BRENDAN'S MOTHER had gone out to Bingo by the time he got home. She left a note: "Chicken in fridge. Glad you're okay. Don't make a habit of it."
Brendan checked his and Ray's room, but Ray was out, too, and Brendan took a chair from the kitchen and placed it down in front of the butler's pantry. He stepped up on the chair and it sagged to the left where one of the legs was missing a bolt. He looked at the ceiling slat and saw the smudge marks of fingers in the dust, and the air directly in front of his eyes began to swim with tiny dark specks. He pressed his right palm against the slat, lifted it slightly. He brought his hand down, wiped it on his pants, and took several breaths.
There were some things you didn't want to know the answers to. Brendan had never wanted to run into his father once he was grown because he didn't want to look in his father's face and see how easy it had been to leave him. He'd never asked Katie about old boyfriends, even Bobby O'Donnell, because he didn't want to picture her lying on top of someone else, kissing him the way she kissed Brendan.
Brendan knew about the truth. In most cases, it was just a matter of deciding whether you wanted to look it in the face or live with the comfort of ignorance or lies. And ignorance and lies were often underrated. Most people Brendan knew couldn't make it through the day without a saucerful of ignorance and a side of lies.
But this, this truth had to be faced. Because he'd already faced it in the holding cell, and it had sliced through him like a bullet and lodged in his stomach. And it wasn't coming out, which meant he couldn't hide from it, couldn't tell himself it wasn't there. Ignorance was not a possibility. Lying was no longer an accessible part of the equation.
"Shit," Brendan said, and pushed the ceiling slat aside and reached back into the darkness, his fingers touching dust and chips of wood and more dust, but no gun. He felt around up there for another full minute, even though he knew it was gone. His father's gun, and it wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was out in the world, and it had killed Katie.
He put the slat back in place. He got a dustpan and swept up the dust that had fallen to the floor. He took the chair back to the kitchen. He felt a need to be precise in his movements. He felt it was important that he remain calm. He poured himself a glass of orange juice and placed it on the table. He sat down in the chair with the sagging leg and turned so that he was looking at the door in the center of the apartment. He took a sip of his orange juice and waited for Ray.
"LOOK AT THIS," Sean said, pulling the latent prints file from the box and opening it in front of Whitey. "That's the cleanest one they pulled off the door. It's small because it's a kid's."
Whitey said, "Old Lady Prior heard two kids playing on the street just before Katie banged her car up. Playing with hockey sticks, she said."
"She said she heard Katie say 'Hi.' Maybe it wasn't Katie. A little kid's voice could sound like a woman's. And no footprints? Of course not. What do they weigh-a hundred pounds?"
"You recognize that kid's voice?"
"Sounded a lot like Johnny O'Shea's."
Whitey nodded. "The other kid not saying anything at all."
"Because he can't fucking speak," Sean said.
"HEY, RAY," Brendan said as the two boys entered the apartment.
Ray nodded. Johnny O'Shea waved. They started heading back toward the bedroom.
"Come on in here a sec, Ray."
Ray looked at Johnny.
"Just a second, Ray. I got something I want to ask you."
Ray turned and Johnny O'Shea dropped the gym bag he'd been carrying and sat on the edge of Mrs. Harris's bed. Ray came down the short hall into the kitchen and held out his hands, looked at his brother like "What?"
Brendan hooked a chair with his foot and pulled it out from under the table, nodded at it.
Ray's head tilted up as if he smelled something in the air, a scent he wasn't fond of. He looked at the chair. He looked at Brendan.
He signed, "What did I do?"
"You tell me," Brendan said.
"I didn't do anything."
"So sit down."
"I don't want to."
"Why not?"
Ray shrugged.
Brendan said, "Who do you hate, Ray?"
Ray looked at him like he was nuts.
"Come on," Brendan said. "Who do you hate?"
Ray's sign was brief: "Nobody."
Brendan nodded. "Okay. Who do you love?"
Ray gave him that face again.
Brendan leaned forward, his hands on his knees. "Who do you love?"
Ray looked down at his shoes, then up at Brendan. He raised his hand and pointed at his brother.
"You love me?"
Ray nodded, fidgeting.
"What about Ma?"
Ray shook his head.
"You don't love Ma?"
Ray signed, "Don't feel one way or the other."
"So I'm the only person you love?"
Ray thrust his small face out and scowled. His hands flew. "Yes. Can I go now?"
"No," Brendan said. "Have a seat."
Ray looked down at the chair, his face red and angry. He looked up at Brendan. He raised his hand and extended his middle finger, and then he turned to walk out of the kitchen.
Brendan didn't even realize he'd moved until he had most of Ray's hair in his hand and was pulling him up off his feet. He pulled back with his arm as if he were pulling the cord on a rusty lawn mower, and then he opened his fingers and Ray flew backward out of his hand and over the kitchen table. He hit the wall and then dropped onto the table, brought the whole thing crashing to the floor with him.
"You love me?" Brendan said, not even looking down at his brother. "You love me so you kill my fucking girlfriend, Ray? Huh?"
That got Johnny O'Shea moving, as Brendan had figured it would. Johnny grabbed his gym bag and bolted for the door, but Brendan was all over him. He picked the little prick up by his throat and slammed him against the door.
"My brother never does anything without you, O'Shea. Never."
He pulled back his fist and Johnny screamed, "No, Bren! Don't!"
Brendan punched him so hard in the face he heard the nose break. And then he punched him again. When Johnny hit the floor, he curled into a ball and spit blood on the wood and Brendan said, "I'm coming back. I'm coming back and I just might beat you to death, you piece of fucking garbage."
Ray was standing on wobbly feet, his sneakers sliding on broken plates when Brendan came back in the kitchen and slapped him so hard across the face he knocked him into the sink. He grabbed his brother by the shirt, Ray looking into his face with tears streaming from his hate-filled eyes and blood smearing his mouth, and Brendan threw him to the floor and spread his arms and knelt on them.
"Speak," Brendan said. "I know you can. Speak, you fucking freak, or I swear to God, Ray, I'll kill you. Speak!" Brendan shouted, and brought his fists down into Ray's ears. "Speak! Say her name! Say it! Say 'Katie,' Ray. Say 'Katie'!"
Ray's eyes went foggy and dull and he spit some blood up onto his own face.
"Speak!" Brendan screamed. "I'll fucking kill you if you don't!"
He grabbed his brother by the hair along his temples and pulled his head off the floor, shook it from side to side until Ray's eyes focused again and Brendan held his head still and looked deep into those gray pupils, saw so much love and hate in there that he wanted to rip his brother's head clean off and throw it out the window.
He said it again, "Speak," but this time it came out in a hoarse, strangled whisper. "Speak."
He heard a loud cough and looked behind him, saw Johnny O'Shea on his feet, spitting blood down onto the floor, Ray senior's gun in his hand.