The knocking came again. “Martin! Open up!”
He stood in the middle of the living room, clad only in his billowy boxer shorts, his hand around the stem of a lamp whose shade was decorated with a tableau of two long-plumed birds of paradise preparing to mate or fight, depending on your attitude and the angle at which you viewed the image. Once again, his mind cycled through names, faces, debts, and other offenses that could have brought this fist, and the person in possession of it, to his door. He placed one hand on the knob, ready to yank it open and gain some element of surprise. But before he could turn the bolt, the voice spoke again, this time a sharp whisper pressing at the seam between the door and the jamb.
“Open the door, Martin! It’s Francis! It’s your brother!”
He hadn’t seen Francis in ten years, not since they were teenagers, but the man who stood now in the doorway was without a doubt his brother. He was three years younger than Martin, but had always been stouter, more solidly built. His red hair, once a thicket that defied the ministrations of all combs and brushes, had been pomaded into a rakish wave. His nose was small and fierce like a fist, and his eyes were deep-set and black as peat. There was nothing suave and elegant about his face, but it was a handsome mix of toughness and deviltry nonetheless. It was James Cagney’s face, that’s what it was.
“Jaysus, but you’re a hard man to find,” Francis said. “I’ve been all across the Bronx looking for you.” He said Bronx like it was two syllables—“Bron-ix.” “Now would you let a man in before that woman has my head.”
Mrs. Fichetti was laboring to the top of the stairs, her steps slow and her breathing heavy, desperate to be noticed for the effort expended despite her age, the hour, and the likelihood that she would be martyred in defense of her home. So here was his brother and there was Mrs. Fichetti to deal with, but all of this was coming at Martin in a headlong rush: Francis was supposed to be in Ireland. Martin was supposed to be asleep. Mrs. Fichetti did not factor into any sort of reunion between the Dempsey brothers, except here she was, huffing and panting her way along the dim hall, her face red as Christmas wrapping and her gray hair spidering out from her head.
Martin looked at her, looked at his brother, even took a moment to glance down at himself (bare chest, boxer shorts, birds-of-paradise lamp). He took hold of the lapel of Francis’s jacket and yanked him into the room. “Not a word from you,” he said to the back of his brother’s head as he stepped into the hallway.
“An awful rumpus,” Martin said to his landlady. “But let me assure you there’s no funny business or foul play of any sort.”
Mrs. Fichetti opened her mouth to answer, but in place of words she took a gasping breath.
“It’s my brother, you see. Another Mr. Dempsey, and I’m as shocked as you to find him here.” Mrs. Fichetti gulped again, and Martin could sense that words were about to pour forth—questions, threats, ultimatums—that he was in no condition to answer. “I will explain everything,” he said. “You deserve nothing less. But”—and here he looked down at his spindle legs, the wrinkled cotton of his underwear—“I’m not at all presentable for that conversation, you’ll have to admit that.”
Her eyes bulged, whether from the shock to her propriety or from oxygen deprivation due to her hurried ascent, Martin could not say.
“Mister. Dempsey.” Each word was propelled with a great puff of air.
Martin inched toward the door, one hand on the knob, the other on the door frame. “Absolutely, Mrs. Fichetti. We will have quite the chat about this—but not now. We’re neither of us in any condition for that.”
She inhaled, the next volley forming, but with a single glide step—Astaire himself would have been jealous—Martin bobbed behind the door and shut it with a resolute click. He stood frozen, listening to her breathing, waiting for the torrent to be unleashed. He turned once, locking eyes with Francis, a stern Not a word out of you glare. After half a minute and a sound not unlike a hen unkindly lifted from her nest, Mrs. Fichetti stuttered to the stairs in her slippered feet.
Martin sighed heavily and turned to face his brother. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said. “How in hell did you get here?”
“How’s that for a warm welcome?” Francis said. “My own flesh and blood, and you’re raining curses on me. Do you know what a trial it was to find you? If there’s a better hidey-hole in all of New York then I’d sure like to see it.”
“Look at your man, already an expert on New York.”
Francis broke into a grin that set a shine in those black eyes. “Would you look at the two of us,” he said. “Major Cat and General Dog, just like Mam used to say.” He opened his arms wide and Martin stepped into his embrace. The two men pounded each other on the back, then held the clinch a moment longer, like boxers waiting to be separated by the referee.
“You’re a sight,” Martin said, “but what are you doing here? How did you get out?”
“Of Ireland?”
“No—of jail.”
“Oh, they let me out,” he said. “On account of good behavior.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? If it wasn’t for Michael’s letters I wouldn’t know if you were alive or dead.”
Michael’s letters to Martin, sent to commemorate various Holy Days of Obligation, were full of spiritual uplift and fond wishes for those actions necessary to secure the salvation of his eldest brother’s soul. (I pray that you are partaking of the sacraments, that you are honoring your marital vows, and that you are living a life free from the demonic effects of vile liquors.) It was all a bit difficult to take seriously from a boy who had been seven when Martin left home, and little in the way of news—a word that smacked of worldly concerns—could be gleaned from the lofty skywriting of Michael’s epistles. It had been two months since he’d received Michael’s Easter letter—the Ninth Letter of Michael to the Americans, he called it—and it hadn’t breathed a word of Francis’s impending release from prison.
“You got those, too?” Francis drew a sharp breath across his teeth. “All that talk of my immortal soul and the perils I’d put myself in. It was taxing, reading one of those—but the joke’s on us, apparently. Michael says they were all written in code.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Of course, at the—look, Martin, get yourself dressed. We’ve got places to go.”
“I’ve had an hour’s sleep, Francis. I’m knocked over seeing you here, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ve got a thing or two to tell you, and—”
“So tell me. The landlady won’t be back to bother us, not for a while yet.”
“What about the missus? Or did she find herself a better piano player?”
“She’s at her parents’ for the night.”