Brian's mouth fell open in surprise. This dried-up old guy was unbelievable. Brian debated walking out right now and letting the old guy rant and rave. But again, curiosity held him, and beneath the curiosity, a sense of personal assault and violation made him stand and watch as the man hobbled to a dark-brown upholstered chair.

He leaned both hands on the walking stick and rested his chin on his hands as he studied Brian carefully, taking in the black shoes, navy trousers, red-and-white-checked shirt.

Seated, Crowley appeared to be hopelessly deformed; his knees jutted against the fabric of his trousers like gnarled growths. His right shoulder stretched up around his ear while his left shoulder sloped downward. The old man moved about in the chair, seemed to be searching for the proper spot that would conform to his strange contours. He thrust both legs out straight before him, stiff as sticks, then stretched his arms after he leaned the walking stick against the chair, then he folded his limbs as though they were inanimate mechanical objects.

After all of these fascinating maneuvers, he ended up in exactly the same position as when he had started. His eyes, which blinked continuously, were small, pale, watery blue. They searched around Brian, over his head, past his shoulder, to the left side and the right side of him until finally they found Brian's face, fixed on him, stopped blinking.

"Sit down," he said and a long bone of a finger indicated a chair. It was a wooden chair, without arms, slightly lower than that on which Mr. Crowley sat. When Brian hesitated, the old man thumped impatiently on the floor with his stick. "Goddamn it," he said, "sit down, you little bastard, when you're told to sit down."

Brian sat down, filled with an icy sense of wonder at his self-control.

"All right. Now, well, you're not the one she left with," Crowley said shrewdly. "She left with Tom Fairley's lad." He stared somewhere between Brian's lips and throat, as though to seek out the truth from the very source of his voice. Crowley hunched forward and seemed even more lopsided. "All right. You're no college boy." A quick tilt of his head dismissed Brian's clothes in no uncertain terms. "I don't want any shit from you; you answer my questions." The eyes met Brian's with a cold, calculating, knowing gaze. "Who are you? What do you do? And where the hell did you meet her?"

Brian ran his tongue along the inside of his lower teeth and took measure; the old son of a bitch, trying to bullshit him like he was a scared seventeen-year-old kid. He smiled, leaned forward and said very softly, "I'm Brian O'Malley. I'm a pimp. And I picked her up at a school dance." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder for casual emphasis, then shrugged. "She might have the makings, but I'm not sure yet."

The blue eyes congealed. The thin lips pulled downward and froze. The long-fingered clawlike hand released the stick and rubbed ferociously at the blade-thin sharp nose, then clutched again at the knob of the stick, which balanced between his high knees. His lips split apart in the sudden, irrevocable way the edges of a terrible wound split, but instead of flesh and blood, long, white, unexpectedly dazzling teeth were revealed.

Crowley's strange body was overwhelmed by spasmodic motion over which he seemed to have no control. His feet stamped alternately, causing the high knees to rise and fall in an almost galloping pace. The palms of his hands slapped first at the arms of the dark chair, then at the accelerating knees.

Crowley's face, long and fleshless as a skull, went from dead white to bright pink, then darkened to an alarming shade of purplish blue. Strange gagging, sputtering sound struggled deep inside his scrawny neck, as though he was trying to bring up a bone.

Brian, at first stunned and then appalled by the fantastic contortions, thought the old man was either having some kind of attack or had gone completely mad. The worst part of it was that it was his fault. He should have just kept his mouth shut and left. Now it was too late.

My God, Brian thought, what'll I do if this old nut strangles himself or something?

He leaned over the jerking body but couldn't think of a single thing to do except place his hand on a bony shoulder and ask with some alarm, "Hey, Mr. Crowley, are you okay? Can I do anything for you?"

Crowley gasped and wheezed and indicated with a series of head movements that Brian should lean dose to his mouth to receive a message which could not travel very far from his lips.

Incredibly, Patrick Crowley, in a hacking, strangulating sound, whispered into Brian O'Malley's unbelieving ear, "You bastard, you bastard, I like you, you little son of a bitch! You're the first little bastard with any guts!"

TWENTY-SIX.

WHEN PATRICK JOSEPH CROWLEY arrived as an immigrant from Knockraha, a tiny hamlet just twelve miles from Cork, he was thirty-seven years old and had just buried his widowed mother. He left behind eight brothers and five sisters and too many nephews and nieces to bother counting.

He brought with him a sense of unaccustomed freedom. All prearrangements were canceled. As the oldest son, the scrap of poor land which had become his wasn't worth a damn, never had been, never would be. After the ordeal of watching the old woman through her hard and lingering death, some unknown claim asserted itself within him: he was tired of his hard and lingering life.

For the price of his ticket to New York and a few odd dollars to get started on, Patrick sold his birthright to the brother born ten months after himself, and good luck to him.

The streets of New York, which had filled lesser men than Patrick Joseph Crowley with terror, had an altogether different effect on the tall, leathery, hard-bitten countryman. He walked the island of Manhattan from east to west across its salty tip and breathed in the tarry smell of the waterfront and found the strangeness tantalizing. He walked into the commerce center of the island and the excitement of the frantic streets pounded in him with the intensity of a powerful heart. He paced the city as though he were a great absentee landlord come home at last to examine his possessions. It was a dirty, filthy, knot-hard fist of a place and it was the home for which, unknowingly, he had always yearned. Skeletons of new buildings rose everywhere out of the rubble of dying wooden structures. The monstrous city reeked with potential and Crowley wanted not just aroma but taste.

Of a frugal nature, even in the heart of enforced frugality, he gathered his pennies and nickels and dimes as carefully as he could from an assortment of odd jobs which did not pay more than pennies and nickels and dimes, but Crowley, patient and experienced with life, sought not miracles but opportunity.

He sought solace from the waves of loneliness that assaulted him like a fever in the familiarity of the saloon, where he could hear the range of Irish voices and words and thoughts, from poet to fool to planner and plotter and thief. He watched carefully and listened closely as he nursed his one large glass of beer each evening.

There were those who had come too soon, young boys with empty bellies and dreams too grand to even touch along the edges of reality. They were the ones who drank too much, too fast. He watched them on a Saturday night, fingers caked with factory grease and oil or muscles knotted and aching from the docks. They dug into the little brown pay envelopes and called for whiskey. By Tuesday night, they'd plead for a short beer and pledge future wages against the favor.

There were some sturdy lads who had had some connections to guide and direct them into the various organizations of government: the great city departments, where the boys all wore blue and sounded like home. Well, Crowley was too old for any of that and had a slight stiffness to his right leg besides. He'd had a childhood accident and some nerves had been severed and the thing never moved right but it didn't bother him too much.

There was another group at the saloon that Pat Crowley observed and it was toward this group he was drawn. They were older men, in their late forties or fifties. They seemed a thoughtful group and a sober group. Most important of all, they seemed a successful group. The owner himself, Hardigan, touched his brow in deference to them, and Shanley, the hired bartender, served them immediately that they appeared.

Crowley did not go unnoticed either. He was marked as a quiet and watchful man and as something of a mystery. No one knew exactly what it was he wanted for he never complained or boasted and complaints and boasts were what filled the smoky air of every saloon along Tenth Avenue from the lower 20's to the lower 40's, along with the singing of sad or merry songs. After a time, the noisemakers and bellyachers dismissed Crowley as not worth the bother to wonder over.

The well-dressed important group, who kept to themselves in a neat rear room and were served fresh trays of free lunch directly from the kitchen, thought that Crowley might one day be useful to them, and though they seemed to ignore him, they had marked him.

It turned out that Patrick J. Crowley was useful, although it also turned out that he was more than his benefactors had bargained for.

Among the habitues of Hardigan's rear room was a certain Michael Fleming, who was a councilman, re-elected every time he ran for the simple fact that he had no opposition. One of Michael Fleming's proudest claims was that as an elected representative of the people he regularly kept promises made to them. One of Fleming's most frequent promises was that the sidewalks and streets of the City of New York would be kept paved and free of holes as long as he had anything to say about it. He had a good deal to say about it, since he made it his business to be actively involved in knowing what streets to rip up and put down again.

Each time a major repavement job came along, sealed bids were submitted by contractors eager for the job. The lowest bidder, of course, would receive the contract. Technically.

Actually, the contractor who submitted the lowest bid would be visited by someone with some useful advice to offer. The useful advice was that it would be wise for all concerned to subcontract the job to the firm of Savacco and Walsh. Otherwise, it was highly likely that a great number of violations of the building code would be found in the manner in which the job was done. It was also possible that the men hired to do the job would find the working conditions and the pay not at all to their liking. It might even come about that between labor problems and violations, the firm might fall upon difficult days and might even fail to survive.

On the other hand, if the job was subcontracted to the firm of Savacco and Walsh, why, for their cooperation and decent good sense, it would be seen to that some really choice jobs would be thrown their way, in addition to a fee of about 10 per cent of whatever amount over the estimated bid the job actually ran.

Savacco and Walsh, the subcontractors, generally ran at least 50 per cent over the estimate given by the original contractor, whose firm's name remained on the contracts. On a few grand occasions, they ran nearly 200 per cent over the estimate.

The firm name of Savacco and Walsh never appeared anywhere in connection with city business.

Savacco was a senile cripple without wife or child. He had been paid a generous fee for the use of his signature when the partnership was formed. His signature was no longer necessary since he had long ago given power of attorney to his partner, George Walsh.

George Walsh was the name Michael Fleming used in his dealings as a subcontractor.

Out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Michael Fleming and his colleagues in city government, came a snot-nosed young greaseball of an assistant district attorney who thought to make his name a household word in time for election in the fall, though God knew what the poor bastard hoped to run for. There were long lines of faithful party servants ahead of him and turning on his party was hardly the way to make himself popular, but that was the thing he tried to do.

His name was Anthony Tulisi, and when Mike Fleming sent for him, he cautioned the boys not to call him a greaseball or wop to his face, since the lad had an education and seemed sensitive.

The meeting was held in Fleming's office at City Hall. Tulisi, beneath his dark complexion, was pale with indignation and glowed with the light of youthful righteousness.

He told all assembled that a change was coming and that they were through. They were all a bunch of robbers and thieves. He, Anthony Tulisi, was going to expose them all before the grand jury and the people of the City of New York. Honesty was going to come into style. The crooks were going to jail.

They kept him talking. He was young and emotional enough to let slip the fact that his case against them rested on the evidence of some jackass of a bookkeeper whose hobby, it seemed, was minding other people's business. The bookkeeper worked for the city's Department of Finance, and instead of thanking God he had a steady job, he took it upon himself to worry about how much money was spent over and above the low-contract bid on various jobs. He got himself curious enough to start keeping a regular little record, and finally he brought his little record book to Anthony Tulisi, who happened to be his cousin.

Between them, they seemed to think they were about to rise, in a few spectacular years, from the sons of street fruit peddlers to rulers of the City of New York.

Not by a long shot.

The difficulty was, as Michael Fleming explained to his cohorts, that "family" was involved. If the little bastard bookkeeper wasn't related to the young assistant district attorney, it might be easy enough to just get rid of him and his records, but blood made things tougher. Those Italians were like jungle tribes where it came to family and were known for murdering the children of their enemies for four or five generations when they had one of their feuds going strong. That was the kind of situation to be avoided.

One of Fleming's colleagues, a gifted thinker named Tommy Doolan, said that since family was so all-important, it was through family that the solution was to be found, just given enough thought. He was right, as he generally was.

Several trustworthy people, some professional at the job since they were members of the Police Department, some not professional and valuable for that very reason, did a careful, thorough, 100 per cent complete investigation of the family of Anthony Tulisi and his cousin, Joseph.

Joseph Tulisi, the bookkeeper, had a seventy-two-year-old father who liked little girls. Very little girls, four or five or six years old.

What he liked to do was to touch them on the knee or on the thigh. What he liked best was to duck his hand under a little girl's dress for a quick grab. Then he'd give the little girl a penny or a piece of fruit and a pat on the head.

Since there was nothing better, and since Michael Fleming and Tommy Doolan both thought it was pretty good, they decided to go with what they had. What they now needed was an impartial witness, someone with no connections or ties with Michael Fleming or anyone else in the city government. Someone who was without malice or reason to bring about catastrophe upon the head of the Tulisi family through discovery of the fact that seventy-two-year-old Louis liked little girls.

That was where Patrick Joseph Crowley came in. He met all the prerequisites of the job. It was learned that he was from Knockraha, and as fate would have it, Tommy Doolan himself was from Dungourney, not fifteen miles east of Crowley's home in the County of Cork After some hard and amazing concentration, for which he was famous, Doolan remembered that he had a cousin married to a Crowley girl and from all accounts there was nothing bad known of the Crowleys of Knockraha.

It was Tommy Doolan himself struck up a conversation with Crowley, liked the way the man darted and squinted his eyes when spoken to; it showed a sharp sense of caution. Crowley seemed to be his own man. No one had anything to say about him, not one way or another.

Doolan put the deal to him directly. A sober honest man was needed to do a job of observation for four dollars a day, and when a certain dirty old Italian man committed a certain dirty act, of which there was no question he would sooner or later, and likely sooner, why the honest man was merely to call the matter to the attention of a policeman and go before the magistrate.

Mike Fleming agreed with Tommy Doolan that Crowley was a good choice. A younger man in the same situation might be maddened by the old degenerate's action and crack his skull on the sidewalk. Certainly, no one wanted a dead Louis Tulisi. What was wanted was a live Louis Tulisi caught with his hand up a little girl's dress by an outraged stranger.

It went better than they could have hoped. On the second day that Patrick Crowley strolled through the Mulberry Street commotion of Little Italy, idly avoiding crashing into any of the hundreds of pushcarts that lined both sides of the street, he knelt at one point to tie his shoe. In this position, he had a clear view through the spokes of the high-wheeled cart of the shaved-ice peddler. What he saw was the gnarled old hand of Louis Tulisi creep beneath the dress of a little girl who stood on her toes, straining anxiously toward the ice peddler with her penny held high. The child didn't even notice Louis Tulisi next to her.

Patrick Crowley stood up, shot around the wagon and with a tremendous roar he pointed an accusing finger at the culprit. The old man froze in his position of guilt just long enough to be seen by the crowd. Then he collapsed on the sidewalk in trembling terror. People screamed and shrieked, and though their language was incomprehensible, their intention was clear. Crowley protected the frail body from flying fists and pinching fingers and relinquished him only to the arms of a blue-clad policeman.

At the police station, Louis Tulisi pleaded and begged and, above all, he confessed. Before many witnesses and without even being asked, the old man berated himself and cursed himself for his terrible fault and knocked his fists against his forehead, but without enough strength to knock himself out.

The police sergeant leaned down imperially from his high position behind the desk and told Patrick Crowley, "You needn't stay here now. You've seen the old bastard into the station and we'll take it from here."

"No, I'll just stay on a while," Crowley said.

The sergeant's harsh voice might have intimidated another man as he asked, "Oh, you will, will ya? And just who the hell do you think you are?"

Patrick Crowley folded his arms across his chest, each elbow resting in a large palm, country-fashion. "If you just call Tommy Doolan, you might find out," he said.

A different voice came from the sergeant "Oh, yes, well then, yes, that's different, of course."

There was a deference, a respect, an eagerness to please which had never before been directed to Patrick Crowley. He knew that he had used the name of Doolan to test its power. He had known Doolan was an important man, but didn't know exactly where he fitted into the scheme of things. With a shrewd instinct, Crowley knew he'd been used for more than the capturing of an old man with bad habits.

He hung around the police station and watched the commotion and clamor. There were arrivals and departures of all kinds of people in all stages of excitement and concern. No one questioned him; he was Doolan's man. But Crowley asked a few questions and all concerned were very cooperative. After all, it was assumed that he knew all there was to know already.

What he had no way of knowing was that the bookkeeper, Joseph Tulisi, frantically traded his record book for his father.

But not before his cousin, Anthony Tulisi, was confronted in court with his errant old Uncle Louis. He was struck dumb and could not bring himself to utter a word on behalf of the People of the State of New York relative to the arraignment of the old culprit.

It was officially noted that the young assistant district attorney was temperamentally unsuited to see to the administration of justice without fear, favor or partiality.

Because of his age, the old man's case was dropped by an understanding judge.

Because of his lack of integrity, that young district attorney was informed that charges of malfeasance would be brought against him unless he resigned forthwith.

He resigned, forthwith.

Joseph, the bookkeeper, also resigned.

None of the Tulisis was ever heard of again.

Patrick Joseph Crowley was heard of again. On several occasions, he proved his usefulness to Tommy Doolan in various ways. He handled himself with style; he knew when to lean without leaning too hard and without bringing attention to himself. He never asked questions beyond the scope of any given assignment. Not of Tommy Doolan, that is.

What he did was ask questions of those who had no way of knowing that he didn't already possess the information he sought; he gave the impression that he was "checking up" among those eager themselves to be cooperative. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Crowley collected facts and names and an understanding of how the city was really run. When he felt he had a strong enough foundation, he approached Tommy Doolan, with style. No threats or demands, just a statement to the effect that Patrick J. Crowley wanted more than just the odd job thrown, the bone tossed, to a reliable man. He wanted something steady that would lead to something worthwhile.

And he wanted something that wouldn't involve too much sweat for he'd sweated enough in his life already.

A conference was held among those whose affairs had been handled, one way or another, by Pat Crowley. It was pointed out that it would be a perfect waste to get rid of Crowley through an unfortunate accident. The guy had sense and he had balls and he wanted his; as long as he knew the rules and played by them, well, God knew, a good loyal man was worth something. There was a job needed filling in the Building Department and that was where they sent him.

Nine months after he left Knockraha, Patrick J. Crowley was on the payroll of the City of New York.

Within a short time, Tommy Doolan decided that what Pat Crowley needed was a wife and the girl he had in mind just happened to be the daughter of his wife's sister. Elizabeth McNamara, twenty-two years old and newly arrived from Dungourney, was strong and healthy and accustomed to taking care of a home and a family. Since there was a serious shortage of marrying men in Dungourney, she'd come to America not so much to seek her fortune but to find a man to marry and take care of.

While he didn't think much of the girl herself, the whole idea didn't seem too bad to Pat. After all, for most of his life, his mother looked after him and it would be good to have someone to cook a hot meal and see that the holes in his socks were properly mended. It was true that she was a bit beefy but it was all muscle as Tommy Doolan pointed out. Her nose was far too small and turned up besides, but her eyes were a clear and honest blue, when she raised her face long enough for him to catch a glimpse. All in all, she seemed sensible and didn't have much to say for herself.

Of course, with a wife, he'd need a bit more money to put by and an opportunity to prepare for the responsibilities of a family.

Doolan was ready for Crowley and it worked out fine all around. There was a bit of land, not a large amount at all, in fact it was a wedge-shaped scrap of land up in the Bronx, more of an alley than anything else, and it was up for bid at city auction and could be had dirt-cheap. Of course, no one could know that within two years the city would be building a magistrate's court right at that location and the scrap of land would be essential for the project. But Tommy Doolan knew that particular information for a fact. The parcel was Tommy Doolan's wedding present to the couple.

When his first daughter was born a year later, Pat was too involved in various assignments to acknowledge the slight disappointment that his first-born failed to be a boy. His wife was young and healthy and there would be a son the next time.

Before the first girl could walk steadily, the second daughter was born, and before the first girl could talk clearly, the third daughter was born. By the time the fourth girl was born, the first girl was able to keep her little sisters amused by pushing them around the apartment in the baby buggy which each had tenanted for such a short period of time.

By the time the fifth girl was born, Elizabeth McNamara Crowley had lost the fine hearty, beefy look and had instead a thin, frantic body topped by a pinched, terrified face. She confided to a cousin who came to give her a hand for a few days that her husband, when he viewed the newest girl, went purple, as though he finally realized what it was she was doing to him.

"Goddamn it," he told her, "why the hell can't you get it right, you jackass?"

She didn't know. What Crowley's wife did know was that her husband was possessed of a growing determination that he would have a son. He ignored the house filled with little girls and concentrated on providing himself with a son with a fury that no sooner was spent but that it renewed itself.

Elizabeth prayed constantly for Patrick's son; her lips moved over her prayers as she scrubbed and cleaned and polished the floors and walls of the fine house Patrick had one day moved them into, far up in the country section of the Bronx. She didn't know how they were able to live in such a grand manor house but she wouldn't dream of asking. She took her tasks much to heart, kept the girls clean and out of sight as much as possible when their father and his friends were at home.

Her sixth pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and she knew wearily that it was God's will, as all things are: the unborn child of five months was another girl.

When the sixth girl was born, the first girl was a fine helper and could, at the tender age of nine, practically run the house herself and knew when to round up the girls to keep them from bothering their dad.

At the end of their twelfth year of marriage, Elizabeth miscarried a perfectly formed little boy; at seven months, all the tiny fingernails and toenails were pink and white. Patrick nearly went mad with grief: he'd lost his son.

In all the years of their life together, through many an emotional storm, Elizabeth had never seen him grieve. She vowed and promised on her life that she'd deliver a son to him before she died. The doctor said she couldn't carry another child. It took two years before she became pregnant again, and by the time their seventh and last child, Mary Ellen Crowley, was born, their first-born, Veronica, had declared her vocation. She was hardly missed when she went off to the convent on Long Island since her next sister in line performed all of Veronica's chores with easy capability.

Patrick could never tell them one from the other. They were a bunch of skinny, pale-faced, blinking, silent wraiths, forever marching off to some special novena or other. He hardly knew which of them it was off to join the others in that convent out on Long Island. The one thing that Patrick Crowley finally decided was that his line was not about to come to a complete and fruitless halt within the stone walls of a nunnery.

It came to a choice between the last two and there really was no choice at all. When Kathleen Crowley was barely twelve years old, it was clearly marked upon her frowning forehead and tightly pursed lips exactly what she was to become. The child could hardly wait the year out to bid them a hasty good-by.

That left Mary Ellen. As luck would have it, she was the only beauty among the lot. Somehow, she'd inherited a modification of all the prominent features of the McNamara and Crowley lines. Whereas half her sisters had sharp beaky noses and the rest had little pugs, Mary Ellen showed up with a delicate, finely tipped nose that seemed slightly elegant. All the others had watery gray eyes; Mary Ellen's were green and blue and slate, all at the same time. Instead of tight pale lips, hers were red and soft and full. Their straight mousy hair was not for Mary Ellen; she had a mane of thick hair that reminded Patrick of his sisters and his cousins back home. Clearly, Mary Ellen was a Crowley product, and of all of them, the only one to bear him a Crowley grandson.

She was the only one he took any interest in at all. He let it be clearly understood that she was headed for no convent. The rest could go and be damned to them. This one had to carry on his line.

Besides being pretty, she was a good girl, not too clever at her books, though the Sisters always stressed that she tried hard. He was satisfied, for too many brains were no advantage in a girl. The problem was to find the girl a right husband.