“I’m not sure. She’s trying to elbow you out of your senior matriarch role.”
“I was never that … that vigorous when I was her age … except when I was drinking.”
“The kid is really something. Poor Joe Moran doesn’t know what he’s courting.”
“Oh, I think he does … She’s a real prize, Chucky. She’ll drive her husband crazy, but he’ll adore her.”
“Just like her mother.”
Sometimes I think that Mary Margaret is what Rosemarie would have been if she had grown up in a reasonably normal family.
Janet brought the most astonishing steak sandwich I had ever seen, along with my Jameson’s.
“Would you like some wine with lunch, Mr. O’Malley?”
Rosemarie cocked an eye at me.
“Maybe with dinner,” I said. “On the way back to Chicago.”
My wife giggled.
“You have to be alert if we’re going to finish this caper.”
I am a notorious short hitter. On my wedding day I drank far too much champagne, a failing she does not permit me to forget. I sipped my Jameson’s very carefully. I didn’t think it was as strong as Green Bush. But what did I know?
I polished off my sandwich and half of Rosemarie’s.
“You’re going to take a nap and leave me with the draft of my New Yorker article,” she said with a tone of reproach.
“Yep. The warrior routs the bad guys. Eats and drinks, has a good nap, then goes out looking for captive matrons to ravish.”
“No captive matrons on this flight.”
“Not yet. Later maybe. Wake me at 4:00 DC time.”
“Yes, master.”
I don’t know whether the Jameson’s or the exertions of battle were responsible for the depth of my sleep, but I plunged into the inner reaches of my soul. It was not a restful sleep. I think a lot of matrons were chasing me around with knives, but I don’t remember exactly what they were planning. I managed to keep ahead of them.
I woke up once and looked around desperately for my Rosemarie. She too was napping, notes and glasses on her lap. She looked peaceful and happy. Where were we anyway? How had I got on this tiny plane? Why? Then I remembered and realized that I was a fool to involve us at our age in life in this crazy adventure. I wanted to be home with my wife and children, sipping iced tea.
I looked at my watch. Three o‘clock Chicago time. One o’clock San Francisco time. There was something I should do … Oh yes, call our answering machine. I pushed the call button and asked Janet for the telephone. I called the number of my line in the darkroom. I was informed that no such number existed. Frantically, I redialed and got the same reaction.
Then I looked at my pocket notebook and realized that I had juxtaposed two numbers. Brilliant special-op. Carefully I tried a third time and heard Shovie’s voice with the message. Then I keyed in a number to hear incoming messages. There was only one.
“Adam Cain here, Ambassador. The deliverables are being delivered.”
Either they were cooperating or they were sustaining the lie.
The cobwebs continued to block my brain. Too much Jameson’s. I was supposed to do something. Oh, yes. Call Vince’s answering machine. This time Rita’s silky voice gave the message.
“The deliverables are being delivered. Next check in from Santa Rosa Airport.”
Vince was probably waiting for the message. He’d wait another hour, call Joe Raftery, and tell him that we were in the Bay Area and would visit him about three, just to say hello. No hint about the game we were playing. I’d check on our answering machine in hope of a confirmation. I did not want to have to deal directly with the cowboys from Rosetta.
I went to the bathroom in the rear of the plane, small but efficient. I splashed my face with water, swilled my mouth with Scope, and opened the door of the room with some difficulty.
Rosemarie was waiting in line at the door.
“I had visions of you locked in there forever,” she said with notable lack of sympathy.
I turned to my proof sheets while my wife worked again on her notes. We were both in a surly mood from our interrupted naps.
An hour after my message to Vince. I called our answering machine again. Abel Cain’s voice was on the machine, but not Vince. I tried at fifteen-minute intervals and there was still no confirmation.
“There’s some buildup over the ocean. Fog drifting into San Francisco. Santa Rosa not threatened. But headwinds are stronger than expected. ETA now 3:05.”
I adjusted my watch to Pacific Coast Time. Rosemarie did the same without my telling her. But I had scored points because she didn’t have to remind me.
We circled interminably in the clouds above Santa Rosa. Finally, at 3:15, I found Vince on the answering machine.
“Confirm Friar awaits visitors.”
“Friar” was the name of the Fenwick football team, a product placement for the Dominican Friars who teach at Fenwick.
“He’s home waiting for us,” I told Rosemarie. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”
“I think the real fun is just beginning.”
I asked Janet to arrange for a cab to take us down California 21 to the St. Brigid’s winery. She confirmed the cab a few moments later. It would be waiting for us. As we broke through the clouds and saw the valleys and the hills of the wine country spread out beneath us, I called Vince for the final time.
“Eagle is landing at Santa Rosa. Eagle is landing at Santa Rosa.”
We landed at 3:35.
The pilot apologized for the delay. Traffic and weather. The flight back to Chicago would be an easy one. They’d nap in the plane and be ready for us at 7:00. Back in Chicago a little after midnight.
The cab driver said he would have us at Brigid by 4:20. We were cutting it awfully close. What if the cowboys arrived before 5:00. Not very likely.
Still …
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Chuck
Joe Raftery watched the two black cars pull up in front of his house and onto his gravel driveway, a trail of dust settling behind them. His heart was pounding. They had roared down the dirt road, coming out of the setting October sun. Three men got out of the first car. They were wearing black suits and black hats. One of them opened the left front door. A man in a black hat and sunglasses emerged, looking very tough.
Joe walked out of the door, pondered the situation from his wide porch, waited a few moments, then slowly ambled down the steps. He must not be frightened. He must not lose his temper. He must not fight them. In fact, he must not say a word. He walked up to the man in the sunglasses. They stared at each other.
“Mr. Joseph Raftery?”
Joe nodded.
“I’m Mr. Jackson. I work for the government.”
Joe nodded again.
The other three men gathered behind Jackson, like ushers at a wedding party. Their jackets bulged with weapons.
Joe wanted to kill everyone of them.
Someone opened the back door of the other car. A little girl, surely his daughter, pushed her way out and shouted, “Daddy!”
A woman, also in black, held the child so that she could not run.
“The government found it necessary to hold your wife in protective custody. It was for her protection and yours. We are directed to release her to you this afternoon.”
He offered Joe an envelope. Joe stared at it but did not accept it. Jackson dropped it on the ground.
“You will read and sign this document.”
Joe continued to stare at him. Jackson dropped the document. It fell on the gravel next to the check.
A blond woman climbed out of the second car and pushed the woman who was holding the child. Samantha rushed across the gravel and clung to his leg.
“Daddy! Daddy! We’re home!”
Bride Mary, thin and weary, but still herself, strode briskly toward them.
“Don’t let them trick you into doing anything, Joe. That will give them the excuse to kill us all.”
When she was only a yard or two away, one of the men in black grabbed her. Mr. Jackson slapped her face. Bride Mary twisted away from the man and embraced her husband.
“Not a word, darling! Not a word!”
“I leave you with a warning,” Mr. Jackson said. “There are many people in the government who think this is a mistake. We will continue to watch you closely, not to protect you. We don’t give a damn whether you three live or die. If we see any sign that you are preparing to betray us, we will eliminate you … Is that clear?”
Bride Mary spit in his face.
Jackson’s body swelled with rage.
“It would be a great pleasure to eliminate you, bitch.”
“Get out of here, you focking shite head. You’re the one that’s finished.”
He turned to the car, waited for one of his thugs to open the door for him, and entered the car. Doors slammed and the little cavalcade backed out of the gravel driveway and sped off into the rapidly setting sun.
“Got it all, Rosemarie?” I said to my wife, who was presiding over a cassette tape recorder with earphones.
“Of course I do,” she snapped.
How dare I question her skills as an antispook.
“Let’s hear the end.”
She reversed it, then pushed the PLAY button.
“It would be a great pleasure to eliminate you, bitch.”
“Nicely done.”
“And you?”
“Two and a half roles of Minox film, including the slap.”
We shook hands, left Samantha’s nursery, and walked down the stairs. The Raftery family was locked in one intense embrace.
Joe looked up.
“Bride Mary, this is my fellow fighting Friar, Chuck O’Malley, and his wife Rosemarie, a woman who is much too good for him. Somehow or the other they engineered this!”
Bride Mary embraced both of us. Sam climbed into Rosemarie’s arms.
“You beat the cowboys!”
I picked up the phone and called Vince’s answering machine.
“Friars beat Carmel!” I said.
“Did you get the whole thing?” he asked us.
“Every word is on the tape.”
“Two and a half rolls of Minox film,” I said, putting the three rolls into a camera bag and entrusting it to Special Agent Rosemarie Helen Clancy. “We used your room, Sam, to take pictures of those bad men. They won’t bother you again.”
“What’s in this envelope?” Joe asked.
“Probably a check for a million dollars, a settlement so you won’t sue. The other paper, the one you didn’t sign, is likely a waiver excusing the government from more suits.”
He opened the envelope.
“It is really a million dollars … Is it tax free, Chucky?”
“I doubt it.”
He tore the check in two pieces and gave it to me. “When you send your pictures and your recording include this.”
Joe and Bride Mary wanted to make us supper, but we told them that we had to return to Chicago. Joe insisted that he open a bottle of their best vintage.
My wife said she’d settle for a cup of tea. We toasted one another.
“Great wine!” I said.
“We’ll send you a case!”
“I won’t refuse.”
“Take this bottle along.”He gave us a second bottle.
“He won’t refuse that either. The only problem, Bride Mary, is that me husband is a short hitter, if you take me meaning.”
The phone rang. Joe answered it.
“A man named Adam Cain wants to speak to Ambassador O’Malley if he’s here.”
“I’m not here.”
He chuckled.
“The delivery was without incident?”
“We’re all sitting around the table celebrating so it went well, but there were some awkward moments. Your man Jackson threatened to eliminate the whole family if there was any sign of betrayal. I believed he called Ms. O’Brien a bitch, but the latter with typical Irish feistiness called him a focking shite head.”
“Mommy never talks like that,” Sam insisted.
“Too bad you don’t have any pictures of the exchange.”
“We’ve not known each other very long, Adam, but you certainly know me better than that.”
“Tape recording?” he asked as if he didn’t believe that would be possible.
“Perfect, the good wife got every word in moderately high fidelity. We’ll send it to you by courier tomorrow morning.”
“I said earlier today that Ronnie ought to have sent you to Langley instead of the old OSS warhorse cowboy who’s sitting out there now. I can only repeat that comment.”
“I think Rosemarie would probably be better at it than I am, sir. Stronger stomach.”
We both laughed.
“We must have dinner next time you’re in the District.”
He gave me his phone numbers.
“Do you think Bride Mary would speak with me?”
“I’m sure she would.”
“Mr. Cain would like to speak to you, Bride Mary. He is the one that pulled this off.”
“Helped to pull it off,” my wife corrected me.
“Certainly … Yes sir …”
She stood at attention, a subaltern talking to her commanding officer.
“Thank you, sir. That’s very kind of you … I’ll keep the secret until I hear from your office that it is no longer a secret … Yes, we appreciate that promise very much … It’s nice to be in out of the cold again … I agree, sir, Ambassador O’Malley is a remarkable person … I’ll be looking forward to that … Good-bye.”
“We have to catch an airplane,” I said. “Would you call us a cab?”
“Better than that, We’ll give you a ride.”
I took a second bottle of wine off the rack.
“For Vince … he operated our home base.”
“Then two extra for you and one for him.”
He drove their old Buick around the house and we piled in.
“Three more bottles for your aircrew.”
“Do you have the bag with the film and the recorder, Chuck?” my wife asked.
“Why should I have it” I replied “when I was after seeing you pick it up?”
“Will someone please explain to me what this is all about?”
“When your wife was a very young woman, probably just out of college, she had a different name and did incredibly brave work for the United States. Chuck and I don’t know her real name or what she did and we don’t want to know. The government was worried about her and brought her in from the cold and gave her a new identity and set her up in life, as a woman of property as the Irish call it and like most of us she was very good at it. Some of the people she had worked for were worried that she might go public with her story. So they lifted her, probably without the permission of her superiors. They probably intended to kill her, but the superiors forbade that. So she was kept in limbo for the last couple of years. I think eventually the cowboys would have disposed of her when no one was looking … Is that a good summary, Bride Mary?”
“’Tis … I’m sorry I couldn’t be telling you, me darling, but I couldn’t. I thought it was all over. I guess it wasn’t.”
“One thing we can tell you,”I said, “is that they awarded her the Medal of Honor, which they don’t usually give to spooks.”
“I’m proud of you, Bride,” her husband said. “My head is whirling, but I’m proud of you.”
“I would never be a spook again,” Bride Mary said. “Wasn’t I young and foolish in them days?”
“Mr. Cain promised you that he’d protect you in the future, didn’t he?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’d believe any of those bastards.”
“Oh you can believe him all right,” Rosemarie said. “Chucky has enough documentation to put the story on the front page of every newspaper in the country and on all the networks … Including the material we collected tonight … Did I tell you, Sam, that I
have a daughter about your age?”
“What’s her name?”
“Siobhan Marie and we call her Shovie.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“She’s a lot like you. She’s very pretty and she’s very smart and she’s very good.”
“Always?”
“Well, practically always!”
So we chatted about other things on the way to the airport.
“What happened to the real Bride Mary?”
“All I know is that she’s alive and married and is finishing her dissertation.”
“Maybe we’ll bump into each other someday.”
We hugged at the airport I promised that I would call in the morning and passed on all the relevant phone numbers. Rosemarie said we’d have to visit often in the years ahead.
I gave the wine bottles to the crew and we settled in for the night flight home.
“I remember what my dream was about this afternoon,”I said to my wife.
“You were ravishing captive matrons.”
“Yeah, but at the side of a swimming pool.”
“That’s what they’re for, aren’t they? … How many?” “Pools?”
“No, how many captive matrons?”
“A lot, fifteen or twenty maybe!”
“You have a hard enough time with one, Chucky Ducky.”
Janet served a splendid Dover sole. The faithless Rosemarie consumed every last piece of her dinner.
We arrived at Palwaukee at 1:30 and at our house on Euclid a little after 2:00. We still had to develop the films, make prints, and produce copies of Rosemarie’s tapes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rosemarie
The light was on in my office.
“I must have left it on this morning,” I said.
“Impossible,” Chucky responded.
We were both tired and irritable and we had several hours of work ahead of us. I resolved that I would keep my bitchy mouth shut.
We peeked into the office.
Mary Margaret was curled up on my couch wearing a black-and-white “Rosary” sleep tee shirt and wrapped in an Irish throw. She looked like she was fourteen.
She opened her eyes and stared balefully at us.
“What time is it? Where you guys been? Why do you keep me up all night waiting for you and worrying about you?”
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