O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [148]
At Forty-fourth and Ninth Avenue, two companies of fire wagons raced down the street in an opposite direction, answering an alarm. Henry veered out of their way and slammed the curb, tipped, and dumped.
As the storm headed for Jersey, a midnight crowd jammed the saloons to overflowing. Paddy O’Hara’s ran stone dry and was deserted as though a bill collector had entered the place.
Paddy O’Hara was annoyed. Along with the heat and a dry saloon, he’d lost a goodly sum in the poker game he ran in the cellar. Paddy, who could outdrink any man in the bar, hit the hard stuff in his anxiety.
And that damned bloody sharp pain tore through his stomach. Of late, the pain seemed to visit on a daily basis or more. At first, Paddy ignored it, then drank to smother it. With all the crap going on, it hit him bad, this night.
Knowing the saloon business from his vantage point in the storeroom, Zachary stayed in place to put things in order later.
The saloon was quite well trashed up and would stay so until the morning cleaning crew. Zach nodded off for one of his patented twelve-minute naps as his da emptied the registers and fumed over the pain in his belly.
Paddy finally heard the iron rims of wheels and clip-clopping hooves of an unsteady horse and was all but snorting fire when old Henry entered.
For a moment, a sense of pity overtook Paddy at the sight of Henry, drenched, yellow-eyed with exhaustion, and in fear of a tongue-lashing.
“It was a mess out there tonight, Mr. O’Hara, sir, worst I ever seen in eighteen years. I come straight to you soons I could and skipped all the other bars.”
“A lot of fucking good that’s going to do now. I lost a fucking fortune tonight.”
“Truly sorry,” Henry said, glancing hungrily at a badly picked-over free lunch counter. It had been a long, grueling day and he had not tasted a bite for twelve hours.
Paddy always saved the leftovers for Tommy Bannon and Henry. Henry had his own tin plate and tin water cup behind the bar near the free lunch table. It was often his one solid meal of the day. At times, Paddy let old Henry clean the mess at the free lunch table, wrap the scraps in butcher’s paper, and take them home.
Paddy set Henry’s plate on the counter. “All right, fix yourself a plate.” There weren’t too much leavings, but Paddy took some bologna from the cooler and added it.
Paddy calmed a bit, looking at a creature more miserable than himself. “Henry,” he said, “you’re the only one that really gets a free lunch. There is no such thing as free lunch. Why? I’ll tell you. Any Irishman will spend ten times more for what he’s drinking than what he does eating.”
Famished and light-headed, old Henry shoveled bologna and sardines and onions and carrot sticks and soda bread into his face with his fingers, munching with few teeth and drooling down his chin. Ugly sight, Paddy thought. Thank God they ain’t in the Marines.
“So when is Tommy coming back on the route?”
Henry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, asked for water, and went at the rest of the plate.
“Mr. Tommy has been sick for several days.”
“He’s always sick when it rains,” Paddy said.
“I mean double sick, sir. Mr. Hogan, the dispatcher, went and seen him at the Angels of Mercy Mission and Mr. Tommy’s missus and kids was all wailing over his cot. Mr. Hogan told me I was to do the route until they decided to break in a new man. Sir, can I have the rest of those leavings?”
Hogan, the dispatcher, was a bloody Ulsterman and suspected of not being of the true faith. Paddy didn’t trust Hogan.
“Henry, there’s been talk.”
“Concerning which matter?”
“They say Hogan is going to get rid of Tommy and give you his route.”
“I never heard nothing about that, sir.”
“Fuck you didn’t. Hogan told you to be real quiet about it, didn’t he? Someone overheard him talking to you about it.”
“That’s not true, Mr. Paddy.”
“Yeah, man, you’d be the one nigger teamster they could get away with, and then, more nigger drivers. The brewery would