C chuckles mirthlessly. “And ‘Vil was so impressed. Your first time your hands were so steady, and you were rock solid afterward. Couldn’t figure it out because you weren’t dead inside. It was because it wasn’t your first time. How’d you do the real first time?”
“Good for a couple days. Probably in shock. Sick for about seven weeks. Couldn’t look at a gun, let alone touch one. Went to confession and broke down crying. It was not my finest hour.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I close my eyes. “But it was him or me. I knew that going in.”
After a beat, C’s voice is low and disgusted. “He molested you?”
“No, no.” Opening my eyes, I turn my head to meet C’s stare. “Hugh Murphy was my old man’s best friend. Murphy betrayed and killed him because he wanted Kathleen, and my dad was in the way. Afterward, Murphy’s coming to the house to see her, trying to pick her up after school. Murphy told my ma, who was out of her mind with grief and valium, that Kathleen was going to live with him for a while. He needed a girl around to clean up his house and cook for him. He’d give Ma money for the family. Ma said no, but she wasn’t up to keeping a man like him away. In the beginning she was in bed all day. She had no idea what was happening in our house, let alone outside it.” I grimace, remembering how close Murphy came to getting Kath.
“Kathleen was a spitfire. When my dad died, it took the fire out of her. And Murphy came for what was left. Kath and I are good friends, but I always knew I was the brother. My dad told me over and over, ‘You have to help me protect these girls. When girls are so pretty it makes men crazy.’”
Rubbing my fingers against each other, I picture his face, picture him sitting in his chair in the living room. “He was right. Hugh Murphy killed my dad and framed some gang members for it, all so he could steal Kathleen. She was barely fourteen and more scared than I’ve ever seen her. He told her he was going to marry her and make her a woman. Made threats against the rest of us if she didn’t go along. She talked about putting her head in the oven to escape.”
I blow air out through pursed lips, remembering how sick I got thinking about Kathleen killing herself. I puked in a trash can the second she was out of the room.
“I tried to talk to one of my uncles. He cut me off, claiming it was nonsense, or if it wasn’t then what did my dad expect to happen, living the way he lived? And maybe Kathleen shouldn’t be so uptight. She’d probably end up with someone like Murphy in the end anyway.”
“What happened to the uncle?” C asks, watching me.
“Bankrupt. After a series of unfortunate events. To this day, the guy never catches a break. Something always happens. He asked me for a loan three years ago and again last year.”
“I bet I know how that worked out. Finish the story about you and Kathleen and Hugh Murphy.”
“Not much to tell. It was on me, and I thought, this is what I had my dad train me for. If I can’t save Kathleen, I might as well be dead alongside him.” I pause, rolling my eyes. “It was a very melodramatic time in the Patrick family. Our biographer was a cross between Nabokov and Mario Puzo.”
C smirks with me, but the set of his shoulders is heavy.
“I hid Kathleen and sold the lie like my life depended on it. I said she was in Florida. Murphy pushed. He called people we all knew in Orlando, Fort Myers, and Tampa and asked about her. He threatened me, pushed me down some stairs to make a point. Eventually he would’ve figured out she was really in Ireland and then I couldn’t have stopped him from going after her. His position was he’d done unspeakable things to get her, so he deserved to have her. I disagreed. Strongly. But I did agree that she belonged back in Boston or Coins with her family. So I did what I had to do to bring her home.”
“Good. How’d it go down?”
“Rifle. Rooftop.”
“How many shots?”
“One.”
“That’s my boy.”
Shaking my head, I get up and get myself a drink. “I wanted to be face to face with him. But I thought he might read the intent on my face, and if I lost my nerve for a second, if I hesitated at all, it would be game over for the kid assassin.”
“Fuck face to face. You were thirteen fucking years old. He killed your father,his friend, in what I’m sure was an ambush, right?”
Swallowing big gulps of Jack and Coke, I’m silent for a time. “Yeah, of course. But he was a scumbag. As a kid, I thought, ‘I’m better than that.’ I was defending my sister, avenging my family… my name is Inigo Montoya.”
C barks out a laugh. “How many trips to the roof with the gun loaded?”
“One.”
“How many times did you line up the shot before you pulled the trigger?”
My gaze cuts to his. “Two.”
He doesn’t look away. “So you were right to choose the roof. You were smart to.” C pours himself a drink. “Was it a clean shot?”
Looking in my glass, I swirl the ice, remembering the day, the cold sweats and how my hoodie’s hood fell too low, hitting my eyebrows and upper lids. I had to push it to the back of my head, so it wasn’t in the way. Extending my tumbler, I wait for C to refill it, which he does.
“Hugh Murphy was dead when he hit the ground.”
C clinks his glass against mine. “Slainte.”
