Iris Avenue (24 page)

“What about the wake?” Ed asked.

“That bunch of old farts will be passed out by midnight,” Patrick said. “Tonight we kick some Pendleton Pirate ass, then we go to the wake; tomorrow morning I’ll dig the grave myself.”

By six o’clock the possibility of kicking anyone’s ass seemed slight. Two of the Thorns’ players were out of commission with stomach flu. Ed was sitting at the bar in the Rose and Thorn, reading the rule book to see if substitute players could be drafted this close to game time.

“C’mon, Ed,” Patrick urged him. “We only have an hour.”

“Who could we get this late, anyway?” Scott asked.

“My brother Sean, for one,” Patrick said, and picked up the phone to call him.

FBI agent Jamie Brown walked into the bar. He raised his eyebrows briefly at the corpse in the casket but did not comment.

“Could I have whatever’s on tap?” he asked Patrick as he sat down next to Scott.

Patrick tucked the phone into the crook of his neck and drew a pint of Guinness.

“On the house,” he said. “After mucking around in that stench, you deserve a free shot as well.”

He poured Jamie a shot of whiskey and then Sean answered his call so Patrick turned his attention away to talk to his brother.

“You get those statements?” Jamie asked Scott.

“Yes, sir,” Scott said. “They’re on my desk. Do you want me to go get them?”

“Not tonight,” Jamie said. “I’ll pick them up tomorrow. What’s Ed doing?”

“He’s reading the rule book to see if we can pick up players this close to game time. Our two best shooters are out with stomach flu.”

“This a league game?” Jamie asked.

Patrick got off the phone and told Scott, “Sean’s in. What about you, G-man? You shoot any hoops?” He was looking at Jamie.

“I was All State center my junior and senior year.”

Ed threw down the rule book, saying, “All we need is a doctor’s signature on the health form and the twenty dollar league fee.”

They all turned as one to look at Doc Machalvie, who was drunk as a skunk and raising his glass to the embalmed corpse of Tim MacGregor.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Patrick said, and popped open the cash register to retrieve two twenties.

A couple of tourists walked into the bar and Mandy and Patrick both turned and said, “We’re closed for a private party,” at the same time. The tourists turned and left.

“There’s a sign on the door,” Mandy said. “It’s like they can’t read or something.”

Ed went to the office in the back room to download the physician’s release forms off the league’s website. Sean came rushing in and seemed taken aback at the sight of his recently deceased maternal grandfather, who was lying in a coffin, wearing the full dress kilt complete with sporran and a tam on his head.

“That was unexpected,” he said, plopping down on a stool next to Jamie. Scott introduced them, but of course Sean already knew Jamie.

“Do you need a permit to do that?” Jamie said as he gestured at the corpse.

“What? Are you a wake inspector or something?” Patrick asked him.

“No, thank goodness,” Jamie said. “I’m not.”

“This is a private party and Grandpa Tim is the honored guest,” Patrick said. “You may join us after the game if you want, when Grandpa Tim will be buying drinks for the house until the wee hours of the morning.”

“I’d be honored,” Jamie said.

“Don’t you need to be at Ava’s?” Scott asked him.

“I have more agents there now than I have people to protect,” Jamie said. “Besides, I’m on the night shift. I can hang out ‘til midnight.”

Hannah arrived to tend bar and as soon as Doc Machalvie finished signing off on the physician release forms the members of the team adjourned to walk up the hill to the Community Center.

“Gooooooo Pricks!” Hannah and Mandy called after them.

At Jamie’s questioning look Scott explained, “Our team name is the Rose Hill Thorns.”

“Ah, I see,” Jamie said.

Hannah tended bar while Mandy attempted to wait tables. A wake was pretty much like every other private party, except the booze was free and the guest of honor was dead. Mandy quickly got tired of fetching shots for what she called a “rowdy bunch of wrinkled ass-pinchers” and finally put a fifth of whiskey and two pitchers of beer on every table.

“Ain’t none of them geezers even gonna tip me,” she complained to Hannah. “So what’s the point of waitin’ on ‘em hand and foot all night?”

Hannah put a compilation of World War II and 50’s crooner music on the bar sound system. The wake attendees sang along with Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and all the other singers they grew up listening to, and it seemed to mellow them out into a more manageable if maudlin group. Now that the senior citizens were taken care of, Mandy sat on a bar stool and chatted with Hannah.

“What did Sam do when he proposed to you?” Mandy asked.

“Well,” Hannah said. “When my brother Quinn left home to go in the Army, my parents decided to sell the farm and move to town. I wanted to buy it, but my father said I couldn’t run it all by myself, so Sam said let’s get married and live there together.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

“Sam Campbell is not a romantic man. He’s a smart, hardworking man, but he’s not sentimental, not at all.”

“Was this before he went to college?”

“No, a couple years after. He graduated from MIT and then worked in Pittsburgh for two years for an IT firm. He decided to start his own company with a couple guys he met there, and eventually he bought them out.”

“Did you know Ed’s wife?” Mandy asked. “I never met her.”

“Eve? Oh yes, I knew her. She didn’t like me, but she tolerated me for Ed’s sake.”

“Was she a bitch?” Mandy asked, hopefully.

“Absolutely,” Hannah said. “She’s super smart but has no sense of humor, whatsoever. She doesn’t just have a stick up her butt, it’s the North Pole.”

“Really? I got the idea she was Miss Perfect.”

“No, not at all. She was sharp and hard, not sweet and cuddly. That’s why Ed loves you so much.”

“Cause I’m stupid and soft?”

“No, silly. Because you have a sense of humor and you’re affectionate. A man needs to laugh and feel loved.”

Mandy looked distressed.

“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked her. “You two fighting?”

“No, Mandy said. “We’re just going down a patch of hard road.”

“You haven’t been together that long.”

“I think Ed is sorry we done moved in together so quick.”

“You’re looking for things to worry about. Didn’t he buy a new car for you?”

“That ole thing,” Mandy said. “Did you see it? It’s uglier than sin. He’s got this idea of his self as a family man now, and he thinks that’s a family man’s car. It’s an old man’s car, is what it is.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Hannah said. “As long as you’re part of the family.”

“Oh, he’s crazy ‘bout Tommy. They get along great. I couldn’t ask for a better dad for him. I think maybe I’m just the fries that go with that hamburger. I think Ed would be happy with just the hamburger.”

“You’re wrong, Mandy. Any man would be lucky to have you. Ed loves you.”

“I’m telling’ ya, I got a bad feelin’. It wouldn’t take much of a wind to knock this whole thing over.”

“Talk to him about it, then. You’ll probably find out you’re upset over nothing. I know Ed’s worried about the newspaper. The price of printing and paper keeps going up, but the subscriptions and advertising revenues are going down. He was talking about that the other night in here.”

“I didn’t know that. He shouldn’t be buyin’ cars if he’s havin’ money troubles.”

“Me and my big mouth.” Hannah said. “He probably doesn’t want to worry you.”

“We’re gonna have to have us a big talk,” Mandy said. “I’m just dreadin’ it, is all.”

When they arrived at the Community Center, which used to be Rose Hill High School before consolidation, Patrick, Scott, Sean, Ed, and Jamie met the rest of the team in the locker room. Tony Delvecchio seemed especially shocked to see Sean, but soon recovered.

“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” Tony said, shaking his hand.

“Thanks,” Sean said. “I hope we can talk later.”

Patrick was team captain, and retired high school coach Floyd Riggenbach was the team coach. Patrick introduced Sean and Jamie, and gave Coach the paperwork and forty dollars.

“You, I remember,” Coach said, pointing to Sean. “I never could get you to play ball. Always had your nose stuck in some book.”

Coach took the paperwork and fees upstairs to the gym, where he anticipated an argument with the Pendleton coach over eligibility.

Patrick found uniforms for Sean and Jamie and they went upstairs to run some drills in the fifteen minutes they had left before game time. The Pendleton team members made fun of them from their side of the court.

Barty McNulty, the captain of the Pendleton team, sidled up to Patrick.

“I see you’re missing your ringers, Patty Fitzpatty.”

“I see you’re missing your balls, Farty McNutty.”

“Care to make it interesting?” Barty asked.

“Always,” Patrick said, who had already thought up a very unusual bet.

When Patrick told him what he proposed, Barty said, “You’re crazy.”

But he shook on it anyway.

So it came to pass that on a cold March night in the small town of Rose Hill, while the Thorns celebrated their 99/97 victory by drinking whiskey at the wake of Timothy MacGregor, Barty McNulty and the Pendleton Pirates were up at the Rose Hill Cemetery, digging a grave. By hand.

Maggie stood inside the darkened front room of Fitzpatrick’s Service Station, watching the eleven o’clock bus arrive in the parking lot of the Dairy Chef next door. She’d come for the nine o’clock bus but he hadn’t been on it. When she returned at ten forty-five, Gabe’s wife and son could be seen, along with Lily Crawford, sitting in a dark car she’d never seen before, driven by a blonde man she didn’t know.

The bus pulled in at ten after eleven, and only one passenger disembarked. She thought she would have known him anywhere even though she could barely make out his features. Her heart thumped hard in her chest and she felt short of breath. The doors of the dark car opened and the young boy jumped out and rushed into Gabe’s arms. Gabe held the boy close and stroked his hair while the blonde man took his luggage from the bus driver, and the mother of the boy hung back with Lily, who kept a protective arm around her. Then Gabe walked toward his wife, with his arm around his son.

He passed through the light of a streetlamp and Maggie could see his face. His hair was close cropped and he was clean shaven. He looked tired; he looked older. He said something to his wife, shook Lily’s hand, and then they all got in the car and left. Then the bus pulled away, revealing Scott standing outside the Rose and Thorn on the opposite corner, watching. He raised his hand, but Maggie turned away.

Ed left the Rose and Thorn at eleven thirty, and walked down Peony Street before turning left on Iris Avenue. His two-bedroom, one-bath craftsman cottage was in the middle of the block. As he passed Pauline and Phil Davis’s house he noticed a light was on in their kitchen. They had moved to Florida two weeks before, leaving their house and the diner up for sale. Ed had promised to keep an eye on the place. He walked around to the back door and saw the shadow of someone inside pass by the dining room window. He quickly backtracked to the pub and got Scott to walk back with him to the Davis home.

Scott had not had anything stronger than a soda to drink so he had all his wits about him. He went right up to the back door and knocked. Pauline and George’s daughter Phyllis answered the door and let them in. She was wild eyed and trembling.

“You didn’t bring that FBI agent,” she said. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

“No, Phyllis, why?” Scott asked her.

Phyllis collapsed down onto a kitchen chair, where it was obvious she’d been drinking vodka straight out of the bottle and chain smoking. She put out her cigarette, nodding at Scott. She knew he was sensitive to smoke, and for once, she cared to have him on her side.

“That chick from the county said she would have someone watching my place, but she lied to me. First that old witch sent someone to threaten me,” she said, and rolled up her sleeve so Scott and Ed could see the bruises where someone had gripped her upper arm. “Then that FBI jerk shows up, basically calls me a liar, and says I’m going to jail if I don’t say where Brian is.”

“Agent Brown?” Scott asked her.

“Yeah,” Phyllis said. “He and some other goon told me they were gonna throw me in jail for something, I can’t remember the words. Destruction of justice, or something.”

“Obstruction,” Ed said.

“Yeah, that,” Phyllis said.