“Who are you bullshitting?” Tom slurred. “You’re married to an heiress. Your brother-in-law is going to be senator. I used to see you in the newspapers, in the gossip columns—”

“My wife and I have been separated for fifteen years,” Devlin said.

“Oh, another good Catholic,” Tom said, and looked bleakly at his wife. His lips trembled and twisted.

Devlin knew what was coming. He wanted to put his fingers in his ears.

“Irene!”

“I’m here, baby,” she cried.

An enabler. Mrs. Quinn was the daughter of an alcoholic, more than likely, trying to remake the movie of her childhood with her husband as the new star. See, Daddy? I love you. She wasn’t digging her husband’s grave—he was doing that job well enough—but she was holding his jacket while he swung the pick. If all that were true, Mrs. Quinn was competing with Mom without realizing that defining her life on her mother’s terms made her a loser on the first jump out of the gate. Mrs. Quinn was as big a loser as her husband, and her refusal to admit it was part of the process that was destroying them both and passing the problem on to their children. This was one reason why Devlin’s sense of humor sometimes turned merciless. Humanity’s worst suffering was self-inflicted. Well, he hadn’t come all the way out to Sussex to be reminded of the devil he had been wrestling for most of his life.

“You wanted to see me, Tom. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, man—” Tom clasped his hands between his thighs and rocked even harder. He looked up again, the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Can I have a drink? I need a drink, one last drink before I go in.”

Devlin glanced at Lederer, who appeared to be more interested in Devlin’s tailoring than in Tom Quinn. Lederer wasn’t going for the liquor. Reaching into his hip pocket for the flask Bill Ward had given him for this purpose, Devlin wondered about Lederer, who he was, what he did. But Devlin knew better than to ask, lest he hear Lederer’s complete life story. Devlin’s mother would have called Lederer a drip. Devlin’s mother’s vocabulary had stopped evolving sometime in the fifties, but for the rest of her life she thought she was up-to-date. Hep.

Unscrewing the top of the flask released the flowers-of-evil smell of the bourbon inside. Through his tears Tom Quinn flashed a sucker’s smile, and in another moment he could be heard chugalugging. Devlin exchanged glances with Mrs. Quinn. By the expression on Lederer’s face, he didn’t know what was going on. Maybe he was a dope as well as a drip. All the more reason to treat the guy decently. Part of the program. Drunks didn’t keep each other sober with disdain or contempt. Gasping, Tom returned the flask.