Bloodland: A Novel (7 page)

‘Anyway,’ he says, after a long pause, ‘here we are.’

‘Yes,’ Conway responds, ‘here we are.’

Bolger hates this. He’s always been known for his direct, no-bullshit approach – it worked with the unions, with the employers, and even occasionally, on the international stage, with fellow heads of government – so what’s up with him now, why is he being so coy? It’s not as though Dave is any kind of a threat to him. If anything, it’s the other way around.

Two young men in suits come into the lounge and take a table near the entrance. One of them is talking on his phone, the other one is texting.

Bolger clears his throat.

‘OK,’ he says, straightening up in his chair. ‘Reason I asked you in here? That thing in the paper? About a week ago? Did you see it? In Wicklow? The fella they found in the woods?’

Conway furrows his brow. ‘No. I didn’t. I was away for most of last week.’ He pauses, then his eyes widen. ‘The
woods
?’

‘Yeah,’ Bolger says. He looks around the room, over at the two suits, back at Dave. ‘In Wicklow. A
body
.’

Conway stares at him, going pale.

Or was he pale already?

‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Has there been anything about it since?’

‘Not as far as I’ve seen, no. But still. I mean.’

‘Right.’ Conway nods, considering this.

Bolger glances around again, biting his lip.

Couple out walking their dog.

Jesus.

He looks back at Dave. ‘But if there
is
any more about it…’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. We’d have to …
do
something, wouldn’t we?’

Conway looks puzzled. ‘I’m sorry,
do
something? Like what?’

‘Ah, come on, Dave, you know what I mean. For fuck’s sake.’

Bolger hears the incipient panic in his own voice and it irritates him. Before coming down here this morning, he’d decided he was going to remain calm, not lose his cool, tease this out … maybe draw on some of the old magic …

‘We’d have to have a word with someone,’ he says.

Conway leans forward at this. ‘A word? With
who
?’ He holds his hands up. ‘Jesus, Larry, would you cop on to yourself. I know you ran the country for, what was it, three years or something, but you’re not running it now.’

Bolger flinches. ‘I
realise
that.’

‘Because I mean … that’s not how things work anymore.’

‘OK, OK,’ Bolger whispers loudly. ‘Whatever. I get it.’

He sits back in his chair, and glances around, doing his best to absorb this.

He’s not an idiot.

He just thought …

In any case, what he’s
now
thinking is … three years? It wasn’t very long, was it? Not the five or even ten years Paddy Norton had dangled before him that night in his office. He led a heave and then, eventually, after a disastrous election campaign, got heaved himself. Ignominious, inglorious, call it what you will – but holy God, those three years in the middle there were brilliant, golden … nothing like them before or since.

Certainly not since.

And he doesn’t want them being tampered with now, or reinterpreted, or rewritten in any way, or decon-
fucking
-structed because of some stupid, bloody
thing
he had shag-all to do with in the first place. But that’s exactly what he’s afraid is going to happen.

It’s what has been eating him alive, from the inside out, for the last week and a half.

‘So,’ he says eventually, a slight tremor in his voice. ‘Where does that leave us?’

Conway shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You said it yourself, there hasn’t been any further mention of it in the papers. Maybe there’s no cause for concern.’

‘Yes, but it’s bound to resurface at some point, isn’t it? At an inquest or whatever. Details. Probing. Jesus Christ.’

Bolger can’t stand himself right now. If Dave is being aloof and somewhat enigmatic here,
he’s
being whiny and insecure.

But he can’t help it.

‘Listen,’ Conway is saying, leaning forward again, ‘do you want to know why we’ve got nothing to worry about? And this is totally apart from the fact that there’s probably, I don’t know,
dozens
of bodies buried up in the Wicklow hills.’ He pauses. ‘It’s because none of
us
had anything to do with it. With what happened. It’s that simple. So there’s no traceability. There can’t be.’ He pauses again. ‘Are you with me?’

Bolger nods along. ‘Yeah, I know, I get it,’ he says, ‘no traceability, and I like that, I do, but we’re not fucking rogue pig farmers here, Dave, are we? I mean
are
we? There’s always traceability, there’s always
someone
 … some…’

He trails off, his fist clenched.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Conway says, looking around as well now, ‘take it easy.’ He draws back a little and screws his eyes up, as though to focus better. ‘Are you OK, Larry?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine.’

But he isn’t, and it’s in that very moment, as the waiter approaches – silver tray held aloft, aroma of coffee wafting through the air – that Bolger realises something. As soon as he can get rid of Dave Conway here he’s going to head straight back upstairs to the apartment. He’s going to shut the door behind him. He’s going to walk over to the drinks cabinet in the corner. He’s going to take out a bottle of whiskey. He’s going to pour himself a large measure. He’s going to fucking
drink
it.

*   *   *

The voices come, a dizzying swirl of them, hectoring and ceaseless … it’s the incomprehensible babble, he
suspects
, of Irishmen and Chinamen building the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad …

He suspects?

Rundle opens his eyes.

Yes, he –

The voices –

But where he is? For a moment he’s not sure.

Then … Manhattan. Of course. The Celestial.

He struggles up and looks at the clock on the bedside table.

4:18.

Shit
.

He throws back the covers and climbs out of bed. He goes to the door and stands for a moment in the dense nighttime stillness.

With Daisy gone to college it didn’t take long for the place to start feeling lonely, but now with Eve gone, too – even if only for a couple of weeks – it’s positively desolate.

He should have called Nora, told her to come over, to drop whatever she was doing, whoever she was with.

That he was in a platinum-rates frame of mind.

She would have understood. Nora always understands.

He walks along the corridor and goes into the living room.

He didn’t get in until after midnight – stuck there at the Orpheus with Jimmy Vaughan and Don Ribcoff, trying to piece together what had happened, trying to come up with a strategy for dealing with it.

Frantic about consequences, about fallout.

Rundle especially frantic about J.J.

He wanders over to the window and stands there, gazing out – the city below, coruscating busily.
It
may never sleep, but he wishes to fuck he could, even occasionally – wishes he could get a decent night’s shut-eye, and one without these stupid, scrappy dreams he keeps having. The Union Pacific Railroad? Irishmen and Chinamen?

For
Christ’s
sake.

He turns around and checks the time on one of the room’s displays.

4:39.

What’d that be in Paris? A quarter to eleven almost, morning-time in full swing, coffee and croissants.

Cigarettes.

Where’d he leave his phone?

He’s not going to wait any longer.

Because he should have heard from J.J. by now, even a quick reply to that text he sent last night.

He finds his cell phone next to his keys on a counter in the kitchen and tries J.J.’s number. It rings. There’s no answer. It goes into message.

Then he tries a number he has for Herb Felder, J.J.’s director of communications. It rings twice.

‘Yep?’

‘Herb. Clark Rundle.’

‘Oh. Mr Rundle. Hi.’

‘How is he?’

‘Er, he’s fine, he’s fine. A little shaken. He’s going to need some surgery on his hand, but all things considered he’s fine. He’s actually sleeping right now.’

Rundle nods. There’s nothing new in this, nothing different from what Don Ribcoff was able to tell him last night, but still, he’s relieved to have it confirmed first-hand.

‘You’re in the American Hospital?’

‘Yeah.’

OK.

So, next stage.

‘Tell me, Herb, have you thought about how to handle this?’

‘Er … I’ve
thought
about it, sure, Mr Rundle, but I’m at something of a disadvantage here.’ He pauses. ‘In that I’m not exactly in possession of all the facts. The Senator goes AWOL for a couple of days and then turns up with a serious injury? No real explanation? I’ve been dealt better hands in my time.’

Rundle clicks his tongue.

‘Right.’ He turns around and leans back against the marble counter. ‘What have the doctors said? Is he going to need a plaster cast? A brace of some kind? How’s it going to look?’

Herb Felder sighs, probably frustrated at not having his concerns addressed. When he replies his tone is more clipped than before. ‘He’ll have a brace. There won’t be any way of hiding it.’

Now Rundle sighs.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Here’s what we do. I’m going to talk to Don Ribcoff. He’s got people on the ground over there –’

‘But I thought Gideon –’

‘PR people, it’s an affiliate company. They do strategic communications. The Jordan Group.’

‘Oh.’

Oh?
Rundle makes a face. What the fuck? The guy’s feelings are hurt? ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s better if they take care of this. Better if
you
stay out of it, in fact.’

‘Why?’

‘In case it comes back and bites you in the ass, that’s why. The Jordan people will feed something into the news cycle and you just run with it. The less you know about how it got there the better.’

‘Mr Rundle, with respect, I
know
how this works.’

Rundle rolls his eyes. ‘Well then, I shouldn’t have to tell you how important maintaining distance and deniability is, should I?’

He pictures Herb Felder rolling
his
eyes.

‘No, Mr Rundle, I suppose not.’

Herb’s a smart guy and will probably go all the way with J.J., but he’s a wonk, his strong suit is policy, explaining it, packaging it.

This is a little different.

Some of the other aides around J.J. – the campaign veterans, the oppo men – would be more up to speed, more
au fait
with the techniques here, with the philosophy, but Herb’s the one he got through to.

‘So when the Senator wakes up, Herb, tell him we spoke, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And tell him to call me.’

Rundle closes the phone and puts it back on the counter. He looks around.

What does he do now?

He can either put on some coffee and work for a bit – send a few e-mails, read the online editions of the morning papers –
or
he can go back to bed and just lie there tormenting himself with different shit until it’s time to get up.

He looks at the display on the cooker.

5:01.

He knows what the old man would do. Or, at any rate, would have done. Taken advantage of the situation. Maximised it.

Rundle reaches up to an overhead shelf and takes down the coffee grinder.

Though no doubt old Henry C. would have been up at five in any case, so it’s a moot point.

He puts beans in the grinder and switches it on.

But to be fair – he thinks, holding the grinder down – fair to
himself
 … hasn’t he always maximised his opportunities? Hasn’t he transformed BRX Mining & Engineering out of all recognition, way beyond anything the old man, if he were alive today, would even comprehend?

Yeah, yeah.

He releases the grinder. Its whirr slows gradually, then stops.

So does that mean he can go back to bed?

He actually considers it for a moment.

But what would be the point? It’d only lead to more dreams. More Irishmen and Chinamen.

Forget it.

He looks around for the coffee filters.

*   *   *

From the moment he wakes up Jimmy Gilroy is aware that things are different, that there’s been a fundamental shift – tectonic plates, paradigm, take your pick. Yesterday he was working his way in isolation through a mountain of research material. This morning – bloodied, in full view – he’s caught in the barbed wire of human contact.

He gets up and goes over to the bathroom. He didn’t sleep well and he’s tired. He looks in the mirror, holds his own gaze for a moment, sees the old man, then looks away. Everyone says it, and it’s true … after a certain age you’re never alone in front of a mirror.

Sitting on the toilet, he wonders what Phil Sweeney is up to. Is he really representing the family of one of the other victims? It’s not implausible and is certainly the sort of thing he might do for a client – though it could just as easily be a strategic move, a ruse.

But if so, what’s behind it?

He gets in the shower.

Then there’s Maria. If she decides to talk to him, to trust him, what will she say? And how much of what she does say will she allow him to put in the book?

After his shower Jimmy gets dressed, puts on coffee, checks his e-mails.

Distracted throughout.

Sweeney pulling him one way, Maria the other.

Then he logs on to the Bank of Ireland website and checks his current account. He knows what he’s going to find here, but seeing it on the screen, the column of figures, is always a shock – and that’s just what he needs. Because whatever arguments there might be for not doing the book, there’s no arguing with
this
– no arguing with the fact that he has spent half of the advance and would have to return all of it if he abandoned the project.

And then have none of it.

He looks away from the screen, over at the window.

But Phil Sweeney buying out the advance is unthinkable, too. He’d rather pack it in, and starve. It’s a matter of … principle maybe, of self-respect – but also, to be honest, of what the old man might think.