I managed to check the ebullient flow long enough to ask where I would find Patrick.
“Patrick Ewing? He’s playing for the Knicks these days, but surely you knew that, Paulie?”
“Not that Patrick. I mean my brother-in-law.”
“Oh, Padraig? That’s what he calls himself these days. Patrick’s not good enough for him. It’s Padraig or nothing, so it is.” Charlie laughed, and no wonder, for using the Gaelic form of his name was an extreme affectation for a man like my brother-in-law who could barely speak his own language, let alone the Erse tongue. “He’s in the snug,” Charlie went on, “but he’s busy, so he is.” The snug was a back room of the Parish, much given to private business.
“Busy doing what, for Christ’s sake?”
Charlie scraped the head off the Guinness with a knife, topped up the glass, then slid it across the bar. Then, with a conspiratorial wink, he touched the side of his nose with the frothy blade. “He’s got Tommy the Turd in there.”
“The Congressman?” I sounded astonished.
“Aye! The cretin who wanted to give Saddam Hussein a whole year to get his army ready. Too dumb to succeed but too rich to fail.” A columnist in the Boston Globe had delivered that scathing verdict on Tommy the Turd and it had stuck like a hook in a cod’s gill, but the congressman’s scatological nickname had inadvertently been invented by Charlie himself who, with his lovely southern Irish accent, turned every soft “th” sound into a hard “t.” Thus “thus” became “tus,” “three” became “tree,” and House Representative Thomas O’Shaughnessy the Third had forever been transmuted into Tommy t’ Turd.
And Tommy the Turd was now in conference with my brother-in-law? “Good God,” I said. For however dumb Congressman O’Shaughnessy might be, he was still mighty exalted company for Patrick McPhee. Thomas O’Shaughnessy the Third was a thousand-toilet Irish, a Boston aristocrat whose family was one of the richest in Massachusetts. Tommy’s grandfather, Tommy O’Shaughnessy Senior, had been an immigrant from County Mayo who had made his fortune in cement manufacture. Tommy’s father had more than doubled the family’s wealth but, fearing for the company’s profits if his son ever took over the family business, Tom O’Shaughnessy Junior had purchased Thomas the Third a seat in the House of Representatives instead. Rumor had it that the safe Boston constituency had cost the family well over eight million dollars, but at least they had put Tommy the Turd where he could do no direct damage to the cement profits. “So what in the name of God is Tommy doing here?” I asked Charlie.
“Plotting, of course.”
“Plotting what?” The Guinness was far too cold, but that was something I would have to learn to live with now I was home again.
Charlie leaned across the bar and lowered his voice. “You know Seamus Geoghegan?”
“Of course I know Seamus. We’re old friends.”
“Well, you know he’s right here in Boston? And that the Brits are trying to extradite him? They failed at their first try, but now they’re having another go in an appeal court. So we need money to defend him.”
“We being the Friends of Free Ireland?” I guessed, remembering that my brother-in-law was now an official of that group.
“You got it, Paulie. Patrick’s on the committee of the Friends now, so he is. Michael Herlihy really runs it, of course, but Michael needs someone to tally up the cash and keep the membership list in order, and Patrick volunteered after he visited Ireland. Did you hear about that? Jasus, but Patrick came back from Belfast with steam coming out of his ears and there’s nothing he won’t do for Ireland these days.” Charlie chuckled and settled his elbows on the bar ready for the pleasure of telling a good story. “Last September he even hired a bus and drove a whole party of us down to Meadowlands in New Jersey. Two British Army bands were putting on a show in the Brendan Byrne Arena, and Patrick had the bright idea of slashing the tires of all the cars in the parking lot. When we reached the place he told us it was a blow for a free Ireland, so it was, but the moment a police cruiser came by, Padraig was running faster than loose shit off a hot shovel!” Charlie laughed. “Mind you, if you listen to him tell the tale now you’d think we won half the battle for Ulster that same night.”
“So now he’s touching Congressman O’Shaughnessy for Seamus’s legal aid?”
Charlie nodded, then held up a warning hand as he saw me turning to leave. “But he says he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“To hell with that. He’s family, isn’t he? You think he won’t want to welcome me home?” I winked at Charlie, picked up the Guinness and my sea-bag, and went to the snug.
There were five of them in there. Two were strangers, but I knew the other three well enough. There was Patrick himself, Tommy the Turd and, to my surprise, though I should not have been surprised at all, the bright boy of Derry, Seamus Geoghegan himself.
“Who the fuck…” Patrick started to protest when I pushed through the door, then he recognized me and his jaw literally fell open.
I dropped my sea-bag at the door. “Patrick. Congressman,” I greeted them with a nod apiece, then smiled at Seamus. “Hey, you bastard!”
“Paulie!” He stood, grinning, arms spread. “Paulie!” He came round the table and embraced me vigorously.
“Watch my fucking Guinness, you ape!” I protested at his greeting.
“You’re in dead trouble, you know that?” He whispered the urgent words in my ear, then stepped back and raised his voice. “You’re looking grand, so you are! Just grand.”
“And yourself,” I said, then placed what was left of my Guinness on the table. “How are you doing, Patrick? Or is it Padraig now?”
“We’re in executive session here,” he said very pompously.
“Fock away off,” I said in my best Belfast accent. Tommy the Third looked vaguely worried, but that was his usual expression for the Congressman had always gone through life with only one oar in the water. “You remember me, Congressman?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said, though he did not use my name, which suggested he did not know me from George Washington. “Might I introduce Robert Stitch?” Tommy went on with his customary politeness. He used courtesy as a defense against cleverness, and it worked, for he had a reputation, especially among women, of being an appealingly well-behaved and well-brought-up boy. “Robert is one of my Congressional aides,” he explained now.
Stitch was pure Boston Brahmin, a young codfish aristocrat, who offered me a curt unfriendly nod. He was reserving further judgment till he knew whether I would be a help or a hindrance to his cause.
“And that’s my lawyer, my solicitor like.” Seamus jerked his head toward a wild-haired, bearded and bespectacled man who stood and held out his hand.
“I’m Chuck Sterndale,” the lawyer said with a smile, “it’s good to meet you, whoever you are.”
“I’m Paul Shanahan,” I said.
“Paulie was with me in Belfast, so he was,” Seamus told the room happily. “The first time I did a runner from Derry and the fockers were all over my backside, Paulie put me up in his flat. We had a grand time, didn’t we, Paulie?”