and crap and barbooth games in the backs of taverns, from bets taken by bookies, and recirculated to the street to be sharked or to cover overhead. Page after page, the digits metering the flow. He came to a page where letters did appear, foreign bodies, like stones in a stream. Names. Names. And one he recognized. His eyes widened.
“What’s Capobianco pay you for?”
“Capobianco? Who Capobianco?”
“I just want to know: What does a mobster get for his money?”
“If I were you, boyo, I’d watch my mouth.”
“It’s a simple question, Brendan.”
“Simple question? You should be embarrassed for even asking me such a thing. All three o’ yuz, you should be embarrassed. That’s all I’m gonna say.” Conroy’s right hand wrung the skin of his cheek. He looked from Michael to Ricky to Joe, his favorite. “You in on this, Joe?”
“It’s like Michael said, Bren: simple question.”
“I didn’t ask what Michael said. I can handle Michael. I’m asking you. Does he talk for you now?”
“Yeah. He does.” Joe’s lips went on moving, as if he had intended to say more but no sound came. The ghost words would have been an apology.
“Big happy family, you three.”
Michael said, “Not so happy.”
“No. I suppose not. You want to tell me what this is about, Michael? You’ve got all the answers. What’s on your mind, Harvard boy?”
“You’re on Capobianco’s pad.”
“Says who?”
“Capobianco.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, Brendan, why don’t we skip this part, alright? You’re offended, okay, I got that. What we want to know is what he pays you for. What do you do for him?”
“You know, I don’t get you, Michael. I always treated you like a son. Go ahead, make faces. But I was like a father for you, and you know it.”
“Two fathers, then. Lucky me.”
“Lucky you is right, boyo.”
“Two is one too many. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned.”
Ricky smirked.
“Well,” Michael said, “good thing we had a spare, eh, Brendan? Where would we be now? Fatherless. Orphans. And who would adopt us? Especially Joe.”
Conroy squinted, bewildered. He wore plain clothes, a coat and tie that did not sit properly on his cambered chest, and the whole of his torso heaved one time-inhale, exhale. Then-too suddenly for Michael to react-too quick even to register the snap in the old man’s mood-Conroy bolted forward-“You fuckin’ little shit”-at almost the same instant Joe charged toward Conroy to intercept him Michael had a flashing image of two long freight trains on transverse tracks, night trains barreling toward the intersection Conroy hit Michael, gathered two fistfuls of his coat, drove him back at the same moment Joe’s shoulder punched into Conroy’s side air chuffed out of Conroy’s mouth, next to Michael’s ear and then Michael was on the floor, the small of his back against the baseboard.
He heard Joe’s voice, low and lethal: “Try that again, Brendan, and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” Michael blinked up to see Joe kneeling over Conroy with his rock-fist cocked. “I mean it. I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”
“Joe!”
“Joe!”
Joe’s head inclined toward his brothers’ voices, but he did not release Conroy and he did not unclench his fist.
“Joe,” Conroy soothed, “what are you talking about, kill who? Who do you think you’re talking to? Let me go, boyo, come on. This is ridiculous. Let me up, son.”
Joe remained frozen, his left arm locked on Conroy’s shirtfront, right arm cranked back. For a long moment it seemed that he would launch that fist straight down into Conroy’s face and straight through it to the floor. But Joe’s expression faltered and became poignant, and his fist relaxed perceptibly.
“That’s right, Joe. Let me up.” Conroy tapped Joe’s wrist.
The contact seemed to jolt Joe back from his thoughts. Reinvigorated, he agitated Conroy’s shirt and pressed him down into the floor more firmly. He straightened his fingers and balled them again to harden his fist.
Conroy made a short-armed gesture of surrender, palms up.
Michael said, “Joe? You okay?”
“What’s he been telling you, Joe?” Conroy nodded toward Michael. “He’s been filling your head up, hasn’t he?”
Joe shook his head slowly, but the questions diverted him, complicated everything, flooded him with facts and speculations and unknowns, all Michael’s and Ricky’s theories which Joe half understood for a moment only to lose them again. “What about me, Brendan? Did you treat me like a son, too?”
“You know I did.”
Joe shook his head again. He yearned for the words. It was an affliction, this constant clutching for words. It felt as if he had been excluded from a conversation. Intuitions murmured past, thoughts that could not be condensed into language, and were lost before Joe could hear them. He imagined there was more to himself, a secret unrealized Joe hidden in all those mutterings, a Joe that would never be accessed. Now, what did he want to say to Conroy? The simple truthI loved you, you broke my heart- was unsayable, and was not the whole story anyway. But no other words were available.
Joe said, “You’re not my friend.”
Immediately he was embarrassed. What a childish, stupid thing to say. He wished he had not said anything at all. He wished he could go back ten seconds into the past, before he had exposed himself as a dumbshit. But the declaration mesmerized Conroy and Joe’s brothers too, and seeing its impact Joe began to feel he had stumbled onto the right formulation almost by accident, as if he had sat down at a piano and banged the keys and somehow a song had emerged, a miraculous perfect little song. He let go of Conroy’s shirt.
Joe said, “I’m through with you, Bren. Just answer Mike’s question.”
“What’s he been telling you, Joe?”
“Just answer him.”
Conroy labored to his feet. He retreated to the opposite side of the room.
Ricky came over to offer Michael a hand up. “You alright, Mikey?”
“Yeah.”
“You and your new daddy seem to be hitting it off pretty good.”
“Yeah, I think he’s warming up to me.”
Conroy tugged his clothes straight. “You boys act like you’ve discovered some original sin. Well, I’m not very original, I hate to tell you. It’s the way things work.”
Michael said, “Oh Christ, Brendan, nobody gives a shit you were on the sleeve. But from Capobianco? The guy’s a murderer, for Christ’s sake.”
“So what, I took from Capobianco? You think your old man was too good to take Capobianco’s money?”
“Yes.”
Conroy shook his head. “Just let it go, Michael. You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground, alright? You hear me? You don’t know from Capobianco, you don’t know what it means to be a cop, you don’t know shit from Shinola, and I’m telling you, as a friend: Just let it alone. The hell do you care about Capobianco, anyways?”
“I’ll tell you what I care. Turns out your boss Capobianco killed my father-I mean my real father, Brendan, the first one, remember him?”
“Wha…? How do you know that?”
“A little bird.”
“What little bird?”
“Goombah named Paul Marolla.”
“Who the hell is Paul Marolla?”
“What’s the difference?”
