Free Terminal Island by John Shannon Page B

her that the case wouldn’t come home to roost, and now it was going to, after all.
    “What’s up?”
    Steelyard was watching as Jack Liffey led his only daughter outside without a word, toward the old VW. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
    “Is Mom hurt?” She froze in place on the grass.
    “No, no, no. Not at all. Nobody’s hurt. Come on.”
    She seemed to consider throwing a tantrum, but then trotted after him. He gave a big strange sigh that confused her further.
    “I’ve been keeping something from you all your life, about one thing. Protecting you, let’s say.”
    He could see a real terror forming on her face. There was nothing he could do but plunge on.
    “You have a living grandfather,” he blurted.
    “No, I don’t. Mom’s parents died five years ago and your dad died the same time as your mom.”
    He shook his head. “I used to admire him, I think, but he changed. Something changed him as he got older, and it really accelerated after Mom died. We haven’t spoken since I married your mother. She thinks he’s dead, too. We cut each other off like the Hatfields and McCoys.”
    “I can’t believe this.”
    “You’ll see why soon. If you want to meet him.”
    “Of course I do. Dad, this is really rank. ”
    “I know.”
Dec 16 PM
    Today I issued the third warning. The future is never contained entirely in the past. This one may entail a new train of consequences. I am not worried about the police and their pathetic resources, but this man is the father of a detective who has a certain renown in this city. He is, perhaps, a loose cannon, but he is also a veteran of my war. It may not matter in the long run, but I must not underestimate his attendance at the dance.
    On July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille was overrun, which marked the beginning of the end of the feudal world in Europe, perhaps the last year in which honor still counted above all else, Louis XVI wrote in his journal only one word: rien.
    Was this bravado, or utter ignorance? I cannot allow either.

Six
    Declan Liffey
    He pointed out a view of the harbor and the sweep of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as they headed down Ninth off the flank of the hills, but Maeve was too busy feeling resentful to look. She kept her eyes furiously ahead. He stopped for the light at Gaffey, where even she couldn’t ignore the young man who strode in front of them in an ankle-length duster coat that was completely covered with light-bulbs. The bulbs didn’t seem to be wired to light up, just sewn on as ornaments.
    “One point?” he offered.
    She watched grimly.
    “That has to be the world’s most fragile body armor,” he pointed out, encouraging a response. His daughter remained silent.
    Just before the man mounted the sidewalk, he spun once and the coat rose with centrifugal force and then overswung and swayed back as the bulb man stopped and gave them a small bow. You could imagine the sounds of all the bulbs rubbing and clattering against one another, but the VW idle left nothing to the ear.
    “There’s something not quite right with giving points for that,” Maeve finally said.
    “Too self-conscious,” he agreed. By consensus, their spotting-oddities game worked best when what was pointed out was naively peculiar, intensely self-absorbed, or else some public anomaly that generally went unnoticed. He still favored the dapper mounted John Wayne sculpture up on Wilshire with the horse under him running about two-thirds scale, like a really big Great Dane. Circus acts or what were probably schizophrenic exploits, like the bulb man’s, were just too easy.
    “What’s your dad like?”
    “You don’t want to make up your own mind?”
    “You could give me some background. Like, if he’s got two noses or something.”
    The light finally went green and he motored on with a smile. “Declan is his name; his own dad, Seamus, was the one who actually left the auld sod, and he sometimes makes a big deal out of being Irish, which is one reason