“Shit, Kev! Should I have told him to go fuck himself? What did I have? A gut feeling something's rotten and it's Jimmy McCaffery? You see who he is today—that's who he always was! The stained-glass saint. Me? I was the loser Jew lawyer from the other side of the harbor.” Phil saw, or thought or hoped he saw, a cloud of uncertainty in Kevin's eyes. Move in on that, leverage it. “And I'll say this: I never saw him do anything that contradicted that. Everyone looked up to him. Including you.”
“What the fuck—?”
“He raised you, Kev! As much as I did. And he”—how to put it?—“he meant more to you. No, hear me out. I was fun, Kev, I was there, you could count on me, but Jimmy was the guy you wanted to be. Who the hell wouldn't? It would have broken your heart, and your mother's, if I could have proved what I knew.”
“What you
“Okay, thought.” Making my point, said Phil to himself, to Kevin, silently. “Even more reason to keep my mouth shut. Kev, I followed his career all these years. He saved a lot of lives. He
Kevin flinched at the word. Phil wondered, Can this really be the first time I've said it to him?
“So who the hell was I to screw that up?” He leaned toward Kevin. “For what? To prove how smart I was? What good would it have done?”
“What about justice? You didn't care?”
Phil opened his hands. Empty. “I think about that every day. About Markie and every client since. I don't know what it means.”
“You don't know? For Christ's sake, Uncle Phil! You're a lawyer!”
The universe of innocence in that outburst would have made Phil laugh with delight, if things were different. Instead, he leaned toward Kevin again and tried to explain.
“The other side—the prosecution—they talk about justice all the time. Paying your debts. Justice for the victims. But I see guys like Markie. Guys with family, friends, guys who had something going. Then one fuckup, their lives are over. Who's the justice for, Kevin? What does it look like?”
Kevin gave no answer. How could he? There was no answer.
But he had another question.
“Eddie Spano?”
Phil nodded. “You mean, if the money was his?”
“Because you can't be telling me Uncle Jimmy was . . . I don't know what the fuck, Spano's hit man or something? And we—and that was the payoff? You can't—”
“No, no. But there was a turf thing, the Molloys and the Spanos. I think either Jimmy or your dad was a go- between.”
“Spano was there, too? That night?”
“No. I thought about that, but no. I don't think Jimmy or Markie would have protected him. I think something was going on, some arrangement Eddie Spano and Jack Molloy were working out, through somebody, Jimmy or Markie. And Molloy got drunk, started shooting, got shot, just like Markie said. But I don't think Markie shot him. I think it was Jimmy.”
“Then why would Spano—”
“Maybe that's where the gun came from, from Spano, and Jimmy had that on him. So Jimmy squeezed a little out of him every month. Not a lot, not so much Spano would rather do something else about it. Just enough to keep Jimmy quiet and help you guys out.”
Through narrowed eyes Kevin watched him. Shit, Phil thought. He suddenly knew what his clients must feel when they saw the end coming, when they realized Phil's magic wasn't going to work.
Slowly, Kevin said, “When I was thirteen, the money doubled. You said it was a cost-of-living thing, the state was adjusting it. What was that? Uncle Jimmy squeezing Spano harder? After ten years?”
Phil shook his head. One more. One more and it's over. “That was me.”
Kevin stared.
“Your mother wanted to send you to St. Ann's.”
“You paid for that?”
“I make money. What the hell was I going to do with it?”
“Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.” Kevin shook his head, looking as though he were standing on Mars staring at the scenery. “That was always a big deal to her. Your money. That she wasn't taking your fucking money.”
“I know.”
“It was important. She always said. You and her, she said, that was a special thing. But what kept us going was her working, and Dad's money from the State. Her and Dad. It was important.”
“I know.”
“How much of this did you tell that reporter?” Kevin's voice was tight. If he wasn't hurt, he'd have started it already, Phil thought. Lurched across the table, grabbed my shirt, thrown me. I'm bigger, he's younger. How would it come out?
“None of it. It was none of his goddamn business. Everything he put in the paper was on the public record, just that no one ever looked for it before. As soon as he found it, I knew it was big trouble.”
“Why did someone kill him?”
