Irish Whiskey

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “The gobshites are still going to make trouble, Dermot,” she had confided to me.

  “Maybe we’re just shell-shocked after all that has happened, Nuala.”

  “We are that … Och, it was fun shopping with you this morning. I won’t have to be ashamed of appearing in public with you!”

  While our parents were walking along the lake shore before lunch, I had a moment alone with my soon-to-be bride.

  “I suppose there were lots of edges of light yesterday, Nuala Anne?”

  “Och, didn’t you see them all, Dermot Michael? Wasn’t light everywhere?”

  Did she really see edges of light? Or was that merely a poetic metaphor? Or did Nuala Anne know the difference?

  “And angels dancing in it?”

  “Haven’t they been on our side all along?”

  After lunch we returned to my apartment to watch the Notre Dame game which was being played in Tennessee. My half alma mater seemed to have little trouble in the first half. But in recent years they had acquired the bad habit of falling behind in the second half. This time they didn’t succumb to the habit and won easily.

  After the game, just as we were preparing to leave for Gordon to eat supper, my dad turned on the television for the local news.

  Anchor: There has been another development in the Dermot Coyne case. In a breaking story that we are covering, Jared E. Kennedy, the FBI informant who reportedly is the government’s main witness in the Operation Full Platter investigation admitted that the conversation between him and Coyne was a fake. Our Angela Smith is with Kennedy. Angela …

  AS: Well, Duane, I’m here with Jared Kennedy, who has just told me that he never interviewed Dermot Coyne in the Operation Full Platter investigation. Isn’t that true, Mr. Kennedy?

  JK: You know, Dermy Boy has always been a crook. Everyone knows that. I tried to get him to talk a couple of times, but he wouldn’t do it, which proves he’s a crook, doesn’t it? So, you know, I figured that I might just as well get down on tape, you know, what he would have said. So I asked my friend, Porky Conway who, you know, is a really great mimic, you should hear him do the president, you know, I asked him to help me. Porky has always had Dermy Boy down cold, so we put together a great interview, you know. AS: But it was a fake interview, was it not?

  JK: It depends on your point of view. Like I say, you know, it’s what Dermy did and what he would have said if I had a chance to get him to talk to me. It’s his fault. If he had talked to me, I wouldn’t have had to fake it.

  AS: So it’s his fault that you gave the FBI a fake interview?

  JK: (Grinning broadly now that his argument has been grasped) You got it!

  AS: Do you think this admission will weaken the case the FBI has against the other people you talked to?

  JK: Why should it? They can do voice tests on all the others, you know. We faked only one of the conversations.

  AS: So that’s Jared Kennedy’s story. Back to you, Duane. Anchor: Thanks, Angela, and a strange story it is.

  “He was such a nice little boy,” my mother, who can always find something good to say about anyone, commented. “Too bad he’s a borderline personality.”

  “A gombeen man,” Annie added.

  “Round the bend altogether.” Gerry shook his head. “Dermot, you’re a living saint to have put up with all of this foolishness.”

  “Ah, no,” my bride concluded the commentary. “Aren’t I the living saint for keeping your man sane?”

  We all laughed and then left the apartment for dinner, now with two victories to celebrate, the triumph of the Fighting Irish only marginally more important than my good fortune.

  Or, as I could not say because of our pledge of secrecy, the triumph of Marie Mangan—and Ma and Pa—over Jimmy “Sweet Rolls” Sullivan’s look-alike grandson.

  “She did it for us, didn’t she, Dermot?” Nuala hugged me in the elevator.

  “Marie?”

  “Her, too, but I meant Nell Pat.”

  30

  FED INFORMANT CALLED TRICKSTER

  By Sean Cassidy

  River Forest

  There was little surprise in this upper-middle-class community over the confession yesterday by a neighborhood boy who admitted that he had faked a tape implicating novelist Dermot Michael Coyne in the Operation Full Platter sting. Jared Enright Kennedy, according to those who know him, was always “playing tricks” on people with the help of his friend Charles “Porky” Conway.

  “Porky can imitate anyone,” said one acquaintance of both men. “He’s great at Bill Clinton. Jarry would put him up to calling a girl, imitating her boyfriend, and breaking up with her. They both thought it was pretty funny.”

  “I can’t believe the Feds trusted him,” said another man in a bar on North Avenue, safely across the street from this dry community. “Everyone knew that Jarry was a sociopathic liar. No one believed a word he said.”

  No one questioned Mr. Kennedy’s intelligence or athletic talents. The men around the bar, however, pointed out that Kennedy had been thrown out of Fenwick High School and both Notre Dame and the University of Miami, each time because he was caught in a lie. The Notre Dame incident involved allegations of sexual molestation of a woman student.

  Moreover, he was fined and suspended from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for five years. He has never returned to the trading floor.

  “He always hated poor Dermot because everyone liked Dermot and no one liked him,” a friend of both men said. “All of us heard him swear that he’d get Dermot someday, one way or another. Looks like he might have done it this time.”

  “Yeah,” another one replied, “but why didn’t the Feds check him out?”

  Here in River Forest that looks like a very good question.

  I was running down the field towards the end zone. A crowd of women was chasing me—my mom, Annie, Dale Quade, Judge Crawford, Kelly, Cindy, Nuala. I was determined to score the touchdown, the only one in my football career. As I was about to cross the goal line, Nuala tackled me. She rolled over on top of me and demanded sex or a fifty-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness. I reached out with my arm and broke the plane of the goal line with the football. The referee threw up his arms just like the touchdown Jesus on the Notre Dame library. I tried to apologize to Nuala because I wanted sex more than the touchdown, but she vanished, to be replaced by Kelly, who was now a skeleton covered with dirt from the grave and smelling like a garbage pail.

  I woke up, drenched in sweat. For a couple of moments the dream seemed more real than the reality of my bedroom. Then its pleasure and its terror slipped back into my unconscious.

  I had not scored the touchdown after all. But neither had I lost Nuala.

  I struggled out of bed and stumbled towards the drapes which kept out the city. Outside a hard rain was falling. Chicago looked morose and displeased. Perfect day for a Bears game.

  What was my schedule? Pick Nuala up for church, drop her at my sister Meg’s house for another shower. Talk to Cindy about affidavits for the hearing tomorrow.

  Well, next week I wouldn’t have to drive to the house on Southport. Nuala would be in bed beside me. Maybe we could engage in a little entertainment before Mass. I grinned at the image and permitted myself to enjoy it. We would have come a long way since my first lecherous fantasies about her in O’Neill’s pub.

  The telephone interrupted my lustful imaginations.

  “Dermot Coyne.”

  “Marie Mangan, Dermot.” A firm, crisp voice.

  “Good morning.”

  “You saw Jared yesterday?”

  “Indeed we did.”

  “The poor boy is truly twisted.”

  “With all respect, Mrs. Mangan …”

  “Marie.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You were about to say that he was always twisted. I quite agree … I have two phone numbers for you. Do you have a pencil?”

  “Just a second … OK.”

  “The first is for Jared’s
lawyer. If your sister calls him at noon, he will have an affidavit from Jared which she will find useful. The second is my number up here. I hope you will feel free to call me occasionally.”

  As I took down the two numbers, I wondered whether she had worked with her husband in their projects in Portland. She must have. Indeed she might have been a better businessperson than he.

  “We will certainly stay in touch with you,” I said in reply to her question. “I hope we see you at the wedding.”

  “Your young woman is a remarkable person, Dermot.”

  “Funny thing, I was just thinking that, too.”

  “You must be patient and kind with her.”

  “I know that.”

  “I assumed you did. God bless you both.”

  Cindy would be awake. Kids didn’t let you sleep even on Sunday morning. Did I want that hassle? Too late to think about it.

  “Yeah, I know the guy. Sleaze. Melrose Park. I’ll call him at noon. Where did you get this, Derm?”

  “Information received.”

  “You and that one have been doing some poking around of your own?”

  “Who, us?”

  “Well, it seems to have helped. Tell me about it someday.”

  “Sure.”

  I glanced at the clock next to the phone. No time for a swim. My exercise schedule had fallen apart.

  After a hasty shower, I drove up to Southport, hungry for the sight of my woman.

  She wasn’t waiting for me. So I rang the doorbell.

  The door opened slightly. The upper half of a face appeared.

  “Tis your self,” she murmured.

  “Would you be expecting another lover?”

  “If I were,” she said, opening the door so I could come in, “I wouldn’t tell you … Sorry I’m not ready.”

  “And don’t you look grand in your lime underwear and hose.”

  I seized her from behind, my fingers digging into the firm muscles of her belly, and kissed her neck.

  “Dermot! Not before church!”

  “I don’t think God would mind … I don’t know about your friends the angels.”

  I let my fingers drift upward so that my thumbs touched the bottom of her negligible bra. She sighed deeply and leaned back against me. I lowered the straps, peeled away the cups from her breasts and took possession of them. They were mine, she was mine. She sighed again in surrender.

  “I should have put my dress on before you came in,” she said. “Now aren’t you destroying me altogether?”

  “You’d better get used to being destroyed altogether.”

  She sagged against my chest.

  “Dermot,” she gasped, “your fingers are sending electric shocks through me whole body.”

  “Better get used to that, too.”

  Her nipples hardened against my palms. There’d never be any trouble turning this one on.

  “Tis a good thing we’re getting married before next Sunday.”

  “I’ll be doing a lot more than this next Sunday before Mass.”

  “Go long wid ya, Dermot Michael Coyne. You’ll be so worn out I’ll have to drag you out of bed.”

  “Put on your dress, woman, or we’ll be late for Mass.”

  “They call it the Eucharist these days … How can I put on me dress with you holding me boobs?”

  “That’s true,” I said, releasing her.

  “Since you came in and violated me privacy,” she said, readjusting the straps of her bra, “the least you can do is zip up me dress.”

  “That seems reasonable,” I said, helping her on with the dress, a closely fitting lime creation with a turtleneck and a silver belt. Then I kissed her back in the process of fastening the dress. “How come you’re not ready this morning?”

  “I had to do a lot of thinking last night.”

  “You’d better wear a raincoat.”

  I helped her down the stairs and into the car. While we were away on our honeymoon the contractor would finish the modernization of the house, restore the first-floor entrance, and demolish the outdoor stairway, a relic of the days when Chicago was a swamp.

  “What were you thinking about?” I asked as I started the car.

  “I was thinking that I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

  “Were you now?”

  “I was. I’m not afraid of the wedding day or the wedding night or of marriage or even of you, Dermot Michael Coyne.”

  “Isn’t that grand!”

  “Brilliant, actually.”

  “And why are you no longer afraid.”

  “I didn’t have enough trust in God or in you. I’m over that now. I’m sorry.”

  She was perfectly calm and matter-of-fact.

  “Well, I don’t know about God,” I said, trying to be funny, “but you certainly should have trusted me.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  What did this conversation mean? She certainly seemed confident and self-possessed. But then she often seemed that way.

  “We’ll do fine, Nuala,” I said, hoping that I was saying the right thing.

  “We certainly will, Dermot,” she said, patting my arm.

  That settled that.

  After Mass I drove out to River Forest to my sister Meg’s house (she’s the psychiatrist in the family) where the last of the showers would be. Cindy was waiting for me with her van. We were going hunting for affidavits. Nuala waved a forlorn farewell as we drove off.

  “That one doesn’t want to let you out of her sight,” Cindy said.

  “Really?”

  “You saw the look on her face. I think she’s in love.”

  “Really?”

  “Almost as bad as you are.”

  We collected signed documents from Dr. Gunderson, Jarry’s obsequious lawyer, and a very anxious Porky Conway.

  “Honest, Derm, I didn’t know he would do something like that.”

  “No problem, Pork, no problem at all.”

  Porky had certainly realized that Jarry was up to no good. At his stage in life Pork, however, once the life of every party, would do anything for someone who laughed at some of his jokes.

  “Good day’s work, little bro,” Cindy said as we pulled up to my parents’ house. “It will be all over tomorrow.”

  “Don’t bet on it. Listen to what Dale’s favorite columnist says this morning:

  “COLUMN ITEM

  “Legal beagle Dale Quade is untroubled by the recent dog and pony show over the alleged forgery of a tape featuring novelist Dermot Coyne bragging about his tricks on the floor of the Merc. Sources tell us that Quade never considered the tape to be an important part of the government’s case against Coyne. We hear that there are enough other gotchas in the Fed evidence to send him to jail for a long time unless he buys into the generous plea bargain that Quade has offered.”

  “Wow!” Cindy exclaimed. “It’s the only evidence they cite in the indictment. She doesn’t have anything else.”

  “She’ll probably want to go through my papers and hunt for something.”

  Cindy thought for a moment.

  “She’d have to go back to the grand jury to get another indictment. I doubt that her boss, even if he’s besotted with her, would let that happen. Moreover, the Justice Department might finally wake up and figure out that it’s collecting a lot of black eyes out there.”

  “What if Judge Crawford decides she doesn’t need another indictment?”

  “She couldn’t do that,” Cindy said, not sounding all that confident.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  We pulled up in front of my parents’ house to which Nuala had retreated after the shower. The Mercedes was parked in the driveway. An unfamiliar car was in front. Avis. Something was up.

  “You let herself drive the Benz?”

  “Doesn’t she have a license and isn’t she a better driver altogether than I am?”

  Cindy laughed at my imitation.

  “Is she really?”

  “At least as good … Thanks for
all the help, Cindy.”

  “Like I said, little bro, we’re gonna cream them.” She poked her finger at me in reassurance.

  “You’ll go home to the kids now?”

  “Not hardly. Joe and I are going to the office to prepare two motions, one to dismiss and the other asking for a new judge.”

  “When do you get home?”

  “Midnight, if we’re lucky. Don’t worry, little bro, there’ll be great stories about this case for decades. See you tomorrow promptly at nine.”

  I let myself into the house. Angry voices with strong Irish brogues were arguing in the parlor.

  Thick, dark rage boiled up within me.

  “What’s the matter with a postponement for a week or two?” a reasonable male voice asked.

  Not Larry.

  So the whole “family council” had come.

  “The matter,” Nuala shouted, “is that I’m not going to do it. Not for you, not for anyone.”

  “But, Nunu, look at all the pain you’ll be causing Ma and Da.”

  “You’re the ones that will be causing the pain!”

  Nunu? Cute name. For a baby. Just now she sounded like she had been sobbing and was but a step away from hysteria.

  “Your sobbing doesn’t help the discussion,” said a third voice. “Why can’t we talk about our suggestion reasonably?”

  “Because it is not a reasonable suggestion. I will not postpone my marriage just to please you gobshites.”

  “There’s no need to be vulgar, Nuala”—Larry now. “The young man is a criminal and you will disgrace us all if you marry him. Have you no concerns for your nieces and nephews?”

  “Fuck me nieces and nephews!”

  CAREFUL, the Adversary advised me.

  I walked into the parlor.

  “Nuala, who let these people into my house?”

  It wasn’t my house at all, at all. But I wasn’t worried about technical truth.

  “I did, Dermot,” she said meekly.

  “Get out!” I ordered. “All of you! Get out now!”

  The three siblings were attractive, dark Irish young people, not as attractive as Nunu, but still appealing—black hair, pale skin, white teeth, slender, cute breasts on the girl. Larry, standing apart from them, his face glowing with triumph was as ugly as ever.