Russell Fee is the author of the multi-award-winning Sheriff Matt Callahan mystery series.
His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as The Galway Review, Killer Nashville Magazine, Literally Stories, Short Circuit, Spaceports & Spidersilk, Sci Phi Journal, Hemingway Shorts, Star 82 Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Spank the Carp.
To learn more about Russ and his writing, visit his website at outerislandpress.com.
An Anniversary and a Reckoning
By Russell Fee
Duffy’s Tavern was a bar that refused to move on and make room for newcomers. Its original patrons stayed and had grown older along with it. It gave the middle finger to its ward’s encroaching gentrification and rudely rejected the cocktail culture. Its staunch adherents would have none of it. Duffy’s was the kind of bar where the Christmas lights stayed hung all year, and the wine bottles were few and dusty.
Two of its regulars were Liam Flaherty and Connor “Sully” Sullivan. Denizens of the Irish enclaves on the south side of Chicago, they had spent their working lives in the steel mills of Gary. Rough neighborhoods and grueling jobs for hard men. For Sully and Liam, Duffy’s was more than an occasional retreat from their hardscrabble lives. It was a home.
The familiar tang of the bar’s polished mahogany, entwined with the pungent aroma of stale beer, comforted Sully as he eased himself onto the stool next to Liam. He placed both hands on the bar with a sigh of relief, as if he had found a thing of value after a long search.
Liam leaned toward Sully with a slight duck of his head. “What can I get ya, Sully?” he asked.
“It’s me who’s buying, Liam. Sully signaled the barman with a nod and pointed up, holding his finger high.
“The top shelf is it, Sully?”
“It is, Liam. It is, so.”
The barman reached above three ascending rows of bottles, and looking down at Sully, he touched an amber, green-labeled, long-necked bottle on the highest shelf. Sully winked and gave him the thumbs-up.
“What’s the occasion?” asked Liam.
“Surely you can guess, Liam.”
Liam stared up at the ceiling, thought for a moment, drummed his fingers on the bar, thought for a moment longer, and then said, “Go on, Sully, I can’t.”
“Fifty years.”
“Fifty years?”
“Yes. Fifty years to this very day we’ve been drinking at this bar.” Sully punctuated the announcement with a slap of his hand on the mahogany.
“Ah, surely you’re joking. It can’t be.”
“It is though. Fifty years ago, we came to this bar for the first time to watch Neal Armstrong step on the moon. You can’t have forgotten that.”
“Jesus, but time does fly, don’t it?
“Too fast,” agreed Sully. “We’re dinosaurs, the two of us. We’ve gone extinct already,” he added.
“But we had our day, we did,” said Liam.
“We survived,” said Sully. “There were those who didn’t.”
“Good men and bad,” said Liam.
“And not enough bad,” said Sully, more to himself than to Liam.
Liam eyed Sully and then nodded.
The two men sat quietly as the barman poured each a shot glass to the brim of Jameson 18 Years.
Sully held his pour up to the light and savored the glint of gold through the glass. “Nectar of the gods,” he whispered.
“To be sure,” agreed Liam. “Sláinte,” he toasted.
“Sláinte,” echoed Sully.
Both men downed their shots.
Sully rapped the empty shot glass on the bar and lifted it toward the barman. “We’ll have another. Same.”
“That’s not poitin, Sully. Neither of us is made of money,” cautioned Liam
“My money’s no good to me now, Liam, except to spend quickly.”
Liam wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “What are you saying, Sully?”
“They’ve given me three months is all, one good one and two very bad ones,” said Sully.
Liam sat gawping at Sully in disbelief and then dismay. “That breaks me, Sully, just breaks me,” he finally said.
Sully put a finger to his lips as the barman brought two fresh shot glasses and filled them. “Drink up,” he said as the barman left them.
Liam shook his head and pushed his glass aside. “I’ve no taste for it now, not with such news.”
“It’s a shame to waste it, Liam. The news won’t change or get better by abusing your thirst.” Sully slid the shot glass back to Liam. “Drink up.”
“Only because you said to, Sully. Only for that very reason.” Liam drank the whiskey.
“Good,” said Sully. “Now we have a job to do.”
“A job, Sully? What job?”
“You’re to help me bury Cassidy.”
“What? You mean Gerry Cassidy?”
“I do.”
“Bury him? Why?”
“Because he’s dead.”
“You’re mistaken, Sully. He can’t be, I just saw him today leaving Shanahan’s with Mickey Reardon. He was the very picture of health.”
“But he is dead. He passed away at 6 PM today.”
“How?”
Sully beckoned Liam closer with a cupped wave of his hand and bent toward him. With their foreheads almost touching, Sully whispered, “I shot him.”
Liam reared back, stunned. “No,” he almost howled before he stifled his shock at Sully’s urgent signal.
Sully scanned the barroom and then lifted his shirt to reveal, in proof, the butt of a pistol tucked in his belt.
Liam struggled for words. “But why?” he stammered.
“You know damn well why. He had it coming for years. There’s no one we know who hasn’t wished him dead for what he was and what he’d done.”
“By God, it’s true, he was monster, a scourge on us all. We should all be on our knees in thanks to you for ridding us of him. But, Sully, think of your soul.” Liam made the sign of the cross.
“This sin will be forgiven. I’m sure of it. I saw my diagnosis as a sign that it was me who had to set things right. So, I vowed I would not leave this earth while Cassidy still walked upon it”
Liam was silent for a moment and then said, “May God greet you as an avenging angel, Sully. The world is best free of Cassidy. But what if his body is found? They’re certain to investigate his death as a murder. What if it’s somehow discovered that you . . .”
“They won’t find his body where we’re to put it. And if they do, I’ll probably be long gone by then. If not, what can they do to me? Sentence me to death? That day is already fixed.”
“’Tis brilliant that is. You’ve cheated Cassidy out of one more victim. Fair play to you, Sully.”
Sully saluted Liam with a raise of his shot glass and a quick swallow of the whiskey.
“Shall we have another jar then?” said Liam. “This one to Cassidy spending eternity in hell.”
“The bottle beckons,” said Sully.
The Galway Review 