The Mutual Admiration Society(79)
If Mr. McGinty inherited everything in his uncle’s Last Will and Testament because his sister is a nun who has taken a vow of poverty, that explains how Daddy’s old friend could afford to buy the beautiful tombstone from Mr. Patrick Mullarkey & Sons whose business it is to carve cemetery markers with check #2315 because Louise couldn’t afford to, and also how come he’s got $201,789.05 keeping itself warm in the vault at the First Wisconsin Bank.
I never told him that I knew what he did for Daddy, and I’m not going to tell him now how I discovered his checkbook when I was looking for an envelope in his desk so I could send off for the cool booklet in the back of the Superman comics that would teach me “How to Become a Ventriloquist”—Throw Your Voice! Fool teachers, friends and family. ’Fessing up to digging through his private property, well, it might make him a little ticked off, but mostly it would embarrass the heck out of humble Mr. McGinty if he knew that I discovered what he’d done. He’s not a bragger, he’s more like Zorro. He likes to keep his mask on when he’s doing charitable work.
“Yes, our uncle Henry is entombed in the mausoleum, Tessie,” he says with the funniest look on his face. I can’t really put my finger on it. Is it the missing sadness washing over him the way it washes over me? “I’m aware of his reputation around here,” Mr. McGinty says, “but nothing could be further from the truth.”
I wouldn’t know because I never met Mr. Gilgood in the alive state, he was long gone before I was born. But the word around the neighborhood is that he was a very strange guy. A hermit. Different. Somebody also told me he was something called a “Homo” and I have no idea what old country that means he came from. All I know is that I’ve always thought the poor guy should’ve counted his lucky stars that he died before somebody in the neighborhood started talking about how they should get him sent away to a “home” for not fitting in around here.
“Uncle Henry was a wonderful man,” Mr. McGinty says with a sweet, remembering smile on his face now. “Gentle and generous, soft-spoken, an outstanding photographer, a lover of opera and architecture, and a lifelong member of the Audubon Society. These are a few of his photos.” He points over to the wall above his sofa at the beautiful framed pictures that I have always admired of woods and streams, and Birdie’s and Charlie’s favorite, three hummingbirds sipping nectar out of a flower.
Charlie, who’s acting now like he’s taking one of his surveys, asks Mr. McGinty the next question on his list, which happens to be something I’ve been wondering about, too, because of course, we’re a match made in Heaven, so we are on the same wavelength, most of the time. “You told us you were waitin’ for us and you had out our windmill cookies and root beer already when we got here. If time really was of the essence like Sister Margaret Mary said and it was so important to talk to Tessie about returning the Pagan Baby money ASAP, what if tonight turned out to be one of those nights that her and her sister and me didn’t pay you a visit? What if we’d hung around the block and played kick the can instead, or did some snoop—” I kicked him under the table, because our religious godfather would not, I repeat not approve of the blackmailing part of The Mutual Admiration Society’s business.
Mr. McGinty answers, “When I discovered the girls behind Uncle Henry’s mausoleum this morning, Tessie couldn’t get away from me fast enough, but Birdie wanted to stay and talk.” He’s referring to when I wanted to play it safer than sorrier because I thought he might be the kidnapping murderer and I feared for our lives. “Tessie sister-promised Birdie that they’d come back tonight for a visit, and where the girls go, you’re never far behind, so I knew it was just a matter of time before the three of you would show up on my doorstep tonight.”
“A sister-promise can never be broken, no matter what,” drifting Birdie lowers her anchor and says. (Joke!) Or maybe she pulls her derailed brain into the train station and says that. (Also quite funny.)
Mr. McGinty grins at Birdie and says, “Speaking of sisters . . .” He looks over at his closed bedroom door and lowers his already soft voice. “I have a favor to ask of you, Tessie. I realize that Marty can be quite . . . quite . . .” Because he’s such a good egg who follows the Golden Rule down to the letter, I think he’s trying to come up with a nice way to say that his sister can be mean as hell. “In my experience, people often grow up to treat others the way they were treated as children even though they don’t mean to.” He gets this faraway, sad look on his face. “So I’m afraid my sister has a tendency to be a little—”
“Too strict and really bossy and whip-cracking,” Charlie says.
“Yes,” Mr. McGinty admits with a sigh. “She can be a stickler for rules and at times too hard on those who don’t follow them, but as you saw tonight, her heart is in the right place.” My guts are telling me that there is a lot more to the McGinty twins’ story that I will have to drag out of him during one of our fishing trips. “So if you could just take it a little easier on her, kids, I’d appreciate it.”
Well, long as she doesn’t suddenly change her mind and become a stickler for the rule about turning thieves in to the police, I figure what the heck. I owe it to the guy who has been such a good caretaker, not only of the cemetery, but of Birdie and me and even Charlie. “I can’t sister-promise you,” I tell him, “but . . . as the president of The Mutual Admiration Society I have the authority to regular-promise that we’ll all try and be a little nicer to her from here on out.”