Absent Friends

No, she'd stay until Spano had her physically thrown out (and maybe he wouldn't; after all, think how that would look in the paper) and play them off against each other. She'd done that before. It wasn't so hard. Everyone wanted to come out looking good, everyone wanted his story to be the one that was believed.

That was Laura's plan. “If you—” She never got any further than that.

“Fuck that!” Keegan exploded. “Let her stay! Let her hear it, let everyone hear it!”

“Kev—”

“No, Uncle Phil.” Keegan's voice took on a different tone, a tone Laura knew. She'd heard it in the voices of people she'd interviewed in those first days after the towers fell, people coming to accept what they had been desperately fighting: that the “missing” posters, the hospital searches, the frantic digging at Ground Zero, could not help them. It was the voice of someone admitting the shattering truth that a loved one was gone, and in that voice Kevin Keegan said, “No, Uncle Phil.”

LAURA'S STORY

Chapter 15

The Way Home

November 1, 2001

“Kevin.” Constantine spoke quietly to the young man, as though the two were alone. As though they stood on some wind-blasted height where nothing grew and nothing lived and everything had been torn away but the truth.

Keegan shook his head. “Don't. Don't tell me more lies, Uncle Phil. No more. You lied all my life.”

“Not about what was important.” Like voices on the tapes Laura had heard of calls made from the upper floors of the towers, people who understood they were certainly doomed but were determined to maintain contact until the end, Constantine's voice was calm. “Not about what mattered.”

“To you!” Keegan shouted. “What mattered to you! Me and my mom—oh, fuck. Fuck you!”

The young man looked wildly around, as much, Laura thought, to break the spell of Constantine's eyes as anything else. He spotted her but moved on, too furious to care who she was or what she'd heard. Constantine's eyes watched the young man the way you'd stare after a priceless possession torn away in a hurricane.

Keegan fixed on Eddie Spano. “You,” he said hoarsely. “I want to know. My dad, Uncle Jimmy, what was it about?”

“I don't know what the hell—”

“Don't do that! Don't lie like him, no more bullshit! Who shot Jack Molloy? Was it Uncle Jimmy?”

“Kid, I—”

Constantine said, “Kevin—”

“Why did my dad go to jail? What was the money for?”

From Spano: “I got no fucking idea!”

From Constantine: “Kev—”

“Uncle Jimmy's papers,” Keegan hissed at Spano. “What he wrote. Is that what's in them?”

“Papers? What fucking papers?”

“You lying bastard! Tell me!”

“Get the fuck out of here! You're fucking crazy, all of you! Get out!”

Keegan, green eyes blazing, swung forward on his crutches with a speed that took Laura by surprise. He shoved Spano against the wall before anyone could move. The whole trailer rocked. “Tell me the truth!” The crutches clattered to the floor. Keegan squeezed Spano's throat. Spano clawed Keegan's face as Keegan shouted, “What did my father do? Why did he go to jail? Tell me the truth! Tell me! Tell me!”

Spano pushed and twisted; Constantine grabbed Keegan, tried to pull him away. “Kevin! Come on, Kev, come on!”

Keegan swung at Constantine. The blow was unbalanced and badly timed but had the unstoppable force of betrayal behind it. Constantine's head snapped back. Keegan, weight shifting to his bad leg, fell forward, seizing Spano again.

Spano struggled half out of Keegan's grip. Keegan pounded and punched. Laura wasn't sure if he knew who he was hitting, what he was screaming. Spano was shouting, too. And Constantine, not shouting, talking, talking to Keegan, blood on his face as he wrapped his arms around the young man, trying to make him stop, trying at the same time, Laura realized, not to hurt him.

Laura had jumped up but had not neared the struggling men. She was a reporter, she stood apart. Her chair had fallen over, but she was in the spot she'd been in since she arrived and so was in the perfect place to see when Spano, still caught in Keegan's grip, pounded, screamed at, bloodied, yanked open the desk drawer. He shouted, “Fuck you, you fucking lunatic!” and there was a gun in his hand.

From the New York Tribune, November 2, 2001

FIREFIGHTER SLAIN IN

SHOOTING INCIDENT

Survived Fall of North Tower

by Hugh Jesselson

Probationary Firefighter Kevin Keegan, who was pulled to safety by fellow firefighters from under burning debris when the World Trade Center's north tower collapsed on September 11, was killed yesterday in a shooting incident on Staten Island. Keegan was hit in the chest by a single bullet. He was taken to Staten Island Hospital, where he died three hours later.

Police have arrested Edward Spano, of Pleasant Hills, a reputed organized crime figure with alleged ties to the Bonnano crime family. Spano has been charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment.