The Con Man's Daughter

Chapter 15

Wednesday

8:00 P.M.

"Why did the man attackle you?" Grace asked, gently daubing Eddie's eye with a damp washcloth. "Because you were looking for Mommy?"

He wasn't sure where Grace had found her mother's first-aid kit. He watched her carefully, not entirely sure what chemical she was doctoring him with. Kate could reel off the names of drugs Eddie had never heard of.

"He attackled me because he's crazy," Eddie said. "The police took him away to jail so he can't hurt anyone else."

They were sitting around the kitchen table, finishing the "angel foot cake." Kevin had brought franks and beans, Grace's favorite, from the restaurant. The house was quieter than it had been. The Yonkers Police Department had moved the plant location to their Fourth Precinct, two miles away, on Shonnard Place. The phone would still be tapped, and the FBI still involved. Eddie guessed they must have figured that since he wasn't sitting there, they shouldn't have to, either. Uniformed officers would still maintain a presence in the neighborhood, checking his house at least once an hour.

"Not all mentally ill people deserve to be in jail, honey," Martha said. "Some people are sick and should be in hospitals."

"When I see him again," Eddie said, "I will make sure he goes to a hospital."

"So much for turning the other cheek," Martha said.

"Martha," Kevin said sternly.

When Eddie got home, Grace had told him that Babsie Panko'd helped her fix up an old pink dollhouse of Kate's. Grace had dragged it out of the attic and onto the front lawn. He remembered the dollhouse; he and Eileen had put it together one Christmas Eve.

"God came into our class today," Grace said.

"His spirit is always with you, sweetie," Martha said. "It's with you now."

"I asked Him to help Mommy."

"I pray to Him every day, too," Martha said.

"I see Him every day," Grace said

"You don't really see God," Martha said. "But you feel His presence and know He's always there for you."

"I see Him every day," Grace said, her voice getting louder. "Today, He said, 'Good morning, class.'"

"Oh, honey, I don't think so," Martha said.

"What does God look like?" Kevin asked.

"He's bald and he wears a black suit."

"That's Father Qualters," Kevin said. "He only thinks he's God. You ought to play golf with him sometime."

Eddie winced from laughing. Grace thought she'd hurt him, and her eyes welled up. Eddie pulled her to him and kissed her neck until she giggled.

"Well, Uncle Kevin has a whoopee cushion," Grace said, trying to retaliate. "He puts it under the chair cushion, and when you sit down, it sounds like a fart."

"Don't say that word, Grade," Martha said.

Eddie looked up at the clock and wondered where Babsie had gone. He wanted to fill her in on Misha and find out what progress she had made. But it was more than that. He liked the fact she was there, looking out for Grace. Babsie had a calmness about her. And an openness that made her comfortable to be around. He had no doubt that Babsie Panko could handle anything.

"Listen, Eddie," Kevin said. "Next time you go into one of those Russian places, call me. Promise me that. Call me before you do something like this again."

"Eddie doesn't need your help," Martha said.

"You'll be the first guy I call, Kev."

"Do the police have anything promising?" Martha asked. "Any kind of leads at all? I ask Babsie Panko, and God knows I love her, but she doesn't exactly inspire confidence. That may be my opinion, but…"

"She's funny, like Granpop," Grace said.

"And that's good enough for me," Eddie said. "Us jokesters have to stick together."

Eddie still wondered how his former son-in-law had found out about Kate so quickly, before it even appeared in the paper. He didn't want to think Martha had called him. He needed Martha now to look after Grace when he was gone. Kevin would be around, too. But Kevin, God bless him, thought Martha was the greatest thing ever created.

"I have some good news," Kevin said.

"Please, honey, it's not the time."

"We need something good to talk about, right, Eddie?" Kevin said, sipping gingerly from a steaming cup of coffee Martha had pushed into his hands. The look on his face said it all; he had news that couldn't wait. "I heard something yesterday. McGrath, the electrician. You know who I mean?"

McGrath's Electric Shop had been next door to the North End Tavern for over thirty years.

"Everybody here knows the McGraths," Martha said, gesturing for him to pick up the pace.

"Yeah, but I bet you didn't know this: He's retiring."

"He says that every year," Martha said.

"He's already got a buyer for his house on Douglas Avenue," Kevin said. "I was in Food Mart and heard about it, so I went right over to him and asked him point-blank. He's moving to Naples, Florida. He bought a condo there last winter. He says he's had it with working his ass off eleven months a year."

"What is he doing with the shop?" Eddie asked.

"That's part of my idea," Kevin said. "You're going to love it, Eddie."

Kevin always had an idea, some big wacky idea. Invariably, too big for Martha's tastes. She apparently knew what was coming next. The look on her face predicted she didn't like Kevin's latest brainstorm.

"He's not in Florida yet," Martha said.

"I was thinking," Kevin said, his eyes wide, his waving hands drawing the floor plans of his big idea. "We should rent the space for Kate."

"Don't mind him, Eddie. He means well."

"C'mon. It would make a perfect little restaurant for her," Kevin said. "She's been looking and looking. This place is perfect. We could knock out the wall between us. Put a small service bar in her place that connects to our bar. We could join the kitchens. She could do all the food, the fancy dinners. We'd handle the drinks, the burger crowd."

"It sounds perfect," Eddie said.

"Let's not be getting our hopes too high," Martha said.

"Let's do it," Grace yelled.

Kevin Dunne never had a plan that couldn't work. The caption under his picture in his high school yearbook read "No prob-lemo."

"It's all settled then," Kevin said. "I'll put a deposit down tomorrow."

Later that night, Eddie Dunne sat alone in his kitchen, wondering when the other shoe would drop. Unlike his brother, Eddie did not believe that everything always works out. He knew the more time that passed, Kate's chances diminished. If the worst happened to Kate, he'd lose Grace, as well. Scott had not sent his sister into enemy territory just to check the condition of a woman he claimed to hate; he had another motive.

Eddie needed a lawyer to get the proper documents drawn up, legal guardian, whatever he needed on paper to protect Grace. Not that he was putting his trust in the system. Not by a long shot. He knew the system well enough to know it never did anything for guys like him. Rolling around in the back of his brain was the start of plan B. Guys like Eddie needed to have a plan B.

He sipped a cup of tea as he looked into his granddaughter's bedroom. The old radiator clanked as steam rose. He'd planned for years to modernize but had never gotten around to it. In those bad old days, so many things had called him away. Things that Eileen, who'd called him the Hell-Raiser of the Western World, had listed under one simple heading: "Nightlife."

When he was honest with himself, Eddie could admit he'd been wrong. Maybe Eileen would have been different if he had grown up sooner. For too many years, he'd wasted his quality time in bars, being the last guy to go home after a night out carousing. His was a lifetime of booze and recklessness, which had provoked his forced resignation from the NYPD, and culminated in the death of Eileen. The doctors said cancer, but that ugly word didn't even begin to touch his guilt. He had no doubt that the stress of living with him had triggered her disease. Now, because he'd tried to make it up, because he'd grabbed his last chance to be a father, and a priceless shot at being a grandfather, they were going to take it all away.

Grace stirred, kicking the pink bedspread farther down the bed. Her bedroom, the one nearest to the kitchen, had been Kate's when she was a child. He felt sick when he thought about all the arguments Kate had heard, all the sad scenes playing out just a few feet down the hall. In the amber glow of a Hello Kitty night-light, he stood there watching the little girl, who, for no reason he could understand, loved him so much. He was constantly amazed that Grace thought he was so hilarious, so much fun. The one thing in life he was sure of was that no one would ever love him this much again. He couldn't lose her.

A full moon illuminated the quiet street. Eddie noticed a small red sticker on the bedroom window. Eileen had put it there when Kate was a baby. It was meant to alert firemen that a child slept there. Unfortunately, it alerted everyone that a child slept there. He began to peel it off, wondering if he'd blown this surprising and priceless gift just when he'd come to understand it.

Headlights flashed across the bedroom wall as a big vehicle turned into their street. Eddie squinted, trying to see if he recognized the car. He wondered if it was the YPD making its hourly drive-by. A dark SUV, one of the king-size models, towered over his neighbors' Hondas and Tauruses. Brake lights painted the street with a red glow. The bass thump of music reverberated. A little too loud for police work.

Maybe it was a wrong address, some yo-yo looking for his bimbette. Nothing to do with him. Kids, probably. Kids with a case of beer iced down in a cooler on the floor behind them. Probably just driving around, looking for a girl who lived on the hill. She won't do it, but her sister will. But then the big tires bounced softly up onto the curb, bright lights pointed at the house. Eddie put his big silhouette in the center of the window, hoping it would scare them off. On the lawn, near the edge of the driveway, Eddie noticed the small pink doll-house Grace had dragged out there earlier. He still remembered the argument that Christmas Eve when he and Eileen had put it together. The SUV stopped halfway up the driveway.

Please back off, he whispered. Eddie's nature begged him to run outside, but he knew he couldn't abandon Grace. Disappearing had been his old act. He looked back at Grace, who was sound asleep, zonked-out. Maybe she'd sleep through this.

The engine growled as the driver seemed to search for the right gear-reverse, Eddie hoped. He had a bad feeling; the guy was too ballsy. Either drunk or crazy. He prayed for drunk as the music got louder, thumping in his chest. Grace moaned something, half-asleep. Call the cops, he thought. That's what a good citizen would do. The SUV made a sudden hard left onto the lawn, then went right across it, tire tracks cutting deep in the soft grass and aiming directly at the pink dollhouse. The cracking of plastic echoed in the quiet neighborhood as the big tires crushed it.

Eddie raced down the hall and grabbed the Smith & Wesson from his bedroom closet. He didn't care who the hell it was, or how many. He could feel his arms reaching into the SUV, yanking whoever it was out of that car. His hand was on the doorknob when Grace cried out from the bedroom.

"I'll be right back, babe," he yelled. "Everything is okay."

She called him again.

"Just a second, honey," he yelled.

Something hit the front of the house, slamming off the ancient door. Grace cried, "Granpop."

So he ran to her and held her and watched from the pink bedroom as the SUV backed down the driveway. The driver peeled out, tires screeching. Bits of mud and stones pinged off the sides of parked cars. Grace, her voice thick with sleep, asked what was happening, unsure whether or not she was in a bad dream. He held her and said it was just a dumb driver who got lost and that she'd always be safe with him.

Three marked patrol cars from the Yonkers Fourth Precinct responded. In the swirl of light on the lawn, Eddie let Martha snatch Grace from his arms and take her to her house. He told the cops he didn't get a plate number but that even if he had, he was sure the vehicle had been stolen. He led them to the other evidence, a gray canvas bag that had been thrown against the door-the door that no friend ever used. Detectives examined tire marks and photographed the bag. He asked the detectives to contact Babsie Panko and tell her about the canvas bag and its contents. Stenciled on the side was u.s. mail. Inside was a human head.