The Shadow Box (4 page)

It
was
New York that killed Jake and Bronwyn. You
can blame those crimes on society, the breakdown of fam
ily values, the decline in church attendance, or just on the
lowlife bastards who committed them. But at bottom it's
the city. It breeds a meanness, a predatory mindset that
you find nowhere else in this country.

New York killed Jake, it killed Bronwyn, and it made
a wreck of Moon. You'd think it would have been satis
fied, but then, a few days later, it set its sights on the last
of the Fallons. It began by firing him.

“
Michael . . . it was not New York that fired you.''

“You're not listening, Doc.”

“Sure I am. You said the city breeds meanness. Your
firm was in the city. Ergo . . .”

“Doctor . . . you grew up in Wisconsin, right?”

“
‘Just outside Madison.''

“Yeah, well . . . in Wisconsin, tragedy is missing the
first day of deer season. It's seeing the Packers get blown
out by Tampa Bay.''

“
Michael . . . ”

“
New York fired me and then it blacklisted me.''

“
Michael . . . listen to me . .
. ”

”
And then it tried to kill me. It tried to kill me twice.''

Chapter 4

The first attempt came on a January evening.

Fallon had
r
arely left his apartment since Bronwyn's service. The holidays had come and gone. He had done
nothing to celebrate them, had sent no cards, and had
ignored the few invitations he had received.

On that day in mid-January, Brendan Doyle called him,
got his machine, yelled, “Pick up, damn it,” and insisted
that Michael join him for dinner. They needed to talk.
They needed to discuss the pending action against
Lehman-Stone.

“No, it
can't
be done over the phone. You blew us off
for Christmas dinner and you didn't show at our New
Year's party. You're feeling sorry for yourself, Michael.
If Moon were here, he'd kick your butt for you.”

Doyle said he'd be waiting at his regular table in the dining room of the Algonquin Hotel.

“I'll wait fifteen minutes. Don't make me come get
you.”

Brendan F. X. Doyle was a trim and dapper little man,
far smaller than his temper. He had flaming red hair, worn
long and in waves, white at the temples and sideburns.
For years, Michael thought he owned only one suit. He
owned many but they were all light gray and double-
breasted, and like Jake he wore a Knights of Columbus
pin in the lapel. He stood when Michael entered and of
fered his hand. He was reading Michael's eyes, not liking
what he saw.

The setting, if anything, had added to Michael's gloom.
It made him think of his mother. She had run off when
he was eleven. It was at this same table, more than twenty-
five years earlier, that Doyle and his Uncle Jake had set
him down to tell him what they had learned about her and
to brief him on their efforts to find her.

She had written only once. The letter, postmarked Chi
cago, asked Michael to forgive her. When he was older,
it said, he would understand how little time we have on
earth. She had been given a chance at a new life. She was
going to take it. His father had showed him the letter,
written on his mother's stationery, but would not let him
read it for himself. He read parts of it aloud, wept silently
over others, then slowly tore the letter into strips and
flushed them down the toilet. He was drunk for three days
afterward. In fact, until the day Michael's father took his
life, he was never quite sober again.

A waiter had appeared at the table.

“What are you drinking?” Doyle asked.

“Dewar's and water. A double.”

“He doesn't need a double,” Doyle said to the waiter.

Fallon chose not to argue. It would have brought on a
lecture. His mind was still on his mother. Through Doyle,
a pain in the ass even then, Uncle Jake had hired a private
detective agency to try and track her down. In part, this
was to appease her side of the family, which consisted
largely of Irish cops and perpetually pregnant women
named Kate or Irene. They could not accept that one of
their own, a woman who attended daily Mass and received
the sacraments, could possibly run off with another man.

The detectives started in Chicago. They reported, how
ever, that she had stayed only long enough to write and
post that letter. They traced her to Nevada, where, at a
roadside wedding chapel, she married a man who was said
to be a former Catholic priest. She did so without benefit
of divorce. On hearing this, the Kates and the Irenes could
only gasp and make the sign of the cross over their breasts.

The two were subsequently seen in California and later
in Oregon, where the trail grew cold. Jake tried again a
year later, prior to adopting Michael, but this was to satisfy
the courts. No trace of her could be found. She had van
ished, totally, into the new life she had chosen.

“Michael . . .”

Fallon blinked himself back to the present.

“They're gone, Michael,” the lawyer said gently. “It's
time you accepted that.”

Doyle had assumed, Fallon realized, that he was think
ing of Bronwyn and Uncle Jake. He did not correct him.
He reached for the weak scotch and water that the waiter
had left at his elbow. The lawyer sipped from his own.

“Michael . . .” He studied the ice cubes in his glass.
“Have you thought any more about buying a boat?”

”A boat?”

”A sailboat. You've talked about it.”

Yes, he had, but not lately. And not for anytime soon.
He'd done a fair amount of sailing, as weekend crew, with
friends who lived up in Connecticut. He'd taken lessons
on Cape Cod. Like half of New York City, he'd made
wistful visits to the boat show at the Javits Center. Some
day. The great escape. Either that or buy a ski lodge.
Everyone he knew had probably dreamed of doing one or the other.

“What brings that up?”

A shrug. “You have the means and, like it or not, the
leisure. Recent events notwithstanding, there are those who
would envy your situation.”

Fallon studied him, frowning.

“Mr. Doyle . . . have you spoken to Lehman-Stone?”

“That's another thing. You don't need their money.”

“Need isn't the issue.”

Doyle rubbed his chin. A sigh. “Michael . . . they're talking criminal charges.”

The frown deepened. “Charging me with what?”

A shrug. “They won't say. But they claim they've got
you cold.”

Fallon's color rose.

“And you believe them?”

“Michael . . . you've done
something.
What is it?”

Fallon threw down his napkin, pushed back his chair.
The smaller man seized his arm and hissed. “Sit, Michael.
Sit down like a grown-up and talk to your lawyer.”

“My lawyer? You sound more like theirs.”

Doyle reddened. “You'll apologize for that.”

“Like hell I will. It's a frame or it's a bluff. Either
way, here's you of all people telling me to fold and blow
town. You can
kiss my ass,
Mr. Doyle.”

“They hate you, Michael. Tell me why.”

Fallon hesitated. “Now it's personal?”

“The way they're behaving . . . it's how people act
when someone has betrayed their trust. What might you
have done that could be perceived in such a way?”

“Like using privileged information? Nothing.”

“No dummy accounts? No ripping off pension funds?”

“Fuck you, Mr. Doyle.”

“On a personal level, then. This Hobbs. Could he have
been jealous of you and Bronwyn?”

“Hobbs? He introduced us.”

“There was nothing between them?”

Fallon frowned, then shook his head abruptly. “If any
thing, he encouraged th
e relationship. A month after we
met, he had us up to his ski lodge in Maine. He put us both in the same bedroom. Then at Uncle Jake's funeral
■ he practically ordered us to fly down to his house in Palm
Beach. Does that sound like jealousy to you?”

“Might
he blame you for her death?”

Fallon considered this, then shook his head once more.
Some of them did, he supposed. And he certainly blamed
himself. But he'd seen no indication that Hobbs shared
that view. Whatever had happened, whatever they found
or thought they found, had come well after the night Bron
wyn died.

The lawyer drummed his fingers. He wet his lips. It
seemed to Fallon that whatever question was now forming in his mind, he was reluctant to ask it. He blinked it away
and took a sip of his drink.