Free Little Easter by Reed Farrel Coleman Page B

my ass up and down the block without breaking a sweat.
    “What was that, mister?” he tightened his grip about my neck. My head felt like an overfull water-balloon.
    “John Mac—” I coughed, not having enough air for the last syllable.
    “Who?” O’Toole loosened the lizard’s tongue a bit.
    “Johnny MacClough. I’m here about Johnny MacClough.”
    There was no further change in the relationship between his hand and my throat, but his sour face mellowed some and his eyes rolled back into his skull. I figured he was running over what was left of his memory. How much remained was a toss-up. Age takes it toll and noses don’t get that red and veiny from the sun.
    “What about Johnny?” the old cop had finished cross-referencing.
    I didn’t respond immediately, instead pointing to the proximity of his fingers and my windpipe. He made like Pharaoh and let me go. I was still a little nauseous and light headed, so O’Toole guided me—pushed me, really— into his kitchen and sat me down at the table. Something hissed like a rush of steam and an open can of beer appeared before me.
    “Drink!” he ordered.
    I drank.
    “Now what’s this about Johnny?”
    I told him about the party.
    “You’re full of shit, mister,” the old cop smiled at me for the first time with evil, crooked teeth. “You could just have easily called me about this party as shown up at my door at night in the middle of winter. Come on now, you can do better than that. You couldn’t fool my dead granny with that party yarn. What gives?”
    “Nothin’,” I stood up to go. “Forget it. Sorry I bothered you.”
    “No ya don’t,” something quick and powerful shoved me back into my seat.
    “I didn’t make detective, but don’t ever mistake that for stupidity. I just never looked good in a suit. Now spill.”
    I spilled. I spilled like an open milk carton turned upside down. He heard it all. He heard all about my Christmas Eve. He heard all about the ratty mink coat, Johnny Blue, my broken pint glass and the orphaned heart.
    He saw tracks in the snow and blood in the snow and death in the snow. I introduced him to Kate, Larry, Mojo, Sylvia and the pinky-ringed sapling in Dugan’s Dump. He listened without emotion, taking it in with a sip now and then. He burped like a cannon when I finished.
    “She had some funny kinda name,” the giant finger-combed his thin wisps of white hair. “Something biblical. Andrella, maybe. Something like that. I don’t know. Christ, it was a fucking lifetime ago.”
    “You remember the girl?” I jumped up.
    “Are you deaf, boy?” he growled and pointed me back to my seat. “I had johnny straight outta the academy; greener than clover and chestier than a motherfucker. But he had the curse of instinct. A natural born cop, that one. Could smell trouble a block before I could see it and I was no slouch.”
    I didn’t doubt it.
    “Johnny,” the giant continued, reaching for a bottle of Murphy’s Irish, “only had one blind spot.”
    “The girl,” I offered.
    “The girl,” he accepted with a nod. “I tried warning him off her, but Johnny was a kid. Kids don’t listen. See him,” pickle face pointed to an ornately framed photo of an elephant-eared boy in Marine blues. “That was my son. Told him not to join up. Coulda gotten him onto the force, but kids don’t listen. Got himself killed during Tet. It killed his mother too.” The bitter man lobbed his shot glass at the photo and missed.
    “What about the girl?” I tried to snap O’Toole out of his foggy reminiscence.
    “Don’t know that much about her,” red-nose admitted, drinking directly from the bottle. “Johnny was smart enough not to discuss her around me once he figured I disapproved. That’s—”
    “Disapproved,” I cut in. “Why?”
    “She was someone else’s toy. And from what I could sniff out, that someone else was family connected. Do you get my meaning?”
    “Mafia.”
    “Bingo, boy. You win a drink. Here,” he