"That's a very tough place."

  "That was a long time ago, though. I was a lot more aggressive."

  "I'll bet you were. You know, this doesn't have to be a total loss."

  "How so?"

  "Well, I could give you another twenty to go with the one I already give you if you tell me who you called and who told you to break my head."

  "They were going to pay me a C note to persuade you that staying out of the Twenty-fifth and keeping your questions to yourself was healthier."

  "Well, I mean that's all very good, Harry. But here I am, and there you are with your hands on your foot."

  "I can't tell you who paid me to do you. They could come after me, and it looks like I don't have it anymore. If I can't handle a little gazoony like you, how am I going to protect myself from three big bullies?"

  "Just tell me if they was in the back room Friday night week."

  "I've lost my male aggressiveness," he says, like he doesn't even hear me.

  "Was they at that meeting in the back room?" I ask again.

  "They was," he says after a second's thought. "You think it's hormones?"

  I throw down a twenty.

  "Ain't you going to help me up?" he says sweetly, reaching up a bloodstained hand what looks like it belongs to a butcher.

  "You're too sly for me, Harry. I can't let you get that close."

  "Jesus, Flannery, I like you."

  "Well, if you decide to be a man again, maybe we can be buddies," I say.

  He touches his cheek delicately.

  "You think it's going to leave a scar?"

  "Well, if it does, it'll just make your kisser that much more interesting," I say.

  Harry seems to brighten up at that.

  NINETEEN

  When I get back to my apartment building and drag myself up the stairs, I'm not too much surprised when the door to Mrs. Bilina's flat flies open and Mrs. Bilina sticks out her head. These people seem to stay up all night.

  "Mr. Jimmy Flannery," she says, "if you'll please come in?"

  "It's very late, Mrs. Bilina, and I had a full day."

  "The priests are here," she says.

  I follow her into her apartment, which is filled with the smell of cabbage, incense, and the glow of lighted candles.

  "Is something wrong with the electricity?" I say.

  "No, no. Electric is not a holy light."

  The old priest, dressed for the street without his gorgeous robes and hat, looks like a tailor or a shoemaker sitting there in the best chair stroking his beard. His two young assistants are sitting on the sofa like two crows. Hodonin is also in the room, looking like he's got a bad case of sour stomach. There are also four other men, three of which I see at the funeral, all of which, I am told, are important laymen in the Czechoslovak Eastern Orthodox Church. They're simple workingmen dressed in plain black, and I can see the way they sit in straight chairs with their hands on their knees and their feet together that they're determined to be fair about whatever it is they've been called on to witness.

  "Tell the father like you told us," Mrs. Bilina says.

  "This is doing no good, Serafina. This is losing us money," Hodonin says, flicking glances at the priests and the four men of the informal jury.

  "Us?" I say.

  He looks at me like I was a cat what suddenly piped up. "I speak in the disassociative," he says, which is enough to shut me up even though I don't think he knows what the hell he means, either.

  "What can I tell you?" I ask.

  "Only what you saw and heard, my son," the old priest says. He ain't got as much of an accent as I expected him to have. "Also what you felt during the experience might give us a clue to the authenticity of the revelation."

  "Well, first, I hear this noise which I hear twice before, each time thinking it was the sound of the nails tearing loose from the boards at the end of the coffin."

  He nods his old head. "A believable interpretation of the sound of angels if someone had never before heard them."

  "Sort of like butterflies singing?"

  "A beautiful expression, yes. Like butterflies singing. Or nails pulling out of wood. You were at the foot of the coffin with your hands upon it?"

  Color is slowly rising up Hodonin's neck past his collar.

  "I was. When I finally realize that it ain't the sounds of nails wrenching out of wood I'm hearing, it's like the head of the coffin rises up under my very eyes and the end I'm holding not only get as light as a feather, but starts to feel warm."

  The old priest nods again. "Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Amen," he says. "A holy manifestation if I ever heard one."

  Hodonin is getting more and more agitated. The color is flooding his cheeks now, and I'm a little afraid he might fall down in a fit of apoplexy. Mrs. Bilina starts to cry in ecstasy and raises her eyes to the cracked plaster ceiling where she plainly sees her Stefan flying around among the angels.

  "And then, and then?" one of the young priests whispers. It looks like he's caught up in my fish story, too, and is swallowing it whole, just like Mrs. Bilina and at least three of the four other men. I think maybe the only ones not buying it is me, the old priest, and Hodonin.

  The old priest's eyes is twinkling when he begs me to go on.

  "Then Mr. Bilina—may he sit at God's right hand—rises up from his coffin. Some of the women scream. Mrs. Bilina faints and some of the men start cursing. . ."

  "Oh, blasphemy," the old priest says.

  ". . .and Mr. Hodonin here starts pointing the finger and talking court cases and dollars."

  "Listen to me," Hodonin says. He's in a terrible fix. He's lost the support of his client, who'd rather have her dead husband a saint than be rich, but he can't challenge my testimony about the sound of nails being the voices of angels because it was his nephew who built the shoddy coffin, and if he proves that I'm a liar, he also proves his nephew's a lousy carpenter. Which would mean, if anybody's to blame it's his own nephew, and maybe himself for giving him the job.

  Anyway, Mrs. Bilina yells out, "Be quiet."

  "Are you believing all this?" Hodonin yells right back, not being able to take it anymore. "Do you really think these priests are going to put your husband up for sainthood?"

  "Well, nobody's said anything about that," the old priest says. "That's a weighty matter and it isn't easy to make a person a saint." He looks at me as though I'm the man what deserves the explanation since what do I know about their rites and rituals being an Irishman and a Roman Catholic? "First of all there's the matter of authority. Our Church, you see, traditionally looks to the Holy Synod and the Patriarch of Moscow for guidance and blessing in such matters. But at the moment, we consider his jurisdiction over us in suspension until the patriarchate is free of Communist rule."

  "Well, I know in my Church it ain't an easy thing making a man a saint. It takes a very long time."

  Hodonin jumps up to his feet. "Are you all crazy?" he says. "What are you talking about Bilina rising up out of his coffin? He dropped out of the bottom. What are you talking about angels singing with the voices of butterflies? It was the nails pulling out of the wood."

  "Which you yourself heard?" the old priest says in a mild voice with a little challenging edge to it.

  "Which I myself heard with my own ears."

  He puts his hand over his mouth. He realizes he just gave the farm away. He's got nothing to do but leave, a beaten man. The old priest smiles at me through his beard. The young ones look bewildered. The Church laymen still sit like statues, only their eyes moving, listening to everything, including the ticking of the clock, so they can swear to what happened in case they're asked.

  "So, that's that for the greedy man," the old priest says. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Flannery."

  We shake hands.

  "Holy Father," Mrs. Bilina says, "so what do we got to do now to start the ball rolling my Stefan should be made a saint?"

  Mary is waiting up for me, sitting in the kitchen. Her white uniform is filthy. She looks at me with the eyes of an old fighter too tired to come out for the bell.

  "You look beat-up, James."

  I don't tell her I almost was.

  "You want some coffee?"

  I shake my head no. "You don't look so good either," I say. "Maybe we both better get in bed and get some sleep."

  "I'd rather have some of you," she says.

  The way she says it I know something's wrong.

  "What's the matter, Mary?" I say.

  "What's not the matter? It's the job I do. I'm up to my knees in pus and blood. Sometimes it's worse than other times."

  "I know."

  "Sometimes I see things that make me feel old. Little babies smashed up by their own mothers. Old ladies brought in raped, with their legs broken and their sex all torn up. Kids with arms so scarred up with needles there aren't any veins left for the IV."

  She gets up and goes to the bedroom door. I stand there staring at her like she's a stranger. When she sees I ain't following, she comes back, takes my hand, and pulls me along like she's hauling coal.

  "For Christ's sake, James, let's make each other happy before the world blows up. Three patients died on me today."

  She takes off her clothes and lets them stay where they fall. She's at me like it's easier to rip my coat and pants off than work the buttons and zipper. When we're both naked, she falls on the bed with me.

  "Get on top. Quick," she says. "Never mind getting me there. I'm already there. Jesus, kiss me, Jimmy. Never mind anything. Just do it. Show me we're alive."

  I'm ready and inside her quicker than anything. I understand what she means. She sees a lot of death tonight and wants to prove there's ways to beat it. I'm threatened and more scared now than I was with Harry going at me. We go over the top. It's all over in a second. And it was never better.

  I don't say anything. I just lay there holding her and stroking the velvet skin on her arm while she trembles like a cat chased up a tree.

  "You see some of them come wandering in all wounded. It's like seeing a clown trying to find his rubber nose. Without his rubber nose he's not a clown. Without his rubber nose he's nothing. Do you know what I mean?" she says.

  "Yes, I do," I say. "I'm in a place a little while ago, there's this waitress who's a man. He's built like a football player. He's got hairy arms and legs and a tattoo on one arm—a snake what's showing its fangs. The mesh stockings he's wearing is raising hell with his feet. He's worried he needs a shave but he don't want to take hormones because he's not sure a smooth cheek would be his rubber nose."

  "He the one who laid that bruise on your cheek?"

  "He's the one."

  "I don't want to know any more right this minute."

  "You want to sleep?"

  "First I want to love you one more time, but slower."

  TWENTY

  They get the new heating plant installed in record time because what was an emergency became a tragedy and because Baby is attracting armies of unseasonable flies to the mayor's garage. The only trouble is the city workmen—what got their jobs from the mayor hisself—install the furnace in the wrong building. They put it in the place where they have the mating cages.

  So when I get over to Lincoln Park Zoo, Baby's living temporarily in this cage, which smells of lions, and she's not very happy. No-Nose Riley is sitting on an apple crate next to the cage, trying to coax her to give him her hand, but she's over in the corner sulking.

  "How's the lady?" I say.

  "She's mad at me. She's mad at the whole goddamn world. Who can blame her? She nearly gets her ass froze off before they move her over to that steam room what smells of old socks. Then one rotten bastard smacks her across the mush with a chain. She gets accused of murder. You want to know she's been getting threatening letters telling her to get out of town or else?"

  "There's lots of people out there playing with half a deck," I sympathizes.

  "She gets shifted over to a garage which stinks of gasoline and now they toss her in a cage where lions and tigers fuck. Enough to put anybody on the prod. She won't even take my hand."

  She maybe won't pay No-Nose any attention, but she's looking me over like she might have a go at me. I step back.

  "What are you doing?" No-Nose complains. "You afraid she'll hurt you? You like all the rest what think she's a killer?"

  "What do I know about gorillas?"

  "They're very gentle creatures."

  "I heard about gorillas doing terrible damage."

  "Now and then. Let me tell you about gorillas."

  "If you want to tell me about gorillas, come take a little ride with me."

  "I don't think—"

  "Maybe I take a run over to Dan Blatna's. You know Blatna's?"

  "Who don't know the Sold Out Saloon. Best goddamn kielbasa and cabbage in the city."

  "Best goddamn pilsner, too. We'll get an early lunch."

  With the offer of food and drink—or maybe just the drink—No-Nose loses a little of his suspicion of me.

  "Just a second," he says. "I got to take Baby in her lunch."

  He picks up a basket of fruit and some kind of flat cakes. He takes a key from a box on the wall and opens up the door to the cage what Baby's in. She's got her eyes on me, the stranger, and takes a step.

  "Now, now," Riley says. "That ain't nobody what hurt you."

  I'm damned if I don't think she understands.

  When I pull up in front of the Paradise, Riley says. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"

  "Why don't you come inside with me and find out?"

  "I'll wait her in the car, if it's all the same to you."

  "It's cold out here and I don't want to keep the motor running unattended."

  "Well, I'll be attending it."

  "Like you did Baby?"

  "I think I'll take a pass on the kielbasas and beer," he says.

  "You can do what you want about that, but I want you should come in with me."

  For a minute there he thinks about toughing it out, but then decides against it. "What the hell. Let's do it. Let's do it and get it over with, whatever you want to find out."

  Dugan and Grace are waiting for us in the office like I arranged over the phone. No-Nose flashes them a grin and asks how it's shaking. They don't answer him.

  "Who's going to do the honors?" I say.

  "I guess that's me," Grace simpers. "I'm the one that's got the voice." He leaves the office.

  "The dry room's thirty-five feet, eight inches from here exact. You remember that?"

  "Oh. Sure," No-Nose says.

  "That dry room's got a thick door like a walk-in meat locker. Wouldn't think a hell of a lot of sound would get out of there, would you?"

  We hear yelling and screaming from far off, but clear enough that there's no mistake it's someone crying for help.

  "You hear that?"

  "Sure. I hear that."

  "You said nothing woke you the night those two men were beat to death."

  "Well, I can hear it now, because you're standing there listening for it, so I'm listening, too. But in the middle of the night. . ."

  "When it's even quieter than it is now."

  ". . .and me being as tired as I was. . ."

  "You being in a strange place. I don't know about you, but when I sleep in a strange place, I sleep on a hair trigger."

  Grace came back in the room. "Did I do good?" he says.

  "You did great. You want to get them packages out of the closet? The ones I asked you to pick up out of the waste basket on the morning in question."

  Grace goes to a cupboard and takes out the two empty whiskey bottles.

  "Ah, Jesus," No-Nose sighs.

  "You didn't hear because you was drunk."

  "So I have a little drink to help me sleep."

  "You drank this one to put you to sleep. Who gave you this one?" I take the fifth out of the bag.

  "I bought it, whatayou think?"

  "That's a bottle of the best, No-Nose. You know that's not your regular medicine."

  He gives up all at once. "That night some gazoony comes knocking at the front door saying he read about Baby being in the Paradise Baths and could he have a peek at her. I tell him to forget it, Baby's asleep. He says couldn't we just have a little drink and talk. He'd just like to talk to the man what takes care of the famous gorilla. I don't see no harm." His voice rises up on that note, because he's afraid we're going to lay it all on him now.

  "So what harm is there in having a little drink with an interested citizen?" I say. "What time does this gazoony knock on your door?"

  "Just after one by my watch."

  "So he comes in."

  "He comes in and we have one. Then we have another."

  "Then you had a couple more?"

  "That's right."

  "Did the gazoony ask to see Baby again?"

  "I took him down the corridor to the dry room and let him have a peek at her through the glass."

  "She was all right?"

  "She was in the nest she made."

  "You didn't let him inside?"

  "I swear."

  "Did he ask to go inside?"

  "Oh, yeah, but I told him there was no chance of that. I had the key and. . ."

  ". . .and you patted your pocket. . ."

  ". . .that was the end of that. I didn't pat my pocket. I'm no damn fool. I wouldn't do that and let some gazoony know I had the key on me."

  "How long this guy hang around?"

  "Maybe half an hour."

  "So, then what happens?"

  "He thanks me and leaves me the rest of the bottle and goes right out the door."

  "And you lock it behind him?"

  "Didn't have to. That door's on a latch."

  "You hear it snap?"

  From the look on his face I know he never did.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I look at my suspicions. Something goes on in that back room at the Canals of Venice—which Velletri has provided for cutting deals since Daley's day—what ended up with Spencer and Frye getting killed. Maybe the two of them was asked to double-cross Canarias in some way. They refuse and are taken out before they blow the whistle.

 

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