Irish Whiskey

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “We’ll not let them spoil our happiness,” she said, taking my hand. “Will we, Dermot Michael?”

  “Woman, we will not.”

  We ordered a cup of tea; I told herself what Cindy had promised for our enemies after we had our day in court.

  “Good enough for them shite hawks.”

  “A drink for you and the young woman,” our waiter said, placing two brandy snifters on the table, “from Mr. Dever.”

  Ah, the enemy was among us.

  “Who is Mr. Dever?”

  “He’s the gentleman over there with Ms. Quade,” the waiter said. “He’s the head of the FBI in Chicago.”

  At their table across the room, the enemy raised their glasses in mock salute.

  “Deputy head,” I said to the waiter.

  “Pissant gobshites,” Nuala murmured.

  I rose from the table, took one snifter in each hand, and ambled over to their table. They smiled uncertainly as they watched my progress. Joe Dever was in his late thirties, plump, cherubic, kind of like the films of Winston Churchill you see on A&E. Dale Quade had the haggard look of an addicted runner, a stern, self-tormenting nun who was sacrificing her dark, natural beauty for her vocation of ascetic self-discipline.

  I was of a mind to throw the brandy in their faces. That, however, could be interpreted as disorderly conduct. Instead I poured the liquid into their half-empty water glasses.

  “Gobshites,” I murmured with my most pleasant smile, turned and walked away.

  Just before I turned away, however, I saw a look of astonishment, tinged with fear, flit across their faces.

  Good enough for them.

  “Good enough for them,” Nuala Anne said approvingly as I sat down next to her. “You scared the living shite out of them.”

  “Did I?”

  “They know they have a fight on their hands now!” she said triumphantly.

  We walked, hand in hand, from the restaurant to the garage of the John Hancock Center. Nuala assaulted me with passionate kisses in the Water Tower Park, in the garage, in the car at the stoplight at Clark and Armitage, and at the door to her apartment.

  “I’ll never stop loving you, me darlin’ man,” she’d say, pausing for breath, “Never!”

  “Woman, you’d better not.”

  Instead of anxious nightmares about the Office of the United States Attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I had glorious dreams about Nuala. My Nuala.

  14

  A BELL rang at a great distance. I struggled for it, but could not find it. It continued to ring. I was in the deepest sleep of the night, in the splendid, surrealistic world of vivid images, manic passion, and a beautiful woman, a world so much more pleasurable than the ordinary world that I refused to leave it. Here was reality. The ordinary world was a dream.

  The bell continued to ring.

  I groped for my phone.

  “Dermot Coyne,” I mumbled.

  The dial tone did not seem to be interested in that fact.

  Still the bell rang.

  House phone.

  I stumbled out of bed, stubbed my toe, and struggled towards the door of the apartment.

  I picked up the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Coyne,” the doorman said, “there are some people on their way up to see you. They say they’re from the FBI.”

  Confused and still longing for my dreams, I stumbled back to my bed, sat on the edge, and turned on the lamp. The clock said 3:10 A.M.

  FBI? Why were they looking for me? Why were they using their Gestapo techniques on me?

  I should call someone. Who? I glanced at the phone on the bed stand. A business card next to it, tossed there thoughtlessly when I was undressing. Whose card?

  Michael P.V. Casey. Business number. I flipped the card. Home number. I punched it in.

  Lawyer, artist, president of a security company, former superintendent of police, friend and shirttail relative of the little bishop, helper on the art gallery case.

  “Casey.” He sounded wide-awake. Making love? Sorry, Mike.

  “Dermot. The FBI are riding up on the elevators.”

  “In their storm-trooper jackboots, no doubt. Don’t let them in the door until I get there.”

  Reluctantly I gave up my hope that I could slip back into the dream with Nuala and pulled on a sweat suit.

  As I was rinsing my mouth—can’t greet the FBI with bad breath—I heard a fierce knocking on my door.

  “FBI! Open up!”

  I let them knock while I combed my hair.

  “We know you’re in there, Coyne! Open up!”

  It was my apartment. Where the hell else would I be?

  I sauntered to the door, now wide-awake and remembering that I was, courtesy me woman, in me fighting mode.

  “Who’s there?” I asked sleepily.

  Angry pounding on the door.

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation. We want to question you and the woman.”

  “Go way. It’s the middle of the night.”

  Yet more pounding.

  “Let us in. We must speak to you and the woman!”

  “Do you have a search warrant!”

  The knocking now turned angry.

  “We will charge you with resisting arrest.”

  “Do you have a warrant for my arrest?”

  “We want to speak to your girlfriend!”

  No warrants. Maybe I should not have poured Joe Dever’s brandy into his water glass.

  “There’s no woman in my apartment.”

  “We know she’s there. You’ve just committed perjury by lying to a government agent. You’re under arrest.”

  “There’s no woman here, and you’re engaging in disorderly conduct.”

  Arrests in the small hours of the morning were now a standard trick of the Bureau, learned from the KGB and the Gestapo. Usually the woman of the house answers the door. The paladins of American justice demand to see her husband. She says that he’s not home. They arrest her for perjury, cuff her, and in her nightclothes they drag her down to one of their cars, and threaten to take her to their “office.” The man of the house appears and he is arrested, too. In the confusion of such an arrest and a midnight ride to the Dirksen Federal Building, people have been known to make incriminating admissions. The media and the American Civil Liberties Union take no heed of such violations of due process of the law.

  “You can open the door, Dermot,” Mike Casey’s voice said.

  The FBI agents spilled into my apartment. They both looked like teenagers—a little guy with freckles and dark hair and a pretty girl with vacant eyes. Both were extremely nervous. Dever had gone to his bench. I was an exhibition game and he was using his third string.

  Mike Casey, in neatly pressed light blue pajamas—which matched his eyes—and a dark blue robe eased in behind them. His hair was perfectly combed, the collar of the pajamas neatly tucked in over the robe.

  “You’re under arrest, Coyne,” the kid sputtered, pulling cuffs out of his pocket.

  “Just a minute, son,” Mike Casey said softly. “What’s your name, first of all?”

  “Who are you?” the kid demanded, trying to sound tough.

  “I’m Michael Patrick Vincent Casey. I am an attorney at law among other things. I am acting for Mr. Coyne here, got that, MISTER Coyne? And I am MISTER Casey, understand? I want to know your names and then I want to see your FBI warrant card, and finally I want to see your warrant for Mr. Coyne’s arrest.”

  “You better tell him, David,” the girl said. “He’s the man who wrote the book. He used to be Superintendent of Police.”

  “What book?”

  “The one on the practice of criminal investigations,” Mike Casey said, “the rules of which you two tyros have already violated massively. Again I ask you your name.”

  David fumbled with his wallet and flashed his card. “I’m Special Agent David McAuliffe of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said bravely. “My colleague is Speci
al Agent Martha Regan.”

  The young woman displayed her card.

  “All right, Special Agent,” Mike said smoothly. “Now let’s see your warrant for Mr. Coyne’s arrest.”

  “We don’t need a warrant. In the course of our investigation we observed Mr. Coyne violating the laws against perjury by lying to a federal investigator.”

  Mr. McAuliffe was sputtering again and spittle was forming on his lower lip. Ms. Regan inched away from him as if to say that she wanted no part of this craziness.

  Sound instinct.

  “Who was the federal investigator, and what was Mr. Coyne’s perjured statement?”

  “I am the federal investigator. Mr. Coyne denied that his girlfriend was in the apartment. We happen to know that she was and is.”

  “I see. Do you happen to know the name of the woman you allege is present in this apartment?”

  He glanced at the young woman.

  “Ah, Anne Grail, I think.”

  “Do you know anyone with that name, Mr. Coyne?”

  “My fiancée is a certain Nuala Anne McGrail,” I said, turning on all my charm. “Short for Marie Phinoulah Annagh McGrail. However, she is certainly not present in my apartment. As a point of fact, she never spends the night in my apartment. We are old-fashioned Irish Catholics.”

  “We have certain information that she is here,” McAuliffe insisted.

  “You know as well as I do, son, that you can’t get away with that unless you tell us the source of your information.”

  “Mr. Joseph Dever, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge,” the FBI man replied triumphantly. His colleague winced.

  “Very interesting.” Mike smiled graciously. “How does the presence or absence of Ms. McGrail impinge on your investigation?”

  “We don’t have to reveal the purpose of our investigation.”

  “Indeed you don’t, son. Yet a visit at this hour of the night is a little unusual, isn’t it?”

  “I’m going to take Mr. Coyne into custody now.” He fiddled with the cuffs.

  “There is no legitimate presumption of crime here. You have no right to take him into custody. Should you do so, you open yourself to serious charges of false arrest.”

  The kid hesitated. This was probably his first arrest. He wasn’t too bright. Mike Casey scared him.

  “I demand to search this apartment to ascertain the presence of Ms. Grail.”

  “McGrail,” I said genially.

  “Not without a search warrant, son.”

  Just then two of Chicago’s finest, one of each gender and both of African-American ethnic background, appeared at the door.

  “Good evening, Superintendent,” they said in unison.

  “Good evening, Pete, Jill.”

  “Is there a problem, sir?”

  “These two individuals, claiming to be Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have forced themselves into Mr. Coyne’s apartment and are at this moment engaged in something which might be considered disorderly conduct. I thought it would be useful to have witnesses.”

  Special Agent Regan turned pale and backed away from her colleague.

  “You are resisting arrest, Mr. Coyne,” McAuliffe barked in a squeaky voice.

  “On the advice of counsel,” I said brightly.

  “Then, sir, I am taking you in by force.” He drew a thirty-eight from inside his jacket.

  “I’d be careful with that, son. It is a loaded gun. You could hurt someone with it, including yourself.”

  The kid was breathing rapidly and swallowing hard. He hesitated, realizing at last that he had better cover his ass quickly.

  “I demand to search the apartment,” he said again.

  “Not without a search warrant.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow in my direction.

  “If you put that cannon away, Mr. McAuliffe,” I said, “I might as a personal favor let you look around.”

  Mike smiled his approval.

  The punk now had his chance. If he would accept my offer, he could apologize and beat a somewhat graceful retreat. An experienced agent, if one had been so foolish to get involved in such a caper, would have bought in.

  Alas, Special Agent David McAuliffe was not an experienced agent.

  “I am going to search this apartment now. Special Agent Regan, you look in the bedroom.”

  “No way,” she said flatly, thus guaranteeing herself a future in the Bureau, especially after Mike talked to her boss.

  “Very well, I charge you with insubordination. I will make the search myself.”

  “Officers,” Mike said sadly, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to take this young man into custody. He’s clearly engaging in disorderly conduct. You should remove him to the Chicago Avenue Station and charge him.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Don’t come near me! I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducting a legitimate inquiry.”

  “You are, son, a young man who has obtained illegal entry into the home of a citizen of our republic and you have threatened him and his lawyer and two Chicago police officers with a loaded weapon. Don’t make matters worse for yourself. Give that weapon to Officer Clyde.”

  Confused and threatened, he hesitated. A dumb man with a gun in his hand is very dangerous. The two Chicago cops, hands on their own weapons, watched him intently with narrow, hard eyes.

  “Give him the gun, asshole,” Martha Regan snapped. “You could kill someone with that.”

  Mike and the two cops were tense, indeed frightened. I was too dumb and too inexperienced to be scared. I was, indeed, having the time of my life.

  McAuliffe’s twitching eyes flickered around the room.

  “Give the gun to Officer Clyde, son,” Mike begged gently.

  The policewoman held out her hand.

  We stood there in a frozen tableau at the entrance to my apartment. My grandfather clock ticked away the anxious seconds. Everyone was holding their breath.

  Finally, Special Agent McAuliffe folded his hand. He handed the weapon, muzzle pointing outward, to Officer Clyde. Gingerly she shifted the grip into her hand.

  “Nine-millimeter Beretta, sir. Safety on.”

  “Cuff him, take him in and book him,” Mike ordered. “Disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.”

  “The young woman?” Officer Clyde asked.

  Mike raised an eyebrow at me.

  I shook my head in the negative.

  Mike tilted his head in agreement.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Officer. Perhaps you could, however, escort Special Agent Regan around the apartment to search for Ms. McGrail, as Mr. Coyne invited Special Agent McAuliffe to do some moments ago.”

  “Yes, sir,” the cop said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Special Agent Regan said.

  “Young woman, believe me, it is necessary.”

  The child grinned. “Yes sir, I take your point.”

  The two of them returned after a brief interlude.

  “No young woman, Special Agent?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Officer Clyde?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good, then we can safely say that Ms. McGrail’s good name was falsely impugned?”

  Both women nodded solemnly.

  “Special Agent Regan,” I asked, “would you deliver a direct quote from me to Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Dever?”

  “Certainly, sir,” she said, barely suppressing an outrageous grin.

  “Tell him the next time he wants to play Heinrich Himmler with me he should not send a boy to do a man’s job.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, now having regained control of her face. “ … Who was Heinrich Himmler?”

  “The head of the Gestapo.”

  The four law-enforcement officers left. Mike and I stood at the doorway, satisfied with ourselves.

  “She won’t have a chance to talk to Dever. He’ll be out of here on the first plane in the morning …” Mike said. “
Nice going, Dermot, you’re getting good at this thing. This nutty raid will be a major plus for your side.”

  “They are incredibly sloppy over there.”

  “That’s what comes with playing this new kind of game. Kids that age should be out hunting down gang leaders and drug lords. They’d learn a lot quickly. But the Bureau prefers stinging celebrities.”

  “I’m not a celebrity.”

  “Quade and Dever think so … You should call your sister and have her call your sister-in-law Traci. You want to put your side’s spin on this news.”

  “Right away … Thanks much, Mike. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  “Nothing,” he said with a small smile, “that can’t be renewed.”

  As I reached for the phone to call Cindy, it rang and almost jumped into my hands.

  Before I could announce my presence, herself weighed in.

  “Dermot, what the hell is happening over there?”

  15

  COPS ARREST FBI AGENTS

  (City News Bureau)

  Police from the Chicago Avenue Station arrested two FBI agents early this morning at the John Hancock Center apartment of commodity broker and novelist Dermot Coyne. Special Agent David McAuliffe was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Special Agent Martha Regan was released without charge. According to Watch Commander Arthur Washington, the two Federal officers attempted to force their way into Coyne’s apartment without either an arrest warrant or a search warrant. Coyne has been mentioned as a possible target in an ongoing investigation of commodity trading at the Chicago exchanges.

  RADIO NEWS

  There has been a major shakeup at the Chicago Office of the FBI. A spokeswoman said this morning that Special Agent David McAuliffe has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the resolution of charges against him filed by Chicago police. She declined to confirm reports that Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Joseph R. Dever has been reassigned to the Bureau’s Washington Headquarters.

  NOON TV NEWS

  Anchor: A conflict has arisen between Chicago police and the FBI. Raisa Jefferson has the story at the Dirksen Federal Building.