mediocrities who are only interested in making sure the United States doesn’t look like a banana republic, a bunch of failed lawyers who were able to eat well only because they were eating at the public trough?”
“How long have you felt this way?”
“From the time I talked to Mosely twenty-seven hours after Tim was murdered.”
“But you went along, Pa.”
“I had to go along; there was carefully nurtured doubt! There were men convincing me that it would be scalding America with shame and disaster—and maybe even revolution—if I stood up and pointed a finger at some figure in American life and charged that he had paid to have Tim shot down in the streets. Yes. I went along. Because they gave me Willie Arnold’s body as representing Willie Arnold’s guilt, and I bought it because there was nothing else to do.”
A telephone light went on. Pa picked up. “Yes, Fritz? What’s the scam? What? That’s crazy. You’d better haul Heller up on your carpet, my friend. Whaaaat? Dead? Heller is dead ? How? When? What happened?” He listened, staring at Nick with consternation. “Listen, Fred, I’m going to put my son on the line and he’s going to give you the names and addresses of the three witnesses who saw Heller find thatrifle and take it with him out of the Engelson Building. Hold on.” Pa put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Heller is dead of a heart attack. It happened some time this morning. The rifle has disappeared.” He gave Nick the telephone.
“Commissioner? I am Nicholas Thirkield, Mr. Kegan’s son. Yes, sir. Miles Gander. At the Petroleum Club. The building manager, David Coney. The third man ran a business in vending machines which occupied Room 603. His name is John Kullers. That’s K-u-l-l-e-r-s. Yes, sir, I will report to you and make a sworn statement.” He hung up.
“I’d like to make a deposition here, Pa, and send it in. I have to go to New York tonight.”
“This cop Heller was on the case in Philadelphia when Tim was shot,” Pa said. “He was a captain then. He seemed to run everything.”
“Could Heller have been working for the man we are looking for?”
Pa nodded blankly.
“When Heller got the rifle, could he have tried to blackmail whoever the man is?”
“Yes. He probably tried to sell the man the rifle.”
“And the man killed him?”
Pa nodded.
“Then it isn’t a total loss. If all that is true, we know the man is still alive—that he survived these past fourteen years with the rest of us.”
Pa grinned. His plaque teeth revealed themselves row on row. They shone in the light like files of ivory. His eyes crinkled and his creased face showed two little Santa apples under each eye, all rosy and shiny. Nick knew he must be thinking of death for someone else, that he was summoning ruin and pain for whoever had caused this thought to make him smile so wondrously. “Yes,” Pa said, “the son-of-a-bitch is still alive.”
MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1900—SAN FRANCISCO
Thomas Xavier Kegan was a professional Irishman and a professional American—each kept separate from the other. The operative word “professional” is, as a noun: (a) one who professes to be skilled in and to follow assiduously the calling or occupation by which he habitually earns a living; (b) one who trains himself in the skills required for theoretic and scientific exploitation of an occupation, as distinct from its merely mechanical parts, which raises the occupation to the dignity of a learned profession.
Annually, for thirty-one years, Pa had been Honorary Grand Master of a St. Patrick’s Day parade, which he attended in one American city or another. He kept a card file of eleven thousand, four hundred Pat-and-Mike jokes which he told, with a “brogue” that was a mixture of Polish, Japanese and Italian accents, at Holy Name Society breakfasts, at banquets given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Knights of Columbus, at alumni dinners at Notre Dame and Holy Cross
“How long have you felt this way?”
“From the time I talked to Mosely twenty-seven hours after Tim was murdered.”
“But you went along, Pa.”
“I had to go along; there was carefully nurtured doubt! There were men convincing me that it would be scalding America with shame and disaster—and maybe even revolution—if I stood up and pointed a finger at some figure in American life and charged that he had paid to have Tim shot down in the streets. Yes. I went along. Because they gave me Willie Arnold’s body as representing Willie Arnold’s guilt, and I bought it because there was nothing else to do.”
A telephone light went on. Pa picked up. “Yes, Fritz? What’s the scam? What? That’s crazy. You’d better haul Heller up on your carpet, my friend. Whaaaat? Dead? Heller is dead ? How? When? What happened?” He listened, staring at Nick with consternation. “Listen, Fred, I’m going to put my son on the line and he’s going to give you the names and addresses of the three witnesses who saw Heller find thatrifle and take it with him out of the Engelson Building. Hold on.” Pa put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Heller is dead of a heart attack. It happened some time this morning. The rifle has disappeared.” He gave Nick the telephone.
“Commissioner? I am Nicholas Thirkield, Mr. Kegan’s son. Yes, sir. Miles Gander. At the Petroleum Club. The building manager, David Coney. The third man ran a business in vending machines which occupied Room 603. His name is John Kullers. That’s K-u-l-l-e-r-s. Yes, sir, I will report to you and make a sworn statement.” He hung up.
“I’d like to make a deposition here, Pa, and send it in. I have to go to New York tonight.”
“This cop Heller was on the case in Philadelphia when Tim was shot,” Pa said. “He was a captain then. He seemed to run everything.”
“Could Heller have been working for the man we are looking for?”
Pa nodded blankly.
“When Heller got the rifle, could he have tried to blackmail whoever the man is?”
“Yes. He probably tried to sell the man the rifle.”
“And the man killed him?”
Pa nodded.
“Then it isn’t a total loss. If all that is true, we know the man is still alive—that he survived these past fourteen years with the rest of us.”
Pa grinned. His plaque teeth revealed themselves row on row. They shone in the light like files of ivory. His eyes crinkled and his creased face showed two little Santa apples under each eye, all rosy and shiny. Nick knew he must be thinking of death for someone else, that he was summoning ruin and pain for whoever had caused this thought to make him smile so wondrously. “Yes,” Pa said, “the son-of-a-bitch is still alive.”
MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1900—SAN FRANCISCO
Thomas Xavier Kegan was a professional Irishman and a professional American—each kept separate from the other. The operative word “professional” is, as a noun: (a) one who professes to be skilled in and to follow assiduously the calling or occupation by which he habitually earns a living; (b) one who trains himself in the skills required for theoretic and scientific exploitation of an occupation, as distinct from its merely mechanical parts, which raises the occupation to the dignity of a learned profession.
Annually, for thirty-one years, Pa had been Honorary Grand Master of a St. Patrick’s Day parade, which he attended in one American city or another. He kept a card file of eleven thousand, four hundred Pat-and-Mike jokes which he told, with a “brogue” that was a mixture of Polish, Japanese and Italian accents, at Holy Name Society breakfasts, at banquets given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Knights of Columbus, at alumni dinners at Notre Dame and Holy Cross
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