A reason to kill, p.13
A Reason To Kill, page 13
While Pat O’Donnell continued to reminisce about their past, Devlin’s eyes shifted to the back booth. Their booth, and he shoved the Connors’ problems temporally from his mind. He drifted back to when he had come to New York in1969 and he remembered with a smile…
~~~
Only a teenager, Tom Devlin had spent his first rough week in New York with Michael O’Neill badgering him about how he walked, how he talked and how he dressed.
O’Neill had brought him to this stage-Irish pub for lunch. Tom sought it out alone later that evening for the simple pleasure of sharing a bit of home. The small head bobbing up and down over a large book at a rear table surprised him. Little girls were not a common sight in a street bar.
“My kid.” The proprietor said as it became obvious how the young man’s glance shifted continuously towards the girl. “Thinks she’s got me fooled into believing she’s doing her homework.”
A bunch of soft chuckles coming from the back booth drew Devlin to the girl. He grinned down at her with the question, “Sure you’re studying lass? Must be more fun than mine.”
Her chestnut hair was clipped nearly as short as the boy’s so the delicate features of her face were conspicuous. Blue eyes above a tiny nose, ringed round with freckles, sparkled with mischief as Megan said, “You’re real Irish?”
“That’s a fact.”
“I’m cheating. See?” Megan held a history book open to expose the comic book. “Don’t let on to my pop.”
“Never a squealer, lass.”
“Good, you can sit down then.” Megan O’Donnell ordered the young man.
Tom Devlin sat and they talked and laughed together. Soon, drawn by the sound of his usually so serious child’s nonsense, Pat O’Donnell, joined them.
Many times a younger Devlin had made his way to that booth. And soon he was no longer a lonely boy in a foreign land. Friday night suppers at the O’Donnell’s became a ritual; holiday dinners a necessity; as these two people filled a void he so desperately needed.
“You’ll pull it all together, Lad.” O’Donnell mistook Devlin’s lengthy silence for worry. “Them Connors’ know you’re the best when it comes to solving their problems.”
Devlin’s pleasant memories faded and he frowned. “Hope you’re right, Pat. One thing for certain, I’ll never get fat the way they keep me hopping. Not likely I’ll live long enough to turn a pleasant gray.”
Chapter 24
New York City, 1981
Michael O’Neill prowled his empty house much like a lion hunting for prey. Each room he entered he flicked on the light. He could have allowed the timers to do it, but it was only 3:00pm and in summer they were set for 6:00pm.
He stopped in his bedroom and the lightweight suit was exchanged for a polo shirt and chinos. He didn’t bother to replace the leather shoes he’d kicked off. The thick rug felt good on his stockinged feet. The bed covers were still rumpled from a restless night—Ann had given the housekeeper two weeks off before she left. He dropped crossways on the bed and grabbed a pillow to hug. Ann’s familiar scent tickled his nose. Three days she’d been gone; he finally admitted to himself he missed her.
Ann Ryan wanted to be Mrs. Michael O’Neill. He wasn’t a stupid man so while he knew this, he knew also it wasn’t because she felt this grand love for him. He’d convinced himself years ago that probably no woman but his ma would ever really love him.
He figured Ann just wanted a proper place in society and the security of marriage. As a skinny adolescent, with pale cheeks that tended to cherry-up unexpectedly his experience with girls was limited. By the time his flesh had caught up with his frame, there were so many drastic changes in his life he’d hardly noticed how attractive he’d become. So when he was first trying to get his bearings in this new country and wanted to fit into his cousin’s crowd, he had let Andrea Nelson seduce him.
He didn’t like Andrea. She was a pushy broad. But all the guys had special girls and she was part of the ‘in crowd’. What had started as an exciting sexual contact soon turned into a drag. Christ, every time he’d turned around Andrea was there; trying to hang on to him, making him uncomfortable. The Yanks seemed to expect that kind of nonsense, but he didn’t. It was okay if the girls hung around but the constant touching, teasing, made him feel like he was plagued by a perpetual hard-on.
Naturally it hadn’t taken him long to realize the truth, it was Shelia Connors he wanted. Of course, in those teen years, Shelia never would do much more than snuggle. So he continued his relationship with Andrea. He had enough shit in his life to be bothered with he didn’t need sexual frustration.
Michael had fled the land of his birth when his own father ordered him to do so. Liam O’Neill told his son there wasn’t a chance in hell he could keep him out of prison even if he wanted to—which he wasn’t sure he did.
“You killed that lad, Michael, you and your rowdy friends—not that constable who shot him. Now you run; you’re mine so I’ll see to you but don’t come back.”
Liam O’Neill would be allowed to see after his eldest son’s support but he would never see his face again. Michael had hung over the railing of the rolling ship puking into the Atlantic until he was sure his innards were coming out when he made that vow. He felt betrayed for his father hadn’t believed him.
The youth they fingered as the aggressor in the attack on the RUC man, had been Colin O’Donnell. Colin got the lads riled up and then took the brick to the man’s face. When the constable got his gun free and shot at the fleeing culprits he killed one. The angry policeman had sworn the dying youth fingered Michael.
Michael was a Catholic. It was not in his Protestant friends’ nature to give Colin up to spare himself. Michael could live with that—but not with his father’s betrayal.
According to Tom Devlin, Colin O’Donnell had not fared so well. He’d married Tom’s sister, slowly crawled into the permanent bottle, then killed her, and fled the consequences. He remembered now how, as youngsters, people had often mistaken him and Colin for brothers.
~~~
Northern Ireland 1956
Stripped to the waist the adolescents had been rope climbing and jumping into the hay mounds for fun. Sweat beaded their bodies causing them to tingle from the chill of early morning. They lay in the hay using handfuls of the rough substance to rub away the sweat. Already awarded a new infant brother, Michael O’Neill spoke with superior knowledge in offering an answer to the complaint of his expectant friend. “Ain’t no shame in your ma having a sucker.”
“I know,” Colin O’Donnell said. “But it’s the thinkin’ how she got that way stuns a chap. Don’t think of your own ma in terms like that. Didn’t it feel weird when Emanon was born?”
“Suppose.” Michael continued to rub at his flesh. He couldn’t admit how awful it had been. His ma with that big belly and everyone knowing how it got that way. His pa beaming at her like an over-stuffed hog. Suddenly his groin felt hard and itchy so he rolled over to wiggle it into the straw. “Nipper comes out,” he said, “ya get over it.”
And Colin offered, “Rub your back?”
The roughness felt good and the now and then touch of his friend’s hands was comforting and Michael said, “Sure, ‘bout the time them buggers gets to toddling, us totin’ them along, people eyeing us odd like will get to be common.”
“Suppose sex ain’t any awful thing.” The Protestant youth decided. “The baby Jesus came that way.”
“Not so!” was yelped by the insulted Catholic boy.
Followed by Colin’s sneered declaration, “Take more’n your Pope’s word to convince me different.”
Michael threw himself atop the heretic. They wrestled about; evenly matched they quickly grew exhausted, started to giggle and forgot the upset.
Colin ran his fingers over Michael’s bare chest and said, “Play tomorrow, were gonna look like our daddies took the switch ta us.” He shoved up his own pant leg to examine crisscross surface scratches where the dry fiber had punctured his clothing. Then he gave the now kneeling Michael’s britches a yank down to convince himself his friend’s lower body was sufficiently marked as well.
As Michael shoved Colin away and fixed his trousers his groin grew uncomfortable again and he stammered, “You ever tinker with a lass?” He felt his face flush.
He was sure Colin lied when he said, “Yeah, ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Damn, don’t I know that?” Came the returned lie. A month the senior, Michael was not to be outclassed.
“You done more?” Was whispered with an awe of respect.
“Couple, few times.” Michael’s lie grew. “Ain’t given ya no names though.”
“Maura Casey?” Colin snickered. “I seen ya trying to feel her fanny. She let ya do it too.” The jealousy plainly apparent he asked, “She let you get the tongue in her mouth? Sure wish our lasses were as accommodating as a papist wench.”
“Not so,” and Mike attacked him again…
~~~
New York City, 1981
Maura Casey? A grown up Michael O’Neill, lay in his big bed, in his mammoth New York house alone and gave a sharp laugh. He was remembering how it had taken him years of extreme effort only to discover ten minutes of pleasure and two seconds of relief. When he’d finished he looked down at that beautiful face, he’d been telling himself he would love forever, and felt cheated.
She’d used him for a fool. Maura played the innocent, putting him through all that frustration only to finally discover he wasn’t her first lover.
He grinned remembering his urge right then had been to head for Saint Mathew’s and the confessional. Not to ease his foul soul but to burn down the frigging thing and the good father in it. “Lad, the sins of the imagination are as evil in the Lord’s eyes as the sins of the flesh; when such desire enters your thoughts—pray.”
Michael snickered into the pillow. He could have spent a lifetime on his knees if he listened to the priests. He wouldn’t have so much as dared to jerk off. Why? So one grand night he could strut in his proud virgin body to a marriage bed to perform a sacred ritual in the continuation of mankind.
Colin O’Donnell’s off-repeated statement made more sense. Colin assured him, “If men were meant to have sex only to reproduce, then, sure, us poor blighters wouldn’t be ready for action at the ‘come hither’ look in pretty pair of eyes. God would have made us like the dumb animal who can only get it up when the smell of the female informs him she’s ready.”
Still clutching the pillow, savoring Ann’s lingering scent, he rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling. The sunlight coming through the window created weird shadowy figures on the pale-green surface. The wind blowing gently at the summer weight drapes caused those shadows to move like dancing imps without substance. Harbingers of the Devil within.
Michael O’Neill hadn’t thought about Colin O’Donnell in years. Then this morning, when he called Tom Devlin to join him for lunch, Tom was griping about the fact Seamus O’Donnell was picking this busy time to reacquaint him with his nephews, and O’Neill suddenly remembered their father. Colin’s sons, the idea of seeing them appealed to him.
Michael tossed Ann’s pillow as he got up from the bed. Ann had accompanied Deirdre. Only as far as London, she made certain he understood that she wouldn’t be imposing on his father. Ann had been cooking up something in that pretty little head. For days before they left, she’d been whispering and giggling like a teenager with his thirteen-year-old daughter.
She was going to a wedding. Some member of Ann’s sorority had requested she be her maid of honor. “Tracie is dying for me to meet the rest of her family—especially her brother,” was all she told him. Sorority? Ann still kept in contact with her college playmates. He hadn’t realized that.
She was only planning a two-week stay in England. He moved again through the big empty house. Might as well marry her before she decides to move out on me again. Ann’s comings and goings were ritual. In a six-year relationship, she’d left him more times than he could count. Of course it was always his fault, he never lied to himself about that. He wouldn’t allow that permanent commitment she wanted.
Like a ghost waiting in the shadows, the memories of Shelia Connors lingered. Though Shelia was bonded to another man, he couldn’t stop loving her. ‘bout time this lad grew up, he thought and his booming laughter rang in the stillness. This time there’d be no talking, no planning, the day she got off that plane he’d slip the ring on Ann’s finger and head for the courthouse to get the license.
Chapter 25
New York City, 1981
By parking her small rump on a high bar stool, five foot one Megan O’Donnell could feel equal in height to most men. “Just a Bud Light.” She smiled at the bartender. Then turned her attention on Thomas Devlin and the pleasant smile became a perplexed frown. “It’s weird,” she said. “The group was never intentionally anti-British. Then that meeting last night, this character takes the podium and starts spieling off horror stories that would make the news in the Irish People read like nursery rhymes. By the time he’d finished, those kids were really into the battle hymns.”
“Forget about it.” Devlin’s tone hinted at aggravation. “That plane disaster had nothing to do with the organization as a whole. For a while a few clubs will show some rebel enthusiasm it will fade quickly. The IGA is a harmless business venture. Seamus!” He called out and waved while Megan turned in her seat to see at whom.
A touch of color warmed her cheeks as she watched the grin travel across the stranger’s mouth. “Seamus O’Donnell meet Megan O’Donnell,” Devlin was saying and she laughed softly at the duplication of surnames, for there any resemblance ended.
Megan just knew that if you tossed the sweater and slacks aside, let the coppery hair grow long and free and slap a nice thick beard on his chin, she’d be trembling at what her ancient female relatives saw invading their green island so many generations ago—a chief of the Vikings.
“Well.” The stranger’s grin deepened as he said, “When Tom told me he’d a surprise, I didn’t expect it would come so finely wrapped.”
“Meg, you’re pink. First time you met me all you said was, ‘You’re real Irish?’ and I spoke as bad as this bloke then.”
O’Donnell gave him a poke in the arm. “Don’t be picking on the lass.”
“I’m used to it.” Megan said. There was something else familiar about the name but it eluded her and she asked, “Visiting?”
Devlin interrupted with a slight whistle. “Megan, you falling behind on your homework?” He motioned to the bartender before adding, “Seamus is with the human rights organization and here to address the UN.”
Mentally berating herself she said, “You’re that O’Donnell?”
“Last I knew. Damn place has more protocol than Westminster. May not get to me ‘til autumn.”
“How long you plan on staying after?” Devlin asked.
“Planned a bit of a holiday. But the lads, are not too fond of your grand big city though, especially Colin, acts like he’s scared to death.”
And Megan guessed, “Your son?”
“Nephew.” Devlin countered. “Seamus has two he inherited before he was twenty. He’s still not married.”
This brought a chuckle from the tall Irishman. “Tom, now ya know the lasses been running from the likes of me long as I can remember.”
Aware he lied, Megan found herself wishing he didn’t. “Your nephews,” she said, “would enjoy Upstate better. This world of glass and concrete isn’t a fair interpretation of New York.”
“Just what I was thinking,” Devlin said. “I’m moving them out to my place in the morning. Megan, Seamus is going to be pretty tied up, could you take a few days off and show the boys around?”
A babysitter? The surprise registered on her features but she only started to say, “I’d be glad to but—”
“Seamus O’Donnell!” The proprietor called out and waved towards the phone and a night of distress began.
~~~
S
everal hours earlier, Colin O’Donnell had stood on the curb and watched the miles of automobiles fighting for space on the road. A ‘Big Boy’ for his eleven years, folks thought him older and that was fine with him. One day he would tower over Sean’s head. Their uncle was always saying that. This idea brought a smirk. He kicked at the curb with his heel. His brother, Sean, only three years older, thought himself as wise as God and every bloody saint. Sure but it’d be a grand day when he was bigger than Sean.
He’d thrash him! He kicked the curb harder. A holiday in New York had seemed like such a buzz, but here he stood alone and bored to the point his skull hurt. Sure, hadn’t they got off that plane ‘for noon and done nothing but hold-up in that hotel? His uncle said he be right back. That had been hours and hours ago. Stupid Sean just wanted to watch Yankee sports on the telly.
The desk clerk said he could get comics at the bookstore on the corner. It turned up closed. Still daylight, he decided that if he stayed on the same wide street he wouldn’t get lost and might find another store open. Nibbling his lower lip, he waited for several changes of the streetlight before he braved the traffic and dashed across to the opposite side. One block—just one block maybe two and then he’d give up. Everything was so big and so loud. People, everywhere you looked, people. The Yanks seemed to be always yelling so you didn’t know if they were pissed-off or not. He didn’t much like it here.
Already into the second block from the hotel he began to sense the man was keeping step with him. He felt a mild nervousness as he returned the stranger’s friendly smile. “Lookin’ for comic books.” Colin explained and the man gave a soft chuckle.
