Jig

by Campbell Armstrong

  New Rockford, Connecticut

  The two Secret Service agents were of Hispanic descent. One was called Lopez, the other Garcina. They sat motionless and squat in a blue car parked in the driveway beneath Kevin Dawson’s study. Now and again Dawson would walk to the window and look out at them. They never seemed to move. What did they do down there in the car he wondered.

  Dawson went towards his desk. It was strewn with papers. Many of them were invitations of the kind routinely extended to a brother of the President of the United States. The opening of a new office block in Manhattan. A fund-raising banquet on behalf of scientific research in Antarctica. Kevin Dawson attended as many of these functions as he could because he considered it his duty to wave the Dawson flag in public whenever possible. Duty was an important word in the Dawson lexicon. Sometimes Kevin thought that the entire Dawson clan had been selectively bred with public service in mind.

  He sat and pushed his chair back against the wall. From another part of this large Victorian house, which had been in the Dawson family for more than eighty years, he could hear the sounds of his daughters, Louise and Kitty, getting ready for school. Running water. The rattle of a spoon in a bowl. Kitty’s high-pitched laughter. Martha, Kevin’s wife, drove the girls every morning to the stop where they boarded the big yellow bus that took them to a grade school in New Rockford. At one time Martha had argued that the girls ought to attend a private school, but Kevin, pressured somewhat by his own brother who saw the chance to score some points for democracy and egalitarianism, insisted they go to a public school like normal kids. Thomas Dawson, locked into a marriage that seemed destined to be childless, was always bringing such minor pressures to bear on the family, the kids especially. He saw them, Kevin Dawson thought at times, as the children he didn’t have himself.

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then Louise and Kitty came running into his office to say good-bye to him. Kevin Dawson embraced his daughters, hugging them hard. A small ritual of family. Sometimes, when he stood in the doorway of their bedroom and watched them sleep, he was filled with an awesome love.

  Louise, grown-up at eleven and graceful in the way of a ballet dancer with her long skinny body, wanted to know about the men parked in the driveway. Dawson stepped back from his daughters. They had a way of scrutinising him that made him feel as though he were made of glass. The eyes of innocence, he thought.

  ‘The President ordered those men to be here,’ he said slowly. ‘For our protection.’

  ‘Protection from what?’ Kitty asked. She was balanced on one foot like a stork. At the age of nine, Kitty resembled her mother in a manner that could take Kevin’s breath away.

  ‘Well, the President has enemies. And because we’re part of the President’s family, we have the same enemies.’ He let this casual lie hang in the air, wondering if the girls were really buying it the way Martha had done. He had muttered vaguely about a rash of Dawson hate mail when he’d explained the presence of the Secret Service agents to his wife. Apart from Martyns, the agent who accompanied the kids to school and remained there all day long, Kevin had always refused Secret Service protection in the past even if, as the President’s brother, he was entitled to it.

  ‘It isn’t anything that should worry you guys, though. It’s a precaution, that’s all.’

  Louise said to her sister, ‘It’s politics as usual.’

  Kitty looked thoughtful. ‘Politics is a dirty game.’ Her small oval face was earnest.

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ he asked.

  ‘Everybody knows that, Daddy,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Everybody,’ Louise agreed. ‘Didn’t you know that about politics, Daddy?’

  There were moments when Dawson understood that his daughters liked to bait him in tiny ways. Affectionate little jibes, jokes, verbal conspiracies.

  Martha appeared in the doorway. She was a small woman whose looks had deteriorated since the birth of Kitty. Kevin, who adored his wife beyond any means of measurement, didn’t notice changes in her. He didn’t see the wrinkles edging the eyes. He didn’t see the thin lines that stretched from the corners of her mouth, nor did he notice the streaks of silver that had appeared in her black hair. All he ever saw was the girl he’d proposed to one wet afternoon in Bayville when a summer storm had raked the waters of Long Island Sound and Martha had pressed her lips against the back of his hand and whispered Yes. Kevin had built his whole life around that whisper of acceptance.

  ‘Let’s go, girls,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to miss the bus, do we?’

  ‘I don’t think you want an honest answer to that question, Mom,’ Louise said.

  Martha kissed Kevin. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she said, herding the girls out of the room. She blew another kiss at her husband as she drew the door shut.

  From the window Kevin watched his family get inside the station wagon. Martyns followed in the blue sedan. Kevin gazed until both cars had gone out of sight down the long curve of the driveway and the stand of ancient elms. He went back to his desk and began to sift through the papers.

  He was searching for the file that contained a monthly computerised printout detailing the ebb and flow of the Dawson family fortune, which came from such diverse sources as condominiums in Dallas and Houston, dairy farms in Wisconsin, New York, and Ohio, a chain of small-town newspapers that extended from Oregon to Florida, and a pineapple plantation in Hawaii. The whole thing was a maze of corporations, and it was Kevin Dawson’s function to manage this labyrinth, which grew more complex every month.

  He found the file and flipped it open. He stared at the columns of figures, prepared by a centralised computer bank in Jersey City, which recorded every business transaction in the Dawson empire from the purchase of paper clips to the financial lubrication of some local politician. It was difficult to concentrate. His mind kept drifting to Jig and to the crazy idea that he was in danger. He tried to persuade himself he was safe – after all, there were Secret Service agents stationed outside – but he couldn’t still the anxiety he felt.

  He closed the file and stood up, stretching his arms. He disliked being vulnerable. All Kevin Dawson had ever really craved was a peaceful life, the life of a family man. Wife and kids. Dogs and roses. But destiny, that crooked schemer, had arranged for him to be born into the Dawson clan with all its political ambitions, its history of ruthless business intrigues. His grandfather had been impeached by the House of Representatives in 1929 for ‘immoral and unacceptable’ trading in the stock market. His father, the one-time United States ambassador to Italy, had been maligned in the late 1930s for his uncritical attitude towards Mussolini and criticised even more strongly in the fifties for having a tumultuous affair with a Greek opera singer, a histrionic woman the press called ‘Dawson’s Diva’. It was as if the Dawson clan went out of its way to court turbulence and self-destruction. What chance did he have for a peaceful life with a background like that?

  His telephone rang. He picked up the receiver and heard the voice of Nicholas Linney.

  ‘Mulhaney thinks he’s got it all figured out,’ Linney said.

  Dawson pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Figured what, Nick?’

  ‘Who took the money.’ Linney had a flat nasal accent, like that of a man with stuffed sinuses. ‘He figures you.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘He’s got some cockeyed reasons of his own.’

  ‘I’m sure he has,’ Kevin Dawson said. ‘Do I want to hear them?’

  Linney was quiet a moment. ‘I didn’t find them convincing. He’s full of shit. I think he’s laying down smokescreens, if you want my opinion.’

  ‘Smoke-screens?’

  ‘Yeah. He makes an accusation like that, it takes the heat off him.’

  ‘Why would he feel any heat, Nick?’

  ‘If he had a hand in the hijacking he would,’ Linney answered.

  ‘You think he did?’

  ‘I hear rumours. I hear things about Mulhaney privately investing unio
n funds and losing some hefty change on Wall Street. I hear things about auditors moving in on his union, wanting to check the books. I think maybe he’s been skimming. Chipping away at the Irish money. Mending fences.’

  There was a long silence. Dawson thought about the wholesale paranoia that the hijacking of the Connie O’Mara had brought, and he doubted that the Fundraisers could ever function as a unit again. He realised he welcomed this prospect. It was a step in the direction of the untroubled life he sought. His ambitions for Ireland belonged to another time in his life, to his youth when he’d been less prudent than he was now. Dawson turned his thoughts briefly to Mulhaney. If Jig ever got to Big Jock, then it was a pretty sure bet that Mulhaney would send the killer here to Connecticut. Kev Dawson’s the one, Mulhaney would say. Kev Dawson took the money. Mulhaney hated the Dawson family, and Thomas especially, ever since the President had created a commission to look into union funds. Big Jock would love to create problems for the Dawsons. Kevin Dawson understood that he feared Mulhaney almost as much as Jig. Mulhaney, dictated to by blind hatreds and prejudice and the fear of seeing his power eroded by a presidential commission, would go out of his way to make life difficult for anyone connected to the Dawson family. If he couldn’t get Tommy directly, then Kevin would do.

  ‘You really believe any of this, Nick?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, that’s all. Guy’s got a cash-flow problem.’

  ‘Here’s something else to consider, Nick. Maybe you’re the one setting up a smoke-screen.’

  ‘I like that,’ Linney said.

  ‘My point is, Nick, when this kind of suspicion starts, where the hell does it stop? Where do we draw the line, for God’s sake? None of this mutual accusation shit is going to get the money back. It’s sick to go around blaming somebody when there isn’t a goddam shred of evidence.’

  ‘I’m not accusing anybody,’ Linney answered calmly. ‘I’m examining options, that’s all.’

  ‘Examining options,’ Dawson said. He had always found Nick Linney to be a cold character, somebody whose personality seemed indefinable at bottom. A human enigma. His encounters with Linney invariably left him feeling faintly depressed, as if he’d run into somebody hovering on the sociopathic margin of things. For a second Dawson had the urge to mention Jig, but he’d promised his brother – and Kevin, no matter what, always tried to keep his word.

  ‘You come up with any bright ideas, you call me,’ Linney said.

  ‘Immediately,’ Dawson replied.

  ‘And if you see any strange-looking Irishmen hanging around, you be careful.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

  ‘Take it any way you like,’ Nicholas Linney said.

  When Dawson had hung up he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of Dewar’s White Label. He poured himself a small shot and sipped it. Drinking just after breakfast. A bad sign, he thought.

  Carrying his shot glass, he got up and wandered to the window. The hills on the other side of the road appeared secretive and barren. He looked across the lawn at the wrought-iron fence that faced the narrow road. It seemed oddly flimsy to Kevin Dawson just then, as if even the slightest breeze might flatten it.

  He finished his drink.

  He saw the station wagon come up the driveway. Martha stepped out. She looked tiny to Dawson. Vulnerably pale beneath the monochrome of the sky. He raised one hand and waved, but she didn’t see him. When she’d passed out of his sight in the direction of the house, a wave of cold fear ran through him. It wasn’t just the wrought-iron fence that was fragile. It was his whole life.

  14

  New York City

  In his room at the Essex House Ivor McInnes woke at seven-thirty A.M. as he usually did. He shaved and showered and had breakfast sent up by room service. He ate at the window, chewing on streaky pieces of what passed for bacon in America, pausing every now and then to look in the direction of Central Park. He perused The New York Times casually, then set it aside and continued to gaze out into the park. He drank several cups of coffee, then left his room and rode the elevator down into the lobby where he wandered towards the telephones.

  Today, he thought, would have to be spent in the New York Public Library. Taking notes, reading, satisfying those morons at the State Department on the chance that he was being observed. He glanced across the crowded lobby before he dialled the number in White Plains. He punched in a handful of change at the operator’s request and after a moment he heard a voice saying, ‘Memorial Presbyterian Church. This is the Reverend Duncanson speaking.’

  ‘I would like to know the times of your Sunday services,’ McInnes said.

  ‘Seven A.M. and ten,’ Duncanson answered. He had a firm oratorial voice, a voice made for pulpits. ‘I can tell from your accent you’re a long way from home. Do you want to attend one of our services?’

  ‘I’d like to,’ McInnes answered.

  ‘We always welcome guests at Memorial. Especially those from overseas.’

  A nice man, McInnes thought. A decent man. ‘Which is the more popular service?’ he asked.

  Duncanson laughed quietly. ‘Oddly enough, my congregation prefers the sunrise service. They tell me my sermon is more mellow at that time of day. Can we expect you?’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘Introduce yourself to me after,’ Duncanson said. ‘I know your lovely country well.’ He paused a moment. ‘My text this coming Sunday is John, chapter one, verse nine.’

  ‘Ah,’ McInnes said. ‘“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”’

  ‘You know your Bible,’ Duncanson said.

  ‘Some of it,’ Ivor McInnes answered.

  When he’d hung up he stood in the lobby for a time and rattled coins in the pockets of his pants. The Memorial Presbyterian Church, which he had visited during his last trip to the U.S.A. in 1983, was one of those picture-postcard American churches, white framed and steepled and looking as if it were a Norman Rockwell construct. Its congregation was rich and influential, consisting mainly of well-heeled commuters who held executive positions in New York City. It was a hive of the American WASP. Unlike his own church in the Shankill district of Belfast, Memorial Presbyterian would never have any difficulty raising funds for new pews or a stained-glass window or an elaborate organ.

  He rode the elevator back up to the seventeenth floor, still caressing the coins in his pockets. He strolled along the corridor to his room. When he saw the two men framed against the window at the end of the corridor he didn’t break his stride. Instead, he took out his room key and inserted it into the lock of the door as the pair approached him. He turned to look at them. He had met Frank Pagan briefly once before, during an Irish peace conference in Westminster in the winter of 1984. Pagan had talked that day about the need for cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of both Irelands, if terrorism was ever to be destroyed. A touching little speech, McInnes had thought at the time. Liberal, fair-minded and totally impractical. He remembered now how the conference had broken down into a shambles, a slanging match between himself and the bishop of Dublin, who’d droned on for hours about the violation of Catholic civil rights in Ulster. McInnes had always regarded the bishop as a cousin of the Prince of Darkness anyway.

  ‘Frank Pagan! This is a surprise,’ McInnes said, suppressing the terrible temptation to ask Pagan if he’d had any luck in catching up with Jig. There were moments in McInnes’s life when he had to struggle fiercely with his sense of mischief, and this was one of them. He wondered if he looked suitably surprised by Pagan’s appearance.

  Frank Pagan had the kind of face that was difficult to read. He’d be a hell of a man to play cards against, McInnes thought. He stared into Pagan’s grey eyes, which reminded him of cinders.

  ‘This is Arthur Zuboric,’ Pagan said. ‘FBI.’

  The suntanned man with the drooping moustache nodded his head. McInnes looked at him a second, then back t
o Pagan.

  ‘What brings you to New York City?’ McInnes asked. He stepped into his room and the two men followed him.

  ‘Funny,’ Pagan said. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth, Ivor.’

  McInnes sat in the armchair by the window. ‘You must know why I’m here,’ he said. ‘Your bloody people in London know just about everything.’

  ‘I understand you’re writing a book,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Correct.’ McInnes noticed a muscle working in the Englishman’s jaw.

  Pagan smiled. ‘What’s the title?’

  ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’ McInnes saw the FBI man move to the window where he slid the curtain back and looked out, as if he suspected all manner of nefarious events to be taking place in Central Park.

  Pagan picked up a Gideon Bible and flipped the pages for a time. McInnes drummed the tips of his fingers against the table. He was ready for anything Frank Pagan might ask.

  ‘You know, of course, that I’m looking for Jig.’

  ‘Now how would I know something like that?’ McInnes, like any good actor, had all kinds of facial expressions at his command. The one he chose to assume right then was innocence. His large eyelids rose and his eyes widened.

  ‘Because my information came from you, courtesy of that merry band of yours, the Free Ulster Volunteers.’

  ‘Because members of the FUV belonged to my former congregation, Frank, doesn’t mean I’m a card-carrying member myself,’ McInnes said. ‘I categorically deny any association with that organisation, and I challenge you to prove otherwise. I don’t deny knowing members of the FUV, Frank. It would be difficult not to. But as for myself, I’ve always steered clear of involvement.’

  ‘Ivor, Ivor.’ Pagan sighed. ‘I didn’t just come up the Thames on a water biscuit. I wasn’t exactly born yesterday. You, or a representative of yours called John Waddell, sent the Leprechaun to see me in London with the information that Jig had come to the U.S.A.’

  ‘The Leprechaun?’ McInnes stood up. He looked at Zuboric and said, ‘Your English friend here has a fanciful imagination. Next thing he’ll be telling me he converses with gnomes and counts elves among his dearest chums.’