The Given Day (Coughlin 1)

O'Meara leaned in. "You're not your father, son."

Danny stared back at him, unsure.

"Your heart is purer than his."

Danny couldn't speak.

O'Meara squeezed his arm just above the elbow. "Don't sell that, son. You can't ever buy it back in the same condition."

"Yes, sir."

O'Meara held him with his gaze for one more long moment and then Mark Denton handed them each a pint and O'Meara's hand dropped from Danny's arm.

After he'd finished his second pint, O'Meara bade the men good- bye and Danny and Mark Denton walked him out into a thick rain that fell from the black sky.

His driver, Sergeant Reid Harper, exited the car and covered his boss with an umbrella. He acknowledged Danny and Denton with a nod as he opened the rear door for O'Meara. The commissioner rested an arm on the door and turned to them.

"I'll speak to Mayor Peters first thing in the morning. I'll convey to him my sense of urgency and arrange a meeting at City Hall for negotiations with the Boston Social Club. Do either of you have any objections to representing the men at that meeting?"

Danny looked over at Denton, wondering if O'Meara could hear the thumps of their hearts.

"No, sir."

"No, sir."

"Well, then." O'Meara held out his hand. "Allow me to thank you both. Sincerely."

They each shook the hand.

"You're the future of the Boston policemen's union, gentlemen." He gave them a gentle smile. "I hope you're up to the task. Now get out of the rain."

He climbed in the car. "To home, Reid, else the missus will think I've turned tomcat."

Reid Harper pulled away from the curb as O'Meara gave them a small wave through the window.

The rain soaked their hair and fell down the backs of their necks. "Jesus Christ," Mark Denton said. "Jesus Christ, Coughlin."

"I know."

"You know? Do you understand what you just did in there? You saved us."

"I didn't--"

Denton wrapped him in a bear hug and lifted him off the sidewalk. "You fucking saved us!"

He spun Danny over the sidewalk and hooted at the street and Danny struggled to break free but he was laughing now, too, the both of them laughing like lunatics on the street as the rain fell into Danny's eyes, and he wondered if he'd ever, in his life, felt this good.

He met Eddie McKenna one night in Governor's Square, at the bar of the Hotel Buckminster. "What have you got?"

"I'm getting closer to Bishop. But he's cagey."

McKenna spread his arms in the booth. "They suspect you of being a plant, you think?"

"Like I said before, it's definitely crossed their minds."

"Any ideas?"

Danny nodded. "One. It's risky."

"How risky?"

He produced a moleskin notebook, identical to the one he'd seen Fraina use. He'd been to four stationers before he'd found it. He handed it to McKenna.

"I've been working on that for two weeks."

McKenna leafed through it, his eyebrows going up a few times.

"I stained a few pages with coffee, even put a cigarette hole in one."

McKenna whistled softly. "I noticed."

"It's the political musings of Daniel Sante. What do you think?" McKenna thumbed through it. "You covered Montreal and the Spartacists. Nice. Oooh--Seattle and Ole Hanson. Good, good. You got Archangel in here?"

"Of course."

"The Versailles Conference?"

"You mean as a world-domination conspiracy?" Danny rolled his eyes. "You think I'd miss that one?"

"Careful," Eddie said without looking up. "Cocky gets undercover men hurt."

"I've gotten nowhere in weeks, Eddie. How could I possibly be cocky? I got the notebook and Bishop said he'll show it to Fraina, no promises. That's it."

Eddie handed it back. "That's good stuff. You'd almost think you believed it."

Danny let the comment pass and put the notebook back in his coat pocket.

Eddie flicked open his watch. "Stay away from union meetings for a while."

"I can't."

Eddie closed his watch and returned it to his vest. "Oh, that's right. You are the BSC these days."

"Bullshit."

"After the meeting you had with O'Meara the other night, that is the rumor, trust me." He smiled softly. "Almost thirty years on this force and I'll bet our dear commissioner doesn't even know my name."

Danny said, "Right place at the right time, I guess."

"Wrong place." He frowned. "You better watch yourself, boy. Because others have started watching you. Take some advice from Uncle Eddie--step back. There are storms imminent everywhere. Everywhere. On the streets, in the factory yards, and now in our own department. Power? That's ephemeral, Dan. More so now than ever before. You keep your head down."

"It's already up."

Eddie slapped the table.

Danny leaned back. He'd never seen Eddie McKenna lose his slippery calm.

"If you get your face in the paper meeting with the commissioner? The mayor? Have you thought of what that means to my investigation? I can't use you if Daniel Sante, apprentice-Bolshevik, becomes Aiden Coughlin, face of the BSC. I need Fraina's mailing list."

Danny stared across at this man he'd known his whole life. Seeing a new side to him, a side he'd suspected was there all along but had never actually witnessed.

"Why the mailing lists, Eddie? I thought we were looking for evidence of May Day uprising plans."

"We're looking for both," Eddie said. "But if they're as tight-lipped as you say, Dan, and if your detecting capabilities are a little less substantial than I'd hoped, then you just get me that mailing list before your face is all over the front page. Could you do that for your uncle, pal?" He stepped out of the booth and shrugged into his coat, tossed some coins on the table. "That should do it."

"We just got here," Danny said.

Eddie worked his face back into the mask it had always been around Danny--impish and benign. "City never sleeps, boy. I've got business in Brighton."

"Brighton?"

Eddie nodded. "Stockyards. Hate that place."

Danny followed Eddie toward the door. "Bracing cows now, Eddie?"

"Better." Eddie pushed open the door into the cold. "Coloreds. Crazy dinges are meeting right now, after hours, to discuss their rights. You believe that? Where does it end? Next thing, the chinks'll be holding our laundry hostage."

Eddie's driver pulled to the curb in his black Hudson. Eddie said, "Give you a lift?"