been quite sober since.
Things moved quickly after that. Margot whispered in his ear-talk of
“Dead simple,” she’d said, and she was right.
Leaving his family was easier than he’d expected, too-at least at first. As images of Margot filled his head, his wife and daughters had faded to grainy silhouettes. Audrey was barely a shadow when he told her about his business trip. So was his boss when he put in for vacation. Dead simple.
Margot had booked the flights. They’d gone first class to Brussels. She told Lowe to lay off the booze and drink lots of water but he didn’t listen. His head was splitting when they arrived and things had been hazy ever since-a blur of swank hotel rooms and rainy cityscapes and never quite knowing the time. Zurich, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Frankfurt-and in each, a friend of the unseen Mr. Flynn, with papers to be signed. They all knew Margot, but it was Lowe’s signature they needed. Lowe had worried about the documents, and the nameless men, and Flynn-wherever he was-and he’d wondered about Margot’s hotel room in New York, and the other hotels, and who was paying. But the questions always stumbled from his head before he could ask them, and Margot was there to put a pen in his hand, and afterward a drink and her hard white body.
Somewhere-Amsterdam maybe-Lowe’s stomach had started to burn, and he found himself thinking of his family. It was incoherent stuff-vague worry about… he wasn’t sure what-but the thoughts left him empty and aching. Three times he’d mentioned them to Margot, and not again.
The first time, her lower lip had trembled. “I thought I made you happy,” she’d said softly. Then they fucked until the sheets were drenched.
The second time went less well. “I’m not yer feckin’ priest,” she’d snapped.
The third time was in Frankfurt and her voice made him jump. “Jaysus-enough with yer feckin’ regrets! It’s over and done but you poke at it like a bad tooth.” She shook her head. “Yer pretty feckin’ Irish for a New York Jew, Jimmy-you’ll fit right in in Dublin.” Ten days in the city now and he still didn’t know what she’d meant.
Not that he’d seen much of Dublin besides their hotel room. Waiting for Flynn and their passports, Margot grew steadily edgier. She was restless and paranoid-stir-crazy, but reluctant to leave the hotel. It was only because he had started to annoy her, Lowe knew, that she allowed him his walks each day, to the park and back. He wondered what she was worried about, and what would happen when they got the passports. Would Margot go with him to another city? Did he care? The thought of not having sex with her made Lowe sad, and the thought of traveling alone scared him, but in his bubble he didn’t dwell on these things long. Margot leafed through her magazine and perfume fell from the pages onto him. She shifted her hips and Lowe thought about the body beneath her robe and reached for her again. She was having none of it.
“Yer head’s too heavy,” she said, and slid off the sofa. She went to the window and looked down on the gray city and the gray Liffey. Lowe felt his tranquil bubble burst and his balance slip away. He opened his unwilling eyes.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Time fer yer walk.”
He nodded and a large liquid weight shifted in his skull. She was right, he thought, his head was too heavy, and overfull with booze and static-a pail of mud on a rickety perch. Lowe rubbed his eyes. He pulled on clothes and slipped two midget whiskey bottles into his raincoat pocket. He looked at Margot. She was still by the window with her head against the glass.
Though Margot had told him not to, he took the same route to the park each day. The buildings he passed were mostly low and old, which made the new ones look even taller and glossier. The streets were full of young people who looked like bankers and accountants and computer guys, and looked like they’d come from someplace else. It reminded Lowe of Wall Street that way. Maybe that’s what Margot meant about fitting in.
He took a wide, tree-lined avenue deep into Phoenix Park, to a bench by the pond he’d been staring at all week. The air was damp and burrowing cold, and he shivered when he sat. The park was mostly empty now-old people, dog walkers, a couple strolling down the path. The woman had thick red hair and an umbrella. The man was tall and pale and his hair was pitch black. Lowe had seen them in the park before and wondered if they worked nearby. He closed his eyes and listened to birds and distant cars and the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. He opened his eyes when the footsteps stopped.
It was the couple, looking down at him. They were handsome, Lowe thought, though there was something cold in the man’s lean face, and something angry in the woman’s eyes.
“May I?” the man asked. American.
“Help yourself,” Lowe said. The man sat; the woman remained standing and looked up and down the path. “You from the States?” Lowe asked.
The man nodded. “From New York, Jimmy-like you.”
Lowe wasn’t conscious of trying to get up, but suddenly the man’s hand was on his shoulder, pressing him back. Lowe’s mind raced, but without traction.
“Relax, Jimmy,” the man said.
Lowe’s mouth went dry and the rest of him was bathed in sudden sweat. “Flynn?” he asked finally. The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out five photos and laid them on the bench.
“She brought them to Dublin, Jimmy, same as you,” he said, pointing at the photos as he spoke. “And Dublin’s the last stop.” He said some names but Lowe had trouble hearing him. A roar filled his ears as he looked at the pictures of the five dead men, and suddenly he couldn’t see. He must’ve been leaving again because the man had him by the arm and the woman looked worried.
“Five, in five years,” the man said. “You make it half-a-dozen.”
Lowe slumped on the bench. “Flynn?” he said again. It was an old man’s voice.
The woman shook her head in disgust. “There’s no Flynn but herself-Kathryn Margot Flynn.”
Lowe gripped the little bottles in his pocket and looked at the ground. “You’re cops?”
“She is,” the man said, nodding at the redhead. “I’m private, working for your employers. The good news is they just want their money back. You make that happen, and keep your mouth shut, and they won’t prosecute.”
Lowe clawed at his gut. “What’s the bad news?”
The redhead looked down. “I am,” she said. “I don’t care fer yer girl leaving bodies all over my city, but I got no proof of anything. That’s where you come in.”
Lowe slumped on the bench. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He looked at his hands and saw the little whiskey bottles in them. He cracked the metal cap on one and the man took his arm.
“Let’s wait on that, Jimmy,” he said, but Lowe shook him off and drank one bottle and then another. The woman spoke, but Lowe couldn’t make out the words. His head was down and his eyes were closed. He was waiting for his balance and another bubble to ride, but in his heart he knew it was no good. The best part was over.
THE GHOST OFRORY GALLAGHERBY JIM FUSILLI
He’d left London in disgrace. A banking scandal, one of the worst. More than a half-billion pounds sterling in losses, bolloxed up every trade he made for months, going deeper and deeper. The end of days for the 230-year- old Ravenscroft Bank. Hundreds sacked. Pensions gone. Dreams shattered. Suicides, at least five of them, including Desmond Chick, for thirty-eight years the janitor at the Con Colbert Street branch in Limerick, a widower, raised three sons himself, working dusk till dawn. Sent away without so much as a plaque for comfort, he cried himself to death, they say, too old to start anew and as heartsick as if he’d lost his Minnie all over again.
The trader, meanwhile, was sentenced to four and a half years. Got out in three. Good behavior, though the arrogant shite never owned up to what he’d done. Eleven hundred days in Coldbath Fields and every one spent planning to cash in like Nick Leeson did-a book, Ewan McGregor on the silver screen, lectures-his reward for
