Triple Pursuit by Ralph McInerny Read Free Book Online Page A

required?”
    â€œNot at all. I just wondered.”
    â€œNo, I am now filed away in a condominium, awaiting the grim reaper.”
    â€œYou’re retired.”
    He gave her a look. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Yes, my voice has been stilled.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œWhy should you remember? I was on the radio. Jack in the Box was my show but my most popular program was at night. Two hours of soothing music and murmured philosophy. I came on at nine. I had a devoted audience. Of course that was long ago. I did not make the transition to television. The accent is on youth. On radio, a voice might be of any age, but who wants to see their grandfather on television?”
    â€œSo you have grandchildren?”
    â€œThree. Not that they would have listened to me. It is just a phrase.
When my fans died away my voice was stilled. For some years I did audio for commercials, making far more money than I had in my ascendancy.”
    Edna had the sense that he could have gone on and on, and the truth was she almost wished he would. First Austin and now this man. The Center was coming up in the world.
    All the old people knew who Jack Gallagher was, or at least what he had been. He was surrounded by what could only be described as fans when Edna went downstairs. Austin was nowhere in sight, but a bright-eyed Maud regarded the newcomer from afar.
    â€œDid you know him?” Edna asked Maud.
    â€œKnow him! Only his voice, of course, but it hasn’t changed a bit. Did you ever hear him?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    Maud closed her eyes and brought her hands together. “His program was heavenly. The sweetest, saddest music, and he would talk, say things, sometimes recite poetry—it was so restful. I am sure everyone in this room listened to that program religiously.”
    â€œ Jack in the Box .”
    â€œThat was during the day. The evening program was called Love’s Old Sweet Song .”
    Desmond O’Toole was in the first rank of the admiring circle, and Jack Gallagher remembered Desmond from their time as boys in the school. Within hours it had been arranged for Jack to alternate with Desmond on the night of the dance. It seemed Jack had a beautiful tenor voice. For Jack to show up just a week before the dance was a bonus Desmond would not have believed.
    â€œI wasn’t sure he was still alive until he walked in here,” he said to Edna.
    â€œYou haven’t kept in touch?”
    â€œIt isn’t that. How incredible that a man who enjoyed that kind of popularity could sink into total oblivion. Wait until you hear him.”
    â€œI was coming in order to hear you, Desmond.”
    â€œOf course, my voice is bass.”
    â€œDon’t run yourself down.”
    She had told a joke. What next?

4
    1
    â€œYour father is all excited about St. Hilary’s school,” Jane said. The kids were in bed, Tim and Jane were having hot chocolate in the den, catching up on one another’s day. She sat on a couch, her legs drawn up beside her, wearing a shawl, the fire making her face a pattern of shadows. How beautiful she is, Tim told himself, as if he were surprised.
    â€œHe already graduated from there.”
    â€œHa ha. The place has been turned into a center for seniors.”
    â€œHe wouldn’t admit that he is one.”
    â€œYou’re wrong. There’s going to be a dance and he will be emcee or something and he really is excited.”
    â€œIt’s time he came out of his shell.”
    When his father had left the station, he had been given boxes of tapes, music, mainly recordings of his own programs, and Tim had the awful feeling that his father spent all day listening to himself in that lonely condo. For all his popularity, Jack Gallagher had retired with not a lot more than Social Security. But the sale of the house, and a little help from Tim, had enabled him to move into a very comfortable apartment in