“It’s never easy,” Cronin said. “And it’s not supposed to be. You do it because it’s necessary. If it ever becomes easy, then you’re too far gone.”
“And what would my parents have thought of this?” He meant the kilt, the sporran, the gun.
“They knew that you do what you have to, for the ones that matter.”
“Does the old man matter to you? Is that why you’re doing this?”
Cronin absorbed the punch of it: all that it accused him of, all that it called into question. “I walked into the same trap you did,” Cronin said. He wanted to leave it at that—wittingly or not, each had put himself in debt to Gavigan—but what had the boy ever done? Francis might have stumbled in his life, but any mistakes he had made were petty compared to the sins of a man like Cronin. And yet here Francis stood, with his father’s grim face and his mother’s brilliant shock of red hair, preparing to endure a punishment far more severe than any Cronin had ever known.
Cronin’s eyes burned. He looked at the floor, took a breath, then met Dempsey’s eyes again. He needed to leave, to get far from here, but his feet were rooted. “The old man,” he heard himself saying, “his name is Gavigan. John Gavigan. Knowing that won’t do you any good, and if you say the name out loud it’s only going to bring you misery. But you need to know that a man did this to you. Not God or the devil or some force of nature. Just a man who’s willing to make others suffer to get what he wants. He is too far gone.”
Francis knew more than he ever had about his parents and the past, but there were too many pieces to be connected and still so much to ask Martin that could turn their younger years from a mad, irrational jumble into a thing, however awful, that was at least driven by cause and effect. But there was no time. There was only time to act.
“I should be going,” Francis said, turning for the elevator. “I don’t want to keep the king waiting.”
The thing that had been eating at Cronin revealed itself. Francis had his father’s face, yes, but it was the look in his eyes, the cast of his features, that Cronin had not been able to place until now. He had seen the same expression in his own eyes, in the silvered mirror in his uncle’s flat, on the morning before his first operation with Frank Dempsey. Before he reached the path by the River Lee where the police informant took his Sunday stroll, before Frank whistled the tune that signaled the man’s approach, before the branches that hung down in a cavern of greenery—before all of it, there was the mirror and that look: steely, excited, hollow, and frightened. When he saw himself later that night in the same mirror, he saw that something in him had broken and grown back crooked, like a bone that hadn’t been set right.
WHEN HE RETURNED to the suite, Francis was surprised to find Miss Bloch pouring a cup of coffee from a cart in the middle of the room.
She was about to apologize for ordering room service, but when she took in Francis—the kilt, the Prince Charlie coatee, the sporran—she had to stifle a laugh. “You look very… Scottish,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said. “I think the point of the outfit is to humiliate you in the presence of your betters.”
“It’s very nice,” she said. “But your brothers will never forgive me—my camera is in the other room.”
“Must be my lucky day,” Francis said.
Strangers to each other, they moved about uncomfortably: half-smiles, stutter steps, too many sips of coffee. Last night, with the room more crowded, had been easier. But now Francis’s heart was full of the things he must do; he wanted no distractions. Lilly’s heart was torn between being the person she wanted to be and the one she knew she was. Where Francis wanted to move, to be done with it, Lilly wanted never to move and for nothing ever to change.
“It was kind of you to let me stay,” she said. “With such a day in store, you must have hoped for a good night’s sleep.”
“It was grand,” he said. “Though Michael does kick in his sleep.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “He does.”
Francis gave her a quizzical look, but she only poured another cup of coffee and walked to the window overlooking the park. Francis took the opportunity to steal into his bedroom, where Michael’s outline was visible under the sheets. Francis closed the door and from the writing desk withdrew an envelope. He filled it with most of the cash from the sporran—close to five hundred dollars, he figured—along with the list of doctors provided by Van Hooten and the sheet from Van Hooten’s typewriter. He had a fresh sheet of paper with the Plaza’s crest at the top, and paused to consider what, if anything, he could write to Martin that would explain what had happened and why. He could name this Gavigan, but what good would that do for Martin? It would only invite the man’s wrath, which was exactly what Francis was acting to prevent. The word evidence echoed. Even if Martin was smart enough to keep the money for himself, would the letter become an exhibit in the reconstruction of this crime? In the end, he wrote, Not for myself but for all of you. I hope you can understand. He could think of nothing else. He folded the sheet and added it to the envelope, sealed the flap, and wrote MARTIN in blue letters across the front.
YEATS STOOD NEAR the bedroom door, watching Michael sleep. He saw no reason to wake the boy. He’d had some foolish idea of saying farewell—not that it was necessary, not that the boy would even want to. Hadn’t Michael told him to sod off? So he would let him sleep. The boy certainly needed it, after all that had happened and all that was to come. Yeats himself was tired, his face drawn and his clothes rumpled. On unsteady legs he approached the bed and sat on the edge, near Michael’s feet. He tried to cross one leg over the other but couldn’t find the proper way to arrange his limbs.
Eternity like a tide was drawing him away. He saw now that he had tried for too long to maintain a hold on the material world. He had wanted to contact George, to speak across the divide of death, but George and his writings about the spiritus mundi and even art itself—now all of that was just shipwrecked pieces of a life that had run aground. He could cling to the wreckage or he could release himself into the arms of the ocean. All time tended toward the eternal. All divisions—days, years, centuries—dissolved into a never-ending present. He could feel the pull. He needed only to relinquish his grip.
Michael stirred, his eyes slowly opening. “Mr. Yeats,” he said, stifling a yawn. “I hoped I’d see—”
Yeats held a finger to his lips, then pointed across the room in the direction of the curtained window. Francis sat at the desk, a lapful of plaid spilling over his chair. Michael slid out from under the sheets and padded across the thick carpet toward his brother, who was consumed in the act of writing, folding, sealing. Michael peered over his shoulder and saw an envelope on the desk marked with the word MARTIN.