by Bob Mayer
Despite the pain, the bookie was paying attention to Kane, his eyes wide.
Kane shook his head. “You’ve never killed anyone, have you, Patrick? I can tell. There’s a big difference between those who have and those who haven’t. And you haven’t. It’s the River Styx. The living on one side and those who’ve danced with death on the other. And you’ve never taken a whirl. All you do is bets. And you have this fool,” he nodded at Magnus, “threaten people, but that’s as far as you extend into the darkness. Listen very carefully, because you won’t hear these words again. If you come for me or for my uncle, you better be prepared to go all the way. Complete black. Not just dance with the devil but become intimate.” Kane put his face close to Patrick’s, looking him in the eyes. “But you’re not going to. Are you?”
Patrick shifted his eyes and hung his head.
“Are you?” Kane pushed his hand into the broken bone.
“No,” Patrick gasped.
Kane withdrew the hand. “Anyone come here asking about weapons? Explosives?”
Patrick shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard.”
“Who would have heard?” Kane asked.
“Maybe Walsh,” Patrick said.
Kane glanced at Conner. “Know him?”
“He’s in there,” Conner said. “I was with him earlier. Feeling him out.”
“Get anything?” Kane asked.
“Not yet,” Conner admitted.
Kane turned back to Patrick. “Could have made four thousand. Instead, you played it wrong. Now. One thousand back. For our trouble.”
Patrick fumbled with the envelope, withdrew the money. Handed it to Kane.
“My uncle clear with you?”
Patrick nodded. “Yeah.”
“You can leave now,” Kane said. “Both of you.”
Patrick shuffled off, Magnus at his side. They turned left on Broadway, away from Kelly’s.
“I don’t think you can place any more bets with him,” Kane said to his uncle.
“Jesus, Will.” Conner’s hand held the revolver limp at his side. “Jesus,” he repeated.
“You look like you need a drink,” Kane said. He took his uncle by the arm and led him clear of the alley.
“We need to get out of here,” Conner said as they walked onto the sidewalk bordering Broadway, Kane guiding them toward the door to the tavern.
“Why?” Kane asked. “Not likely either of them are returning this evening. I still need to get some info. And your debt is paid off.”
“Patrick won’t let this go,” Conner said.
“He will.” Kane stopped in front of the door. “He won’t come after you, Uncle Conner. Especially since this is the last time you’re going in here. Right? And the last time you’re placing a bet with him. Correct?”
“Fuck,” Conner muttered. “Yeah. All right.”
“Plus, what I said is true. He’s a lot of bluster but in the end, that’s as far as he goes. That’s the way it is with most people.” He paused at the door. Indicated the small revolver still in his uncle’s hand. “Might want to holster that.”
Conner belatedly put it away.
“Who is this Walsh?” Kane asked.
“He’s president of the Emerald Society,” Conner said, referring to an organization of cops and firemen with Irish heritage. “Head of the board of NORAID.”
“Is Patrick connected to him?”
Conner frowned. “He pays a slice to Walsh so he can take book in the tavern.”
“Family connection?”
“Huh?”
“Is Patrick married to Walsh’s daughter or his nephew or something personal?”
“No.”
Kane nodded. “Just business then. All right. Tell him I’d like to talk to him. I’ll give you a couple of minutes.”
They went inside. Conner headed straight to the bar. Kane noted that someone was sitting at his former table: the woman whose beer had been spilled. She was in her thirties, red, curly, shoulder-length hair, a narrow, drawn face, edging her appearance from attractive to ascetic. Her eyes were green. She wore a short coat over a knee length dress as if the air-conditioning was too much, which Kane agreed with. A full mug of beer. She acknowledged his return with a nod at the beer. “Thank you.”
“Do you mind?” Kane asked, indicating the chair he’d previously occupied.
“Be my guest.” Her brogue was stronger than her New York. “The other table was sticky.”
Kane sat.
“You have blood on you,” the woman noted, pointing at Kane’s hand.
Kane took a paper napkin from the dispenser next to the full ashtray and wiped Magnus’ blood off his left hand.
“You left with three, came back with one,” the woman said.
“I helped them get a taxi,” Kane said. “They’d had too much to drink.”
“One way of lying about it.”
Kane laughed, her comment a nice release from recent events. “It is, isn’t it?”
She nodded toward the dark glass. “I saw them limp off.” The woman stuck out her hand. “Caitlyn. Not Kate. Not Katey. Caitlyn. With a C.”
Kane shook it, noting her firm, callused grip. “Kane. With a K.”
She let go and turned her attention to the stage. “This ancient fellow oughta be interesting.”
An old man teetered up to the mike, one hand with a death grip on a cane. Someone ran up, placing a high, padded stool in the center of the stage. The white-haired man gratefully sat down. The microphone was positioned in front of him and the height adjusted. The crowd was quieting on its own, a respectful ripple from those closest to the stage outward, until even the most boisterous drunks at the farthest tables hushed.
The old man spoke with a deep brogue. “I came over on the S.S. Marine Flasher in ‘45.” Another old man in the crowd howled. The singer smiled. “Some of you know what that means. Four hundred war brides from the Old Country, and just me brothers, meself and the sailors. And don’t be asking how we boys wrangled our way on board. It was an uneventful journey; I assure you as they were good Catholic women.” He smiled. “Almost all.”
There were laughs. Kane glanced at Caitlyn, who hadn’t. She had a wedding band on her left hand but there was no man hovering nearby which tagged her most likely a widow, since no self-respecting married woman would be in this crowd alone.
“This is an old song about a young man,” the singer announced. “His name was Jack Duggan. And the tale is how he left his home in Ireland and traveled to Australia where he took up a career of brigandry, but always with a good heart, taking from the rich and bestowing to the poor.”
The name sounded familiar to Kane, another doggerel his father had warbled on occasion.
The old man began singing, without any instruments backing him up, his voice deep, melancholy and echoing inside the brick walls.
“There was a wild colonial boy,
Jack Duggan was his name.”
“Cac tarbh,” Kaitlyn muttered.
“Excuse me?” Kane said, recognizing the harsh language from his mother’s father: Gaelic.
“Bullshit,” she said. “Trying to make a bad man into a good man. Robbed the rich. Helped the poor? You don’t think he took a hefty piece for himself?”
“He was his father's only son,
his mother's pride and joy
And dearly did his parents love
the wild colonial boy.”
Kane focused on her. “Robin Hood from Ireland to Australia. What’s not to like?”
“It’s a fantasy,” Caitlyn said. “And ballads like that encourage young boys to indulge thoughts of heroism that get them in trouble. Gets them killed.”
“Is that what happened?” Kane asked.
She shot him a sharp look. “Aye, I lost my husband. But he was no boy.”
“Sorry,” Kane said.
“He robbed the rich, he helped the poor,
he shot James MacEvoy.”
Caitlyn twitched a smile. “What
a refreshing response. I’m usually told he’s in a better place. I cannot tell you how infuriating that is. He’s no place. He’s nothing.”
“Not the way the priests see it,” Kane noted, edging back in his seat a bit.
“More bullshit they peddle for their own aims.” She glanced at his hand. “No ring. Married?”
“I was.”
“Did you lose her?”
“She left me.” Kane expected some comment about divorce but Caitlyn simply nodded.
“Children?”
“We had a boy.
“A terror to Australia was
The wild colonial boy.”
“’Had’?”
“He died. Car accident. It was my fault.”
“You were driving?”
“No. But it was my fault.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” Caitlyn said, not questioning the guilt, the most Irish of traits.
“Up stepped a band of troopers:
Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy
They all set out to capture him,
the wild colonial boy.”
Kane noticed that Conner was moving away from the bar with a cup of coffee. His uncle went over to Walsh’s table.
“The men you left with,” Caitlyn said. “I feel sorry for the strapping, young lad. He’s under the thrall of a scared, angry man.”
“Aren’t those two emotions always together?” Kane said. “Anger comes out of the fear?”
Caitlyn nodded. “True enough.”
“A bullet pierced his proud young heart,
from the pistol of Fitzroy
And that was how they captured him,
the wild colonial boy.”
The crowd applauded loudly as the old man’s voice trailed off.
“Is the blood his?” Caitlyn asked.
“Who?”
“The lad.”
“Nothing serious.”
“I hate that,” she said with surprising venom.
Kane misunderstood. “I didn’t really hurt him—”
She cut him off. “The old making the young do the fighting for them. That’s every war, isn’t it? Every bully. Every so-called leader. They get others to shed their blood. The worst of ‘em don’t even give it a second thought. The deaths mean nothing to them.” She reached out and tapped the NORAID jar. “American fools put money in here so Irish fools can kill British fools. It’s the innocents who get caught between that they don’t think of.”
“It’s every war,” Kane agreed. He was beginning to regret stepping out of his no-small-talk persona. He pushed his chair back. “It was nice to meet you.”
She looked at him and nodded. “The same. Be safe, Kane with a K.”
“Right.”
Kane walked over to his uncle. Conner indicated an empty seat at the table.
“Mister Walsh,” Conner introduced, “this is my nephew that I was telling you about.”
Walsh didn’t extend a hand. “You left with Patrick, but came back without him.”
“He had other business to attend to,” Kane said.
“Did he now?” Walsh said. “I saw you were chatting with the widow.” Walsh inclined his head toward the woman.
“You know her?” Kane asked.
“Spoke to her briefly a few nights ago,” Walsh said. “Didn’t get far. She’s a bit skinny and hard for my tastes. Perhaps you had better luck?”
“We chatted briefly about death,” Kane said.
“Geez,” Conner muttered.
Walsh stared at him. “I suspect you didn’t have better luck, then. She seems a bitter sort.”
“I’m not here for luck,” Kane said.
“What are you here for?” Walsh asked. “Running off the local bookie?”
Kane indicated the NORAID jar on the table. “Widows and orphans?”
Walsh frowned. “Yes? And?”
“How about guns?”
“I’m not following, lad.”
“The money buys guns here in the States that get smuggled to Ireland,” Kane said.
“That’s a terrible, malicious lie,” Walsh said, without much passion. “Spread by enemies of the Cause. If we were doing that people like Conner here would have shut us down long ago. We’re a relief organization.” He tapped the table. “If the man of the house is illegally detained by the enemy, and you know, of course, the Brits throw anyone they desire in prison without due process or a trial, we help the poor family. We give them food, money, put clothes on their back. Or would you rather wee lads and lasses go to school naked with empty bellies, Mister Kane?”
“The last line was quite stirring,” Kane said, not stirred at all. “You know anything about Provos, so-called Swords of Saint Patrick, here in the city looking for weapons and explosives?”
Walsh arched an eyebrow. “You go right to it, don’t you? With your uncle sitting right here? Did you hear him, Conner? Going to arrest the young fellow? Something like that would be illegal.”
Conner stared at Kane in disbelief.
“I don’t have the energy to play word games,” Kane said.
Before he could continue, Walsh pointed at the door. “Conner, I suggest you depart now before you hear things you can’t unhear. I assume you settled up with Patrick one way or the other, eh?”
“Yeah,” Conner said, “but—”
“Time to be going, Detective Riley,” Walsh said.
“It’s okay,” Kane said to his uncle. “Drive safe.”
Conner tried not to show his relief as he quickly departed.
There was a break in the music and the sound of drunken arguing, a staple of an Irish bar, and dinner table, filled the air. But no one approached the table where Kane sat with Walsh.
“Your uncle is in over his head,” Walsh said.
“He’s not in anything,” Kane said. “This is me.”
“What did you do to Patrick and his young bull, Magnus?”
“We paid them,” Kane said.
“And?”
“They had pressing business elsewhere.” Kane leaned toward the old man. “You’ve been financing weapons that are shipped to Ireland. Maybe the people whom those weapons kill seem like some sort of distant drama for you. But if there are IRA operatives here, in New York City, how do you think that’s going to turn out if they get their hands on guns? On explosives? Cutting close to home.”
Walsh glared. “Who do you think you are, lad, coming in here speaking to me like this in my own place?”
“Talk to Sean Damon?” Kane asked.
Walsh’s eyes narrowed. “His name has been bandied about lately. Seems he’s a popular man.”
“You give him the money for the guns,” Kane said.
Walsh sat back and reverted to his rote defense. “Last year we donated half a million dollars from sympathetic Americans to over a thousand families. Money that kept food on the table.”
“Two hundred and forty M-16s burned up the night of the Blackout,” Kane said. “Along with Damon. And his Unholy Trinity.”
“And what do you know about that?” Walsh demanded of Kane.
“I know those guns were bought with your money,” Kane said.
“We send money, not weapons,” Walsh said. He shrugged. “Between you and me, if the Provos use the spare cash in other ways, there’s nothing we can do about it. The brave men fighting the oppression have to get them somehow. We support the Provisional IRA one hundred percent, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Armed struggle is the only recourse against British Army violence. Do you remember Bloody Sunday? Innocent people, peacefully protesting in Derry, gunned down by the Paras?”
“I wasn’t there,” Kane said.
Walsh tapped the tabletop. “Were you there when Sean Damon died?” He asked. “And the guns burned up? What about the money?”
“’Money’?” Kane said. “What money?”
“I know your father, William Kane,” Walsh said. “I used to be an attorney for the Sanitation Department. He’s a proud member of the
Emerald Society, to boot. Small world, eh? He’s a good man. I’m sure he’d be upset if something happened to his son or vice versa.”
Kane put his hands flat on the table. “The problem with threats is they telegraph possible action or inaction. Patrick threatened me just a few minutes ago. As I pointed out to Conner, they were empty.”
“Mine aren’t,” Walsh said. “The IRA doesn’t take well to betrayal. Nor does NORAID.”
“You’re not talking about me then,” Kane said. “Because betrayal means someone was loyal.”
“Cross us and it’s betrayal,” Walsh said.
“That’s a pretty broad definition,” Kane said. “How do you know Damon had money the night of the Blackout?”
The band was back, playing something fast-paced with tambourines and foot stomping and incoherent lyrics. Kane tuned it out.
When Walsh didn’t answer, Kane backtracked. “If the IRA sets off a bomb in the city, you’re going to lose a lot of your backing.”
Walsh replied. “Which is why I don’t know a thing about anybody from the old country being in the city doing what you say they’re planning. And if they were, I’d certainly be opposed to it.”
“Right.” Kane stood. “Then we have nothing further to discuss.”
Kane didn’t look back as he went to the door. He exited into the normal sounds of New York: train brakes squealing as a #1 pulled into station, cars driving on Broadway, a ship’s horn blast from the Hudson, a siren in the near distance.
Conner’s Nova was still illegally parked on the far side of Broadway. Kane’s hand floated over the butt of the forty-five as he scanned the area for his uncle.
“You’re a rather stupid man,” Walsh said from behind him.
“Everyone is so judgmental,” Kane said.
Walsh pointed with his walking stick past Conner’s Nova, toward the park. “Let’s take a walk and have a chat, lad.”
“Where’s my uncle?”
“He’s fine for the moment,” Walsh said. “Whether that remains so depends on the outcome of our chat.”
They walked past the car, out of the struggling light of the streetlamps and under the trees. Walsh turned right on the path toward the stadium and the concrete bleachers facing the track and field.
“You waltz right in to my place asking questions,” Walsh said, “with your sorry ass uncle at your side. I made some calls after he contacted Patrick this afternoon. Learned some things about you.” He jerked a thumb back the way they’d come. “In there was not the place to talk.”
