The Senator and the Priest
*Forthcoming
PRAISE FOR ANDREW M. GREELEY
“Nobody has ever left the church because of an Andrew Greeley novel, but many have been attracted back to it by him.”
—Reverend Ron Rolheiser, O.M.I.
“An unexpected smidge of gravitas helps Irish Cream rise to the top of the series.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“No contemporary writer is better than Greeley at depicting the genius, humor, logic, personal skills, and cultural idiosyncrasies of the Irish, whether in American cities like Chicago or across the big pond in Ireland. This author is the master of modern Irish ethnic genius! … A delight to read … This book is bound to give you a few hours of great reading pleasure!”
—Shelby-Utica News (Warren, MI) on Irish Cream
“Coziness … is the appeal of these mysteries. Solid, modest Dermot and fiery, unpredictable Nuala Anne enjoy an ideal marriage: sexy and humorous and unabashedly loving. Happiness is much harder to write than misery, and Greeley deserves credit for making this fantasy as much fun as it is.”
—Los Angeles Times on Irish Eyes
“A love story as much as a mystery, with Greeley portraying Chicago’s middle-class Irish-American ethnics with Hair, dignity, and affection for their lilting speech.”
—Chicago Sun-Times on Irish Lace
“The prolific cleric plops his psychic singer heroine and her family into a delicious stew of trouble in his latest crowd pleaser … . The double plot is rich with detail, while the couple’s earnestness and good intentions are never in question.”
—Publishers Weekly on Irish Stew!
“Andrew M. Greeley reinforces his reputation as a writer of breezy page-turners.”
—New York Post on Irish Eyes
“The comical banter beween Dermot and Nuala Anne cleverly gives the reader insight into their Irish heritage as well as their Catholic faith.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Irish Stew!
Turn the page for a preview of
IRISH TIGER
A Nuala Anne
McGrail Novel
ANDREW M. GREELEY
A FORGE HARDCOVER
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1588-5 ISBN-10: 0-7653-1588-2
Copyright © 2008 by Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.
Dermot
THE COUPLE walking up to the stairs to our house on Sheffield Avenue reminded me of Lladro statues—handsome, perfectly shaped, well dressed, flawless. And so fragile that a sweep of my hand might shatter them. A Lexus limo waited for them in front of the house. At the wheel sat Sergeant Gabrielle Lopez, of the Chicago Police Department, in her off-hours with Reliable Security. If Gaby was on the job, then someone thought the couple was in danger. The dark sky glowered at all of us who were stupid enough to be in Chicago after the middle of November
“Jack Donlan,” said the man, poised, urbane, wavy black hair with just a touch of white, an ad for a men’s magazine of a decade and a half ago. “My wife, Maria.”
“Archbishop Ryan sent us,” said the tall, slim woman in a mink coat. “He said you didn’t want nobody that nobody sent.”
The light of an imp flashed quickly across her face as she repeated the old Chicago political cliché.
“Dermot Coyne,” I said shaking hands. “Come in, as my good wife would say, before you catch your death of cold.”
It was my good wife they wanted to see, the legendary singer and puzzle solver, and not her loyal and brave spear carrier.
Earlier as I had entered our master bedroom and discovered herself in red and green lace lingerie in honor of the coming holidays, I gulped as I always do when I see her, especially if she is partially dressed.
“Well, didn’t I tell you that they would call us?”
I had been running the dogs and my two older children at the dog park. Even the elderly Fiona had better wind than I did. They had bounded up the stairs to the second-floor entrance and down to the playroom on the ground floor where my niece and our nanny, Ellie, would preside over them and their two smaller siblings.
“Who would call us?” I demanded putting my hand on her bare shoulder.
“Och, Dermot Michael Coyne, give over,” she replied, leaning against me. “We have business to do. The lollygagging can come later.”
“Promise?”
“If I don’t, it doesn’t matter, does it?” She returned to arranging her long and formidable black hair in a bun on the top of her head. She was putting on her business mode. “And meself telling you that them poor folks would call us and I not needing any more of me hormones chasing around in me bloodstream.”
“What poor folks?”
She smelled of soap and perfume and promise. I didn’t remove my hand from her shoulder, but I refrained from attempting further progress. My wife is easy to seduce, but I had grown skilled through our years together at reading the proper times and places.
“Them poor folks that German shitehawk over at St. Freddy’s wouldn’t let marry and the poor woman so lovely in her blue gown and her gorgeous boobs.”
My wife had an Irish woman’s fury at injustice, especially when a woman was a victim.
“Jack and Maria Donlan … Blackie must have thought it was a case for a fey Irish woman.”
“Doesn’t your man say I’m the second best detective in whole city of Chicago?”
“As I heard him, he said best.”
I kissed the back of her neck and slipped away. Her black pants suit was on the hanger. Over a white blouse with silver jewelry, she’d be ready for heavy lifting, an Irish professional woman. Indeed, a veritable Celtic Tiger. The Donlans would find a major ally against their enemies. And poor Dermot would have to find his spear and sally forth to battle.
You knew what you were getting into.
And not a moment’s hesitation either.
“And yourself leaving without hooking me bra?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Me wife and herself looking like an Irish goddess and blue eyes which could skin the flesh off your face if she were angry at you and a voice that hinted at distant bells ringing across the bogs was in high dudgeon these days—indeed stratospheric. The new president of the TV network which had presented her Christmas specials every year—hereinafter known as “that frigging gobshite”—had canceled this year’s production and terminated her contract. “Many people,” the said gobshite had observed, “think it is not correct to have so much religious music at Christmas time. Such songs ruin the holiday season for those people who have no religious belief and resent having such music imposed on them. Moreover, popular reaction to the series has been slipping over recent years.”
This was frigging bullshite, my woman insisted. The ratings were higher than ever last year, indeed higher than all other Christmas specials. He also canceled the concert without consulting Nuala’s agent or without negotiating payment for a cancellation fee. Then when another network tried to pick up the performance, he said that as he read the contract, Nuala Anne couldn’t perform for anyone else but he didn’t have to pay her. She didn’t give a friggin’ damn about the pay, but she had prepared twelve numbers from six different religions so that Lullaby and Good Night would be politically correct.
So the matter went to court. In Chicago, much to the dismay of the media lawyers from Los Angeles.
When my Nuala is in dudgeon, she becomes an Irish Tiger, though we in the family are not targets but audience. We try not to laugh. The Donlans had come at a good time. Her aroused fury would be aimed at their enemies too.
In the parlor I took our guests’ coats and hung them in a closet, barely covering my gasp at the sight of Maria’s lovely body pressed against a maroon knit dress. Without her mink coat she looked liked a timeless Sophia Loren. I must not gape too much when my wife joined us. Her husband was wearing a three piece black suit of Italian make, no casual for him. Both of them looked like models in a highclass magazine picture of
Milanese fashions. Surely they exercised and dieted and went to spas, but their striking beauty was almost certainly genetic luck. I knew enough about human nature that those not so fortunate would envy and resent them, especially Maria. No woman over fifty had any right at all to look that timeless.
My wife, given to running down the stairs when she was in a hurry, descended with regal grace. I introduced her to both of them. She and Maria sized each other up quickly and bonded immediately as women sometimes do.
“Would you ever like a wee drop of something to banish the cold or maybe a small drop of Barolo?”
“There’s enough Northern Italian in me,” Maria said with another flash of her impish grin, “for that to have some appeal, but I’ll settle for a drop of tea … black.” Jack nodded with a smile, not nearly so exuberant as his wife’s smile.
Her dark skin and flashing brown eyes suggested the Levant, wherever the hell that is, probably some place just outside of Palermo.
Stop undressing her before Nuala notices.
“My husband has cured me of the terrible Irish habit of polluting tea with milk! I’ll put the kettle on and I’ll be right back.” She left with the same dignity with which she had descended the stairs, though, knowing her as I did, I was sure she wanted to bound. Left to her own desires, my Nuala Anne bounds rather than walks.
“We’ve seen her on television of course,” Jack Donlan said softly, his normal tone of voice. “But she’s even lovelier in person.”
“And herself with four kids and a career and a house to manage and a laggard husband to be given instructions!”
“Fey too?” Maria Donlan said, asking a question.
“When she comes back, she’ll have slices of Irish bread and jam which she made earlier because she knew you’d ask for tea. She predicts the gender of children even before they are conceived. You get used to such things after a while. Archbishop Ryan calls it a neo-Neanderthal vestige.”
A small laugh around the room in honor of Blackie.
“He is a most unusual man.”
“A very holy man.”
“And a very smart man, according to my brother the priest.”
The couple were patently, as Blackie would say, in love. They could not take their eyes off each other. Sitting on our antique couch their hands frequently touched. Somehow this infatuation did not seem inappropriate, even if they were over fifty. Age had nothing to do with it, nor their physical perfection. A man and a woman had every right to fall in love again or for the first time. As a sixty-five-year-old colleague on the Exchange said, “I get on the elevator with her, my legs turn to water, and I forget she’s my wife.”
Don’t pretend you don’t know the experience, boyo.
Nuala reappeared with the tea tray, distributed the cups, saucers, and the plates with the soda bread and jam, and placed the cozy on the Galway teapot, all these rituals performed with maximum West of Ireland ceremony.
“We’ll let it steep for just a minute longer. We Irish know just how long it takes tea to steep.”
She poured it and we all sampled it.
“The soda bread is excellent.”
“Thank you, sir, and didn’t I make it meself.”
“Her mother always says,” I added, “that the best Irish bread is made in the house where it’s served.”
Then, just as we were about to turn the conversation to the reason for their visit, a strange apparition took place. Two large, snow-white animals, bronze age remnants, pushed their way out of the door leading to the ground floor, and without looking at Nuala who had forbidden such intrusions into the parlor, walked to Maria Donlan’s feet, sat on their haunches, and raised their right paws.
“Maria Donlan,” my wife said, “May I present our two resident doggies, Fiona and Maeve. They are absolutely not supposed to be here, but I presume they know what they’re doing.”
She lifted an eyebrow in my direction, as though I were somehow responsible for their violation.
The dogs shook hands with their new friend. She hugged them and told them they were wonderful, which of course they knew but were glad to hear again. Thereupon they lay down, definitively in charge, both with their huge muzzles at her feet.
“You’ll think I’m crazy, Jack, but I’ve always wanted one of these creatures.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t,” he said quietly.
“This is all very serious,” my good wife said grimly. “Very serious indeed.”
“How so?” Jack Donlan asked
“Fiona, our matriarch here, was a police dog in her youth. She sometimes has an instinct that someone is in danger.”
“And you have Reliable Security looking after you? I noticed that one of their operatives was driving your limo.”
“Sweet child,” Maria said softly.
“And a crack shot,” I added.
“We’ve had some threats … .” Jack said, his voice trailing off. “Very serious threats. Filled with hatred …”
“I agree with Archbishop Blackie,” Nuala said. “There is serious evil at work here.”
Then, as if the tension were not already turning creepy, Fiona stirred herself, rose from the floor, and began to howl. Maeve, not to be outdone by her mother, joined in the cry. The hounds of hell were loose.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
IRISH LINEN: A NUALA ANNE MCGRAIL NOVEL
Copyright © 2007 by Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Map by Heidi Hornaday
eISBN 9781429920612
First eBook Edition : June 2011
First Edition: February 2007
First Mass Market Edition: February 2008
Irish Linen Page 35