“We need to talk,” Casey said, face suddenly serious.
Devlin cast a nervous eye to the window and down across Pamela.
“How deeply asleep is she, d’ye suppose?”
“Very deep, she’ll neither hear nor remember.” Casey placed a protective hand on the side of her head, fingers cupped over the ear.
“Alright then,” Devlin swung a chair about and sat down splay-legged. “My message is short an’ not likely to make much sense even to us much less someone out of the loop. We’ve a new contact,” his face had cleared, sobered and narrowed with the message he relayed, “an’ I don’t know who he is or what he does, the codename is aingeal liath, an’ if ye need to contact him yer to go to Finnegan’s Wake an’ leave a message with our Jim Pat.”
“The Blue Angel?” Casey scratched the crown of his head doubtfully. “Someone has to know who the hell the man is.”
“Aye, well I suppose we’ll find out in due time, but for now the man is more shrouded in secrecy than the virgin birth.”
“How are we to be certain he’s not an agent then?”
“I’ve been assured that’s not the case.”
“By who?”
“Listen boyo, the word I’m gettin’ from up head the line is that your re-emergence in Belfast society is not an entirely welcome event. Stop pushin’ an ye’d be advised to walk softly an’ carry a big stick as the man said.”
“Are ye warnin’ or threatnin’?” Casey’s face had gone hard, a mask pulled down as quickly as it took to say the words.
“I am yer mother’s brother an’ I don’t take blood lightly an’ that my little man should be taken as threat.” Quartzite clashed with obsidian and neither blinked.
“I apologize,” Casey finally said, “I’ve learned to live on the defense an’ it’ll not be a habit easily broke.”
“It’s not like ye’ll want to break it at all now, ye’ll need all yer wits about ye. Rumor has it,” Devlin took a swallow of whiskey, “that ye haven’t reported in with GHQ.”
“No,” Casey looked down to where his fingers stroked in a measured tempo across ivory bone, “I haven’t.”
“Well the Riordans have always been mad to a man, but that’s purely suicidal boy.”
“Times are changin’ Devlin, ye can feel it in the ground ye walk on right through the soles of yer feet. The time for the Dublin boys is well past, they’ll argue on into the next century an’ never notice opportunity tryin’ to bang down the door.”
Devlin shook his head slowly the low light picking out the strands of silver that threaded his choirboy curls and making him seem, for once, his age.
“Oh Jesus boy ye are mad, aren’t ye? Christ that yer Daddy should see this, he’d be rollin’ over in his grave.”
Casey’s face was tight and pale, eyes bruised by the late hour. “Ye leave my daddy out of this, these times are different.”
“Don’t ye think that every goddamn generation thinks its own time is different? It never is though Casey, not here leastwise, not in Ireland. Here the past just keeps returnin’ an’ takin’ a bit more blood with it each time.”
“How can ye say that?” Casey’s voice was softly pained. “How can ye give a speech like ye did outside an’ not believe in anything Devlin?”
Devlin stood, reaching for his coat, a smooth charcoal number that brought out the dove color in his irises. “Because if there’s one thing I understand in this world, laddy, it’s how to hold an audience.” His face fell a little, “An’ that it’s best not to expect miracles much less believe in them.” He took a deep breath, reassuming the guise of playboy to the western world. “Well I’d best not keep the lady waitin’ any longer. Al will drive the two of ye back to Belfast in the mornin’ unless it’s urgent that she get back tonight?”
“No, we can stay til mornin’.”
“No strict Catholic daddy waitin’ at home for her?”
“No, she’s not a soul in the world to call her own,” Casey said softly.
“Now I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true, would ye?” Devlin gave his nephew a long, questioning look. When he got no response he merely sighed and said, “Change yer shirt would ye? Ye smell like a dolphin pissed on ye, there’s clothes in the closet that’ll fit.”
“Thanks.”
Devlin paused in the doorway, torn between the promises of the longest pair of legs he’d seen outside of a racetrack and the pull of duty he felt toward his sister’s son.
“Is there anything that ye need?” he asked, looking back at Casey who was already half-asleep.
“No, not a thing in the world,” the boy smiled bemusedly.
“Right then, well ye know where I am should the need arise.”
“I know.”
Devlin closed the door quietly behind him, thinking, with no little worry, that his nephew looked like a man who had, if not everything he needed, then at least all he wanted laying right in his lap.
Chapter Eight
An Invitation to Dance
Morning came and with it a hangover in all the pretty shades of green. From celery to sludge, Pamela could feel it pushing with a sickly weight into her head and stomach. It was a wonder that two glasses of whiskey could do so much damage.
When she opened her eyes the light was still a soft blue, coronaed with subtle hints of rosy sunlight. She was wrapped snugly in a quilt that was dizzying with the residue of aftershave. She had obviously been put to bed at some point. Rolling over and feeling as if the world rolled with her, she had through the beaded curtain, a clear and disturbing view of Casey, bare-chested and shaving in the tiny mirror, morning light touching him here and there, gentling his darkness. The tenderness of the scene caught her in the throat and made her close her eyes once again.
She ventured sitting a moment later, one hand going to her head and the other swiftly to her mouth, the former withdrawing in revulsion as it encountered a snarled mass of salty, knotted curls.
“Urggh,” was the longest speech she could manage.
“Feelin’ rough?” Casey inquired politely, head poking through the amethyst and amber beads, looking inhumanly rested and refreshed.
“Let’s just say I feel a real kinship to the worm in the bottom of a tequila bottle right now.” She moved her tongue experimentally and found that it felt like a piece of furniture that hadn’t been dusted in years.
“Here drink this,” Casey put a glass of water in her hand, “should have made ye drink it last night but ye were dead to the world.”
She took a sip and curled her lip in disgust, it tasted like a dirty sock. She could feel it trickle down her esophagus and as soon as it reached her stomach, she bolted for the door. Moments later she was back, face pink and stomach settled.
“Better?” Casey asked, voice muffled as he pulled a thin, cream-colored sweater over his head.
“Better,” she replied awkwardly, aware suddenly of her rumpled and stained dress, her snaggle-toothed hair and the smell of seaweed, perspiration and just the faintest lacing of vomit.
“Well good mornin’ then,” he ran a hand across his close-cropped hair and managed to make it look perfectly groomed. Irritation, like a determined flea, began to nit at her.
“Something wrong?” she asked testily, uncomfortable under his frank gaze.
“No, nothin’s wrong, why do ye ask?” He put a kettle of water on to boil, turning the blue flame up high.
“It’s only that you look at me as if I’d a wart on my nose or something,” she shoved a hand through her hair self-consciously and encountered a foreign object that felt distinctly slimy.
“No warts,” he said smiling and stepping over gently disengaged a long strand of something from her hair that had once lived in the ocean. He tossed it out the door and turning back to her, no longer smiling said, “I do stare I know, it’s only,” he gave her a d
irect look and she read there a vulnerability that she’d not thought him capable of, “I was in prison for a long time, an’ a man will get to imaginin’ all the things he’s missin’, women bein’ one of them. An’ in yer mind ye see them as goddesses, as everything good an’ beautiful about the world outside yer bars. Ye know that it’s not true, that’s there’s as much small-souledness amongst women as there is in that prison but then ye come out an’ see that even the plainest of women is enough to make ye lose yer senses. Slowly ye begin to adjust an’ women start to just look like everyday people. But I came home see, an’ there was a real, live goddess sittin’ in the kitchen an’ I’m afraid ye’ll have to forgive me the stares because I don’t see me bein’ able to do much about it.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. Lacking any intelligible reply, she wanted to flee from his presence and his eyes. The way he looked at her, dear God in heaven, it was something else altogether, a thing completely out of her range of experience. As if he saw everything, the secrets and lies, the thorns in the roses and none of it mattered a whit. With grace, he saved her from response.
“One of Devlin’s lady friends left some clothes behind, I laid them out on the bed for ye, they’re clean an’ it’s my suspicion she’ll not be back for them.”
“Thanks,” she muttered and scuttled thankfully behind the beads, hearing the click of the door closing as Casey went outside.
Devlin’s friend had been, it would seem, of the hippie variety. There was a blouse of exquisitely fine cotton that looked as if it had belonged to a color-blind Russian peasant with exotic tastes. The skirt was more of the same. However, it was clean and smelled sweetly of distilled gardenias. It was an improvement of sorts. She found a brush and dragged it through her hair, braided it and after washing as best she could in cramped quarters found herself feeling slightly more human.
She emerged from the trailer to find the sun warming the fields, a faint mist sighing up from the ground. Casey stood, mug of tea in hand, sun painting him in shades of spice, cinnamon and nutmeg, clove and cayenne, warm to the eye and undoubtedly warm to the touch.
“I can wake Al an’ get him to take us back to Belfast, if that doesn’t offend yer proletarian senses too much,” Casey said without turning around.
“This girl,” she said, “can take the train like any self-respecting communist.”
“Alright then, Comrade,” he said with a grin, “we’d best head back.”
He returned his tea mug to the trailer, locked the door and returned with a leather, bead fringed coat that he settled about her shoulders. The lazy, cloying smell of marijuana rose from its folds.
“It’s Devlin’s,” he said, “I’ll return it when I see him next. It’s chilly out this morning.”
They set off, wending their way through the tents and sleeping bags of Devlin’s faithful, still slumbering, dreaming of their choirboy god and his angelic voice.
They crested the first hill, sun warmer now, gilding grass and cows, lambs and leaves alike in the still morning. Below lay the town, toy-like, only beginning to awake.
“I’ve a friend,” Casey said, “name’s Kevin an’ he’s gettin’ married in a couple of weeks. I’d every intention of goin’ solo but I’ve been wonderin’ if perhaps ye’d like to come with me?”
He looked so like a little boy, eager and embarrassed at the same time, that she had to stifle a laugh.
She looked at him for a long moment, knowing with every thread of her pulse and every fiber of her being that he was dangerous. With this knowledge weighed and considered, she gave her answer.
“I’d love to,” she said.
Chapter Nine
The Games People Play
Care for a scrum?” Pat asked Casey lightly on Sunday afternoon. Far too lightly, Casey would later think. But his radar was not working as it normally would so he, thinking some raw physical endeavor would be good, agreed.
This was how he found himself playing the back half of the field at St. Dominic’s, the local highschool. Thoroughly winded, caked with mud and considering the possibility that his brother had set up this entire afternoon’s delight simply to murder him in the sight of several witnesses.
At the first break, someone threw him a bottle of water and he took the opportunity to assess the damage. Two ribs, likely cracked, bottom lip split and bleeding like a stuck pig, a bruise on one shin coming out in an amazing array of colors all hovering in the black range and a ringing in his right ear that wasn’t going away any time soon.
“Break’s over,” Pat said cheerily, jogging past him and slapping him hard enough on the back to wind him for several seconds.
“Scrum my arse, this is all out war,” Casey muttered to himself, taking the field once again, only now with a pronounced limp.
Friendly neighborhood scrimmages, with an even number of boys on each side or odd man sitting out, were never, considering the neighborhood and the nature of the male beast, very friendly. It wasn’t uncommon to go home bleeding or to the hospital to be splinted. Quarrels and disagreements often found their settling on the local green. However to have your brother captain the opposing team and then declare all out war, not on the ball, but on your own physical well-being was an entirely new slant on the concept of fratricide.
Five minutes into the second half Casey found himself with the ball. Speeding upfield, he spied a clear opening ten yards directly in front of him. He charged for it, bulling his way through, shedding attackers as easily as autumn leaves falling from a tree. Twenty yards from the goal line and it was his, he could smell the point, fifteen and the way still clear, ten and he put a burst of speed on, confidence surging, five and his brother, smiling murderously, stepped in the finish the job he’d started. Pat took him out at the knees, causing him to sail gloriously through the air, coming down headfirst with a crunch that could be heard on the sidelines.
Casey, when he dared to move and had determined that he hadn’t actually passed out cold from the pain of impact, saw several constellations waver into view and blink out just as swiftly. Pat’s face hovered above his own, a smile like warm caramel laced with arsenic upon his mouth.
“Fockin’ had enough yet?” Casey asked through teeth gritty with turf.
“Not quite,” said Pat, still smiling his sticky smile, “have you?”
“Try me,” Casey hissed, fury flushing the pain out of his body. Each took the field again, the ball no longer even a peripheral objective for either.
Pat was rough-handed the ball only seconds later, caught it on its wobble and ran as if Satan himself pursued, which in a manner of speaking, he did. Casey nailed him halfway up towards the goal. He caught him with a tackle in the stomach that would have given a smaller, less determined man, internal bleeding. The ball flew sideways though neither brother noticed. They were pulled apart swiftly and the game, such as it was, continued.
Pat played as if his life depended on it after that. For every goal Casey managed to eke out, he tore out two. His jersey, already a disreputable muddy green, was ripped all down one side, a cut above one knee leaked a steady trickle of bright blood, and his hair was plastered to his head with sweat and fury. The other boys on the field, fearing for their own survival, played half-heartedly. The spectacle of the Riordan boys, trying to play each other to the death had become fascinating enough to step aside and let the two have at it.
Casey had a kick on him that was like a lightning bolt cleaving the ball in half. Pat on the other hand, possessed a magnetic iron grip once the ball was in his grasp that was impossible to break. Their skills, though opposite, were well-matched and the game could very well have gone on into the night. Considering the stubbornness inherent to both it might have, had Casey not leaped on Pat in a hip-crunching tackle that took them down to the ground so hard and fast that neither was quite certain which limbs were his own and which his brother’s.
Pat, fac
edown in the mud, managed to gasp out, “Dirty whorin’ bastard.”
“Mouthy upstart pup,” Casey replied in kind, grunting savagely as he tried to disentangle his legs from Pat’s.
“Filthy back-stabbin’ son of a bitch.” Pat struggled to get out from under his brother’s weight.
“Fockin’ little red commie.” Casey put a forearm hard across Pat’s back.
“Judas,” Pat hissed and then let his body go slack into the mud.
“You win,” Casey said wearily and rolled off his brother, “are ye satisfied?”
Pat muttered a string of obscenities into the dirt.
“Wouldn’t Daddy be impressed with how our vocabularies have expanded,” Casey said, spitting blood out of his mouth.
Pat gave a small choking sound.
“Christ, was that a laugh I heard? I’d thought yer sense of humor had abandoned ye entirely.”
“If it had,” Pat said pushing himself over onto his back, “ye’d be dead right now.”
“That,” Casey put a ginger finger to a vicious cut over his eyebrow, “I believe.”
Their teammates, having kept a safe distance, now hove into view.
“Are ye ladies done with yer nap then?”
“Aye,” Pat replied, “we’re finished here.”
“Are we?” Casey asked quietly.
“For now,” Pat replied in kind.
“Right then, next Sunday same time lads.”
There was a chorus of ayes and one by one, they slowly drifted off into the gathering dusk, towards the lights that were turning on here and there scattering darkness in their path.
Casey and Pat lay for a long time in the grass, joints beginning to reassert themselves, bruises throbbing and blood drying in itchy patches.
“I’m sorry, Pat,” Casey said simply, quietly.
“I know ye are,” Pat replied, “though ye make it damn hard to believe when ye pull stunts like ye did Friday night.”
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