Page 45 of If Looks Could Kill

Mike and I headed down Lafayette Place, arm in arm, back the way we’d come.

“You and I,” Mike said quietly, “are two friends out for a stroll, see? Nothing to fear.”

“I hardly know you,” I pointed out.

“All the same,” Mike said, “let’s get off this street and put some energy into it.”

We made our way toward the Bowery and across it. It was Sunday night, late and cold, but the streets were still full of people. The pubs were still doing a brisk business.

“I’m nearer home than I thought.” I caught myself. “What used to be my home.”

Mike kept craning his neck to look behind us.

“Is someone following us?”

“Not that I can see.” He gave me half a smile. “I suppose I might as well stop worrying and enjoy the company while I can.”

“It’s all I can do to breathe,” I told him, “and now you expect me to be enjoyable too?”

“Don’t strain yourself trying.”

“It’s a good thing you find yourself so amusing,” I told him.

“It means I’m never bored.”

“I guess in your profession, you’re rarely bored,” I ventured. “Always people to talk to?”

He shrugged. “Someone to listen to,” he said. “People unburden their souls to a bartender. I hear a good deal more than I say.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life,” he said. “But my uncle’s been awfully good to me, and I feel I owe it to him to stay.”

His uncle. “Is he Mr. O’Flynn?”

Mike smiled. “In a manner of speaking, though that’s not his name. He owns the pub, and I work for him.” He gave me a sidelong look. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know that.”

“How could I?” I told him. “We’ve barely spoken much before today.”

His brow furrowed. “I suppose that’s true.” He sounded almost surprised. “And yet it feels as though we have.”

I would have given much to know what he meant by that.

“Why,” I said, “if you’d rather not work at the pub, do you feel you owe it to your uncle to stay?”

He swallowed. “My uncle paid for my whole family’s passage out of Ireland, four years ago,” he said. “We were to work with him for a certain period to pay him back.”

I became indignant. “Four years? What is this, indentured servitude?”

“Now, Miss Tabitha,” he said, “I can’t have you thinking ill of my uncle.”

I wasn’t sure why my opinion of his uncle mattered. “But why so long?”

“He bought passage for my father, my mother, my two brothers, and me,” he said. “My mother died soon after arriving here.”

I remembered him mentioning that his mother was no more. “I am sorry.”

“My father was quite torn up about it,” Mike went on. “He and my two brothers took off one day. I think they’re somewhere near Chicago now.”

I was horrified. “They just left? They never said a word to you ?”

“Oh,” Mike said slowly, “I knew they were looking to go.” He watched my expression. “My uncle and I get on. It hurt my dad, I think, how I tend to seek my uncle’s advice over his.”

“And why is that?”

Mike wouldn’t look at me for a moment. “My dad always had a hard time with the bottle,” he admitted. “It’s his undoing.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “That must be a great heartache for you.”

His eyes were bright when he looked back at me. “I don’t touch a drop,” he told me. “I work at a pub, sure, but I don’t drink at all. I wouldn’t dare.”

There was something, it seemed, that he wanted me to know, though I couldn’t see why.

“I call that quite remarkable,” I told him. “It’s brave, and wise, and… forward-thinking.” Oh, well done, Tabitha. Forward-thinking. “No wonder your uncle thinks highly of you.”

He grinned. “He’s just glad I don’t drink up the profits.”

“So you feel,” I said, “you need to repay your family’s debt to your uncle?”

We crossed a street. “He doesn’t want me feeling that way,” Mike said, “but I do.”

“Does your uncle have children of his own?”

Mike shook his head. “He and my aunt never had any.”

“So you’re like a son to him.”

Mike squirmed at this. “No father could do more for a son. I’d hate to disappoint him.”

“But…?”

He gave me a quizzical look. “But what, Miss Tabitha?”

“But you have an ambition of your own that you fear would disappoint him.”

“Madam Tabitha’s Mind Readings, two cents,” he said. “Palms, a penny extra.”

“You’re blustering to dodge my question,” I told him. “But what ?”

“I do have an ambition,” he replied, “but it’s one a poor potato-farming lad from Ireland’s got no business having.”

“What is it?”

“That will have to wait,” he said, “for this, if you please, is your block.”

So it was. And there was my building.

I took off toward it, then stopped in my tracks.

“Um,” I said, “this is very awkward.”

“What is?” he asked. “You don’t want me to come in?”

“It’s not that,” I told him. “I do. I just… I need to introduce you to Emma and Carrie.”

His face darkened. “I see. You’d rather not.”

“No!” I cried, seizing both his arms. “I do, I do!”

He held back, uncertain. “I’m Irish, and it’s—”

“Would you stop that?” I cried. “Mr., er, Mike. I don’t know your name.”

He gaped at me.

“Your surname,” I explained. “You’ve never told me.”

He started to laugh. “I suppose I haven’t. Though you’ve never told me yours, either.”

“You never asked.”

“Nor did you,” he pointed out.

“It’ll be quite the scandal,” I said, “to present you indoors without your full name.”

“By all that’s holy, let’s not have a scandal,” he agreed, “Miss I-Drag-Dead-Bodies-Away-from-Brothel-Doors.”

“Oh, dear.” I bit my lip. “Was he dead?”

“I hope so, for his sake.” There he was, laughing at me again. “If not, when he comes to, he’ll die of embarrassment.”

“Look,” I said, failing to swallow my own laughter, “we don’t have time for this. I’m Tabitha Woodward. Who are you?”

“Tabitha Woodward,” he repeated. “I call that a very fine name. It has a solid ring to it.”

“I’ll give a solid ring to the side of your head,” I told him, “if you don’t tell me yours.”

He held his fists up, protectively, like a boxer. “I’m Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe.”

Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe. It was a lot of name. He’d always been just Mike.

I glanced up and caught him watching me, as if he was curious to see my reaction.

“Pleased to meet you, Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe.” I held out my hand. “I suppose this is the moment where I’d better confess that I’m actually Tabitha… No. I can’t say it.”

His eyes lit up. “You can’t say what? Your middle name?”

Me and my big mouth! I’d put my foot in it now.

“You must understand,” I protested. “My mother died when I was young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” I said. “I never knew her, but I love all I’ve learned about her. I have her letters and journals and precious things.”

Mike’s expression of polite bewilderment was fun to watch.

“But the one thing I can’t forgive her for,” I said, “aside from dying, is giving me my middle name. I don’t know why my father didn’t put his foot down.”

“After a build-up like that,” Mike said, “I have high expectations.”

I braced myself for the worst. “My name,” I said, “is Tabitha Adorabelle Woodward.”

He struggled bravely to keep from laughing. The harder he tried, the worse it got.

“That,” he said with courtly politeness, “is a lovely name.”

“It is not!”

“It is.” He tried to keep a straight face. “It suits you.”

I bumped him with my elbow. “You take that back, Michael Finnegan O’Keeffe.”

“I shall do no such thing.” He waggled a finger in the air. “If your mother took one look at you, upon your arrival in this world, and said, ‘I dub thee Tabitha Adorabelle Woodward,’ who am I to disagree with her?”

“Yes, well,” I said, “if you ever call me that, you’ll get an earful from me.”

“That’s reason enough to try it,” he said. “But I won’t have much chance to, will I?”

No. Not after tonight, he wouldn’t.

A cold wind sliced through my coat, reminding me that I was wasting precious time enjoying the company of a certain young man while all around me, danger closed in.

“What time is it, do you suppose, Mike?” I asked him.

He considered. “I saw a bank clock a ways back. It must be going on ten thirty.”

I couldn’t believe it. “Only that?”

“I know.”

“Then Emma and Carrie might still be up,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go warn them and get Pearl’s and my things.”