Front-Page McGuffin & The Greatest Story Never Told Read Online Free Page B

the medallion about his neck and rubs it gently between his thumb and forefinger. “Got this from a book titled D ICTIONARY O F S AINTS by D. Attwater, 1965. Got another one from M. Trevelyan’s F OLK- L ORE OF W ALES , 1909.”
    “What was that one?” McCoy asks.
    “That told how a posthumous child could charm away a tumour by putting his or her hands over the appropriate spot.”
    “What the hell’s a—”
    “It’s a child born after its mother has died,” Bills Williams says to Jack Fedogan.
    “You found one of these … posthumous children?” Edgar says.
    Front-Page nods. “Guy in the newsroom knew somebody.” He waves his hand. “You don’t want to know the details. It’s a depressing story. Anyway, he arranges for this guy’s daughter to visit Betty with me.” There’s a strange sound from Front-Page’s throat that could be a chuckle, although there’s no sign of amusement on his face. “Betty didn’t know what the hell was going on—she was in a lot of pain, mind you. So I kept her talking while this girl—she was a woman actually … the tragic events surrounding her birth having taken place some time ago—she rubs Betty’s stomach.
    “And, you know … I think it helped her. Course, it could just’ve been the rubbing that helped but I didn’t think so. Anyway, I wasn’t taking any chances. So the girl came with me to the hospital another couple of times and then she didn’t want to come any more. I can’t say as how I blamed her. Hospitals can be downbeat places at the best of times and I was bad company to go with.”
    McCoy takes a slug of beer and rests his glass on the table. “So what did you do then?”
    “By this time I had gotten so many of these folk-stories, sayings, homilies, and who knows what else that I was taking a whole bunch of stuff in there every day … and I was visiting with Betty morning, afternoon and evening, each time with something else to slip under her pillow or in her bedside cabinet.”
    “Things like what?” Jim asks.
    “Oh, good luck coins—pennies with her year of birth printed on them—taped-up saltpot, a model of a black cat, piece of wood from an alter, rabbit’s foot … there were so many I kind of lost track what I was doing there for a while.” Front-Page shakes his head and raps the table. “And I had started doing things by myself, too.”
    Jack is back down on the floor and he shifts his weight from one knee to the other. “Like what?” he asks.
    “Knocking wood all the time,” he says, rapping the table to demonstrate, even though no demonstration was necessary, “spitting when I saw the back of a mail-van, spinning around when I inadvertently walked across cracks in paving stones, moving one hand in an arc to join the other hand when I saw a nun or a priest—you’d be surprised how many nuns and priests you see when you’re doing this kind of stuff.”
    “It’s a wonder they didn’t lock you up,” Jim observes and then winces when Edgar kicks him in the shin.
    “That’s okay,” Front-Page says, and he raps the table just to make sure.
    “But Betty … Betty didn’t make it,” he says quietly.
    There’s a world of regret in that simple statement and, even though Front-Page’s voice is low, the two guys at the bar look around, just for a second, not knowing why they’re looking around but simply responding to the sudden sense of loss that permeates the bar and mingles with the sound of Art Pepper’s alto on ‘Why Are We Afraid?’.
    Edgar and McCoy and Bills and Jack and Jim just sit there, taking it in turns to nod, Edgar and Bills squeezing Front-Page’s shoulders.
    Front-Page shakes his head. “By then, I was too heavily into this stuff to back off. Even tried to change her burial day.”
    “Why?” asks Jack
    “I read that, in County Cork in Ireland, it’s bad luck to be buried on a Monday and that’s when … when Betty was scheduled. They wouldn’t change it. Said that it wasn’t as simple as