Whiskey Island Read Online Free PDF Page B

just didn’t tell them what I saw.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I think it was Rooney, Meg. I think the man Niccolo saw running away from my car was Rooney. And I didn’t want anyone else to know.”

4
    N iccolo was wrong about the stitches and right about the tetanus shot. The emergency room wasn’t crowded. Most people were too smart to get shot on a night as cold as this one. A doctor poked his head into Niccolo’s cubicle, and a nurse practitioner came back later to put three stitches in his arm. Barry, who turned out to be a fellow Steelers fan—unusual in a town wildly devoted to the Browns—talked downs and passes and blitzes all the way to Niccolo’s house.
    Now Niccolo stood alone in his foyer, on the recently exposed maple subfloor, and considered his options.
    He could go to bed. That would be wisest. He could turn on the space heater in the one upstairs room that still had all its walls, and try to read. Or he could get in his car and drive back to that parking lot. Before the snow fell. Before all signs of what had occurred tonight were erased.
    In the past two years he’d made a habit of choosing the least logical options for his life. He went to find a flashlight.
    The drive didn’t take long. His house and the Whiskey Island Saloon were both technically in Ohio City, a west side neighborhood that, early in its history, had been a city separate from Cleveland. It was a neighborhood of paradoxes. Gentrification had begun several decades ago but never quite caught on. Some of Ohio City’s architectural gems were beautifully renovated and occupied by owners. Others were rotting away.
    Hunter Street was made up of some of the best architecture and the worst preservation. On the other hand, Lookout Avenue, where the Whiskey Island Saloon was located, had always been a working-class neighborhood and remained so today. The houses and yards were compact and neat, the dream homes of immigrants who had worked hard in the steel mills and on the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie docks.
    Niccolo didn’t park in the saloon lot, which was more crowded than it had been. He passed and parked down the block, walking back along the sidewalk he had taken earlier, to stop in the same place, just at the entrance. He stayed there a long time, gazing across the asphalt. There was no carjacking in progress, no negotiator needed. He would not be a hero again this night—for which he was profoundly grateful.
    He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he did know better than to rush the process. He remained on the sidewalk, visualizing the scene he’d lived through earlier, placing the supporting cast in their proper positions, replaying dialogue. When he was satisfied that he’d plumbed the depths of his memory, he moved forward between the two rows of parked cars, searching the ground with the help of his flashlight, although he didn’t know what he was looking for.
    Six cigarette butts, two saloon receipts and one empty paper bag later, he had made his way to the parking space where Casey Donaghue’s car was still parked. Niccolo trained his flashlight on the ground, sweeping it slowly back and forth on all sides of the car. When nothing out of the ordinary presented itself, he got on his hands and knees and peered underneath.
    He heard a door slam and voices on the street, but the voices passed and died away as he remained in position, examining the first odd thing he had found. He lowered himself to his chest and reached for it, brushing past the front tire to grasp what seemed to be the sole of a shoe. He was getting to his feet when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
    “You know, it’s a good thing I recognized that rump. I was about to kick you silly.”
    Niccolo turned, the sole in his hand. “I didn’t know my rump was that distinctive.”
    Megan was watching him carefully, but she didn’t ask for an explanation. She waited.
    “I ought to be home asleep,” he admitted.
    She tilted her head to one side,