by E. R. FALLON
“He doesn’t like change at first,” Tom spoke to Colin when Errol was sleeping off the whiskey in a bedroom upstairs. “Give him a few weeks and he’ll soften up.”
Ronan nodded in agreement, but Angela laughed a little. Tom gave her a dark stare and Angie’s face went blank. When Tom used that expression with someone, the expression where he didn’t take his pale blue eyes off you for what seemed like minutes, you dared not question him. You watched your actions for the rest of the night and maybe even for the rest of the week. It didn’t matter to Tom that Angela was his daughter-in-law. The ‘business’ always came first, and Tom was the boss. If Tom wanted Angela ‘out’ in any way, Errol wouldn’t have a say.
Later, when he returned home, Colin made sure he practiced mimicking Tom’s expression in the medicine cabinet mirror. He practiced for hours, and within a month he didn’t need to mimic anymore. It had become second nature.
Someone knocked on the door and said in an Irish accent, “East beats west.”
Colin watched the other men chuckling at the table. Was this some sort of code?
“Come in,” Tom called out.
Colin wondered who these people were that they felt so untouchable they left their apartment door unlocked during the night in what was then a dangerous city. Soon it became apparent to him that they weren’t afraid of the city. The city was afraid of them. They made the city quiver and then gobbled it up with their passion and their greed.
A man wearing a tan suit and a flat cap stepped into the apartment and glanced over at Colin and then at Tom, as if to ask Tom, “Can he be trusted?” He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with curly brown hair, a stern face, and light brown eyes.
Tom shot him a look that said, “Better than anyone.” Colin smiled a little.
The man who’d entered introduced himself to Colin as “Bill”. But everyone in the room called the man ‘Little Bill’, which was strange because, like Colin, he was very tall.
Tom rose from the dining table. “Colin, come into the kitchen to help me.”
Colin excused himself from the table and Tom walked ahead of him. The kitchen was to the right of the dining room and Colin could see Tom stand on a wooden stool, push aside boxes and reach into the very back of a closet shelf. Colin hurried in, not wanting Tom to have to wait for him a second longer than was necessary.
“You’re a tall lad. Here, take this.” Tom handed Colin a large, heavy box.
“What’s in it?”
Tom looked over at the doorway.
“Tell him,” Errol said from behind him. “You’ve already told him fecking everything else.”
Colin jumped a little.
Tom looked at Colin. “It’s a counterfeiting machine. We keep it up there in case there’s a raid.”
A raid? That worried Colin. He didn’t want to return to prison anytime soon. “Has there ever been a raid?”
“No,” Errol said. “And I don’t expect they’ll ever be one as long as everyone does what’s best for them and stays quiet.”
Was that a veiled threat? Colin knew he’d somehow have to get on Errol’s good side if he was going to work for Tom – if Errol even had a good side.
Colin looked at Errol. “You can trust me.”
“We better be able to.”
Tom stepped off the stool and patted his son’s shoulder. “Of course we can trust him.” He smiled at Colin.
Colin followed the other men through a secret door, and down in the dim recreation room Errol, who had sobered up, opened the large box. Tom sat down on one of the folding chairs gathered around a plain table. Little Bill was eating dinner upstairs. Ronan was somewhere talking with his wife.
Errol bragged to Colin how he was, “Going to screw Angie tonight.”
Errol still had tired eyes. Colin thought Errol probably didn’t know, or care, how to please a woman in bed and he felt sorry for Errol’s wife.
“Watch your filthy mouth in the presence of a cross,” Tom said to his son.
Errol glanced at Jesus hanging from the small wooden cross on the corroding brick wall. He laughed and sarcastically uttered a Hail Mary. Colin was going to let out a laugh, not because he thought what Errol was doing was funny, but because he wanted to get on Errol’s better side. But then he remembered the presence of Tom, who clearly objected to Errol’s actions, and so he didn’t even smile. Except for the machine and another box, a small one, the aluminum table downstairs was empty. Colin sat on the very last wood step leading into the recreation room. He didn’t feel comfortable enough to sit on one of the chairs until he was invited, which he hadn’t been yet. He wondered if they were being inconsiderate or were just oblivious. His gaze wandered from the table to Errol standing in a corner of the room. Errol was lighting a cigarette with a match. The small matchbook said Deegan’s in neat, black cursive.
Colin came to understand that there were no women allowed in the recreation room during operation hours, not even to bring down refreshments. Tom asked Errol to get them drinks.
“No booze,” Tom instructed his son. “You’ve already had enough and we need our heads clear for this.”
Ronan came down the stairs, stepping past Colin, and sat on one of the chairs. He said nothing to anyone, and he didn’t seem to have noticed that Colin was sitting on the last step. But it was Ronan who finally gestured for Colin to take a seat at the table.
“Tom told me you just got out of prison,” Ronan said as Colin sat down in the surprisingly comfortable chair.
There was an unwritten rule among the men that you didn’t ask for details about a man’s crime unless he divulged them.
“I did twelve years,” Colin said.
Ronan whistled. “I could tell. You have that thing about you.” Colin looked at him.
“You’re a big bloke so people notice you, but you have this quiet thing about you. You need to get used to the outside again. It was the same with me when I got out last year. And now,” he said, looking around the room, “it’s like I never left.”
Ronan explained they counterfeited identification for the immigrant community.
“Our fee is modest because it’s a good cause,” he said.
Errol returned with five glasses of cola on a tray. It was assumed that Little Bill would be down soon to join them. Colin held the glass Errol had carelessly thrust his way, and some of the cola had spilled on the floor. Tom gave Errol an annoyed look. Errol shrugged and glared at Colin, as if it was his fault. Colin started to wipe the floor with his handkerchief but Tom stopped him.
“You don’t have to do that, Colin. You’re our guest. We’ll clean it later.”
A guest. Colin’s heart sank a little because he’d thought he was becoming one of them.
“You don’t like cola?” Errol asked Colin after a half an hour.
The three others had finished their drinks, but Colin hadn’t touched his.
“I do. But I’m not thirsty right now. I’ll drink it later.” Errol smirked at Colin’s obstinacy.
Tom chuckled.
Several hours later Errol leaned against the wall in the corner. Colin felt Errol watching him and he finally had some of his drink. He wondered if Errol disliked him because he didn’t consider him a genuine Irishman, being as he was mostly raised in the States.
Before Colin left that night Tom embraced him and instructed him to return to Ronan’s tomorrow at the same time, promising the same occurrences would take place. They would have dinner and then counterfeit and bullshit. Colin exited Ronan’s building feeling overjoyed.
He went straight to Byrne’s where he had a pint of Guinness, bragged to Joe about his new career, and broke up a heated argument between a foul-mouthed drunk who reminded him of Errol and a helpless, scrawny younger guy. The angry drunk man’s more sober friend was a boxer and gave Colin a purple-black eye for intervening. Colin didn’t want any trouble so he remained calm. Men seemed to like to start quarrels with him because of his great height, well over six feet, and his large fra
me, as though beating him would boost their egos. It had happened to him frequently in prison. Sometimes the prison officers would even make the inmates fight for entertainment.
Joe told Colin to let Tom McPhalen know what had happened and how the man had blackened his eye just for trying to make peace. Colin told Joe he didn’t know if he should take it that far, and then he calmly left the pub with a sore eye and a cut lip.
But Errol wanted to know what had happened when Colin came by Ronan’s the next evening. And Errol wouldn’t stop asking until he obtained the specifics.
Errol gave him a grin. “What the hell happened to your eye? Did you get into bed with the wrong woman?”
Colin laughed although he didn’t find Errol’s brand of humor particularly amusing. “It was nothing. I tried to stop a pub fight, that’s all. And I ended up being the one beaten.”
“Who did it?” Errol persisted. “You got beat up?”
“He was no one special. Just some local asshole.”
“Who the feck is he?”
Colin didn’t answer him.
“Why won’t you tell me the name? I’m sure getting beaten by a woman is nothing to be embarrassed about.” Errol snickered.
Colin straightened his shoulders. “It was a guy named Daniels. He’s a boxer. Are you happy now?”
“Paul Daniels?”
“That’s him.”
“He owes.” Errol spoke as if learning the name was so exciting to him that he couldn’t manage words.
“What?” Colin said.
“He owes me over four thousand dollars, which the bastard borrowed and never paid back. You see, my father likes you. He thinks you aren’t a screw up like me. Your beating gives me an excuse to finally do something about this Daniels bloke. Thanks, kid.” Errol grinned. “My father’s picky about taking lives. But I say if they don’t pay then destroy them, or at least put them in a coma.” Colin knew Errol didn’t care Paul Daniels had messed up his eye. Errol was just glad because Colin getting hurt gave Errol a chance to retaliate against Daniels for personal reasons. Colin felt sympathetic toward Daniels’s situation because it reminded him of his late father’s plight. Tom had told him he’d have to lose those feelings if he wanted to work for him, but Colin wasn’t sure if he’d ever lose them. He could disguise them perhaps, but he could never forget why his father had died. Colin still thought of David Burke sometimes, but his hatred of the man had diminished over the years and Colin no longer dreamed about killing him.
Colin knew it wasn’t a coincidence when at six o’clock in the evening a few days later the police found Paul Daniels shot in the head in his car outside of the boxing gym. No arrests were made.
After that every man at Byrne’s walked on eggshells around Colin, trying to not so much as brush his shoulder when they passed by him.
9
“Can you fecking believe it?” Errol said about the horse race.
It was October. Autumn had always been Colin’s favorite season, and October his favorite month. It was the month of his birthday, and he recalled fond memories from his childhood. Getting a red toy train from his parents, and Patrick’s smiling face when Colin had bought him a similar present years later; a pair of mittens and a kiss from Maureen; and a bottle of beer from Danny as a present when Colin was a teenager. He had always loved October.
Colin had been working for Tom McPhalen for two months. “Lucky Red came in first,” Errol said. “Blue Moon was supposed to win.”
“Maybe you got the wrong information,” Colin said.
“What are you saying? I always get the horses right.”
“Maybe you heard it wrong or your father told it to you wrong.”
“If I wanted your fecking opinion, I’d ask for it. Sometimes I don’t know why we even hold on to you, kid. You bother me sometimes.”
Colin disliked being called a kid when he was only two years younger than Errol. But he didn’t say anything in reply. Errol was a genuine asshole, and there wasn’t anything Colin could do to change that. So Colin changed the subject.
“Your father asked us to work tonight.”
“He asked you to tell me?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“It’s interesting, that’s all. What time?”
“Six o’clock.”
“That’s a little early because I have plans tonight. Angie’s parents. They just moved here from Galway. I bought them a house on Long Island. We’re supposed to go there for dinner.”
“Where on Long Island?”
“It’s near Levittown. Why?”
“Nothing. I got a friend out there on Long Island, that’s all.”
“A girl?” Errol smiled.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you come along with us? I’ll drive, drop you off at your lady’s place then head over to Angie’s parents.”
“Thanks, but I don’t know the address.”
“Do you mean she doesn’t want you to have it?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
Errol chuckled. “My father will get the girl’s address for you.”
“He can do that?”
“Sure he will. You feel like getting lunch?”
“Sure.”
“Deegan’s?”
Colin nodded. Deegan’s was one of the favorite, more elegant pubs of Tom’s men.
Besides Colin, Errol, Ronan, and Little Bill, there were always other men who worked for Tom socializing at Deegan’s. Most of them were men who had followed Tom to America from Ireland, either at the prospect of hitting it big with Tom in the United States, or to avoid prosecution for their crimes in Ireland.
Jarlath Dougherty was among the most distinguished of the men who had followed Tom to America. Jarlath had fair looks and appeared only a little older than Colin. He was a hard hitter who did the toughest jobs for Tom, yet he’d managed to avoid serving time in prison. Like Colin and Tom, his father had died when he was young. Colin looked up to Tom, but he looked up to Jarlath as well. He felt a bond with the clever young man from Ballinasloe who stood out among the others. Tom was always ribbing Jarlath for dressing hip. But Colin liked Jarlath’s motorcycle jacket, the same kind Brando had worn in The Wild One. They had shown the inmates that film in prison. Colin didn’t mind when Jarlath called him ‘kid’.
Steve and a man nicknamed ‘Tats’ were yellow-haired identical twin brothers who occasionally worked for Tom. They held other, real jobs, as policemen. Tats—who got his nickname from the tattoos he had from being in the Navy—and Steve owned Deegan’s pub, where Steve played the piano on some nights. They were married to women who were both named Rose. They grew up in the Bowery, a street away from Colin. Colin had seen Steve and Tats around the neighborhood as a boy, and they had made jokes with him in the pews at church. His father had known their father.
“Someday I want to be running something myself,” Jarlath mentioned at Byrne’s pub a few hours after lunch. “I have big plans of my own.”
Colin was set to leave for Long Island with Errol and Angela in an hour. Jarlath had started going to Byrne’s with Colin a few weeks ago.
Colin was drinking Guinness but Jarlath was having a cola. He claimed he was trying to ease up on his drinking because now that he was getting on in his years, it could do harm to his bones. Colin was almost as old as Jarlath, but he wasn’t planning to quit having a drink once in a while anytime soon.
“You want to be the boss?” Colin asked with a smile.
Jarlath chuckled. “Yeah, that’s it. You’ve put it in simple terms, fella. What I want is to be the top man someday.”
“Anything’s possible. And if anyone can do it, I think you can. You’re sharp and you know the game. Of course you’ll have to worry about Errol because he’s surely going to want to take over once his old man’s in the ground.”
Both laughed at the thought of the stubborn and irrational Errol as their boss, but it frightened Colin a little.
“Another Guinness?” Joe interrupt
ed them.
Colin peered into his empty glass and shook his head. Then he turned to Jarlath. “Do you know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“You giving up drinking. I never pegged you for a square.” Jarlath laughed.
They hadn’t known each other for more than two months, yet they communicated with each other like old friends.
“The question is, how long can I last?” Jarlath thought out loud.
Then he put his hand in the air. “Joe, bring me a Guinness.”
When Errol pulled up to Lucille’s house on Long Island Colin felt as if he’d been driven to another world. Everything, from the manicured garden, to the white mailbox with The O’Gradys written on it in swirling blue letters, seemed exotic to him. A child’s small red bicycle rested on the front porch.
“Go on,” Errol encouraged Colin from the driver’s seat. “We don’t have all day.”
Angela nodded and smiled at Colin from the passenger’s seat, as if to encourage him to step out.
Colin opened the car door and left the backseat. He carried a bouquet of yellow flowers in one hand, and a red-haired, freckle-cheeked doll in his other hand, a present for Lucille’s daughter. When he reached the steps to the house, Errol had already sped away.
Colin stood outside for a moment in silence, then he knocked and could hear footsteps.
“Who is it?” Lucille asked from behind the door.
“Flower delivery,” Colin said on impulse. He feared that if he said who he really was, she might not open the door.
Lucille opened the door and stared into his eyes. She had changed her appearance. Her blonde hair was shorter and coiffed, and she wore a respectable housedress with simple black shoes.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered as though he was someone she wanted to hide from her family. “Do you need something?”
“No, of course not. I came for a visit.”
“Did my brother give you my address? I wish he wouldn’t encourage you.”
“Your brother knows I care about you, but he didn’t give me your address. I have ways.”
