H
e was in it now. He was in it for life, Dick O'Gorman thought, his hands on Barbara Kathleen Monahan O'Day's ripe breasts. He raised his head and sucked her nipples. She cried out with joy. Pleasure, he could still give pleasure, but the last of the taking was gone now. It had vanished with faith, hope, and charity in that room in St. Augustine's rectory.
That Englishman was different. O'Gorman didn't understand why until the very last moment when the bastard asked Hart to give him absolution. The usual Englishman's watery Protestant blood was easy to shed, his feeble faith even easier to shatter. Never before had O'Gorman failed to make a prisoner talk, whether he was an IRA informer or a British captive. Not for nothing was he called Black Dick. It was not a simple tribute to his complexion.
Barbara rose and fell on the long, supple limb of Ireland that grew from the center of his loins. She sighed and moaned with the length and fiber of it. O'Gorman used to
imagine it as James Joyce's martello tower, where a new Ireland was being born. He used to think of it as running from the trunk of his body to the dark earth of the Curragh. He had imagined it producing a tribe of defiant heroes from its seed, socialist aristocrats who would emulate Yeats's long dead lords and ladies who drank and loved and laughed at fate.
Now he saw it, he saw himself for what he was, in the Long Kesh of his soul. A lifer in the service of death and more death. He could not turn back now. The Englishman had sealed his fate by betting his soul against O'Gorman's soul. He had committed sacrileges in the name of Mother England that were unforgivable to Mother Church. He had pretended to consecrate the host with his murderous hands, to drink the sacred blood of Christ with his lying mouth, he had consoled the dying with worthless absolution and useless extreme unction. If Captain Littlejohn was wrong, his soul was in hell. If O'Gorman was wrong, his soul was going to the same place.
Those who studied theology knew hell had nothing to do with flame or burning coals. Those images were for the infants, the peasants. Hell was a place that was not a place, a realm for which the explorations of outer space had suggested images, but only the Catholic mind, the mind that Joyce in his bitterness boasted of being steeled in the school of Thomas Aquinas, only that mind could appreciate the true meaning of hell, a place of virtual nonexistence, of absolute cold, of emptiness beyond all sensations, an abstract vacuum of untouch, untaste, unhope, unlove. An ur-place that negated every word, that became absence upon absence upon absence without end.
That was the hell to which Captain Arthur Littlejohn was sentencing Richard O'Gorman. If he was wrong. If the Ireland he worshipped was not a place where men and women could finally love each other without the disabling fear of this insipid, obnoxious being with the voice of thunder. If Ireland was not a place where finally knees bent only in reverence to the martyrs of the struggle for
freedom. If it was not a place where the ancient druids would rise from their graves to bless a new generation who welcomed on May eve the spirit of earth, joyous, proud, and free.
Yes, O'Gorman vowed in his inner Long Kesh. Yes, even now I am betting, I am breaking this woman's heart in Ireland's name. I am condemning her to join the winding, wailing procession of broken hearts I have left behind me, a procession that I now accept in the name of our cosmic wager, Captain Littlejohn.
Ahhhhhh. She was coming there in the soft April twilight. His semen surged in her. The sea tumbled on the beach a block away, the same sea that raised its blank, black swells against the west coast of Ireland. Linked by love and betrayal to her ancient history, so rich in both.
“We'll go away, you promise, as soon as the job is done?” she whispered.
“I promise. I'm mad with the dream of it,” O'Gorman said.
A barbaric yawp shattered the seaside quiet. Once, twice, three times. It was the Paradise Beach fire alarm, summoning the volunteers to a blaze. The sound flung O'Gorman back to the day he had heard it for the first time. He had been in this same room, doing the same thing with Barbara Kathleen. He had almost jumped out of his skin at the sound. It had been a long night with Captain Littlejohn.
After the yawp, sirens and clanging bells had resounded through Paradise Beach. The roar of a powerful motor passed the house. Barbara had padded to the window. O'Gorman was admiring the shape of her behind when she cried, “My God. It's the rectory. The rectory's on fire.”
O'Gorman felt a cold wind blow through the open window. A strange climate the Americans had. Such a mixture of cold and warmth. Like their women. The bizarre deaths of the priest and the Jewish girl had troubled his sleep for days now. He could see them in the flames, he could hear their terrified cries.
He knew Kilroy had done it, well before the sod had told him the next day. He had followed Jackie to the rectory and found her in bed with the priest. Billy had decided it was a perfect opportunity to get rid of both of them. They were too undependable, too likely to talk.
Would they erect tablets to such unknown martyrs in O'Gorman's Church of Humanity? Would their names be. placed in the tabernacles in place of the host? A lovely thought.
In the bathroom as he washed himself, O'Gorman heard on the south wind the sound of the pipe bands at the feis. He was scheduled to make the awards to the winners at 4 P.M. He would follow it with a fund-raising speech that should be good for two or three thousand, at least. Later tonight, the voyage. Then a farewell note to Barbara Kathleen, a rush to Kennedy to catch the next plane to Ireland.
By this time in two days, he would be walking the streets of Dublin. Would he stop at St. Patrick's Cathedral to formalize his wager with Captain Littlejohn and God? It had been a Protestant church for a long time, but in his student days it had been his favorite place of prayer. He had imagined himself reclaiming it for Catholic Ireland.
No, he would do it in a better place. From the top of Joyce's martello tower, on the shore of Dublin Bay. He would salute sea and sky and water and dare His Infinitude to do His worst.
“What are you thinking?” Barbara Kathleen asked.
“Of you. In California,” he said, and did a little jig as the pipe band swung into “The Kerry Dancers.”
B
y four o'clock the feis was beginning to wind down. Mick had arrested two drunks and broken up three fights. Only the parents of the competitors in step dancing, piping, and other events of the day stayed around for the awarding of the prizes. Mick went home, drank a half dozen beers, and got five hours sleep. For supper he drank another beer with a double whiskey chaser. Perfect. He was smoothed out exactly right. At eleven o'clock he drove over the causeway and picked up Phac.
Trai was puzzled and a little worried by this midnight voyage. Mick told her some rich people from New York wanted to do some night fishing.
“What the hell's going on?” Phac asked in Vietnamese when they got in the car.
“A lot,” Mick replied. “Cocaine and guns.”
“Guns for who?” Phac must have thought for a moment he was back in Vietnam.
“For the IRA. The Irish Republican Army.”
“Where are they fighting?”
“In Ireland.”
“Is that a communist country?”
“Not that I've heard.”
“Then they must be communists. Fighting the lawful government. Why are the Americans helping them?”
“They're not. This is strictly illegal. You get a thousand dollars for it.”
Phac stared out at the waters of the bay. “I don't like this kind of shit.”
“You want a job on that boat tomorrow, play along. If anything goes wrong, you didn't know a thing. Neither did I.”
“We could get arrested?”
“Don't worry about that. Chief O'Toole is in it up to his big fat ass.”
At the dock, O'Gorman and Kilroy were already aboard the
Enterprise
with their Washington pals, Leo McBride and his wife. A few minutes later Bill O'Toole showed up with the Professor. His appearance sealed cynicism into an icy block in Mick's chest. After all the bullshit the Prof had shoveled against communism being the worldwide enemy of freedom, here he was, selling out for a couple of thousand dollars, like the rest of them.
O'Toole took Mick aside and muttered, “Don't mention nothin' about weapons to the Professor. I told him we were bringin' in some dope in two shipments to help me pay off the Atlantic City stuff. When we go out again for the hardware, it'll be too late for him to start an argument.”
Oxenford was drunk. “Ten generations of Oxenfords made their living as smugglers. Why shouldn't I join the procession?” he said to Mick. “I always knew Atlantic City would get to us eventually. How much are they paying you?”
“Five.”
“I'm getting ten. That's enough money to get me far far away from Paradise Beach and Barbara Monahan O'Day.
Jesus, what a fool I've been! A nightlong, daylong, lifelong fool.”
Mick could only give him another amazed stare. He never knew the Professor had had so much as a single romantic thought about his mother.
It looked like a perfect night, no moon and calm seas. Phac cast off the lines and the Professor backed out of the slip, then shoved the throttle forward. The big Packard engines sent the sixty-foot boat briskly up the bay to the inlet that led to the ocean. A light southern breeze was carrying thick warm air up from the Carolinas.
“You can almost smell the magnolias,” the Professor said.
All Mick could smell was dead fish. Phac squatted in a corner of the wheelhouse, his shirt open to the waist. Billy Kilroy nipped from a flask and bragged about what they were going to do with the surface-to-air missiles they were getting from the Cubans.
“What the hell's he talking about?” the Professor said.
“Never mind, just steer the goddamn boat,” Bill O'Toole said.
“I'm talking' about shootin' down every plane and helicopter that flies over Ireland,” Billy shouted. “Whatya think of that, you fookin' English bastard? Before this night's over you'll have helped us get the stuff to do it!”
“That takes a lot of gutsâto shoot down unarmed planes,” the Professor said.
“Shut your goddamn yap,” Billy said.
“Hey, why are you so uptight? Didn't you get anything at the feis?” Mick said. “I told about twenty broads you were a genuine heroic Irishman. I thought maybe one at least would have been dumb enough to believe me.”
“You shut the fook up too,” Billy screeched. He glared at Phac. “What's this fookin' cannibal got writ on his chest?”
“Sat Cong,”
Mick said.
“What's that mean?”
“Kill communists.”
“What the fook we doin' with someone like that aboard?” Billy snarled.
“Relax, you asshole,” O'Toole said. “He don't know ten words of English.”
“I'll relax after we finish this fookin' operation. Just remember I'm in charge and if you dawn't like it, you'll be over the fookin' side.”
“Is he gone nuts?” O'Toole asked O'Gorman.
“It's the truth. He's in charge,” O'Gorman said.
“No wonder you guys can't win a war,” O'Toole said.
“You didn't do so fookin' great in Vietnam. That's why you've got this bugger on your hands,” Billy said.
“One more crack like that and you'll go back to Ireland in a box,” O'Toole roared.
“Not as long as I've got this in me hand.” Billy pulled out his Zastava pistol. “This'll blow a hole as big as a fookin' soccer ball in your belly.”
Instinctively Mick loosened the .38 he was carrying in the shoulder holster under his jacket. Billy noticed the movement of his hand and pulled Mick's jacket open. “Why the fook is he carryin' a gun?” Billy raged.
“Because I told him to,” O'Toole snarled, glaring at Mick. He had told him nothing of the sort. Mick could see suspicion flickering in his uncle's eyes. Mick stalked out of the wheelhouse onto the deck, gesturing to Phac to follow him.
“What's wrong with that little asshole?” Phac asked in Vietnamese.
“I'm afraid he's coming apart like Belknap.”
Belknap was the Boston aristocrat who had cracked up in their fourth month in Binh Nghai. He had started talking bigger and bigger, insisting he had more nerve than anyone else in the squad. To prove it he always volunteered for the most dangerous assignments. Off duty he got into fistfights with the other marines and treated the Vietnamese with contempt. One night he got drunk and started shooting up the village. Mick had disarmed him at
gunpoint. For a while Mick had thought he would have to kill him.
“I don't like this shit,” Phac said.
“Me neither,” Mick said.
In the darkened wheelhouse, O'Gorman was busy telling the Professor where to rendezvous with the Cuban freighter. Mick could see the Irishman's handsome face in profile by the binnacle light. He wondered if O'Gorman was really quitting the IRA and taking his mother to California. It would be nice to get his mother out of his life. But it left him with a lonely feeling. His world was turning inside out, upside down.
Above the wheelhouse, the
Enterprise
's radar grid started turning. In an hour the freighter loomed up in the sea-lane, twenty-five miles out. At first no one could see it but Mick. With his exceptional night vision, he spotted it at five miles. In twenty minutes they were alongside.
O'Gorman shouted Spanish to someone on deck. A minute later, a steamer trunk was swung over the side on a wire cable. Phac and Mick grappled it onto the deck of the
Enterprise
and carefully lowered it into the hold. There was more conversation in Spanish, and O'Gorman and the Professor went over the charts to make sure they knew where the freighter would be at 4 A.M.
The Professor gunned the engines and the
Enterprise
headed back to Paradise Beach. Nick Perella, Giordano's consigliere, would be waiting at the dock with the money and an expert to test the quality of the cocaine. If the expert said go, they would get the money and rendezvous with the freighter again to pick up the weapons. By dawn they would have the hardware well up the Mullica River into the Pines.
Phac and Mick lashed the trunk down in the hold and climbed back up on deck. Kilroy was standing by the open hatch, his gun in his hand. Bill O'Toole and O'Gorman were a few feet away from him. Leo McBride and Melody stood in the doorway of the wheelhouse.
“You sure you got that fookin' thing tied down tight?” Kilroy shouted.
“Go down and add a few knots if you're not happy,” Mick said.
“That's all the shit I'm gawn to take from you,” Kilroy screamed. “You're a fookin' double-dealer. I think you and your cannibal friend here was in with that fookin' SIS man.”
“You can think anything you goddamn want,” Mick said.
“Oh, yah?” Billy snarled. “Well, here's what I want you to do. Blow him away.”
“What the hell are you talkin' about?” Mick said.
“Blow the fookin' cannibal away!” Kilroy screeched. “In Belfast that's how we find out if a man's an informer. We set him to kill one of his fookin' informer friends. Even if it's his fookin' brother.”
O'Gorman and Bill O'Toole said nothing. Mick realized Kilroy meant it. If he didn't kill Phac, Kilroy would do it. Those words,
Sat Cong,
on Phac's chest were his death sentence. He had beaten it once by getting out of Binh Nghai a half hour before the communist tanks arrived in 1975. Kilroy and O'Gorman didn't like that. They still saw the whole thing exactly the way the Marine Corps had said the communists played the game until they started losing it. The war was worldwide, using guns, words, politicsâbut especially guns whenever they had the chance to win with them. These guys were still fighting the warâand Phac was their way of getting even for the way their system was starting to fall apart.
Kilroy might kill him too, Mick thought in this brief yet somehow eternal moment. Maybe Bill O'Toole had told the Irishmen about the $1,000 bill in the glove compartment. Maybe Uncle Bill wanted to see Mick prove his loyalty to him too, by killing Phac.
There was no question that Phac deserved to die, if you looked at it from the communist point of view. Or almost any point of view. He had been a merciless bastard in
Binh Nghai. He had tortured and killed a lot of people. How many times had Mick seen him take a VC suspect upriver to district headquarters and come back in a half hour. It was a two-hour trip to headquarters. Everyone knew the man's body would wash up a week or two later, his eyes eaten out by the crabs.
Why not kill Phac? He did not really care whether he lived or died. He was still dying in that other village where his wife and sons had been murdered. Every day of his life he went back to that village and died there. In a way he was already dead in the frozen center of his soul. If Mick killed him, he would almost be doing him a favor.
Mick would be doing himself an immensely larger favor. He would have Trai. Suong and Trai would become his responsibility. He would care for them, he would love them.
For a fragment of this eternal moment, Mick thought of having Trai, night after night. Holding her small, tender body in his arms, feeling her breasts beneath his hands, her silky black hair against his mouth. Telling her he understood why she had betrayed him, telling her he forgave her. Telling her how many times when he was with another woman, he thought of her. Telling her so many things.
But he couldn't kill Phac. He couldn't kill a man who had fought beside him in his hours of gladness, who had saved his life in the dark a dozen times. He couldn't kill a man who had helped him redeem at least a piece of his shattered honor by helping him kill Le Quan Chien.
He couldn't kill Phac. Which meant he had to kill Billy Kilroy. The implications of this conclusion only brushed the edge of Mick's mind for the moment. It was all instinct now, like those milliseconds in the dark in Binh Nghai where you waited for a VC in the bushes twenty yards away to move first, knowing he was trying to decide which way you were going to move, both hands on triggers, both minds balanced precisely on the edge of eternity.
The difference here was a gun in Kilroy's hand and no gun in Mick's hand. But the rolling deck of the
Enterprise,
the darkness, tilted the odds the other way just enough to give Mick the sense that they were even. He remembered Kilroy's dislike of shooting in the dark. Until they got to the freighter, Kilroy had stayed in the wheelhouse, which meant his night vision was not functioning. Out on deck, Mick's night vision had been operating for an hour.
With a swing of his left arm, Mick sent Phac sprawling toward the stern. Simultaneously he dove to the right, toward the bow, reaching for his gun as he went down. Billy blasted two shots from his Zastava into the empty darkness. Mick's gun was in his hand by the time he hit the deck, and he came up shooting.