Grief Street

number two after wreathing. These were cops, I’d bet a thousand dollars.” Ruby was right, of course. “Cops waiting on the stairs to jump you, Hock. I came along instead and I saw them, so they beat it out of there.”
    Or else, I thought darkly, they assaulted my wife as a warning to me. Wrong cops will do that.
    “Did you hear any talk?” I asked.
    “Just one guy giving the orders after they were all down in the lobby. Short, quick, and to the point. I wouldn’t recognize the voice.”
    “Goddamn Kowalski.”
    “Same as I thought. Wait until you hear what I’ve got to tell you about him. I was at Johnny Kay’s bar this morning—”
    “I’ll kill the fat hump.”
    “No. You can have the city put us up in a hotel until this all gets sorted out, but you can’t kill Kowalski.”
    “They could have killed you.”
    “Right, but they didn’t.”
    “What’s the doctor say?”
    “She wants me to stay over tonight for observation. One wrist is bruised, and my ribs hurt. If they hurt worse in the morning, there’s breakage. The rest of it’s cuts and bruises.”
    “Jesus, you look terrible.”
    “I love you, too.”
    “Sorry...” I looked around the hospital room. It was a semiprivate two-bedder with a vacancy. “I’m badging my way into that bed and staying here with you tonight.”
    “Police protection. Swell.”
    I sat down in a chair between Ruby’s bed and the one I 266
    would claim for myself. I suddenly felt as if I weighed about nine hundred pounds. As if what had happened—Marv’s slaying, the martyrs cut down below my window, Sister Roberta’s murder, and now the murder of Father Declan—was somehow a terrible personal test, making it all somehow my responsibility. Teach yourself and test yourself. My face was no more good at hiding guilt than it had been at hiding my rage.
    Ruby asked, “You’re thinking about Sister Roberta, aren’t you?”
    “Also some other things.”
    “Just before you got here, I was thinking about Sister, too. And what’s going to happen now with her shelter. I tried to cry, but I couldn’t.”
    “It’s the same as me wanting a drink. But knowing I can’t take it.”
    “Maybe that’s what it’s like being parents. Well—parents of your kid, that’s for sure. There’ll be so much to do we’ll run out of time every day and want to cry. Except there’ll be no time for crying.”
    I was listening to Ruby. But I was thinking of something else: fresh bad news, and how to tell her, so at least she could finally cry. I decided to just blurt it out.
    “Father Declan was killed today.”
    Ruby’s hand flew to her mouth. Tears sprang from her eyes.
    “He was killed in the dining hall, at Holy Cross School. Where I used to eat lunch out of a brown bag, when I was a kid growing up in this sinkhole. And now I think I have to raise my own kid here. God, what arrogance. God-—I need a drink.”
    “No, you need a clear head.” As quick as Ruby’s tears had come, her eyes went dry. “Somebody wants you gone, Hock. Which makes me frightened, which makes me need my husband all the more. You need to think, you need to be a detective.”
    “I don’t know what that is anymore.”
    “A detective is the guy who sees what people are doing, even when he’s not there.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “You, Irish. It fits.”

    I got up from the chair and leaned in close to Ruby again. I kissed her lips, and her tomato cheeks, and the mouse on her left eye, and her chin, and all her fingers.
    “I’m sorry, Ruby. I’m so goddamn sorry.”
    “All right, baby.” Ruby stroked my head and neck. “It’s all right...”
    I crept over to the next bed and lay down on top of the stiff sheets and spread-eagled myself. I closed my eyes, I took a few deep breaths and pushed out the air. I set about the business of remembering, of trying to see what people were doing.
    Some of the scene was growing clear —had been growing clear, ever since leaving Creepy Morrison on the mountain. But so much of the rest was still a blur, like summer heat rising off pavement.

Thirty-six

    I turned and looked at Ruby.
    “You went to see a lawyer today?”
    “Yes, Harvey Vennum. To check through the abstract of the house.”
    “Abstract?”
    “It’s the legal history of the house,” Ruby said. “Deeds, lease records, miscellaneous notes.”
    “I’ve got a message for you. From somebody named Eileen at this guy Vennum’s office.”
    “She called about the