“How do you know for sure?”
“When he wasn’t in his . . . clinic . . . I checked somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I can’t really say. You know how it is. One shanty looks like another.”
“Huh.”
“He wasn’t dead when I found him,” Darby hedged.
“No?”
“No. He was passed out. Snoring like a bear. And . . . he had these in his pockets.” Darby reached into his trousers and pulled out a small stack of papers, covered in Dani’s handwriting. “I thought maybe Dani would like them back. They’re hers, ain’t they?”
“Yeah. They’re hers,” Malone said, unable to pull his gaze from the pages.
O’Shea handed them over like he was glad to be rid of them. “Why does she do that?”
“You know how Dani is . . . don’t you?” Malone asked. Maybe he didn’t.
“You mean when she touches cloth . . . she knows things?” Darby said, shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah. I know. She’s been doing stuff like that since she was a wee one.”
Malone fingered the sad pages. “She has a gift. And she uses it to give names to the unknowns brought into the morgue. It’s how she gives the dead obituaries, how she keeps a record so that if someone ever comes looking for them, they can be found.”
“She takes care of people,” O’Shea said.
“Yeah. She does.” Malone tucked the papers away. He didn’t know what Dani would do with them, but she would be glad to have them back.
“George was like that. Never forgot a name. Never made people feel small. Never made me feel like garbage. I always have been . . . but he still took care o’ me.”
Darby reached into his pocket again and this time he took out a dangling chain with a medallion hanging from the center. “This is for Dani too. You’ll give it to her for me, won’t you? She gave me her St. Christopher medal, the one I gave her after her parents died. She was worried about the Butcher coming after me.” He snorted as if he found that ironic. “But I lost it . . . somewhere.”
“You lost it?” Malone asked.
“Yeah. I did.” O’Shea’s eyes were level, unflinching, unapologetic. “So I bought her another one. A new one. You can give it to her for me.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a St. Christopher man,” Malone said, taking it. His hands didn’t shake.
“I’m Catholic. Just like you. I don’t go to Mass. Don’t confess. But we need the saints—like Dani. Like St. Christopher. The world needs ’em. And maybe the world needs men like us too, Michael Malone. To save the saints and the angels from the demons. I don’t know. But someone put Frank Sweeney out of his misery. Put the Run out of its misery too. And it needed to be done.”
“Someone?” Malone pressed.
“Yeah. Someone. A nobody.” Darby O’Shea enunciated each word.
“Why are you telling me this, O’Shea?” Malone whispered. “Any of it? You know who I am. Who I work for. Who I . . . worked for,” he amended.
“You get fired?”
“I quit.”
“Well . . . you ain’t a copper anymore then. And you won’t say nothin’.”
“How do you figure?”
“’Cause it needed to be done.”
They were silent then, the truth hanging between them, and Malone could not deny it.
“I wouldn’t have said anything either,” Darby muttered. “But I figured you needed to know. So you’d stop lookin’. A man like you’s got plenty else to lie awake over. To watch his back over.”
Darby O’Shea lit a cigarette and offered one to Malone, who shook his head. Maybe he’d enjoy a cigar when he got home. A celebration.
“What now?” Malone asked softly after O’Shea had enjoyed several long draws. Darby ground out the cig on the pavement, blew the ashes away, and dropped the butt into the little front pocket of his vest, ostensibly for later. Times were hard. Nothing went to waste.
“All I ask is that you take good care of Dani so I don’t have to keep comin’ back to Cleveland,” Darby said. “I hate Cleveland.”
Malone almost grinned. “Yeah. I felt the same way. But it’s growing on me.”
“That’s what George said too when he fell in love with Aneta. But if you want those old ladies to like you, you better stick around. They made poor George miserable.”
“I’ll stick around. And where will you be, Darby O’Shea?” he asked.
“I got business in Chicago. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone there that I saw you . . . Your secrets are safe with me. Unless, of course, you don’t treat Dani right.” Darby touched his cap and turned, but he whistled as he walked away, and Malone recognized the tune.
Beware the lads from Kilgubbin. They’ll take what isn’t movin’. With a glint in their eyes and a glint of the knife, you can bet your life you’ll be losin’.
Epilogue
Dani watched the picture and Malone watched her. She had left her glasses at home—he couldn’t even remember the last time she’d worn them—and she’d pinned her curls behind her ears, giving him a better look at the lines of her face in the dark.
She caught him staring once and smiled and looked away. When she realized he hadn’t stopped, she raised her hand to his chin and turned his head, and he’d laughed out loud at an inopportune juncture. A few people shushed him, and Dani snickered. But then he reached for her hand, and the mirth became something sweeter as her fingers twined with his.
She had calluses on her fingertips, and her nails were smooth and short. Her palms were narrow, and her wrists were dainty like the rest of her. When she caught him examining her fingers, ignoring the picture once again, she pulled their clasped hands into her lap and rested her head on his shoulder.
“You can look at me any old time. Watch the picture, Michael.”
He could look at her any old time. What a novel thought.