“Thanks... watch my coffee for me.”
And O’Sullivan staggered into the men’s room.
Harlen Maguire sat, turned around in the booth, wondering if Mike O’Sullivan was as drunk as he seemed. Half a minute passed, and the bell over the door dinged — the cop going out.
Maguire reached in his jacket pocket, withdrew the.38 revolver, keeping it out of sight, beneath the counter. A car started up — pulled out. Good. With the cop gone, Maguire had no problem with what lay ahead of him — a farmer, a waitress, a cook. The gleaming tile of the diner, with its chrome fixtures, splashed with blood (red registering black on film), littered with corpses... what a picture. He wouldn’t even need a flash...
The bell over the door dinged — okay, one more customer, just another element of his composition... but it was the cop again!
Ambling in, the officer said to Ruby, “I’m sorry, ain’t got my head screwed on, tonight — I forgot your tip!”
And Maguire flew out of the booth, out of the diner, and the Ford was gone — he could hear it accelerating down the highway, roaring off.
Shit!
He ran to his own car — the Illinois plates screaming at him: idiot! — and found his tires slashed... four goddamn flats!
Cop inside or not, Maguire ran into the road, where O’Sullivan’s taillights receded into the distance, and slowly, steadily, he aimed the long-barreled revolver...
In the Ford, O’Sullivan — not drunk at all, though rolling down the window one-handed, to combat the whiskey he’d chugged for the sake of show — was yelling at his boy: “Down! Get down — stay down!”
Michael, waking up in the backseat, popped his head up, saying, “What? Why? What’s goin’—”
And his father reached back and physically shoved him down as the rear window exploded.
Behind them, pleased at the sound of the shattered glass, Maguire fired again, this time with no success.
“Damnit,” he said, standing in the road.
The cop, having heard the shot, came running out, one hand unbuttoning a holstered sidearm. “Hey! What the hell you think you’re—”
Maguire turned and shot him in the head.
Blood mist blossomed in the night, as the dead cop tumbled onto his back. With a sigh, disappointed but willing to salvage the evening, Maguire and his gun and his camera headed back into the diner, to finish up.
O’Sullivan drove the speed limit, relieved that no headlights were coming up behind him, grateful for the dark night and the empty highway. He was heading up Highway 13, back toward where they’d come, the turn-off to the Perdition road no longer an option.
In his cap and heavy winter coat, pushed down by his papa, Michael hadn’t been hurt by the flying glass — neither had O’Sullivan — and shards lay in the backseat like scattered ice.
Questions were tumbling out of a frightened Michael. “What happened back there? Who shot at us?”
O’Sullivan answered, watching the boy in the rearview mirror. “A man in the diner was sent to kill us.”
“How did you know he was? Did he point a gun... ?”
“No. I saw him and knew, that’s all.”
“But, Papa — how could you know?”
Now he turned and looked back at his son and told him — flat-out told him: “Because, Michael — I used to have his job!”
O’Sullivan took a side road. A few miles later, he drove up into the entry of an open field and after perhaps half a mile stopped the car, cutting the lights. The man with the camera would not find them here.
Out of breath, he turned to his son, who was wide-eyed and also breathing hard. Fury rose in O’Sullivan like lava, erupting: “When I tell you to do something, goddamn do it!”
“Papa... ”
“When I say get down, you get down. You don’t ask questions. There’s no time for questions. You can die in the time it takes to ask a goddamn question!”
“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t listen. From now on, if I say we’re stopping to eat, you stay with me! At my side. You will listen to what I say and do as I say, or you can get the hell out of this car and take care of yourself.”
The boy’s eyes were huge. “What?”
“Make up your mind, Michael. I can’t fight them and you. Not at the same time.”
And now the boy got mad, shouting defensively, “I can take care of myself just fine! You never wanted me along, anyway! You blame me for this — you think it’s all my fault!”
“Stop it, Michael... stop that talk.”
“He meant to kill me and Peter died instead and—”
“It was not your fault! The fault lies with the betrayers — Looney and his son. Listen to me — listen! You are not responsible for the deaths of your brother and your mother... and neither am I. But I am responsible for their retribution.”
The boy seemed to understand; but he still sounded angry when he said, “Just take me to Aunt Sarah’s.”
“I can’t.”
“... What?”
“Not now.”
“But... why?”
He answered the boy’s question with one of his own: “How did that man find us tonight?”
“I don’t know — how did he? How could he?”
O’Sullivan shook his head. “There’s only one way, son — he knew where we were heading.”
“So I can’t go stay with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bob.”
“Someday, maybe we both can.”
He could tell this terrible turn was, to his son, good news.
Trying not to smile, the boy said, “So... what are we going to do, now?”
O’Sullivan sighed. “Get in front.”
“Okay,” Michael said, and scrambled up next to his father.
O’Sullivan touched his son’s arm. “I’ve been thinking about doing something... but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it alone. With you helping, I can make it work. But it’s dangerous.”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t care. I just want to be with you. I just want to help.”
He held his son’s eyes with his. “Then you need to listen to me... all right? You can’t be a little boy — you have to be the man helping me. Or we’ll both be dead.”
Michael nodded.
“This is what we have to do,” O’Sullivan said. “We have to convince the Chicago gangsters to give us Connor Looney.”
“How can you make them do that?”
“‘We,’ son... ‘we.’ Now, these men in Chicago, they talk about loyalty and honor and family, but what they really care about is money.”
“Root of all evil, Bible says.”
“The Bible’s right. These big men, Capone and Nitti, they keep their money in little banks all over the Midwest. It’s sort of... spread around, for safety sake.”
“What banks, Papa?”
“They’re the same ones your godfather John Looney uses, for the same purpose... hiding money from the government, for tax reasons. I know where these banks are, son.”
The boy was shaking his head — grasping some of it, but not all of it. “But Papa, they won’t just give you the money.”
“That’s right, son — we have to take it.”
Michael’s eyes got big again. “Like robbers? Like Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson?”
O’Sullivan frowned. “How do you know those names?”
“From the newsreels at the moving pictures.”
“... Think of it more like Robin Hood. Are you going to help me, son? Can you do this?”
This time the boy answered with a question: “Do you think I can?”
“Yes.”
Michael smiled — eager. “When do we start?”
“Not until I teach you something.”