Irish Cream

by Andrew M. Greeley

  It had not been a night for the waterfalls and the lake, but a night of wild pleasure.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  YOU KNEW YOU COULD GET AWAY WITH ALMOST ANYTHING, SO YOU DID IT.

  You bet I did.

  “Sure, don’t you own me altogether?”

  “Only when you want me to.”

  “’Tis true.” She sighed loudly. Another asthma attack.

  I reached under her robe and seized a breast. She pressed my hand, so I squeezed harder.

  “Dermot”—she sighed—“we have problems.”

  “Right,” I said, removing my hand and settling down for serious business.

  “Damian’s probation officer phoned him yesterday and left a message on his line. He wants Damian in his office out at 26th and California at two this afternoon sharp. There’s some grave problems about his probation.”

  “Jackie O’Sullivan tilting the playing field again.”

  “Och, your man never gives up, does he?”

  “So.?”

  “I called Cindy this morning. She’ll appear as Damian’s attorney. She wants Mike Casey there too and one or both of us.”

  “And you have your appointment with Madame?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “No problem. I’ll go out there and try to look like Spenser.”

  She smiled faintly.

  “Better that you look like Hawk.”

  “Wrong ethnic group.”

  I couldn’t intimidate a ten-year-old kid with a soccer ball. Blond hair, fair skin, dimples—the big lout is a pushover. Before they found out that they were wrong, it was usually too late.

  “Cindy says they can’t do anything unless there’s a lot of proof that he’s really violated the probation.”

  “They could make him stop exhibiting his work for a couple of months. What good would that do?”

  “It would show poor Damian that his father and mother were still calling the shots.”

  “Would they really risk sending him to jail for, what is it, five months?”

  “Four and a half. Didn’t your man yesterday tell you how vicious they can be when their collective neurosis is threatened? Poor Day is essential to it.”

  “So they tilt the playing field and we tilt it back?”

  “The pitch, Dermot Michael.”

  “Right!”

  So at one-forty-five I met our team in the corridor outside the probation offices in the bowels of the Cook County Courthouse at 26th and California, one of the most depressing parts of the world’s most depressing building.

  “We’ll walk in,” Cindy said, “in high dudgeon, I’ll introduce you gentlemen—Derm, you are a gentleman for these purposes, none of your smart-ass comments.”

  “I’ll do my best, big sister.”

  “I’ll demand to know why my client is being harassed. I will threaten to get an injunction against the probation officer and warn him that in court he will have to reveal the names of those who have charged my client with violations. I’ll add that his job, pretty worthless now, will be gone when I’m finished with him.”

  “Gosh, Mrs. Hurley,” Damian, all slicked up in a business suit, said. “Should we do that?”

  “Damian, you have to trust your attorney. Your attorneys since Superintendent Casey is also an attorney. And, Dermot, don’t correct me by saying ‘former superintendent.’ And we reject all suggestions that we sit down.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of that, Cindy.”

  “Good. At precisely two we go in there. If his assistant tries to stop us, we just bowl her over.”

  “Figuratively,” I said.

  My sister glared at me.

  I was acting like the family smart-ass again.

  “Now,” Cindy said, glancing at her watch.

  In we went.

  The young black woman at a tiny desk in the small-and-cramped outer office rose to stop us.

  “You can’t go in there!”

  “We can and are, young woman. My client is being harassed and I intend to put a stop to it.”

  The probation officer, a thin, worn young white man in his late twenties, with rimless glasses and thin lips, looked up in surprise.

  “You can’t come in here like that … Mr. O’Sullivan, this is completely unacceptable.”

  The guy seemed exhausted. M.A. in psych from Loyola or DePaul. Try probation work. Steady job. Maybe you could do some good. Go to night school and get a doctorate. It was already too much for him.

  “My name is Cindy Hurley.” She slapped her card down on his desk. “I’m appearing for Mr. O‘Sullivan. This is Superintendent Michael Patrick Vincent Casey, whose gallery exhibits Mr. O’Sullivan’s work. And this is Dermot Coyne, who arranged for the exhibition. We are here to demand that your inappropriate and questionable harassment of Mr. O’Sullivan cease at once. To exhibit his work in a prestigious gallery does not violate his probation. Your suggestion that it might comes dangerously close to malfeasance in office. If you persist, I will go into court this afternoon to seek a restraining order against you and John Patrick O’Sullivan.”

  A real mouthful.

  My sister is a pretty, sweet woman with a bunch of good kids and a wonderful husband. I am always astonished at the harpy she can turn into when she dons her legal persona.

  The probation officer stood up, since he grasped that none of us were about to sit down. He wore neither tie nor coat and his trousers were sustained by black suspenders. If he had been quicker on the draw, he would have denied that the exhibition at the Reilly Gallery was the subject of his intended warning to Damian and further denied any knowledge of John Patrick O’Sullivan. Instead, he tried to defend the warning. He picked up a sheet of paper with trembling fingers and read from it.

  “I deem it inappropriate for a man serving sentence under probation to exhibit artistic work under the pretext that he is a rehabilitated criminal …”

  Mike the Cop cut into the reading.

  “What is your name, son?”

  “Martin O’Grady …”

  “Mr. O’Grady, I too am an attorney. I am appearing for my wife, Annie Casey, who owns the Reilly Gallery. I’m sure that a threat to probation on the grounds of an art exhibition would not stand up in court. Moreover, the suggestion that we are exploiting Mr. O’Sullivan’s record is absurd and probably defamatory. I would remind you that you have spoken in the presence of witnesses. If we have to go into court to seek redress, we will, of course, question you about the complaints from Mr. John Patrick O’Sullivan.”

  Martin O’Grady surrendered.

  “What do you want me to do?” he begged.

  “We want you to sign the document indicating that Mr. Damian Sullivan has kept his probation since his last meeting with you,” Cindy snapped. “And we want you to remember that we have witnesses to this meeting who will be only too happy to testify in court against you should Mr. Damian Sullivan have any more trouble from this office.”

  He slumped into his chair, searched on his desk for the paper, found it, signed it, and handed it towards Cindy.

  “Damian, you’d better take that paper.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  We left the office.

  “You were great, Ms. Hurley,” Damian said shyly.

  “Thank you, Damian … Did you come over in your Benz, Dermot? … Give me a ride back downtown.”

  “And I’ll take Damian back to the Gallery,” Mike the Cop said.

  “My dad won’t like this.”

  “There are some playing fields, Day, that he can’t tilt.”

  “I guess so.”

  “What a nice young man!” Cindy said as we drove towards the Loop. “Why would his family want to destroy him?”

  “They needed a scapegoat.”

  “He’s not free from them, is he?”

  “I don’t think he ever will be, Cindy. Not while that collective neurosis operates.”

  “Till his parents die, you mean?”

  �
��That won’t end it.”

  “Well you and your gorgeous wife have at least given him something to live for … Have you spoken to him about our petition for a new trial?”

  “No, should I?”

  “As soon as possible. I have all the ducks in a row. He’ll have to designate me as his attorney. We should have no trouble. An assistant state’s attorney will go in with me and will agree that the motion is appropriate. Then Judge Mikolitis will ask whether his office is prepared to prosecute a new trial. He’ll indicate that it’s unlikely. The judge will look at the papers and take the matter under advisement. He’ll rule the following week. The state’s attorney will tell him that his office does not intend to press charges and that they will reopen the investigation. The judge will dismiss the charges with prejudice, which means that they can’t come back into court. That will be that.”

  “I’ll have Nuala talk to him tomorrow.”

  “Will he want to do it?”

  “No, but herself will talk him into it … Will the state’s attorney really reopen the case?”

  “He’ll have to.”

  “So investigators will descend on John Patrick O’Sullivan to ask questions even before he knows what’s hit him.”

  “Depends on whether the media picks up the story or not … What will happen then?”

  “Something crazy, you can count on it.”

  “Who killed this Rod Keefe?”

  “I don’t know. Me wife says she does.”

  “Is she ever wrong, Dermot?”

  “Occasionally, but never in a matter like this.”

  “Her instincts are not legal evidence, Dermot.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I spotted Nuala walking from the L tracks towards our house and picked her up.

  “The great singer is reduced to riding public transportation.”

  “How often have I told you that I like to ride the L and it being a nice spring day for walking in the fresh air.”

  “You didn’t tell me to drive on.”

  “And hurt your feelings, Dermot Michael?” She said slyly, “Sure, I wouldn’t do that would I now. Besides I’m tired and discouraged … How did it go out at the courthouse?”

  “We won, naturally. My sister is a real bitch when she’s hammering at a witness or a malefactor.”

  “Tell me the details.”

  So I did.

  “Poor kid. He should get out of the job.”

  “Especially since he knows he’s lost his integrity.”

  “John Patrick O’Sullivan corrupts everything he touches, doesn’t he?”

  “’Tis true.”

  “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

  “You still think it will all end tragically?”

  “Unless we can stop it … and I don’t know how we can do that.”

  We pulled up in front of our house.

  “You’re tired and discouraged, Nuala Anne?”

  “Altogether … I’ll never be ready for July 4.”

  “Woman, you will.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “’Tis what I know.”

  “Och, Dermot, you’ve always been right before.”

  “So.”

  She giggled.

  “What if you’re wrong this time?”

  “You need a long nap, Nuala Anne McGrail.”

  “Sleep, Dermot Michael Coyne. Just sleep.”

  “I take your point.”

  The next morning Damian was attempting a difficult task, with Ethne looking on in support. After he had taken the hounds for their morning run in the park, he was trying to take a picture of them and Socra Marie with a disposable drugstore camera. The “doggies” were tired from their run and wanted nothing more than to stretch out somewhere in the shade and sleep. Socra Marie was sky-high with excitement.

  “Day take picture me and doggies!”

  However, she could hardly stand in one place for a single moment.

  “Day paint me!”

  The idea was that the two hounds would lie peacefully on the floor and Socra Marie would stand above them as if she were the ruler of all creation—with her best manic expression.

  The doggies didn’t like it. They shifted and stretched and tried to walk away.

  “Girls!” Nuala Anne ordered.

  Socra Marie hugged Maeve, who was her favorite.

  “Good doggy.”

  Damian fired and probably got a decent picture of Socra Marie and Maeve. But he wanted both dogs in the shot.

  “Would you ever stand still for a moment, Socra Marie?” her mother asked with a touch of irritation in her voice.

  Her little lip curled up. She was about to have a tantrum.

  “Then we’ll have a dish of ice cream!” I said.

  “Me love ice cream! A big dish!”

  She made the “big-girl” gesture and Damian shot again.

  “Perfect!” Damian exulted.

  “Nice doggies!”

  The hounds rushed to the back door. I opened the door. They charged into the yard. After a brief exhibition of wrestling—which neither ever won—they sank into a spot of shade and promptly went to sleep.

  Ethne served up the chocolate ice cream, a small dish for everyone. After our daughter had liberally smeared her little face with chocolate, Socra Marie announced, “Doggies sleep. Socra Marie sleep too.”

  Damian snapped a shot of grinning chocolate-covered face.

  “Last shot,” he said. “It might be a good segue into humans without dogs.”

  “I’ll put her to bed,” Ethne said, knowing that we wanted to talk to Damian privately.

  “I’d better take this roll to the drugstore and get it developed. I’m painting up a storm these days.”

  “Would you ever give us a minute or two, Day,” Nuala said casually.

  “Sure … I hope nothing is wrong …”

  “Not to say wrong, Damian. Dermot and I are convinced that you didn’t run over Rod Keefe.”

  His face, alight with excitement over the photos, turned grim.

  “Everyone says I did.”

  “There never was any real proof,” I joined in. “Your sister Katie has signed an affidavit saying that it is her opinion as a doctor that you had too much alcohol in you even to be able to open the door of the car. The police up there have admitted that your blood alcohol level was so high that you could not have turned over the ignition key.”

  “I don’t drink anymore.”

  “That might be good policy,” I continued, “but that night you couldn’t have possibly run over Rod Keefe.”

  He had a hard time absorbing that.

  “But I was convicted!”

  “Not quite, Damian,” I said. “You accepted a plea bargain which we believe was a travesty of justice.”

  “Cindy Hurley wants to reopen the case,” Nuala said. “The state’s attorney agrees.”

  “Ms. Hurley thinks I didn’t do it?”

  “So did the public defender whom your father fired”

  “Dad said she was just seeking publicity …”

  “She’s a smart lawyer, Damian,” I argued. “Much better than the bungler who wanted to send you to jail”

  “I didn’t go to jail.”

  “Only because the judge had his doubts about the whole thing.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “I don’t want to have to go through the whole thing again.”

  “My sister is convinced that you won’t have to. When the judge grants the new trial, the state’s attorney will say that his office does not wish to pursue the case because of lack of evidence. The judge will dismiss the case.”

  “If I didn’t run over him, who did?”

  “We don’t know, Damian,” I replied, shaving the truth because my spouse did know.

  “That’s not your problem, Damian.”

  “What is my problem?”

  “To get that felony conviction off the record.”

  “Why bother? I’ll
be off probation in less than five months.”

  “Because you are not a killer and that should be as clear to everyone as it is to us.”

  “Dad will be furious.”

  “He’s already beside himself with fury, Damian.”

  “You can’t let him dominate your life,” Nuala urged. “You must show him that the game he has played against you for all these years is over.”

  “That would certainly be nice, if I could do it … What will it taker?”

  “You appoint Cindy your lawyer and show up in court when she files her motion.”

  “When will that be, Dermot?”

  “Friday morning”

  “All right I’ll be there.”

  He went off, I thought, with a confident step.

  “We’ll get the bastards, Nuala Anne. We’ll get them.”

  “I’m still worried, Dermot Michael.”

  “Why?”

  “Bad things might happen to them. Probably will. They’ll fall apart.”

  The next day they did.

  17

  I PARKED the old Benz (old when I first courted Nuala Anne) in front of our house and climbed out. It was a hot day. Very hot. I was tired and ill-tempered after a session with my investment adviser who wanted me to make decisions, a conceit from which he has been unable to wean himself. I keep telling him that it was his job to make the decisions. He had done well so far; I trusted him. Still we had to go through the routine of his proposing alternative strategies, my asking which he would recommend, his making a tentative recommendation, and my accepting it enthusiastically.

  As I turned away from the car, I saw two big guys, both more than a little overweight, bearing down on me. They were wearing jeans and blue-and-gold Notre Dame tee shirts. Their faces were twisted in anger.

  They aren’t really going to do this, are they? Nuala Anne would say it was a cliché. I sighed. They probably thought, as others had in the past, that I was a pretty boy pushover.

  “You Coyne?” one of them growled, presumably Sean, the elder of these two comic Irish twins.

  “Who wants to know?” I demanded, playing the story according to script

  “You’re Coyne all right,” said the other. “We’re going to give you a good thrashing.”

  “As opposed to a bad thrashing … Well, thanks for the warning.”

  One of them moved cautiously around behind me, while the other stationed himself in front of me, just out of my immediate reach.