Bloodland

by Alan Glynn

  Like an idiot, as it turns out.

  He brings his coffee back over to the desk.

  On the screen he has pulled up an article from the most recent online edition of Vanity Fair. It’s about one of the people Bolger mentioned, Clark Rundle, CEO of something-or-other, and his brother, a US senator.

  Jimmy starts reading, but gives up after a few paragraphs.

  Some bloke out of Vanity Fair?

  Fuck off.

  He’s tired now, and cranky, this sense creeping up on him that he’s been mugged somehow – by circumstance, by coincidence, by his own stupidity.

  He takes a sip of coffee.

  His phone rings.

  He shakes his head, and picks it up.

  *

  By the time he gets to the hotel, Dave Conway is exhausted. He has spent most of the afternoon with Martin Boyle discussing how best to make his pitch to the Black Vine people on Monday and although his concentration mightn’t have been great to start with, the call from Larry Bolger threw him off completely. Dave’s not even sure he fully understood what Bolger was on about – something to do with the young journalist. But the easiest way to get him off the phone was to promise he’d call around and see him later on. Conway then tried Phil Sweeney, but Phil was in a meeting, so he had to leave a message – a message that he found was becoming, in the course of leaving it, increasingly urgent.

  On his way up in the elevator now he takes out his mobile and switches it to vibrate.

  When Mary Bolger opens the door of the apartment, Conway immediately sees the distress in her face. She doesn’t say anything, just leads him in and points across the room at Bolger, who is slumped in an armchair.

  Then she disappears into the kitchen.

  No greeting. No peck on the cheek. No offer of tea or a drink. All the usual formalities dispensed with.

  Bolger looks over at him and nods, distress equally evident in his face.

  Conway approaches. He stops at the dining table and pulls out a chair. He turns it around and sits in it. Yesterday, down in the Avondale Lounge, it had seemed as if Bolger was looking for trouble. Today it seems – Conway can’t help thinking – as if he might have found it.

  There is silence for a while.

  Then Conway says, ‘Right. What is it, Larry? Come on.’

  Bolger groans.

  Conway doesn’t think he is going to have much patience for this. After all, he’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place, kill two birds with one stone sort of thing, and now Bolger is the one, it appears, who has gone and fucked it up.

  ‘So?’ he says, an edge entering his voice.

  Bolger sighs and runs a hand over his stubble. He has always been one of those men who needs to shave in the afternoon. But not today, apparently. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘I’ve done something stupid.’

  ‘O-kay,’ Conway says, and nods, feeling like a priest in the confessional. Then he sees that not only has Bolger not shaved, his eyes look bleary, and his face is a little puffy.

  ‘Larry,’ he says, ‘have you been drinking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Conway closes his eyes. He didn’t know Bolger in his drinking days, but he’s heard the stories. And he knows how all of this works. He opens his eyes again.

  ‘Meeting was that bad, yeah?’

  Bolger grunts, then says, ‘This was before he arrived.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was well on when he got here.’

  Oh Jesus.

  ‘And this stupid thing you did, I assume it wasn’t just having the drink . . .’

  Bolger shakes his head.

  ‘. . . it was something you said?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Whatever Bolger may have said to this journalist, and even if he didn’t say anything at all, the mere fact that he had drink on him, and so early in the day, would be enough of a story in itself – a bullshit tabloid story, but a story nonetheless – to do him irreparable damage.

  Conway shrugs. ‘So, what did you say to him?’

  Bolger exhales, though it’s more of a shudder. ‘I don’t fucking know, Dave. I don’t remember exactly. We were talking about other stuff he’s done and he said he’d been working on a book, a biography –’

  Dave’s heart sinks.

  ‘– of Susie Monaghan, and –’

  ‘Larry, don’t tell me you –’

  ‘I didn’t go into any detail, none at all, but I may have . . . I may have intimated that –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘– that . . . things weren’t what they seemed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because we were talking and because I was fucking drunk, that’s why.’

  ‘Jesus, Larry.’

  Bolger leans forward, animated all of a sudden. ‘And do you want to know why I was drunk? Do you? Because I’m tired of all this bullshit is why. I’m tired of sitting around in this fucking hotel, I’m tired of watching TV and pretending I’m writing my memoirs, I’m tired of all the remarks and sly comments I have to read every day in the papers, Larry Bolger this, Larry Bolger that, what now for Larry fucking Bolger? I’m tired of being treated as a joke. I’m tired of arrogant pricks like James Vaughan not returning my calls, I’m –’

  Conway holds up a hand. ‘What?’

  Bolger looks at him. ‘James Vaughan? That bastard owes me. He did me out of that IMF job and now he won’t talk to me, won’t return my calls.’ He stops here, as something seems to occur to him. ‘But he will return my calls, and you know why? Because this Jimmy Gilroy prick has nothing, nada, he can’t prove a bloody thing. But I can. And if Vaughan doesn’t start showing a little respect, maybe exert a bit of that legendary influence he’s supposed to have, then I might just be forced to –’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Larry.’ Conway gets up from his chair. ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you have any idea what you’re saying?’

  Bolger leans back in the armchair. ‘You know what, Dave? A little bit of respect from you mightn’t go amiss either.’

  ‘What? Is that a threat? Were you smoking crack as well?’

  ‘Watch it.’

  Conway throws his arms up. This is unbelievable. The irrationality of it is breathtaking. ‘Larry,’ he says, a slightly more pleading tone to his voice than he’d like, ‘yesterday you were worried about some small item in the paper, worried that someone might start asking questions, and today you’re ready to, what, blackmail James Vaughan? And if that doesn’t work, what? Is there a plan here? Go on fucking Liveline? You have to see how insane this is.’

  ‘I don’t bel—’

  ‘You have to see that not only would James Vaughan not allow it, I wouldn’t allow it, I couldn’t. I’m in enough trouble as it is, you drag me into this shit, and I’d be destroyed.’

  Bolger looks at him and shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing here. Allow? You couldn’t allow it? You see . . . you see, this is what I’m talking about, and frankly I’ve had enough. I’m not putting up with any more of it.’ He bangs his fist on the side of the armchair. ‘I was the fucking Taoiseach for Christ’s sake.’

  Conway turns around and runs a hand over his hair.

  He takes a deep breath.

  This is a nightmare.

  He wants to just walk out of here, but he can’t. He has to talk Bolger down, has to bring him back from the precipice.

  Plus, he has to find out what Jimmy Gilroy knows.

  ‘OK,’ he says, turning around again, ‘OK,’ and then adds, in an attempt to defuse the tension, ‘Larry, any chance I could get a cup of coffee or something?’

  *

  Jimmy sees from the caller ID that it’s Phil Sweeney. For a second or two he toys with the idea of letting it go into message. But that would just drag things out. He’d have to call him back at some point.

  He answers it.

  ‘Phil?’

  ‘Jimmy. What’s going on?’

  ‘Er . . . what do you mean?’


  ‘I mean what’s going on? I heard something happened. I got a message. But I’ve been in meetings all day.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No. It’s something to do with Larry, isn’t it? Tell me.’

  Jimmy hesitates, but then decides to get straight into it. What’s the point in being coy, he thinks, or in dissembling? He’ll just tell it straight, describe what happened, because Sweeney is probably going to ridicule him anyway. Then, in hearing himself tell the story, Jimmy realises afresh – with each passing word, with each new detail – just how ridiculous it actually is.

  How ridiculous he is.

  And how he’ll fully deserve to be ridiculed.

  But –

  Curiously.

  That isn’t what happens.

  ‘Holy fuck, Jimmy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean what? Jesus. Are you drunk now, too?’ He pauses. ‘Listen to me, Jimmy, this is . . . this is very fucking serious.’

  Jimmy stares at the Vanity Fair page on the computer screen. Why is it so serious? Is it the fact that Larry Bolger was drunk at ten o’clock in the morning? Is that what Sweeney is afraid will get out?

  It’d make sense.

  Because it can hardly be the other thing.

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you hear me? I said this is very serious. You cannot repeat a word of what Bolger said, not to anyone.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘If this gets out it will be a complete fucking disaster.’

  Jimmy swallows. ‘If what gets out, Phil, the fact that he was drunk?’

  ‘No, shit, that’s the least –’

  And then he stops, obviously struck by what he is about to say.

  But Jimmy is struck by it, too. He looks again at the stuff on his desk. ‘The least what, Phil?’ he says. ‘The least of his problems?’ There is a long silence, which tells Jimmy more than any possible answer to the question. ‘Phil,’ he says eventually, ‘you can’t be serious. I was ready to dismiss this. I thought if there was a story here it might be, I don’t know, his struggle with the booze or something, his struggle with reality, which certainly wouldn’t be anything I’d want to write about.’ He pauses. ‘But this –’

  ‘Write? You won’t fucking write anything, Jimmy. I set you up with this and if it didn’t work out, fine, you walk away from it, we’ll find you something else, but –’

  ‘No thanks, Phil, and I’ll write whatever the hell I want to write’.

  ‘That was a confidential conversation, Jimmy, you can’t go around quoting –’

  ‘I have no intention of quoting him, or even of referring to him. All I’m going to do is look into this. I’m a journalist, Phil. What do you expect me to do?’

  No answer. Another pause. Sweeney regrouping. Then, ‘Look, Jimmy, you’re not going to find anything, you’re –’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because . . . oh fuck.’

  Jimmy feels strangely calm through all of this, relieved almost, as though he has been liberated. It’s a feeling that has crept up on him, and as he listens to the normally confidant and sure-footed Phil Sweeney floundering at the other end of the line, he grows in confidence himself.

  ‘Maybe I won’t find anything, Phil. But this is way too serious an allegation to ignore.’ Glancing at the screen again, and then at one of his notebooks, he decides to take a chance. ‘With too many serious names in the mix. Clark Rundle.’ He pauses. ‘Don Ribcoff.’

  As the silence that follows this expands to fill the room, Jimmy’s eyes widen. Eventually, he says, ‘Phil?’

  After another moment he hears a slow, laboured intake of breath. ‘Jimmy, listen to me. Leave this alone, will you? I’m serious. You’ve no idea what you’re getting into here.’

  Jimmy agrees but he isn’t about to say so.

  ‘I’ll see you around, Phil,’ he says and hangs up.

  *

  On three separate occasions, as he sits in Bolger’s apartment, Dave Conway feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

  Afterwards, walking along the corridor towards the elevator, he takes the phone out and checks it – three missed calls, all from Phil Sweeney.

  He stops at the elevator and presses the ‘down’ button.

  His hand is shaking.

  The elevator door opens and he steps inside.

  What can Phil Sweeney tell him at this stage that he doesn’t already know? The damage is done.

  He calls him anyway.

  ‘Phil.’

  ‘Dave, my God, where have you been? This is a nightmare. Larry and the kid? We shouldn’t have put the two of them together, big fucking mistake.’

  See?

  ‘Yeah.’ Conway presses the button for the ground floor. ‘But how much does this . . . what’s his name again? The kid?’

  ‘Jimmy Gilroy.’

  ‘Right. How much does he know?’

  ‘Not much, as far as I can tell. But of course now he’s like a dog after a bone. Plus, he’s got names. Whether these came from Larry or not I don’t know. It wasn’t clear.’

  ‘Names, what do you mean, names?’

  As the elevator car descends, floor by floor, Conway feels his insides descending even faster.

  ‘He mentioned Rundle. And Don Ribcoff.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think he was bluffing, but it means he’s not working in a vacuum.’

  ‘Well, can you take care of him?’

  The elevator door opens onto the hotel lobby.

  ‘That depends, Dave. What do you mean exactly?’

  Conway doesn’t know. He needs time to think.

  He steps out of the elevator.

  He needs time to remember. Because how much, actually, does Phil Sweeney himself know? Not everything, that’s for sure. He’d know that certain things happened – but not, in every case, how or why they happened. He’d know names and dates – but not, in every case, their full significance.

  There’s a balance to be struck here and Conway needs to be careful. In any case, Phil Sweeney probably isn’t who he should be talking to about this.

  Not anymore. Not going forward.

  ‘Talk him out of it’, he says. ‘That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do, Dave. I suppose there’s still a couple of buttons I can press.’ He pauses. ‘Did you talk to Larry?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s . . .’ Conway swallows, still in shock. ‘I don’t know, he’s out of control.’ He stands next to a marble pillar in the lobby. ‘Right now, he’s the very fucking definition of a loose cannon.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Phil. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m up to my neck in this rescue package at the moment and I’m not going to let anything jeopardise it.’

  What’s he saying here?

  ‘Right.’

  He’s saying that if this shit gets dredged up again, if questions are asked, if names are mentioned and dots are joined – then that’s it. He may as well pack it in. But that also, basically, he’s not going to allow that to happen.

  So who does he talk to?

  ‘Look, Phil,’ he says, resolve hardening. ‘You deal with this Gilroy fella, OK? Call him off, do whatever you have to do, because I don’t ever want to hear his name again. As for Larry, I really don’t know. I’m going to have to think about it.’

  But the fact is he’s already thought about it.

  Already thought it through.

  And it didn’t take him long.

  The important decisions usually don’t.

  After he’s done with Phil Sweeney, he keeps the phone in his hand. He crosses the lobby and goes outside. There’s an early evening chill in the air. He stands under the portico.

  He gazes out over the hotel’s manicured front lawn.

  He looks back at the phone and scrolls through his list of contacts. He finds what he’s looking for. It’s a long time since he�
��s used this number.

  He calls it. He waits. It rings.

  ‘Good morning, Gideon Global. How may I help you?’

  ‘Yes, can you put me through to Don Ribcoff, please.’

  5

  Jimmy has been handed something on a plate here, it’s just that he doesn’t know what it is exactly. If Phil Sweeney had opted for Bolger being drunk as the major cause of concern, Jimmy would have had no inclination to take the matter any further. But Sweeney was rattled on the phone and made it obvious that the real problem was what Bolger said, not the state he was in when he said it – a position that only moments earlier Jimmy himself, and all on his own, had somehow managed to reason his way out of.

  Now he’s right back into it.

  But with no sense of direction, no compass.

  A clue to the answer may lie somewhere among all this stuff on his desk. Or it may not. But so far that’s all he’s got.

  He sorts through the papers again and reorganises them.

  The event at Drumcoolie Castle was the Fifth International Conference on Corporate and Business Ethics, previous ones having been held in places such as Seattle and Johannesburg. It was a three-day event – a wall-to-wall roster of papers, panels, lunches, receptions and dinners, and with an extremely impressive list of attendees. But reading through the programme and subsequent newspaper reports, Jimmy gets no real sense of what the event was like, no sense that it was anything other than as intensely boring as it seems now on paper.

  He goes through the list of attendees again.

  Apart from a few obvious and well-known ones, the only name that sticks out on the list is one of the two that Bolger mentioned – Clark Rundle. The other name he mentioned, Don Ribcoff, doesn’t appear on the list – or, indeed, in any of the other materials Jimmy has assembled about the conference. But that doesn’t have to be significant. Nothing he has found out about Rundle means anything to him either.

  Clark Rundle is the Chairman and CEO of BRX, which is a privately owned engineering and mining conglomerate with operations in over seventy countries around the world. Founded in the late nineteenth century by his great-grandfather, Benjamin Rundle, the company quickly went from producing machine parts to building railroads, highways, pipelines and hydro-electric dams. Over the decades there seems to have been a revolving door of sorts between the boards of BRX and various administrations in Washington, but that, Jimmy assumes, is standard operating procedure at this level.