by John McEvoy
Hoy shook his head. “I cannot feckin’ imagine how little, quiet Tony Rourke would have found a way to hook up with the crooked Mr. Sheridan.”
Doyle leaned forward to peer through the blurry windshield. Hoy reached over into the glove compartment and took out binoculars. He lowered his driver’ side window, leaned out. “Son of a bitch,” he growled. Doyle said, “Let me look, Barry.” Hoy brushed his hand away. Doyle rolled his window down and poked his head out attempting to get a better view. He felt one of Hoy’s large paws yank his collar and himself back into the car. “Sit, now. You don’t want to be seen.”
The conversation in front of them proceeded, the principals unaware they were being observed. Hoy’s hands tightened on the binoculars. “There goes an envelope from Tony’s shaky little hand.” Doyle could see Sheridan riffling currency with a satisfied look. Hoy said, “I just read Tony’s lips, him telling Sheridan, ‘Don’t fail me again with Mr. Hanratty.’” Hoy threw the binoculars down and erupted out of the car.
Sheridan saw Hoy coming and began to retreat. He whistled a signal. Doyle circled in toward this twosome from the right. The rain had increased and he felt his feet momentarily slip on the wet concrete.
Suddenly seeing their approach, Tony Rourke yelped, “What?” He started to speak as Hoy grabbed his coat collar and snarled, “You devious gobshite. After all Niall’s done for us. For you?”
Billy Sheridan snapped open a switchblade before sliding toward Hoy, whose head was turned. Doyle caught the little thug square on the chin with a left hook. The knife dropped to the pavement as Sheridan fell face-first next to it. Doyle kicked the knife to the side and turned, hearing a thumping approach. A big, black hooded and jacketed figure had charged up from behind the stunned Rourke aiming for Hoy. Barry kept his right hand grip on the pale-faced Rourke’s coat collar. When the advancing attacker was less than a yard away, Hoy pivoted and set his feet and slashed his large left forearm across the man’s throat. The man fell to his knees, gurgling, hands scrabbling at his neck.
“Pick up the money envelope, Jack,” Hoy barked. He was breathing heavily as he stared down at Rourke’s ashen face.
Doyle leaned down to grab the rain-sodden envelope. He could feel the wad of Euros in it. He handed it to Hoy, who had now taken his hand off Rourke, and a deep breath, and then a step back from the Shamrock Off-Course Wagering Corporation’s longtime treasurer. The rain was pouring down now, emptying the nearby sidewalks of the handful of startled passersby.
Hoy said, “It makes me sick to look at you, Tony. That you’d be dealing with these feckin’ Dublin lowlife criminal bastards trying to get at the man who made you. Made you! And himself treasuring yourself all of your years together.”
Hoy stopped and slid over to administer a resounding kidney kick to the downed black-garbed attacker who had begun to sit up. Back down he went. Little Billy Sheridan remained with his face pressed onto pavement. “Watch him, Jack.” Hoy said. “Tricky little bastard might have another leap in him.”
Tony Rourke took a step away from Hoy and then stood still, as if he could somehow remove himself from this reality with the longing look he aimed at the leaden sky above Raglan Road.
Hoy took the pay packet from Doyle and jammed it into Rourke’s coat pocket. “Keep this for your upcoming early retirement, you miserable bastard.”
Doyle wiped rain off his forehead as he watched Rourke seem to retreat into his wet coat. It was hard for Doyle to picture this timorous little numbers-cruncher as a man bent on having murder committed on his behalf. “Are you going to say anything, Tony?” Doyle said. “Like, this isn’t what it seems?”
“No,” Rourke said defiantly. “It’s exactly what it seems.
“Niall was the big man so full of promises,” Rourke sneered. “Promises he never fulfilled. He kept putting off my percentage increase, year after year. It was my idea to expand the company the way we did. I should be running Shamrock. I’ve known that for years. So did,” he stopped and took a deep breath, “my dear Moira. She believed I was being short-changed by Niall. She pleaded with me to do something about it. I was never able to bring myself to do so when she was alive, God help me.” Eyes misting, he turned his head and began to slowly walk away. “Finally, I tried to do just that even if it was only in her memory. And then I messed that up, too.”
Rourke began to walk away. Hoy started to follow, then stopped. He had a stunned look on his broad face as he said to Jack, “Aw, let him go, the sorry little creature.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Four hours later, after he’d left Hoy and Doyle on Raglan Road to shakily traverse the wet highway back to his Cork City home, Tony Rourke unlocked his front door, took off his rain coat, and poured himself a glass of merlot. He drank quickly, poured another. The day-long rain had finally stopped, the heavy gray clouds dissipated. He took his wine out to the small back garden of the home, the area in which he and Moira had shared hundreds of pleasant evening hours. The aluminum-colored sky was gaining a hint of deep orange toward the west. “Should I be surprised,” he said to himself, “that I feel so relieved to be found out? I don’t know. Just as I seem to know so very little else these days.” He put his wineglass down, picked up his notepad, and began to write.
Dear Bridget,
Years ago, I made the mistake of not acceding to your mother’s often repeated request that I “finally stand up to Niall Hanratty” for taking advantage of my talents, that I demand my just due—the partnership he had promised me in Shamrock, the company Niall and I brought from nothing to prosperity. Even though I was making more money than I could ever have imagined, your mother thought that I deserved that title of partner. I was never given it. Despite your mother’s insistence, I never brought this up to Niall. I don’t know if he intentionally ignored his promise, or simply forgot it. But your mother considered my situation to be the result of injustice. After her death, Niall’s unfulfilled promise just ate away at me. It changed me in a way that I now very much regret.
Mind you, this campaign of hers to spur me into aggressive action was not constant, by any means. I could always fend her off by saying the “right time had not come.” And she would accept that, ignoring what I later came to believe was her disappointed acceptance of my weakness. And it was a weakness.
Remember, Bridget, I admired Niall and was grateful for all he’d enabled me to do. He was always fair about our divisions of profits. So, I always believed he would come through with the promise of a partnership. Really, that was not that important to me. But, it was important to your mother.
I think your mother saw me as too weak to challenge The Man and demand what I had coming. And after she passed, I at first found myself unable to do anything but regret my inaction. But later, in the long, lonely months after that dear woman’s passing, the idea of revenge took on a momentum of its own for me. I can’t explain how it surged through me. I am ashamed to say it took me over.
So, I began a campaign to wreak revenge on Niall Hanratty. I will admit to you tonight that I wanted him dead! And tried to make it so! I was not thinking wisely. I did it as kind of a warped tribute to your mother, who had been so incensed for years over what she considered the terribly shabby treatment Niall had given me. So I paid for, and put in motion, actions intended to put Niall in a grave. These attempts failed. They were mistakes.
Your mother not being in my life has left me with a life not worth continuing. Starting after that final, terrible hospital day when her poor, sweet, pain-ravaged face was covered with the white sheet and they wheeled her out of that awful room and away from me, I believed that a campaign of revenge against Niall would somehow be carried out in her honor. And that it would give me something to live for. That this kind of forcefulness would somehow make her proud of me. But that was a ridiculous thought on my part as I have finally come to realize. Your mother would have said just that. My ill-conceived efforts to have Nia
ll Hanratty murdered were doomed from the start. Just as well. Just as well.
I picture you, Bridget, in your fine home and with your grand family in the States. Receiving these words. Feeling horror and shock and, undoubtedly, anger at me. But please, my dear daughter, me saying good-bye to you in this way is as merciful as it could ever be. As much as I love you and your family, this is the truth for me—there is nothing in my life anymore that makes me want to rise to the day.
Love,
Da
Tony Rourke carefully folded the two pages and put them in the envelope addressed to Bridget. He licked the seal. He’d already festooned it with all the necessary postage for America. He carefully placed the envelope beneath the small, bedraggled potted plant on the table next to his chair.
Late sunlight was dwindling, and bustling clouds from the west advanced against the last deep orange layer of light. Rourke picked up the wineglass and took a long swallow, lips twisting in its aftertaste. He’d never been much of a drinking man.
A vivid memory of Niall Hanratty came to him. Some Shamrock Company affair or other, years back. He pictured Niall at the head of the long dinner table, late in a raucous night, calling for collective quiet and quoting “Mark Twain, now, who said beer corrodes an Irishman’s stomach. Whiskey polishes it! Drink up my friends!” Rourke had never agreed with either of those Twain claims.
Rourke reached into his coat pocket and uncapped a tall bottle of morphine tablets, the unused supply from Moira’s final days. He placed a handful in his mouth, drank some wine, then another, the last of the wine following. He struggled but managed to keep it all down. And finally took a deep breath and lay his head back on the chair. Within minutes the sun had set.
Rourke’s arms lay still on the chair’s arms. He felt as if his veins were clogging. “Oh God,” he suddenly thought, “did I tell Bridget I loved her? I think I did. But did I ?” He attempted to sit up and reach for his pen, but failed.
Next door neighbor Peter Rafferty found Tony Rourke’s dew-covered corpse later that night when, while taking a garbage bag to the bin behind his double garage, he looked across the fence and said, “Hiya, Tony,” and was first surprised when he received no reply, then horrified when he discovered why.
Chapter Forty-eight
Less than an hour after their Raglan Road discovery of Tony Rourke’s treachery, Barry Hoy stopped his rental car outside Nora’s house in Bray to let Jack out before starting his drive back to Kinsale. Their mostly quiet ride together was laden with depression, Hoy saying twice, “I can’t believe Tony did that to Niall.” Doyle exited the auto and reached back across the passenger seat to shake Hoy’s hand and wish him a “safe trip” back. “When are you going to tell Niall about what Rourke has done?”
“As soon as I get back to Kinsale. Thanks, Jack, for bearing witness to this awful development.” He pulled away rapidly.
A couple of loud knocks confirmed Nora wasn’t home. Doyle found her house key in the very same obvious spot he had advised her not to put it, underneath a front stoop flower plot, and went in, carrying his suitcase. It was early afternoon. He didn’t know when Nora would be back. He found the last remaining bottle of Guinness in her refrigerator. Turned on a horse racing channel from England. Lay on the couch and dozed until late in the afternoon when his hostess barged in through her front door he’d left ajar. Jumped up to embrace her and apologize for his surprise entrance and, again, advise her to “hide your damn house key better than that.”
Nora blushed. “You’re right. And perhaps right now you’ll tell me the reason for this surprise return of yours.”
“Hey, I started missing you so badly that I…”
She swatted his arm with her purse. “Don’t try that brand of blarney on me, boyo,” she said with a laugh. “C’mon, now. What’s the deal? Sit down and tell me.”
“I’ve had a long, tough day. I’m starving. How about if I fill you in over a few soothing libations and a nice meal?”
They walked to dinner through crowded streets. It was Bray’s annual Summerfest Week, an event featuring music, sports, a carnival, dozens of concession booths and arts displays. “The final weekend there’ll be probably sixty thousand people or so here,” Nora said. “I’m definitely going Saturday night. I want to see Clockwork Noise, one of my favorite new bands. You should hear their violinist, Flo Healy. Outstanding,” Nora enthused. “Besides playing like an angel, she’s beautiful, too. I believe she’s from just over in Dun Laoghaire.”
They were lucky to nab a table for two on the second level of Bray’s large, popular Martello Restaurant, one with a great view of the Irish Sea. Nora ordered a glass of white wine, Doyle said he’d try “the Hog Head pale ale. A pint, please. We’ll look at the menu a bit later.”
Nora said, “All right, then. You said earlier you had a quote long, tough day unquote. You want to tell me what that was all about?”
He began to recount his Dublin experience with Barry Hoy and Tony Rourke. What had brought Hoy and him there on Rourke’s trail. He had barely reached that point when Nora reached over and grabbed his hand. “Wait. Can I record this?” He shrugged. “Record away,” and she reached down into her purse.
His monologue was interrupted only by their expectant waiter, and they quickly ordered their entrees. When Nora had listened to Doyle’s complete account of that day’s Raglan Road happenings, she turned off her recorder and sat back in her chair. ”Whew. That’s quite a story. What do you think Niall will do about this, Jack? Any idea?”
“I’m sure Tony Rourke’s days at Shamrock are numbered. In single digits. Niall will certainly get rid of him. Will Niall attempt to press charges? I have no idea. I just know that by now,” he stopped to look at his watch, “Barry has given Niall a complete account of today’s sad happenings in Dublin’s fair city. And all that those happenings imply. I’m sure the attacks on Niall are history what with Rourke now exposed. As Barry Hoy said, ‘Those Dublin thugs don’t favor pro bono work.’ So, Sheila Hanratty can resume sleeping well at night alongside of her hard-headed husband.”
When their entrees arrived, bowls of the house specialty, a rich seafood chowder, Doyle ordered a carafe of white. “Nora, can you put away the tools of your trade now? I’ve told you all I know. I have no idea,” he added, “what you would do with all this information.”
Nora tucked her recorder back down into her purse. She flashed him one of her knockout smiles, green eyes aglow above it. She took a sip of wine. “Being the trained reporter that I am, I would say you never feckin’ really know, Jack.”
***
Pleased with their meal and each other, they left the restaurant an hour later and, instead of turning up Nora’s street, went down long, steep steps to the seaside. The crowds were thick here, too. Nora gripped his arm as they wended their way. “Did you know Sinead O’Connor lives here in Bray?” she said.
“Of course I did. I also know that Katie Taylor, the Olympic women’s boxing champ, hails from Bray. I watched a couple of her bouts on television. Outstanding fighter!”
The dusk was gently creeping as they strolled to the water’s edge. Young families with children were now heading up the other way, toward the steps and home. Nora suddenly let go of Jack’s hand and dashed over to a nearby bench, yanked her sandals off, put her purse atop them. “Watch my stuff here now, will you, Jack?” she shouted, laughing. Then she dashed across the sand into the shallow water, lifting her skirt as she twirled in the surf. A small group of young men passing by gave her an encouraging shout. The little lapping waves seemed to buoy her.
Doyle smiled as he watched, thinking again how much he relished the company of this interesting, interested, and vibrant woman. When she finally pranced back out of the water, he opened his arms to her rapid advance, caught her up, and kissed her. They swayed gently, feet in the sand, ignoring passersby, until they heard an elderly man shout, “Tara, back here
quick,” and looked up to see an on-charging brown and white spaniel. The dog slid to a stop at their feet, wagging its tail as Doyle bent down to offer the back of his hand to its inquisitive nose. More tail wagging.
Tara’s owner tipped his cap to them as he walked her back toward the water. “She’s a brilliant swimmer when she’s not distracted,” he offered back over his shoulder. Nora waved them good-bye.
Climbing up the stairway from the strand to the roadway, Jack said, “This band you like. Clockwork Noise. That you plan to see. Will they be selling CDs of theirs there at the Fest?”
“I’m sure they will.”
Doyle and Nora halted at the top of the steps up to look back down at the passive sea and the dozens of strollers now in shadows of the retreating evening sun.
“Good,” Doyle said. “So please buy me one of the Clockwork Noise CDs. We can listen to it sometime. If and when I ever come back here,” he grinned.
She started striding up the street toward her home, leading him by his hand, looking straight ahead and nodding emphatically as she said, “You’ll be back, Jack.”
“You have a very confident walk and way about you, Nora Sheehan,” Doyle said. She shot him a look over her shoulder.
Doyle stopped her at the beginning of her street that led up to her house. “Nora, you have water there on the bottom of your skirt from your cavorting in the surf. Should we maybe stop here, slip into the shrubbery, and wring the moisture out of it?”
Nora laughed as she grabbed his right hand with her left and yanked him forward. “Follow me. We’re not that far from much more comfortable accommodations.”
***
Doyle shifted in Nora’s bed, expecting to feel her hips against his. Gray morning light seeped in through the blinds they had hastily drawn the night before. He sat up when he heard her call, “Jack! Wake up quick! Come in here.”