comes. No, now, before he starts again. “I don't know what's going on, okay?” The look Kevin gave him, it wasn't okay. “I don't know what happened to that reporter, if he killed himself or someone killed him. But—no, wait—but there are a couple things I never told you, or your mother. I'll tell you now if you want.”
Kevin nodded.
Jump, Phil told himself. The net will appear. Or it won't. Looking into Kevin's eyes, so like Sally's, he said, “I met with Jimmy McCaffery every couple of months for eighteen years. Sometimes in a bar like this, sometimes in my office. Once at one of your games. The Tornados, a play-off game. You tripled. Do you remember?”
Kevin looked blank, then he shrugged. “They were always good. The Tornados. We played them lots of times.”
Phil nodded. The waitress brought his Guinness, but she didn't stick around. Story of his life.
Kevin said, “Why'd you meet with Uncle Jimmy?”
A sip of beer. “He gave me money. Cash. I'd put it in a bank account, an escrow account in your mother's name, and write her a check every month.”
“From the State.”
“Well, obviously not. But yes, those checks.”
“Why?”
“Your father was dead. You were a baby. Your mother needed the money.”
“Goddamn it, Uncle Phil!” At Kevin's shout the waitress's head whipped around like a searchlight. The bartender's, too, in case something was blowing up he'd need to take care of. Phil raised an apologetic hand, shook his head. The bartender nodded: Okay, but watch yourselves. Screw you, Phil thought, that was more action than you've seen in here all week.
Kevin leaned forward. If this were a negotiating session, Phil would have pulled back and also leaned a little to one side. That way he'd control the distance between them and make it clear, too, that he was the one controlling it. But he didn't do any of that. There was too much distance already.
“I mean, why you and Uncle Jimmy?” Kevin lowered his voice, but now it wore a sharp and ragged edge. “I thought you didn't even like each other. Why the bullshit?”
Of course that's what he meant. “Jimmy said your mother wouldn't have taken the money from him. From anyone.”
“Bullshit,” Kevin repeated.
Kevin drank. Phil waited. Never offer information, never answer the question that wasn't asked. “Why did the paper say the money might have come from Eddie Spano?” Kevin demanded.
“It had to come from somewhere. They don't think it could have been Jimmy's. It's too much money.”
“Where did it come from?”
Answer half the question: “What Jimmy gave me, I don't know where it came from.”
“What the fuck do you mean, you don't know?”
“I never asked him.”
“He just hands you thousands in cash every couple months for eighteen fucking years, and you never ask where it comes from?”
“Kev, I work with criminals. There are a lot of things I'm better off not knowing.”
“I don't mean Jimmy!” Like hell you don't. “Generally, always, all I want to know is that I'm not involved in anything illegal. Beyond that, sometimes the less information I have, the better.”
“If you were thinking like that, you were thinking there was something bad to know.”
Phil said nothing, spiraling down.
“If you never asked him”—this sarcastically, a tone he'd never heard from Kevin before—“how could you know you weren't
“My job . . .” Phil drank, a stall while he tried to find a way to regain altitude. “Your father asked me to look after you and your mother while he was gone.”
“I still—”
“Your father was my responsibility, Kev.”
Kevin's answer was what he'd been taught, but with a new, unsure note. “You did everything you could. Mom always said.”
Okay, Kevin. It's been nice knowing you. “I let him—I encouraged him—to plead to something I was sure he didn't do.”
Phil watched that hit Kevin like arctic air. Then he said: “I don't think he shot Jack Molloy. I never did.”
“If my dad—then who do you think did?”
It wasn't really a question, just an automatic reaction. Like a blink to clear your eyes when you're not sure what you're seeing. Phil let it go, waited for the next one.
“No one else was there,” Kevin said. “Just them. Jack Molloy and my dad.”
“I think someone else was.”
