Nobody's Fool

said.
    â€œReally.”
    â€œThat doesn’t strike you as bad luck?” Sully said.
    â€œLuck didn’t have much to do with you being in jail,” Peter pointed out.
    â€œHow about you?” Sully asked him. “Have you ever been unlucky?”
    â€œNever,” Peter said, grinning. “Not once.”
    â€œNot even in your choice of fathers?”
    â€œRalph’s been a terrific father.”
    â€œSmart-ass.”
    Neither man said anything more for a few moments. It was Peter who finally broke the silence. “I’ve got to go to West Virginia tomorrow, settle things there. Get the stuff from my office, whatever’s left at the apartment. I’m going to leave as soon as we’re done here.”
    â€œCan you handle that by yourself?”
    Peter surrendered his maddening half smile. “I have a friend that’s going to help.”
    â€œIf you can wait till I get out, I’ll help. Wirf says it won’t be more than another day or two.”
    â€œI better do it now,” Peter said, without, apparently, feeling any need to explain why.
    â€œSuit yourself,” Sully said.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œHow come you didn’t bring Will?”
    â€œGrandma wouldn’t allow it,” Peter said. “It’s probably just as well.”
    â€œI guess,” Sully conceded, though he realized he’d been hoping to see his grandson. “Is she any better?” Peter had been to see him twice in jail, and while he was his usual reticent self, he didn’t bother to deny that Vera was making life miserable for everyone. There had been more phonecalls from Peter’s woman in West Virginia, and Robert Halsey’s health had taken another turn for the worse.
    Peter nodded in the direction of the casket. “I think they’re going to close that,” he said.
    In fact, the casket’s lid had been lowered by the time Sully managed to limp up the aisle. When the funeral home employees noticed Sully, they managed to convey that raising it again might be a violation of the rules. “Everybody’s waiting,” they said.
    â€œShe’s my mother,” Sully told them.
    â€œNo, she’s not,” one of the young men said.
    â€œWell,” Sully conceded, “not by blood.”
    â€œHalf a minute.” The young man raised the lid. “We’ll be late at the church.”
    Old Hattie stared up at him with the same expression of grim, unfocused willfulness that she’d borne in life. If anything, she looked even more determined now. Sully, still reeling from the knowledge that his triple had finally run, albeit without him aboard, contemplated whether he’d swap places with the dead woman if he were offered the opportunity. It was tempting. “She doesn’t look finished even now, does she,” Cass said at his elbow.
    â€œShe is, though,” Sully said. “I guess it wasn’t such a great idea to move the cash register after all. How’re you feeling?”
    â€œHypocritical,” Cass admitted. “I wished her dead a dozen times a day, Sully.”
    Together they stared down at the old woman, Cass weeping quietly.
    â€œWith her alive and making everything impossible, all I could think of was all the places I could go, all the things I could do if only she’d die. Now I’m not so sure it was her.”
    â€œGive yourself time,” Sully said for something to say. Actually, he shared her doubts. He’d imagined the world would be a better place when it was rid of Big Jim Sullivan, but it had remained pretty much the same place, with just one less person to blame things on. Though Sully had solemnly
pledged
to keep blaming things on him anyway. “Did I hear you sold the restaurant?”
    â€œShhh—” Cass whispered, nodding at her mother, who, to judge from her fierce, frozen expression, might well have been not only listening but plotting intricate retribution. “To a friend of yours, actually.”
    â€œI heard a rumor,” Sully said. It had been more than a rumor, actually. It was Wirf who was handling the details of the sale, and he’d toldSully that Vince and Ruth would be partners, Vince putting up the money with the understanding that Ruth would buy him out when she could.
    â€œShe’ll make a go of it if anybody can. Ruth knows restaurants. And she’s a hard worker. Now she’ll be working for herself. She