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Tommy Thompson said, “If I’m going sit here yapping, I want a drink.”
Bell nodded. The Van Dorns produced an array of hip flasks. Tommy took long pulls from a couple and wiped his mouth with his bloody sleeve. “Other than gouging eyes, what’s Brian O’Shay like? He’s like he always was. A guy who can see around a corner.”
“Would you call him a natural leader?”
“A what?”
“A leader. Like you. You run your own gang. Is he that kind of a man?”
“All I know is he’s thinking all the time. Always ahead of you. Eyes could see inside of people.”
“If you’re telling us the truth, Tommy, that O’Shay is not dead, where is he?”
The gang leader swore he did not know.
“What name does he go by?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What does he look like?”
“He looks like anybody. Clerk in a store, guy owns a bank, bartender. I hardly recognized him. Duded up like a Fifth Avenue swell.”
“Big man?”
“No. A little guy.”
“Compared to you, Tommy, most guys are little. How tall is he?”
“Five-eight. Built like a fireplug. Strongest little guy I ever saw.” Bell continued conversationally, “He didn’t need the gouge to win a fight, did he?”
“No,” said Tommy, taking another slug of whiskey. “He just liked doing it.”
“Surely after he reappeared out of nowhere and paid you all that money, you had him followed.”
“I sent Paddy the Rat after him. Little bastard came back short one eye.”
Bell looked at one of the detectives, who was nodding agreement. “Yeah, I seen Paddy wearing a patch.”
“Disappeared, just like when we was kids. Vanished into thin air that time, too. Never thought we’d see him again. Thought he got thrown in the river.”
“By whom?” asked Bell.
The gang leader shrugged.
Harry Warren said, “A lot of people thought you were the one who threw him in the river, Tommy.”
“Yeah, well a lot of people thought wrong. I used to think Billy Collins done it. ’Til Eyes came back.”
Bell glanced at Harry Warren.
“Dope addict,” Harry said. “Haven’t heard his name in years. Billy Collins ran with Eyes and Tommy. They made quite the trio. Remember, Tommy? Rolling drunks, robbing pushcarts, selling dope, beatin’ up anybody got in their way. O’Shay was the worst, worse than the Commodore here, even worse than Billy Collins. Tommy was sweetness and light compared to those two. The last anybody expected was Tommy taking over the Gophers. Except you got lucky, Tommy, didn’t you? Eyes disappeared, and Billy got the habit.”
Isaac Bell asked, “Tommy, why did you think Billy Collins threw Eyes in the river?”
“Because the last night I ever saw Eyes, they was drinking together.”
“And today you have no idea where O’Shay is?”
