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twenty-four-year-old “baby” sister. Mary Katherine, who was the keeper of his house, the substitute mother for his four children, the uncomplaining cook and chief bottle washer, all for a two-hundred-dollar-a-month stipend,
“a scholarship.”
It was all he could possibly afford to pay her right now.
    “I had to kill one of them.…The kids all asleep?”
    The kids, in order of arrival, were Mary III, Clancy, Mickey Kevin and Elizabeth.
    All four of them were too Irish-American cute for their own good: tow-headed and blue-eyed, with infectious smiles and quick, almost adult wits. Mary Katherine had been their house mother for nearly three years now.
    Ever since Arch’s wife Nora had died on
December 14, 1982.
    After Nora’s funeral, after just one desolate night at then-old New York apartment the six of them had moved into the Carroll family homestead in Riverdale. The old house had been closed and boarded-up since the deaths of Carroll’s mother and father back in ‘80 and ‘81.
    Mary Katherine had immediately redecorated. She even set up a huge, light-filled painting studio for herself in the attic. The kids were out of New York City proper, at least. They suddenly had acres of fresh air and space in which to ramble around. There were definite advantages to being up in Riverdale.
    Carroll had held on to their old rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive. Sometimes he even stayed there when he had to work weekends in New York. It wasn’t ideal, but it could have been a lot worse. Especially without Mary K.
    “I have several
important
messages for you,” Mary Katherine announced brightly.
    “Mickey says, if I might paraphrase, that you work too hard and don’t make enough skoots. Clancy says, if you don’t play catch with him this weekend (and not video game baseball), you’re a dead man. That’s a
direct
quote. Let’s see … oh, yes, I almost forgot. Lizzie has decided to become a prima ballerina. Lessons for the spring semester at the Joliere school start at three hundred per, Dad.”
    “That all?”
    “Mairzy Doats left you a humongous kiss, and a hug of equal magnitude and intensity.”
    “Uncomplicated young woman. Shame she can’t stay six years old forever.”
    “Arch?” Mary Katherine suddenly looked concerned. “You heard about this Wall Street thing? The bombing?”
    Carroll nodded wearily. He wanted to box Wall Street off in a dark, private corner until he was ready to deal with it.
    Carroll finally bent and loosened his flopping high-top sneaks. He peeled off a discolored, satin Tollantine High School jacket. His fatigue had yielded to a kind of peaceful, ethereal, waking slumber.
    In the large bathroom on the second floor, he turned on the tub full blast. Curling hot steam rose toward the ceiling from the chipped and scratched white porcelain. He took off the rest of his squalid street bum ensemble. Finally, he rolled a fluffy bath towel around his waist.
    Quick mirror check. Okay. He was still around six-two solid, durable and sturdy. Pleasant face, even if it was a little pug ordinary, like some friendly mutt people generally take in out of the rain.
    While the hot water ran, Carroll stiffly padded back downstairs to the kitchen and popped the top of a cold Schlitz. Mary Katherine had bought the Schlitz as a “change of pace.” Actually, she was trying to stop him from drinking so much.
    Carroll took three chilled cans and headed back to the pleasantly steamed bathroom. Stripping off the soft bath towel, he slowly, luxuriously entered the hot tub.
    As he sipped the cold beer, he began to relax. Carroll used a bath the way some people use psychiatric therapy— to get back in touch, to sort it all out. Among other things, hot water and soap was the only therapy he could afford.
    Carroll began to think about Nora almost immediately.
Damn.
Always at night when he got home from work…. Their time. The emptiness he felt right then was unbearable. It beat against him with the