The man played his voice like a hi-fi system, adjusting up and down, treble to bass. Now he was silent, at rest, his gaze wandering to the coffee table, the bottles and glasses, the tray of picked-over canapés. Jack watched him cross the room to bend over the tray and poke at the dainty sandwiches before choosing one.
Look at him.
Unconcerned, turning to watch television as the voices shrilled and he stuck a sandwich in his mouth, sucked two fingers, and wiped them on his coat.
The guy thinking they were buddies now, like they might’ve marched together last month in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. It was one thing for Jack to feel a tie, reminded of Delaneys that had come before, but this guy was presuming way too much. Jack walked over to the TV set, the annoying voices still competing, and shut them off.
Boylan, bent over the tray again, looked up. “What’re you doing there?”
“Sit down, on the sofa.”
Boylan popped half a deviled egg in his mouth. “I do, I’ll fall asleep sure. It’s half nine, the man could be coming back any time.”
Jack crossed to him raising the Beretta and put it in his face. Boylan cocked his head, still bent over, and opened his eyes and Jack could see the deviled egg in his mouth as he stopped chewing and stared.
“Sure, Jack, I’d be happy to.”
He lowered the gun to feel it against his leg. “You’ve done time, haven’t you?” Watching the man step around the coffee table to ease himself carefully into the chintz-covered sofa.
Boylan sighed. “Long Kesh. Where we smeared our shit on the walls and the lads in H-Block woke up the world with their hunger strike. The bloody Maze, some call it.”
“What were you in for?”
“Talking in church,” Boylan said. “To a bastard that touted on me. They came in the night as they do, knocked my old woman’s teeth out breaking in the bloody door, found a revolver in the dirty wash, and that was my sin. I got five Hail Marys and five years in the Kesh.” Boylan bent over, took his time choosing another canapé. “How is it we know our own kind, Jack? What was your sin? Don’t tell me you’re only a burglar. Come in here in your proper attire all lavender-scented. What would you steal, his shirts? Christ, but he’s got enough of them.”
“You’ve been here before,” Jack said.
“Now and again.” Boylan eased forward, placing his hands on his knees. “We’re going to chat, we might go down the way. Watch the naked ladies dance and have a jar. Would that be to your liking?”
“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”
“You prefer to test my nerves. Keep me on the hook till I tell you what I’m up to. See who outlasts the other, before the nasty colonel returns. Oh, I’d love to know your game, Jack, before I say.” A squint narrowed his eyes and he nodded. “I would like to believe our politics are near enough the same…” And now his eyes opened with hope. “Have you seen me before, Jack? Heard me speak at a Holy Name Communion breakfast?”
Jack said, “Will you cut the shit and tell me what you’re doing here?”
Boylan blew his breath out in a sigh. “All right, I’ll take the risk and put it flat to you. The man from Nicaragua is here for guns. You know that?”
Jack nodded.
“Well, so am I.”
Jack said, “Only he’s going to buy his.” And let it hang and saw the Irishman’s sly smile forming.
Boylan said in a soft voice, “Oh, but our minds run in harness, don’t they, Jack?”
THEY WERE IN THE UPSTAIRS dining room, seated near the wall of glass that looked out on the palmetto garden, the green foliage illuminated with pinpoints of light. Dick Nichols said, “Like having Christmas all year round, huh?” as he turned back to his dinner guests, the colonel and his silent friend from Miami.
Dagoberto Godoy said, “Feliz Navidad,” in a flat tone, not sounding too merry. “By nex’ Christmas I want to be in Managua, but I don’t think is going to happen.”
Dick Nichols looked at Crispin Reyna across from him, over the place settings of crystal-see if he could get him to open his mouth. “Why is that? You boys aren’t doing so good?” The guy from Miami shrugged, but didn’t change his cool-sour expression or say anything; which could mean he either didn’t know or didn’t give a shit. So Dick Nichols turned to the colonel. “What’s the problem, Dagaberta? I thought you had your war good as won.”
“You read in the news we have seventeen thousand freedom fighters,” Dagoberto said. “We have maybe fourteen thousand. The Communists have sixty thousand, more than that in reserve, and all those chicos plasticos in Managua, the kids with no work, nothing to do, they can put in the army when they want. They have helicopter gunships, the Mi-24 from the Soviets. We need ground-to-air missiles, the SA-7, many of them. But most of all we need to have those flying monsters of our own, the gunships.”
Dick Nichols said, “Now you’re talking about a big-ticket item.” He looked up, almost caught the eye of a good-looking woman at the next table, but the headwaiter got in the way, coming over. Dick Nichols said, “Hey, Robert, I think we could manage three more of these. Tell you what, make ’em doubles and we’ll save you a trip. Huh? How’d that be?”
“Chivas, Mr. Nichols?”
“You bet, Robert. Listen, what you do, stop by every twelve and a half minutes and see how we’re doing.” Deadpan, waiting for Robert to give him his haughty-waiter smile. “Is that a deal?”
Robert said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Nichols, my pleasure,” giving him just a flick of a smile, not looking at the Nicaraguans.
Dick Nichols was drinking scotch with them because they seemed to favor it. He drank scotch or bourbon with people in the business, drank beer with Cajun fishing guides, and chased whiskey with beer sitting with drillers over in Morgan City. It was how you learned things. Drink and grin, egg them on some and listen. He told Dagoberto and his buddy from Miami, dying to call him Crispy, that raising the capital to buy a helicopter was one thing, then you had to service the son of a bitch. An engine overhaul’d run you a hundred and twenty-five thousand or more. Hell, get a bullet in your fuel-control system, it’s like your carburetor, you’re talking forty-five Gs to replace it, and that’s just your four-seater model. He told Dagoberto he was talking big bucks to maintain a fleet. Was he going to raise enough to finance a real war or not?
Dagoberto said, “You want me to tell you the cost of making war? To pay each freedom fighter twenty-three dollars a month before we buy one bullet? A wealthy friend of yours, rich beyond measure, gives me a check for five thousand. I look at it… Do you know what it will buy? It will buy rice for a few weeks and maybe twenty thousand rounds of AK-47 ammunition. You want me to tell you what it is to buy from the Israelis? Arrange a drop shipment to Honduras and all the ones in between you have to pay?”
Dick Nichols said, “Not if it’s gonna depress you, Dagaberta.” That woman at the next table had a pretty face but picked at her dinner and didn’t appear to have much juice in her: the kind would rather go to a club meeting than slip out for a nooner. He said, “Hey, you boys slowing up?” And watched them get busy with their drinks. Couple of macho banana pickers. “I had a geologist look at a piece of land one time, he said, ‘Mr. Nichols, you hit oil on this property I’ll drink it.’ Shortsighted son of a bitch didn’t look deep enough.” Dick Nichols’s gaze slid over to the colonel idly rearranging his silverware. “But I have never forced a man to drink anything he didn’t want.” He looked up at the headwaiter and said, “Robert, you’re just in time.” Waited for the headwaiter to serve them and leave, then turned to the colonel and said, “Dagaberta, my little girl tells me you like to kill people. Is that right?”
The colonel stopped fooling with his silverware and tried to give Dick Nichols a calm, steady look. “Your daughter saw war as a civilian. Naturally she didn’ understand it. In war the purpose is to kill the enemy.”