A pause, a break in her rhythm before she answered. She didn't like him any better than he liked her, and the truce of years was shattered now. She'd always found him brash and rude; he knew because Sally had told him. Civility was important to Marian, Sally said, manners mattered to her. Sally had probably hoped if Phil knew this he'd tone it down, show Marian a more cultured and chivalrous face. What really happened was that in Marian's presence, Phil found himself fighting strong urges to put his feet on the table or let the long-suppressed Yiddish- Bronx rhythms of his childhood overwhelm his speech.
So he knew full well that even in the mutual distaste of their relationship, she'd be thrown off by the implied insult of his not bothering with phone etiquette. Knew it, thought less of himself, and went ahead anyway.
“There's a problem,” she said, and he heard her trying to match his cold tone.
“The whole damn thing's a problem, for Christ's sake,” he said. “What specifically do you have in mind?”
“Harry Randall's dead.”
“Thanks for the news flash.”
He could practically hear her grinding her teeth. You just can't cut her a break, can you? he asked himself.
“Another reporter was just here.” On the heels of her words her breath whispered in his ear, in, out. A yoga exercise, maybe; it would be like her. He waited it out. She said, “They think someone murdered him.”
“I figured that.”
Silence. “What do you mean, you figured that?”
“I read the damn
He was sure what she really wanted was to hang up on him, which was pretty much what he wanted, too, but he stayed, her voice drilling into his ear, phone pressed to the side of his head, elbows parked on either side of the sandwich on his desk like he was the Brooklyn Bridge and his corned beef was a stuck barge.
BOYS' OWN BOOK
Chapter 11
Jimmy leaves Flanagan's, walking slowly. The late summer day has faded to that purple hour when a mist seems to hang in the air, clouding vision, though this is an illusion: the day has been fine, and the night will continue clear.
Jimmy's heading home, to the basement apartment he rents from the Cooleys. He stops at the deli for a roast beef on rye, picks up a box of Milk Bones for the Cooleys' yellow mutt. (The funny black dog they used to have, he died years ago.) But when he leaves the deli, sipping coffee, he turns left, not right, heads for the firehouse.
When he gets there, the door's up, the floor's wet and puddled: they've just washed down the truck, and it gleams. Jimmy could swear he sees the damn thing grin: it's ready, man. He grins back at it.
Owen McCardle, one of the senior men, sits out front, tipped back in a chair. He's watching the street from half-closed eyes. Hey, Superman, he says, nods as Jimmy walks up. Like Jimmy, Owen's not a talker. Owen's seen it all, lived through it all, could tell you all the stories but he doesn't. Probably he knows it won't do you any good.
Owen, says Jimmy. He squats down beside the chair, leans on the firehouse wall. Jimmy helps Owen watch the street.
You hungry? Vinny made spaghetti, Owen says.
Yeah? That one with the sausages?
Owen grunts. Enough to feed the Polish army.
Yeah, well, says Jimmy, and he doesn't get up.
Two pretty girls, their legs long and their skirts short, walk down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. A whistle cuts their way from inside the firehouse. One girl smiles, one girl laughs, but they don't turn and they don't stop.
Guy asked me to do something for him, Jimmy says to Owen.
Owen asks, You gonna do it?
Thinking about it.
The girls round the corner, stroll out of sight.
Superman. Owen's voice is even quieter than usual. Jimmy looks up at him.
Stay out of trouble.
I don't think, Jimmy says, I don't think this is trouble.
It's not illegal, what Mike the Bear wants. Not Jimmy's part. It's not even a lie: Big Mike wants Jimmy to tell the truth. Sat Jimmy down in Flanagan's to ask for this big favor: Jimmy, do this for me, tell the truth.
But the truth, Mike the Bear says, the truth can't come from just anyone. Some guys, you want them to know what's what, you want them to do something about it, it's got to be done a certain way, he says. It's got to be
