The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen

M y old man:
    Tough.
    Cruel.
    Merciless.
    And that was on the weekends when he was happy. If a psycho could do happy.
    His cop buddies said,
    â€œFrank, Frank is just intense.”
    Right.
    Other kids go,
    â€œMy dad took me to the Yankees.”
    Mine, he took out my teeth.
    With intensity.
    The horrors of peace. He bought the farm when I was seventeen. My mom, she took off for Boise, Idaho.
    Hell of another sort.
    They buried my father in the American flag. No argument, he was a patriot.
    I played
    â€œAnother one bites the dust.”
    He’d have hated Queen to be the band.
    His inheritance?
    A book.
    Rich, huh?
    My father died horribly. A slow, lingering, eat-your-guts-in-pieces cancer. His buddies admired my constant vigil.
    Yeah.
    I wanted to ensure he didn’t have one of those miraculous recoveries. His last hour, we had an Irish priest who anointed him, said,
    â€œHe will soon be with God.”
    The devil, maybe. With any luck.
    He was lucid in his last moments. Looked at me with total fear.
    I asked,
    â€œAre you afraid?”
    He nodded, his eyes welling up. I leaned close, whispered,
    â€œGood, and, you know, it will get worse.”
    A flash of anger in those dead brown eyes, and I asked,
    â€œWhat are you going to do, huh? Who you going to call, you freaking bully?”
    The death rattle was loud and chilling. The doctor rushed in, held his hand, said,
    â€œI am so sorry.”
    I managed to keep my smirk in check. He was buried in a cheap box, to accessorize his cheap soul. A week after, I was given his estate.
    The single book.
    Mind you, it was a beautiful volume, bound in soft leather, gold leaf trim. Heavy, too.
    And well thumbed.
    I was puzzled. My old man, his reading extended to the sports page in The Daily News.
    But a book?
    WTF?
    On the cover, in faded gold was,
    Virtue.
    Like he’d know any damn thing about that.
    Flicked through it
    ???
    In his spidery handwriting, it was jammed with notes. The first page had this:
    â€œYou cannot open a book without learning something.”
    â€¦ Confucius.
    I put the book down.
    â€œWas he trying to educate himself?”
    The schmuck.
    My cell shrilled.
    Brady, my boss. He muttered,
    â€œSorry about your old man.”
    Yeah. Yada, yada.
    Did the sympathy jig for all of two minutes. Then,
    â€œGrief in the club last night.”
    The outrider here being
    â€œThe hell where you?”
    And, unsaid,
    â€œSo your old man bought the farm. You’re supposed to ensure the club runs smooth.”
    The Khe San, in midtown.
    Home to:
    Wise guys
    Cops
    Strippers
    Low lifes
    Skels
    Power trippers
    Politicians.
    All R and R-ing in a place of uneasy truce.
    My job: to maintain smooth and easy vibe. I didn’t ask if they checked their weapons at the door but did try to keep a rack on the rampant egos. I had an assistant—in truth a Mack 5 would have been the biz—but, lacking that, I had—
    Cici.
    A weapon of a whole deadly calibre.
    Brady was a Nam wanna-be, like Bruce in his heyday, a dubious tradition begun by John Wayne with the loathsome Green Berets. Rattle on enough about a lost war and it gave the impression you were there. Sure to be shooting, Brady played “Born in the USA” like his own personal anthem. That he was from the Ukraine seemed neither here nor deceptive there.
    I ran the club, and well.
    Was taught by the best, my best friend, Scotty, but more of that later.
    Had learned to walk the taut line between chaos and safety that growing up with a bully equips you to do. When your mother takes a walk early, you lose any semblance of trust. My old man, second generation Mick, was as sentimental as only a fledging psychopath can be. His MO was simple:
    Beat the living shit out of your child, play the suck-heart songs:
    â€œDanny Boy”
    â€œGalway Bay”
    â€œMolly Malone”
    Sink a bottle of Jay.
    Weep buckets for your own miserable self.
    What they term the “Constellation