Each man leaned forward upon hearing his name, squinting at the script inside those little rectangles. Rib sauce splattered one corner. Corrigan pointed to a larger patch of land outside of town, leading off the map.
“Over here is the Corrigan farm but down here in town, there are four lots owned in title and deed to the Corrigans.” His finger traced through two lots on Galway Road, another off Chestnut and a fourth on King Street. All smack dab in the center of town. “Now that’s some sweet real estate, eh boys? The Corrigans owned a saloon and a harness shop on Galway and boarding house on Chestnut. The last one was an empty lot at the time, the previous house having been burned down by some feckless bastards in the winter of eighty-eight.
“After the shoddy police investigation into my family’s murder, these properties were held in trust to the town. A year later, the lots were sold off for a pennies on the dollar to prominent families. The McGrath’s bought the tack shop, James Hitchens purchased the boarding house to expand his hotel next door. The saloon was snatched up by Roger Jamesons for a steal. The vacant lot sold two years later to the Murdy’s, purchase price unknown. Maybe a dirty handjob to the mayor.”
Pat McGrath leaned back, smelling a sting was coming after the set-up. He pushed back his chair. “I’m not listening to anymore of this horseshit.”
“It is appalling, isn’t it?” Corrigan chucked up a hearty laugh. “The brazenness of it all. The same men who slaughtered my family snatch up their land at a cut rate not a year after they’re in the ground. Proof of their bloodied hands, clear as day.”
Joe Keefe told him to go to Hell and stood, ready to follow McGrath.
“Oh come on, boys. You haven’t even heard the best part.” Corrigan held up the map again. “Look at these lots. Primo real estate, making the wrong people rich for a hundred years. I want them back.”
The sting. The racket of crickets filled the silence. Thompson declared him a crazy son of a bitch and a fraud to boot. All agreed.
“That’s my counter offer,” said Corrigan. “Take it or leave it.”
McGrath was incredulous. The stupid bastard was bargaining from no position. “Counter offer? To what?”
“Your clumsy attempt to buy me off, using old Jim Hawkshaw as your puppet.” Corrigan gauged their confused looks correctly. Shot back. “I assume the right honourable mayor told you of her manoeuvre?”
Kate shrank under the weight of all those eyeballs. She held her head high and utilized the same tactics of any tyrant big or small. Denial and bluff. Brinkmanship. “That’s enough of your conspiracy theories, Mister Corrigan. Take your paranoia elsewhere.”
The councilmen grumbled in agreement, grunting support for their mayor.
Corrigan feigned a look of martyrdom, all forlorn suffering not dissimilar to Joan in the flames. “I tried, I really did. But since you won’t listen to reason or morality, we can fight it out the old fashioned way. In the courts.”
McGrath laughed at him. “You’re suing us?”
“For the return of stolen lands. For conspiracy to profit from a crime. And the aggregate revenues lost during the last hundred years.”
“Then we’ll see you in court. Goodnight Kate.” McGrath tossed his glass on the table and huffed away. The other councilmen followed. The cook doused a pitcher of water on the grill and the coals hissed up foul and cruel.
The trio on the bandstand held their instruments still. Stranded on the old gazebo, unsure of what the hell was happening. One of them flipped open his guitar case, ready to pack it in.
“Dirty old town!” Corrigan stomped up the steps of the bandstand, champagne bottle in hand. “That old Pogues tune. You know the one.” He dug into a pocket and tossed a bill into the open guitar case. A C note. “Play it!”
One picker eyed the other, neither remembering the song too well. The fiddle player struck it out on her chords, doing her best but all she could remember was the chorus. The pickers followed her lead, the melody recalling only the chorus so they sang that.
Kate rose and followed the council up the path. Camaraderie in her bones. She couldn’t remember the last time all of them had been agreement. It felt good.
Corrigan struck up the tune, adding his voice, bellicose and out of key, to the harmonies of the trio.
Dirty old town!
Dirty old town!
Bill Berryhill was not an advocate of the festival. Just the thought of a bunch of tourists plodding around town in their Crocs and yoga pants made him sick. Taking pictures and gawking, driving slow in their SUV’s. And now this, clogging the bar at the Dublin. The damn festival hadn’t even started and they were already here, wasting oxygen in his refuge.
“The hell are you doing, Pudsy?” He elbowed his way in and leaned over the bar. “Giving the drinks away?”
Puddycombe was hustling to keep up, even with Jeanine winging behind the bar with him and two girls on the floor. Smiling through it all, like only Puddy could. Eating it all up, playing the host and ringing the till. “Not bad, huh?”
Bill sneered. “Can’t these rubes go someplace else? Like Gator Bob’s?”
“You be nice, Billy. It all trickles down, son. You’ll see.”
Bill waved a dead pitcher over the bartop. “Well if you’re not too busy, can you see to the regulars who keep you open in the winter months?”
The bar owner hooked the pitcher under the spigot and let it fill while he poured a row of shooters. Berryhill watched the Kahlua and Baileys pour into the shot glasses and shook his head. Christ on a popsicle stick.
He felt an elbow in his ribs and snapped around, ready to lay into some tourist. Hitchens, squeezing his way through the mob. “Bill, where the hell did all these people come from?”
“Dunno but looking at all the faggot-ass hair and stupid clothes, my guess is Toronto.”
“Could be worse, I suppose.” Hitchens winked at Puddycombe. “We may yet get some Quebekers.”
When Puddy set down the fresh pitcher and pint of his usual, Hitchens waved at them to lean in. “You hear what happened down at the fair grounds? About Corrigan’s latest stunt?”
“What’s the bastard done now?”
“According to Thompson, the son of a bitch laid claim to half a dozen properties in town. Says the land used to belong to his family and was sold off illegally or some shit.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Puddycombe shouted back. “You can’t cry foul a hundred years after the fact.”
“He said it’s proof of the conspiracy. The land sold off cheap to the men who killed his family.”
Berryhill dug into a basket of pretzels. “What land is he talking about?”
“McGrath’s hardware. Murdy’s shop. Doug’s car dealership.”
“Doug’s place?” Bill’s employer, Doug Murdoch. Bill spent three days of the week there as an unlicensed mechanic and tow truck driver. Occasional repo man. “Dude’s crazy, thinks he can swindle that horseshit.”
“Ballsy, huh?” Hitchens sipped his pint. “The sonovabitch just keeps upping the ante, cranking us up. I mean, what the hell is he after?”
“Gotta be a payoff,” Puddy said. “He’s extorting us to make him go away.”