“So tell me what happened next?” I asked. I had adopted a wide-eyed expression, full of astonished concern. “Did they take the two of you to the Royal Victoria Hospital?”
“We refused to accept any of the enemy’s medical help,” my brother-in-law said proudly. Stitch was examining the table-top even more closely.
“But surely the enemy arrested you!” I exclaimed. “I mean, sweet suffering Christ, Patrick, but hadn’t you just beaten the living shit out of a whole Brit patrol? So where did the surviving soldiers take you? The Castlereagh Police Station? The Silver City? Falls Road Police Station?”
“They realized their mistake,” Patrick said with immense dignity.
“You mean they apologized?”
“They discovered we were Americans,” he said, “and were forced to let us go.”
“Oh, it’s a rare tale,” I said, sounding deeply impressed.
“Shocking,” Seamus somehow managed not to laugh as he spoke, “nothing short of focking shocking.”
“Clear, naked, blatant brutality,” Tommy the Turd said. He was a dazzlingly handsome youth, stern-faced, machine-tanned and immaculately groomed. His father had recently bought Tommy an expensive blonde wife, which had started speculation that the Congressman was being equipped and coached for a run at the Presidency. “And unprovoked!” he added.
“So you can stuff your mockery, shitface,” Patrick said to me with a triumphant leer.
“I apologize, Patrick, I really do. I had no idea you’d fought so bravely. Now tell me why you rented out my house?”
“Is this relevant?” Robert Stitch intervened.
“Shut up,” I told him, then walked to the back of Patrick’s chair. “A five-year lease, Patrick? Five hundred a month? That’s thirty thousand bucks. You want to write me a check?”
“We’ll talk about it later, Paulie.”
“We’re talking about it now, you fuck. So how much money have you got on you?”
“Not now, Paulie!” He tried to stand up, but I put my hands on his shoulders and held him down.
“How long has the bitch been there, Patrick? Three years? That’s eighteen thousand bucks you’ve taken already! Have you got it handy?”
“Please, Paulie!” He heaved up, but I slapped him hard across the side of his head and he gave a gasp and sat down fast.
I reached into his inside jacket pocket and found his billfold that held a stack of twenty-dollar bills, maybe two or three thousand dollars’ worth. “I’ll take it as a down payment, Padraig, but I’ll be back for the rest. And in the meantime just tell Miss Sarah Sing Tennyson that you made a mistake and that she’s to get the hell out of my home. Do you understand me, Padraig?”
“You can’t take that money!” Patrick said nervously. “That’s not mine.”
“But nor is the rent you take off Miss Tennyson, Padraig.” I shoved the stack of bills into my pocket.
“But that was for the cause!” Patrick insisted.
“And so’s this,” I said, and I bent down and whispered in his ear. “I’m back home for good now, Patrick, and if I find another bruise on Maureen I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to the crows, so help me God.” I could see the sweat beading on his great shovel of a face. I straightened up and belted him across the right side of his skull again, this time so hard that he squealed with pain and almost fell off his chair. I grinned at Tommy the Turd who was looking terrified. “Naked, unprovoked, blatant brutality, Congressman. It’s the way of the Irish. Hey, Seamus, come and have a drink at the bar. We’ll plan some fishing trips, eh? Maybe catch a few blues and stripers.”
“Sounds grand, Paulie.”
I walked to the door. Robert Stitch was frozen, fearing an explosion of violence. Patrick was shaking like a leaf while Tommy the Turd looked as if he’d just pissed into his Brooks Brothers pants. Only Seamus and his lawyer were grinning. “Keep Seamus out of the hands of the Brits,” I told Chuck Sterndale.
“I’ll surely do my best, Mr. Shanahan. But some of that money you just took off Mr. McPhee would help me do it.”
“Mr. Padraig McPhee owes me thousands more, councillor, and it’s all yours, OK?” I looked at Patrick. “I’m having another drink with Charlie Monaghan now,” I told him, “and after that I’m catching a bus for the Cape. So if you want to make something out of what just happened, then you’ll know where to find me. See you in a minute, Seamus.”
I picked up my bag and went to the bar where Charlie Monaghan, who had a perfect sense for when trouble was brewing, gave me a Guinness and an apologetic shrug, then went to find something to do in the stock room. A group of kids was playing darts, but most of the room was still watching the big screen for war news. I saw Marty Doyle, Herlihy’s gopher who had driven me in Miami, scuttle across the far side of the room and I guessed he was going to inform his master that I had appeared in Boston. I waved at him, but he ignored me like a healthy man avoiding the gaze of someone stricken by the Black Death.
Seamus waited a few minutes before joining me at the bar. A couple of men who wanted some of the hero’s fame to rub off on them offered him a drink, but Seamus told them to get lost, then settled beside me and placed his foot on the brass rail. He was a man as tall as myself, with black hair and scary pale eyes. Except for the eyes it was a good face, bony and gaunt, a real portrait of a gunman. “What the fock’s going on, Paulie?” he asked quietly.
“I’m having a private row with Patrick about my Cape house.”
“I don’t mean that, and you know I don’t. Hey, you!” This was to one of Charlie’s bar assistants. “Give us a hot Powers!” His Northern Irish accent was so strong that it sounded like a “hot Parrs.” He watched as the hot water was poured over the sugar and cloves, then as a healthy slug of whiskey was added. He was not expected to pay for his drink; no real IRA man ever had to pay for a drink in the Parish.
Seamus lit a cigarette and squinted at me through its smoke. “Either you’re mad to come back here, or you’re wearing bullet-proof underpants. Your brother-in-law’s talking about you on the telephone in there and wee Marty Doyle is screaming that Michael Herlihy will cut you off at the knees, and you’re drinking a Guinness like you haven’t got a care in the world. You do know you’re in trouble, don’t you, Paulie?”
“Is that what you hear, Seamus?”
“Even the bloody Pope must have heard! Jasus! They’re saying prayers for you already.”
I laughed. I liked Seamus, really liked him. He was good crack. “You know it’s been the best part of ten years since we met,” I told him. “Can you believe that?”
“As long as that?” He shook his head in disbelief, then shot me a wary look. “But I’m hearing stories about you, Paulie, and they’re not good.”
“What are you hearing?”
“That you did a runner with some money. A lot of focking money.”
“Only five million bucks,” I said, “in gold. Be reasonable, Seamus.”
“Mother of God!” He almost choked on his hot Powers, then, because I had admitted my guilt so cheerfully, he grinned. “You’re mad! And they’ll never let you get away with it!”
“Who said I had it?” I demanded. “The boat sank.”
“And so it did, Paulie,” Seamus said, “and the Brits are giving us back the six counties for Christmas, and the Pope is giving me a cardinal’s hat. Who do you think you’re talking to, eh? Jasus, Paulie, if that boat had gone down then you were a fool not to sink with it.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t their money, Seamus. It came from the Libyans or the Iraqis. It had nothing to do with Belfast, not a thing.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear stories about Stingers.”
I gave a reluctant nod. “Fifty-three of them.”
Seamus grimaced. “I hear they paid half-a-million bucks as a deposit on the Stingers. And that you told them you were bringing the balance!”
“Herlihy should keep his damned mouth shut,” I said.
“He didn’t tell me!” Seamus said. “I heard it from Ireland, so I did. I reckon Brendan Flynn wants your guts for garters.”
“Fuck Brendan,” I said savagely.
“That’s not how it works, Paulie, and you know it. You can’t just do a runner with the money.” Seamus had turned to watch the big room with his pale, wary eyes. “You want me to talk to them? I’ll say you’ll bring the money
