The Given Day (Coughlin 1)
Page 87"We're not employees, Aiden. We're civil servants. We protect and we serve."
Danny allowed himself a smile. It was rare he could watch the old man get worked up needlessly and be the one holding the key to his release. He stubbed out his cigarette and a chuckle escaped his lips. "You laugh?"
He held up a hand. "Dad, Dad. It's not going to be Montreal. Really." His father's eyes narrowed and he shifted on the edge of the desk. "How so?"
"You heard what, exactly?"
His father reached into his humidor and removed a cigar. "You confronted Stephen O'Meara. My son. A Coughlin. Speaking out of turn. Now you're going from station house to station house, collecting affi davits regarding substandard working conditions? You're recruiting for your purported 'union' on city time?"
"He thanked me."
His father paused, the cigar cutter wrapped around the base of the cigar. "Who?"
"Commissioner O'Meara. He thanked me, Dad, and he asked Mark Denton and me to get those affidavits. He seems to think we'll resolve the situation very soon."
"O'Meara?"
Danny nodded. His father's strong face drained of color. He'd never seen this coming. In a million years, he couldn't have guessed it. Danny chewed on the inside of his mouth to keep a smile from breaking wide across his face.
Got you, he wanted to say. Twenty-seven years on this planet and I finally got you.
His father surprised him even further when he came off the desk and held out his hand. Danny stood and took it and his father's grip was strong and he pulled Danny to him and clapped him once on the back.
"God, you made us proud, then, son. Damn proud." He let go of his hand and clapped his shoulders and then sat back on the desk. "Damn proud," his father repeated with a sigh. "I'm just relieved it's all over, this whole mess."
Danny sat down. "Me, too, sir."
"How do you feel about Nora and Connor's impending nuptials?"
Danny held his father's gaze and kept his voice steady. "Fine, sir. Just fine. They're a handsome couple."
"They are, they are," his father said. "I can't tell you what a trial it's been for your mother and me to keep him from sneaking up to her room at night. Like children, they are." He walked around to the back of the desk and looked out at the snow. Danny could see both their faces reflected in the window. His father noticed it, too, and smiled.
"You're the spitting image of my Uncle Paudric. Have I ever told you that?"
Danny shook his head.
"Biggest man in Clonakilty," his father said. "Oh, he could drink something fierce and he'd get a sight unreasonable when he did. A publican once refused him service? Why, Paudric tore out the bar between them. Heavy oak, Aiden, this bar. And he just tore a piece of it out and went and poured himself another pint. A legendary man, really. Oh, and the ladies loved him. Much like you in that regard. Everyone loved Paudric when he was sober. And you? Everyone loves you, don't they, son? Women, children, mangy Italians and mangy dogs. Nora."
Danny put his drink on the desk. "What did you say?"
His father turned from the window. "I'm not blind, boy. You two may have told yourselves one thing, and she may very well love Con' in a different way. And maybe it's the better way." His father shrugged. "But you--"
"You're on thin fucking ice, sir."
His father looked at him, his mouth half-open.
"Just so you know," Danny said and could hear the tightness in his own voice.
Eventually his father nodded. It was the sage nod, that one that let you know he was acknowledging one aspect of your character while pondering flaws in another. He took Danny's glass. He carried it to the decanter with his own and refi lled them.
He handed Danny his glass. "Do you know why I allowed you to box?"
His father clinked his glass with his own. "Exactly. I've known since you were a boy that you could occasionally be prodded or smoothed, but you could never be molded. It's anathema to you. Has been since you could walk. Do you know I love you, boy?"
Danny met his father's eyes and nodded. He did. He always had. Strip away all the many faces and many hearts his father showed the world when it suited him, and that face and that heart were always evident.
"I love Con', of course," his father said. "I love all my children. But I love you differently because I love you in defeat."
"Defeat?"
His father nodded. "I can't rely on you, Aiden. I can't shape you. This thing with O'Meara is a perfect example. This time it worked out. But it was imprudent. It could have cost you your career. And it's a move I never would have made or allowed you to make. And that's the difference with you, of all my children--I can't predict your fate."
"But Con's?"
His father said, "Con' will be district attorney someday. Without a doubt. Mayor, defi nitely. Governor, possibly. I'd hoped you'd be chief of police, but it's not in you."
"No," Danny agreed.
"And the thought of you as mayor is one of the more comical ideas I've ever imagined."
Danny smiled.
"So," Thomas Coughlin said, "your future is something you're hell- bent on writing with your own pen. Fine. I accept defeat." He smiled to let Danny know he was only half serious. "But your brother's future is something I tend to like a garden." He hoisted himself up on the desk. His eyes were bright and liquid, a sure sign that doom was on the way. "Did Nora ever talk much about Ireland, about what led her here?"
"To me?"
"To you, yes."
"No, sir."
"Never mentioned anything about her past life?"
Maybe all of it.
Danny shook his head. "Not to me."
"Funny," his father said.
"Funny?"
His father shrugged. "Apparently you two had a less intimate relationship than I'd imagined."
"Thin ice, sir. Very thin."
His father gave that an airy smile. "Normally people talk about their pasts. Particularly with close . . . friends. And yet Nora never does. Have you noticed?"
Danny tried to formulate a reply but the phone in the hall rang. Shrill and loud. His father looked at the clock on the mantel. Almost ten o'clock.