The Long Game

Pop seemed to sense my wavering. “And if he pulls it off…” He paused to smile broadly before delivering his final enticement. “…he’ll have a bride waiting for him when he gets back.”

My back straightened like someone had pulled an invisible cord attached to my spine. I gaped at him. “You mean…?”

He nodded. “If you get my ledger back, I’ll have no doubts that you’ll make a fine match for my Rosie. And I hardly think she’ll have any objections,” he added with a wry smile.

My eyes moved from Pop to his sons. The oldest three were stone-faced, but Judd’s barely contained rage had turned his face the purple-red of a ripe raspberry. There was no stopping the grin that spread across my face.

Except the look on my brother’s. When I turned back to Maggie and Jimmy Boy, they both stared at me with twin expressions of disappointment.

Maggie dragged her eyes from my face back to Pop, who was extracting himself from the picnic table. “Would you like to come in for some tea, Michael?”

“Thank you kindly, Maggie, but I won’t keep you folks any longer than I already have.”

“I think you should come in,” she said, though it no longer sounded like a polite invitation.

Pop hesitated for a moment, then turned to his sons. “You boys head back to the house and tell your mother I’ll be along shortly.”

“Sure, Pop,” Sonny said, although none of them moved to leave.

I got to my feet as Pop circled around the picnic table to join Maggie. “Thank you for this opportunity,” I said and offered my hand. “I won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure you won’t.” He gave my hand a quick shake, then offered his arm to Maggie, and the two of them headed toward the trailer.

Jimmy Boy waited until Maggie and Pop were gone, then uncrossed his arms and let them fall to his side. “Shay, think about what you’re doing,” he said. “This is just the kind of thing you don’t want to get mixed up in.”

“Listen to your brother, Buffer,” Judd said. “This is no job for a sublia like you.” He tossed an amused grin to his brothers. “Fifty bucks says he comes home crying for his mama before the week’s out. Whaddya say, lads? Any takers?”

Jimmy Boy moved so quickly that I couldn’t restrain him before he’d bloodied Judd’s lip with a savage right hook. Immediately, Sonny and Pat rushed to their brother’s aid. Jimmy Boy swung again, but they each grabbed one of his arms and pinned them behind his back. Judd spat a mouthful of blood and rubbed his jaw. He fixed Jimmy Boy with a cruel smile that smeared blood across his teeth. It made him look insane. Jimmy Boy struggled against the men holding him.

I scrambled over the picnic table and lunged for Pat, but he threw his elbow up as I charged him. It made contact with my chin and sent a burst of painful light through my skull, disorienting me long enough for Eddie, the fourth Sheedy brother, to tackle me to the ground. Eddie outweighed me by at least thirty pounds, and all of it lay on top of me, pinning my arms and legs. I lifted my head in time to see Judd’s fist plow into Jimmy Boy’s stomach. My brother lurched forward as far as he could with his elbows still locked behind him by Sonny and Pat.

Judd grabbed his shirt collar in both hands and thrust a knee into his ribcage. Jimmy Boy grunted, sucking air into apparently uncooperative lungs. Sonny yanked him upright again, using the hair at the back of his head like a pull string. Judd drew his arm back and released it, smashing his fist into Jimmy Boy’s cheek.

“Stop!” I struggled in vain against Eddie’s bulk. “You’re gonna kill him.”

Sonny and Pat allowed Judd one final swing. The blow made a nauseating thwack, like the sound of raw steak being tenderized. The men let go of Jimmy Boy’s arms. He fell to his knees, swayed for a moment, then dropped to his hands. He braced himself against the ground with one arm, holding his middle with the other as he spilled everything in his stomach onto the grass.

“You’re both trash,” Judd said. “Your whole family is trash. Always were and always will be. God only knows why my dad is wasting his time with you.”

“Fuck you,” Jimmy Boy said between gagging coughs. “You’re just pissed Pop chose Shay over you. But he ain’t stupid, Prince. He knows you’d fuck it all up.”

Judd’s foot hit Jimmy Boy’s face so hard my brother flipped off his hands and knees. He crashed to the ground again, flat on his back. Judd swiped at his mouth, then wiped the blood from his hand onto the leg of his jeans. He spit a gob of rusty saliva that missed Jimmy Boy’s face by half an inch and splattered into the dirt by his ear.

The door of the trailer opened again, and Maggie’s head appeared. “What the hell is going on out here?” she asked. Her eyes fell on Jimmy Boy, and she flew down the steps and across the yard to where he lay motionless on his back. “Who do you think you are, coming to my home and carrying on like a bunch of maggots?” She knelt beside her son, but her sharp gaze remained fixed on Judd, who seemed to shrink under it. “Go on! Get out of here before I whoop the lot of yeh.”

Maggie was a small, fleshy woman and not the least bit imposing physically, but her tone was enough to scare four grown men to their senses. Eddie pushed me harder into the ground as he stood and clambered over to join his brothers, who’d already bolted for the Mercedes.

Pop appeared at Maggie’s side, and the two of them helped Jimmy Boy to his feet. She tucked herself under his arm and supported his weight with one hand to his chest and one to his back. I could see her scanning his face, already inspecting the broken and bleeding skin of his cheeks and lips.

“Come inside, love. I’ll fix you up.”

Jimmy Boy’s head lulled in what may have been an attempt at a nod but was more likely his neck’s inability to hold up his head. They moved in limping steps toward the trailer.

“I’m sorry for the trouble, Maggie,” Pop said.

I imagined, with great satisfaction, the earful Judd and his brothers would get for disrespecting Maggie’s home.

She glanced at him over Jimmy’s shoulder. “Cuts and bruises I can handle, Michael, but what you’re planning could do a far sight more damage.”

“You let me worry about that,” he said. His tone finally betrayed a hint of annoyance at her boldness.

I pulled myself onto the bench of the picnic table and rolled my head from one shoulder to the other to relieve the kink in my neck. A nice reward for my efforts to get Eddie off my back. I heard the trailer door slam behind my mother and brother, but I still wasn’t alone in the yard. I raised my head to find Pop staring at me.

“There’s some sense in what your mother says, Shay. If you don’t want to take this job, I won’t force you.”

An image of Judd’s boot connecting with my brother’s face flashed in my mind, and anger burned like acid in my mouth. “When do I leave?”

CHAPTER NINE

IT TOOK ME a day to get settled in after I arrived in Pennsylvania and another to find Tommy Costello’s daughter. Spencer was a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Balanova University, a member of the OIA sorority, and an avid reader. At least, according to her Facebook page. The last fact was quickly proven true when I found her in the courtyard outside the Carroll Center in the middle of campus.

From where I stood on the opposite side of the fountain, I had a clear view of her, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest and her back resting against the broad trunk of a white ash. She was reading, her head tipped to one side, which made a thick section of her dark auburn hair fall forward to shade one side of her face. The quad was empty aside from the two of us and a kid who bobbed his head to the beat of whatever song played through his retro headphones.

Finding out she lived in a sorority house had been my first disappointment. Pop Sheedy had assumed she’d be living with her father, so I’d have to work a little harder to score an invitation to Daddy’s. I was still pretty sure I was up to the challenge, though. And the sooner I worked my way into her life, the sooner I could finish the job and get back home. Time to get this show on the road.