The Unknown Beloved(126)

He headed back home before dawn, wishing he’d never gone. It’d done him no good. He should have stayed in bed beside Dani and let the Run rest.

He had just passed the sandwich shop and turned onto Broadway when he realized he was being followed. It didn’t frighten him. He had a good idea who it was; the man had followed him before. He stopped and turned, waiting for his shadow to show himself.

“Is that you, O’Shea?” he asked.

“Why you kicking through rubble down there in the Run, Malone?” Darby O’Shea asked, approaching him with his head cocked and his steps cautious. “What do you think you’re going to find?”

“Where’ve you been, O’Shea?” The birds were starting to squawk in anticipation of the morning, and the streetlight was sputtering on the corner. Darby O’Shea’s stomach growled.

“I haven’t seen you since we found Dani,” he continued. “And Ness said he lost track of you during the raid. I thought maybe something had happened to you.” He hadn’t really. Darby O’Shea had a knack for disappearing. And reappearing. Malone hadn’t been worried at all.

“I’ve been around. Waiting. You know.” Darby shrugged. “I wanted to come see her. But I knew I wouldn’t be welcome.”

“So you’re coming now?” Malone asked, voice wry. “It’s a little early. Or late.”

“Look who’s talking,” Darby shot back. “Some things can only be done in the dark. You know that. I saw you and thought maybe . . . I’d just pass a message along.”

“Come on. I’ll make you breakfast,” Malone said, taking a few steps. “Nobody will say a word. And Dani will be glad to see you, regardless of the hour.”

“Nah. Hold on. I have some things for her. But I’ll just give ’em to you. It’ll be better that way.”

Malone paused, and Darby O’Shea closed the distance between them. He looked both ways, as if making sure they didn’t have an audience. The streets were dead, but he lowered his voice to a murmur anyway.

“You can quit looking for Dr. Frank, Malone. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

Malone waited, not answering, but his heart had quickened.

“He’s dead,” O’Shea said, voice so flat it floated like a paper plane and landed with a whisper.

“How do you know for sure?”

“When he wasn’t in his . . . clinic . . . I checked somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I can’t really say. You know how it is. One shanty looks like another.”

“Huh.”

“He wasn’t dead when I found him,” Darby hedged.

“No?”

“No. He was passed out. Snoring like a bear. And . . . he had these in his pockets.” Darby reached into his trousers and pulled out a small stack of papers, covered in Dani’s handwriting. “I thought maybe Dani would like them back. They’re hers, ain’t they?”

“Yeah. They’re hers,” Malone said, unable to pull his gaze from the pages.

O’Shea handed them over like he was glad to be rid of them. “Why does she do that?”

“You know how Dani is . . . don’t you?” Malone asked. Maybe he didn’t.

“You mean when she touches cloth . . . she knows things?” Darby said, shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah. I know. She’s been doing stuff like that since she was a wee one.”

Malone fingered the sad pages. “She has a gift. And she uses it to give names to the unknowns brought into the morgue. It’s how she gives the dead obituaries, how she keeps a record so that if someone ever comes looking for them, they can be found.”

“She takes care of people,” O’Shea said.

“Yeah. She does.” Malone tucked the papers away. He didn’t know what Dani would do with them, but she would be glad to have them back.

“George was like that. Never forgot a name. Never made people feel small. Never made me feel like garbage. I always have been . . . but he still took care o’ me.”

Darby reached into his pocket again and this time he took out a dangling chain with a medallion hanging from the center. “This is for Dani too. You’ll give it to her for me, won’t you? She gave me her St. Christopher medal, the one I gave her after her parents died. She was worried about the Butcher coming after me.” He snorted as if he found that ironic. “But I lost it . . . somewhere.”

“You lost it?” Malone asked.

“Yeah. I did.” O’Shea’s eyes were level, unflinching, unapologetic. “So I bought her another one. A new one. You can give it to her for me.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a St. Christopher man,” Malone said, taking it. His hands didn’t shake.

“I’m Catholic. Just like you. I don’t go to Mass. Don’t confess. But we need the saints—like Dani. Like St. Christopher. The world needs ’em. And maybe the world needs men like us too, Michael Malone. To save the saints and the angels from the demons. I don’t know. But someone put Frank Sweeney out of his misery. Put the Run out of its misery too. And it needed to be done.”

“Someone?” Malone pressed.

“Yeah. Someone. A nobody.” Darby O’Shea enunciated each word.