“Pat, shake Petty Officer Donovan’s hand. He’s in His Majesty’s Navy. Family from Cork, like us—what ship did you say you were on?”

“The Halcyon.” Donovan grabbed Pat’s hand with his big clammy palm and lurched toward him. He was a sailor all right. Blue jean collar, bell-bottoms tucked into once-white wool socks, and the dark trimmed cap. Just like on a box of Cracker Jacks, except his cheeks were more red with booze than windburn from the North Atlantic. “Hey, little man, whaddya say? You a Yankees fan?”

“Dodgers.”

Donovan, the son of a Liverpool Corkman, had clearly run through all his American baseball knowledge and screwed up his face. “Dodgers? What the hell is that, Jackie?”

“Ah, don’t worry about the boy. He’s a real con artist. Come sit and take it off.” They parked on ends of the couch as the wind shook the windows. “This storm ain’t so bad. Wouldn’t want to be in City Island right now. Tide coming in high.” Jack started feeling his pockets for his smokes and something else. He sprang back up. “It’ll jog in a couple of hours. But they closed down the El, and our man here—did I tell ya his family is from Carrigaline?—can’t get back to the city. Now, my old man worked for the Donovans, who did the pottery, you know, the eggcups with those little shamrocks on ’em, my mother loved those eggcups from Carrigaline. Hannah, do we still have those eggcups? I also need a couple of jars.”

“Jack, calm down and sit down,” Hannah yelled from the kitchen.

“Ah, this nervous woman, Tommy, I tell ya, no fun. My old man worked with a Frankie Donovan.” He turned toward Pat with his crooked drinking smile. “And now that’s Tommy’s grand-uncle. How’s that for a small world? Practically kin.”

Jack pulled a bottle of Seagram’s from the pocket of his work pants and slipped into the kitchen, leaving Pat to stare at the blood-eyed not-so-able seaman on the couch, who sat there in a bloated stupor, staring back. Hannah hissed threats at Jack in the kitchen, and thirty seconds later, Jack yelled, “Enough!” and stalked back into the living room. He went over to the sideboard and brought out two Carrigaline eggcups, into which he poured shots of whiskey.

Jack coughed and cleared his chest, then lifted his eggcup to Tommy’s. “May the devil never make a ladder of your backbone.”

Jack quaffed it and then fell into the grooves of his green leather wingback, his eyes unfocused and rolled up toward the rattling of rain at the windows.

“This hurricane ain’t much. Over before they realize you’re gone, Tom.”