And If He Sees His Shadow Part 1

AND IF HE SEES His SHADOW....

by Jeremiah Healy.

I parked my aging Honda Prelude on a side street, and while the six-paneled wooden door in the slumping brick building displayed the right address, I had a feeling that the insurance agency probably fronted on the main drag. Turning the corner, I could see tarnished chrome handles standing out from two gla.s.s doors, the words THOMAS G. FLAHERTY-INSURANCE-ALL KINDS emblazoned in peeling silver letters at eye level. I took a breath and pulled on the closer handle.

A string of sleigh bells rang out. We were a lot closer to Easter than Christmas, though, so I a.s.sumed the low-tech warning system was a year-round thing.

Inside the doors were clear gla.s.s part.i.tions, what seemed a secretarial or clerical area to the right, a more executive office to the left. The wood paneling on the wall was separating at the ceiling, and the only light at seven P.M. came from one of those green-shaded, fluorescent desk lamps everybody had when I first entered insurance investigation after Vietnam.

Tommy Flaherty rose from behind the desk and lamp. If I hadn't known this was his place of business, I'd have been hard pressed to recognize him.

When Tommy had worked as a claims investigator for me at Empire Insurance, he'd been slim with a full head of wavy Black-Irish hair and a certain flair for fashion and humor. The man who came around the desk tried for the old smile, but there was no spark to it, and the weight he'd added and the hair he'd lost couldn't save the stained business shirt and poorly knotted tie.

"Hey, John Francis Cuddy," Tommy said, a damp right hand pumping mine. Concave steel splints kept his left ring finger straight. "Jeez, it's good to see you."

"Same, Tommy."

"Sit, sit." He waved me to a client chair, padded with good leather once, but either so old or so neglected that little puffs of white stuffing oozed from cracks in the seat cushion. Tommy brought a bottle of Jim Beam out of his bottom desk drawer, two short gla.s.ses already resting on some papers in front of him.

One of the gla.s.ses looked as though it had been there awhile already. "Just a splash for me, Tommy."

"Aw, come on, John. We haven't seen each other in how many years?"

I didn't want to tally them. "Tommy-"

"Hey," he said, pouring liberally into both gla.s.ses, an ounce or so more for the one closer to him. "You heard the joke about the three seminarians?"

Tommy, Tommy. "Will it get us closer to why you wanted to see me?"

"Spirit of the season, John. Spirit of the season." His right hand shook a little as he pa.s.sed my gla.s.s across the desk. "The head of this seminary's worried that his place is turning out incompetent priests, right? So, the monsignor decides to call the three students at the bottom of the cla.s.s into his office, give each one a pop quiz." Tommy gulped some of his bourbon without offering a toast. I sipped mine, the burn feeling pretty good.

As though it wouldn't be a totally wasted evening with a former coworker on what looked to be the downslope of his life.

"Well," Tommy putting down his gla.s.s, "the guy gets the first kid into his office and says, 'All right, my son, what is Easter?' And the kid, surprised, replies, Why, Monsignor, Easter is that holiday in the early winter when we decorate pine trees and exchange gifts.' The monsignor goes, 'No, you idiot! Pack your bags and get out.'"

Tommy coughed a little, taking another gulp of bourbon like it was offered water. "So the guy gets the second kid into his office, and asks the same question, and this kid, also surprised, says, 'Why, Monsignor, Easter is that holiday in the midsummer when we have picnics and shoot off fireworks.' And the monsignor-getting kind of p.i.s.sed now that his suspicions are being confirmed- says, 'No, you idiot! Pack your bags and get out.'" Seeing a certain pattern developing, I said, "Tommy-"

"-So the guy calls in the third seminarian, and asks him the question. And this kid, seeming kind of disappointed, says, Why, Monsignor, Easter is that holiday in the early spring when we celebrate Christ being crucified and taken down from the cross . . .' And the head of the seminary's starting to think things maybe aren't so hopeless after all as the kid goes on to say,'. . . and He's buried, and on the third day He arises from the dead to walk out of His tomb . . .' And just as the monsignor's about to tell the kid he can return to his studies, the third seminarian finishes by saying, '. . . And if He sees His shadow, He goes back in, and we have six more weeks of winter.'"

Tommy Flaherty laughed so hard I thought he'd need a Heim-lich maneuver, which I wasn't sure worked on bourbon.

"Well, John," around a choking sound, "what do you think?"

"Good one, Tommy. Now what do you need me for?"

The choking, and the laughing, stopped pretty much at the same time. "Ah, the truth is, I've got kind of a problem."

"What kind, Tommy?"

"You stayed up on the insurance industry after you left Empire?"

The company had made all of us get private investigator licenses while we worked there. I'd opened up my own shop, and did occasional insurance-claims work, even a few cases for Empire itself. "Some."

"Well, I have to tell you, John, I got sick of it. Not that you didn't train us all real good. h.e.l.l, I never felt more . . . professional than when I worked for you back there. Only thing was, I never made any money at it, and so when this uncle of mine wanted to retire to Florida, I took over his agency here."

I thought I knew what was coming next. "Bad timing."

"Huh, tell me about it. First, I got eaten alive by all the companies offering their employees health insurance during the boom times. Then I couldn't get the poor slobs covered once they were laid off in the recession. The big agencies are all doing radio and TV advertising for the auto-liability market, and John, I can't compete with them on discounts."

"Which leaves you ... ?"

"... the life and homeowners policies, but now most of the working stiffs get some kind of group life coverage through the job with premiums that I also can't touch. And a lot of mortgage banks now dictate what kind of homeowners, 'oh, and by the way, we offer it for just a little money and a check mark in that box on the form.' So, what was I supposed to do?"

Uh-oh. "You borrowed from your accounts?"

"Worse." Tommy tossed off the rest of his drink. "I borrowed from a shark."

Swell. "Somebody you knew beforehand?"

"Uh-unh. Got a ... referral, like."

"Let me guess. You're not keeping up with the payment schedule."

"Keeping up?" Tommy tried to laugh, but it didn't quite come off, so he poured himself another few ounces of bourbon. "John, the weekly vig amounts to fifty percent of my weekly take."

The interest, or "vigorish," on whatever he'd borrowed. "Are you covering at least the vig, though?"

"Most weeks, yes." Tommy held up his left hand, waggled it in a way that caused a wave of pain to cross his facial features. "Last week, no."

"The shark broke your finger."

"Not Tedesco himself. It was this half-colored enforcer he's got, wears his hair like an Afro, probably trying to get in touch with his 'darker' side."

"Tommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Another racial slur, and you'll be talking to yourself here."

"Aw, jeez, John. I'm sorry, I forgot how you were about that kind of-"

"Tommy, what do you think I can do for you?"

He breathed out deeply, a little foulness reaching me even four feet away. "You know why DuPage-the enforcer-broke this finger?"

"Seems pretty clear. Start small, work his way up the-"

"No, John. I mean this finger." Tommy held up his left hand again, pointing with the index finger on his right to the splinted one. "He was sending me a message. Break the finger with the wedding band on it, guess what he breaks next?"

"Another husband part."

"Or the 'wife part.'" Tommy's eyes began to fill. "You never met Hildy, I don't think."

Hard for me to say. When my wife, Beth, died from her cancer, a lot of the Empire people paid their respects, but I wasn't exactly focusing on them, and it was long enough ago any- "John?"

"Sorry, Tommy."

"I was getting a little worried about you there."

"I'm okay. And no, I don't think I ever met Hildy."

Tommy blinked away a tear. "She's the kind of woman, a guy like DuPage gets a look at her, he'd-"

A knock on the gla.s.s doors. Tommy jumped in the swivel chair and lurched behind him toward a floor safe, the kind you'd see in an old Wells Fargo office. I looked toward the front of the building.

A couple, maybe Latinos, middle-aged and dressed for church, were peering in, their expressions showing uncertainty.

I turned back and saw Tommy sliding something with a walnut b.u.t.t into the safe.

"Jesus, Tommy. You still have a permit for that?"

"Kept it up after I left Empire. Smith & Wesson revolver." He almost seemed relieved by who was knocking. "Clientele I got, there's always cash coming in to pay last month's premium. Or the month's before that." Tommy wiped his hands on his thighs and squirreled away the liquor bottle. "Look, John, I need to try and sell these people a homeowners' policy. How's about you go upstairs, talk to Hildy awhile?"

"Tommy, I-"

"No more than ten, fifteen minutes. Swear." Then, in a lower voice. "Please?"

If I were in his position ... "Okay. She know who I am, at least?"

"Yeah," said Tommy. "I told her you were coming by, and you can use that door there, goes right up to our apartment."

As I opened the interior door, some light from the stairway tumbled out and across my face. I turned to close the door behind me, Tommy sprinkling some Spanish words into his greeting for the couple he was ushering back to his desk. I could see my silhouette from the waist up fall across the wall over his safe, and I wondered how many more weeks of winter Tommy Flaherty would be facing.

"Be a dear and hand me those Players, would you?"

I reached over to the kitchen counter from my aluminum-and-acrylic chair and picked up a distinctive teal-and-white pack of what felt like cigarettes, especially since a Bic lighter rested next to it. A portrait of an old-time sailor appeared on the cardboard with a "NAVY CUT" caption beneath the face, and the word "Legere" in the lower right-hand corner of the pack.

"You could toss them to me," said Hildy Flaherty from the other side of the Formica table, "but it would be ever so much nicer if you brought one over and lit it."

I hadn't been real comfortable entering her kitchen from the stairway. Partly it was that she held a cordless hair dryer the size of a ray gun in her right hand, but mostly it was that Hildy'd remained in her robe-a padded-shoulder, belted model-while receiving her husband's guest. And she had an array of small photos in front of her, all with the same blue background, like an eyewitness scanning mug shots.

"I'm still waiting for that cigarette."

Hildy watched me as she moved the snout of the nearly silent dryer down her long, curly hair, the left hand raking behind it like Harpo Marx over his strings. The hair was dishwater blond, the eyes a green I couldn't put a shade-name to. Heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed with enough definition against the fabric of the robe to tell me that Hildy wasn't wearing anything underneath, and when she crossed her legs, I made sure my eyes stayed on her face.

Which seemed to make the woman smirk. "G.o.d, what does a girl have to do to get a ... light from you?"

I slid the pack and the Bic over the Formica to her. "I don't believe in contributing to other people's bad habits."

"You Americans," said Hildy, a s.e.xual heaviness from her bust- or her b.u.t.ts-melding into her voice. "Always the world's . . . chaperones."

More smirk on that last word.

I said, "Canadian?"

"You got that from the cigarettes?" she said, bringing one to life.

"No."

"That French word-'legere'?-means 'light.'"

"Just your accent."

Confused now behind a cloud of smoke. "You could tell I'm from Toronto?"

It came out "Trannah." I said, "Your lack of accent, really, sounding American except for the 'you Americans' part."

Setting the Bic and the pack on the table, Hildy leaned forward, the lapels of the robe bowing in a way that suggested she was aware of it without having to look down at them. Then she pa.s.sed her free hand over the photos. "Pick your favorite."

"They're upside down to me.

"Which can be interesting, in and of itself."

When I didn't pick up on that, Hildy made a ceremony out of turning each photo around so I could see them all. Seven head-and-shoulder shots of her-identical shots, actually, except that one captured her current hairdo while the others had slightly blurry versions of radically different styles.

Hildy said, "My salon can do that with this new computer-camera they have. It really shows you a lot of choices."

"Sometimes too many options can be a burden."

Hildy c.o.c.ked her head, then pointed to a photo with the hair cut to maybe two inches all around and permed. "I like this one, but I really do care which you'd choose. I think you're way more clever than poor Tommy."

I felt a sudden need to defend him. "He was a good investigator for me."

"Yeah, well," Hildy, rolling her shoulders like she'd just awakened, "he's a lousy salesman for me. I mean, look at this place, would you?"

"We all do what we can."Hildy sent out a plume of smoke through her nostrils. 'Tommy doesn't 'do' enough. Spends all his time on this broken-down agency, seeing his 'prospects' at night-which is a pretty good word for them, 'prospects.' Like he's panning for gold by a stream in the Yukon. Only Tommy swirls through a ton of dirty sand for every nugget he finds, and even that's not enough."

I wasn't sure how much of Tommy's loan-shark troubles he'd shared with his wife, including the implied threat to her, so I moved to safer ground. "You work yourself?"

A shake of the head, which seemed to remind Hildy to continue drying her long hair. "Too complicated, work permits or green cards or whatever your government requires."

Didn't sound like she'd explored things very deeply. "You help Tommy down in the office, then?"

A grunt that I took to be a disgusted laugh. "You see all those desks opposite his?"