The DeValera Deception

by Michael McMenamin

  McBride was going to be a busy man in the next few days. The wire transfers on Monday were crucial. They had to be done perfectly. But once all his business was concluded, he looked forward before leaving New York to consoling Jamie O’Brien‘s wife who had just returned with a silver coffee service. Bending over at the waist so her breasts once more enticed him, the view even more generous than before, she proceeded to pour cups for him and Sturm while a white-coated servant entered behind her with a large whisky for her husband.

  It was obvious that her husband, flush in the face, was drinking something more than his second whiskey that night. When O’Brien asked her to leave them alone, promising her he would return to their guests in half an hour, McBride decided to show him up.

  “Betsy, ‘tis a lovely cup of coffee you make. Would you be so kind as to pour me another before you leave?” McBride said as he drained the cup quickly and placed it back down.

  “Of course, Mr. McBride,” said Betsy, who clearly had also enjoyed more than two cocktails that evening. The coffee pot was no more than two feet from McBride‘s hand and he could easily have refilled his own cup but he was looking for a repeat performance from the engaging Mrs. O’Brien and she didn‘t disappoint. As she bent over to carefully pour the coffee, she leaned forward so that the front of her dress fell away, her right breast entirely exposed.

  “Thank you, Betsy,” he said with a smile, staring at her breasts and making no effort to conceal it. “You‘re very kind. Please call me Tommy.”

  Facing away from her husband, McBride watched while Betsy’s eyes followed his to her breasts as she placed the coffee pot down and blushed as she stood up. “I‘m delighted to entertain friends from Ireland in my home, Tommy. Please come back and see us.” Betsy said.

  “Oh, I‘ll be back, Betsy,” McBride said, as he took a last lingering glance at her bottom moving provocatively beneath the silk as she walked out. “I wouldn‘t miss it for anything.”

  McBride returned his attention to O’Brien who had noticed and not appreciated Betsy flashing her tits. Get used to it Jamie. A lot more than her tits would be showing the next time.

  “See here, McBride. I don‘t like being interrupted in the middle of a dinner party. This better be important,” he said, taking a gulp of the whiskey from the Waterford crystal glass.

  McBride‘s eyes narrowed and he paused, letting the silence fill the air until O’Brien took another gulp of whiskey and blurted out, “Come on, man, I can‘t take all night!”

  McBride took a sip of coffee and said in a low, quiet voice which caused O’Brien to lean forward in order to hear him, “You‘ll bloody well take as long as I want you to take. The IRA thinks it‘s important. And if the IRA thinks it‘s important, your life depends on it. Are we clear?”

  O’Brien flushed and reached for the glass a third time, nervously taking another gulp before responding. “Of course. I understand. I didn‘t mean...”

  McBride raised his hand for silence. O’Brien‘s babbling ceased. Tommy had been dealing with self-important men like this all his life but he had settled the score and taken them all down a peg or two. A few moments earlier, McBride had been content with the knowledge that, before he killed him, he was going to humiliate Jamie O’Brien by shagging his sexy wife right in front of his face. But now, after his pompous little lecture, that wasn‘t enough. He stood up, took a step forward and moved around the coffee table between him and O’Brien and, with his left hand, grabbed the insurance executive by his necktie, pulling him awkwardly to his feet.

  O’Brien sputtered but the pressure on his necktie kept him from uttering any words as McBride drove his right fist firmly into the insurance executive‘s soft belly which caused him to bend over, gasping in pain. McBride straightened him up with a tug on his tie and hit him in the belly again before he let the bulky man fall heavily back on his leather chair.

  “My colleague, here,” McBride said, “wishes to be reassured that you understand the instructions I gave you this afternoon. After seeing how much you‘ve had to drink, I do too.”

  McBride watched as Sturm, in his flawless, unaccented English, began to cross examine the insurance executive. Despite his fear and the whiskey, it quickly became obvious O’Brien knew what he was supposed to do. He had already placed in his office vault the notarized letter of authorization from de Valera in his capacity as President of the Irish Republic to transfer the funds in the trust account as directed by the bearer of the letter. He would keep the letter in his vault until he received further direction from de Valera or his successor as President of the Irish Republic. The sequences. The amounts. The banks. Even the account numbers.

  Sturm turned to McBride. “I am satisfied, Mr. McBride. Everything is in order.”

  McBride nodded, turned to O’Brien, a large smile on his face, leaned down and patted him softly on his cheek. “Well, then, Jamie, things are fine now. I‘ll be back here Monday.”

  O’Brien wiped a handkerchief over his perspiring forehead and passed it beneath the soft underside of his chin as he responded, in a nervous voice, “I didn‘t mean to be so abrupt earlier, Mr. McBride. It‘s just all so unexpected. You showing up this afternoon. The letter from President de Valera. All those years which have passed since the war. I mean, I was concerned about taking on all this responsibility. Ever since those three men who had control over the funds before me were killed in the summer of ‘22. And then nothing‘s happened for so long, I thought there was nothing left for me to do. I figured, what with Dev taking his seat in the Dail and all...” O’Brien continued, until silenced once again by a raised hand from McBride.

  “You figured wrong,” said McBride coldly. “Don‘t make the mistake again. Give my regards to your lovely wife. Tell her I‘m looking forward to seeing her again.”

  10:30 p.m.

  McBride stepped into the back seat of the Model A. Timothy Cronin and Sean Russell were in the front. “Let‘s be on our way, boys. We‘ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  Back in Dublin two months ago, when Dev had told him about the new arms deal and McBride‘s role in securing the safe passage of the weapons back to Ireland, Dev gave him another assignment—locating six critical missing volumes of Michael Collins‘ private journals. Dev knew that Collins kept a meticulous daily record throughout the war; that there were many volumes; and they had been mysteriously spirited away from Collins‘ rooms the day after his death. Dev said Blackthorn managed to intercept most of them before they were sent out of Ireland. The others were tracked to America and destroyed. All but the six that mattered most.

  McBride had tried to pry more out of de Valera but he refused. Instead he told McBride where he believed the six missing Collins‘ journals could be found—in the possession of a Columbia Law School professor named Bourke Cockran. Dev had explained that his sources had traced the journals to Cockran‘s father in America. He believed Cockran had inherited them and was writing a book about Michael Collins where the journals would be an important source.

  McBride had not been impressed. Thanks to Blackthorn, he knew all about Cockran and his dead whore of a wife as well. Who cared what one bastard wrote about another? After warning McBride to watch his language, de Valera had said he didn‘t want Collins‘ blackening his name with lies from the grave. The six journals had to be destroyed. “History will record Michael Collins as a great man,” Dev had said. “And I don‘t want it done at my expense.”

  So, earlier that evening, McBride had searched Cockran‘s Fifth Avenue townhouse to no avail just as he had found nothing at Sands Point or Columbia‘s law school. Cockran’s apartment in Cleveland was next. The Model A began moving and McBride grilled Timothy Cronin and Sean Russell.

  “How many friends did O’Brien talk to?”

  “Four that we know of,” Sean replied. “We have their addresses.”

  “Any others?” McBride asked.

  “Only the two reporters.”

  “Fine. You know what to do. Take care of the
m all. I‘ll do the last one myself,”

  “What about O’Brien and his mistress?” Timothy asked.

  “We need him for the wire transfers but we‘ll take care of both of them after that. Bring her to his house first thing Monday.”

  “And Mrs. O’Brien?” Timothy asked with a smile.

  McBride waved his hand. “We need to know how much our Jamie told her. If she knows nothing, she‘ll be fine. Otherwise, we take care of her too. Either way, no gentleman would pass up the opportunity to leave such a lovely lass with a smile on her face.”

  The men laughed. “But we‘ll each take a turn with her when you‘re done?” Timothy asked eagerly.

  McBride laughed. “Always ready to do the Lord‘s work aren‘t you Tim?”

  16.

  Tommy McBride Is In Town

  New York City

  Saturday, 10 August 1929

  11:45 p.m.

  Cockran walked up two flights of well-worn stairs in the shabby building in lower Manhattan which housed the offices of The Gaelic American, modestly subtitled “America‘s Finest Weekly”. Visitors to the crowded third-floor editorial offices were reminded of this in gold letters at the entrance to the newspaper‘s suite of rooms. Cockran had only met Devoy here on a few occasions and each time it had been during working hours with the clatter of typewriters, the shouts of copy editors and the pleasant anarchy of a newsroom.

  He turned the door handle and, to his surprise, it wasn‘t locked. The newsroom was silent, the typewriters covered, and the only illumination came from Devoy‘s corner office. “John, are you there?” Cockran shouted, mindful of Devoy‘s fading hearing.

  “Over here, Bourke,” Devoy replied. “In my office.”

  When Cockran found him, Devoy pulled out a drawer in the ancient desk and brought out a bottle of Jameson‘s and two scarred but serviceable glasses, pouring two fingers of whiskey into each, and handing one to Cockran. “To hell with the King and de Valera, too!”

  Cockran raised his glass in reply and took a sip. “So what have you found?” he asked.

  “No fund raising of any kind, anywhere. I knew that but I made the inquiries I promised. Everything is quiet, just as it has been since we won our freedom.”

  “That‘s a relief,” Cockran said. “I was starting to believe Churchill had something .”

  “Not so fast, laddie,” said Devoy. “Just because your information comes from Winston bloody Churchill doesn‘t mean it‘s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. You remember, back in 1919, when the black coward himself came to America to raise money and keep his Spanish arse safely out of the way of British guns?”

  Cockran nodded while Devoy launched into his version of de Valera’s fund raising efforts in the United States and the millions of dollars he had left behind in trustee accounts.

  “Those accounts are frozen, John,” Cockran said. “Ever since...” Cockran caught himself, “…since the unholy trinity were killed when they tried to buy weapons during the civil war. No one would dare try again.”

  “If you think that, lad, you think wrong,” Devoy replied. “When the IRA got Kevin O’Higgins two years ago, that was the end of it. No one‘s afraid of the Free State now.” Devoy paused, took a sip of whiskey and continued. “There‘s an operation on. I‘m sure of it.”

  “Why do you think so?” Cockran asked.

  “Two reasons,” the old man replied. “For one thing, I asked around about James O’Brien. He‘s the sole trustee Dev eventually named to look after the money. He spends a lot of time at Parrouquet, a club on the east side, where he‘s got himself a girlfriend. I sent a couple of the boys over this afternoon to see what they could learn. It was child‘s play. The boys pretended to be old IRB men from Cork and, inside of three drinks, our Jamie was telling them everything. He says he‘s going to transfer $3 million from the trustee accounts on Monday.”

  Cockran was stunned. Monday? Just like that, the money would be gone? Cockran had killed three men seven years ago. Wasn‘t that enough? How many more people did he have to kill? “Where will the funds be transferred?”

  “We don‘t know. O’Brien was drunk but Seamus didn‘t want to make him suspicious.”

  “What‘s O’Brien‘s background?”

  Devoy snorted. “Insurance broker. Rich, too. Divorced his first wife. Lives in sin with his second. A good looker and a lot younger. He’s trying to buy an annulment. Has the big house in White Plains. Risen above his station. His father was a butcher, always ready to contribute.”

  “So how do we find out where the money is going?” Cockran asked.

  “I‘ll know soon.” Devoy said. “I have an old friend who‘s an assistant teller.”

  “You said there were two reasons you knew there was an operation.”

  Devoy nodded. “Tommy McBride is in town.”

  Cockran froze.

  “He‘s in New York. Someone saw him at the speak underneath The Blossom restaurant last night. He met with some well-dressed German gent who can take care of himself. The Kraut broke two arms, a cheek bone and one nose when some of the boys tried to roust him.”

  “Are they sure it was McBride?” Cockran asked.

  “Yes, laddie,” Devoy sighed. “They‘re certain. McBride‘s a big man, not easy to miss that red nose of his. These are boys who knew him by sight in Ireland.”

  Tommy McBride! Cockran clenched his fists and audibly exhaled. This changed everything. McBride was the man whose IRA squad robbed the bank in Galway and taken Nora hostage. After he returned from San Francisco, his mission for Collins complete, he had banished all thoughts of Ireland except for one last thing—to find McBride and make him pay for Nora’s murder. After Collins was assassinated by the IRA in August of 1922, Cockran had continued to correspond with contacts he had in the Free State. To no avail. No one could find McBride. He couldn‘t blame the Apostles, Michael Collins‘ squad of assassins, for not redeeming Mick‘s promise to have McBride killed. They may have been hardened killers, but they were still boys and unless someone were leading them, that‘s all they ever would be. Boys. Collins‘ promise of revenge for Nora‘s death had died with him.

  Tommy McBride! Revenge had been a concept alien to Cockran‘s father who had tried to pass on his wisdom to his son. But he had lost two young wives to natural causes, Bourke‘s mother the last, and that made all the difference. A devout Catholic, his father couldn‘t very well blame God now, could he? Cockran didn‘t have that problem. His wife hadn‘t died of natural causes and he knew who was responsible. Tommy McBride. Some might say healing was brought by the passage of time. Cockran knew better. The wound was still there and the layers of scar tissue over it were still tender to the touch. The aching need for revenge still smoldered.

  Cockran‘s own guilt over Nora‘s death had been a twin companion to his desire for revenge. Of the two, guilt had proved to be the stronger companion. It had given him nightmares for years, something even the Great War and its killing never did. Gradually, long talks with John Devoy helped persuade him that he could have had no way of knowing that staying in Dublin to interview a ranking IRA army council member would have taken place on the day the bank in Galway was robbed, Nora taken hostage and killed. His guilt quickly found a new home after that. He had become too close to Mick Collins, he decided. He had lost his objectivity as a journalist. His Atlantic Monthly articles, while factually accurate, were critical of Collins‘ enemies, especially the IRA. Cockran had no proof one way or the other that his association with Collins had anything to do with Nora‘s death but the guilt stayed with him.

  Cockran often wondered whether Collins had sent him to America knowing Nora‘s enduring influence would reassert itself once the breadth and depth of the Atlantic was between Cockran and revenge. Mick could have sent any of the Apostles and the three IRA moneymen would have been just as dead. But sending Cockran kept him from going after McBride and gave him another target for the revenge he c
raved. After that, Nora‘s voice had whispered in his subconscious that raising their son was more important than seeking more revenge for her death and his father had said the same to his face.

  Indeed, Cockran could still hear Nora‘s lilting voice today, echoing his father‘s golden baritone. He consulted them often and he would play out their conversations in his head. He still could hear his father‘s voice: “Revenge is the most expensive luxury known to man. Anyone can generally attain it, but it is all that he is ever likely to accomplish.”

  His father might be right, Cockran thought, but the fact was that he hadn‘t even accomplished that much—the revenge he had denied himself for seven long years by listening to the better angels of his wife and father. And now, revenge was well within reach. Tommy McBride was in America. Cockran‘s home field, not McBride‘s. He didn‘t need the Apostles now. Tommy McBride had made a mistake at last and Cockran was going to make him pay.

  Cockran rose from the chair and walked to the window. It had started to rain. The pavement outside glistened in the glow of the street lamps. He heard the old man‘s voice behind him. “You know what you have to do, lad.”

  Cockran turned from the window to face Devoy, who continued, “You won‘t have much time. I‘ll soon find where the money‘s going to be sent. But if there‘s an operation on and arms are being purchased, the money‘s not going to stay in one place long. You and your British friends are going to have to move and move quickly.”