Jig (13 page)

‘It's not precise enough, Jerry. Give me a name. Give me something authentic.'

The Leprechaun sighed. It was a long-drawn-out sound. ‘One name, that's all.'

‘One's enough,' Pagan said.

‘John Waddell.'

‘Waddell?' Frank Pagan brought an image of Waddell to mind. He was a short man with a sharp face that was practically all snout. Eight months ago Pagan had interviewed John Waddell in connection with the killing of an IRA man in the London suburb of Chalk Farm. At the time, Pagan hadn't been impressed by Waddell, who struck him as strangely timid and not at all the kind of material the FUV would use in an assassination. He'd released Waddell for lack of evidence, convinced that the man hadn't had anything to do with the murder. Too scared. Too gun-shy. Now he wasn't so certain. The FUV absorbed all types, especially the meek and the cowardly, who found the courage to act only when they were concealed under the umbrella of a movement. ‘Your information came
directly
from John Waddell?'

‘I'm not saying,' Drummond answered.

‘But he's involved.'

‘Mr. Pagan, you asked for a name, I gave you one. Don't be pressing me for more than I can give you.'

Pagan thought for a second. ‘Why would the Free Ulster Volunteers want me to have this message, Jerry?'

‘You're looking for Jig, are you not?'

Pagan nodded. His mouth was dry. He filled two glasses with scotch and gave one to Drummond.

Drummond smacked his lips and said, ‘You've got the resources to find him. You and the Yanks between you. You can find him before he kills anybody else.' The word ‘kills' came out of the Leprechaun's mouth as
culls
. Pagan disliked the hard accent of Belfast. The Dublin lilt, by contrast, could be musical and hypnotic.

‘How does the FUV come by this information?' Pagan asked.

‘That's something I wouldn't know,' Drummond answered. ‘I'm only told so much, Mr. Pagan, and it would be fruitless for me to speculate, wouldn't it now? But the members of the FUV would like for you to get your hands on Jig and hang the bastard. They don't like seeing somebody going around killing politicians who are sympathetic to the free Protestants of the North.'

Pagan sipped his drink. ‘We don't hang people in this country, Jerry.'

‘More's the pity.'

‘I almost agree with you,' Pagan said.

There was a silence in the room. The missing money the Leprechaun had mentioned was presumably the same that had been on the
Connie O'Mara
. Attached, Pagan guessed, to the Courier's wrist. But there was something here that didn't quite fit, and he felt faintly uneasy. How the hell did the Free Ulster Volunteers get this information? How did they get so close to Jig that they knew his movements? Or had Jerry Drummond been sent here to convey false information? But that made absolutely no sense. Why would the little man come here with a pack of lies?

He looked at the Leprechaun. ‘What else can you tell me, Jerry?'

‘I've already told you a wee bit more than I intended, Mr. Pagan. What else is there?'

‘America's a big place.'

Drummond finished his drink and stood up. He was twinkling again and there was a certain mischief in his eyes. ‘Oh, didn't I mention New York, Mr. Pagan?'

‘No, you didn't mention New York.'

‘And Father Tumulty? Did I mention him?'

Pagan shook his head. This was so typical of Drummond. He'd dole his message out in fragments, getting as much mileage out of it as he possibly could. He was like a comedian taking a tortuous, suspenseful route to his punch line.

‘Who's Father Tumulty?' Pagan asked.

‘Sounds like a priest to me,' and Drummond smiled.

Pagan heard the night wind spring up again. ‘Is that the complete message now, Jerry?'

‘Aye.' Drummond seemed hesitant. ‘Wait. There's one other thing. Jig sometimes uses a passport made out in the name of John Doyle.'

Pagan took the empty glass out of Drummond's hand. ‘Why don't your friends in the FUV go after Jig themselves?'

‘All the way to New York, Mr. Pagan? They couldn't afford that kind of expense. You, on the other hand, you travel all expenses paid, don't you? Besides, they don't have your resources, Mr. Pagan. Nor your expertise. And you'd have the Americans to help you out, with their computers and all. The only computer I ever saw belonging to a member of the FUV was a small Japanese thing he used for playing Pac-Man. Then it went on the blink.'

Pagan watched the little man a moment. ‘You really expect me to drop everything and transport myself to New York on your say-so, Jerry?'

The Leprechaun looked hurt. ‘Mr. Pagan, have I ever given you false information? Have I ever done that?'

‘No.'

‘Didn't I tell you about that shipment of rifles in Ostend? The ones in cool boxes marked butter that were destined for Dublin? Didn't I do that for you? And wasn't that true?'

Pagan nodded his head.

‘Didn't I tell you about a small IRA bomb factory right here in Fulham? Right here on your own doorstep? Was that a lie?'

‘Jerry, your information has always been high quality. But this is something quite different.'

‘I don't see why you would disbelieve me now.'

‘Maybe because I don't exactly trust your FUV friends, Jerry.'

The Leprechaun got out of his chair. ‘Cross my heart, Mr. Pagan. This is all on the level. Jig is on his way to New York City. And you'd be a fool to ignore that fact.' ‘Fool' pronounced
fule
.

Pagan watched the little man go out. Alone again, he found the apartment smaller than before. The walls pressed in on him. It made sense, he thought, that Jig would be the one to track down the missing capital. The man was a hunter. He had predatory instincts and the capability of vanishing on the wind. But how did the FUV get hold of this information?

The question turned over in his mind again, and he had the feeling he was missing something, something important. Puzzled, he went back inside the bedroom and sat down. For a moment he tried to imagine Jig's face. A young man, an unremarkable face you wouldn't look twice at in the street, drab unassuming clothes. Perhaps a nervous mannerism. A tic in the jaw. A fingernail biter. A way of smoking cigarettes right down to the filter. Nicotine stains. Slightly discoloured teeth. And maybe there was a light in his eye, something that suggested intensity. He had to be intense, committed to his purpose. Highly trained too. The kind of training that wasn't available in Ireland. The kind you went abroad to get in places like Libya and Cuba.

Pagan lay back across the bed. Had the American suppliers of the money somehow turned their thinking around and seized their capital back on the high seas?

Pagan sat up now. The sense of being perplexed wouldn't leave him. There was something a little askew, out of joint. He couldn't think what except that there were small threads he couldn't quite stitch together. They kept unravelling in his mind.

He reached for the photograph of Roxanne and held it tilted under the bedside lamp so that the glass caught the yellow glow of electricity.

‘New York City,' Pagan said to his ghost. ‘It's been a long time.'

7

Dun Laoghaire, Republic of Ireland

Finn woke in his dark bedroom, his throat dry. He pushed himself into an upright position, and there was a pain at the back of his head. It was the whiskey he'd drunk at Molly's. Now he had one hell of a hangover. He should have known better – his old body couldn't take the drink the way it used to. Sweet Jesus! He could remember times when he'd wake with a big black dog of a hangover and start drinking right away and go on for three or four days at a time.

He left the room and stepped out onto the landing.

Halfway down the stairs he stopped. He listened to the darkness. He had a fine instinct for the night. He thought sometimes he had a personal angel who whispered nocturnal warnings in his ear. In the distance he heard the cry of an owl. But there was some other thing too, something he couldn't altogether place, like the soft sound of an animal moving in the undergrowth.

He reached the bottom step and looked across the room filled with harps. There was thin crystal moonlight falling through the window. He stood motionless, listening. The owl had gone. But there was still something else, an undercurrent.

Finn padded inside the kitchen, bare feet slapping floorboards. He drew a glass of water from the tap and devoured it quickly. He rinsed the glass, because he was a tidy man and had always been fastidious in his way, perhaps because he'd lived a solitary life without a wife to help him. He was married to the Cause like a bloody nun married to Christ. If he could turn back the clocks of his life, what he'd do was marry Molly Newbigging and get a decent job and settle down with a big brood of kids. He thought of Molly's white thighs and her large rounded breasts and that way she had of seeing straight through to the bones of him.

He left the kitchen, moving along a narrow hallway in the direction of his small study. There was a loaded pistol in his desk. It was a Mauser that dated from the 1920s and it had once belonged to old Dan Breen, commandant of the Third Tipperary Brigade of the IRA. The pistol was of great sentimental value to Finn because it had been given to him personally by Breen shortly before the old fellow died in 1969.

Finn stepped inside his study. He stared at the gun, then reached down for it and picked it up, holding it loosely in his right hand. The feel of the weapon made him think of the first time he'd ever entrusted Jig with a task. It had happened during their third or fourth meeting, which had taken place on a cold morning at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Finn, who was invariably spooked by places of death because he resented anything as disruptive as the act of dying, had stared for a long time into the boy's eyes. What the hell did he really know about this young man anyway? After a few clandestine encounters, what could he really say he'd learned about the young man's history? The boy constantly dismissed his past as irrelevant. He was as much a mystery as he'd been in the beginning, and the only thing Finn didn't doubt was his commitment to justice and his yearning for action. These were real enough. But there were walls around him still, and Finn was uneasy with men who erected barricades. If he was ever to know this young man, if he was ever to cross the wall, he was going to have to take the first step himself. A big step – because its only basis was Finn's own hunch, his instinct that the boy could prove valuable to the Association of the Wolfe and the Cause in general. There were times in one's life when intuition overrode the dictates of sweet reason, and this was going to be one of them. And Finn, who had an almost arrogant pride in his ability to judge character, had an instinct about the boy that was almost as clear as a melody in his head.

A certain man has to be eliminated
.

Who and where?
Jig asked.

Don't you want to know the why of it, boy?

Jig shook his head and looked between rows of tombstones.
I know what you stand for. If
you
consider this man your enemy, what else do I need to know?

I'm flattered by your trust in me
, Finn had answered.
But you've got a lot to learn. You trust too easily. You react too quickly. You're too bloody impatient
.

Maybe I need a teacher, Finn
.

Finn had strolled among ancient graves, noticing broken crosses and moss climbing over stone and a bedraggled cat asleep on a fallen marker. He'd studied the names of the dead. O'Hara. Ryan. Corcoran. Fine Irish names. Brendan Behan, whom Finn remembered as a hotblooded young IRA recruit, was buried somewhere at Glasnevin, dead and wasted by drink.

Teach me, Finn
, the boy said.

Finn had turned to look at the young man again. He'd seen it then in the boy's face, almost as if a guard had slipped and fallen away. It was the face of a kid anxious to please an elder, a vulnerable look that Finn wouldn't have thought belonged in the boy's repertoire of expressions. It was uncharacteristic and eager, without a hint of toughness, and it was Finn's first real encounter with what he thought of as the young man's inner self. For the first time, too, Finn felt a strong affection for the boy, a sensation that took him by surprise. It was this moment, in which he perceived Jig's naked enthusiasm, that made Finn take the revolver from the pocket of his overcoat and pass it slowly to the young man.

There's no pleasure in killing, boy; if you're after thrills, I don't need you. Let's get that straight from the start. I don't need a vandal or a hooligan. I want somebody who understands the reasons behind his actions
.

I'm not looking for thrills, Finn
.

And when you work for me there's no money in it. You'll get enough to keep yourself in food and shelter, but nobody ever got rich from the Cause
.

I don't remember ever asking for money, Finn
.

It was the answer Finn had expected.
You'd have to go to Belfast
, he said.
A man called Cassidy is doing some damage to us
.

That was all. Cassidy's offence, which the boy hadn't asked about, hadn't even seemed to
care
about, was that he had been talking too freely with the British Army about IRA operations. Jig had gone to Belfast before the end of that same week and shot Cassidy as he was stepping out of a public house called the Butcher's Arms at closing time. One shot, delivered with accuracy. One shot, then Jig was gone. He had the eye of a natural marksman and the affinity of a night creature for the crevices of darkness in which to hide. Later, when the young man had returned to the Republic, Finn had told him that in future he'd need a nom de guerre.
We'll call you Jig
, he'd said.
If you're the dancer I think you might be, it's a damn good name
. I moulded you, Jig, he thought. You gave me the basic edifice and I improved it. And somewhere along the way we came to understand and maybe even love one another a little bit too. And where are you now, Jig? Where the hell have I sent you?