Jig

by Campbell Armstrong

  He spread his hands on the desk. Finely manicured nails glinted under the green lampshade. ‘Consider this, Kevin. There’s a large Irish vote out there. Right now, I have it in my pocket the way no American president outside of Kennedy ever had it. I can count on it and that’s a nice feeling in politics because usually the only thing you can take for granted is the electorate being fickle.’ The President sat up on the edge of his desk and played with the empty yoghurt carton. ‘I’d be pretty damn stupid to screw around with this support. It would be suicidal to alienate it.’

  Kevin Dawson bit the inside of his cheek. What was his brother trying to tell him? He remembered Thomas Dawson when he’d been plain old Tommy, eighteen years of age and a halfway decent quarterback at Princeton. Simple unadulterated Tommy, without a devious bone in his body. He failed to make the connection between the President and that young man who had loved nothing more than football, beer, and cheerleaders, in any order you liked. Now Thomas Dawson watched his weight, didn’t drink beer, paid no attention to football, and – instead of dallying with cheerleaders – was married to a glacial woman called Eleanor, who was always travelling the country in her relentless and entirely manic crusade against the indiscriminate dumping of radioactive wastes. Mrs. Radioactivity, Kevin thought. Eleanor Dawson was an ice princess, a woman with all the sexual charm of cake frosting. Kevin could never imagine his brother in bed with her. With her high cheekbones and her fashionable demeanour and the calm way she handled herself with press and public, she was an absolutely perfect wife for a president.

  Thomas Dawson examined his fingernails. ‘I’ve always turned a blind eye to your little gang of fundraisers, Kevin. I’ve always considered that side of you your own private business. Despite the potential embarrassment you represent, I’ve never told you what to do. Have I?’

  Kevin Dawson shook his head.

  ‘I’ve let you run as you please,’ the President said. He reached out and clapped his brother on the shoulder and all at once Kevin Dawson was sixteen years old again, confiding to his big brother that he’d gotten a girl into trouble and what the hell should he do about it. He felt small.

  The President sat down behind his desk. He had a red-covered folder in front of him. He flipped it open. ‘Maybe I should have kept a firmer hand on you,’ he said. He shrugged, stared at the several sheets of paper inside the folder. ‘And now you come here and tell me that some Irishman might be a menace to your life. Which wouldn’t have been the case if you’d quit hanging around with those Irish fanatics.’ The President was careful enough not to name them, even if he knew who they were. His was a life of sometimes pretending ignorance of things he knew. It was a way of thinking in which he became two distinct people, and then two more, splitting and multiplying his personalities like some primitive cell.

  ‘Yes,’ Kevin Dawson said quietly. His face assumed an expression of regret. His cheeks sagged and his lips turned down and his eyes seemed to shrink into his head.

  The President said, ‘The problem is, he’s not just some Irishman, Kevin. The man who’s got you steamed up is none other than Jig. Ring a bell?’

  ‘Jig?’ Kevin’s throat constricted. ‘They sent Jig?’

  The President nodded his head. ‘I’m told he entered the United States within the last forty-eight hours, give or take a few. He’s suspected to be in the New York City area. We’re not sure.’

  Kevin Dawson sat down, something he didn’t usually do in this particular office. He felt something very cold settle on his heart. He stared at his brother, as if he were expecting the President to tell him that he’d been joking about Jig, but Thomas Dawson’s expression didn’t change and the seriousness in his eyes didn’t go away. Kevin realised that a small nerve had begun to beat in his throat and his hands were suddenly trembling. In a million years he could never have imagined Jig’s orbit touching his own. What the hell did his life have to do with that of the famous Irish assassin? They were worlds apart. But here was Thomas Dawson telling him otherwise. Kevin closed his eyes. ‘You’re not sure?’ he asked. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  The President was quiet for a long time. ‘I’ve been trying to explain something to you, Kevin. I’ve been trying to instruct you in the realities of my position.’

  Realities, Kevin Dawson thought. The only reality that concerned him right then was the notion of Jig lurking out there in the shadows of his life. It had been bad enough to imagine a faceless Irishman, but now that this figure had been identified, it was much worse. For the first time since he’d become associated with the Fundraisers he felt a sense of fear. He tried to remember Jock Mulhaney’s reassurances about how this Irishman would never find them in any case, but how could the big man’s bluster console him now? Even Harry Cairney hadn’t seemed very convinced that the group’s anonymity was inviolate. Cairney had given the opposite impression, that the secrecy in which the group had always operated was goddam fragile. Kevin Dawson leaned forward in his chair, clenching his hands between his knees. ‘You must be doing something to catch this guy, Tom.’

  Thomas Dawson closed the red-covered file. ‘You’re not listening to me. You’re not paying attention. Jig’s become something of a folk hero in every Irish bar from Boston to Philadelphia and back again. They sing songs about him. They adulate him. He’s the Irish Pimpernel, Kevin. And you know how the Irish love their heroes. The daring of the man. The mystery. He kills English politicians and disappears as if he doesn’t exist! They just adore all that. He’s been written up in Newsweek and Time. The guy’s a goddam saviour as far as the Irish are concerned.’

  Kevin Dawson watched his brother stroll round the office. It dawned on him now. ‘You’re not going out of your way to catch him, is that it? You’re going to give this killer a free rein. Are you telling me that?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘I’m lost, Tommy. Enlighten me.’

  ‘The votes,’ Thomas Dawson said. ‘If I place myself firmly behind a massive effort to catch this man, how are the votes going to go? How are the Irish going to mark their ballots next time around? Are they going to pull their little levers for the man who approved of a massive manhunt to catch their hero?’ He looked at his younger brother seriously. ‘I have a number of promises to keep while I occupy this office. And the only currency a president has is the vote of the people. In my case, Kevin, the Irish–American community constitutes a sizeable proportion of that vote. It’s like having money in the bank. And I don’t want to squander it. I don’t want to take the risk of tossing it all away. Have you seen the opinion polls lately, Kevin? It seems like I’m having what the pros call an image problem. Some people out there perceive their President as a man who doesn’t make decisions quickly enough. I don’t like that.’

  Kevin Dawson didn’t speak. He heard the sound of a door closing at the back of his brain.

  ‘I’m not going to give them a martyr, Kevin. I’m not going to be the one to take their folk hero away from them.’ Thomas Dawson looked up at the ceiling. When he spoke again his voice was low. ‘Besides, it’s my understanding he’s only looking for the men in your little group, Kevin. It’s not as if he’s a threat to the population at large, who don’t even know the man’s in the country. And I intend to keep it that way.’

  Kevin Dawson shook his head. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’

  ‘Try,’ the President said. ‘Try a little harder.’

  ‘You’ll sit here and do absolutely nothing about him?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Kevin. At this moment there’s an English agent called Frank Pagan in New York City who’s getting some assistance from the FBI.’

  ‘How much is “some”?’ Kevin asked.

  The President shrugged. ‘Just enough.’

  Kevin Dawson tried to see inside his brother’s head. There was a cynical balance sheet in that skull. The President was weighing four men, one of whom was his own brother, against his precious Irish–American vote. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you
that my life might be in danger? Jig kills people, for Christ’s sake! It’s his profession. And they aren’t sending a professional assassin from Ireland for the good of his goddam health. If he doesn’t recover the money …’ He didn’t finish this sentence.

  ‘I don’t think for one moment that Jig is going to find you. I know how your little gang covers its tracks.’

  ‘Yeah, I keep hearing how good we are at secrecy,’ Kevin Dawson said. ‘Pardon me if I’m not convinced.’

  Thomas Dawson laid a hand on his brother’s arm. ‘I’m prepared to put a couple of Secret Service agents at your disposal.’

  Kevin Dawson looked at his brother. For a moment the touch of the President’s hand on his arm reminded him of the man he used to have as a brother, when life had been carefree and political ambition hadn’t taken total control of Tommy’s personality. ‘I’ve got a Secret Service agent already,’ he said.

  ‘One man who does nothing but escort your daughters to school,’ the President said. ‘You need your protection beefed up, Kevin. And you’ll have it before the end of the night.’

  Kevin Dawson looked suitably grateful. ‘Suppose this Frank Pagan character gets lucky? Suppose he captures Jig? What will you do with the guy if you catch him?’

  ‘I don’t think I can answer that.’

  ‘A Jimmy Hoffa style disappearance? The Irish hero simply vanishes off the face of the earth and nobody knows where or why?’

  The President didn’t answer his brother’s questions. He sat back down behind his desk and put the red file inside a drawer. ‘Let me ask you something, Kev. Who really took the money from that ship?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘No ideas?’

  Kevin Dawson shrugged. It was a question he’d asked himself frequently. His immediate impulse was to suspect Mulhaney, but this was totally unfair, a suspicion motivated by a personal dislike for the man. It could have been Mulhaney. It could have been Linney. Even Harry Cairney. The problem was that all four men, himself included, would come under Jig’s suspicion. What if Jig somehow reached the conclusion that he, Kevin Dawson, was responsible for the affair? What if Jig got to Mulhaney, say, and Big Jock, to divert suspicion from himself, managed to convince the Irishman that the guilty party was Dawson? Kevin Dawson’s fear intensified. Suspicions created other suspicions. Possibilities led to other possibilities. He had the feeling of a man locked within a complex hall of mirrors, images reflecting themselves to an inscrutable infinity so that you could never find the true source of them. And there was no way out. He didn’t like thinking this way, didn’t like the panic rising in him.

  The President placed his feet up on the desk and crumbled his empty yoghurt carton, flipping it towards a wastebasket. ‘If there’s a next time, Kevin, you ought to be a tad more careful.’

  ‘I don’t think there will be a next time,’ Kevin Dawson said.

  He went towards the door. He thought of going out into the darkness of the city and the prospect didn’t appeal to him. Despite its floodlights, its illuminated tourist attractions, Washington was a city of too many dark places.

  ‘What about the others?’ he asked, turning in the doorway.

  ‘Others?’

  ‘My associates. I don’t imagine they can count on your protection as well.’

  ‘They’re not exactly my blood relations, are they?’

  There was a small indifferent light in Thomas Dawson’s eyes. Callous, Kevin thought. Maybe that came with the territory. With the subterfuges of the office. The great numbers game the President played. The numbers justified anything. Everything.

  Kevin Dawson opened the door.

  The President said, ‘Two things, Kevin. The first, you don’t mention Jig to any of your … associates. So far as I’m concerned, Jig isn’t in this country. I don’t want anybody saying otherwise.’

  ‘What’s the second?’ Kevin Dawson asked.

  ‘We never had this conversation.’

  St. Bernard des Bois, Quebec

  The Ryder truck was parked in the forecourt of a gas station. Fitzjohn sat behind the wheel. The other men in the cab were Houlihan and Waddell. Rorke and McGrath travelled in the back with the cargo that had been unloaded from the DC-4. Houlihan squinted through the windshield at the unlit gasoline sign that hung like a small deflated moon over the pumps, then he glanced at his watch.

  ‘Am I right, Fitz? Is it seven-thirty in New York City?’

  Fitzjohn looked at his Rolex and nodded.

  ‘All these bloody time zones confuse the hell out of a man,’ Houlihan said. He slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes. ‘Let’s hear about the route, Fitz.’

  Fitzjohn stared at the sign in the gas-station window, which read FERMÉ/CLOSED. He was still thinking about what had happened at the airfield, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get rid of the images. The weird look on Houlihan’s face. The dead bodies of the pilots. In fucking cold blood, without even so much as a blink of an eye. Houlihan hadn’t mentioned the incident since they’d left the airstrip. It was over and done with. Already ancient history. Two dead airmen whose only crime, so far as Fitzjohn could tell, was that Houlihan hadn’t trusted them. Seamus Houlihan, judge and jury and executioner, all rolled into one.

  ‘There’s an old road twelve miles from here,’ he said without turning to Houlihan. He couldn’t look at the man. ‘It’s a dirt road that leads to a fishery. The fishery’s closed this time of the year because of the weather, which suits us fine. Nobody travels that way.’

  ‘And where does your road lead?’ Houlihan asked.

  ‘Beyond the fishery, it turns into a narrow path that goes between some trees, then it passes an abandoned farmhouse. There are fields after that.’

  ‘Open fields?’

  Fitzjohn nodded. ‘We cross the fields for about two miles. On the other side there’s a track that comes out just north of Highway Twenty-seven.’

  ‘Highway Twenty-seven?’ Houlihan opened his eyes. ‘That doesn’t mean a thing to me, Fitz.’

  ‘It’s in the State of Maine.’

  ‘What about the Border Patrol?’ Waddell spoke for the first time since they’d left the airfield. He’d become pale and totally withdrawn, gazing speechlessly out of the window for mile after mile. He moved only when he lit cigarettes, chain-smoking them in silence. His brown-stained fingers trembled in his lap.

  ‘The nearest port of entry is at a place called Coburn-Gore. It’s about two miles away from the spot where we join Highway Twenty-seven. I don’t think we’re likely to encounter any Border Patrol.’ Fitzjohn paused. ‘It’s not as if we’re coming in from Mexico, after all. The Border Patrol down there are fanatics. Anyway, this truck has New Jersey plates, and that helps.’

  Houlihan asked, ‘Can we get across the fields without getting stuck?’

  Fitzjohn said, ‘I don’t see why not. The snow’s hard and there haven’t been any fresh falls in more than a week.’

  ‘And this Highway Twenty-seven, where does it lead us?’

  ‘All the way to Interstate Nine-five.’

  Nobody spoke for a time. Fitzjohn could hardly wait to get inside the U.S., because it meant he would leave the truck to Houlihan and the others, then make his way back to New Jersey. Relief. An end to this damned business as far as he was concerned. He didn’t want to know what Houlihan planned to do in America. He didn’t need to have that kind of knowledge.

  ‘I’ve got a phone call to make,’ Houlihan said.

  Houlihan climbed out of the cab. He moved across the forecourt of the gas station, then went inside the phone booth and picked up the receiver.

  Fitzjohn watched him from the cab. He was about to say to Waddell that he thought Seamus Houlihan might benefit from being locked up in a padded room, but why bother? For one thing, Waddell might take it into his head to pass such a remark on to Houlihan, which wasn’t a marvellous prospect. For another, everybody involved in this escapade had to be a little mad, himself included.
Except Houlihan was more than that. He was lethal.

  12

  New York City

  Joseph X. Tumulty looked from the window of his office down into the darkened street. Earlier, a navy-blue Ford had parked halfway along the block, and the tan Chrysler that had been stationed there drove off. It was the changing of the guard. He peered across the way. There was a light in the office building opposite St. Finbar’s Mission. Tumulty could see a fat man sitting behind a desk. He was counting papers, flicking them back and licking his thumb every so often.

  Tumulty turned from the window and went to his desk. He sat down, adjusting the lamp so that the light didn’t shine directly into his face. He unlocked the middle drawer and took out a leather pouch, which he unzipped. There were seven thousand five hundred dollars inside. This money had been given to him by Padraic Finn more than three years ago. A contingency fund, which Finn, with the canniness of a man who understood that money worked for you, had placed in an interest-bearing account under Tumulty’s name. When Tumulty had gone just before closing-time to make the withdrawal – a tense moment, standing in a line that never seemed to move – he had the feeling he’d been followed to the bank. He’d withdrawn all the money and closed the account. Santacroce wanted six thousand dollars. Six thousand would have fed the clientele of St. Finbar’s for about four months.

  Tumulty absently regarded the religious artifacts on the walls. The Mexican cross he’d bought that day in Santacroce’s store lay propped against the wall near the window. The Christ figure nailed to the wood was gory in the way Latin Americans loved. Blood filled up the eyes and dripped from the most unlikely places in the wooden body. Tumulty thought Jesus looked more perplexed than sorrowful. It was a distasteful piece but he hadn’t wanted to leave Santacroce’s store empty-handed. For appearance’s sake.

  Santacroce had said the merchandise might take some time to get together. Arrangements had to be made. He estimated twenty-four hours maximum, maybe a whole lot sooner. It depended on a variety of factors, none of which the gun merchant volunteered to explain. Tumulty hadn’t asked either. He’d been very anxious to get out of that stifling little shop with its smell of old sandalwood and lacquer and dust. And away from Santacroce too, whose white puffy face and slitlike eyes seemed to suggest he was in the business, plain and simple, of death.