The Book of Virtue Read Free Page A

Scotty was well known to the Detroit PD, but a slick fook, so they never nailed him. He headed west, hooked up with Brady, another piece of work who’d adopted an Irish name to make him thug-friendly. They made a lot of cold cash and ploughed it into the club to make it seem legit. The past year, Scotty began to make inroads into his own crew to oust Brady.”
    Paused.
    â€œYou get the picture?”
    Yeah.
    Then he added,
    â€œBrady will let you run the club for a year, tops, then whack you and bring in some other naïve schmuck.”
    I excused me own self, headed for the restroom, ordered up a fresh batch of the Jay, and punched the wall, hurt the living crap out of me hand. On my return, I changed tack, asked,
    â€œYou ever have my old man down for a reader?”
    We clinked shots, downed them, and Casey answered,
    â€œNo way. You kidding?”
    I told him about The Book of Virtue and he let a low whistle, said,
    â€œMe, I never was much for no book learning.”
    Sounding like he was in a bad Western.
    We mulled it over, then he went,
    â€œMy mother, Lord rest her and all the bad Caseys, she used to sing a Yeats poem, yeah, sing it. All I got is,
    â€œThe world is more full of weeping than we can understand.”
    God is good; he didn’t sing it. I hadn’t enough Jay to ever endure that. Then he leaned over, put his large hand on my shoulder, said,
    â€œFrank had his faults but, deep down, he was a decent guy.”
    I felt the bile rise, spat,
    â€œOh, like, he meant well ?”
    He sat back, stunned by my venom, tried,
    â€œJaysus, Tommy, c’mon, he loved you.”
    I said,
    â€œThat weeping world … Frank caused his fair share.”
    And that was the end of the chat.
    He warned me to watch my back, and to call if I needed anything.
    I got out of there, had a moment of vague regret that I’d busted his balls, then thought, “He was my Dad’s buddy, so the hell with him.”
    My father’s book
    Was diverted by a note on the binding. Read,
    â€œSewn binding, the strongest yet the most expensive. The pages are sewn into the book manually with a sewing machine.”
    Followed by a note, in my father’s hand,
    â€œCheck out Moleskin diaries, used by Hemingway and Chatwin.”
    Now I was seriously perplexed.
    Too, the oddest thing, just holding the book, it gave me the strangest sensation of, hell, I’m slow to admit this,
    Peace?
    WTF?
    I went online, put in,
    www.realbooks.com
    Trawled through a ton of sites until I found one dealing exclusively with the physical qualities of a book, not the contents.
    Read long-winded boring passages about the creation of a book, the printing, art of binding, and muttered,
    â€œBibliophiles.”
    Come the final Wednesday of the virtue saga.
    The last page of my father’s book had passages of two poems, Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven and Cafavvy’s Alexandria. The gist being, he’d been pursued all his life in dread and terror and, secondly, no matter what he did, he couldn’t escape his life, as if you fooked up in one place, so you would always do.
    If cops were secretly reading this stuff in their leisure time, no wonder they ate their guns.
    Cici had the day off and came to my apartment, the top floor of a brownstone that I lavished my savings on. She had a mouth on her, kidding I ain’t. She asked,
    â€œHow much are you ripping off from the club?”
    A lot.
    I said,
    â€œAs if I would.”
    She let that slide.
    Gave me the hot look.
    It burned.
    Followed with a blast of white radiance.
    After, I had one of my rarest cigs and, God forgive me, one supplied by Cici.
    Virginia Slims.
    Not too macho. She pulled on one of my faded denim shirts. I had it longer than I had sense. Looked good, looked in heat. Trailing smoke, she went to mix up a batch of Vodka Spritzers.
    Most appetites nigh sated, she picked up my dad’s book, asked,
    â€œYou