The Parting Glass (21 page)

He had never missed Ireland as much as he did at that moment.

A car chugged up the street, not a common sight in the Angle. This particular car was far less common than most, a distinctive and elegant example, in a different class from the common Model T that Liam hopelessly coveted. The sedan was shining black, with polished gold trim and high seats that looked as soft as a featherbed. The huge headlights glowed like a tiger’s eyes. Two men sat in the front, and one sat alone in the back. Even from a distance, Liam felt certain that the man in the back was the one to take seriously.

He rose when the car stopped in front of his house. He waited stoically but poised on the balls of his feet. Liam knew trouble when he saw it.

“You Liam Tierney?” the driver asked. He was short and muscular, and both his hair and his mustache were slick with pomade.

“Who’s asking?”

“I’m asking,” said the man in the back. He had waited to exit until the other man in the front raced around to open his door. Now he stepped onto the spotless white running board and finally down to the ground. His lackey took out a handkerchief and wiped the board clean in the seconds after his foot left it.

“Tim McNulty’s my name.” He stepped closer, but stopped just below the stairs. Liam looked down on him, noting the broad forehead, close set eyes, portly physique and, most of all, the hand-tailored suit with its gleaming brass buttons and folded linen handkerchief.

“What can I do for you?” Liam asked.

“I’m here to inquire about your accident.”

Liam shoved his hands in his pockets, but his hands were fists by the time they entered. “And why is that?”

McNulty took his time responding. His gaze flicked up and down the front of the Tierneys’ house. His eyebrows grew together in such a thicket that they appeared to be one. He raised half now. “You haven’t done well for yourself here, have you, Paddy?”

Liam gave a snort. “Not as well as you have…Paddy.”

A faint smile played at the corner of McNulty’s lips. The man beside him, the oversized brute who had escorted him from the car, made a sound low in his throat and started toward Liam, but McNulty held him back with a gesture.

“Yes, my family started out here,” McNulty conceded. “A little higher up the hill, perhaps. A good wind and you’ll be floating down the river.”

Liam waited.

“You’ve recovered? From the accident?” McNulty asked at last.

“I don’t know what concern it is of yours.”

“I’ve come to help you.” McNulty snapped his fingers, and the man beside him grudgingly pulled an envelope from his suit and held it out to Liam.

Liam continued to wait.

“Take it up to him,” McNulty told his henchman.

The man started up the stairs, stopping before he reached Liam. He outweighed Liam by a hundred pounds at least, but he stayed where he was and extended the envelope again.

Liam reached for it, expecting an attack, but there was none. He opened the envelope and flipped through a dazzling collection of bills, more than he had ever seen in one place. He looked down at McNulty. “And?”

“You don’t think this is simple charity?” McNulty laughed. “That’s the Irish for you, lad.”

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“Just the description you gave the police. The description of the car that nearly killed you.”

Any hope Liam had entertained died immediately. He held the envelope out to return it, but the henchman had abandoned the stairs. “I don’t want your money,” Liam said. “Not a penny. Thanks all the same.”

“Just a description.” McNulty fingered his watch chain, a fine shimmer of delicate gold. “So very, very simple. And who would know?”

“I didn’t see a thing,” Liam said. He knew better than to hope he could get inside again before the men tackled him. Even if he did, the lock was a flimsy affair, easily breached by a shoulder or punishing foot.

“That’s not what you told the cops,” the henchman said.

The man’s voice was as robust as his physique. Liam was sure the sound had reached his neighbors, none of whom appeared to be outside. He glanced up and down the street. Apparently those with faraway jobs were already gone; those who worked nearby hadn’t yet left. Or perhaps their sudden disappearance had occurred at the sight of McNulty’s Cadillac.

“It’s
exactly
what I told the cops,” Liam said. “I don’t know your interest in this and don’t care to, but I have nothing to tell you.”

“It’s a lot of money. For very little.”

Liam sighed, but it was time to end the charade. He took the money out of the envelope, and one by one he let the bills drift down to the steps below. But he wasn’t so noble that between the first and the last he didn’t think about all that the money could have bought.

No one moved. He looked up once he’d finished. “I saw nothing. I remember nothing.” Because there was no other place to go, he turned and crossed the porch, as if to go inside.

As he’d expected, he didn’t make it to the door. He heard the rush, felt the air stir, and whirled ready to defend himself. But there were two men after him, and he was not at his physical peak. Despite a sincere attempt to defend himself, he was knocked to the ground and pummeled repeatedly. Despite himself, he groaned when the driver kicked his recently mended leg. He writhed in silent agony when the henchman pounced on him and every muscle in his back spasmed in defense.

“Just the description,” McNulty said, above him. “And they’ll stop. It would be a shame to injure you permanently, lad.”

Liam knew he might die there. He wondered if Irene was awake, listening to sounds of her father’s murder. The thought made him furious, and he lashed out as best he could, but even fury was no match for two opponents.

“Stop,” McNulty said calmly after a few more minutes of struggle and pain, and the men stopped. Liam could hardly see. His vision was blurred, both by blood dripping in his eyes and a nauseating dizziness.

McNulty stopped and frowned at him. “Just a word or two, lad, and we’ll be gone, you’ll be alive, and no real harm will be done. Just the color of the car? A number from the license plate?”

“The devil take you,” Liam said. He saw a massive fist poised above his face and steeled himself to die silently.

“Enough,” McNulty said. “Off him now. Good lads.”

Liam sagged against the uneven boards as the henchman’s punishing weight lifted. Every joint in his body felt as if it had been severed.

“Neither money nor death, Tierney? Nothing persuades you? We could ask your little lass what she knows, I suppose. Ask her if you’ve told her anything?”

“If you…touch her, I’ll hunt you to…the ends of the earth!” The voice didn’t sound like his own, even though he felt the words in his throat.

“Would you tell us in exchange for her life? Or your wife’s, perhaps?” McNulty said.

“I have nothing to tell!”

“I have a daughter of my own.” McNulty laughed without mirth. “Children are obstinate creatures, but I suppose they shouldn’t be harmed for their fathers’ failures.”

He signaled the other two men, and they started down the steps. An astonished Liam managed to sit up, even though the world was whirling darkly around him and pain sizzled through every nerve.

At the car McNulty turned. “Keep the money,” he said. “And report to me once your bruises heal. You want a job, lad? I have jobs for scrappers like you, men who know how to keep to themselves. You won’t be making boxes again any time soon. Who knows, you might be able to buy the factory in a year or two.”

He laughed at his own wit and climbed inside. The henchman closed the door and wiped the running board clean once more. Then he raised a massive hand to Liam before he went around the car and climbed inside.

Liam watched the men drive away. As if by magic, neighbors came out of their houses to go about their business, although all were careful not to look in his direction.

chapter 14

F
ather Ignatius Brady was a sparrow of a man who seemed to be composed of equal parts fasting and prayer. He looked like an ascetic, ate and drank with the enthusiasm of a dieting hedonist, and managed, through his many years of priestly service, to keep an authentic twinkle in his eye. He had been Niccolo’s mentor since his ordination and had remained so when Niccolo withdrew from active priesthood. He had celebrated Niccolo’s marriage and hoped to baptize his babies.

Now, however, Iggy was simply gazing at Niccolo’s “miracle,” the talk of St. Brigid’s.

“I don’t know, Niccolo. As fine an establishment as this one is, I never would have picked it as a shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

“You see the resemblance?”

“I do now that I’m staring at it. But I wouldn’t have noticed the stain at all if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

“It was hard to miss when I woke up under it that afternoon instead of at the pearly gates.”

“You did have a close call.”

“I looked up and she was crying.”

Iggy faced him. “The Virgin or Megan?”

“Definitely the Virgin. Tears from the region of her eyes.”

Iggy said nothing.

Niccolo turned back to the image, which sported no tears now. “I felt this sense of well-being and peace. It was indescribable.”

“A natural reaction for a man who has just cheated death.”

“I know. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a skeptic.” He smiled a little at the memory. “But even Megan crossed herself when she looked up and saw the image.”

“Now we
do
have something to worry about,” Iggy said with a chuckle.

“What we really have to worry about is how to play this down.”

Iggy knew exactly what Niccolo referred to. “Beatrice Lowell has been to see me.”

Niccolo groaned.

Iggy patted his shoulder. “She’s not a member of our parish, but I have spoken to her priest. He claims she’s always had an active imagination and a consuming need for attention.”

“Casey got Beatrice involved in the Albaugh Center’s senior program. Meals, activities, field trips. I thought it would make enough of a difference in her life that she might not need to tell the story of her miracle cure over and over again.”

“I’m afraid it backfired. Now she simply has a larger audience. She’s still taking her arthritis medications, though. I wormed that much out of her. But she claims she’s only doing it as insurance and doesn’t need them at all.”

“And does she still limp?”

“She doesn’t look like a woman who’s pain free.”

“Apparently she has everyone at the center talking about this. I’ve had half a dozen—” Niccolo paused. “More like a dozen senior citizen calls, I guess. People want tours. As soon as they can get down here.”

“These are difficult times, Niccolo. People everywhere are searching for proof that God exists and is working in their lives.”

“There are a million genuine miracles every day. A firefighter goes into a burning building to rescue people he’s never seen. A passerby takes off his coat on a cold winter day and gives it to a homeless man.”

“But those are the hardest to see, Niccolo. Or the hardest to admit we’ve seen, because they make demands on the observer. Admit it’s a miracle that one human being can sacrifice for another and you’re suddenly called on to do the same. So it’s easier to turn away. This image of Mary, on the other hand, doesn’t ask anything of us, does it? Prayer, perhaps, but nothing more. She does the work. She performs the miracles and we accept. Nothing more is required.”

“Should I close off the tunnel? Tell people there’s nothing more to see? Or should I let this play itself out? People will notice Beatrice’s limp and realize she hasn’t been cured of anything. And there’s a logical enough explanation for what happened to me.”

“Can you close it? Or by doing so will you increase people’s curiosity and their determination to see the image for themselves? Will you create a supernatural phenomenon through sheer mystery?”

Niccolo really didn’t know. He did know one thing, though. “Megan wants me to close the doors. She’s adamant.”

“Does she?”

“This is a saloon, not a church. She has a point. All the fuss might scare away some of her loyal customers, good Catholics a number of them, who might think twice about drinking their pints of Guinness directly over an image of the weeping Virgin.”

Iggy chuckled again, and Niccolo smiled in return. “She’s not comfortable with miracles, my Megan. She’s not comfortable with other people believing in them, either, particularly not in the family saloon.”

“So she’d have you lock the door?”

“It will dry up eventually, Iggy. When the plumbing’s all ripped out and replaced. There’s a pinhole leak somewhere above it, an improper fitting, or condensation where there shouldn’t be. We’ll find it and fix it, and the Virgin will simply go away.”

“And in the meantime you’ll lose weeks of opportunity to talk about this with the people who could have seen it, won’t you?”

Iggy knew him too well. Niccolo reached out and traced one edge of the Virgin’s cape. “Beatrice Stowell is only one person. There have been others. Skeptics, most of them. But this image makes people think. I don’t know about what and wouldn’t care to control it, anyway. But they leave thinking. Some of them feel they’ve witnessed something out of the ordinary, even if they don’t believe it’s what the most faithful say it is. And…”

“And how can that be bad?” Iggy finished for him.

“I like being here to show it to them. I like sharing those moments with them. I have no desire to return to active priesthood—”

“Besides, you have the small matter of a wife now.”

Niccolo grinned. “Small in stature only. She’s a giant.”

“Your giant, though.”

“But just because I no longer wear a dog collar doesn’t mean that spiritual things aren’t important to me. And sharing someone else’s spiritual journey is a gift. I don’t want to lose it until I have to.”

Iggy was silent.

“A problem, huh?” Niccolo said.

“Not for me.”

“No advice?”

“Just a question. Why are you talking to me? Why aren’t you talking to Megan?”