Read Online Habit of Fear by Dorothy Salisbury Davis - Free Book Online Page B

time,” Ginny Gibbons said. “What do you want to know?”
    “Anything and everything about Thomas Francis Mooney, who wrote the poem. He might possibly be my father.”
    “The title and the date it appeared?” Ginny wanted to know.
    Julie told her. Then: “Want me to read it to you? It’s only fourteen lines.”
    “Wait till I get a cigarette.”
    “I like it,” Ginny said afterward. “I suppose you know about the Wild Geese? They were Irish mercenaries, I should think, though from what I know of the Irish, they’d have fought without being paid for it. In Napoleon’s army? For the French, in any case.”
    “We’re onto something,” Julie said. “I’m sure of it.”
    “Let me go down the hall and talk to some of the old-timers. What else has he written?”
    “I’m going to go search now,” Julie said.
    “I’ll see if there’s anything on him in our files while I’m at it,” Ginny said.
    Julie searched back a few years from 1955 and forward to date. She found nothing. Bleary-eyed, her enthusiasm slightly blunted, she called Virginia Gibbons back.
    “Sorry, Julie. Nobody around here knows the name, and there’s nothing in our files. It probably came in cold. If you want me to, I’ll try bookkeeping on it, but I’m not sure where those ledgers are stored, so it may take time. I have one other suggestion. It’s a long shot, but you might want to try it: in those days the Walsh and Kendall Agency represented most of the Irish writers. John Walsh’s father was an Irish playwright. I didn’t know him, but I knew John. We had some wonderful times trying to get his father’s plays produced in this country. ‘If it’s this hard to get Walsh produced,’ John would say, ‘what would it be like if his name was Yeats or O’Casey?’”
    “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Walsh,” Julie said.
    “That’s the point.”
    “Oh.” She sometimes had trouble with the New Yorker ellipses. “I’ll try Kendall and Walsh. I’m not going to let go now that I’ve got this far.”
    “Maybe he’s publishing under his name in Gaelic these days.” Whether or not she was serious Julie couldn’t tell. “Julie?”
    “I’m still here.”
    “Do you know the Irish playwright Seamus McNally?”
    “No.”
    “Well, you should. He’s giving a seminar at Yale this summer. Before he goes back, I’m having a gathering at my place. I’ll ask you and Jeff.”
    “Jeff will be in Paris,” Julie said.
    “Then you’ll come yourself, for God’s sake.”
    Julie went from the library to a cocktail party at the Players’ Club given by the producers of a daytime television series, “Melissa’s Children,” to celebrate its twenty-fifth year on the air. She picked up a couple of items for the column, enough to keep her in business, and a pretty good meal of hors d’oeuvres. She fantasized a book to be called The Well-Dressed Beggar’s Guide to Manhattan; or How to Live on Publication Parties, Opening Nights and Bar Mitzvahs.
    She was back at the shop writing up her column material when she picked up on a call she first debated leaving for the answering service.
    “Friend Julie? This is May Weems. I sure hopes you remember me.”
    “I do.” It was the black street girl Detective Russo called Ring-Around.
    “Would you like to do me a little favor, Friend Julie? Then I does one for you like …”
    “Like what?”
    “The fuzz done busted me again, and my pimp say he won’t pay no more fines. He say I don’t run fast enough, but I can’t run no faster.”
    “How much is the fine?”
    “I don’t know till I goes before the judge, the different judges say different. I bet they don’t say more’n fifty dollars seeing it’s you and knowing …”
    Knowing, Julie thought, the key word. Knowing what May Weems might be able to contribute to the apprehension of the men who attacked Julie Hayes. “Where are you?”
    “They taking me to a holding pen—like I was a pig or something, so’s they can