The Bloomsday Dead (25 page)

“Cheers,” Fergal said, grabbing his pint right out of my hand and drinking half of it in one gulp and then belching. It was tough to be seen with Fergal. He played quite the rube. Eccentric one too. He was dressed in a tweed jacket and trousers and tatty woolen waistcoat. He had a red beard that looked like a case of scrum pox gone awry. Andy claimed that Fergal was a sophisticated thief back in the OC, but it was hard to credit.

I sat down, looked at Andy, and we both took a sip of beer.

“It’s ok.”

“How’s your place?” he asked.

“Fucking shitehole.”

“Be it ever so humble . . .”

“Ok, boys, listen,” Fergal said, looking serious and conspiratorial. With the getup he was in, the conspiracy could have involved a plot against Queen Victoria, but more likely it was about the girls.

Fergal was checking out a brazen wee hussy with a six-inch-high beehive hairdo, hello-sailor lipstick, and pancake to cover the acne. She was with her older sister, who, after a great deal of pestering, was obviously taking her out on a Saturday-night thrill. Neither sister was going home with anyone tonight.

“Sixteen,” Andy offered.

Fergal looked at me.

“Not sixteen, no way,” I said. “I know for a fact how old she is.”

“Seventeen?” Fergal suggested.

I shook my head again, taking a big sip of my pint to keep up the suspense.

“That girl is fourteen years old,” I said at last.

Both of them were suitably impressed, taking unsubtle double takes.

“No way,” Andy said.

“Believe it, kiddo. I’ll go ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

They didn’t believe me. I asked her. She said she was twenty-one and I told her I heard there was going to be a police raid to check IDs. The whole table cleared out five minutes later and once the rumor was out, four other tables after that.

Andy’s round. He went to the bar, but despite being a giant he had some trouble getting served. Fergal, fully recovered now from his paint-thinner experience, was in a reflective mood.

“Yon Andy boy is encumbered not just by imposing stature but also by his astounding lack of bar presence,” Fergal said.

“Explain.”

“Certainly. He’s not ugly, not handsome. And to have presence at the bar you need to have either a very handsome noticeable face or a very ugly noticeable face. Andy is right in the middle,” Fergal said.

“Whereas you, Fergal, are a big lanky bugger with a horrible beard, the dress sense of a street person, and a nose that’s bigger than some of the smaller hills in the Netherlands,” I said, just to see how far I could push Fergal boy. But he wasn’t fazed.

“All very true, and explains why I never have to wait more than thirty seconds at the bar. You get served very quickly because, I conjecture, the barman is thinking that anyone with your evil eyes is liable to do just about anything if he doesn’t get his pint pretty sharpish.”

“I take evil eyes as a compliment,” I said.

“As you should.”

Andy came back and asked what we were talking about.

“Just oul shite,” I told him truthfully, and got stuck into beer number three.

Fergal finished his pint and looked around the bar.

“Boys. Sorry I brought you. This place is a bust, let’s get over into the city,” he said with ennui. We all agreed, drank the rest of our bevvies, and grabbed our coats from the backs of the chairs. We had all just stood up when the bar door opened and Scotchy Finn came in.

Scotchy Finn. Finally.

“There he is,” Andy said. “That’s Scotchy, he bloody said he was coming, but you never know with him.”

“That’s Scotchy?” I asked, staring at a dangerously thin, paleskinned, orange-haired, bucktoothed, sleekit wee freak.

“That’s him,” Andy insisted.

I hadn’t encountered Scotchy yet, but his reputation had preceded him. He was supposed to have met me at the airport, but he hadn’t. He was supposed to have gotten me an apartment in Riverdale, but he’d found me one in Harlem instead. He was supposed to have taken me around the city, but he’d left all that to Andy. To cap it all, the story was that if Sunshine liked me, Scotchy was going to get his own crew, with the three of us under him. Our new boss.

Scotchy saw us and beamed from ear to ear.

“Boys, you weren’t heading out, were you? Rounds on me,” Scotchy said, and threw his jacket into the corner. We all sat down again. Scotchy went to the bar and came back almost immediately with four pints and whiskey chasers.

“Death to death,” Scotchy said, and knocked back his whiskey.

We all followed suit.

“You’re the newie, right?” he asked me.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Heard you were in the fucking British army,” he asked aggressively.

“Aye, right again.”

“Well, ya bloody collaborator, I spent my time blowing up the British army, trapping them, killing ’em, sniping them, down in South Armagh,” Scotchy said with a touch of hammy malevolence.

“Aye, I thought I could detect a culchie inbred-hillbilly accent. South Armagh. Surprised you had the time to fight the Brits when you were fucking your sister and the various domestic farm animals that were handy, not that you could probably tell the difference between your sister and the farm animals,” I said, and took a drink of my pint.

I wasn’t sure how he would react to that and I was nervous for about half a second before Scotchy opened his fangy chops, grinned, and broke into a laugh.

“I think I’m going to like you, Michael,” he said.

“Well, I’d love to say the same, but I’m not too sure, Scotchy,” I told him.

“Forsythe, is it? Like Bruce Forsyth, that fucking shite comedian?”

“Aye, like Bruce Forsyth the shite comedian,” I said.

“Ok, from now you’re fucking going to be Bruce,” Scotchy said.

“I don’t think so, mate,” I replied.

Scotchy ignored me and turned his attention to Andy and Fergal.

“Well, boys, how have you been while I’ve been dodging bullets and making us all rich in Washington Heights?”

“Good,” I said, still speaking for the group, my first attempt to assert my dominance over them and, hopefully, one day over Scotchy, too.

Scotchy ignored me again, then went on to tell us what particular mischief he’d been up to all night with Big Bob and Mikey Price and the rest of the crew. Extortion, muscle, threats—fun stuff. After a couple of bloody anecdotes, Scotchy looked at me and grabbed me by the arm.

“Come on, new boy, get those down your neck and it’s back to my place. Having a party for ya. Just decided. Get youse fixed up yet, even Andy over there, the big scunner.”

We wolfed our pints, barely able to keep up with Scotchy as he got in another and ordered a keg of beer to carry out. Scotchy tried to pull the remaining jailbait, but no one would go with him. He went to the bog while Fergal and I lugged the keg to Scotchy’s Oldsmobile.

“Are you sure you should be driving, Scotchy?” Andy asked him as we got in the back. Scotchy swiped at the top of his head.

“Ok, ok, I was only asking,” Andy muttered.

Scotchy put the car in gear and spun the wheels out of the car park. Scotchy was a terrible driver—even when fully sober he fiddled continually with the washer fluid, the mirror, and the radio; and now he was half tore.

Twice he almost got us into accidents, one of them with a police car.

He flipped the stations and when Karen Carpenter’s warble came on, Andy asked him to leave it.

“I like that song,” Andy said, in vino veritas.

“I like it too,” Scotchy concurred.

I rolled my eyes at Fergal, but he also appeared to like the Carpenters, making me think that I alone in the vehicle hadn’t been body-snatched.

We arrived at Scotchy’s pad in Riverdale at 10:30. Nice place, with a balcony and a view across the Hudson. Scotchy had done minimal decorating. A few posters of Who and Jam concerts he’d attended. A sloppy paint job in the kitchen. A proud display of beer bottles from all over the world on his long mantelpiece.

Scotchy showed us to the liquor cabinet and started making phone calls. By twelve, there must have been forty people there, but only about a quarter of them girls. At least the booze was good. Scotchy had boosted a huge case of single malts from the distributor. Twelve-year-old Bowmore, seventeen-year-old Talisker, and an Islay laid down in the year of my birth.

Just after midnight, Sunshine showed up. A saturnine, balding Steve Buscemi type who was Darkey White’s number two. I’d met him once before, when he’d interviewed me about working for Darkey. Even more than Scotchy’s, it was Sunshine’s call whether I got the job or not, so I made a point of talking to him about movies old and new. Sunshine liked me and introduced me to Big Bob Moran and his brother David. Bob was already drunk and complaining about the Dominicans who were invading his neighborhood in Inwood. He was going to move back out to Long Island, he said. David Moran was a more complicated character, who worked directly for Mr. Duffy, the reputed head of the entire Irish mob in New York City. David and Sunshine had a lot in common: they’d both gone to NYU, were both thinkers. Both white-collar types, unlike me and Scotchy on the bloody coal face.

“Sunshine says you’ll be joining him very shortly,” David Moran said.

“He hasn’t told me yet, at least not formally.”

“Sunshine has heard great things about you; you ran a couple of rackets when you were a teenager in Belfast and you were even in the army for a while. Remember, we’re all one big family here,” he said. He patted me on the cheek.

Scotchy noticed Bob, David, and Sunshine for the first time and came running over. He shook hands and dragged them outside to see his new car.

Andy found me and took me to one side.

“Listen, Michael, let me tell you who’s just arrived,” he said in hushed tones.

“Is it the pope? Madonna?” I said breathlessly.

“Bridget Callaghan,” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“Pat’s wee girl, the youngest. She’s just back from university. She’s dropped out, so don’t say anything about that, it would upset her, ok?”

I nodded. But there was something else. I could read Andy like a book.

“What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“Tell me.”

Andy sighed.

“Darkey’s very fond of her, she’s very beautiful. Darkey treats her like a daughter. He told me specifically he wants me to look after her now she’s back in New York, so she doesn’t get in any trouble. Now, Michael, that means you, too, I don’t want you trying to go off with her, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Promise me,” Andy said.

“Jesus, I promise,” I said.

“Ok, let’s go meet them, she’s got a couple of wee friends with her, I think.”

“And can I ask them out?”

“’Course.”

We met Bridget.

She had dyed blond hair and freckles. It might be that she was beautiful, but I couldn’t get a good look at her under the party lights. She offered her hand. I shook it.

“Michael Forsythe,” I said.

“Andy told me you were here. I’m Bridget. He says you’ll be working for him,” Bridget said in a bubbly New York accent.

“Yeah, right, I’ll be working for Andy,” I said sarcastically.

“Listen, it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not stopping, the last place on earth I’d want to be on a Saturday night is a party at Scotchy’s house.”

“I can see why,” I said.

There was a long awkward pause during which I identified her perfume as something refined from citrus zest.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said and turned to find her friends. I watched her bum sashay through the party. She gave Andy a friendly kiss on the cheek. Much to my surprise, I found that I was jealous. I quickly barged through the crowd and stood beside her.

“You don’t have to go yet,” I said to her.

“I do, I have to find my friends,” she muttered.

“Yeah, Michael won’t keep you,” Andy said.

“Well, Andy won’t keep you, he has to get back to listening to the Carpenters,” I attempted weakly.

“Being a wetback, Michael has to go home early and hide from the INS,” Andy said, giving me the skunk eye.

“At least I don’t have zero bar presence,” I said.

“At least I don’t smoke,” Andy replied.

“At least I’m old enough to smoke.”

“I’m the same age as you,” Andy said.

“Why don’t you two boys just kiss and make up,” Bridget mocked.

Andy and I were put in our place, and we both laughed. Bridget was quick as well as cute, and I was now officially captivated. I tapped Andy on the back five times, which meant that all I wanted was five minutes alone with her. He gave me a suspicious look but went off to refill his drink.