The Pariot GAme

by George V. Higgins

  “Jennifer was tactful,” Freddie said. “Jennifer said she really didn’t know Felicia very well, but that she seemed nice enough. Arthur pressed her.”

  “Always a risky maneuver,” Riordan said. “You keep at Jennifer long enough asking her what she thinks, she is liable to tell you.”

  “He did, and she did,” Freddie said.

  “What’d she say?” Riordan said.

  “She came right out and asked him if he was shacked up with Felicia. Which shocked him so much that he admitted she occasionally stayed overnight at his place. Jenny asked him if he intended to marry Felicia. He said it was very possible, which is as close as Arthur ever gets to committing himself to a course of action that he has every intention of following—he always hedges his bets. Then she hit him with the old one-two. Was Felicia perhaps going to accompany her and Daddy to Maine? Yes, as a matter of fact, Felicia was going to Maine with them. Where was Felicia going to stay? Grampy, you see, is very straitlaced, and does not approve of sexual intercourse, or even the appearance of it, between persons who are not married to each other. Felicia was going to meet some friends of theirs on a sailboat in Camden, and spend two or three weeks cruising the Maine coast. They might even sail to Nantucket. Hard to say. Jennifer asked Arthur if they meant Felicia and the people who were already on the boat. Yes, it did. Did it also mean Arthur? Well, ah, yes.

  “Keep in mind also,” Freddie said, “that Jennifer has a mean streak to go with her suspicious mind. She nailed him. She jumped out of her chair, squealing with delight, the little minx, flung her arms around her darling daddy, and gushed all over him. Oh, that would be wonderful. Three weeks of sailing. She’d never been on a big boat like that. That would be excellent. Who were the other people going to be? Would she like them? Would they like her? Did any of them have kids her age? Any of them boys, maybe, a year or two older? Would she have her own cabin? She was so grateful that he wasn’t leaving her with Grampy in Rockland. He knew she was bored at Grampy’s.”

  “I think I know what comes next,” Riordan said.

  “Right you are,” Freddie said.

  “That poor kid,” Riordan said. “Jesus, what a shit he is. Get the kid and dump her so he can go off frolicking with his girlfriend. I must become a pillar of the community one of these days. Those bastards can get away with anything. Kicking a kid in the guts like that.”

  “Oh, come on, Pete,” Freddie said. “This isn’t Little Nell we’re talking about here. She had the dirk in Daddy, but she wasn’t satisfied with stabbing him—she was going to twist it a few times. Jennifer has a very healthy sense of cruelty, you know. She knew very well he was going to dump her with Grampy and Grammy and go gallivanting off with Felicia. She couldn’t stop him, but she sure could make him feel like a piece of shit for doing it. And she did.

  “Yesterday morning,” Freddie said, “Jennifer got up pretending to be hurt and sad, and made Arthur squirm some more. Finally he said he wouldn’t go with Felicia. He would stay in Rockland with her and Grampy and Grammy and Grammy’s blue hair. He admitted he’d been thoughtless. Maybe even somewhat selfish.

  “More ammunition for Jenny. She put on this great display of courage and forced gaiety. Oh, no, she didn’t want to spoil his plans like that. He worked hard all year. He deserved to have his vacation too. She’d be perfectly happy with Grampy and Grammy in Rockland. Grampy could tell her about when he was growing up, and she could go to the auctions with Grammy. And see the museums, again. And maybe they would take her to the church clambake, or one of those seafood festivals. It’d be keen. And then when he got through sailing with Felicia, they would still have a whole week and maybe he could rent a car or borrow one of Grampy’s and they could drive up to Quebec, just the two of them.”

  “Spoiled it for him,” Riordan said.

  “Damn betcha,” Freddie said. “Pissed all over his little strategy, and then made him eat it. They flew up to Maine and she was just ever so nice to Felicia, and that night they had lobster at Grampy and Grammy’s and she gushed all over that, too, making everybody see that she was being a brave little trooper. Except for Grampy and Grammy, of course, who’re too fucking stupid to see what’s being done right at their own dinner table. Arthur and Felicia had separate rooms, and Jenny gave Arthur an especially big hug and she kissed Felicia good night.

  “This morning they all got in the car, with Arthur driving, and they went to Camden to meet the boat, and Jennifer looked just the slightest bit sad. Just enough so everybody could tell she knew she was being left behind, even old Bonehead Grampy. She bit her lip some when Arthur and Felicia got on the boat, and she helped cast off the lines.

  “ ‘And then, Fred,’ she said to me, ‘I stood on the dock with my hands folded in front of me and I put my head down so nobody could see I was crying, and when Grampy told me to wave goodbye, I just shook my head and kept looking at the ground. It was really beautiful. Grammy had to take Grampy by the sleeve and shush the old jerk. You know how she whispers louder’n most people talk, because he’s hard of hearing? “Stop it, Herbert,” she said, “can’t you see the child’s crying?” I almost burst out laughing. Then we all went off for a nice lunch, and right in the middle of the clam chowder I started to look worried. And Grampy asked what was the matter, and I just shook my head and leaned over to Grammy and told her I had to go to the drugstore right off, because I didn’t bring any, and then I jumped up from the table and ran out of the restaurant, and she was calming him down, and I did go to the drugstore. I called the airport and the first flight I can get out of this fucking hole—well, that one slipped out, Fred—is at one o’clock tomorrow. Can you pick me up, and maybe take me to lunch? I could use some fresh air.’

  “So,” Freddie said, “I asked her how she’s going to get to the airport, and she said she already took care of that with her imaginary bag of tennis gear that Grampy didn’t know she hadn’t brought and Daddy wasn’t around to contradict her about. She told Grampy that the airline lost it in New York, but said it’d be at the airport tomorrow by twelve-thirty. So could he drive her down. He said he would. I told her I’d have a ticket waiting for her at the airport. She told me she already had her ticket. Bought it at the travel agency in town right after she made her reservation.”

  “How’d she pay for it?” Riordan said.

  “Remember the five hundred cash that Arthur gave her?” Freddie said.

  Riordan started to laugh. He doubled over on the couch. He pounded the cushions with his fists. Tears came to his eyes. The noise he made got Freddie started. When they stopped, they were gasping.

  “You know,” Riordan said, “for a bad day, I think you had a pretty good one, and I appreciate you sharing it with me.”

  “Now,” she said, “your turn. Another drink, maybe?”

  “Yes to the drink, no to the turn,” he said. “I’ll tell you about Seats Lobianco and his Baker Street Irregulars some other time. And it’s bad enough talking to Boiling, let alone talking about him at home.”

  “Can you join us for lunch?” she said.

  “No,” he said, “I can’t. I’ve got to see Bishop Doherty for lunch, and Seats in the afternoon, and then I’ve got to go crawling around in a low dive in Dorchester, at least until midnight.”

  “No Felicia-type, though,” Freddie said.

  “Christ, no,” Riordan said. “I couldn’t stand the torture from Jennifer.”

  PAUL DOHERTY was sitting on the patio with Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Tobin, under a yellow beach umbrella with green ivy vines painted on the underside. He wore golf clothes that fitted well, and a white straw hat with a plaid band tipped over his left eye. The ladies wore their usual uniforms.

  “You look so fit, Paul,” Mrs. Blake said. “Just like Bing Crosby used to. For a while there you did not look at all well. You were thin and gaunt. Your clothes just hung on you.” She waved her left hand and raised her lemonade glass to her lips.

  “We were all worried about you,” Mrs. Tobin said. She h
ad had her hair streaked ash-blond at the beauty parlor. She had freckles on her pug nose.

  “Oh, come now, Peg,” Doherty said, “who was worried? I scarcely ever see anyone but you ladies here at the club. The men all play on the weekends, when I tend to be rather busy. I never use the pool. I haven’t been to any of the dinners and buffets this summer.”

  “A good many have commented on that,” Mrs. Blake said.

  “Have they now,” Doherty said. “Who? And what have they said, may I ask?”

  “Well,” Mrs. Blake said, “offhand, I can’t think of any names. But I know there’s been talk that you never come to any of the functions. People do tend to talk, you know.”

  “Indeed I do,” Doherty said. “I noticed that some time ago.” He put his left hand over her right hand. “Nevertheless, Agnes, I don’t like people to fret. So if you find somebody worrying my absence like a dog with an old bone, you just tell them that you asked me why I never show up at the functions and I told you that I don’t attend because I don’t like ’em. Simple as that.”

  Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Tobin both began to giggle. “It’s true,” Doherty said. “I really and truly dislike all kinds of functions. It’s an aversion I developed when Cardinal Cushing was still among us.”

  “That dear man,” the ladies said together.

  “Yes,” Doherty said. “Well, it may surprise you to learn that Cardinal Cushing also hated functions. And needless to say there was scarcely a day went by that he wasn’t invited to a baker’s dozen of them. So as he grew older and craftier, he would avoid having people beg him to come by agreeing that he would come. And then when the appointed day arrived, of course, he had five or six of them to choose among. He picked the one that seemed least likely to annoy him, or most likely to get him on the evening news. Then he summoned up his palace guard, of whom I was a ranking member, to pinch-hit for him at ones he planned to skip. He liked them well enough when he got to them and started talking and showing off, but he hated going. He told me he made me a Bishop so that I could cover even more of the obligations he accepted willy-nilly for himself. He assured me the promotion had nothing whatsoever to do with my ability, piety, saintliness or the fine example that I set for the young of the flock. It was purely and simply that people who would be enraged at being stood up by a Cardinal and forced to make do with a mere Monsignor would be much easier to placate if they got a Bishop, at least.”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Blake said. “He couldn’t’ve meant that.”

  “Well,” Doherty said, “I will grant you that he spoke half in jest, but no more than half.”

  “But everyone revered him so,” Mrs. Tobin said.

  “Which greatly amused him, in private,” Doherty said. “Oh, he reveled in it in public, the old lion out among his cubs in the late afternoon of his illustrious life, basking in the sunlight, letting out a few amiable roars, just to keep his hand in, taking the nuns to the ballgame, snapping at the less respectful members of the tribe, keeping good order in the jungle. Oh, he enjoyed it, no question about that, but he had a full-sized ego at least, and that was to be expected. But when he got home, he seemed to think he had to laugh at himself, and so he did. It was an attractive trait.

  “Anyway,” Doherty said, “that’s why I don’t come in for lobster Newburg and chicken wings, on Friday evenings. Or for the scrambled eggs in the steam-table pans at the Sunday brunches. As for the dances, well, I’ve supervised my last dance, whether as principal of the high school or as the Bishop visiting to see how fine the young folks are in some prosperous parish. I did those chores when I was young, and now I think it’s only fair to let the younger fellows reap the full enjoyment of those experiences.”

  Riordan, in a blue-and-white cord suit, white shirt, no tie, came onto the patio. Doherty saw him before his eyes had adjusted again to the sunlight, and called him over to the table. “Agnes Blake, Peg Tobin,” he said, “meet my friend, Peter Riordan.” Each of the ladies said she was pleased to make Riordan’s acquaintance. “And Riordan it is,” Agnes said. “Well, the top of the morning to you. Is it the Riordans from Wicklow we have here?”

  “And the balance of the day to yourself, madam,” Riordan said, bowing slightly. “As to your question, ma’am, there’s a good deal of doubt about that. I’ve heard Knock and I’ve heard Kenmare, and indeed it would be hard to name a county or a town in the south that hasn’t been mentioned as a birthplace of one brand of Riordan or another. My own guess is that the first of the male Riordans was a disgraceful scoundrel, probably a tinker or a hog thief, or some other sort of low person, and that after he had had his way with one or more of the village maidens, he found it prudent to move on.”

  “It’s a family trait to this day, I understand,” Doherty said.

  “It is that,” Riordan said. “You’ll find Riordans in Fall River, Riordans in Chicopee, Riordans in Lawrence and Riordans in Lowell and Worcester. We’re not the best judges of our surroundings, but we could call a fair muster from the provinces, if the need arose.”

  “And what is it that you do, Peter Riordan?” Peg said.

  “Ah, well,” Riordan said, “now that’s difficult to answer, you know. I do a number of things. Some of them’re quite respectable, but then there’re others that I’d just as soon not discuss.”

  “Paul,” Agnes said, “is that what you’re doing with this young man?”

  “Indeed it is, Agnes,” Doherty said. “Peter here is a good-hearted lad, and he shows a lot of promise. But the truth of it be known, he has not applied himself diligently to his catechism, and finds himself now at this relatively advanced age one of the slowest of my students in the confraternity of Christian doctrine classes. So, to save him the further embarrassment of having to cramp his long legs into the pew with the twelve-year-olds, I’ve agreed to tutor him privately in these more comfortable surroundings, in the hope that a few drinks and some serious discussion will enable him to pass his requirements for the sacrament of Confirmation. So, if you’ll excuse us?”

  They took a table at the far end of the terrace, away from the ladies. The waiter appeared at once. “Something to drink, Peter?” Doherty said. Riordan looked at his watch. “After noon,” he said. “Yeah, all right. Heineken, please.”

  “That didn’t bother you the other day,” Doherty said, “whether the sun was over the yardarm.”

  “I was injured the other day,” Riordan said. “I’m not injured today.”

  “Vodka and tonic,” Doherty said. The waiter went away, nodding.

  “How the hell do you stand it, Paul?” Riordan said.

  “Stand what?” Doherty said.

  “Those damned bloody women,” Riordan said. “How the hell do you stand it? There must be thousands of them, hundreds in this parish alone. Good God, you’re an intelligent man. And there you sit, chewing the Irish bubblegum with a couple of airheaded, tittering matrons drinking lemonade.”

  “Their husbands’re worse,” Doherty said, “if that’s any consolation.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Riordan said. “I don’t doubt it for an instant. But I don’t need the consolation because I don’t have to associate with them. You do hang around with them. How the hell do you stand it?”

  “It comes with practice,” Doherty said. “You learn how to do it, very early in the game. The first thing is that while you have to hang around with them, they are not your friends. Your friends see Doherty, warts and all. Agnes and Peg see Bishop, the last name of which in this case is Doherty. You’re strictly in the same category with the trick pony at the circus. You’re something to watch, a display piece for them. They pride themselves that they really know the Bishop, and they probably do, but they don’t know Doherty and they don’t want Doherty to act like he might really know them. What tips you off is when one of them gets in some kind of trouble and comes to you for help. Counseling, advice, verbal therapy—you can call it by any name you want—as soon as one of them comes in just about beside herself because she’s disc
overed that her husband’s running around, or the husband comes in because he finally faced up to the fact that his wife starts in on the sauce as soon as he leaves for work in the morning, the days of idle chatter and stupid banter are gone forever. When the crisis is over, no matter how it’s resolved, they shun you. Because, you see, they are also playing roles: respectable middle-class people, devout and damned near perfect. Once they let their guard down and you know them for the scared, imperfect, maybe stupid people that we all are, they stay away from you. They have their masks on too, and when those masks’re stripped away, the play is over.”

  “It must be awful rough to go on with it, year after year, though,” Riordan said.

  “Not rough so much as sad,” Doherty said. “Good God, I don’t think less of a man because he got in trouble and didn’t know what to do. I don’t think a woman has anything to be ashamed of when she’s at her wits’ end and at very least needs somebody to talk to. I’ve got some problems in my own family that’ve baffled every attempt that I’ve come up with to solve them. I don’t know what the hell to do about the Digger, as his pals call him. I’ve known him all his life. He scares me, and now his kids’re getting old enough so they scare me It seems as though I ought to be able to do something to make him behave himself, but I’ve been trying now for over thirty years, and I haven’t come up with a way to solve it. It’s really too bad that my parishioners come away from seeking the help that they desperately need, and which I’m all too often unable to give, with the feeling that they’ve done something dirty and ought to be ashamed to face me. But I haven’t come up with anything yet. Maybe I should be ashamed of that.”

  The waiter brought the drinks and withdrew.

  “Look at us,” Doherty said. “I’ve known you since you were a kid and I was sent in here to make sure Monsignor LaBelle didn’t sell the parish for a shopping center while he was in one of his periods of senile dementia. You were just a kid then, almost twenty-five years ago. I probably know you as well as anyone on the earth today, including your parents. I had a luxury they lacked, because I had some critical distance from you. I didn’t have any real emotional investment of my own in watching you grow up. I could take you as you were, and if you had a shorter fuse than the ideal kid would have, well, that was just the way that young Peter Riordan was. Might’ve bothered your parents, but it didn’t bother me.