Flood (8 page)

Mustache was suspicious. He stood looking down at Andy, frowning. “What's your full name, kid?”

“Andy Flynn.”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“And Vinny is your father?” “That's right.”

Glasses said doubtfully, “A kid's a serious responsibility, Vinny.”

“Don't I know it. Now that I have Andy,” said Vincent Flynn, “now he's no longer with his mother — may the angels and saints protect her and the Mother of Divine Sorrows give the soul of the poor unfortunate woman rest — my life has taken on a new purpose. You're right. It'll not be easy to raise a young boy, poor as I am, and with all the crime and wickedness there is in this city. It's a good thing we have the priests and the police to keep us all on the narrow path of virtue — have another drop; it'll warm yiz on a cold mornin'.” He poured an inch and a half of whiskey into the policemen's glasses.

Mustache said, “I've two of my own, and I know what you mean. I worry about them. It's a different world they're born into nowadays, right enough. Jack here has three.” He jerked his chin at Glasses. “Isn't that right, Jack?”

Jack looked into his empty glass and nodded sadly.

“Have a drop more before yiz go,” said Andy's father, wielding the bottle. “It's dreadful cold out there.”

“It's brutal,” agreed Mustache, holding out his empty glass.

“Desperate,” said Jack, doing the same.

“Stay out of trouble, Vinny,” Mustache said before they left.

“And mind you take good care of the boy,” said Jack, scowling.

Vinny jumped up and slipped the bolt back on the door, then opened the window and wrestled the boxes back inside, damp now with the rain.

Andy watched him. The boxes had cigarette brand names printed on them. “You didn't steal the cigarettes from a warehouse, did you, Dad?”

“Of course not! Those two thicks are paid to be suspicious; it's their job; but I don't hold it against them. All they want is the drink. They know very well I came by the cigs honestly. I don't have a vendor's license to sell cigarettes; that's my only crime.”

“Then why not get a vendor's license?” asked Andy. “Then they can't put you in prison.”

His father ripped open one of the boxes and started removing cartons of cigarettes and carrying them into the bedroom. Andy slid off the sofa and followed him in. He was on his knees pushing the cartons under the bed. “The license is dreadful expensive,” his father explained. “Besides, I don't have a shop. City Hall will give no licenses to itinerant peddlers.”

Andy didn't know what an itinerant peddler was. In fact, he found the whole cigarette business extremely
confusing. He knew in his heart that his father was innocent of any crime. But why had he lied about being home all night? And why was he hiding the cigarettes from the police, first outside on the fire escape and now under the bed? Just because he had no license? And wasn't it a coincidence that the warehouse was broken into the same night his father came home with the boxes? And that his father and Cassidy were seen at the warehouse?

Before any further disloyal suspicions could enter his head, he said quickly, “Don't worry, Vinny, I won't let them take you away to prison. I'll tell the judge what a good father you are and how much I need you to look after me. And even if they do put you behind bars, I'll rescue you in a daring prison escape.” Now he was calling him Vinny instead of Father — what had happened to that new Dad word he'd been practicing?— as if his father were a Mafia hood or something.

“That's my boy!” Vinny grabbed him and kissed him enthusiastically on the top of his tangled head. “The finest son a man could have. Lucky, lucky man that I am!”

His father
was
a Vinny, Andy realized; the name sat on him like a tailored suit; he looked like a Vinny, he smelled like a Vinny, he was the very essence of Vinnyness, which meant he was dangerous and unpredictable and exciting; it was as though he'd walked straight out of a Robert De Niro movie. He was a man who took chances, who lived dangerously, who had the police searching his home, not like boring old Clay, who had gone to his office every day in a
suit, shirt, and tie and whose only brushes with the law involved parking tickets.

Living dangerously
. The words sent a thrill through him.

Vinny finished stashing the cartons of cigarettes under the bed; then he pulled on a pair of socks, an unironed shirt, and his food-stained sweater, and filled the inside pockets of his raincoat with packages of cigarettes torn fresh from their cartons, stuffing them into the deep secret pockets. Grabbing the empty raisins saucer off the table, he hurried into the kitchen. Andy heard the fridge door open and close. “What happened to the raisins I had in the fridge?” his father asked in alarm.

“I was hungry, so I ate them.”

“Ah! They're not for eating, Andy. They're — now what will I do?— be a good boy and don't eat the raisins, you hear? I'll get more while I'm out.” He went back to the fridge and placed the raisins saucer, now filled with milk, back in the center of the table, frowning and muttering to himself, “The milk will have to hold them.” He grasped the bottom of the window, slid it up, and climbed out onto the wet fire escape.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

Vinny popped his head back inside and grinned. “Business.”

“Why are you going out that way?”

“Fresh air. See you later, darlin'.”

“You haven't washed, Vinny,” Andy called after him. “Or cleaned your teeth. Or shaved. And you haven't had
your cup of tea.” Hut he'd had plenty of whiskey, he remembered. He leaned out the window and watched his father worriedly as he diminished in size, climbing down the iron steps. Andy hadn't washed either, and in all the excitement had forgotten to tell Vinny about the cockroaches. He slipped into his sneakers, grabbed his jacket, climbed out the window into the rain, and clanged his way down the rickety metal fire escape, hands sliding down rusted metal handrails while loose anchor bolts shifted and groaned in the crumbling concrete and the ancient structure shuddered and shifted with his weight as he hurried after Vinny. After his father. After Dad.

They scrambled down the fire escape after the boy.

“‘Twas dreadful cold out here,” complained a Young One who had been trapped in a box of cigarette cartons on the fire escape when Vinny closed the window.

“Serves you right for sleeping in boxes,” said another.

“Boxes are warm.”

“Boxes get moved.”

“It was I who closed the curtain so the police couldn't see — “ began another proudly.

“Yes, well done,” the Old One interrupted impatiently. “Now hurry! Keep your eyes on the boy.”

HE SPOTTED HIM hurrying out of Noonan's. “Wait up, Vinny!” he yelled.

But his father didn't hear him, scuttling along, elbows flapping like the wings of a bird.

The thin rain was cold on Andy's face. As he hurried along behind Vinny, he noticed for the first time that his father had, not a limp exactly, but a slight dip, or tilt, on his right side, as if one leg was a bit shorter than the other. Vinny tilted.

The street was busy with pedestrians and traffic. Andy had to dodge around people. He ran and caught his father waiting at a corner for the light. “Wait, Vinny. I've got to talk to you.”

Vinny smiled. “There's altogether too much talk in the world already, Andy. It's what causes most of the trouble.” He looked left and right.

“I want to talk about… about…” Andy was confused. It was Vinny's business that puzzled him: stale cigarettes. “What will happen if they don't believe you didn't steal the
cigarettes and they send you to jail? Or they arrest you for selling without a license? Don't you care?” Vinny walked fast. Andy almost had to run to keep up with him. “Stop and talk to me, Vinny.”

Vinny turned sharply and disappeared into a pub called Ryan's.

Andy started to follow, but the stale smell of beer and smoke drove him back; he waited outside in the shelter of the doorway and watched people go by, leaning into the rain with their umbrellas.

Vinny came back to get him. “Come in for a minute, will you? I want you to meet some friends. Come in.”

He followed him in reluctantly.

“This is my Andy,” Vinny announced proudly to the men in the bar. “Aren't I the most fortunate man in all the world?”

The men crowded around enthusiastically and shook Andy by the hand or mussed his already mussed hair. Then they slapped Vinny on the back. “Sit down, Vinny, and I'll buy you a drink,” said one of the men. “And the lad, too.”

“I'll wait outside,” said Andy, the smoke stinging his eyes.

When Vinny reappeared some minutes later, he set off again, his raincoat a little lighter, its tail flapping behind him like a parachute. “Go back,” he said to Andy. “You'll be drowned following about after me.”

“No. You've got to talk to me.”

Vinny disappeared into another pub.

Andy waited.

Vinny popped his head back out the door. “Come in for a minute. Bob MacIntosh and Ian Holt are dying to meet you.”

“No thanks. I'll wait here,” said Andy.

Vinny went in and brought out a crowd to meet him. Andy had to shake hands with every one of them.

When Vinny emerged, they set off again.

“MacIntosh and Holt are Scots. But they're all right.”

They were passing a coffee shop. Andy grabbed Vinny's arm and dragged him inside. “Let's sit and have a bottle of pop, Father, please? I need to talk to you, and I can't talk while I'm running to keep up.”

Andy sat while Vinny shuffled reluctantly to the self-serve counter, returned with a tray laden with pop, glass, teapot, spoon, milk, and cup and saucer, and sat down opposite him and began stirring the pot with the spoon.

“Tell me things.”

“What things?” Vinny lit a cigarette. His eyes smiled at Andy through curls of blue smoke.

“I need you to tell me things like… what will we do if they send you to jail?”

“That will never happen, Andy, rest your mind on that. Your father is completely innocent.”

“I know. I believe you. But —”

“Don't worry your young head, Andy. Everything will be all right. There. Now do you feel better?”

Andy didn't feel better. He stared into his father's twinkling eyes. “I'll feel better when you stop selling cigarettes
without a license and get a normal job. And I'll feel better when we find a nicer place to live.” There, he'd said it: the Mayo was a dump.

His father looked hurt. “So you don't like my place.”

“It's — well…” Andy faltered. Then he remembered the cockroaches. “There's cockroaches, thousands of them, swarming all over. You didn't warn me. What happens if they bite me and give me some disease? They give me the creeps. And the place is small with the two of us living there — I know you weren't expecting me, but you've had time by now to think about me, haven't you?” He searched Vinny's face. “Haven't you, Father?”

“Aren't you on my mind all the time? We'll make plans, Andy, I promise, okay?”

“And I get worried when you stay out late. I'm only eleven, you know. I'm a kid, not a grownup.”

“You're more grownup than a lot of grownups I know. Anyway, leave it to me. I told you. We'll make plans, all right?” Vinny got up. “I'll be back in a jiff.”

Andy looked around for him a few minutes later and saw him joking with customers up at the bar as he sold them cigarettes.

When he came back, Andy said, “What about the cockroaches?”

“Cockroaches will do you no harm, Andy. They don't bite. Take no notice of them. It's people you need to watch out for, not God's harmless creatures who were on this earth a million years before mankind and who'll be here a million years after the last one of us is gone.”