And Bill already knew he would repay the generosity of the lad’s father by taking in the son — not just putting a roof over the boy’s head; but giving young Michael a decent Christian upbringing, and heading him in the right direction, down life’s rocky old road.
When he reached the boy, and tousled his hair, Bill found the boy hugging Sarah, desperately; but Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., held back his tears.
He was older now, and his father’s son.
Nineteen
The story of the soldier who was my father ends here.
Over the decades, I read what was written about Michael O’Sullivan, Sr. (and Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.) — newspaper stories, magazine articles, sections of books, even whole volumes dedicated to our weeks on the road. Some have called Michael O’Sullivan a fiend; others an avenging angel. He was described as a modern Robin Hood; and he was termed a cold-blooded hitman.
In 1960, the Robert Stack TV show “The Untouchables” did an absurdly inaccurate episode about us; and there were three movies, one starring Preston Foster and Jimmy Lydon in the 1940s, another in the mid-’60s with James Coburn and Billy Mumy, and (as I mentioned earlier) a big-budget version with an Oscar-laden cast is in production as I write this.
Since everyone else has had their say about our story, I have finally broken my silence and spoken my piece. For years I rebuffed the advances of editors and would-be coauthors; still, I guess I always knew I’d write the story of the man who was neither fiend nor angel... just my father.
The Baums were Baptists, but — in my young adulthood — I returned to the Catholic church. In recent years, as other, later events of my life have come to light, more questions have arisen. As I’ve reported, my father’s last act was to spare me from killing Harlen Maguire; but I fully expect to be accused of manipulating the facts in this narrative — some will no doubt insist that I indeed did pull that trigger... that, there being no statute of limitations on murder, I have fobbed that deed off upon my father.
Believe what you will. Whatever happened in that kitchen in that house along Fall Rivers Lake, I did walk away with my father’s .45 Colt, inheriting the weapon he brought home from the Great War; and I was my father’s son, after all, with a family tradition of vengeance. That, however, is my story; and this has been my father’s.
Two things may help explain why I eventually chose yet another road for my life. Like my father... like so many of us... I finally came to understand my need for redemption. At the same time, throughout the life I’ve led since Papa’s death, I have been haunted by his dying request for my forgiveness, in absence of a priest.
These are high among the reasons why today I wear a backward collar, and sit on the listening side of the confessional booth. To date, however, I must admit I have not yet heard any sins to compare to those that turned a country priest ghost-white one winter afternoon.
There can be little doubt of what my father exclaimed that rainy night in Rock Island, when he stood against Looney and his army of bodyguards: “Pray that God never puts you on my road!”
If you will allow a preacher his sermon, what Papa failed to understand was that he had chosen his road; so take it from an old outlaw hiding out in priestly garb... God has nothing to do with the bad choices men make of their own free will.
Though I would make one simple request of you, in exchange for this wisdom: pray, would you, for the soul of Michael O’Sullivan?
Both of them.
A Tip of the Fedora
NOTE: This is a slightly revised version of the original acknowledgements essay that appeared with the radically shortened 2002 edition.
As the author of the original graphic novel Road to Perdition (1998), I am in the unusual position of basing a novel on another writer’s screenplay... based on my own work.
Having written numerous movie tie-in novels — including one for a previous Tom Hanks/DreamWorks production, Saving Private Ryan (1998) — I felt a prose version of that three-hundred-page comic-book novel was called for. I feared the original illustrated book would not reach readers who do not regularly partake of the comics medium... which is unfortunate, as that medium is as vital and compelling as motion pictures themselves.
I have done my best to honor David Self’s fine and faithful screenplay, and am particularly grateful to him for heightening the Mike O’Sullivan/John Looney father-and-son relationship; at the same time, I’ve expanded his fundamentally condensed version of my narrative with material culled from the graphic novel, as well as adding new elements designed to bridge those two sources.
Both John and Connor Looney existed, the latter truly nicknamed Crazy Connor, and a loosely factual basis underlies this tale. Much of the background the narrator provides at the start of each chapter is true.
I stumbled across the story of the Looneys in researching True Detective (1983), the first of my Nathan Heller novels, one of three books comprising the Frank Nitti Trilogy. My research associate on those books, George Hagenauer, offered information and insights during the writing of this work, as well.
The time frame of this novel is consistent with history where Al Capone and Frank Nitti are concerned; however, much of the Looney material is moved up in time from the 1920s (though Looney’s organization and the Capone mob were indeed connected). A few other liberties have been taken; the screenplay’s use of the Lone Ranger (I had used Tom Mix exclusively in the graphic novel) had a nice resonance for me, and I retained it — though that character did not make its radio debut until January 1933.
My late friend Bj Elsner’s Rock Island: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1988) was a key reference work for both this novel and the original graphic novel. Elsner also provided further background material and came through like a champ at a difficult time (our mutual friend, author David Collins, died during the writing of this book).
Thanks also to Bill Wundrum of the Quad City Times. Bill got me interested in John Looney in the first place, when I approached him while doing Nathan Heller research; for this novel, I drew upon articles of Bill’s as well as several of his locally produced books about the Quad Cities (the Tri-Cities, in John Looney’s day). Bill and I met, incidentally, at the Lexington Hotel, the night Geraldo opened Al Capone’s vault.
Among many gangland reference works consulted were Capone (1971), John Kobler; Capone (1994), Lawrence Bergreen; The Legacy of Al Capone (1975), George Murray; and Mr. Capone (1992), Robert J. Schoenberg. Various WPA Guides on the states through which the O’Sullivans travel were also used, as was the fine historical picture book I Remember Distinctly: A Family Album of the American People in the Years of Peace: 1918 to Pearl Harbor (1947) by Agnes Rogers and Frederick Lewis Allen. Also, I used the article “Smashing Rock Island’s Reign of Terror” by O. F. Claybaugh in the December 1930 issue of Master Detective.
Dean Zanuck and his late father, Richard — producers of the motion picture Road to Perdition — went out of their way to see that this novel came “home” to me. Kristy Cox of DreamWorks was generous with photographic materials and updated scripts; it might be of interest that this novel, like most movie “novelizations” (dreaded word), was by necessity written before I had access to the film. Writers of movie tie-in novels almost always are imagining what the film will be, working (like a director) with a screenplay and creating their own version.