The Death of Love

by Bartholomew Gill

  Frost kept walking.

  “Unless you’d prefer me to ask them at dinner or in the bar.”

  Frost stopped. He turned his aquiline profile to them.

  Again McGarr could picture Frost stalking the monumental granite lobby of the new-scheme financial center that Eire Bank had erected in Dublin.

  “I’d mind your tongue, man. Dublin will hear of this.”

  McGarr hoped exactly, word for word.

  “The note cards. Do you know about them?”

  “Is the raven acquainted with the worm?” Gladden chimed in. “Of course he is. Tip to tail.”

  McGarr turned to Gladden. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been most helpful. Good day.” He nodded to Butler, who moved forward to escort Gladden from the room.

  “More Dublin, have we? Pity, reptile that he is, O’Duffy couldn’t find the backbone to call round himself. He could have wrapped our poor murdered Paddy and his stillborn conference in a serpent’s caul, sealed them off from the light of a new day.”

  Frost turned to him. “Why—haven’t you heard, Mossie? Is there no wireless in your mountain aerie? Oh, that’s right you’ve eschewed materialism and the accoutrements of your former life, as well as given your back to your old friends and colleagues. Taosieach O’Duffy will meet with the conferees Thursday. It’s been all the news this morning.”

  “Now that he can be assured of its result,” Gladden said through the doorway, “we’ll see about that.” Butler pulled him toward the sitting room.

  McGarr turned to Frost. “This conference—what is it about?”

  “The national debt.”

  McGarr waited for him to say more. “The Irish national debt?”

  “I don’t think Paddy was much interested in any other.”

  McGarr wondered if Frost was leading him on. He tried to imagine what about the national debt—beyond its size, which he knew was substantial—could possibly be of such moment that Paddy Power would use it as an issue from which to launch a political campaign, if Mossie Gladden could be believed. Or would warrant the continuance of a conference in spite of the death of the man who had set it up? Or, now, the visit of a taosieach? “What about the national debt?”

  “Everything. Its structure, its longevity, its retirement. Paddy was nothing if not a creative banker. He had a little theory about lending being like love.”

  McGarr waited.

  “You know, people have to love you or at least love your prospects to invest in you. All the more so on the state level. In spite of Ireland’s indebtedness, banks, financial consortiums, and wealthy countries still seem to love Ireland, and Paddy thought he might turn that affection to our advantage.”

  McGarr blinked. He knew nothing about state financing. “How will the conference continue without him?” And why?

  “Tell me the debt passed away with him and I’ll call it off this instant. Paddy would have wanted his work to continue, and I’ll make sure it does.”

  “But what will you say to the”—what was the word Frost had used earlier?—“conferees?”

  “That Paddy was lucky even in death, and what will happen to us all happened to him in his sleep.”

  Death by the natural cause of heart failure, McGarr thought. “Who are the other participants?”

  “Bank chairmen, senior investment officers, executives from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and significant Irish debt holders—German, French, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Irish. Some Yanks. Some Japs.”

  “All assembled at the behest of Paddy Power?”

  Frost nodded. “Paddy made most of them a great deal of money at one time or another. He had…clout.”

  “And what did he wish them to do?”

  Frost shook his head. “You’ll have to get that from Gretta, if she’ll tell you. I wouldn’t want her to think I was the source of any leaks.” His slight smile bared a row of even teeth and was not pleasant.

  “Gretta who?”

  “Osbourne. His”—Frost also seemed to have trouble nominating her position in Power’s life—“colleague.”

  “Did Mr. Power have any next of kin?”

  “Five children. The eldest lives in Los Angeles. The others—they rather sided with the mother in Paddy’s divorce. I’d say speak to Gretta about that too, but, you know, it’s not as though they care much for her either.”

  McGarr had his notebook out now. “The son in Los Angeles—do you have his full name and address?”

  “His name is Sean Dermot. The address you’ll have to get yourself.”

  McGarr looked up. “Named after Sean Dermot O’Duffy?”

  “They go way back, the taosieach and Paddy. If the truth be known, they were the best of friends.”

  Not according to Gladden or the press; on more than a few occasions Power had condemned O’Duffy—a man “…sensitive to the needs of only the rich and powerful,” was the phrase, McGarr seemed to remember.

  He again glanced down at the note cards, on which—it now seemed—so much depended. “What can you tell me about these?”

  Frost moved toward the corpse but cautiously, his step hesitant; he turned his head slightly, as though trying to read the few on the floor. “Paddy began the cards after the first crisis with his heart. It wasn’t actually a coronary, just a—how was it phrased?—an ‘event.’ But it was then that his condition was diagnosed, and he went on the quinidine and digitoxin and so forth. Formerly he had used the cards for sums. You know”—he glanced up at McGarr—“loan rates, hedges, options, futures, and the like. It was before computers. Paddy was a wizard with figures, which was part of why he did so well in finance.

  “But, you know, he kept the key to that box on his key ring.” Frost pointed to a bulge in the right pocket of Power’s trousers. “Had he the key, there would be no reason for him to have damaged the lock.”

  McGarr stepped around Frost and bent to the corpse. He had to tug to pull the key ring from the pocket, and the stiff body with its arms thrown back rocked like a gruesome Halloween effigy.

  Frost moved back.

  “Can you tell me which key?” McGarr fanned them on his palm, and Frost pointed to the smallest, which would have fit the lock. McGarr did not try. Perhaps Gladden had not touched the case everywhere, although, if it was murder, it had been a clever murder indeed, and he doubted the murderer would have left prints.

  “Frost, the chemist in Sneem. He’s your—”

  “My aged father.” Yet again Frost shook his head. “Jesus, McGarr. I don’t know, maybe I began wrong with you. I’ve threatened you, I’ve asked you, and now I’m begging you not to stir things up. Parknasilla is served by people from Sneem. Sneem is a small town in a small county in a small country filled with people who, like Mossie Gladden, have small minds and little better to do than stir things up. We—you and me—serve them at our peril. Don’t add to the burden.” He left.

  McGarr lit a cigarette. Even as chief superintendent of the Murder Squad, his own opinion of the people of Ireland was better than banker Frost’s. If nothing else before he left Parknasilla, McGarr wished to know in detail how Frost thought he served the people of Ireland, apart from the usual capitalist rhetoric that bankers gave out to justify double-digit interest rates. McGarr too had a mortgage, which monthly reminded him of who to the exact penny was serving whom. As far as he was concerned, there was no love between them, either way. It was business, strict and uncompromising.

  McGarr slipped Power’s key chain into his own coat pocket and squatted down beside the corpse. Had he missed anything? The Tech Squad would go over the details of the suite with a thoroughness that he could not hope to emulate, but they ignored all else: correlations, feelings, atmospheres, sympathy. McGarr noticed for the first time that Power’s hands had been burned some time in the past. The palms and fingers were disfigured with plated scarring. Tabs of flesh had been gathered into rough ridge lines.

  Also, his knees had begun to pull in as his stomach bloated, and in all—flat
on his back with arms and legs raised and his blood-darkened face—looked like a large, unexpected road kill, a kind of giant, clothed badger or marmot.

  So much for sympathy, which made McGarr realize how little he was affected by dead bodies. Here was a man whose career he had followed in the papers, whose return to Ireland and possible entry into politics he had looked forward to with no little anticipation and hope, and yet Power’s…remains, as it were, represented no more to McGarr than potential evidence.

  Yes, he was saddened by Power’s death. And, yes, he would be angry if it proved to be murder. But what had mattered about Paddy Power alive was not what McGarr was viewing on the carpet in front of him, but rather the spirit that had resided in Paddy Power while he still had life. And while alive, Power—a man who had spurned the selfish possibilities of his own vast wealth—had seemed to know that himself. It was that generosity of the spirit that had died with the man.

  And as usual when viewing a victim now since his daughter, Maddie’s, birth, McGarr reminded himself that Paddy Power had once been somebody’s baby. Two people, themselves now most probably dead, had once gazed down on his tiny new body with love and hope, and had then—if McGarr knew anything about life in Kerry—sacrificed the best remaining hours of their own lives to fulfill their aspirations for him. And to good point in the instance of Power. Much of the world and an entire nation had known of and respected the man he grew to be, to say nothing of thousands, perhaps millions, whom he had aided through his philanthropic and other pro bono work.

  And now some other, mostly less well known and less well respected, men wished to have the circumstances surrounding his untimely death ignored. To further Power’s work, they claimed.

  McGarr reached out and shoved the knee of Power’s corpse so that it began its grotesque rocking motion again, the mouth gasping, the eyes bulging in a wild, savage smile, and the note card raised over the head. “I’ve got it here!” it said to McGarr. “The prize. The winnings in life. And you won’t believe what it is.”

  Pity that knowledge died with him, McGarr thought. And his prospects. Who knew what Power could have meant to the country? Now.

  Before leaving the room, McGarr picked up one of the small yellow pills that were scattered over the carpet and slipped it in a pocket.

  CHAPTER 4

  Inexhaustible, Ineffable Sources

  WETTING HIS LIPS on a drink a half hour later in the hotel bar, McGarr was approached by a Tech Squad sergeant who handed him a note card. “This is the one that was clutched in Mr. Power’s hand. These,” he placed the others on the cocktail table by McGarr’s glass, “were on the floor. Only his prints and those of one other person are on them.”

  Gladden’s, McGarr thought. “What are you having?”

  The sergeant glanced from McGarr’s glass to the remarkably well-dressed crowd who were conversing volubly at the bar. “Don’t feel much like celebrating myself.” There was a hard glint in his eyes. “But t’anks, Chief.” He walked off.

  And with all the mahogany, gleaming crystal, and barmen in tuxedos behind them, the bankers and their women looked like an outtake from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Well, rich-looking and notable outside of Ireland, McGarr decided, scanning the sixty or so names on the guest list before him. He recognized only names of Irish people whose lives were unremarkable save for their attendance at select social events, race meetings, and—he suspected—conferences such as this.

  Quiet money. He thought of what Gladden had contended apart from his charge of murder: who now owned the country and how that ownership had been derived. Paddy Power had been privy to all of that. He had profited and made “a great deal of money” (Frost’s words) for others. Recently, however, he had had second thoughts, again according to Gladden.

  On the table McGarr spread Power’s note cards, which he arranged according to date and time. They seemed like a kind of log of Power’s observations from the time he had arrived in Shannon Airport on Friday morning until he returned to Parknasilla after his walk on Sunday evening. Each was written in a neat, if crabbed, hand, the characters of which placed Paddy Power as an Irishman as surely as if he were speaking to McGarr. It was the peculiar system that was still taught only in secondary schools of the Republic of Ireland.

  Each card was also dated and marked with the time in the upper-left corner. There was another heading in the upper-right corner that looked like a filing entry. With a pen McGarr marked the lower-right corner of the card that had been taken from Power’s dead hand, but he began with the earliest entry:

  Friday, 11:00 A.M. Kerry

  Well—this is it, the first step in my attempt to right the major wrong of my youth when, like the rest of them, I succumbed to raw greed. My public amend, it will be, which might take me the rest of my life.

  McGarr touched the glass to his lips and let the peat-smoky liquor seep under his tongue; little had Power known.

  Here I sit in the back of a large car, passing through ragged, diesel-dusty towns that cower on the flanks of inhospitable, glorious mountains. The equally unforgiving beauty of the sea lies to my right, with an occasional habitation picketing, like a white stone bunker, the narrow chartreuse strand.

  Buses packed with garish tourists and other holiday-makers in rental cars sweep by most often without pause. When they do stop and get out, they look stunned or amazed to see how we live—offering in cramped, dingy rooms stale sweets, soft fruit, days-old bread and impedimenta of our ancient culture that has all but vanished.

  Like alms, they pay whatever we charge, which is always too much, and they leave feeling—knowing—they’ve been cheated but wishing to come back. They have seen something, but they know not what.

  It is what invites but will not submit to description in simple words—the cold, wild beauty of Ireland and the miracle of how we can continue to endure her barren caress. And why, when she can be made to change.

  Friday, 1:30 P.M. Sneem

  Apart from a proud farmer’s cottage, the only structures that invite a second glance are the relics of the age of villeinage that is now looked back on with bitter nostalgia, especially by those of my Irish colleagues who have donned the princely political mantle with its means of making money.

  Of the Irish I’ve got only Gretta solidly with me. Some others I will sway, but my main hope is with the foreigners, who hold 60 percent of the debt.

  Friday, 1:15 P.M. Parknasilla: debt conference

  Gretta is on the sun deck, waiting for me. What do you say about a person with whom you’ve shared a great passion, which has withered and died, but who remains staunchly by your side to fight the good fight with no mention of our former condition? Reward her amply? I’ve done that and doubly, since she’ll outlive me. I only hope it is enough.

  I’ve not been in the best form lately, and she’s arranged for Mossie to come by for a checkup tomorrow morning. I trust it’s only the same old thing. And not enough real rest. I want to hit the ground running. Sean Dermot and his henchman have already arrayed themselves against me, and I must catch them off-guard, lest they make a “Mossie” of me as well.

  Friday, 2:15 P.M. Parknasilla: debt conference

  Shane Frost has arrived, and I am dismayed by his duplicity. Here he has the chance to act selflessly for once and aid the nation, admittedly at some immediate cost to himself. Instead he is shameless in carrying messages from Sean Dermot: a “final” plea, O’Duffy calls it, to bury my proposal and my candidacy. “They’re offering you the presidency. They’ll back you a thousand percent. Guaranteed,” says Shane. “What more could any man want? Prestige, influence, respect on top of your fortune.” What I want is better for Ireland, which requires real (as opposed to the illusion of) power. The presidency is merely a ceremonial post. But I’ve already told him that.

  Shane can be a grand fellow, but he’s just not up to his destiny. Taking me into the bar, which he sees far too much of these days, says he, “It’s important now to know where O’Duffy stands.
” Says I to myself, “’Tis more important to know who stands with him.” Then he’s up suddenly to make a phone call. “Options,” says he. Put or call, think I.

  Saturday, 7:00 A.M. Parknasilla: debt conference

  Still not feeling tip-top, in spite of the medicine Mossie gave me. The flutters again. Walked into Sneem and had a bit of a morning session with the local lads in Sneem House. Lemon soda for me. When I got back I had to lie down for a wee nap—until dinner! The sedatives Mossie gave me are potent.

  Sunday morning Parknasilla: debt conference

  Arrivals better than expected so far. Many Yanks whose view of Ireland’s future is not as sanguine as O’Duffy’s. Spent the noon hour “schmoozing,” as they say—with them and the Krauts. They are so much alike, the Americans and Germans, that sometimes I believe they are separated from each other by language alone. Both brash, materialistic, aggressive, gregarious people.

  Tried to borrow Gretta’s car to drive up into the mountains and walk it off. She gave me the keys, but I could not find it in the car park.

  McGarr glanced at the bar where now he could hear only English being spoken, and he tried to pick out nationalities but could not. Usually shoes and eyeglasses were tip-offs, but these people all seemed to patronize the same set of conservative clothiers from Savile Row. As far as their accents were concerned, apart from the obvious Texan, the rest seemed to have been born and bred on the Queen Elizabeth or the Concorde, then schooled by Berlitz.

  Palpitations again and serious. I’ll have to make apologies to Shane. He wanted me to meet with a group of Jap bankers to discuss the possibility of the Eire Bank matter, which he so much wants and I oppose, at least until we know more of how I will fare as a candidate. Eire Bank is at least a power base of sorts, and it was my first venture and is therefore most loved. Perhaps I could make it strong again.

  I will take that hike I promised myself. Gretta’s car is back. I can see it from my window here.