THE OLDE PIG SNOUT TAVERN in South Philly was as close to a real home as Kyle had anymore, if home was wherever family could be found. Kyle’s father and mother both were dead, he had no siblings, and the only grandparent he ever knew was his mother’s disapproving mother, who was now long gone. He was closer to Kat than to anyone else on the planet, but as far as blood went, Kyle had only one family member left, and he could invariably be found drinking away his disability check at the Olde Pig Snout.
“Well, lookie who the hell it is,” said Uncle Max as Kyle stepped into the bar. “Yo, Fred, you know my nephew Kyle?”
“Sure,” said Fred, the tall, lugubrious man who forever stood behind the bar of the Olde Pig Snout. “How you doing there, Kyle?”
“Good,” said Kyle.
“That’s good,” said Fred. “That’s real good. You still playing ball?”
“I was. For Bubba’s.”
“Good. Are they doing any good?”
“No.”
“Good. Anything I can get you?”
“A beer is good.”
“On my tab,” said Max.
“Good,” said Fred.
Conversation was always scintillating at the Olde Pig Snout, a simple corner joint that never seemed to change. The prevailing color was nicotine brown, the hamburgers were always overcooked, the television was always on, the Phillies were always losing. Over the years the clientele had shifted from all white to a mixture of white and black and Vietnamese, a veritable Rainbow Coalition, but this was no great circle of man holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” Because they were at the Olde Pig Snout, and that brought everyone down to the same low level, drinking for the same sad reasons, eating the same overcooked hamburgers. But that night Kyle wasn’t there for the burgers.
Ever since the funeral that afternoon, and the conversations with that cop Ramirez and the strange Mr. O’Malley, Kyle had been plagued by questions. Why was Laszlo Toth murdered? Why were questions being asked about Liam Byrne’s death? Was there a link between the two? What surprising things about his father’s life and death could this O’Malley character really tell him? And what was in that file that O’Malley was seeking so keenly?
They were all mysteries most likely better left shrugged off and forgotten. And who was better at shrugging off questions than Kyle Byrne? Kyle didn’t want to steer his life, he wanted to bob in the currents, take in the scenery as he floated here and there. Any idiot could dress to impress, work his ass off, kiss butt and climb that solid and respectable ladder of success, but only a few had the temerity to slack off as baldly as Kyle. He would always sooner spend the afternoon blowing dope and obliterating aliens on the Xbox than pounding the streets in search of the truth.
But there was another Kyle, secret and hidden. This was the Kyle who had run off with the urn holding his father’s ashes. This was the Kyle who scanned the obituaries each day and trucked out to cemeteries north and west and south to pay his father’s respects. And while all his slacker instincts screamed at him to leave this thing alone, the hole left by his father’s death seemed to draw forth an undeniable initiative that annoyed the hell out of him. If the questions were about anyone other than his father, he’d spend the day on Halo, no doubt about it. But they were about his father. And the only person he could talk to who might have a sense of what he’d be getting himself into was his Uncle Max.
“So, to what do I owe the honor of your presence in this crappy little joint?” said Max when the beers had been served and uncle and nephew had repaired to an empty booth by the bathroom door, from which the delicate scent of urine cake seeped into the air about them.
“I just thought I’d stop in to say hello.”
Max looked at him for a long moment. “How much you need?”
“Nothing,” said Kyle. “For now at least. I actually fell into a small wad, so I’m a bit flush.”
“What did you do, rob a bank?”
“Not that flush. How’s the back?”
“Who’s asking, you or the insurance company?”
“Me.”
“Then it sucks. It hurts like a nagging wife kicking a boot into my spine every single day.”
“And if it was the insurance company asking?”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I can’t no more get out of bed. So what’s really going on? What can I do you for?”
Kyle spun his beer slowly. “Remember Laszlo Toth?” “Your dad’s partner. The one that was killed the other night.” “I went to the funeral today.”
“It’s a shame,” said Max. “I mean, it’s a shame to waste a nice day like today on that Hungarian piece of crap.”
“Maybe, but some weird things happened at the funeral.” Kyle leaned forward and in a quiet voice told his uncle about the strange conversations he’d had, first with the cute cop and then with that O’Malley character. Max listened with pursed lips and squinted eyes, like he was visiting the proctologist.
“That’s a hell of a funeral,” said Max when Kyle finished the story. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How cute was the cop?”
“Really cute.”
“Still. You know, cops are tricky. Maybe you should let the whole thing die down a bit before you start slamming her with your pecker.”
“But it’s like all these mysteries have been tossed in my face, and I’m not sure I can let them go. I got to tell you, Max, my head is spinning.”
“When that happens, there’s only one thing to do,” said Max. “Yo, Freddie, two more. And since he’s struck it rich, put this round on the kid’s tab.”
When the beers came, Kyle took a swallow and then, without looking at his uncle, said, “Tell me about my father.”
“What’s there to tell? Truthfully, I didn’t know him much, but even so, I never liked the son of a bitch.”
“Why not?”
“Look, all I cared about was my sister, and then you. And this guy, he knocks her up but doesn’t marry her, doesn’t end up living with her, doesn’t spend any time with her or the kid but instead keeps on living with his little French number. In my book a son of a bitch does that to my sister . . . well, I’m not going to like him.”
“Fair enough. What about my mom?”
“Paula? She was dazzled by him. He had big words, big ideas, big emotions, big ambitions, and he was able to con her into thinking she could come along for the ride. She fell in love and never stopped loving. Even after the son of a bitch left her for the last time, she kept missing him.”
“You mean left her by dying.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“I miss him, too,” said Kyle.
“I know you do,” said Uncle Max. “And that’s another of the things he done that pisses me off.”
“Sometimes I wonder how different everything would have been if he hadn’t died, you know?”
“All that wondering, it gives you gas, Kyle. It’s better to not think about it.”
“Maybe, but I can’t help feeling that my father’s death is at the root of what my life has become. By finding out what happened to him, I can maybe find out what the hell happened to me.”
“What the hell’s so wrong with you? You’re doing okay, aren’t you?”
“Look at me, Uncle Max, and tell me I’m doing okay.”
Max looked Kyle in the eyes for a moment before his gaze slipped to the right.
“See?” said Kyle.
“Do you really think what happened to Toth had something to do with your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t make any sense that it would.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I mean, he ain’t been around for fourteen years.”
“I know.”
“My guess is there’s nothing to it.”
“You’re probably right.”
“So it’s best to forget about it.”
“I guess so.”
“But you’re not going to.”
“I don’t know.”
Max pursed his lips and rubbed his bulbous nose, and it looked for a moment like he was really thinking things through, which was strange, because Max never thought things through. Thinking, he always said, only served to stir up the blood. But Max thought it through for a while before lifting his beer to his lips, draining it, and slamming the bottle back onto the table.
“Maybe you got to do what you got to do,” he said finally.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Maybe you ought to find out what the hell is going on. Maybe you owe it to your mother. And yourself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, who the hell knows? Did I ever tell you I saw that girl Tricia again?”
“Tricia? Wasn’t she the—”
“Yeah.”
“The one who blew you off when you were in Vietnam?”
“Yeah, that’s her. Tricia, right. So last year I scored some tickets to the ball game, in one of them fancy lounges, and as I’m walking to my seat, I see her. Tricia.”
“How’d she look?”
“Pretty good. She always looked pretty good. She didn’t look great, mind you—we’re all getting older now, and so none of us look all that great, me included—but still she looked . . . pretty damn good.”
“It must have been hard.”
“You’d think, right? I mean, I got to tell you, that broad she messed me up but good. Enough tears to baptize the whole fricking neighborhood. I mean, I was a mess when I first came back, and that was like the final push. And everything what happened to me along the way after that, I couldn’t help thinking it would have been different I was still with Tricia. But then I saw her. And she recognized me, too, so we stopped and chatted.”
“And she looked good.”
“Yeah, but not that good. And the guy she married, he’s a schlub. And she was talking about her kids like they was the most fascinating things in the world. And she was dressed like she was going to church. I mean, it’s a ball game. And the schlub, he’s dressed, too, like it was her that set out his clothes. And you want to know something, Kyle? After I saw her, and we had our nice little talk, and I said goodbye, and I walked along to my seat, I got to tell you, despite my aching back I had a hop in my step.”
“She must not have looked that good.”
“No, I’m telling you, she looked good, not great. I mean, compared to the porn, she looked like a fifty-four-year-old in turquoise slacks, but it wasn’t that. It was like I had dodged something.”
“Okay, Tricia.”
“Look, I don’t know what I’m saying, but what I’m saying is, sometimes it can do you good to find out the truth.”
“Like about my dad.”
“To put the legends to rest.”
“Okay.”
“But where would you even start? What questions would you ask, and who would you be asking?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll start by grabbing hold of that file for that O’Malley fellow and seeing what he has to say.”
“Sounds screwy.”
“Yes, it does.”
“But what could it hurt, right?”
“Okay,” said Kyle. “Maybe I’ll do it.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, good.” Kyle paused, took a sip, looked at his Uncle Max. Kyle had always felt a little sorry for him, living alone in his mom’s old house, drinking his nights away at the Olde Pig Snout, but Kyle wouldn’t feel sorry for him anymore. Uncle Max was living the life he chose, which was more than Kyle could say about himself.
Uncle Max caught Kyle staring. “What?” he said.
“Turquoise slacks?”
A slight chuckle. “Yeah.”
“Man, oh, man,” said Kyle, “that Tricia, she must have looked like shit.”
LIAM BYRNE HAD BEEN many things: faithless lover, indifferent father, but more than anything he had been a devoted and passionate lawyer. And the holy of holies within the temple of Liam Byrne was always the office.
Kyle Byrne had often passed the stone town house with the sign bolted to the wall, and his heart had always skipped a beat at seeing his father’s name still outlined in raised brass letters on the Byrne & Toth sign. But for all the times he had passed the building, he hadn’t once stepped inside. His father had never invited him in while he was alive, and Kyle had never mustered the courage to enter after his father had died. Maybe it was the apprehension of running into the ferocious Laszlo Toth that had kept him at bay. If so, at least that fear had been buried.
So now, instead of staring up at the second-floor windows and wondering what strange and mystical clues to the truth about Liam Byrne lay inside, he moseyed up the stairs, rubbing his finger across his father’s name as he passed the sign. A quick yank to open the door, and in he stepped onto sacred ground.
The woman sitting behind the desk of the ground-floor lobby gave him a who-the-hell-are-you look that was so fetching it almost made Kyle forget why he was there.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“Maybe you can,” said Kyle, glancing around the fancy room. There were prints of birds on the walls, there was a wood-paneled elevator at the far end with an ornate wooden staircase wrapping around it. Kyle was wearing his usual outfit—cargo shorts, high-top black sneakers, and a ringer T-shirt—and where he usually felt at home in his clothes, here, in his father’s territory with its ornate furnishings and its air of officialism, he felt strangely underdressed. He turned his attention back to the woman, who was actually quite beautiful, with short dark hair, big brown eyes, lashes. Suddenly unsure of what he was doing there, he fell into his most comfortable pattern.
“Who do you think are more inherently honest,” he said as he leaned an arm on her desk and played out his lines, “men or women?”
“Excuse me?”
“I was having this bet with a friend, and I said women are more inherently honest.”
“That’s what you said?”
“I’m the trusting sort.”
“Well, however much you bet,” she said, “it was too much. But if you want me to hold the stakes . . .”
He laughed.
“Is that why you came in?” she said. “To settle a bet?”
“You have something there.” He touched his own face as he leaned toward her. “Right there on your cheek. Yeah, that’s it. Good. No, I need to see someone from that law firm upstairs.”
“Byrne & Toth?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’m sorry, but the law firm of Byrne & Toth is closed for the time being.”
“Vacation?”
“It’s a little more serious, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to have to tell you the news, but Mr. Toth passed away.”
“Really? How?”
She looked at him with sincere brown eyes. “Heart attack,” she said.
“Maybe I am going to lose that bet,” said Kyle. “How many lawyers are left working there?”
“Two, but I have strict instructions that there are to be no visitors.”
“Why don’t you give them a call? My last name is Byrne, as in Liam Byrne, though I’m the son, not the father, seeing as my father is dead. Tell them that the son of Liam Byrne is here to speak with them. That should pique their interest.”
A short, sharp-faced man with a barrel chest and small, shiny black shoes came down the stairs to meet him. Kyle had seen him at the Toth funeral, standing behind the grieving widow, looking like a self-important bulldog.
“Hello?” said the man, eyeing Kyle’s T-shirt and shorts as if they were an insult. “Mr. Byrne? My name’s Ben Malcolm. Can I help you?” It was not a welcoming salutation,
Hello, nice to see you,
more an accusation,
Hello, what the hell are you doing here?
It’s always gratifying to get off on the right foot. Kyle instinctively did the calculation. In a fair fight, he could take the man easily, but there was something in this Malcolm’s eyes that told him it wouldn’t be a fair fight.
“I think I saw you at Mr. Toth’s funeral,” said Kyle. “You were there with a very attractive woman, if I recall.”
“My wife.”
“Ahh, good for you. Well done,” said Kyle, even as he noticed the receptionist’s pretty mouth tighten. “I was hoping you could help me. I have some family matters to clear up, and I need to look through my father’s old files to get a grip on things.”
Malcolm stared at Kyle like he had two heads. “Your father was Liam Byrne?”
“He was.”
“And you want to look through his old files?”
“Exactly,” said Kyle.
“To get a grip on things.”
“Your English is very good. The lessons must be working. I’ve got some time now, so I figured you wouldn’t mind if I went up and sort of poked around.”
“I’m sorry,” said Malcolm without sounding very sorry, “but no, you can’t poke around. I wasn’t here when your father passed away, but I’m sure everything of a personal nature went right to Mrs. Byrne upon your father’s death. Is that your mother?”
“Ahh, not exactly.”
“Still, maybe you can get what you’re looking for from her. But we can’t just let you paw through our files. There is confidential matter in each and every one of them. It would be totally improper.”
“I don’t mean to tell anybody about anything. I just want to look.”
“It doesn’t matter what you intend, don’t you see? What you’re asking is impossible. Is there anything specific you’re looking for?”
Kyle thought for a moment. The O’Malley file was what he was after, the key to unlock O’Malley’s information about his father, but there was something dishonest in Malcolm’s gaze, like he was pretending not to care what Kyle was doing there when in fact he cared very much.
“No, nothing specific.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do for you. After Mr. Toth’s death, the firm can’t really continue as it is currently constituted. I’ve already begun a new job and am just helping to close this office down. Any active cases will be given back to the clients, anything inactive will be destroyed.”
“Destroyed? Before I can look at them?”
“That’s right.”
“But there might be something personal in the files that would mean a great deal to me. Emotionally, I mean.”
“I’m sure there isn’t.”
“Can’t I just look around? I’m trying to get a better sense of my dad. I didn’t know him very well.”
“All childhoods are tragic in their way, Mr. Byrne.”
“Is there any other—”
“No,” said Malcolm, cutting him off. “There is no other option. I’m sorry. Thank you for coming. And thank you for leaving, too.” Kyle tensed his neck for a moment, preparing to get physical, and then he noticed the woman behind the desk, watching the whole thing quite closely, more interested than a disinterested observer. Was there something going on between the two? Kyle wouldn’t put it past a pug like Malcolm. So if he decked the little bastard, the receptionist would call the cops, the cops would shove him into handcuffs, and that would be the end of any chance of finding the O’Malley file. On the other hand, it would feel damn good, which was almost reason enough to just haul off and do it.
But he didn’t do it. He didn’t hit the stonewalling Malcolm in the face or barge right past the lawyer on the way up the stairs or even hold his ground and refuse to move until some accommodation was made. Instead Kyle shrugged, said, “Yeah, okay, whatever,” and left, retreated, just walked away.
Walking away had always been his trademark move whenever he faced an obstacle that couldn’t be breached. Walk away, find a bar, pound a beer, move on. And it had worked for him in the past, hadn’t it? So that was it. The first step was barred, Kyle’s old instincts kicked in, and just that quick his little detective play was over. Time to give Skitch a call and get hammered.
And in the lobby the lawyer Malcolm watched with the slightest of smiles as Kyle’s demeanor collapsed into weak ness and he retreated without a fuss. After Kyle had left, Malcolm gave instructions to the girl at the desk, whom he absolutely was screwing on the side. Then he went upstairs to the offices of Byrne & Toth and placed a call.