I picked up my bag and went to the bar where Charlie Monaghan, who had a perfect sense for when trouble was brewing, gave me a Guinness and an apologetic shrug, then went to find something to do in the stock room. A group of kids was playing darts, but most of the room was still watching the big screen for war news. I saw Marty Doyle, Herlihy’s gopher who had driven me in Miami, scuttle across the far side of the room and I guessed he was going to inform his master that I had appeared in Boston. I waved at him, but he ignored me like a healthy man avoiding the gaze of someone stricken by the Black Death.
Seamus waited a few minutes before joining me at the bar. A couple of men who wanted some of the hero’s fame to rub off on them offered him a drink, but Seamus told them to get lost, then settled beside me and placed his foot on the brass rail. He was a man as tall as myself, with black hair and scary pale eyes. Except for the eyes it was a good face, bony and gaunt, a real portrait of a gunman. “What the fock’s going on, Paulie?” he asked quietly.
“I’m having a private row with Patrick about my Cape house.”
“I don’t mean that, and you know I don’t. Hey, you!” This was to one of Charlie’s bar assistants. “Give us a hot Powers!” His Northern Irish accent was so strong that it sounded like a “hot Parrs.” He watched as the hot water was poured over the sugar and cloves, then as a healthy slug of whiskey was added. He was not expected to pay for his drink; no real IRA man ever had to pay for a drink in the Parish.
Seamus lit a cigarette and squinted at me through its smoke. “Either you’re mad to come back here, or you’re wearing bullet-proof underpants. Your brother-in-law’s talking about you on the telephone in there and wee Marty Doyle is screaming that Michael Herlihy will cut you off at the knees, and you’re drinking a Guinness like you haven’t got a care in the world. You do know you’re in trouble, don’t you, Paulie?”
“Is that what you hear, Seamus?”
“Even the bloody Pope must have heard! Jasus! They’re saying prayers for you already.”
I laughed. I liked Seamus, really liked him. He was good crack. “You know it’s been the best part of ten years since we met,” I told him. “Can you believe that?”
“As long as that?” He shook his head in disbelief, then shot me a wary look. “But I’m hearing stories about you, Paulie, and they’re not good.”
“What are you hearing?”
“That you did a runner with some money. A lot of focking money.”
“Only five million bucks,” I said, “in gold. Be reasonable, Seamus.”
“Mother of God!” He almost choked on his hot Powers, then, because I had admitted my guilt so cheerfully, he grinned. “You’re mad! And they’ll never let you get away with it!”
“Who said I had it?” I demanded. “The boat sank.”
“And so it did, Paulie,” Seamus said, “and the Brits are giving us back the six counties for Christmas, and the Pope is giving me a cardinal’s hat. Who do you think you’re talking to, eh? Jasus, Paulie, if that boat had gone down then you were a fool not to sink with it.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t their money, Seamus. It came from the Libyans or the Iraqis. It had nothing to do with Belfast, not a thing.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear stories about Stingers.”
I gave a reluctant nod. “Fifty-three of them.”
Seamus grimaced. “I hear they paid half-a-million bucks as a deposit on the Stingers. And that you told them you were bringing the balance!”
“Herlihy should keep his damned mouth shut,” I said.
“He didn’t tell me!” Seamus said. “I heard it from Ireland, so I did. I reckon Brendan Flynn wants your guts for garters.”
“Fuck Brendan,” I said savagely.
“That’s not how it works, Paulie, and you know it. You can’t just do a runner with the money.” Seamus had turned to watch the big room with his pale, wary eyes. “You want me to talk to them? I’ll say you’ll bring the money in soon. I’ll say it was all a misunderstanding and that none of us wants any trouble. You want me to talk to them?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said grimly.
“You mean those two who vanished? Liam and Gerry? Brendan told me about them. Are they dead?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “They’re dead.”
For a second I was tempted to confess to Seamus that I had murdered them in cold blood, but Seamus evidently did not care for he just shook his head. “Brendan doesn’t give a fock about those two. They were just supposed to look after the taxi trade and the butchers’ shops. All they had to do was slap a few faces and keep the miserable fockers in line, but no, they had to go into business for themselves, didn’t they?” Seamus meant that Gerry and Liam, despite their big tales of dead soldiers and flattened city buildings, had only ever been enforcers for the Provisional IRA’s protection rackets. Their contribution to the new Ireland had consisted of beating up Catholic barmen, shopkeepers and taxi-drivers who were late with their weekly donation to the Provos. By far the largest part of the IRA’s activities was spent in running its protection rackets, just as the Protestant gunmen did in their parts of Ulster. “But Liam and Gerry weren’t content with looking after trade,” Seamus explained. “They decided to raid a couple of sub-post-offices in Ardoyne and Legoniel and they beat the shit out of a fellow who was married to Punchy O’Neill’s sister, so Punchy complained, of course, and Brendan turned their names in to the Brits, only they managed to reach the Free State before they were ever arrested, so naturally Brendan had to look after them. But they were never any good! All they did was collect the money. Jasus, Brendan’s not going to mind them going down the drain. He’ll probably thank you for switching them off, so he will! For God’s sake, Paulie, let me talk to him. Let me make it right.”
“Have a try,” I said, though only to make Seamus happy. There was going to be no deal over the money, none at all.
“What shall I say?” Seamus asked. “That you’ll bring the money in soon?”
“Sure,” I said, not meaning it at all.
“Five million, eh?” Seamus laughed. “And I remember when you and I couldn’t find a quid between us.”
“We were never that skint,” I said, “but they were good days.”
“Aye, they were. Better than these.”
“You don’t like it here?”
“Aye! I like it well enough. Boston’s OK.” He dropped his cigarette on to the floor and killed it with the toe of his boot. His skin was pock-marked, but that blemish had never stopped the girls chasing after him, though Seamus, who seemed to have ice-water in his veins when it came to guns or bombs, was rendered helplessly nervous by women. If Roisin were alone in our Belfast apartment Seamus would sit on the back stairs rather than try to talk to her without my help. It was not that he disliked women, just that he was simply terrified of their beauty and power. “Boston’s OK,” he said again with a wry tone. “Beantown. What kind of a focking name is that for a city? Beantown.”
“So what’s wrong with Beantown?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it. People are nice enough, so they are, but it isn’t like home, is it? The beer’s focking freezing, the summers are hotter than hell, and they’re always watching focking netball on the telly! Focking men’s netball! It’s a focking girls’ game, I tell them.”
“It’s called basketball,” I said, as if he didn’t know, “and it’s Boston’s religion.”
He laughed, then shook his head. “I miss Derry, Paulie. I really miss it. I mean I know it’s not much of a place, not worth a rat’s toss really, but I miss it.”