Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

He got as far as the vestibule before he felt McCarthy’s hand on his shoulder. It should have been frightening, but it wasn’t. McCarthy himself looked innocently wounded, wanting to know what the hurry was. “You do look familiar,” he said. “We met just before the hearings, the day after Senator Potter got a copy of ‘the Adams chronology.’” “When Charlie was trying to get me to fire Roy!” McCarthy laughed, as if remembering some comically bad season with the company baseball team. “Yes,” replied Tim, at a loss for more to say as he looked for another escape route from Tommy’s vengeful world. He could feel himself being lashed to it by the telephone line that had once reached into Madison Square Garden. Boys, girls, your old-maid auntie. When he’s hammered he’ll grope anything… He moved for the door, but McCarthy kept coming toward him, with an enormous, devouring smile. Reaching for the handle, Tim heard himself saying, inanely, to keep the man calm: “I was also at your wedding. Helping out Miss Beale for the Star.” “No kidding!” McCarthy proceeded to smother him with a hug, to give his neck a boozy kiss and his crotch a hard locker-room squeeze. “We’re going to christen her Tierney!” he called out as Tim raced toward the street. “Come to the church!”