Jig (31 page)

‘Frank Pagan! This
is
a surprise,' McInnes said, suppressing the terrible temptation to ask Pagan if he'd had any luck in catching up with Jig. There were moments in McInnes's life when he had to struggle fiercely with his sense of mischief, and this was one of them. He wondered if he looked suitably surprised by Pagan's appearance.

Frank Pagan had the kind of face that was difficult to read. He'd be a hell of a man to play cards against, McInnes thought. He stared into Pagan's grey eyes, which reminded him of cinders.

‘This is Arthur Zuboric,' Pagan said. ‘FBI.'

The suntanned man with the drooping moustache nodded his head. McInnes looked at him a second, then back to Pagan.

‘What brings you to New York City?' McInnes asked. He stepped into his room and the two men followed him.

‘Funny,' Pagan said. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth, Ivor.'

McInnes sat in the armchair by the window. ‘You must know why
I'm
here,' he said. ‘Your bloody people in London know just about everything.'

‘I understand you're writing a book,' Pagan said.

‘Correct.' McInnes noticed a muscle working in the Englishman's jaw.

Pagan smiled. ‘What's the title?'

‘I haven't made up my mind yet.' McInnes saw the FBI man move to the window where he slid the curtain back and looked out, as if he suspected all manner of nefarious events to be taking place in Central Park.

Pagan picked up a Gideon Bible and flipped the pages for a time. McInnes drummed the tips of his fingers against the table. He was ready for anything Frank Pagan might ask.

‘You know, of course, that I'm looking for Jig.'

‘Now how would
I
know something like that?' McInnes, like any good actor, had all kinds of facial expressions at his command. The one he chose to assume right then was innocence. His large eyelids rose and his eyes widened.

‘Because my information came from
you
, courtesy of that merry band of yours, the Free Ulster Volunteers.'

‘Because members of the FUV belonged to my former congregation, Frank, doesn't mean I'm a card-carrying member myself,' McInnes said. ‘I categorically deny any association with that organisation, and I challenge you to prove otherwise. I don't deny
knowing
members of the FUV, Frank. It would be difficult not to. But as for myself, I've always steered clear of involvement.'

‘Ivor, Ivor.' Pagan sighed. ‘I didn't just come up the Thames on a water biscuit. I wasn't exactly born yesterday. You, or a representative of yours called John Waddell, sent the Leprechaun to see me in London with the information that Jig had come to the U.S.A.'

‘The Leprechaun?' McInnes stood up. He looked at Zuboric and said, ‘Your English friend here has a fanciful imagination. Next thing he'll be telling me he converses with gnomes and counts elves among his dearest chums.'

‘You're a droll fellow, Ivor,' Pagan said.

McInnes laughed again, a big throaty sound. It was as if he had an untuned accordion lodged in his larynx. ‘As for John Waddell, well, you've lost me.'

‘How did you find out Jig was coming to America, Ivor?'

‘You're barking up the wrong tree.'

‘I don't really think so,' Pagan said. ‘Every time the Free Ulster Volunteers move, it's because you're sitting backstage pulling their strings.'

‘You're on shaky ground, Frank.'

McInnes gazed at the blank TV. For a moment he considered the complicated mosaic of this whole operation, and it filled him with a dizzy sense of achievement. It had taken three years to get this far, three years planning and scheming and infiltrating and carefully sliding each delicate part into its correct place. And now, even with Pagan and his American sidekick in his hotel room, he could almost taste the triumph in everything that had been assembled. In a life filled with strife and dissension and disappointment, victory was a new flavour for him and he enjoyed it. What he also enjoyed was playing a little game with Frank Pagan, who was labouring in a blind place indeed.

‘Did you come to my hotel just to harangue me, Frank?' he asked. ‘Did you come here to make false accusations?'

Pagan rose from the bed. ‘I've got a problem, Ivor. Let me see if I can explain it to you. First, I get this snippet of information about Jig. No matter how hard you deny it, I know it comes from you. The horse's mouth. I get on a plane.
Voilà
. New York. Second, as coincidence would have it, I find my old pal Ivor in the same city, researching a book. I don't put a lot of faith in coincidence, Ivor, and since I've had the miserable fortune actually to struggle through some of your writing in pamphlet form, I don't put much faith in your literary talents either. Do you see where I'm going?'

McInnes shook his head. ‘You're still barking, Frank.'

‘Something's going on. Something's happening.' Pagan's eyes, which McInnes had thought cindery before, appeared to have caught fire.

Ivor McInnes looked out at Central Park. A watery sun, the colour of sulphur, hung over bare trees. He had a sudden image of the girl in the Hotel Strasbourg, and he felt a weird little outbreak of guilt at the memory. It was one of the drawbacks of Presbyterianism, this smothering guilt that sometimes attacked you unawares.

‘Check with my publisher if you want to know about my book, Frank,' he said. ‘I'm sure he'd tell you the book's no sham.'

Pagan glanced at his wristwatch, then looked in the direction of the FBI man, whose silence had been faintly disturbing to McInnes. After a lifetime of speechmaking and pulpit thumping, McInnes abhorred silences.

McInnes said, ‘I hope you find your man, Frank. Jig's a bloody menace to peaceful people everywhere. Especially to the Loyalists in Ireland. If he keeps killing, the British are going to think very carefully about the cost of maintaining a presence in the province. And what would happen to the Loyalists then?'

‘What exactly are you loyal to?' Pagan asked. ‘Enlighten me.'

‘Queen and country of course,' McInnes replied.

Your patriotism's touching. But you left something out, Ivor.'

‘What?'

‘Your forgot your
overriding
loyalty, didn't you? The only one in your life. To yourself. To Ivor McInnes. That's the only true allegiance
you
understand.'

‘Frank, Frank,' McInnes said, his voice filled with the weariness of a man who is tired of being vilified unjustly. ‘You're beginning to believe all the things you read about me in the newspapers. I credited you with more sense than that, my friend. Aren't you being just a trifle hasty in your character assassination? Besides, you forget something. Something important.'

‘What's that?'

‘We're on the
same
side. We both want to see Jig behind bars, don't we? We both want to see an end to IRA terrorism, don't we? You forget, Frank, that I'm an ardent supporter of the government you work for. You shouldn't let something that bloody important slip your mind. Whether you like it or not, we're
allies
.' And here McInnes placed one of his large hands on Pagan's shoulder and squeezed it in a confidential way.

Frank Pagan stared at McInnes. His face was hard and cold again, and there was a distance in his eyes. McInnes wondered about the reservoirs of anger inside the man. He let his hand drop to his side.

‘You overlook a major difference,' Pagan said, his voice flat, words clipped. ‘I don't play on bigotry and fear, McInnes. I don't incite people to meaningless acts of violence. And I don't use scum like the Free Ulster Volunteers to do my dirty work for me.'

McInnes, who realised he'd struck a vibrant chord here, simply shrugged. ‘I've been accused of bigotry before, Frank, and I daresay I'll be accused again. I challenge you to find anything in my speeches or my writing to support that charge. You'll find that
nowhere
have I ever uttered or written a single word that could justifiably be construed as bigotry. What I have done, and what I'll continue to do' – and here McInnes flashed his widest smile – ‘is to criticise the policies of the Roman Catholic Church, which I consider an impediment to any kind of progress. You look at any poor country, you'll find the Catholic Church somewhere in the picture. You look at any poor country racked by a runaway birthrate and you'll find priests and nuns holding total dominion over the peasants. The Vatican doesn't want adherents and converts, it wants prisoners. It wants people who are scared to ask questions. It wants numbers, and it dangles the threat of excommunication over anybody who has the guts to ask straightforward questions. Take something dead simple, Frank. Take your average parish priest. What in the name of God does he know about women and marriage and raising children? Nothing! He leads a celibate life, with his head stuck up his arse. And yet he's the man who's supposed to give
guidance
to people whose marriages are falling apart or husbands who are impotent? It's this same church that has kept the Republic of Ireland in bondage for centuries, with its censorship and its damned laws of contraception and its attitude to divorce.'

McInnes paused now. His voice, which had been kept at a constant, restrained pitch, had filled the small hotel room like air blown into a balloon. ‘It's the same church that has been behind the troubles in Ulster. Do you think Ulster would be in its present pitiful condition if the Catholic Church weren't there? We're an impoverished, backward society, Frank. We should be in the vanguard of European life, but instead what do we get? Bloody handouts from British politicians. A little charity from Westminster. And you can say what you like about the FUV, Frank, but it's people like them that keep the Catholic IRA from turning Northern Ireland into a complete bloodbath.'

Pagan shook his head. There was something just a little mesmerising about McInnes when he was in full flight. He could make even the most irrational arguments sound forcibly convincing. What you had to do when you confronted Ivor was to keep in mind that his arguments appealed only to unanalytical audiences already predisposed to his point of view. If you didn't, you ran the risk of having your head addled. He was annoyed with himself for having allowed Ivor to launch into a speech. He was also annoyed that his own composure was slipping. ‘You make the FUV sound like a peacekeeping force. What's your big dream, McInnes? A Nobel Peace Prize?'

McInnes was determined not to be drawn by insults. He found it remarkable how blind Frank Pagan could be. Why didn't the man accept the fact that they were both on the same side when you got right down to it? What was so difficult about that notion?

‘My aim's simple,' McInnes said. ‘I've said it many times before and I'll say it again. I want an end to the IRA. Can you deny you want the same thing?'

‘The problem with talking to somebody like you is the feeling I get of hammering my head against a bloody great brick wall,' Pagan said. ‘You have a bad habit, Ivor, of twisting things around so that they'll fit your thesis.'

‘You didn't answer my question, Frank.'

‘Okay. I don't deny it. I want to see terrorism finished. But are you sure that's what
you
really want?'

‘What is that supposed to mean?'

‘It's simple. Without having the Catholics and the IRA to rant about, what would you do with your time, Ivor? Just think how bloody bored you'd be.'

McInnes smiled. ‘Bored but at peace, Frank.'

Pagan looked at his wristwatch. ‘It's been fun talking to you and I'm sorry we have to run. In the meantime, Ivor, keep out of trouble and try to have a nice day.'

‘I always have nice days,' McInnes said.

He watched Pagan close the door quietly. Alone, he moved to the window and saw two brightly dressed joggers pounding through Central Park. He placed the palm of his hand upon the glass, leaving a print. Pagan, of course, was mistaken. Without the IRA, the Catholics in the North would have no real protection, which meant they would migrate to the South – that medieval, Church-choked country where they belonged – leaving Ulster in the hands of Protestants. And McInnes, whose vision encompassed an Ulster free of sectarian violence, would have a major role to play in the formation of this shining new society. It was really very simple. There would be a great many things to keep him occupied in the future.

He put on his overcoat. He'd spend the afternoon in the public library, leafing through old records and documents and making sure he took notes conscientiously. It would be difficult, though. He knew his mind would keep drifting to the Memorial Presbyterian Church in White Plains.

Sunday at seven. Two days from now. The first step. He felt suddenly excited and anxious. It had been a long road, and it had been filled with deprivation for him. But now at least, he could read the signs along the way. He put his hand on the telephone but then drew it away again quickly. This urge to speak, to make contact, to utter aloud the excitement he felt – he had to let it subside. To make any kind of contact now would be to break rules. And the rules had been observed stringently ever since the beginning. Even in times of the utmost difficulty.

He stepped out into the corridor just in time to see Frank Pagan and Zuboric get into the elevator. Pagan looked briefly in his direction, raised a hand in the air, then the elevator doors slid shut behind him.

Frank Pagan was depressed in the thrift shop. Old clothing had its own peculiar smell, reminiscent of locked attics and damp chests filled with mouldering papers. It wasn't the sleazy ambience of the store that brought him down, though. It was the encounter with McInnes. To be drawn into an argument with Ivor was like trying to do a butterfly stroke in a small bathtub. You never got anywhere.

Pagan picked out a very old black overcoat and tried it on. He turned to Artie Zuboric. ‘How do I look?'