pirates.”
“They never went up against big guns before.”
Again, a furrow appeared between her eyes and she took the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. “What’s happening, Dog?”
“The bastard wants it all. He’s always wanted Barrin ever since the run-in with the old man.”
“He’s forced out everybody else around here.”
“Not everybody, kid,” I told her quietly.
“You think he can’t get”—she swept her hand toward the factory site—“... all this?”
“Not without one hell of a fight ”
“Your cousins aren’t capable ...”
“I’m not talking about my cousins.”
“Who are you, Dog?” Her voice had a quiver to it.
“Just a guy who wants to come home.”
“Is that all?”
“Nobody wants to let me,” I said.
“But they can’t keep you out.”
“Not anymore, kitten.”
I turned onto the intersection that angled back into town and crisscrossed the area until I came to the comer of Bergan and High streets. Time had washed over the section leaving the scars of fading paint and crumbling bricks, but Tod’s Club still stood defiantly, one of the earlier buildings structured with materials and skill old- fashioned enough to withstand the deteriorating effects of season after season and almost total neglect.
Once it had been the hub of nearly all the poltical and social activity that went on and twice the site where heavyweight contenders trained for the big bout. One of them even won the crown. Now, half the ground floor frontage was occupied by neighborhood stores to pay the upkeep and a shoddy frame warehouse took up the space where the half-acre picnic grounds used to be.
We parked outside the entrance and I helped Sharon out of the car. She looked around, glanced up at the grimy windows and the dirt-streaked brick. “What’s this place?”
“Don’t you remember?”
She squinted at the building again and nodded. “My father used to come here, I think. Some kind of a club isn’t it?”
“More or less.”
“The name sounds familiar. Tod’s. Yes, Dad even brought us here one time. There were games and barrels of beer and they had a sprinkler going for the kids someplace.”
“In the back.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s here now?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, “but it’s a starting point.”
We walked inside and down a familiar corridor lined with ancient stuffed fish and mounted deer heads. The brass plates beneath the trophies were tarnished and the names unreadable. Most of those names would be engraved now on the local tombstones, I thought.
An old man in dungarees was washing the floor of the west meeting room, the old cigar-burned tables and captain’s chairs pushed to one end. The restaurant that once was the pride of Linton had been sectioned off into office space. Three sections were empty. The other two held a construction company and a real estate outfit.
Voices came from the far end, competing with a televised soap opera and we walked down to the pair of half opened paneled doors and pushed through.
This room hadn’t changed. The great fifty-foot bar still stretched its length to the sliding serving windows in the wall, the gilt-framed mirror behind it reflected the hundreds of antique sporting weapons mounted on wooden pegs and the same six grinning bear heads taken by the long-dead Hiram Tod. When I was a kid the moths had eaten away most of the fur, now the toothy grimaces seemed to be coming out of mummified skulls, strangely livened by bright glassy eyes that lay loosely in dried sockets.
The pair of seedy customers drinking from schooners of beer had their feet propped on a gleaming brass rail while they argued about baseball. The skinny old bartender in the too-big shirt ignored them, polishing already shiny glasses to crystallike brilliance.
When we propped ourselves on the stools and called for a beer the two at the end stopped talking long enough to look us over, then went back to their argument. The bartender set down our glasses, rang up the money and pushed my change toward me. I looked at him carefully, studying his face, remembering the towering man with the huge gut that could bounce off full half kegs of suds onto the cellar chute, and the deep voice that used to make us hustle for the quarters we earned when we cleaned up the picnic tables.
I said, “Tod?”
The old man turned, his eyes focusing on mine. He nodded.
“You been on a diet?”
He grunted and a grin showed his false choppers. “I been on a cancer, son. Only that was a long time ago and hardly nobody remembers me fat. Who may you be?”
I stuck out my hand and waited until he took it. “Cameron Barrin was my grandfather.”
He pulled his hand away sharply. “You ain’t ...”
Before he could finish I shook my head. “I’m the bastard one, Tod. Dogeron Kelly. Used to run errands for you when I sneaked out of the castle up there.”
His grin got big suddenly and he grabbed my hand again. “Damn, boy! Sure I remember you. Hell, I remember you and that Polack kid fighting to see who got the swamping job at the hunkie picnic. I put up five bucks for the winner.”
“That Polack kid sure could hit,” I said.
“Yeah, but you won.” He laughed again and pulled another beer for himself. “You know, I bet another five on the Polack.”
“Tough.”
“My own fault. I shoulda remembered you was your father’s kid.”
The beer stopped halfway to my mouth. “You knew him?”
“Sure, and your mother too. But that was before all the trouble. What a wild-assed Irisher he was. He used to meet your ma right here in this place. Oh, nobody ever knew about it or anything. She used to sing when old Barney played the piano.” He stopped for a minute, cocking his head at me. “I ain’t talking outa turn or anything, am I? Sometimes an old guy like me ...”
“No sweat, Tod. It was just something I didn’t know but was glad to hear. I’m glad my mother had class enough to cut away from that bunch when she could.”
“Dead, both of them, aren’t they?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Too bad. It ain’t like before at all. What’re you doing back here?”
“Looking the old place over.”
“Not much to see anymore. Except for her.” He nodded at Sharon, smiling. “This is your daughter?”
Sharon choked on her beer and grabbed for a paper napkin to wipe her chin. When she dried off she faked a sigh of exasperation and said, “Good griefl”
“We’re not even married,” I told him.
“Made another- boo-boo, I guess,” Tod said.
“Nope, you just proved a point, Tod. I’d just better pick on somebody my own age.”
“Don’t do it on my account,” Sharon told me quickly. “I’m starting to enjoy all this after putting up with my New York image.”
“Good thing she isn’t my daughter,” I said.
“It would be a very incestuous relationship if I were.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I gave her a poke with my elbow and Tod let out a chuckle.
“Me,” he told us, “I couldn’t take the excitement you kids look for. I’m glad even the old pilot light’s gone out. Now a woman is only something that goes to the ladies’ room instead of the men’s room.” He finished his beer,
