The Pariot GAme (17 page)

“Sainte-Mère-Église,” Fahey said.

“Yes,” Bishop Doherty said. “What does
Mère
mean, Vincent? I’ve sadly neglected my French, I’m afraid. Have to depend on you Latinists for enlightenment. Does it have something to do with a lady horse?”

“It means
mother
, you ass,” Fahey said, too loudly. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Of course,” Bishop Doherty said. “
The Church—Église
I think I’ve got down pretty well—
the Church of Holy Mother You Ass
. Funny name for a French parish. Sounds like one of those inner-city hellholes where they send young rebels with fresh mouths in the sem.”

“You son of a bitch,” Fahey said. “You’re making fun of me. You always do this. You call me up and I invite you to lunch at my private club, and you, you goddamned snob …”

“Vincent, Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said, “lower your voice. Is this any way to address your ecclesiastical superior? In your private club? Suppose someone like Daniel Minihan heard you? What do you think he’d make of this display on the street? I know he’s a member here. I recall considering a membership once, but then I found out that Minihan belonged, and we all know what a gossip he is. In addition to being a horse’s ass, of course. Why, you keep this up and he’ll have people ridiculing you from Sacred Heart in Weymouth Landing to Notre Dame in Springfield by nightfall. By the time the weekend comes, you’ll be a figure of fun from New Bedford to the Canadian border.”

Fahey was silent. The waiter brought the second round of drinks. “Just let Vin Fahey here have a moment or two to compose himself, Joseph,” Bishop Doherty said to the waiter, “and then we’ll have a look at our menus and be all ready to order. I’ll beckon you.”

“Thank you, Your Eminence,” the waiter said.

“Now then, Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said, tilting the menu to catch the light available, “why don’t you just rest yourself there for a moment, try to catch your breath and all, and then we’ll see if perhaps we can conduct ourselves with the dignity appropriate to our vocation.

“I was merely alluding to your Phillip’s report of your exploits with Slim Jim Gavin and the Eighty-second Airborne, on the parachute jump behind enemy lines into Normandy at Sainte-Mère-Église. On D-Day, the sixth of June, nineteen-forty-four. You remember, Vin. I of course know only from my reading —my snobbish reading as you might call it—that Brigadier General Gavin, at twenty-nine or thirty, was one of the youngest generals in American military history. And of course that he and his brave commandos carried cricket clickers so that they could signal each other in the dark without alerting German sentries. I knew, naturally, that you served as a chaplain with the Airborne after we graduated from the seminary in the same class, but that was several years after World War Two. At least that’s my memory. Until Phillip recounted the swath your unit cut through Europe, I had relied upon that memory. I see now that I was mistaken.”

“I was with the Eighty-second,” Fahey said. “That’s all I told Phillip.”

“That may be all you told him, in so many words,” Bishop Doherty said, “but that was not all that Phillip clearly took away from your tales of cameraderie and derring-do among the stalwart warriors of the paratroopers. Nor was it all that you meant Phillip to take away from your narratives. I’m sure, for example, that Phillip would be quite astonished to learn that your service with the Airborne was exclusively during peacetime, and that your closest brush with combat service occurred when you resigned your commission just in time’s nick, thus missing the Korean conflict. You never left
Fort Bragg. Perfectly named. How do you think your Phillip would react to that information, eh, Vincent? Think he might be a little taken aback by it? That he might possibly conclude, after some reflection, that good old Vin Fahey is a bit of a fake? Think he might? And is he really that bright, that he can’t tell from your age that you couldn’t’ve been there?”

“I don’t have to take this from you,” Fahey said. “I don’t have to tolerate this. You’ve got no power over me. Not anymore. Not since your patron there, old Gargle-throat himself, died and left his favorites like you scattered to the four winds. You’ve got no more clout with the Fall River Fishmonger’n I have. I don’t have to take your crap.”

“Yes, Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said, “as a matter of fact, you do. For one thing, I’m not the first person who’s heard you call the Cardinal Archbishop the Fall River Fishmonger, but if you provoke me, I might be the first to curry a little favor by being the first to report your filial affection to him. Think you could keep the parish school open without a few bucks now and then from the Cardinal Archbishop? What would you do then, Vincent, with no school over which to reign, to show off in each morning? Try to bamboozle the youth of the parish one night a week at Christian Doctrine classes? Hard to do, Vincent. Too much opportunity for them to come in contact with sinister outside forces.”

“Ass,” Fahey said.

“And in the second place,” Bishop Doherty said, “you have to put up with me because I might take it into my head to start chatting with Phillip about how he gained admission to the Cross, and how he got this job, and carelessly let it drop in the course of that conversation that you mentioned to me that it was all your doing. Think that might surprise Phillip’s parents? Think that might be a greater weight of deception than they’d be willing to carry around the parish?” Fahey did not say anything. “Well,” Bishop Doherty said, “I think so,
and my guess is that you think so, too. You know what we used to call you in the sem, Vincent? We used to call you Trimmer, because you had such a fine hand in fitting the truth to your purposes.”

The waiter returned. “Joseph, my man,” Bishop Doherty said, “I believe we are ready to order.”

“I don’t want anything,” Fahey said. He did not look up.

“Very well, Monsignor,” he said. “Your Eminence, the special today is baked stuffed lobster.”

“Lobster,” Bishop Doherty said. “Excellent. But the crumbs bother me. Might I have one, simply steamed, and removed from the shell, with some melted butter and some lemon wedges?”

“Well, uh, Your Eminence,” the waiter said, “we can do that. But it’s not on the special, and …”

“Perfectly all right,” Bishop Doherty said. “Do one up for me like that. No salad, potato, or anything. Would you like some wine, Vincent? I’m thinking of white, myself.”

“I don’t want anything,” Fahey said. He poured off his second martini.

“Just another drink for Monsignor then,” Bishop Doherty said. “I’ll have a half-bottle of your Graves. That will be all.” The waiter left again.

“I didn’t want another drink,” Fahey said.

“Don’t drink it, then,” Bishop Doherty said. “But you’re going to stay here until you tell me the entire truth about your relationship with Ticker Greenan and Michael Magro, and no bullshit about housekeepers, either. The entire truth. Not just selected portions of it. And you’re going to have something in front of you while I eat and we talk. I am going to take my time eating and you are going to give me every shred of information that you possess. We will sit here all afternoon until you get so looped you can’t see, if that proves necessary, until I get what I came for. And if you do stall me that long, I
will leave you here like a drunken sot to make your own explanations to the members of your private club who arrive for cocktails and squash after work. Your choice. Make it.”

“How do you know about Magro?” Fahey said. He looked up as he said it.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Bishop Doherty said. “He has your mind tapped, Trimmer, and He is copying your Bishop in on the tapes. Not that there’s that much material to read in the transcripts. Never more than one thought a day, and that one banal. No wonder people complain about your sermons. But, we must make do, Vincent, make the best pots we can from the poor clay the Lord sends us. So, as John Kennedy said, let us begin.”

B
Y NINE-FIFTEEN
, the last stragglers of the midweek traffic jam, brought on by the rain, had escaped from the city. Pete Riordan, his white shirt wilted and his trousers rumpled from the day, removed his booted feet from the top of the desk in his office in Government Center. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, and rubbed his eyes. He looked at his watch, sighed, and reached for the red telephone on the left side of the desk. He picked it up and began punching numbers. A man answered, his voice eager. “Rampart,” he said.

“Rampart,” Riordan said, “this is Rocket.” His voice was weary.

“Rocket,” the man said, “what developments?”

“Nothing new,” Riordan said. “It’s the same old thing. I keep telling you guys down there: I’m not going to get anywhere chasing a man I can’t recognize, whose name I don’t know, and whose whereabouts are just as unknown to us now as they were when I went galloping off to California there. I can’t get probable cause to arrest somebody until I know what crime’s been committed.”

“Rocket,” the man said, “we do know what crime’s been committed. It’s gunrunning, to an all-out terrorist organization with definite Marxist connections and a strong and
sympathetic underground in place in this country. If they can achieve their objectives in Ulster, they’ll attack Dublin the same way, and if they win there, they’ll be poised to begin activities in the United States with the complete cooperation and encouragement of Moscow. This is a real potential and serious threat to our national security, Rocket, and you’re the only one who’s in an immediate position to do anything about it.”

“Chuck, for Christ sake,” Riordan said.

“Code, Rocket,” the man said.

“Code, my ass,” Riordan said. “This phone’s as secure as anything the Joint Chiefs’ve got to talk to NORAD, for the luvva Mike. You think with all the scramblers you’ve got on this thing that any illiterate Mick from Ulster’s going to be able to tap it? Be serious, Chuck.”

“Those Ulster kids,” the man said, “have access to sophisticated KGB training and technology. If the Soviets can do it, we have to assume that the Provos can do it. Whatever it happens to be. Remember, Rocket, this is a top national security assignment you’re ordered to perform. I’m ordering you to use the code, as well, and I expect you to do it.”

“Suppose I don’t?” Riordan said.

“You’ll be reassigned,” the man said. “You’ll go back to your old desk tomorrow and await reassignment. Given your specialty, we can both guess what your next duty will be.”

“Something involving a jungle, no doubt,” Riordan said.

“Or Beirut,” the man said. “Maybe only as a stopover to someplace else. You could wind up doing a lot of traveling, Rocket. You think you’d like that better than following your present orders?”

“Negative, Rampart,” Riordan said.

“Roger, Rocket,” the man said. “Glad we’ve got that solved. You knew your obligations when you signed your contract and took your oath. We expect you to live up to them.”

“We haven’t got anything solved, Rampart,” Riordan said. “My God, doesn’t anybody listen to what the cop on the beat says is going on? I’ve been trying to tell you this for weeks.”

“What is the precise status of the case now?” the man said.

“I’ve got a glimmer of a chance of finding him,” Riordan said. “I think he’s somewhere around Boston. I still don’t know what name he’s using. I don’t know where he’s been. If he’s doing what we think, we haven’t caught him at it. I doubt any of his helpers will be eager to tell us about it. Therefore I have no probable cause to arrest him or them. I can’t get a warrant, and I can’t arrest him without one.”

“And in the meantime, Rocket,” the man said, “he continues to operate as a threat to national security.”

“Who, if he’s arrested and convicted,” Riordan said, “will probably only be deported as an undesirable alien, or else released to the custody of the British, assuming they can pin something on him, and we’ll have six more just like him coming into the country within a week.”

“Correct,” the man said. “Is it necessary for me to tell you what to do then, when, as and if you do locate him?”

“Go on, Rampart,” Riordan said. “I’ve known for some time that this was what you had in mind all along. But you’re going to have to say it. I’m too old for the jungles, and I’m not interested in the Middle East. But you’ve got to say it, out loud, because what you guys want done is quite illegal now. And some day, Rampart, somebody’s going to check those credentials and find out there ain’t no such agency in Justice. Which will get me in the shit for fair. I know what you want. Say it.”

“Thank you, Rocket,” the man said. “Good night and good luck. This is Rampart off and clear.”

Riordan got up and raised the Venetian blind on the window nearest his chair. He satisfied himself that the gridlocked traffic around the Quincy Market, City Hall, the JFK Federal Buildings and the municipal garage to his left had
cleared up. The streets were wet and the street lights and occasional automobile lights made them shine. Across the street, the lights were off in the Bell In Hand Tavern, relocated from the old newspaper row on Washington Street to the low brick building next to the parking lot. The Union Oyster House was still open, the red neon sign in its window beneath the ivory wood façade and the brick upper stories glowing red, trolling for stray tourists. The surface of the streets steamed.