“That doesn’t mean,” came Liam’s slow, soft voice, “that we’re willin’ to surrender what’s ours. Guns, yes. Money … no. We have our widows-and-orphans fund, with plenty in need, and our own loyal boyos maimed or their minds frayed like denim at the knees.”
“You want Kathleen’s score,” Max said.
Liam’s pale eyes glinted. “Correct. You don’t be needin’ to put any polish on it, as you see. That money was donated by our American kin. We need it for putting our people right here in Ulster.”
“And you think we’d know its whereabouts?” Gandolph asked.
“I think if you don’t, you’d know how to find it.”
“The woman is dead!” Gandolph said. “My friend was almost killed.”
“And why would that be?”
“Some avenging Irish soul from the past, perhaps?” Gandolph was now taking over negotiations.
Max realized they had played these roles before—one leading, one subsiding, always in tune, always partners. He watched the older man as Liam would see him: shrewd, a bargainer, a man with the confidence of unspoken but serious connections and faith in his partner.
Damn! Max thought. I am a lucky man.
And he wondered if he’d been as lucky in love recently, and his traitorous memory also had betrayed him there.
“You both know Las Vegas,” Liam was saying. “We’d go there ourselves, but we’re village boys, as lost there as those be-damned nine/eleven terrorists who wanted a last girly show for all their hatred of the West.”
“You’re expecting my friend,” Gandolph said, “to go back to where he was almost killed?”
Liam eyed Max. “He was ‘almost killed’ a lot of places and had the nerve to come back here, didn’t he?”
“We know and honor loyalty,” Flanagan put in. “It’s kept us alive long enough to see peace. We just want what’s ours.”
“What do you want?” Liam asked.
“The whole truth about Kathleen O’Connor,” Max said. “That woman dogged my life from boyhood on and created plenty of collateral damage.”
“You lived to see her dead, man,” Liam urged. “Let her go.”
“People died because of her. I killed indirectly because of her. Truth is still truth,” Max said, “and we haven’t found all of it.”
“Granted,” Liam said. “We can help you find what you want, if you find, and deliver, what we want.”
“How are we to know the money is for the community good, as you claim?” Max asked.
“We are all brothers of Erin,” said Liam.
“Money is the root of all evil,” Max answered. “Neither my friend nor I need Kathleen’s … dark dowry. If we find it, we could donate it to the organization of your choosing.”
“And ask if we trust all the bureaucrats who run cities and countries any more than we trust you two.”
“We’ll be in Belfast a while longer,” Gandolph said. “I’m sure we can negotiate further.”
“And you have other contacts here willin’ to lay out Kathleen’s trail of broken hearts and blood money?” quiet Flanagan said, slamming a fist to the tabletop.
“Perhaps,” Gandolph said. “You of all men know that negotiations are always open and situations change and men’s motives and hearts with that.” He stirred to get up, being older and more likely to telegraph his intentions.
Liam and his friends leaned tight across the table as the headman spoke. “You’re not leavin’ until you commit to a deal. We’re alone here and outnumber you, a cripple and an old man who’s not been out in the field for too many years.”
Max stood, pushing the wooden table over on them as Gandolph drew two collapsible metal canes from his trench-coat pockets and snapped them to full length into stiffening steel whips.
By then Max had smashed two pint glasses on the table’s downed edge and was holding them like jagged glass fists.
The pair backed to the door, an eye on the barkeep, wary behind his sleeve-polished wooden barrier. The reek of spilled beer steamed up from the damp wood like purified piss.
Max and Gandolph pushed open the heavy pub door with their backs and inhaled the night chill and mist on matching deep breaths.
“They let us go because they can find us anytime they want,” Gandolph said, after a deep gulp of air.
“And we them.” Max darted his eyes up to the lit-up pub name above. O’Flaherty’s.
“It’s good to have contacts on both sides of the law,” Gandolph said. “Peace doesn’t mean total harmony.”
“We don’t need Kathleen’s blood money,” Max agreed, “but we need to find out more about where it came from and where it is now. We know she was haunting our backyard recently. Damned if this little set-to hasn’t exercised my memory as well as my legs. Don’t tell me I’m going to have to go back to Vegas to track down the last bloody acts of Kitty the Cutter and look up that little redheaded spitfire you like so much.”
“Oh, Max,” Gandolph said, mopping his brow with a fine white linen handkerchief he pulled from a breast pocket. “You’ll be the death of me yet.”
“Meanwhile, let’s get the hell back to our hotel,” Max proposed.
“And pick up a Big Mac on the way.’ ”
“I hope you’re referring to a firearm.”
“Sounds like we’d have better luck at that back in Vegas, after all.”
Getting Their Irish Up
Blackie and Blackjack (people are so unimaginative in coining street monikers for strays, but that is how I was named, back in my Palo Alto days) are running alongside me now that we are in the tunnel, aka Chunnel.
“This is a terrific shortcut, Mr. Midnight,” Blackie tells me. (I have instructed them in proper protocol and respect.)
“I love all these wall-to-wall billboards,” Blackjack adds. “I love to watch people-fights.”
“The urge is mutual among species, unfortunately,” I say. “But these images are from motion pictures. They form what is called a diorama, and when those tracks are filled with automated vintage cars, the place will be Slaughter City for ignorant cross-traffic. Keep your eyes peeled for rats and cut the chatter. We need to save our wind for a long subterranean journey with a pyramid climb at the end of it.”
“Wow, Mr. Midnight,” Blackie says. “You sure know your way around exotic Las Vegas nightlife.”
What can you do with a pair of wet-behind-the-ears two-year-olds? Granted, the ear wetness is from grooming, which is commendable, but I could use some second wind here.
“Say, what is that big silver metal door?” Blackjack asks, as I skid to a stop.
“Our path to enlightenment, boys, and reunion with our clan. It is called a ‘safe,’ but it was not very for the murder victim found inside recently. See that rat hole to the side of it? Dive in there.”
“Huh? We are not hungry.”
“Look, Blackie, I do not care about the state of your stomach. You should not have been duping the Crystal Phoenix chef and gorging yourselves in Midnight Louise’s place. Now I want you two to shimmy-shimmy inside there until you get behind the safe. The rat-size tunnel widens there to boxer size.”
“Ooh, people-fighting,” Blackjack says, sparring with his front mitts.
“I meant dog-breed boxer-size. Just shut up and move.”
Both are still street-skinny, which I cannot say for myself. I hope they will push the passage a wee bit wider for me when I bring up their rears. And do not make any smart remarks bringing up my rear. I am not in the mood.
Anyway, I finally writhe my way through, leaving too many excellent side hairs along the trail. Blackjack and Blackie are waiting in the dim light of the tunnel beyond, their eyes gleaming the same eerie green I am told mine do when viewed at the right angle in the dark. I instruct them further.
“We need to be quiet once we reach the big warehouse under the Neon Nightmare. You will hear much thumping and caterwauling and chaos from the nightclub. Ignore it. We will walk secret ways known only to Bast and me.”
The luminescent greens of their eyes grow rounder. That is what I need, cowed underlings. Pity there are no humans I can call on to do the job, but this requires the small and wiry underground fighter.