right? Nothing ever got reported, no witnesses, nothing. But he can turn the two bums over to Tim Pat and walk with half a year's pay."
"Knowing he's aided and abetted murder."
"I'm not saying everybody would do it. But you tell yourself the guys are scum, they've probably killed people themselves, they're a cinch to kill someone sooner or later, and it's not like you know for certain theMorrisseys are going to kill them. Maybe they'll just break a few bones, just scare 'ema little. Try to get their money back, something like that. You can tell yourself that."
"And believe it?"
"Most people believe what they want to believe."
"Yeah," he said."Can't argue with that."
YOU decide something in your mind and then your body goes and decides something else. I wasn't going to have anything to do with Tim Pat's problem, and then I kept finding myself sniffing around it like a dog at a lamppost. The same night I assured Skip I wasn't playing, I wound up onSeventy-secondStreet at a place calledPoogan's Pub, sitting at a rear table and buying iced Stolichnaya for a tiny albino Negro named Danny Boy Bell. Danny Boy was always interesting company, but he was also a prime snitch, an information broker who knew everyone and heard everything.
Of course he'd heard about the robbery at Morrissey's. He'd heard a wide range of figures quoted for the take, and for his own part guessed that the right number was somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars.
"Whoever took it," he said, "they're not spending it in the bars. My sense of it is that it's an Irish thing, Matthew. IrishIrish, not the local Harps. You know, it went down right in the middle ofWesty country, but I can't see theWesties taking off Tim Pat like that."
TheWesties are a loosely organized mob of toughs and killers, most of them Irish, and they've been operating in Hell's Kitchen since the turn of the century.Maybe longer, maybe since the Potato Famine.
"I don't know," I said. "With that kind of money involved-"
"If those two wereWesties, if they were anybody from the neighborhood, it wouldn't be a secret for more than eight hours. Everybody onTenthAvenue'd know it."
"You're right."
"Some kind of Irish thing, that's my best guess. You were there, you'd know this. The masks were red?"
"Red handkerchiefs."
"A shame.If they were green or orange they'd be making some sort of political statement. I understand the brothers are offering a generous reward. Is that what brings you here, Matthew?"
"Oh, no," I said."Definitely not."
"Not doing a bit of exploratory work on speculation?"
"Absolutely not," I said.
* * *
FRIDAY afternoon I was drinking in Armstrong's and fell into conversation with a couple of nurses at the next table. They had tickets for an off-off-Broadway show that night. Dolores couldn't go, and Fran really wanted to but she wasn't sure she felt like going by herself, and besides they had the extra ticket.
And of course the show turned out to be TheQuare Fellow. It didn't relate in any way to the incident at Morrissey's, it was just coincidentally being performed downstairs of the after-hours joint, and it hadn't been my idea in the first place, but what was I doing there? I sat on a flimsy wooden folding chair and watched Behan's play about imprisoned criminals inDublin and wondered what the hell I was doing in the audience.
Afterward Fran and I wound up at Miss Kitty's with a group that included two of the members of the cast. One of them, a slim red-haired girl with enormous green eyes, was Fran's friend Mary Margaret, and the reason why Fran had been so anxious to go. That was Fran's reason, but what was mine?
There was talk at the table of the robbery. I didn't raise the subject or contribute much to the discussion, but I couldn't stay out of it altogether because Fran told the group I was a former police detective and asked for my professional opinion of the affair. My reply was as noncommittal as I could make it, and I avoided
"Knowing he's aided and abetted murder."
"I'm not saying everybody would do it. But you tell yourself the guys are scum, they've probably killed people themselves, they're a cinch to kill someone sooner or later, and it's not like you know for certain theMorrisseys are going to kill them. Maybe they'll just break a few bones, just scare 'ema little. Try to get their money back, something like that. You can tell yourself that."
"And believe it?"
"Most people believe what they want to believe."
"Yeah," he said."Can't argue with that."
YOU decide something in your mind and then your body goes and decides something else. I wasn't going to have anything to do with Tim Pat's problem, and then I kept finding myself sniffing around it like a dog at a lamppost. The same night I assured Skip I wasn't playing, I wound up onSeventy-secondStreet at a place calledPoogan's Pub, sitting at a rear table and buying iced Stolichnaya for a tiny albino Negro named Danny Boy Bell. Danny Boy was always interesting company, but he was also a prime snitch, an information broker who knew everyone and heard everything.
Of course he'd heard about the robbery at Morrissey's. He'd heard a wide range of figures quoted for the take, and for his own part guessed that the right number was somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars.
"Whoever took it," he said, "they're not spending it in the bars. My sense of it is that it's an Irish thing, Matthew. IrishIrish, not the local Harps. You know, it went down right in the middle ofWesty country, but I can't see theWesties taking off Tim Pat like that."
TheWesties are a loosely organized mob of toughs and killers, most of them Irish, and they've been operating in Hell's Kitchen since the turn of the century.Maybe longer, maybe since the Potato Famine.
"I don't know," I said. "With that kind of money involved-"
"If those two wereWesties, if they were anybody from the neighborhood, it wouldn't be a secret for more than eight hours. Everybody onTenthAvenue'd know it."
"You're right."
"Some kind of Irish thing, that's my best guess. You were there, you'd know this. The masks were red?"
"Red handkerchiefs."
"A shame.If they were green or orange they'd be making some sort of political statement. I understand the brothers are offering a generous reward. Is that what brings you here, Matthew?"
"Oh, no," I said."Definitely not."
"Not doing a bit of exploratory work on speculation?"
"Absolutely not," I said.
* * *
FRIDAY afternoon I was drinking in Armstrong's and fell into conversation with a couple of nurses at the next table. They had tickets for an off-off-Broadway show that night. Dolores couldn't go, and Fran really wanted to but she wasn't sure she felt like going by herself, and besides they had the extra ticket.
And of course the show turned out to be TheQuare Fellow. It didn't relate in any way to the incident at Morrissey's, it was just coincidentally being performed downstairs of the after-hours joint, and it hadn't been my idea in the first place, but what was I doing there? I sat on a flimsy wooden folding chair and watched Behan's play about imprisoned criminals inDublin and wondered what the hell I was doing in the audience.
Afterward Fran and I wound up at Miss Kitty's with a group that included two of the members of the cast. One of them, a slim red-haired girl with enormous green eyes, was Fran's friend Mary Margaret, and the reason why Fran had been so anxious to go. That was Fran's reason, but what was mine?
There was talk at the table of the robbery. I didn't raise the subject or contribute much to the discussion, but I couldn't stay out of it altogether because Fran told the group I was a former police detective and asked for my professional opinion of the affair. My reply was as noncommittal as I could make it, and I avoided
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