Mitchell Smith (61 page)

“No, it’s nothin’-but I’ll turn it over to the guys anyway. Never know.” He put the button in his jacket pocket, and stood, puffing slightly from his exertion, observing Ellie. “I hear you got hurt,” he said. “-I saw the slippers, I figured you hurt your feet.”

“Nothing bad,” Ellie said. “I stepped on some glass.”

“That was it … ? You got cut, I fieard. She cut you.”

“A little on the arm . . .” Ellie raised her arm, moved it up and down. “It wasn’t serious.”

“Umm-hmm . . .” Keneally stared at her for a moment, silent, rocking back and forth like a large toy plaid balloon on cardboard feet. Then he looked up over Ellie’s head, at a fluorescent fixture. “I’m a Catholic,” he said.

“It isn’t the time, or the place-but it’s so fuckin’ embaffassin’ I want to get it over with.”

“What is?” Ellie said. Keneally’s face was red, his nose the reddest part.

“I’m a Catholic, an’ I got a penance, you know.” He was still staring up over her head.

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that. She thought that maybe Keneally had been drinking. -He looked a little drunk.

“What is it, Kenny? -You OX.?”

“This is something’ I got no choice-an’ I’m not sayin’ it’s wrong, either.”

“Well,” Ellie said, “-what is it?”

“What it comes down to,” Keneally said, staring up at the fixture, keeping his voice low, “-is I got a penance from a priest. . . . I got to tell you I been committin’ adultery with you in my heart. An’

it’s caused great sufferin’ for my wife, and she didn’t know why. -An’

I’m sorry.” His fat face was royal scarlet. “Jesus Christ!” he said, and did a sort of dance step to turn away from her, first to the right, then the left. “-That fuckin’ priest must be out of his fuckin’ mind make me do something’ like this.” There were tears of humiliation Jn his small blue eyes. “Fuckin’ little shit . . . !”

He’d raised his voice then, and some people were looking at them.

“Kenny . . . come on, now. Ellie reached out to Pat his shoulder, and he shrugged her hand off.

“I did what I was supposed to do-an’ that’s it,” he said, and turned to walk away.

“Kenny-it’s no big deal. -Everybody has thoughts like that!” Ellie had a terrible feeling she wouldn’t be able to keep from laughing. It was like the urge to lean out over the edge of a roof-a disastrous temptation.

“Right . . He was on his way, and Ellie had to hurry to catch up.

“Kenny-this is hurting my feet. She thought as much as she could about her sore feet, to keep from thinking of laughing.

He slowed to a walk as they got to the stairs. “Great. -Don’t you have any feelin’s? What are you followin’ me for? I said what I had to say”-and started climbing.

“We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“Look, I’m not going’ to talk about it.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder. “-I said what I had to say, and I’m not going’ to talk about it, period.”

“O.K.” She was having trouble keeping up with him.

“O.K. Just forget I said anything’. -I don’t even know you, for Christ’s sake. It’s a completely private matterit’s a religious thing.”

“O.K.,” Ellie said. “-Slow down, you’re going too fast.”

“Where’re you going’?”

“Back up in Headquarters.”

“O.K. I’ll walk you over. You shouldn’t be workin’ in this kind of condition. -You should be home.”

“I think you’re right,” Ellie said, “-but I’ve got one more thing to do.”

They walked up out of the subway stop, across Centre Street, and over to Headquarters, Kenny silent all the way. On the steps at Headquarters, he stopped and said, “Look out you don’t get an infection with those cuts.”

“They gave me a couple of shots,” Ellie said. “—Tetanus, and something else.”

“O.K.,” Keneally said, nodded, turned and walked back down the steps. No goodbye.

Ellie was alone in the elevator going up, and laughed the first three floors-then said, out loud, “Tommy . . .

you went a night too soon. You missed Kenny’s confession. . . .”

Then supposed she couldn’t have told Tommy about it, anyway.

“Yes?”

Ellie held her badge up to the peep. “I’m a police officer, Mrs.

Donaher.” Gloria Murillo had given Washington Square Village as the sergeant’s address, and Ellie hoped it was current, hoped the sergeant was home. She didn’t feel like driving out to Suffolk. Didn’t feel like driving anywhere.”

She’d pretended to search for her keys downstairs, until another tenant-a thin young black man carrying an armload of books-had opened the security door. Then she’d walked in with him, and ridden up in the elevator with him to the fourth floor, where he’d gotten off-then on up to the sixth, alone.

A second lock clicked and cracked, and a pretty grayhaired woman in her fifties opened the door. Her hair was cut short, with low bangs, and brushed back clear of her ears. She would have been pretty, if she’d been thinner.

Ellie showed her shield and ID. “Mrs. Donaher? -I’m Detective Klein.

I’m sorry to disturb you-“

“Oh, don’t worry about that-come on in. We’re used to being disturbed in this house.” Grace Donaher stepped back and stood aside. “Paul!

-There’s a detective here to see you . . . ! You want some coffee?

Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thank you.”

ù The apartment reminded Ellie of her own-but bigger, two-bedroom. The same flat white paint on the walls ù . . same low ceilings. The entrance hall was narrow . . .

large family photographs on the walls. A young girl in some school uniform. Other photographs of her in graduation robes. College graduation, it looked like. The apartment smelled of pot roast.

Grace Donaher finished relocking the door, and Paul Donaher, in shirtsleeves, came into the hall, looked at Ellie, then looked at her again. He put his head back, just a little.

“Go on in,” Mrs. Donaher said. Ellie noticed her noticing the Bloomingdale’s slippers.

“I know they look weird,” Ellie said. “-I stepped on some glass.”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Grace Donaher said, “-you shouldn’t even be on your feet, should you? Go on in.

… She herdedher husband and Ellie down the hall and into alar e living room, one side all sliding glass doors looking down into the Village. It was a nice living room, with the dining area a part of it, just this side of the kitchen counter. The room had been done in blues and grays. There was a cut cake on the dining-area table.

Looked like coconut.

“What do you want?” Donaher said. `-What’s up?”

A girl and a young man were sitting on a couch at the other end of the room, talking-and they looked up as Ellie, Donaher, and his wife came in.

“Margie … Richard . . .” Mrs. Donaher said, “-this is Detective Klein. Miss Klein, my daughter and her friend, Richard . . .” The girl and young man said, “Hi … 11 Margie was the girl in the graduation pictures. She had long light-brown hair, and was as beautiful now as her mother had probably been.

“What is it?” Donaher said. “-What can I do for you?”

“Wouldn’t you like some coffee … a piece of cake?”

Mrs. Donaher said. “You should sit down, dear, get off those feet.”

“No, thank you-I don’t have the time. They’re all right. -I just have some papers that Sergeant Donaher needs to sign, that’s all.”

“O.K.,” Donaher said. “Come on-we’ll go in the bedroom, get it done.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Ellie said to the Donaher girl and her boyfriend.

“Nice meeting you .

“Sure you don’t want some coffee?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Donaher-I really don’t have the time.”

Ellie followed Donaher back to the hall, and through a door on the right into a large bedroom. It was his and his wife’s room; they had a queen-size bed with a dark brown figured spread, and family pictures on the lowboy, under a wide mirror. Donaher closed the door.

“What in the fuck do you think you’re doin’?” Keeping his voice low.

“-Tommy’s dead, and right away you’re over here looking for what, some shakedown money-right?”

Ellie turned and hit him in the face with the back of her hand. It made a louder smacking sound than she expected, and both of them were still for a few moments, thinking it might have been heard in the living room.

She’d hit him with her left hand, and her injured forearm started aching at once.

Donaher put his thumb and forefinger up to his nose, to pinch it, test for bleeding. He looked at his fingers to be sure.

“O.K.,” he said. “—So I was out of line. O.K. Just don’t try for seconds……

He hadn’t done it. He wasn’t frightened enough to have had any part in killing a cop. -Ellie tried, though, just to be sure.

“I came over to let you know Homicide’s got your name as a possible for killing Tommy.”

That scared him.

“Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?” He was forgetting to keep his voice down, and Ellie glanced at the door to remind him. “-Are you crazy?”

said much more softly.

“You couldn’t say anything’ like that! You’re fuckin’ crazy!”

“If you didn’t do it-maybe your friends did. Maybe your thief friends didn’t like Tommy giving them that trouble uptown.”

“Oh, wait a minute. Wait … a … minute! There’s nobody up there going’ to hurt Tommy. That’s no big deal, for Christ’s sake! They just move the pickup. What’s the big deal? -They’re not going’ to kill a cop ‘cause he won’t play. What do you think-there’s a bunch of maniacs up there? Tommy didn’t turn me-they know he’s not going’ to turn them.

Those guys aren’t going’ to hurt Tommy!”

“Somebody hurt him.”

“It wasn’t them. Probably some fuckin’ junkies .

Ellie stood looking at him. -He hadn’t done it, and his friends hadn’t done it. Her arm was hurting her worse.

Sergeant Donaher was sweating. He was handsome, with all that fine white hair. In the car, uptown that day, Ellie hadn’t seen how really good-looking he was. He looked like a senior detective in a movie. He cleared his throat. “-What in God’s name did you tell the Homicide guys?”

“Everything. -They’ll be coming around.”

“Oh, nooo … !” said Sergeant Donaher, his face reddening as it had in the car, uptown.

Ellie opened the door and walked out of the bedroom, pleased with imagining Donaher waiting through the next few days for that visit. At the living-room entrance, she waved to Gracie Donaher and the young couple on the couch. They were having coffee and cake.

“Bye-bye .

“Oh, wait,” said Mrs. Donaher, and she got up. “I’ll let you out….

Where’s Paul?”

“I think the sergeant’s in the bathroom,” Ellie said, and was ashamed, right after, of taking her pleasure at this decent woman’s expense.

Ellie got off the island bus near the travel agency, and limped down the sidewalk to her building. The night was becoming colder than cool. A black sedan, a Chevy, was parked in front of the building entrance. -Its engine started as she came up, and a tall man in a tan raincoat got out of the back and stood in streetfight.

“Busy day . . .” said Phil Shea.

His face looked plainer every time she saw it-a long, raw, Irish face.

“Yes . Ellie said. Shea seemed very relaxed, standing on the sidewalk talking to her-as if they had the Whole night.

“You O.K.? “I’m fine … thanks.”

“Your partner’d be proud of you,” Shea said, bent and kissed her on the cheek, then kissed her mouth, turned and climbed into the car. There were three other men in the Chevy … stony, watchful faces. The car pulled away, and Ellie watched for Shea to look back, but he didn’t.

Mayo greeted her at the apartment door with a long complaint, then marched before her down the hall. Ellie set her purse on the telephone table, and had intended to listen to her messages, but felt suddenly sick. She walked down the hall to the bedroom, called, “Will you shut up - - .” to Mayo-moaning in the kitchen, waiting for food-then limped to her bed and fell across it.

She lay there for several minutes, and slowly began to feel better. She had felt she was going to faint, or vomit again. She turned over, reached up and got a pillow under her head, and lay still a little longer, “I shouldn’t have gone downtown,” she said, out loud. —I should have stayed here when Max brought me.

… 11 She turned her face to the pillow and began to cry, but didn’t cry long. When she finished, she propped herself on her elbow, got a tissue from the bedside table, and blew her nose. Then she got up, and felt all right, but very tired. Her feet were hurting her, and her arm was hurting her more. -She should have hit Donaher with her right hand.

She walked out to the kitchen, took a can of Puss’n Boots Chicken n’

Gravy down from the cabinet, opened it, emptied it into a saucer, and stooped to slide that under the kitchen table. Then she went out to the ball to listen to her messages.

There was a short one from Clara: “-Hello, sweetheart. I’m fine and getting ready to get out of here. I miss the hell out of you, and will be sorry to leave none of the windy city except for some of its architecture-pure Howard Roark. See you soonest, your new friend, old lover Clara.”

Ellie didn’t know who Howard Roark was—assumed he was modern. Clara hadn’t heard about Tommy.

There was a longer message from Mary Gands. The engagement was definitely on, Joseph wasn’t drinking at all–only a glass of wine at dinner-and why hadn’t Ellie called her?

Charlie Corsaro had called, and had had to call back a second time for space on the tape to complete his message. “Hi, El-I know this thing has hit you real hard, too. You an’ Tommy were close. . . . I’m sorry for the pain you must be sufferin’. Doctor’s put Connie to bed for a day or two. She’s OX but she just stopped talkin’ much. Truth is, I think it took a while to really hit her.

Mrs. Donatto and Mrs. Evans are comin’ in, takin’ care Of Marie. I don’t think Marie realizes exactly what hapened, and that’s a blessing.

Requiem Mass is set for day after tomorrow, Sunday, at St. Gregory’s, two o’clock.