“How’s your friend?” she asked.
“My friend?” Did everyone in Las Piernas know I had gone to lunch with Max Ducane?
“The one you sent by to check on Patrick at lunchtime today.”
I felt a cold sense of dread roll through me from my shoulders to my knees. First question. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s sleeping. Doing fine. He enjoyed the visit. In fact, he answered the door.”
“Dad did?”
“Yes. Patrick was up for a little while, you know-walking around the house a bit like he’s supposed to-and he answered the door.”
“Oh.”
“When he told me that you had arranged it just to give me a little break, I have to admit I was surprised, since you never mentioned a word to me. Well, I don’t mean to criticize. That was very thoughtful of you, Irene, but not necessary. It did allow me to get a little grocery shopping done-”
“You’re sure Dad’s okay?”
“Why, yes.”
“Uh…a couple of people have offered to help out. What did this friend look like?”
“A big man, dark hair with gray in it.”
“A streak of gray?”
“No, more salt-and-pepper.”
“He was from the newspaper, then?”
“No, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Dressed more casually than that. But that was probably because of the lawn.”
“The lawn?” I said, totally baffled now.
“Yes. He mowed and edged the front and back lawns. Made me realize how much I’ve neglected Patrick’s garden.”
Maybe it was O’Malley, I thought. Dad would have let him in. But why tell Mary he was a friend of mine, and not just call him an old high school buddy?
“You haven’t neglected Patrick,” I said. “That’s the main thing.” And I spent some time telling her how much I loved and appreciated her, which is the kind of thing you start doing when someone close to you has rung death’s doorbell and run away.
“You sound worried,” she said, cutting past all that. “Patrick is fine, and I am, too. Honestly, Irene. Patrick enjoyed the visit. You should be telling your friend how much you appreciate him.”
“I would if I knew who it was.”
“Drives a Nash. Does that help?”
“A Nash? A Nash? A Nash Rambler?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
“Thanks, Mary. I know who it is now.” I told her about my schedule for the day. As usual, she was fine with it. She wanted, she told me, all the time she could get with Dad.
I hung up and sat there thinking that I wanted to quit my job. I wanted to go home and read to Patrick Kelly, and laugh with him, and mow his lawn.
But first, I decided, I needed to find O’Connor.
Mary thought I should thank him.
I had a different idea. I wanted to kill him.
35
I TRIED THE PRESS CLUB FIRST. HE WASN’T THERE. SOME OF THE NEWSROOM boys were already knocking ’em back, and it took me a little while to turn down offers of drinks without causing offense. Wildman, of all people, came to my rescue, telling the rest of them to back off and escorting me to the door. “You might try O’Grady’s,” Wildman said. “And you be sure to tell Conn I was a perfect gentleman.” This last came out as “gennelmum,” but I assured him I’d convey the message.
O’Connor wasn’t at O’Grady’s, either. The place was almost empty. I asked the bartender if he’d seen him, and he said O’Connor hadn’t been in all week. I took my roll of dimes and went to the pay phone, which was in the hall outside the gents, and called Helen.
The problem was, by the time I reached her, I was out of steam. So when she asked me if anything was wrong, I told her, “Not with him. I, on the other hand, have lost my mind.” I gave her a brief rundown of the afternoon. “So I was going to tell him off for sneaking behind my back to visit my dad, but-somewhere along the way, I guess I started to hear what Mary was trying to tell me.”
“That your father enjoyed the visit. That it was a relief to her.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to share him, won’t you?”
“Yes.” I took a deep breath and tried to change the subject. “How are you?”
“Rough day. But I’ll be all right.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No, and you have enough to contend with-but listen, if you’re looking for Conn when he’s upset, try Holy Family Cemetery.”
“What?”
“Jack’s grave. He goes out there to have a word with him once in a while.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” I said. “I’ll catch up with him later.”
I wasn’t far from Griffin Baer’s favorite barbershop, so I drove over to it. It was a clean little shop, with the traditional pole mounted outside the door, revolving in a pattern that must have inspired early psychedelic art. I walked into a room of white linoleum, maroon leather chairs, chrome, and mirrors. A thin, gray-haired man was sitting in one of the chairs, reading the sports section of today’s Express, but he quickly stood when I came in. He looked at my shoulder-length hair and said, “Good afternoon! Two dollars to trim off those split ends and even it up a bit. The length is good on you, so we won’t take off much.”
Normally, I have to work up some courage to let anyone with a pair of scissors in his or her hand come near me, having had a couple of bad experiences with hairdressers who couldn’t control their impulses-but this old guy didn’t strike me as the type who felt the need to experiment on humans. “A deal,” I said, taking a seat in a comfy chair. “But I want to be honest with you-I didn’t come in here for a haircut.”
“Sales?”
“A reporter for the Las Piernas News Express.”
“I already subscribe,” he said, indicating the copy he had set down. I saw that he had been circling horses’ names on the handicapper’s page.
“No,” I said, “I’m not selling the paper. I’m a reporter.”
“A reporter! How about that…”
He draped a cape over me and fastened it at my neck, then began combing my hair. No one had done this for me for a long time. I suddenly seemed to be able to feel every hair on my scalp. It almost tickled, but not quite. The sensation was both relaxing and gently stimulating. While it wasn’t sexual, there was all the same a kind of intimacy in this personal attention. No wonder people confessed everything to barbers and beauticians.
“A natural brunette,” he said. “Don’t ever color it. It’s gorgeous.”
“Thanks, but how can you tell it’s my natural color?”
“Do you know how to type?”
“Better than some congressional employees.”
He laughed. “Well, you also know news. And I know hair.”
“I wanted to ask you about Griffin Baer.”
He stopped combing, then began again. “Old Griff, huh? Why ask about him now? Man has been dead for
