“I know. I’m sorry. That’s why I’m here. To say I’m sorry. To the only man I ever felt I had to say it to.”
I looked at her, and at that moment I knew that it was her I loved, it was her that I’d always loved, and that it was her I’d ever love. Not in a dirty way, mind you, but in a pure Christian sort of way, a selfless sort of way, the way our Da had wanted us to love each other, the way I’d promised him I’d love her and here I was, doing just that.
My troubles with the tax man and the parole board didn’t seem quite so bad or so important now. I’d beat ’em, especially now that I had her back.
“I’m going to be arrested in the morning,” I told her. She looked so beautiful at that moment, the fur coat I’d bought her tossed over her nightgown, the pearls on her neck, the rock on her finger. My rock.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just heard from Shalleck. Joe’ll have me out in twenty-four hours.”
“What if he doesn’t? Repeal’s coming. These mugs don’t need us no more.”
“He will.”
“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?”
I smiled at her, and the years fell away and it was like the old times all over again, just the two of us, up on the roof, holding hands, planning, dreaming…
“I got it all figured out. Besides, it might not be the worst thing that could happen.”
“I read about Vincent Coll.”
The image of the Mick, ventilated as all get-out, flashed before our eyes.
There’s a look I’d seen often in dead men’s eyes. I’d seen it in Luigi’s and Willie’s and even Little Patsy’s. It is not a look of anger or reproach, or any of them things you civilians might think, because after all you’ve never been there, and so you’ve only got your imaginations and the picture shows to guide you. But the real look that dead men get in their eyes just before they’re dead, the look that the cops spot in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, is this:
Surprise.
“I wouldn’t cry for him, I was you. He had it coming, if anybody ever did.”
“We all have it coming.” She fumbled for a cigarette in her pocket and then realized she didn’t have any street clothes on. “Ain’t that what you always say?”
I fished a fag out of my pocket and handed her my silver lighter.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“What are we going to do, you mean?” She’d been right all along. The look on her face, I can still see it to this day, sitting right here in my study at the big house in Bubbles. “I’ve been such a chump, May. I never saw the play.”
She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming, her lips wet. That was the look I loved. “What play?” she breathed.
“The play of you and me together. Nobody knows me better than you. Not Frenchy, not Dutch, nobody. You’re like the other half of me. All this time I was pushing you away, when I should have been drawing you close. Because when you get right down to it, who can you trust? Nobody, except your blood.”
I thought she was going to laugh from joy. “What do you want me to do?”
I phoned her husband and told him to relax and go back to sleep, that she was here with me. We talked late into the night, until we stopped talking.