Jig (20 page)

Linney said, ‘Let me tell you what I think. The money's gone and that's a mystery. I've never been happy with mysteries, Jock. Detective stories, bodies inside locked rooms, that kind of thing never appealed to me. I like facts. The harder the better. This gun, for instance. It's a hard fact. Right?'

Mulhaney nodded in a sullen way.

Linney ran the palm of one hand over the weapon. It was almost a lover's caress. The gun might have been the leg of a mistress. ‘I don't give a shit right now about who took the money because the only hard fact I can see is that some guy is coming here from Ireland. And that makes me very unhappy. Do you think he's going to sit down and discuss the missing money over a friendly cup of tea?'

Mulhaney said nothing. He hadn't given a lot of thought to this shadowy Irishman who seemed to terrify everybody but himself.

‘The fuck he is,' Linney went on. ‘If I was that guy I'd have a bad attitude. I wouldn't be disposed towards kindness. I wouldn't make polite inquiries. I wouldn't trust a fucking soul. If I was him, I'd be ready to do violence.' Linney paused, gazing at Mulhaney's florid face. ‘Suppose this character runs you down, Jock. What would you tell him?'

‘I'd give him Kevin Dawson,' Mulhaney said quickly.

‘What if he doesn't believe you? Who would you give him next? Cairney? Me?'

Mulhaney shuffled his feet in the sand. He was always out of his depth when it came to hypothetical matters. Ifs played no role in Mulhaney's world. He didn't answer Linney's question.

‘This guy isn't going to be your friend, Jock. You better understand that.'

Mulhaney smiled now. He was uncomfortable with the way Linney was talking. ‘How would you behave if he came to you?' he asked.

Linney made a gesture with the weapon. ‘I'm ready for anything,' he answered.

‘Jesus,' Mulhaney said. ‘You talk as if this guy's going to find us. I think you're paranoid.'

‘Is there another way to be?' Nicholas Linney asked.

10

New York City

Frank Pagan was very cold on the rooftop. He wore a heavy overcoat and a plaid scarf and thick gloves, but even so the wind squeezed through his clothing. He sometimes walked in circles, stamping his feet for warmth, but he never strayed far from the view overlooking the entrance to St. Finbar's Mission. It was just after 8:30
A.M
. and the frozen wind, which had been blowing all night, hadn't died with daylight.

He could see Zuboric's field agent parked down the block a little way, a young man called Orson Cone, a graduate of Brigham Young University in Utah. He was keen, bright-eyed. He'd been with the agency for only eighteen months and he was still fresh enough to think stake-outs were a big deal. Earlier, when Pagan had, talked with Orson Cone, he'd noticed a copy of
The Book of Mormon
lying face down on the backseat of the car. With his straight white teeth and closely cropped fair hair, Cone reminded Pagan of a surfer, one who'd had an encounter with Jesus out on the waves.

Cone had nothing to report. He'd been sitting inside his car for about ten hours and, apart from the clientele that drifted in and out of St. Finbar's, he'd seen nothing of interest. Since there was only one exit, and Cone hadn't seen Tumulty leave the place, it was a safe assumption the Irishman was still inside. Pagan, still dislocated by the change of clocks, went into a rundown building that housed two import-export companies, a shabby PR outfit called Images, and a telephone answering service, and climbed the unlit stairs to the roof. There, surrounded by scrawny city pigeons, he watched the street.

Frank Pagan yawned. Last night, when he left Zuboric, he'd walked several blocks back to the Parker Meridien. He'd stood for a while in the bar, nursing a scotch and soda and studying one of the waitresses, an attractive young girl with a certain air-headed approach to things, a giggler who was forever making the wrong change or dropping glasses. Her name, she told him, was Mandi with an
i
. He'd wondered about introducing himself, just to see where it might lead. But he couldn't imagine performing an act of sexual exorcism with somebody called Mandi with an
i
, so he'd gone up to his room. Sleep hadn't exactly come in like an angel. He tossed around restlessly for hours; then, tired of being tired, he dressed and returned to Canal Street, walking all the way down Broadway to the edge of Chinatown.

Now he beat his gloved hands together and watched his breath mist on the frigid air and concentrated on St. Finbar's Mission, wondering about Joseph X. Tumulty. Sooner or later, the man would step outside. Eventually, he'd have to go somewhere. And Frank Pagan wanted to know where.

His eyes stung as the wind scoured the rooftops, making TV antennae tremble. He huddled deeper inside his coat, trying to shrink himself down into a place where the wind wouldn't hurt him. Hopeless. He blinked at the street. Inside his car Orson Cone sat motionless, no doubt drawing his patience from
The Book of Mormon
. A simple faith. Frank Pagan had always envied simple faiths. His own God was a different kind of joker altogether – complicated and brooding, seated masked at the inaccessible centre of some intricate labyrinth. A totally whimsical character with more than a touch of cruelty. He never returned your calls.

Pagan looked along the sidewalk where the wind skirted across plastic trash bags, making them ripple. He propped his elbows on the top of the wall, leaned forward a little way.

‘If you fall, don't expect me to catch you,' Zuboric said.

Pagan turned around. Artie Zuboric was coming across the roof, his coat flapping behind him. His nose was red from the cold. There was an angry expression on his face.

‘I know,' Pagan said. ‘I didn't call you.'

‘Damn right you didn't call me,' Zuboric said. ‘Next time you move, I want to know about it.'

‘Cone told you I was here.'

‘Cone called me as soon as he saw you.'

Pagan shrugged. ‘I couldn't sleep. I came back here.'

‘I'm mildly pissed off, Frank. I don't care what time it is; when you have the urge to hit the streets, you let me know.'

Pagan said, ‘I assumed you'd need your beauty sleep, Artie.'

Zuboric grunted and glanced towards St. Finbar's Mission. He checked the FBI car, then turned back to Pagan, his anger subsided. ‘By the way, I couldn't get authorisation for a phone tap.'

‘No?' Pagan thought he detected a tiny note of pleasure in Artie Zuboric's voice.

‘Insufficient reason,' Zuboric said. ‘Happens.'

Pagan said nothing for a moment. He had the feeling that a telephone tap wouldn't have yielded anything anyway. Not if Joe Tumulty was a careful man. Besides, if Joe
thought
there was a tap on his phone, then that suspicion was as good as any eavesdropping device might have been.

‘Something bothers me.' Zuboric cupped his hands and lit a cigarette. ‘You're betting on Jig getting in touch with Tumulty. But I keep coming back to the possibility that your man's been and gone, Frank. In which event, you're freezing your ass off on this godforsaken roof for nothing.'

Pagan had already considered this. ‘I'm betting on another possibility altogether, Artie. I'm betting Jig needs something only Tumulty can get for him.'

‘Like what?'

‘The tools of his trade,' Pagan said. ‘I don't see Jig trying to score an ordinary gun somewhere, Artie. And the chances are he didn't arrive in this country carrying anything. He's too careful. If Joe's been an IRA connection here all along, he's bound to have contacts in the kind of speciality weapon Jig might need. When you boil it right down, I think Joe's the only chance we've got.'

‘And what makes you think he hasn't already supplied Jig?'

‘Unless Tumulty keeps weapons on his premises, which I doubt, they'd have to be specially ordered. That takes time.'

Pagan looked at the grimy windows of St. Finbar's. They were impossible to see through. Whoever said cleanliness was next to godliness hadn't tried to peer inside Tumulty's soup kitchen.

Zuboric said, ‘Tumulty's going to have his eyes open, Frank. He isn't going to walk through the streets without looking over his shoulder a whole lot. He won't be an easy tail.'

Pagan smiled. He said, ‘Tailing's one of my good points. If I do it alone.'

‘Christ, you keep trying, don't you?' Zuboric said.

‘He'll spot a pair, Artie. You know that. If we work this together, he's going to spot us as quickly as I spotted you last night.'

Zuboric looked pained. He didn't say anything. He stared down into the traffic going along Canal Street. Last night, when Pagan had stepped abruptly out of the cab, Zuboric had taken the taxi one block farther before getting out; then he'd followed Pagan back to his hotel. His Orders were specific. Washington was going to be very unhappy if Frank Pagan was turned loose in the city. The possibility of bloodshed had them worried. What it meant for Zuboric was a terrific pain in the ass. He had to keep a lid on Frank Pagan and make sure the Englishman didn't do anything drastic to attract attention. Especially violence.

It was a can of fucking worms, and Zuboric was very unhappy.

‘I can't do it, Frank. I can't let you out of my sight.'

‘Suppose I just slipped away when you weren't looking?'

‘No can do.'

Pagan put his gloves back on. ‘Fuck it, Artie. If I choose to go out on my own, what the hell are you going to do to stop me?'

Zuboric looked at the Englishman. ‘Tell you the truth, Frank, I don't know what I'd do if you were just to take a hike,' he said. ‘I know Washington would have my balls for paperweights, though.'

Pagan went to the edge of the roof and leaned against the wall. There was a movement in the doorway of St. Finbar's Mission. Joseph X. Tumulty appeared, the collar of his priestly black coat drawn up to his face.

‘There he is, Artie,' Pagan said.

Zuboric peered into the street.

‘Now what?' Frank Pagan asked. ‘Do I go alone?'

‘No way.'

Joseph Tumulty didn't feel the cold. He walked in the direction of Lafayette Street. He passed the FBI car, the tan Chrysler with the fair-haired young man inside. The agent had his face in a book, trying to appear inconspicuous. Tumulty barely noted him. He was concentrating on reaching Lafayette. He knew there were others, that the solitary agent in the Chrysler wasn't alone. When he reached the corner of Lafayette, he looked back. There were several people on the sidewalk, but he saw neither Frank Pagan nor the FBI agent with the Slavic name.

Tumulty, who had been recruited by Padraic Finn while still at the seminary in Bantry, tried to remain calm. Years ago, before he'd come to the United States, membership in an IRA cell had seemed gloriously romantic to him. The adventurer-priest. The swashbuckler behind the dog collar. He'd been swept away by Finn's persuasive tongue, carried along on old glories. Finn's Ireland was going to be a paradise, a land of unity where the old hatreds were demolished forever.

The idea of being an IRA connection in New York City was, quite simply, a thrill. It was also a part of his heritage, his background. Tumulty men had been associated with one or other of the Free Ireland movements ever since the nineteenth century. But, as it turned out, it had seemed an abstraction to him, like having membership in a club he never attended. Even the annual chore he was instructed to perform had never felt remotely dangerous. Once a year he received a telephone call from an anonymous person instructing him to travel to Augusta, Maine, and check into a motel, which was always a different one each time.

There, he'd wait in his room until he was contacted by the same individual informing him to proceed to a certain place, sometimes an abandoned gasoline station, sometimes a deserted factory, and once even the football field of a local high school. Tumulty would do as he was told. It was always at night when the encounters took place. The man would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and give Tumulty a brief-case, which Tumulty would then deliver to another man known as the Courier in one of the small towns along the Maine coast. Cutler, Vinalhaven, and on the last occasion – when there had been three brief-cases – Jonesport. After the Courier took possession of the cases, Tumulty's job was finished. He never asked questions. He knew what the cases contained, and he understood the Courier transported them to Ireland, but that was the extent of it.

It was only by accident that he'd discovered the identity of the man who supplied him with the brief-cases.

He went north on Lafayette, heading in the direction of Little Italy. Outside a small produce store he stopped to examine a basket of apples. He looked back the way he'd come. There was still no sign of either the Englishman or the FBI character. Tumulty paid for an apple and crunched into it as he moved towards Mulberry Street. He passed an Italian social club, then a flashy new trattoria, and the smells of espresso and pastries drifted out to him. Beneath his heavy overcoat he was perspiring and his heart was hammering at his ribs. Somebody
had
to be following him.

He crossed Mulberry Street. His throat was very dry and he had difficulty swallowing. There was a quiet sense of panic inside him. It wasn't so much the idea of being followed that troubled him, rather it was the realisation that he was uncertain of how much he could stand if he was caught. He didn't know his own limits or the extent of his endurance if it came down to threats like the one he'd heard last night about Attica. The idea of incarceration wasn't so terrible in itself – after all, many good men had been jailed for their work in the Cause – it was the prospect of being removed from St. Finbar's Mission that clawed at him. Who would run the place if he was gone? Who would care for those men? Who would be as interested in saving their lives as he was? They were the lowest characters in the whole social hierarchy. Many of them were of the kind that other missions didn't like to accept – the obviously deranged, the potentially violent, men who were beyond the reaches of polite social agencies. It was a vanity, he knew, to think of himself as indispensable, but when it came to St. Finbar's he sidestepped his own humility. Why shouldn't he be proud of himself?