Chapter 6: Terms

Conall looked past me at the stage.

At Davis, holding the dead microphone.

Then he looked back at me.

"It's open," he said. "Tonight. My kitchen. Bring your lawyer if you want him."

"I don't need him. I've read it."

"Then bring a pen."

He picked up his overcoat, nodded to the table, and walked out of the ballroom through the front doors, not the side.

His two men followed him.

Two hundred people watched the door swing shut.

Then two hundred people looked at me.

My charge nurse took my elbow.

"Well," she said. "You just proposed to the Southie mob in front of the Globe."

"I asked a question."

His house was a brick row house three blocks from the water, narrow and tall, with a black iron railing.

There was a man in a car across the street who didn't pretend not to watch me park.

Conall opened the door himself.

He wore a black sweater with the sleeves pushed up and his forearms were roped and scarred.

"You came alone," he said.

"My nurse is in the car with a tire iron."

"Good."

The kitchen was the warmest room in the house.

A big scarred table. A kettle already on.

"You cook?" I said.

"My mother taught me. She said a man who can't feed himself ends up owing people."

"Do you owe people?"

"One," he said.

He put a cup of tea in front of me, milk and two sugars.

I hadn't told him how I take it.

The contract was on the table, twelve pages, clipped.

I'd marked it up in red pen at three in the morning.

I slid it across to him.

"One year," I said. "Married in public. Rings, photos, your arm at dinners. Behind the door, separate bedrooms unless I say otherwise."

"Agreed."

"I keep my name. Sheehan. Not Byrne."

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