CHAPTER 42
DID YOU SEE his face, boyo?” said Liam Byrne, peering into the car after Kyle had sped from the meeting to pick him up. “It was like someone had taken hold of his heart and squeezed the squirmy little frog until it leaped. Jumping Jehosaphat, I don’t remember whenever I’ve had so much fun.”
“Neither do I,” said Kyle, both astonished and delighted that it was true. “It was freaking bold.”
“Indeed it was, boyo. Truly it was.”
“Get in,” said Kyle, and when his father did, they sat there, side by side, not moving for a moment, thinking, both of them, about the appearance of Liam Byrne’s ghostly apparition in the corner of Sorrentino’s mysteriously darkened office during negotiations over the file. And then, in that car, starting with restrained, almost amazed, chuckles and ending with belly-jostling guffaws, they laughed together, father and son.
“Did he buy it all the way?” said Liam when they had caught again their breaths and Kyle started driving. “Was he as scared as he looked?”
“I think so,” said Kyle. “Calling him a ‘marinated piece of malfeasance’ from the grave and promising to ‘crush his skull like a dung beetle’ seemed to do it.”
“It was more the tone than the words,” said Liam. “I put the ringing tone of righteous retribution in my voice.”
“It even scared me, and I knew what was going on,” said Kyle. And then, in imitation of Tiny Tony’s deathly rasp, he said, “ ‘Lamb? Burnt lamb?’ ”
And the words set off another round of laughter. Before the appearance of Liam Byrne’s ghost, there had been a strange phone call with abysmal reception, as if the call had come from some nether region. “What the hell?” had said Sorrentino. “Lamb? Burnt lamb? Who the hell is talking about burnt lamb? This ain’t no Greek restaurant.” It had taken every ounce of his self-control for Kyle not to burst out laughing right there in the office.
“But did he keep threatening you?” said Liam after the second bout of laughter had subsided. “Did he insist on still getting the file?” “No,” said Kyle. “Not after. He looked up at that painting of his first wife, let a shiver roll through him, and told me to get the hell out of there.”
“Ah, Eleanor.” In his mock ghost voice, Liam said, “ ‘Should I summon Eleanor to convince you? She’s here. She says your new wife is a bigger whore than the last one.’ That was the final touch that put it over, I believe.”
“How did you think to bring her in?”
“It was the painting. When he lit his lighter and backed away from my ghost, I saw it in the glow of the flame. I knew Eleanor. No one in life had ever frightened that scoundrel more. It’s good to know that some things survive the scythe. So you’re off the hook?” “It appears I am. Thanks.”
“Ah, think nothing of it, boyo. What else could a father do? But we put it over together. You and me, father and son. And we still have that Truscott in our crosshairs. It’s a grand night for the Byrnes, yes it is. We need commemorate the event with a celebration worthy of the achievement. Pull over there.”
“Where?”
“There. Right there. The state store. It still seems to be open. Pull over, and I’ll grab us some libations, and we’ll toast to the budding partnership of Byrne & Son.”
Kyle sat in the car, suffused with an exuberant joy. He did feel good, great, free. Part of it was getting out from under the thumb of Tiny Tony Sorrentino, but it was more than just that, far more. These last two nights and a day with his father, first coming through the fire, and then the altercation outside Kat’s place, and now this supernatural trick played on the bookie bastard who had beat the hell out of him a few days before, all of it had been the realization of the secret dream of his life. His father was back, and it wasn’t working out horribly, it was working out well—hell, it was working out great. He almost liked the old guy, and the old guy almost liked him, and they actually seemed like a pretty good team. What could be better? He had a father again.
Yes, a celebration was in order. His father would come out with a bright bottle of champagne. They’d go back to their motel room and fill a couple of glasses with the bubbly. They’d make a toast to their successes in the past twenty-four hours, to their blinding boldness. And as they sipped and celebrated, they’d talk to each other about all the hours of each other’s lives they’d missed and all the hours together still to come. Kyle’s eyes grew unaccountably misty as he thought about it.
When Liam Byrne danced out of the state store, there was a gleam in his eye and a large paper bag in his hand. He smiled his broadest smile yet and winked as he stood in the headlights of the car and pulled out a gallon of something, its amber color swallowing the light.
And later . . .
“It is what I miss so much about the law,” said Liam Byrne, as he paced around the motel room, waving his arm in emphasis, the cheap scotch sloshing wildly in his water glass. The rumpled bedspread had a brown and red checkerboard pattern that failed to hide the stains. The place smelled of ammonia and piss. Liam Byrne was walking around in his socks, and there was no champagne.
“The drama of it all, the oratory,” said Liam Byrne. “To be armed only with your words and your wits, but all the while keeping the audience rapt as you push it to do your will. That’s what it is to be a lawyer. And that’s what we did tonight, boyo. It was an audience of one, true, but we had him believing in the impossible, and he did as we bade. It was my one great talent, to be a trial lawyer, and I miss it. But you have it in you, all of it. You should find a place for yourself in the law.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” said Kyle, holding his own glass of scotch as he sat in the chair. Kyle was still on his first, his father had poured three times. Kyle could drink to distraction, but he didn’t like the taste of the cheap scotch, and he didn’t like drinking in a motel room. There was something about it that gave him the skives. These rooms were made for bad sex and hard, hopeless drinking, and though he preferred the first to the second, he didn’t really want any part of either. So mostly he nursed his drink and watched as his father poured from the rapidly emptying bottle.
“I’m serious as the devil,” said Kyle’s father. “You have it in you.”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” said Kyle. “I can’t get churned up about other people’s money.”
“Oh, it’s not just money, my boy. Money’s only the marker. It’s right and wrong, it’s passion and anger and love, it’s the world with all its dramas playing out in a single confined space: the courtroom. It is a grand profession, a noble profession. Losing the law is my greatest regret about leaving like I did.”
“I know how much it meant to you.”
“Ah, do I detect a pout in your voice?” Liam shook his head and took a long swallow. His eyes fluttered as he smacked his lips. “I thought we were beyond that.”