We talked books the entire way to the restaurant, and once there, he watched me go inside and then turned back toward our place. I took a seat at the bar and ordered two whiskeys neat.
“Would you like something to eat, Mrs. Kelly?” the old barman asked me.
“No,” I said. “Not yet. I’m waiting on Cash. We’ll order together.”
He nodded and went to check on a guy sitting two seats down from me.
Sullivan’s had been in the neighborhood for years and years. It was a place that still held on to its old-world charm. I remembered seeing a picture of my Mam and Da sitting at the bar with a bunch of friends. Mentally, I went through all of the faces, and a few seconds later, it dawned on me—one of them was Ronan Kelly.
The thought of Cash’s old man made me look to my left. Molly, Ronan's widow, and Brian Grady, who I'd heard was Lee's uncle, were sitting at a table together. They were a couple, which kind of surprised me, because from what I understood, the feud between the Kellys and the Gradys was the stuff legends are made of.
I was never curious enough about Molly to make an effort to get to know her, but Brian was...different. For instance, he was holding a dart, and instead of throwing it, he was trying to get the sharp part underneath the first layer of skin on his pointer finger. Like the dart was a needle.
He was also missing the middle digit of his right hand.
The bar was noisy enough with chatter and the band playing, so I turned to the guy two seats down. “How long have you lived here?” He was around Kelly's age, if not a little older.
He looked to the right and then at me when he found no one sitting on the other side of him. Or he knew and was just trying to be a smart ass. He pointed at his chest. “You talkin' to me?"
“I'm not talking to myself.”
“All my life,” he said and turned his face forward again.
I noticed that the barman looked between us before he went back to serving drinks.
“I'm not trying to hit on you,” I said. “I have a question.”
“He'd rearrange my face, or worse, for much less.” He took a gulp of his beer.
“What?” Maybe he was drunk.
“Your husband. There's a reason why men around here keep their distance from you. I was sitting there.” He nodded to the seat next to me. “Saw you coming and moved here for the sake of my health.”
“Ah,” I said. “Because of the tiger that sleeps in my bed.”
“He’s a tiger and I’m a goat. I can smell him all around you, lady.”
I laughed a little and he grinned.
“One question, since you probably know more about the history in this neighborhood than I do.” I chucked my chin toward Brian and Molly. “What happened to his bird finger? Seems like an odd digit to lose.”
The guy who called himself a goat looked at the barman again. Real subtle, the barman shook his head.
The guy released a heavy breath a minute later. “Ah, what the hell? It's not a secret. The Gradys and Kellys go back years. When Ronan first arrived, he had eyes for Molly. She fell for his Irish lilt and charm. He was older, too, and hell bent on running Hell's Kitchen after he got in good with a previous leader who wanted it back after the Gradys took it from him. Molly decided she wanted Ronan and not Brian, and that was that. But not before Ronan cut off Brian’s bird finger after he gave it to Ronan.”
“She's sleeping with the enemy.”
He took another drink of his beer and sighed. “Molly has a wicked temper. She doesn't forgive, and she doesn't forget. Ronan got her pregnant twice, but there was never a baby. Rumors were that she couldn’t have them. Then Ronan brings home his two sons, who were at an age to remember their mother. Molly wasn't her. She hasn't forgiven or forgotten it.
“She would make Ronan prove himself to her by being distant from his sons. If he showed them too much attention, she'd throw a fit and threaten to leave, that sort of thing. Kill made things worse. He couldn't stand her. It wasn't an ideal situation.” Then he made a baaaa sound and turned around.
I looked back at Molly and Brian, and her eyes narrowed against mine.