Blood and Bone

by William Lashner

  "You mean left her by dying."

  "Yeah, that's what I mean."

  "I miss him, too," said Kyle.

  "I know you do," said Uncle Max. "And that's another of the things he done that pisses me off."

  "Sometimes I wonder how different everything would have been if he hadn't died, you know?"

  "All that wondering, it gives you gas, Kyle. It's better to not think about it."

  "Maybe, but I can't help feeling that my father's death is at the root of what my life has become. By finding out what happened to him, I can maybe find out what the hell happened to me."

  "What the hell's so wrong with you? You're doing okay, aren't you?"

  "Look at me, Uncle Max, and tell me I'm doing okay." Max looked Kyle in the eyes for a moment before his gaze slipped to the right.

  "See?" said Kyle.

  "Do you really think what happened to Toth had something to do with your father?"

  "I don't know."

  "It doesn't make any sense that it would."

  "You're probably right."

  "I mean, he ain't been around for fourteen years."

  "I know."

  "My guess is there's nothing to it."

  "You're probably right."

  "So it's best to forget about it."

  "I guess so."

  "But you're not going to."

  "I don't know."

  Max pursed his lips and rubbed his bulbous nose, and it looked for a moment like he was really thinking things through, which was strange, because Max never thought things through. Thinking, he always said, only served to stir up the blood. But Max thought it through for a while before lifting his beer to his lips, draining it, and slamming the bottle back onto the table.

  "Maybe you got to do what you got to do," he said finally.

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. Maybe you ought to find out what the hell is going on. Maybe you owe it to your mother. And yourself."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know, who the hell knows? Did I ever tell you I saw that girl Tricia again?"

  "Tricia? Wasn't she the—"

  "Yeah."

  "The one who blew you off when you were in Vietnam?"

  "Yeah, that's her. Tricia, right. So last year I scored some tickets to the ball game, in one of them fancy lounges, and as I'm walking to my seat, I see her. Tricia."

  "How'd she look?"

  "Pretty good. She always looked pretty good. She didn't look great, mind you—we're all getting older now, and so none of us look all that great, me included—but still she looked . . . pretty damn good."

  "It must have been hard."

  "You'd think, right? I mean, I got to tell you, that broad she messed me up but good. Enough tears to baptize the whole fricking neighborhood. I mean, I was a mess when I first came back, and that was like the final push. And everything what happened to me along the way after that, I couldn't help thinking it would have been different I was still with Tricia. But then I saw her. And she recognized me, too, so we stopped and chatted."

  "And she looked good."

  "Yeah, but not that good. And the guy she married, he's a schlub. And she was talking about her kids like they was the most fascinating things in the world. And she was dressed like she was going to church. I mean, it's a ball game. And the schlub, he's dressed, too, like it was her that set out his clothes. And you want to know something, Kyle? After I saw her, and we had our nice little talk, and I said goodbye, and I walked along to my seat, I got to tell you, despite my aching back I had a hop in my step."

  "She must not have looked that good."

  "No, I'm telling you, she looked good, not great. I mean, compared to the porn, she looked like a fifty-four-year-old in turquoise slacks, but it wasn't that. It was like I had dodged something."

  "Okay, Tricia."

  "Look, I don't know what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is, sometimes it can do you good to find out the truth."

  "Like about my dad."

  "To put the legends to rest."

  "Okay."

  "But where would you even start? What questions would you ask, and who would you be asking?"

  "I don't know. I guess I'll start by grabbing hold of that file for that O'Malley fellow and seeing what he has to say."

  "Sounds screwy."

  "Yes, it does."

  "But what could it hurt, right?"

  "Okay," said Kyle. "Maybe I'll do it."

  "Good."

  "Yeah, good." Kyle paused, took a sip, looked at his Uncle Max. Kyle had always felt a little sorry for him, living alone in his mom's old house, drinking his nights away at the Olde Pig Snout, but Kyle wouldn't feel sorry for him anymore. Uncle Max was living the life he chose, which was more than Kyle could say about himself.

  Uncle Max caught Kyle staring. "What?" he said.

  "Turquoise slacks?"

  A slight chuckle. "Yeah."

  "Man, oh, man," said Kyle, "that Tricia, she must have looked like shit."

  CHAPTER 11

  LIAM BYRNE HAD BEEN many things: faithless lover, indifferent father, but more than anything he had been a devoted and passionate lawyer. And the holy of holies within the temple of Liam Byrne was always the office.

  Kyle Byrne had often passed the stone town house with the sign bolted to the wall, and his heart had always skipped a beat at seeing his father's name still outlined in raised brass letters on the Byrne & Toth sign. But for all the times he had passed the building, he hadn't once stepped inside. His father had never invited him in while he was alive, and Kyle had never mustered the courage to enter after his father had died. Maybe it was the apprehension of running into the ferocious Laszlo Toth that had kept him at bay. If so, at least that fear had been buried.

  So now, instead of staring up at the second-floor windows and wondering what strange and mystical clues to the truth about Liam Byrne lay inside, he moseyed up the stairs, rubbing his finger across his father's name as he passed the sign. A quick yank to open the door, and in he stepped onto sacred ground.

  The woman sitting behind the desk of the ground-floor lobby gave him a who-the-hell-are-you look that was so fetching it almost made Kyle forget why he was there. "Can I help you?" she said.

  "Maybe you can," said Kyle, glancing around the fancy room. There were prints of birds on the walls, there was a wood-paneled elevator at the far end with an ornate wooden staircase wrapping around it. Kyle was wearing his usual outfit—cargo shorts, high-top black sneakers, and a ringer T-shirt—and where he usually felt at home in his clothes, here, in his father's territory with its ornate furnishings and its air of officialism, he felt strangely underdressed. He turned his attention back to the woman, who was actually quite beautiful, with short dark hair, big brown eyes, lashes. Suddenly unsure of what he was doing there, he fell into his most comfortable pattern.

  "Who do you think are more inherently honest," he said as he leaned an arm on her desk and played out his lines, "men or women?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "I was having this bet with a friend, and I said women are more inherently honest."

  "That's what you said?"

  "I'm the trusting sort."

  "Well, however much you bet," she said, "it was too much. But if you want me to hold the stakes . . ." He laughed.

  "Is that why you came in?" she said. "To settle a bet?"

  "You have something there." He touched his own face as he leaned toward her. "Right there on your cheek. Yeah, that's it. Good. No, I need to see someone from that law firm upstairs."

  "Byrne & Toth?"

  "That's the one."

  "I'm sorry, but the law firm of Byrne & Toth is closed for the time being."

  "Vacation?"

  "It's a little more serious, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to have to tell you the news, but Mr. Toth passed away."

  "Really? How?"

  She looked at him with sincere brown eyes. "Heart attack," she said.

  "Maybe I am going to lose that bet," said Kyle. "How ma
ny lawyers are left working there?"

  "Two, but I have strict instructions that there are to be no visitors."

  "Why don't you give them a call? My last name is Byrne, as in Liam Byrne, though I'm the son, not the father, seeing as my father is dead. Tell them that the son of Liam Byrne is here to speak with them. That should pique their interest."

  A short, sharp-faced man with a barrel chest and small, shiny black shoes came down the stairs to meet him. Kyle had seen him at the Toth funeral, standing behind the grieving widow, looking like a self-important bulldog.

  "Hello?" said the man, eyeing Kyle's T-shirt and shorts as if they were an insult. "Mr. Byrne? My name's Ben Malcolm. Can I help you?" It was not a welcoming salutation, Hello, nice to see you, more an accusation, Hello, what the hell are you doing here? It's always gratifying to get off on the right foot. Kyle instinctively did the calculation. In a fair fight, he could take the man easily, but there was something in this Malcolm's eyes that told him it wouldn't be a fair fight.

  "I think I saw you at Mr. Toth's funeral," said Kyle. "You were there with a very attractive woman, if I recall."

  "My wife."

  "Ahh, good for you. Well done," said Kyle, even as he noticed the receptionist's pretty mouth tighten. "I was hoping you could help me. I have some family matters to clear up, and I need to look through my father's old files to get a grip on things."

  Malcolm stared at Kyle like he had two heads. "Your father was Liam Byrne?"

  "He was."

  "And you want to look through his old files?"

  "Exactly," said Kyle. "To get a grip on things."

  "Your English is very good. The lessons must be working. I've got some time now, so I figured you wouldn't mind if I went up and sort of poked around."

  "I'm sorry," said Malcolm without sounding very sorry, "but no, you can't poke around. I wasn't here when your father passed away, but I'm sure everything of a personal nature went right to Mrs. Byrne upon your father's death. Is that your mother?"

  "Ahh, not exactly."

  "Still, maybe you can get what you're looking for from her. But we can't just let you paw through our files. There is confidential matter in each and every one of them. It would be totally improper."

  "I don't mean to tell anybody about anything. I just want to look."

  "It doesn't matter what you intend, don't you see? What you're asking is impossible. Is there anything specific you're looking for?"

  Kyle thought for a moment. The O'Malley file was what he was after, the key to unlock O'Malley's information about his father, but there was something dishonest in Malcolm's gaze, like he was pre tending not to care what Kyle was doing there when in fact he cared very much.

  "No, nothing specific."

  "Then there's nothing we can do for you. After Mr. Toth's death, the firm can't really continue as it is currently constituted. I've already begun a new job and am just helping to close this office down. Any active cases will be given back to the clients, anything inactive will be destroyed."

  "Destroyed? Before I can look at them?"

  "That's right."

  "But there might be something personal in the files that would mean a great deal to me. Emotionally, I mean."

  "I'm sure there isn't."

  "Can't I just look around? I'm trying to get a better sense of my dad. I didn't know him very well."

  "All childhoods are tragic in their way, Mr. Byrne."

  "Is there any other—"

  "No," said Malcolm, cutting him off. "There is no other option. I'm sorry. Thank you for coming. And thank you for leaving, too."

  Kyle tensed his neck for a moment, preparing to get physical, and then he noticed the woman behind the desk, watching the whole thing quite closely, more interested than a disinterested observer. Was there something going on between the two? Kyle wouldn't put it past a pug like Malcolm. So if he decked the little bastard, the receptionist would call the cops, the cops would shove him into handcuffs, and that would be the end of any chance of finding the O'Malley file. On the other hand, it would feel damn good, which was almost reason enough to just haul off and do it.

  But he didn't do it. He didn't hit the stonewalling Malcolm in the face or barge right past the lawyer on the way up the stairs or even hold his ground and refuse to move until some accommodation was made. Instead Kyle shrugged, said, "Yeah, okay, whatever," and left, retreated, just walked away.

  Walking away had always been his trademark move whenever he faced an obstacle that couldn't be breached. Walk away, find a bar, pound a beer, move on. And it had worked for him in the past, hadn't it? So that was it. The first step was barred, Kyle's old instincts kicked in, and just that quick his little detective play was over. Time to give Skitch a call and get hammered.

  And in the lobby the lawyer Malcolm watched with the slightest of smiles as Kyle's demeanor collapsed into weakness and he retreated without a fuss. After Kyle had left, Malcolm gave instructions to the girl at the desk, whom he absolutely was screwing on the side. Then he went upstairs to the offices of Byrne & Toth and placed a call.

  CHAPTER 12

  ROBERT SPANGLER SAT low in his car in the alleyway just south of Locust Street. He had parked within a wide shadow falling upon the cobbled street, so the interior of his car was quite dark. The spot was a bit far from the door he was watching, but this way a glance down the street from that same door would catch the car, yes, but nothing of the man inside, sitting low and waiting. In the shadows. Sometimes it seemed that within every individual moment of his life lay the ghost of the whole.

  The call had come sooner than he'd expected. "Bobby dear," she had said over the phone, in a voice that wrapped around his gut like an anaconda, "I thought you said there wouldn't be any problems."

  Robert had closed his eyes and felt her disappointment wash over him like a wave of cold seawater. The sensation had become so familiar throughout the course of his life that it was almost comforting, an assurance that the immutable laws of the universe remained safely intact. "What kind of problems?"

  "It's the son of that lawyer, the one you took care of so long ago."

  "Byrne? Okay. What about him?"

  "He's been asking questions. I never liked school much, Bobby, did you know that? All those questions just served to infuriate me. I only wanted answers."

  "Where were these questions asked?"

  "At the legal offices where you had your meeting with our friend a few nights ago. The son was turned away, thankfully."

  "Better had he been let inside."

  "Really? Why is that, dear?"

  "Because I purposely made contact with the boy and mentioned the O'Malley file. He's simply looking for it as I intended him to."

  "But, Bobby dear, why ever in the world would you do something so stupid?"

  "Our friend indicated that the lawyer Byrne might have taken some files out of the office before he died. I was concerned the boy might know where they were, so I set him on the trail. But his showing up at the office means he doesn't know anything more than we do."

  "Don't get too clever, Bobby. It doesn't suit you."

  "My guess is he's given up already. But even if he tries to break in, he'll find nothing and slink off. Either way he won't cause a problem."

  "Make sure that he doesn't," she said. "Make sure that he disappears. And don't be afraid of giving him a nudge. This is no time for gentleness." The click of her hanging up on him was like the disapproving cluck of her tongue. No matter how many times he heard it, it never failed to bite.

  And it was that bite that chased him here in the middle of the night, here in the shadows, outside the rear door of the building that housed the offices of Byrne & Toth where just a few days before he had killed a man and tasted anew the sweet acid of his obeisance toward her, waiting now for the son of Liam Byrne.

  Robert had been impressed by the Byrne boy's size—he was a big, handsome kid with broad shoulders—and admired the way he flirted with the pretty cop, but clo
se up there had been something wet in the eyes and soft in the mouth. Realistically, they didn't have much to fear from such weakness, but it was hard to make her appreciate that. She never understood people, only the geometry of things. The boy was loose, he was a threat, and so she would have her Bobby deal with him. Just a nudge, she had said, a nudge to make him disappear, and Robert knew very well what she meant by that. And even if she didn't expect him to go so far, a nudge might only serve to waken him. And if he did awaken, it would have to end in the same way.

  But Robert didn't want to go through it again, didn't want that taste in his mouth anymore. He had thought it through and come up with an idea that might just satisfy them both. Which was why he was here, sitting in the shadows, hoping the boy fell into his little trap.

  Wait, there, by the door, what was that? A pair of silhouettes, a flash of something, and then a beam wavering as it directed itself up and down and over and around until it focused on the doorknob and the lock above it.

  Robert had to say this for the boy, he had more initiative than Robert had given him credit for. And he hadn't made Robert wait long.

  CHAPTER 13

  SKITCH WAS DRUNK. You could tell by the way he laughed when one of his lock-picking tools fell to the cement in front of the door.

  And when Kyle tipped the flashlight down, bent over to help the search for the missing implement, and banged his head into Skitch's— resounding like two coconuts smashing one against the other—you could figure that Kyle was a little drunk, too.

  "Ow, bro."

  "Dude," said Kyle.

  "Just hold the light steady."

  "I'm trying. What's taking so long?"

  "This lock is just kinda tricky."

  "I guess they're all tricky after six beers."

  "No, bro, the beer helps. It sensitizes the fingers. What time is it anyway?"

  "Two."

  "Still early. You want to hit a club after this?"