“Where is Michael?” Martin said. “And what the hell happened to you?”
“He’s upstairs,” Francis said. “Isn’t he?” Francis had been clinging to the hope that Michael had found his way back to the hotel. He had already planned to ask the front desk to send a typewriter to the suite so that Michael could pound out pages of questions and accusations. But if Martin was here and Michael was not, then something must have gone wrong.
Martin spat out a curse. “If you’re going to lock him up here, you could at least leave word with the staff that I’m coming for him instead of just having one of your pals ring us up and scare the daylights out of Rosemary.”
All of this was coming too fast for Francis. His pals? And who had called Rosemary? He eyed Cronin, wondering if the man had, in fact, shown an ounce of mercy.
“And would you look at yourself?” Martin said. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I ran into some trouble today,” Francis said. “And this man—he was kind enough to help me back to the hotel.”
“Today?” Martin was incredulous. “I’ve been here since last night and haven’t seen hide nor hair of you. No one has.”
Two men engaged in a heated exchange on a street corner will be left alone to sort out their differences. Most passersby will cross the street or give them a wide berth if it looks like a fight is looming. But if those same men are standing in the middle of the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, and one of them is a freshly bruised and battered Scottish lord who has lavishly tipped everyone within a handshake’s length, the concierge will intervene—quickly.
“Gentlemen.” It was Alphonse Collier, the hotel’s concierge. “May I be of some assistance?”
Francis turned, his expression oozing patience and decorum, his voiced torqued to its most peat-smoked Highlandese. “Collier, you’re just the man for the moment! My older brother Fitzwilliam—you remember him from Saturday, yes?—well, Fitzwilliam is concerned that our youngest brother may not be in our suite. That he may, in fact, be missing.”
Collier eyed his guest’s brother. He had heard about this one from the elevator operator: a gambler and wastrel. “I was aware that he was making inquiries as to your whereabouts and those of your brother, but you must understand, we hold your privacy in the highest—”
“Can you just tell us,” Martin interrupted, “if he’s in the room? That’s all I want to know.”
Collier gave His Lordship a sympathetic look: a difficult older brother indeed. He went on to say that the housekeeping staff had informed him that at midday, the room was undisturbed. There was no sign of anyone having slept in the room on Wednesday night. Collier noted the look of anger from the older brother, and the sickened shock that registered on His Lordship’s face. “You must allow me to notify the police immediately,” he said.
Martin and Cronin both looked to Francis, who matched Collier tone for tone. “I would so greatly appreciate it if you did not, at the moment, involve the authorities. With the royal visit, tensions are high and I fear police involvement may spark… undue anxiety.”
Collier placed a hand over his heart, as if to indicate not only comprehension but empathy with his plight. He had seen his share of scandals, and knew how easily one wayward guest could summon a gang of shouting reporters or a troop of photographers from the celebrity magazines. “But as for your…” Collier touched his cheek, mirroring the spot where a fat bruise colored His Lordship’s face.
“As long as the room has whiskey and ice, I’ll be grand,” Francis said. He exchanged a dry laugh with Collier, and after a curt bow, the concierge returned to his desk. Francis’s performance for Collier had left him spent, and though he’d barely eaten in the past twenty-four hours, he was sure that he was about to vomit whatever was roiling in his guts. He made for the front desk, leaving Martin and Cronin to wait for him by the elevator.
Through the barrage of questions and the negotiations with the concierge, Cronin had barely budged. Two of the Dempseys had converged on him, and the youngest—despite the risk he’d taken with the phone call—was missing in a city that stripped the very meat from the bones of lambs like him. Still, Cronin knew that little Michael was the only one who was truly safe. He was in the grip of fate, but free of Gavigan’s grasp.
Now with a twinge he wondered if Martin would remember him. Martin must have been eleven or twelve when Cronin last set foot in the Dempseys’ house in Cork. Would he recognize a man from his youth, cloaked as he was by time and age?
Standing by the elevator, under the blush of the overhead lights, Martin gave Francis’s companion the once-over. He was older than Martin and hard-weathered. His face was deeply creased and his features settled into a scowl. But the face was not unfamiliar, with its blunt nose and fierce-set eyes, and the man’s voice—the south of Ireland—echoed in some neglected corner of his memory. How was it that he could go years without seeing a blood relative, and then in one week it all threatened to bury him: his brothers, his father’s death, his mother’s stories, and now this voice from the past? “Hold on,” Martin said as Francis rejoined them. “Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so,” the man said. And then, as if he’d given the question further thought: “We haven’t. I’m sure of it.”
Now Francis gave Cronin a hard look. He’d had his suspicions, hadn’t he? But unspooling them here, in the lobby, with Michael missing and Martin burning mad was out of the question. There would be no way to keep from Martin the nature of his business with Cronin, and hadn’t Cronin and the old man already threatened violence against Martin’s entire family? His only choice was silence. The secrets of their father’s past seemed to be all around them, ready to be named, but there was no time now, and with Saturday looming, that time would never come.
“You must be thinking of some other yoke,” Francis said as the doors to the elevator opened. “Because I’d sure not forget a mug like this.”
ONCE THE THREE of them were in the suite, Martin and Francis ransacked Michael’s room for any clues to his whereabouts. The clothes he’d worn yesterday were gone. Two clean suits hung uselessly in the closet. He had no watch, no wallet, nothing, really, to tie him to this place or to indicate his comings or goings. Through their search of the room, Martin continued to fire questions at his brother: When had Francis last seen Michael? How in hell had he lost him? Where had he been all this time? And why had it taken him so long to realize that Michael was missing? Francis, exhausted and punch-drunk, could manage only half-answers, which led only to more questions.