Grief Street

the key. Which finally I knew—thanks to Ruby’s help, and Creepy Morrison’s, too; thanks to the brooding pages of Grief Street, and thanks just moments ago to my eavesdropping.
    “Here now, come to me.”
    I turned, and crossed back to where Eddie sat with his rats.
    “What’s the answer then?”
    “Incest explains your family tree, Eddie. It starts with a woman bedding down with her brother. This would be your great-grandparents. Great-granny and Pa made this forbidden recreation a habit, and wound up having two kids as the result—a boy and girl. Brother and sister conduct themselves the same as Mom and Dad, and they wind up having two babies of their own—also boy and girl. That’s six people all together. The first brother-sister set, that would be your grandparents. The second set are your own parents. Any doctor could predict an eventual birth defect. Too bad it had to be you, Eddie.”
    “As I was saying only a short time ago, you’re not entirely stupid.”
    “Speaking of doctors, I know that Eoin Monaghan’s your grandfather.”
    “Was my grandfa’r. You’ve seen now I shoveled him under with the rest...”
    I felt a sourness in my throat and swallowed back.
    “Aye, it’s a mortal’s life I spent in filching accursed family members from their graves and bringing them to where they belong—here, to the lowest room of a house of iniquity what inspired the name of Hell’s Kitchen. A ghoul’s poetry, wouldn’t you say, Detective Hockaday?”
    “Speaking of poetry...” I was growing sick, I had to keep Eddie from sensing this. “Ruby and I enjoyed your grandfather’s play. Too bad you killed a writer of such talent.”
    “I kil’t a drunkard fop, and a liar of the heart. I kil’t a self-confessing fiend who tried stealing the grieving truth of others and calling it a made-up story.”
    “But wasn’t it his truth, too, Eddie? His to steal as well as yours? He was a Mallow, wasn’t he, Eddie? Mallow being family name on the other side, which he changed to Monaghan when he came here . .
    There was no response from Eddie. I had thrown him off balance by what he took to be my fine detective work. And good work it was, giving me the strength of second wind.
    “Your own dad and mother, they were Malachy Wollam and his sister, weren’t they?” I said. “And your grandfather, he took them in, and kept them buried in this house. And renamed them, to renounce them maybe—Wollam being the backward spelling of Mallow.”
    Eddie hissed.
    “Your sister would perish, of consumption.”
    “How’d you know?”
    “But you'd get out, and reclaim the name of Mallow.” I paused, allowing Eddie to respond, which he did not. “The tombstone’s marked for six bodies, Eddie. But you’ve buried only five. What about you?”
    “Can you not tell by the sight and smell of me?” Eddie stood up from his chair, and slipped off the rabbi’s scalp. He threw it to the floor, and jutted out the earless side of his head. He bellowed, “I’ve a life of being dead! Ain’t that just the devil’s luck?”
    I stumbled backward.
    “Yes—I’m the fiandiu, the shooskie, the fule tief. Isn’t that so? The auld sheeld —the muckle maister. Which do you fancy?”
    “I’ll go with your favorite.”
    “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper!”
    Eddie’s laugher at this frightened the rats. They skittered off in a dozen directions. A smog-cloud of his foul breath stung my eyes. I wiped a sleeve over my face, moved back some more, and crouched, feeling around on the gummy floor for the ring I had let slip from my hand.
    “Leave that cursed thing be!” Eddie shouted, knowing what I sought. “Leave it lie—for the luck of it, lad! The muck you’re kneeling in’s like my altar... my memento mori. It’s so nicely shat through-and-through with blood and bone chunks and man-meat and vermin dung. Where there’s muck, there’s luck!”
    I yanked my hand from the floor. Again Eddie laughed, loudly, sourly. I shut my tearing eyes for relief. My feet shifted, my boot heels sank an inch into muck. My head was weaving now; I was swaying on a raft in a nauseous sea, looking hard at some fixed object, praying to God to make the wobbles go away.
    Along with this quickly made-up request, I also began reciting the ancient Irish prayer against fear. The one Father Declan had keened for me, reminding me of what now seemed as good a weapon as any gun I was