by E. R. FALLON
“She is. Why are you asking?”
“She looks older.”
“She’s seventeen.”
“So, she’s still in school?”
“No.”
Sean wasn’t leaning back in the chair anymore and seemed less relaxed. He sat erect as he read a paper on his desk. It looked like a bill for the pub. But Colin sensed he was still paying attention to him.
“She graduated from private school early this past May,” Sean said. “She’s smart like her father.”
“She does seem like a smart girl. What’s she doing now?”
“She’s living with her family.” Sean used a brusque tone. He moved the bill aside and stared at him.
Colin could tell it would be best to drop the subject now.
Sean raised his eyebrows. “She’s younger than you are.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back into his chair as he smoked. “Colin, tell me something. Why are you so interested in my daughter?”
“I’m not. I met her downstairs and was curious. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You haven’t. I’m not surprised you noticed her. Everyone notices Cathy. She takes after her mother.”
Colin nodded. He didn’t want to speak and put his foot in his mouth more than he already had.
“Let me tell you something, O’Brien, since you’re going to be joining us.” Sean put out his cigarette in an elegant glass ashtray. “Catherine is unique. She’s my daughter, my only daughter, my only child. She’s the most important thing in the world, the thing that I live for. And because she is what I live for, I want the very best for her. Cathy is off limits. You shouldn’t be interested in her. I don’t want you talking about her to me or anyone else. I don’t even want you thinking about her. All my men know that, and now you know it too. I want the best for my baby, I want her to have it all, a businessman or a politician, not some crook from the Bowery.”
Colin’s mouth hung open. He didn’t know what to say so he remained silent. Sean’s eyes froze in a resolute stare. Then he politely excused himself and rose from his desk. He went over to Max and whispered something. Then he closed the door quietly as he exited his office. Colin was left motionless in his chair.
Max patted Colin on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. He still wants you to join us. He told me himself just now.”
“Is he angry I asked about her?”
Max shrugged then as though he could tell his answer worried Colin, and added, “If for some reason he is, I’m sure he’ll get over it. Sean’s a smart man. He isn’t reckless. Tomorrow he won’t even care. Let’s get a drink. I’ll warn you I can’t return your gun until you leave. I’m afraid you might try to shoot McCarthy.”
Colin saw he was joking and smiled. He followed Max out of the office.
Sean stood with Catherine at the bar as she drank a Shirley Temple garnished with a cherry. She seemed too innocent for her father’s world. Sean glanced at Colin and Max but didn’t appear to pay much attention to them as they sat at the other end of the long bar. Max asked the bartender to bring Colin a scotch. Colin tried not to look at Catherine in the presence of her father, but he felt her glancing at him in the shiny bar mirror. Max patted his back and they drank together.
13
“Why are you coming home so late? Where have you been?” Sheila sat at the small kitchen table in Colin’s apartment drinking a cup of coffee.
“I had work.”
“With who, Lana Turner?” Colin laughed at her joke. “With Tom?”
Colin didn’t reply. “With who then?”
He stood behind Sheila and put his hands on her shoulders. “All you need to know, sweetheart, is that I’m finally working with my own kind and I’m going to be bringing in a whole lot more money soon.” He kissed her graceful neck and then took his hands off her. “We won’t be living here for much longer.”
As a rule, bosses didn’t want their men discussing business with their women, but Sheila pushed.
“That sounds really good, Colin. But, tell me, who are they?” He set his hands on her shoulders again and squeezed tightly.
“Don’t be so curious.” He backed away when she squirmed under his grasp.
“That fucking hurt, Colin.”
He didn’t say anything in return. Sheila continued to drink her coffee and lit a cigarette. Colin could feel her watching him as he left the room.
Catherine McCarthy was beautiful, intelligent, and off limits to Colin. She was too young and too good for him, and her father would maim him if he touched her. And Colin wanted her.
He dreamed about her at night while he was in bed next to Sheila who was beautiful as well. Even as he was making love to Sheila, he’d imagine she was Catherine. When every day Sheila told him how much she loved him, he felt guilty but he still wanted Catherine.
He saw Catherine in person once, and if he was lucky twice, a week at her father’s pub. He met with Max and Sean there in Sean’s office to give a report on Tom and company. Sometimes Colin felt guilty visiting Sean and Max, but every time they embraced him as a Northerner and he got his hands on the cash Sean gave him, that guilt subsided a little more.
Colin was no longer living in his old childhood building fulltime. He had a secret place without Sheila on the Lower West Side, a large, more upscale apartment close to McBurney’s that he’d bought after Sheila began to abuse morphine and he needed to distance himself from her when she’d refused help. But he still kept the apartment in the Bowery so Tom and Sheila wouldn’t become suspicious. And he made sure to be there whenever he expected a phone call from Tom or a visit.
Sometimes though, he didn’t make it there on time or Tom showed up without prior notice. And the next day Tom would ask Colin where he’d been. “What can I tell you?” Colin would reply and shrug his shoulders. “I’ve been having trouble with my lady. I went out for a stroll.”
Catherine occasionally toyed with him, giving him flirtatious glances and little smiles. “Hello, Colin,” she’d whisper in her low, beautiful voice. And then she’d turn around and be on her way. Sometimes, she’d wink. Other times she’d talk to him for a long while, and they’d tell each other about their day and their lives. Her interest in him seemed to strengthen because her father wanted her to have nothing to do with him. Colin never told her he had a girlfriend but somehow she found out.
“How’s Sheila?” Catherine asked him one morning, after he had come into her father’s pub for a meeting with Max.
She’d caught him by surprise. “Your girl, Sheila,” she said.
“How did you hear about her?”
“Max told me.”
“He did?”
Catherine nodded. “Don’t be annoyed with him. He gets weak and will tell me anything if I pout.” Her eyes softened. “How is she?”
“She’s doing fine.” He didn’t want to trouble Catherine with Sheila’s problems.
“Do you treat her well, Colin?”
“I believe I do.”
“That’s good.”
“Why? Are you taking a survey?” Catherine laughed.
“No, just making sure.”
“Making sure about what?”
“In case you and I are an item someday, I’m making sure you know what you’re doing.”
She had caught him by surprise once again. He stared at her for a moment. Then he smiled. “In a few years, maybe. Where’s Theodore?”
“He’s at home today.”
With both McCarthy and Tom to deal with, Colin was busy. But some days he couldn’t help but think about Johnny and the friendship they had long ago and had lost, and about Lucille and their fervent past. Other times he thought about his mother and siblings whom he hadn’t seen in what felt like forever, or his father.
He was proud of his secret apartment. It was a beautiful place, tastefully furnished, with a large, airy bedroom. It had finished wood floors that shone, and long, windows that allowed light to pour inside. It was the opposite of his cramped, airless childhood Bowery
home. But he had no one to show it off to.
Colin and Sheila had recently called it quits. It seemed the more money he made, the more morphine she bought off the street. Both Tom and Sean, although they had no problem distributing drugs to strangers, had certain appearances they wanted to maintain, and they expected their men, and their men’s women and families, to stay clear of drugs. The men and their loved ones could drink, but Colin himself rarely drank anymore.
He hadn’t known what to do with Sheila. He had told her countless times that she needed help and had tried to assist her, but she’d refused every time.
Another thing Colin liked about the apartment was that Sheila still didn’t know where it was. He’d thought. Until one day she began loitering outside his building, hounding him into letting her inside.
He had been coming back from McBurney’s, where he’d met with Max. He had another meeting in an hour with Sean and a few other associates. He had gone home to change into a fresh suit for the meeting.
“Why didn’t you tell me you have a new place? I had to find out for myself by following you around all day. It’s time you gave me some answers, baby. Does Tom know?”
“Sheila, you wouldn’t dare.” Colin used a firm tone.
“Maybe I would.”
“Please go home.”
“I don’t have a home,” she yelled at him.
He looked at her for a moment and wiped the tears from her eyes because he still cared what happened to her. She pressed her face into his hands and he kissed the top of her head. “Why didn’t you let me help you?” he whispered into her soft hair.
“No one can help me,” she said, looking up at him.
He shook his head and went up the stairs to his building and stepped inside. She followed before he could shut the door to the lobby.
“Come on, baby, I’ll sleep with you if you want,” Sheila said in the hallway.
She was still beautiful, but she was a mess. She started to cry and Colin again pleaded with her to go. It gutted him to abandon her, but Tom didn’t like her and McCarthy didn’t know about her problems yet, and that meant she was dangerous for him.
Sheila continued to follow him as he went upstairs to his apartment. He fiddled with his key in the lock. She made him nervous because despite everything he was still drawn to her. Colin struggled not to give in, and he pretended not to listen to her. He didn’t even look at her.
“Colin, you know I love you, honey. Let me come in.”
He felt brave enough to turn around and face her. “You won’t let me help you so go home.” He turned back to open his door.
“I don’t love you anymore anyway. I was lying so you’d let me in.”
Colin shut the door, leaving her standing there in the hallway. He lingered behind his closed door. He listened carefully to make sure she was gone, and when he was certain she was he opened the door again. He took a deep breath and picked up his newspaper from his doormat. Her strong perfume still circled in the air. He tried not to breathe in her familiar scent. He closed and locked the door.
He parted the curtains and looked out the kitchen window and watched Sheila crossing the street. She almost got hit by a car as she dashed through a green light and he winced. She made it to the other side and strolled to wherever she was going now that she was no longer Colin O’Brien’s girl. He doubted she even knew where. Sheila had lost her job, and even her parents avoided her because of her drug problem. She could disappear and no one would miss her – Colin knew what that felt like.
He entered his new kitchen and started a pot of coffee. Then he made his way into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Wearing his clothes and shoes, he leaned back and collapsed into its clean softness. He wasn’t going to give up this good life. He wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it for him. Colin closed his eyes and he didn’t open them until he heard the water boil.
“Look at him. The son of a bitch thinks he’s king now,” Tom said.
Tom sat with Colin in a pub on the Lower West Side and pointed at Sean McCarthy as he stepped out of an impressive car across the street. They had been on the West Side buying guns from a Chicago guy. Everyone used the guy, even McCarthy. After that they had left the guns in the trunk and then parked in front of the pub and gone in for a few drinks.
“Me and Sean used to be mates. Now he thinks he’s the man because he has a penthouse with its own elevator and a summer mansion on Long Island. I also heard he collects art,” Tom spoke with disdain.
Colin sat calmly in his chair. He shrugged and continued to read the day’s newspaper spread out in front of him on the table. His cup of black coffee grew cold at his right. Maybe he’d have a penthouse someday, or a large home on Long Island, or a brownstone house like Tom had. Maybe he’d have all three.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Singers Killed in Plane Crash!
Kennedy for President?
Tom slammed his chunky fist down on the table. “Colin, I’m talking to you.”
“Sorry.” Colin looked up and took a sip of the cold coffee.
Tom drank his Guinness. “Don’t know how you can drink that shite, it’s cold.”
“It’s still got the caffeine.”
“I heard you’re no longer with Sheila. Finally.” Colin nodded.
“That was a good decision on your part.” Tom took another drink. “Look at him now, that fecking McCarthy,” he said as Sean walked back to his car with Max. “Look how proud he is of himself. I ought to go out there and teach him—”
Colin reached over and touched Tom’s shoulder as he started to rise. Working for McCarthy had given him more confidence. “Don’t get too upset, boss. You need to take it easy.” He stared into Tom’s pale blue eyes.
Tom was dying. Lung cancer.
Tom cleared his throat. Colin could see in Tom’s eyes that although he was an old man who had lived a long life, the idea of death and the unknown still frightened him.
“Don’t treat me like an ill old man. Show me some respect, won’t you?”
Colin murmured an apology.
Tom took a gulp of Guinness and stared at the wall behind Colin. Colin knew Tom had assumed Errol would be the one to gain control of the Bowery after Tom’s death. Now, Colin could see that the thought of Sean McCarthy possibly gaining control of the Bowery after Tom’s death angered Tom.
“Sean’s a greedy bastard, but I always thought that, out of respect for me, he would leave the Bowery to us,” Tom said to Colin. “The Declans understood the code of respect. Sean? Not as much.”
Colin waited for Tom to ask him for his thoughts on how Sean McCarthy had achieved such success within the Bowery in just a matter of months. He imagined the idea of McCarthy, who was Tom’s former acquaintance, owning Tom’s Bowery streets, didn’t sit well with Tom.
Tom was determined to find the betrayer fast. He had had been discussing it with Colin in the car earlier as they’d parked by the pub. Tom had suspected that it was Little Bill. Colin didn’t give his opinion then either. He watched the transition of power with indifference. Sure, Tom would buy Colin a cup of coffee, but because Colin was a Northerner, Tom would never show him genuine respect. He had finally come to realize that. Sean McCarthy was Northern like him and that meant something. He was also giving Colin more money, and since Tom had chosen Jack O’Clery to be his successor instead of Colin, Colin figured he had little to lose when Sean took control. He felt Sean would promote him soon.
Of all the things Colin had learned in the business, the one that mattered most was that betrayal was irrelevant so long as you were doing it to better yourself and could protect yourself from any consequences. That’s how men survived in the streets.
14
A Few Years Later
A while back Catherine McCarthy had married Albert Devine, the son of a wealthy and respectable business associate of her father’s from Boston, but now she was a widow. Albert Devine was a young, budding politician. Who would have thought he’d get stung by a bee and die two and a
half years after he and Catherine wed? He hadn’t known he was allergic. Catherine had lived in Boston with her husband, but now she was back in New York. Colin hadn’t seen her in all that time. She now had a two-year-old daughter. Colin suspected Catherine’s marriage had been arranged by her father in order to get her out of New York and away from Colin.
He ran into her at Sean’s pub. “Colin O’Brien!”
Colin smiled and waved. Catherine had filled out, from the pregnancy, probably, but her husband’s death hadn’t appeared to have changed her much. She was even reading a book.
“Mrs. Devine.”
Catherine blushed and set down her book on the bar. “Please, call me Catherine.” She smiled.
Colin nodded. “I heard about your husband. I’m sorry. I truly am.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes reddened and he felt bad he’d brought up her husband’s death. She seemed more mature than when he’d last seen her.
“How have you been doing?”
“All right. You?”
“Okay, thanks. I heard you have a daughter.”
Catherine’s eyes brightened. “Yes, I do. Her name’s Violet. Do you want to see a picture of her?” She reached for her purse on the bar.
Colin sat next to her and she handed him the photograph.
It was a professional picture like the ones purchased from department stores. Colin gazed at the photo of the young child. She had her mother’s dimples and shining blue eyes, and rosebud lips, but what must have been her father’s red hair.
“She’s beautiful.” He handed Catherine back the photograph.
“Thanks. Are you still backstabbing for my father?”
Colin frowned. Then she grinned and he realized she’d made a joke.
“I was only kidding,” she said as though she sensed his discomfort. “My father appreciates your help.”
“Of course.” Colin’s face burned as he continued to sit with her.
His conscious was suddenly bothering him. “I have to go now.”
