Burke approached P. J. Clarke’s at Fifty-fifth Street, an old nineteenth-century brick relic, spared by the wrecker’s ball but left encapsulated in the towering hulk around it—the Marine Midland Bank Building, which resembled a black Sony calculator with too many buttons.
Burke walked in through the frosted glass doors, made his way to the crowded bar, and ordered a beer. He looked around for familiar faces, an informant, an old friend, someone who owed him, but there was no one. Too many familiar faces missing this afternoon.
He made his way back into the street and breathed the cold north wind until his head cleared. He continued to walk, stopping at a half-remembered bar, an Irish-owned shop, or wherever a group of people huddled and spoke on the sidewalk. His thoughts raced rapidly and, unconsciously, he picked up his pace to keep abreast of the moving streams of people.
This day had begun strangely, and every incident, every conversation, added to his sense of unreality. He took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and headed south again.
Burke stared up at the gilt lettering on the window of J. P. Donleavy’s, a small, inconspicuous pub on Forty-seventh Street. Donleavy’s was another haunt of the quasi-IRA men and barroom patriots. Occasionally there would be a real IRA man there from the other side, and you could tell who he was because he rarely stood at the bar but usually sat alone in a booth. They were always pale, the result of Ireland’s perpetual mist or as a result of some time in internment. New York and Boston were their sanctuaries, places of Irish culture, Irish pubs, Irish people without gelignite.
Burke walked in and pushed his way between two men who were talking to each other at the bar. He slipped into his light brogue for the occasion. “Buy you a drink, gentlemen. A round here, barkeeper!” He turned to the man on his left, a young laborer. The man looked annoyed. Burke smiled. “I’m to meet some friends in P.J.’s, but I can’t remember if they said P. J. Clarke’s, P. J. O’Hara’s, P. J. Moriarty’s, P. J. O’Rourke’s or here. Bloody stupid of me—or of them.” The beer came and Burke paid for it. “Would you know Kevin Michaels or Jim Malloy or Liam Connelly? Have you seen them today?”
The man to Burke’s right spoke. “That’s an interesting list of names. If you’re looking for them, you can be sure they’ll find you.”
Burke looked into the man’s eyes. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
The man stared back but said nothing.
Burke smelled the sour beer on the man’s breath, on his clothes. “I’m looking, too, for John Hickey.”
Neither man spoke.
Burke took a long drink and put his glass down. “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m off to the Green Derby. Good day.” He turned and walked down the length of the bar. An angled mirror reflected the two men huddled with the bartender, looking at him as he left.
He repeated his story, or one like it, in every bar that he thought might be promising. He switched from whiskey to stout to hot coffee and had a sandwich at a pub, which made him feel better. He crossed and recrossed Third Avenue, making his way southward. In every bar he left a forwarding address, and at every street corner he stopped and waited for the sound of shoes against the cold concrete to hesitate, to stop behind him. He was trolling, using himself as bait, but no one was rising to it today.
Burke picked up his pace. Time was running out. He looked at his watch; it was past four, and he had to be at the zoo at four-thirty. He stopped at a phone booth. “Langley? I need five hundred for Ferguson.”
“Later. You didn’t call for that.”
Burke lit a cigarette. “What do you know about a Major Bartholomew Martin?”
There was a long silence on the phone, then Langley said, “Oh, you mean the British Intelligence guy. Don’t worry about him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.” Langley paused. “It’s very complicated … CIA …”
“Tell me about it someday. Anything else I should know?”
“The FBI has finally decided to talk to us,” Langley said. “They’ve uncovered an arms buy in New Jersey. A dozen M-16 rifles, a few sniper rifles, pistols, and plastic explosives. Also, a half dozen of those disposable rocket launchers. U.S. Army issue.”
“Any other particulars?”
“Only that the buyers had Irish accents, and they didn’t arrange for shipping to Ireland the way they usually do.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“I’ll say—what are they waiting for?”
Burke shook his head. “I don’t know. The parade has less than an hour to run. The weapons should be a clue to the type of operation.”
“Martin thinks they’re going to knock over a British bank down in the Wall Street area. The Police Commissioner has diverted detectives and patrolmen down there,” said Langley.
“Why should they come all the way here to knock over a British bank? They want something … something they can only get here.”
“Maybe.” Langley paused. “We’re really not getting any closer, are we?”
“Too many targets. Too much beach to guard. The attackers always have the initiative.”
“I’ll remember that line when I stand in front of the Commissioner.”
Burke looked at his watch. “I have to meet Ferguson. He’s my last play.” He hung up, stepped into Third Avenue, and hailed a cab.
Burke passed through the open gate beside the armory. The zoo looked less sinister in the light of day. Children with parents or governesses walked on the paths, holding candy or balloons, or some other object that was appropriate to their mission and the setting.
The Delacorte clock showed four thirty. Brass monkeys in the clock tower suddenly came to life, circled the bell with hammers raised, and struck it. As the mast gong sounded a recording played “MacNamara’s Band.”
Burke found Ferguson in the Terrace Restaurant at a small table, his face buried in The New York Times. Two containers of tea steamed on the table. Burke pulled up a chair opposite him and took a container.
Ferguson lowered the newspaper. “Well, the word on the street is that there is to be a robbery of a major British bank in the Wall Street area.”
“Who told you that?”
Ferguson didn’t answer.
Burke looked over the zoo, scanning the men on the benches, then turned back to Ferguson and fixed him with a sharp look.
Ferguson said nothing. “Major Martin,” Burke said, “is what is known as an agent provocateur. What his game is, I don’t know yet. But I think he knows more than he’s telling any of us.” Burke ground out his cigarette. “All right, forget what Martin told you. Tell me what you think. Time is—”
Ferguson turned up the collar of his trench coat against the rising wind. “I know all about time. It’s very relative, you know. When they’re kneecapping you in that new way with an electric drill instead of a bullet, then time moves very slowly. If you’re trying to discover something by dusk, it goes quickly. If you were ten minutes early instead of late, you might have had the time to do something.”
“About what?”
Ferguson leaned across the table. “I just came from the Cathedral. John Hickey, who hasn’t been inside a church since he robbed Saint Patrick’s in Dublin, was sleeping in the first pew. The old man wears a beard now, but I’d know him anywhere.”