Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (32 page)

“Nice trick,” Robin observed, taking the top card, glancing at it and smiling like a cat with too much cream around its whiskers. “Yer turn,” he said cutting the deck a second time and letting the cards splay in an arc, before coming to rest one after another in a very tidy pile.

“Impressive,” Casey commented, taking his own card with a deft flick of the wrist.

“Time to hold ‘em or fold ‘em,” Robin said with a lovely show of teeth.

“You first,” Casey said politely.

Robin flipped his card over with a delicate movement of his middle finger, making it land on his wrist.

“King of Hearts,” he crowed triumphantly.

“Glad to see some things never change,” Casey said with a grin, “but I believe,” he flicked his card with the thumb of his right hand causing it to flip over twice before landing, sweet as a whisper, on the balance of the tips of his index finger and thumb, “that ye did say twos took all. Two of hearts makes me the winner.”

Robin glared at him. “Ye black Irish bastard, where’d ye hide it—up yer sleeve, or down yer trousers?”

Casey winked. “I’ll never tell.”

“Goddamn it, Casey Riordan,” Robin said, smile splitting wide, “it’s good to see ye. Can ye be persuaded to take a drink with me?”

“Maybe just the one.”

“Just the one,” Robin said disbelievingly, “have ye gone an’ joined the Temperance League whilst I was away?”

Casey shook his head. “No but it’s more than my life’s worth to stumble home drunk.”

“Ah, she’s strict is she?”

Casey grinned. “Not so much, but she knows which privileges to deny to keep me in line.”

“The power of the female, eh? Whatever damn fool said they were the weaker sex obviously didn’t have much dealins’ with them.”

Casey cleared his throat. “I’d heard ye married, Pat wrote me in prison to tell me of it.”

“Aye, I married her,” Robin said ruefully, thumb tracing the rim of the bottle that sat between them, “knowin’ all the time that it was a damned mistake. I was no more than a pet monkey to her, her rebel Irishman that she could show off at parties with her society friends. I’m afraid I was bought for my shock value an’ little else.”

“I’m sorry to hear it man,” Casey said sincerely.

“Are ye?” Robin cut him a look, “I wouldn’t be if I were you, it’s me who should be apologizin’. Though I paid the price, she never forgot ye an’ never let me forget it either.”

“I never loved her proper,” Casey said, “though maybe I didn’t know it entirely then.”

“Aye, when did ye figure it out then?”

Casey met his look with one of his own. “When I met my own wife.”

“I noticed the ring, how long will it have been then?”

“Just the two years this April, though I don’t remember any life before her if ye’ll know what I mean.”

“Ye love her a great deal then.”

“Oh aye.” Casey smiled. “I love her to distraction an’ beyond.”

“She’s a looker?”

“Doesn’t even begin to describe her,” Casey said, “she still takes my breath away. First time I saw her I felt like someone had hit me hard in the stomach, I could barely keep to my feet.”

“How’d ye meet?”

“She was sittin’ half-naked in my brother’s kitchen, if ye can countenance it, the very day I arrived home from prison.”

“Jaysus,” Robin said, leaning forward over the table, a flicker of the sixteen-year-old he’d once been in his face. “Yer never tellin’ the truth man.”

“No, ‘tis true, she was posin’ in the altogether for a drawing that Pat was doin’.”

“Christ.” Robin grinned. “Ye always did have the damnedest luck with women.”

“Aye well,” Casey shrugged, “Pamela was different right from the first; I knew there was no playin’ with her.”

“Good Irish Catholic girl?” Robin asked, re-filling his glass and Casey’s half-empty one.

“She’s a Yank from New York originally, an’ she darkens the door of a church about once a year.”

“O-ho did ye marry yer American heiress after all?”

“No, when we first met we’d not even the two pennies to rub together.”

“Have ye a passel of babies then?”

“No,” Casey’s face was tight as he contemplated his whiskey with sudden intensity, “we had a stillborn daughter October past an’ haven’t had luck in getting pregnant since then.”

“I’m sorry man, tongue got ahead of my brain as usual.”

“Not to worry, ye couldn’t know,” Casey downed his whiskey in one swallow.

“So what brought ye back here? Tim Newsome said ye’d packed up an’ gone off to Boston a couple years back.”

Casey shook his head. “This country, it’s a wee bit like an addiction, ye know. Ye know it’s not good for ye, that it may kill ye in the end, an’ yet ye can’t resist it at the same time.”

Robin nodded in agreement. “I swore I’d left the dust of these streets behind for good, an’ yet after Melissa an’ I divorced I didn’t see where else I was to go. Wandered out west for a bit, Nevada, California an’ such. Then one day I find myself in the airport in Los Angeles bookin’ passage for a flight to Dublin. An’ I knew I was always bound back here, like a lemming to the feckin’ cliff.”

Casey laughed, despite the serious tone. “Aye, all things considered it’s a wee bit suicidal I suppose.”

“Aye,” Robin said and now there was no trace of laughter in his face, “but I’ve made my peace with Joe. I don’t suppose ye can say the same of yerself.”

“I’ve no need to, I’m not part of that world anymore,” Casey said.

“Aye well, the man remembers ye, so ye’d best watch how ye step.”

“Is that a threat?” Casey asked, hands stilled around his drink.

Robin shook his head. “Jaysus man, have ye been gone so long as to think that little of me?”

“We’ll both be changed by the time that’s passed, no?”

“Aye,” Robin replied softly, “we will at that.”

Casey dug in his pocket, emerging with a pack of cigarettes and two pound notes.

“Yer money’s no good here tonight, ye’ll let me get it,” Robin said.

Casey nodded his thanks as he shrugged his coat on. “It’s been good to see ye,” he said. “Ye should come by an’ meet my wife one of these days; we’re livin’ over the Beechmount Youth Center.”

“I’ll do that.”

“FRIEND OF YERS?” the publican asked, as the door closed behind Casey.

Robin smiled, a fleeting wistfulness gracing his features. “Aye, once upon a time he was. Best friend I ever had, like a brother really.” He stubbed the remains of his cigarette out in the ashtray, smile vaporizing along with the smoke.

“Times change though,” he said, and though his tone was mild, the barman stepped back a bit, a chill fixing itself in the back of his neck. “And ye know what they say.”

“No, what’s that?” the barman asked, thinking he’d not feel safe until the door was locked behind this man’s back.

Robin threw some money on the counter, settling up the night’s accounts.

“Ni dhiolann dearmad fiacha,”
he said, then whistled himself out the door.

The barman shivered and locked the door, there were enough lingerings of the Gaelic his grandmother had spoken to translate the man’s statement.

A debt is still unpaid, even if forgotten
.

IN THE SPRING THE POSTMAN brought Pamela an unexpected gift.

“Package from New York,” he said with a tip of his cap, after handing her the smooth manila envelope which had a pleasant heft to it. She didn’t recognize the return address, but knew who it had come from as soon as the contents spilled onto the kitchen table where she’d sat to open the package. She picked them up, hands trembling a little, itching as they had not in months for the feel of a camera.

Image after image of their life in Boston came back to her, the streets, the people—Father Kevin, the Cardinal, Charlie, Desmond, Siobhan and Pat from the last Christmas they’d spent there. Plenty of Casey, many where he looked harassed at being subjected to the aim of his wife’s camera once again, but many natural shots that she’d had great fun taking. At the bottom there was a picture of Love Hagerty, a publicity still she’d taken, during the last campaign, of him in a crowd, cuffs rolled up, tie askew, trying to make believe he was a man of the people. She dropped the photo as if it were poison, mouth suddenly dry and stomach flipping over.

There was a note inside, written in a firm, squared-away hand. Written, she saw smiling, with Lucas’ usual economy of expression.

You forgot these. You captured Hagerty nicely—the smug bastard.

Lucas

She picked the photo of Love up again and slowly tore it into strips, ripping it again and again until there was no way of recognizing the face in the photo anymore, until the blue eyes, which seemed to mock her even on paper, could no longer look out from their celluloid world.

“Pamela, what are ye doin’?”

She jumped up in startlement, scattering the torn strips of photograph onto the floor. She stood on them hastily, hand to her chest.

“What am
I
doing? What the hell are you doing, walking in here silent as a ghost in the middle of the afternoon?”

“It’s near on four o’clock,” he said raising his eyebrows and stepping out of the kitchen entryway to set his lunch kit on the counter.

“Get off the floor!” Her voice escalated into panic. Casey frowned in puzzlement. “I just washed them, they may be slippery,” she finished lamely.

“Alright,” he said, “I’ll go take my boots off.”

She swept the strips quickly into the dustpan, throwing them into the garbage and then adding in the day’s tea leaves as a deterrent to curious eyes.

“Can I come in now?” Casey popped his head around the doorway. “Or are ye goin’ to yell at me a bit more first?”

“No I won’t yell and of course you can come in, it’s your home after all. Sit down, I’ll make you tea.”

“My home,” he said, “just not my floor though, eh?” He sniffed the air. “Is there somethin’ burnin’?”

“Oh no, the biscuits,” she said with a groan, wondering if they were to ever have a meal made by her hands that wasn’t burned to a crisp.

“Medium brown, not even close to black,” Casey said, eyeing the biscuits as she took them from the oven, “things are improvin’. Ouch,” he snatched his hand back where it had just been smartly slapped in the act of taking one of the steaming biscuits. “Feelin’ a bit prickly today, are ye?”

She pointed at the table with the flipper, “Go sit, I’ll get the tea.”

He held his hands up in surrender, settling at the table with a deep sigh.

“Busy day?” she asked, setting the kettle to boil on the stove before putting biscuits and butter on a plate and setting it down in front of him.

“Aye, more than usual. Gibbons has got a real press on to get the buildin’ done; I think his little German friends must be gettin’ impatient to move in.”

“And how’s his secretary?”

Casey gave her a gimlet glance from under dark brows, “The same as always, don’t give me grief Jewel, I cannot be blamed if the woman looks at me as if I were breakfast, lunch an’ dinner. Poor thing likely hasn’t had a leg-over in a few decades.”

“Casey Riordan, what a terrible thing to say!”

“Why? It’s true, women get a pinched look about them when they’ve not had sex in a long while an’ she’s a face on her like a wee puckered prune. While you,” he grinned impudently, grabbing her backside in one large hand, “have skin smooth as cream.”

“Vain sot,” she said uncharitably, turning back to take the whistling kettle off the stove. She poured the bubbling water over the tea ball, inhaling the fragrance of bergamot and lavender, giving the clock above the plate rack a cursory glance, six and one half minutes she had learned, neither less nor more, made the perfect pot of tea.

She turned back to find her husband with a peculiar and unidentifiable look on his face.

“It’s the biscuits.” She sighed in defeat, “They’re inedible, aren’t they?”

“No,” he manfully swallowed, “they’re actually not so bad.”

“Then what’s wrong? You’ve the oddest expression on your face.”

“It’s only that I never knew ye thought me vain.”

“Casey Riordan, for heaven’s sake...” she began, trailing off as she realized he was serious.” I was only teasing.”

He gave a half-hearted smile. “I know that. It’s only I’m a wee bit thin-skinned when it comes to ye, Jewel, an’ my Da’ always said a man should know his worth but not let it go to his head.”

“Casey you’re the least vain man I know.”

“Ah, now yer just tryin’ to soothe my ego, woman.”

“No I’m not,” she said earnestly, setting the teapot on the table and putting a cup in front of Casey and one in her own place. “You’re completely unaware of yourself and your effect on other people, particularly women.”

“Now, that’s not true.” He poured the first cup of tea for himself, as he liked the slight bitterness of it and she preferred the more mellow flavor that the second pouring provided. “I’ve noticed the wee prune-faced secretary gazin’ at me, have I not?”

“It’d be hard to miss,” she passed him the milk, spooning out the half-teaspoon of sugar he always took in his tea, “she looks as though she wants to devour you whole.”