“Nothing,” I said.
“And Mick, you’re holed up and not telling anybody where, and that’s smart, but all you got to do is move around like you’re moving around right now, riding around in a car, and you’re a pretty identifiable guy. All you need is one person to see you and the wrong person to get wind of it, you know what I mean?”
“And what’s your answer, then?”
“The farm.”
“The farm,” Mick said, and thought about it. At length he said, “I told Matt he ought to go to Ireland. He said I should come along and show him the country. Isn’t this the same thing?”
“Not exactly.”
“Either way I’m running from them.”
“You wouldn’t be running away, Mick. That’s the whole point. You’d be taking a position and, waiting for them to come to you.”
“Now you’ve got my interest,” Mick said.
“We go there tonight and settle in. Right away, without giving the bastards another shot at us. We set up our defenses. There’s just the one entrance, isn’t there? The long drive we took the last time we were there?”
“With the horse chestnut trees.”
“If you say so. All I know is Christmas trees and the other kind. They come up that drive when we know they’re coming, be like fish in a barrel, wouldn’t it?”
“Keep talking.”
“I don’t even know who knows the farm exists outside of the three of us. But there’s probably some that do. But what I was thinking, and you got to remember I had all day long with nothing to do but think about this . . .”
“You’re doing fine, man.”
“Well, see, we settle in. And then we get the word to someone with a big mouth. One thing we know about these guys is they’ve got good sources of information. If the word’s on the street they’re gonna hear it. And the word’ll be that the three of us are holed up where we’re sure nobody could ever know about it, and we’re drinking like fish and running broads in and out of the place, just partying it up day and night. Do I have to spell it out? You can take it from there, Mick.”
“They’d expect to have it easy. But we’d be waiting for them.”
“And trap the lot of them, Mick.”
“All on the farm,” he said. “It’d mean digging, wouldn’t it? And we’d need a bigger hole than last time.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “But I’ll not mind the work. I’d say we can use the exercise.”
We’d go right away, we decided. We didn’t need anything. There was food enough on the farm to last the winter, between what was growing in the garden and what Mrs. O’Gara had put up in jars. There was a store in Ellenville, and if we were there long enough to need a change of clothing we could buy what we needed there.
And Mick’s leather satchel was in the back seat, with guns and ammunition and cash. He even had his father’s apron in there, and the old man’s cleaver. And there were extra firearms out at the farm, O’Gara’s twelve-gauge shotgun and a deer rifle with a scope sight.
“Just one thing,” Andy said. “I want to go by my house, tell my mother she won’t see me for a few days.”
“Call her,” Mick said. “Use my cell phone or wait and call her from the farm.”
“I’d rather tell her in person,” he said. “I’ve got another box of shells in my room for the gun I’m carrying. I’d just as soon bring them along. And it’ll give me a chance to smoke a cigarette. It’s a long way out to the farm without a cigarette.”
“It’s your car you’ll be driving,” Mick said. “I guess you can smoke in your own car if you have a mind to.”
“Makes it hard on a couple of nonsmokers,” Andy said. “It’s close quarters in a closed car, or even with a window open. I’ll just smoke a cigarette at the house before we go. And there’s another thing. I’m going to tell her to go visit my uncle Connie north of Boston. She’s been saying she hasn’t seen her brother in a long time, and what better time for her to go? Because they could come looking for me, Mick, and it might not matter if I was there or not, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.”
“God, no.”
“Who knows if she’ll even go, but it won’t hurt to suggest it to her. And when I think about Tom and the old lady . . .”
“Enough said.”
It didn’t take long before we were back on Bainbridge Avenue and parked in front of Andy’s house. He got out of the car and trotted up the walk, used his key, and disappeared inside the house. After a moment Mick got out his cell phone and dialed a number, then almost immediately snapped the thing shut. “I thought I’d call O’Gara,” he said, “but I don’t want to call on this thing. My luck the wrong person would pick it up.”
“On the fillings in his teeth. We can find a pay phone.”
“We can just go out there,” he said. “It’s not that late, and he needn’t have advance warning.” He was silent for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Change seats with me,” he said. “I’ll get in back where I can put my feet up. I might even close my eyes and get a little sleep on the drive out.”
I got out of the car and we changed seats. He walked around the car and got into the back seat behind the driver, turning so that he could put his legs up on the seat.
A few minutes later Andy emerged. He had a cigarette going, and stopped on the sidewalk to take a long drag on it. He took a final drag as he stood beside the open car door, then flicked the butt out into the street. Sparks danced when it hit the pavement.
He got in the car, turned the key, gunned the motor. He grinned, tapped the steering wheel twice. “We’re off,” he said. “Everybody watch out.”
Andy took the Grand Concourse to the Cross-Bronx, then drove straight west. We crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey and picked up the Palisades Parkway. Mick had been silent until then, and I thought he might have nodded off back there, but now he said, “I’ve been thinking. This is a grand idea of yours, Andy.”
“Well, I had time on my hands, and no dartboard handy to take my mind off of things.”
“You’re a strategist,” Mick said. “You’re another Michael Collins.”
“Oh, come on now.”
“You are indeed.”
“I’m his Russian cousin,” Andy said. “Vodka Collins.”
“We’ll lure ’em into a trap,” Mick said, “and draw the ends tight, and there they’ll be. Ah, I’ll want to see the look on his face when he knows I’ve done for him. He’s a Bronx boy, Andy. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“He’s the long-lost bastard son of Paddy Farrelly, and I’m going to send him to the same place I sent his dirty bastard father. Yes, he’s a Bronx boy, though he moved away years ago. Where was it he moved to, Matt? Upstate, was it?”
“He was ten or eleven when he moved from Valentine Avenue,” I said, “but I don’t know exactly when that was.”
“He lived on Valentine Avenue? That’s like two blocks over from Bainbridge.”
“He was in the eleven hundred block,” I said, “so it’s not like he was living next door to you. They moved when he was eleven, and he was living in Rochester when he committed the crime he went to prison for, but I don’t know what interim moves his mother might have made.”
“’Twas in the Bronx he spent his formative years,” Mick said, rolling the phrase on his tongue. “His formative years. So we may safely call him a Bronx boy. Well, set a Bronx boy to catch a Bronx boy, eh? While we drove around I found myself thinking what a splendid borough the Bronx is. It became a joke for a while there, didn’t it? But there’s beautiful parts to it.”
“I was thinking that myself.”
“Matt lived in the Bronx himself. Or am I misremembering?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your memory. But we only lived there for a short time.”
“So we can’t call you a Bronx boy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Your father had a store,” Mick said. “He sold children’s shoes.?
??
“Jesus, how did you remember that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “How do we remember some things and forget others? It’s certainly not a matter of what’s useful to remember and what’s not. There’s no end of useful things I can’t recall to save myself, and yet I remember your father’s shoe store.”
A little later he said, “Is your mother well, Andy?”
“She is, Mick. Thanks be to God.”
“Thanks be to God,” he echoed. “When you went to talk to her just now I suppose you found her in the kitchen.”
“Matter of fact, she was parked in front of the TV.”
“Watching a program, was she?”
“And looking at the paper at the same time. Why, Mick?”
“Ah, just wondering. Looking at the paper. The Irish Echo, was it?”
“I didn’t even notice. It could have been the Echo.”
“Do you ever read it yourself, Andy?”
“More for the older people, isn’t it? Or the green-horns fresh off the boat.”
“Off the plane, these days. Well, your people are a great old family, you know. The Buckleys, I’m talking about. Some were what you’d call Castle Irish. Do you know the term? It means they were in with the lot at Dublin Castle, the British crown’s representatives in Ireland. But there were other Buckleys that were very republican. Which were yours, I wonder?”
Andy laughed. “I get people asking if I’m related to that guy, you know who I mean, uses all the big words on television? But you’re the first person ever asked me what side my people were on back in the old country.”
“Has your mother ever gone back?”
“No, she was just a girl when she came over. She’s got no interest in going back. It’s hard enough to get her to visit her brother in Massachusetts.”
“Your uncle Connie, that would be.”
“Right.”
“And how about yourself? Have you ever been over to the old country?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve never been anywhere, Mick.”
“Ah, you should go. There’s nothing like travel for broadening a man. Though I’ve done little enough of it myself. Ireland, of course, and France. Matt’s been to France. And to Italy as well, have you not?”
“Just briefly,” I said.
“I’ve not been there myself. But then the last time I was in Ireland I went over to England as well, just to see if they were the devils I learned them to be at my mother’s knee.”
“And were they?”
“Not at all,” he said. “They couldn’t have been nicer. I was treated decently everywhere I went. For all the problems they’ve had with the Irish, they always made me feel welcome.”
“Maybe they didn’t know you were Irish,” Andy suggested.
“You’re entirely right,” Mick said. “Most likely they took me for a Chinaman.”
As we turned onto 209 he said, “It’s a good scheme, Andy. I’ve been thinking about it these last few miles. The only hard part will be getting the word to them so they don’t suspect the source of it. It would help if we knew who’s been helping them all along. Have you any ideas yourself, lad?”
Andy considered, shook his head. “There’s a lot of guys hang out at Grogan’s,” he said.
“Not now there’s not.”
“Well, used to be. People who’d run an errand for you, or lend a hand on the big jobs. I had to guess, I’d say somebody took one of them aside and got a few drinks into him, got him talking.”
“You think that’s it, do you?”
“Be my guess.”
“There’s a great Irish tradition of hating the informer,” Mick said. “There’s that movie, and I can remember about your father’s shoe store, Matt, so why can I not recall the name of that actor? I can see his face but can’t summon up his name.”
“Victor McLaglen,” I supplied.
“The very man. Oh, the most hated man in Ireland was the man who bore tales. ‘The Patriot’s Mother.’ Do you know that song?”
Neither of us did. In a surprisingly soft voice he sang:
Alana, alana, the shadow of shame
Has never yet fallen on one of your name
And oh, may the food from my bosom you drew
In your veins turn to poison ere you turn untrue
“It’s the mother singing,” he explained, “and she’s urging her boy to die on the gallows rather than inform on his fellows.
Alana machree, oh, alana machree
Sure, a stag and a traitor you never shall be
“Ah, ‘tis a terrible old song, but it gives you an idea how our people felt on the subject. A great tradition of hating the informer. And of course you know what that means.”
“What?”
“A great tradition of informing,” he said. “For how could you have the one without the other?”
The caprice didn’t offer as smooth a ride as the Cadillac. It wasn’t as whisper-quiet, either, with more road noise audible and a rattle somewhere in the rear end. But it was comfortable all the same, with Andy and me in front and Mick stretched out in the back and the headlights cutting the darkness in front of us. I half wished we could ride on like that forever.
We’d turned onto the unnumbered road, and Mick said, “’Twas along here we saw the deer.”
“I remember,” Andy said. “I almost hit him.”
“You did not. You stopped in plenty of time.”
“A good thing, too. He was a big one. If I’d thought, I’d have counted the points.”
“The points?”
“On his antlers, Mick. That’s how the hunters rate the bucks, by the number of points on their antlers. He was a big one, but don’t ask me how many points he ran to, because I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Hunters. O’Gara posts the property, keeps the hunters off of it. I don’t want the trespassing, you know. And I don’t want deer shot on my land. They’re terrible predators, you can’t keep them out of the orchard, but I won’t have men shooting them. I wonder why that is.”
“You’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I must be,” he agreed. “Slow down a bit, why don’t you?”
“Slow down?”
“There’s deer all through here. The big buck was standing in the middle of the road, but sometimes you’ve no warning at all and they leap out right in front of you.”
I thought of Danny Boy and his list, and pictured the deer dashing out from between parked cars.
Andy eased up on the gas and the car slowed some.
“In fact,” Mick said, “why don’t you pull over altogether?”
“Pull over?”
“Sure, what’s our rush? We’ll all stretch our legs and you can smoke a cigarette.”
“I’d just as soon wait, to tell you the truth. We’re almost there.”
“Pull over,” Mick said.
“Yeah, sure,” Andy said, “only I got to find a spot with some room on the shoulder. Should be a place coming up soon.”
Mick drew a breath, then leaned forward and hooked an arm around Andy’s throat. He said, “Matt, take hold of the wheel, that’s a good man. Andy, ease the brake on, and do it gently, boy, or I swear I’ll throttle you. Guide us off the road, Matt, that’s lovely, and now turn off the ignition. And take his gun, the one in his waistband, and see if he’s got another on him.”
“This is crazy,” Andy said. “Mick, don’t do this.”
There were two guns, one under his belt in front, the other at the small of his back. I got them both, and Mick motioned for me to set them on the dashboard.
“Out of the car,” Mick said. “Come on now. Here’s our spy, Matt. Here’s our informer. Stand still, Andy. And don’t even think about running. You wouldn’t make ten yards. I’d shoot the legs out from under you, you know I would.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Andy said. “You’ve got this all wrong. Matt, tell him, will you? He’s got this all wrong.”
“I’m not
so sure of that,” I said.
To me Mick said, “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Not as early as you did. I had a sense of where you were going but I thought you were just fishing. But then I caught on when he said his mother was watching television.”
“And reading the newspaper.”
“Right.”
“Are you guys both nuts? I’m a spy because my ma’s watching the TV?”
“That call you made,” I said, “a minute or two after Andy went into the house. You passed it off as a call to O’Gara and hung up before he could answer. But you didn’t call the farm, did you? You called Andy’s number.”
“I did.”
“And you got a busy signal,” I said. “So you knew he was on the phone, calling Dowling and letting him know we were on our way.”
Andy said, “Let me get this straight. You called my house, Mick? While I was in there talking to my mother?”
“But you weren’t talking to her,” Mick said. “You were talking to Paddy Farrelly’s son. A pity you didn’t talk to her instead. She might have sung you a verse or two of that song. ‘The Patriot’s Mother,’ and I trust you can remember it as I haven’t the heart to sing it again for you.”
“The line was busy,” Andy said. “That’s what this is all about? The line was busy?”
“It was.”
“Jesus, I was in the john. Maybe she made a call while I was taking a leak. Why don’t you call her right now and ask her?”
Mick let out a sigh, then reached to lay a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Andy,” he said gently, “why do you think people have been going to Confession for all these centuries? They feel better afterward. And don’t tell me you’ve nothing to confess. Andy, look at me. Andy, I know it’s you.”
“Aaah, Jesus, Mick.”
“Suggesting we go to the farm, all of us, and lay a trap for them. That set the alarm bells ringing. You’d have done better to let me come up with the idea myself, with maybe the least bit of a hint from yourself to steer me in that direction.
“And you’d no way of knowing I’d be wary the instant the farm was mentioned. You see, your murderous friend fell into a wee trap himself. He called Matt’s house, and Matt pressed the numbers you press to call the person back. The person who answered didn’t say much. But didn’t you say he sounded Irish? And had a soft voice?”