I looked at a mannequin cosmetically prepared to hide all signs of reality. For that I was glad. This wasn't Doolan at all. The real man still lived in memory.
When I'd finished looking at what was left of my mentor, I took a step back and felt the others come up around me. I reached in the canvas pouch, then unwrapped the oily cloth and held out the hammerless Browning automatic for all of them to see.
Carefully, I dropped the clip and let them see me thumb a full load in place, then snap it back and jack one into the chamber. With the rag I cleaned the piece off, then separated Doolan's hands from their frozen position and got the Browning into his right palm as best I could.
The Little Italy bunch weren't the only ones who had rituals.
I said, "Bill Doolan gave this to Pat Chambers a long time ago, and really it should be Pat up here talking now. Pat and the rest of you were really his boys. Yet in my two short years on the force, Doolan twice saved my ass, and if he had notched this gun butt the way they did in the old West, there wouldn't be anything to hold on to now. At least when that pine box he's in collapses under the dirt, he and that gun will fade out of existence at the same time. So long, buddy."
Two of the quiet men stepped forward, closed the lid of the coffin, then hammered it shut with steel-cut nails. In that solemn place the sound of the banging was almost thunderous, and when they were done, what was left was just a box—a rough-cut pine box resting on a pair of sawhorses, as Doolan himself had specified.
Everybody turned their backs when the attendants came in with the table and wheeled the coffin out.
Strange, I thought, real strange. Like a bunch of kids in their clubhouse, playing at something.
These cops may have shared a strange little ritual, preparing their friend for the boneyard; but those guys weren't playing. Death was part of every cop's life, whether you bought it on the street or survived into an old age haunted by nightmares or ate the muzzle of your gun as a rookie who couldn't take it or an old soldier who wanted to one-up the Big C.
The guests had started to clear out. The photogs were first, hurrying to get their pictures into the labs, then the police. Pat and I walked Alex Jaynor to the door—he seemed moved by the simple, if odd ceremony. Well, Doolan had been his mentor, too.
Alex got cornered by a reporter, and we left him behind as we headed down the street for a booth in the nearest gin mill.
Pat and I both ordered a Canadian Club and ginger ale, and toasted each other silently
Over the second drink Pat suddenly said, "What about Velda, Mike?"
The sound of her name hit like a physical blow and I had trouble looking at him. "It's over."
"That simple. 'It's over.' Why is it over?"
"Can't we drop the subject?"
"No. She was too much a part of you. Of us. What happened?"
Suddenly the drink tasted lousy. "Hell, I was dying. My life expectancy was maybe a month. I wasn't about to let her watch me go out like a cat that's been half run over, yelling and screaming until they shot the drugs into me again."
"But you pulled through."
"Nobody thought that old army surgeon could bring it off. The odds were ridiculous. I signed the papers and let him go ahead because I thought it would be an easy way to get the whole damn thing finished with in a hurry."
"What are the odds now?"
I shrugged. "If I'm not too stupid, I'm going to make it."
He nodded, sipped his drink. "That brings us around to Velda again. When you knew you were coming out of the tunnel, why not let her know?"
I shook my head. "You saw Bonetti in there. His soldiers might have shown up at any time. She'd have been at my side when the bullets started flying."
"She's a big girl. Not your average secretary. She's a P.I. herself, and then there's her military intelligence background. What makes you think she couldn't have handled that?"
"Because she loved me, Pat. You know it, I know it, and we both know I didn't deserve her, but there it is. She would have been so distracted, worrying about me, nursemaiding me, she could easily have taken a hit. And I could stand a lot of things, Pat ... but after all these years, losing her because she's trying to save me? No. No way. Now can we change the subject?"
"Mike, you don't tune somebody out when you love them."
"You said it yourself, Pat. She's a P.I. Probably a better detective than either of us. If she'd really wanted to find me, she could have."
"Really? After your letter?"
Barroom noise and chatter filled a pregnant silence.
Finally I said, "You know about that?"
A sad little frown flitted across his face. "Yeah, I know about it."
I tried not to ask. I swear to God, I tried not to ask.
"What's happened to her, Pat?"
He looked past me, gnawing gently at his lip. When he was ready, he said, "Six months ago, she called. She'd gotten your letter. She read it to me, Mike. How could you say those things to her?"
I had to ask him.
"How'd she sound?" I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice.
He thought about it, then shrugged. "Cold. Remote. Not the way she used to."
"Come on, Pat."
"There was a new man in her life, she said. She said she'd moved on, and called me to say she was leaving town. She did ... just mention that she ... wondered if you were still alive, or if you had asked about her."
My chest felt tight and my shoulders bunched up under my coat.
He was saying, "I told her I didn't know where you were, and that we hadn't spoken since you slipped our guard at the hospital. She told me your letter had a Miami postmark, which gave me a starting point, tracking you down. The last I heard, she'd left town."
"...New man in her life. Well, good. I'm glad for her."
"In a pig's ass you are."
"Let's just say I can handle it, okay? It was a phase of my life."
"A goddamn long phase."
"You know me, Pat. Women come and go."
"Yeah, you come and they go. But not Velda—she was a constant. She was with you for ... forever."
I'd thought it would be forever.
"Like I said," I said as casually as I could manage, "now it's over."
"I'm supposed to believe you're not hurting?"
"I'm not hurting. I won't forget her, but I'm not all whacked out of shape over it."
I leaned back and wondered whether or not I was lying. For sure, I'd never forget her.
Never.
In his typical fashion, Pat turned the whole subject upside-down. He asked very casually, "You have a gun on you?"
He was a winner, all right.
"No. I haven't carried one since that night at the pier."
"You renewed your permit."
"The man's a detective ... yes, and my driver's license and the one for the agency. The office is closed but the rent is paid up. I sublet my apartment but didn't let it go."
"Why? Why bother?"
Good question. "Some things you just never give up, pal."
"Are you planning on staying?"
"Not long-term. Not sure I could handle that dark cloud you say follows me around."
He waved for the waiter and asked for the check. "You need to crash with me?"
"No thanks. I booked a room at the Commodore." I waited a moment, then added, "I want to go over to Doolan's pad tomorrow."
"I figured as much. No problem. When you're done, we'll turn the place over to Anna, and she and her husband can loot it. Come on, I'll give you a ride to the hotel."
We walked to where he'd parked his old sedan. Pat pulled out and turned left, cruising down one of those sick streets where nobody gave a damn about anything. If you were a stranger, you'd wonder where the slopped-up jokers got the money to buy a pint and who the hell those poor old hookers were going to solicit in this neighborhood.