Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

When Tommy spoke again, it was to tell McCarthy, casually, that with a little help this fellow Hart might pull things off. But before McCarthy could respond to the suggestion, the sharp cry of an infant came from the second floor. “My baby!” yelled the senator, grinning broadly before bounding upstairs to the child he and Jeannie had just adopted from the New York Foundling Hospital. Cardinal Spellman, who’d seen no need to ask too many questions about the acquisition, had helped things along. Tim decided that this was the moment to escape the house. But McCarthy was almost immediately back in the living room, somehow managing to keep a firm, tender grip on the blanketed baby. “Jeannie says Princess Grace just had a girl of her own! The palace in Monte Carlo put it out over the radio. Ain’t that swell? Well, that little girl can’t be any prettier than this one!” They might all be at some post-christening shindig inside McConnell’s beer hall on Ninth Avenue. Tim wouldn’t be surprised if he were asked to favor everyone with a song. “Ain’t she grand?” asked McCarthy, looking more like the baby’s uncle or grandfather as he thrust it into Tommy’s arms for closer inspection. Overtaken by his own sentiments, Tommy appeared unable to resume the mission that had brought him here, and in the commotion of the baby’s transfer Tim at last managed to slip away.