Mothers and Sons

by Colm Toibin

  He could not decide if the Dutchmen were a trap or not. He sat down and found that he would do anything now to avoid thinking that led to no conclusion. He trusted no one. That thought gave him strength, and he went on to feel almost proud that he felt love for no one – maybe love was not the word – but he felt no need to protect anyone. Except, he thought, his daughter Lorraine, she was two now. Everything about her was beautiful and he looked forward to waking in the morning and finding that she was awake too and waiting for him to come and pick her up. He liked it when she was asleep upstairs. He wanted her to be happy and secure. He did not feel this about his other children. He had felt the same, however, about his younger brother Billy, but Billy was killed in a robbery, stabbed with a knife and left to bleed to death. So he supposed that he did not really feel much about Billy anymore, he knew how to stop his mind thinking about him.

  If he could get rid of these paintings he would be fine, he thought. He could go back to normal. Maybe he should take a risk with these Dutchmen, try to work out a way to get the money from them in exchange for the paintings without any further complications. But, he thought, he mustn’t do that. He must be very careful.

  HE DID NOT drink and did not like bars, but the hotel he had told Mousey to put the Dutchmen into had a quiet bar and a good side entrance close to the car park. Nonetheless, he felt unsafe, watching a loudly dressed American woman at the bar ordering a drink and wondering for a moment if she were a cop. He caught her eye and glanced away as quickly as he could. From the cops’ point of view, he thought, it made sense to send a woman dressed like an American into the bar. It would also make sense for Mousey Furlong to make a deal with the cops, set this up as a first step towards rehabilitation. Soon, he thought, Mousey’s wife would open a crèche or a posh off-licence with all his heroin money and they would raise funds for charity when Christmas came round. On the other hand, the American woman might just be a tourist and Mousey might not have changed very much.

  When the two Dutchmen came, he recognized them instantly. He had never been out of Ireland in his life and he had never, to his knowledge, met anyone Dutch before. But these were Dutch, he thought, they just looked Dutch. They could not have been anything else. He nodded at them. They would recognize him, too, he supposed.

  He wrote on a piece of paper ‘Stay here’ and handed it to the skinnier one as soon as he sat down. He put his finger to his lips. Then he walked out into the car park and sat into his car. That would give them something to think about, he imagined, Dutch or not. The car park was empty. He watched out for the slightest movement, but no one appeared, no car came to park. He would wait here for a while more, having decided to resist the temptation to go and check out the front of the hotel and the lobby. It was important, he knew, to remain calm, to stay hidden, to make the minimum number of moves necessary. He did not play chess, but he had watched someone once playing the game on television and he had liked how slow and careful and calculating they were.

  They were both drinking coffee when he returned. He waited until the barman was out of sight and wrote on a piece of paper: ‘Is the money in Ireland?’ One of them nodded. ‘So?’ he wrote. ‘We need to see,’ came the reply. Then, having checked again that the barman was not within hearing distance, he said in an audible voice: ‘You need to check the paintings, I need to check the money.’

  He tried to look controlling and menacing and wondered if the Dutch had a different way of doing this. Maybe, he thought, wearing glasses and being skinny and drinking coffee meant tough in Holland. They looked, in any case, professional. He motioned them to follow him out to the car park. He drove first to the North Circular Road and then down through Prussia Street to the quays. He crossed the river and made his way to Crumlin. No one in the car spoke. He hoped that his two companions did not know what part of the city they were in.

  He drove down a side street and then a lane, turning into a garage whose door had been left open. He got out of the car and pulled down the sliding door of the garage. They were now in darkness. When he found a light and turned it on, he signalled to the Dutchmen to stay in the car. He went out of a door into a small yard and tapped on the kitchen window. Inside, three or four children sat around a table, a woman stood at a sink; the man standing beside her turned and said something. It was Joe O’Brien. The children rose at once and took their plates and cups and left the room without looking at the window. Joe, he realized, had them well trained. The woman soon gathered up her things as well and left the kitchen.

  Joe O’Brien opened the door and walked out into the yard without speaking. They crossed to the garage and took a look at the Dutchmen through a small, dirty window. Both men were sitting motionless on the bonnet of the car.

  He nodded to Joe O’Brien, who went into the garage and motioned to the two Dutchmen to follow him. They went into the lane and through a door further along to the yard of the neighbouring house. There was an old man at the kitchen table reading the Evening Herald who stood up to let them in when Joe tapped at the window. He went back to reading the paper straight away. They closed the door and walked past him and went upstairs into the back bedroom.

  He did not know whether the uncomfortable look they wore was a fundamental part of the Dutchmen, or if they looked uncomfortable just now, and it was unusual. They peered into the upstairs bedroom as though they had been allowed one glimpse of outer space. He was tempted to ask them if they had never seen a bedroom before as Joe put a ladder against the small opening in the ceiling which led to the attic, climbed up and came down with two paintings – the Gainsborough and one of the Guardis. The two Dutchmen looked intensely at the paintings. No one spoke.

  One of them took out a notebook and wrote: ‘Where is the Rembrandt?’

  He took the notebook brusquely and wrote: ‘Pay for these two. If there are no hitches, we get you the Rembrandt tomorrow.’ The Dutchman took the notebook back and wrote: ‘We are here for the Rembrandt.’ Instantly, while the Dutchman still held the notebook, he wrote: ‘Are you deaf?’ Both Dutchmen read this carefully as though it had some deep and hidden meaning, knitting their brows in unison, their expressions hurt and puzzled.

  He took the notebook again and wrote: ‘The money?’ When he handed the notebook back to the Dutchman, he noticed that the next remark was written in much clearer handwriting: ‘We need to see the Rembrandt.’ He snatched the notebook and wrote quickly, almost illegibly: ‘Buy these paintings first.’ The other Dutchman now took the notebook: ‘We came here to see the Rembrandt,’ he wrote in writing like a child’s. ‘Since there is no Rembrandt, we have to get instructions. We will get in touch again soon, via Mousey.’

  Suddenly, he realized that these two men were serious about the rules which had been established. He had agreed to show them the Rembrandt and now he had broken the rules. It was done for the sake of caution. He would not weaken or adjust his tactics, but move slowly, taking as few risks as possible. They knew now that he was in possession of the other paintings from the heist, and he presumed that they were not being followed by the cops, although he could never be totally sure about that. Even though, by their sullenness, they suggested that the deal was in danger, he was sure that he had done the right thing, aware all of the time that Joe O’Brien was watching him. He felt an urge to grab one of the guys and tie him up and tell the other guy to go and get the money or they would kill his companion, but he had a sense that these two Dutchmen had that eventuality and many other such possibilities covered. They did not themselves act on impulse, but he felt that they would know what to do should he go down that road. It was, he thought, a mistake dealing with foreigners, but there was no one in Ireland with either the money or the inclination to pay ten million for a few paintings.

  They both, as they walked out through the house, passing its owner in the kitchen, remained calm. It was their calmness which disturbed him, held him back, made him think. And then it made him unable to think. He could not tell anything about these two men. It w
as hard to imagine they had ever spent time in jail, unless Dutch jails taught skin care and inscrutable manners. Whoever sent them, he thought, chose them not only for their calmness, which must, he believed, mask a toughness, but also for their skill in knowing the difference between a real Rembrandt and a fake. Maybe that is all they knew, he thought, and they were going to leave the rest to real criminals. Maybe they were art professors, indeed they had the same look as some of the men who came on television to discuss the value to humanity of the paintings he had stolen.

  He did not want the Dutchmen to go without some further promise or enticement. He signalled that Joe O’Brien would take them back to their hotel and then he asked for the notebook and he wrote: ‘This day next week, I will have the painting here.’ One of the men wrote in reply: ‘We will have to get instructions.’ He nodded to Joe O’Brien and threw him the keys of the car.

  He wondered now if it might be a good idea to get Joe to frighten the two other accomplices in the robbery, let them know they were not being cheated or anything like that, but let them know also that they had best lower their expectations for quick money, and make clear to them that any demands or even requests from them for cash would be dealt with briskly.

  Joe O’Brien was the only man he had ever worked with who would always do precisely what he was told, who would never ask questions, never express doubts, never turn up late. He also understood things, such as wiring and locks, explosives, and the engines of cars. When he had wanted to blow up Kevin McMahon the barrister, send him flying into kingdom come, Joe O’Brien had been the only man he approached and told about it.

  That was when his brother Billy was up on robbery charges. He had sat in the court watching McMahon strut and prance for the prosecution and win a conviction on the basis of trumped-up evidence. And then when Billy was up for murder, McMahon became very personal about Billy’s entire family, saying things in court which were none of anyone’s business and must have come from Billy himself or from his mother or from someone who knew them all, knew too much about them all. McMahon seemed to be not just doing his job, but relishing it.

  He paid good money to have two members of the jury frightened enough to do their duty and have Billy let off, but he decided, as he watched McMahon sum up, that he would get him, as a warning to other barristers of his kind and maybe a few judges as well. It would have been easy to shoot him, or have him beaten up, or burn his house down, but instead he decided to blow McMahon sky-high when he was in his car, to remind everyone that more people than the IRA could put bombs in cars. It happened in the North all the time; the aftermath, he thought, always looked good on television. It would give the rest of the legal profession something to think about.

  Even now, he smiled when he thought about it. How foolish these people were! The more they were paid, the more they were careless. McMahon left his car every night in the driveway of his house. And, once more, the emptiness helped. Between three and four in the morning on weekdays nothing moved in those streets. It was as though the dead were sleeping. There was silence and you could do anything. It had taken Joe O’Brien five minutes to put the device under the car and attach it to the engine.

  ‘It’ll blow up the minute he starts the ignition,’ Joe O’Brien had told him. He had never asked why McMahon was being blown up. He never displayed any form of curiosity. He would do anything. He wondered if Joe were like that at home. If his wife asked him to do the washing-up, or stay in babysitting while she sat in the pub, or let her stick her finger up his arse, would he just say yes.

  In the end the bomb had not gone off when McMahon started the car, but about fifteen minutes later when the barrister had reached a busy roundabout. It had not killed McMahon, merely blown his legs off, and this, he thought, was a better result as McMahon hopping around the Four Courts on wooden legs was a daily reminder to his kind what could so easily happen to them too. McMahon dead could be quickly forgotten.

  He remembered meeting Joe O’Brien a few days later and neither of them mentioning the car or McMahon for a while, and then him saying to Joe that the entire affair, denounced by the Taoiseach as a threat to democracy, gave the phrase ‘getting legless’ a whole new meaning. O’Brien had just grinned for a moment, but said nothing.

  THE DAY AFTER the Dutchmen had seen the first two paintings, Mousey Furlong came to visit him. Mousey wore a sad look, like a priest disappointed by the amount of sin in the world.

  ‘The Dutch,’ he said, ‘are different. They listen to what you say and they think that you’ll do what you say, down to the letter. That’s the Dutch. They have no imagination.’

  ‘When are they coming back?’ he asked Mousey.

  ‘It will take a lot to get them back,’ Mousey said.

  ‘What will it take?’

  ‘And don’t underestimate them either,’ Mousey said. ‘One of those gentlemen yesterday could kill you in one second with his bare hands. He’s the best in the business.’

  ‘Which of them?’ he asked Mousey.

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Mousey said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And who’s the other?’

  ‘He’s the art expert and he wasn’t too impressed with the art you showed him. It was worth fuck-all.’

  ‘How do you know these guys are straight?’

  ‘Because they’re Dutch,’ Mousey said. ‘If a Dutch guy is going to stick a knife in your back, he’ll let you know a few weeks in advance, and there’s nothing you can do because on the day his knife will meet your back. That’s the Dutch. If they say Monday they mean Monday, if they say they’ll pay then they’ll pay and if they want to see the Rembrandt, then there’s no need for me to spell it out, is there?’

  ‘Who wants the painting?’

  ‘One of the top men in the drugs trade wants to be the only person in the world, barring a few close friends, who will ever lay eyes on it,’ Mousey said. ‘That’s the Dutch. They are not like us. They want this painting the way one of us might want a week in the Canaries or a great big ride or a hacienda in Baldoyle.’

  TWO DAYS before he was due to present the Rembrandt to the Dutchmen, he had his weekly meeting with Detective Inspector Frank Cassidy. He noticed, as he watched him approach, that Cassidy had more bounce in his step than usual. He was carrying a briefcase.

  ‘Have you been promoted?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to drive the Taoiseach around his constituency?’

  ‘Are you sure we’re safe here?’ Cassidy asked.

  ‘You’re the cop,’ he said. ‘I’m just a poor criminal.’

  Cassidy walked into the flat.

  ‘You’re in trouble,’ he said.

  ‘They found Shergar?’

  ‘I mean trouble,’ Cassidy said. ‘There’s a tout in your camp.’

  ‘I don’t have a camp,’ he said.

  ‘You do,’ Cassidy said and took a small cassette player from his briefcase. He looked around for somewhere to plug it in.

  ‘You remember Mansfield?’ Cassidy asked as he plugged out the television and plugged in the cassette player.

  ‘The fellow who thinks he doesn’t look like a cop? The chap who looks like a cop trying to look like a North Side hippie?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cassidy said. ‘Him.’

  ‘What about him? He’s been fiddling his expenses again?’

  ‘No, he has a new friend, a drinking companion.’

  Cassidy fiddled with the tape.

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘He’s been drinking a lot with his new friend,’ Cassidy said.

  ‘Malcolm MacArthur?’

  ‘No.’ Cassidy stood up and looked at him evenly. ‘Mansfield has been drinking with your mother.’

  Immediately, his mind fixed on some point in the distance, something both remote and precise. He smiled for a moment.

  ‘I hope he’s paying, because I’m broke.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s paying,’ Cassidy said.

  He had shot a few guys and, once, stabbed a man w
ho later died, but he had never strangled anyone. He wished now he had learned that skill.

  ‘Do you want to hear it?’ Cassidy asked.

  ‘That’s what I pay you for.’

  ‘Sit down so.’

  At first there was nothing, the sound of static and something hitting against the microphone and then complete silence broken by the waves of the cassette going around in the cheap machine.

  ‘Turn it up,’ he said.

  Cassidy put his hand out signalling to him to be quiet. Slowly, a voice could be heard, a woman’s voice, but he could not make out any words. Then it was clear that someone was fumbling with the machine, moving it, bringing it closer until his mother’s voice could be heard and each word understood. She had been drinking.

  ‘I don’t see him all the time. He does be busy, oh he’s busy, I’ll say that much for him now, he’s never idle like some are idle. And this is a rough area, it’s rough and it’s tough, and I’d like to say that I have lovely neighbours but I don’t. The rats live all around. They shouldn’t be talking to the Housing Department of the Corpo, but the rodent department, because they are rats. And they all know that if one of them even let their dogs do a poo in front of my house, my son would deal with them. And it would be hard and heavy. If they looked at me sideways, they’d know what would be coming. So I feel very safe here.’

  The sound then became muffled again. Somebody was moving. He could hear drink being poured into a glass, her large gin he supposed, and then the clink of ice cubes and then a more generous pouring of tonic. And then the noise of a can of beer being opened. And her voice again unclear as she moved away from the hidden microphone and, after a while, easy to understand when she sat back in her chair. She was in mid-sentence.

  ‘… that’s where things are safe and there’s no Guard knows his way around there. Sure, he’s been going there all his life. He’d know his way around it in the dark. Oh, the things that are buried down there! You could run the country on it. Sure they can look away. They could look every day of the year and they’d find nothing. He’s a quiet fellow, you know. No smoking. Never took a drink in his life. And you’d never notice him. He’s a bit like a fox. And that’s his nature and there’s nothing anyone can do. All the same I don’t know where I’d be without him. His other brother was no good. Oh no good! Billy was no good for anything.’