LITMIR.BIZ

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to Mom before she stuffs the both of you. Finish your sodas, and no telling.”

      Maggie dutifully sucked the last of her Coke through a straw, slid down from the stool, and ran back outside with Danny to the double doors leading to the apartments above the bar. They took the stairs two at a time to apartment 2B.

      The door was open before they even got there. “Take your shoes off!” their mother scolded them.

      Maggie, in the tartan plaid skirt, blue kneesocks, white blouse and blue blazer of Saint Bernadette’s Catholic School, complied and slipped off her Mary Janes. Danny untied the laces of his shoes. He wore his blazer but had loosened his tie the second the last bell had rung.

      Only with shoes off did they run into her arms.

      “How was your day?” she asked them. Her accent made her cut the endings off words sharply, slightly. “You have good day?”

      They both nodded.

      “Come.” She took them each by the hand and led them to the shrine to Buddha in one corner of the living room. A white altar cloth covered the table. A pewter bowl contained fruit, an offering for him. A vase held flowers.

      Out of habit, in the ritual they did each day, Maggie and Danny bowed deeply. Then they lit incense. It was Maggie’s turn. She withdrew an incense stick—jasmine-scented—and took a wooden match and lit it.

      “Thank you, Buddha, for my good test score in science, and for Mark Callahan getting the chicken pox,” Maggie said.

      “Why you thank Buddha for that?” Her mother asked.

      “’Cause then he wasn’t in school to pick on me. He pulls my hair.”

      “Oh,” her mother said and smiled. “Your turn Danny.”

      “Thank you, Buddha, for my trip to the museum. I got to see a woolly mammoth.”

      They bowed again with their mother. Maggie loved their Buddha shrine. They had a few statues of him, some solemn and meditative, but one was a big, fat Buddha with a round belly. She liked how happy he looked, like he was laughing.

      “Come,” their mother commanded. Next they moved to a small shrine of Jesus and Mary, the Blessed Virgin. “You tell him thank-you. Thank his mama, too.”

      So they went through their thank-yous again, this time adding an Our Father and Hail Mary. Maggie didn’t like praying to Jesus as much. Compared to Buddha, he was sad, his statue plastic and in Technicolor, with painted-on red blood dripping from his palms and feet and side. The stations of the cross at St. Bernadette’s were even more graphic—to remind the children of our Lord’s pain and suffering, said Sister Patricia.

      Maggie had never told the Carmelite sisters at St. Bernadette’s about Jesus and Buddha being best friends, according to her mother. “Best to cover all your bases,” her mother had said. “Keep you safe.” Somehow, Maggie didn’t think the sisters would approve of covering their bases.

      Maggie, Danny and their mother made the sign of the cross. Then it was homework time. Around five, Maggie’s father came up from the bar for his dinner break. That was always her favorite part of the day. Not because she got to see him and spend time with him, although that certainly pleased her. It was the strange thrill she got from watching her father walk through the door and the expression on his face when he saw her mother.

      Maggie tried to capture the moment in her mind, but it never was the same as seeing it, being there with them. But Maggie was convinced the earth stopped moving—just for a split second. He opened the door, shut it, took off his shoes, lined them neatly next to Maggie’s and Danny’s. Then he came into the dining area, and when he first caught her mother’s eyes, it was there—you could feel it. Her mother’s breath left her and her father’s heart stopped. Maggie was sure of it.

      Her mother was always calmer with Daddy around, certain they would all be safe now. She would serve him supper, but she always made sure to touch his hand, to rub his arm as she put his dinner on his plate. And Maggie’s father would not curse, he wouldn’t raise his voice, not even a tiny bit. He wouldn’t do anything loudly. For that time, that meal, he was under her mother’s spell, and they weren’t in Hell’s Kitchen. They were someplace else. They may have been above the roughest bar on Thirty-ninth Street, but inside was a piece of heaven, watched over by Buddha and his brother, Jesus—because, Maggie’s mother said, someone as wise as God would have a lot of children.

      Maggie walked away from Charlie and prepared to break down the bar. It was late; she was tired. The phone rang, and she picked up the extension by the register.

      “Angel?”

      “Hi Bobby,” she said.

      “I’m just getting off work. I caught a case. Some guy killed with a pickax. There’s no end to the creativity in this city.”

      “You sound tired.”

      “I am. I was thinking of coming by, though. I just need to see you.”

      “Sure. I’ll be here.”

      Maggie hung up and continued breaking down the bar. She had the lone cocktail waitress start stacking chairs on top of tables. The loudmouth with the three girls wasn’t taking the hint, so Maggie raised the house lights and turned off the music. Finally, the creep raised his hand and wrote on an imaginary check in the air.

      “Thank God,” she muttered.

      She took his money, gave him his change, sent Charlie home and told the waitress she could go. She collected the tips on the bar—the rich guy had left her a single dollar. Charlie, who lived from disability check to disability check, had left her a five.

      She was alone. She went to the register to count the till. On top was a big happy Buddha. He smiled at her and she at him. She rubbed his belly for good luck.

      Next to the register, taped to the mirror behind the bar, was the first twenty-dollar bill the Twilight had ever earned. It was signed by Uncle Con, who, as the story went, had bought her father a shot of bourbon to celebrate the opening. He’d then signed the bill and up it had gone. Next to that was a photo of her father and brother and her from three years before. Danny was smiling; she was open-mouthed, squealing with laughter. Their father had just told them a dirty joke and someone had snapped the picture, right there behind the bar of the Twilight.

      She hadn’t heard from her father in a while. She hadn’t seen Danny in three weeks.

      The worry made her want a drink.

      She looked at Buddha. “What cosmic mind fuck has a recovering alcoholic owning a bar?” she asked him. Then she patted his belly and poured herself a Coke and waited for Bobby to come. He was the one, and they were right for each other. Like her mom and dad. Every time she saw him, she felt the earth stop for just a moment. When he was near her, she felt safe.

      Chapter Two

      Danny Malone felt around his mouth for the loose tooth. It was the last molar on the right, and if he moved his tongue against it, the thing wiggled, the unique, slightly salty taste of blood intensifying. He couldn’t use his right arm at all. He guessed that shoulder was dislocated. With his left hand, he felt his face and discovered it had the texture of raw hamburger meat.

      He slumped over in the driver’s seat of his somewhat battered Lincoln Town Car. The pain was so bad he felt as if he were going to pass out. He looked up at the six-story red brick building and could see the light on in his sister’s apartment on the second floor. All he had to do was get up there. Just get to her, Danny. Like a penitent man on a pilgrimage, he thought only of reaching his Mecca. The one place where his world made a little sense.

      All his life, Danny’s sister Maggie had fixed everything. He was older—by two years and change—but she was the one who kept out of trouble—and tried to keep him out of trouble. She was like their mother. After their mom had died, Maggie had been the one to retain the rituals, the Buddha, the crucifix.

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