The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (53 page)

 139

“
W
hat a fucking fiasco!”

Three days later, the Customs House was still smoldering, but the smoke had cleared as far as Michael Collins was concerned. “Look at this,” he said, waving a sheet of paper at Eoin and Liam Tobin, “eighty percent of the IRA taken! Six dead! More still in hospital. Well, Dev got his big battle, and I hope to fuck it didn’t lose the war for us.” They were sitting in the office at 3 Andrew Street, and the mood of the Director of Intelligence was most foul.

“What are you going to do about the Squad?” asked Tobin.

“Brugha wants to dismantle it,” Collins snapped, “and consolidate the surviving members into a brand-new active service unit.” Eoin didn’t like the part about the “surviving members,” so he decided, for the moment, to keep his gob shut, in case his part in the operation should leak out.

“What about Crow Street?” asked Tobin.

“You will continue as before,” said Collins. “Eoin will brief me each evening. And continue to concentrate on our men of special interest.”

The men of “special interest” were the contingent of British Secret Service agents that had inundated the country since Bloody Sunday. A lot had changed since that November day. Broy, finally compromised, was now on the run, and Boynton had, at Collins’s suggestion, left the G-Division and joined the British Secret Service in hopes of gaining information. Bloody Sunday had been successful—the neutralization of the G-Division was complete—and now the big fish were in the Secret Service. A second Bloody Sunday was on Michael Collins’s mind.

“Just how serious are you about these men?” asked Tobin.

“Very serious,” replied Collins.

“There’s a lot of them,” interjected Eoin. “Maybe over sixty prime suspects.”

Collins shook his head. “That’s a lot. We lost a hundred soldiers in the Customs House.” He stood and slammed his hand on the desk. “We’re fooked. Fooked good.” The frustrated Collins headed for the door and then turned swiftly and barked at Eoin, “How’s Frank?”

“He did his job,” said Eoin, with a little smile of satisfaction on his face.

“So he followed his orders for once?”

“Yes, he did,” said Eoin proudly.

Collins stared hard at his young protégé. “Unlike some others I’ve heard about.”

And with that, the omniscient Director of Intelligence was out the door, leaving Eoin Kavanagh with his gob dragging like an eejit in heat.

 140

S
ATURDAY
, J
ULY
9, 1921

E
oin was working at the Bachelors Walk office when he was interrupted by a terrific banging on the door. On instinct, he stood and drew his revolver.

“Open up!” demanded the female voice. “Eoin, Eoin, open the door!” Eoin pulled the door open, expecting the worst, and there stood Róisín, waving that evening’s newspaper. “Look!” she said. The headline said it all.

TRUCE
.

Eoin pulled the paper out of her hand and read the article. “It’s official,” she said. “By July eleventh. Two fookin’ days. Imagine that!”

“I wonder what this will mean for Ireland?” said Eoin. “I wonder what this will mean for Mick?”

“Fook Mick. Fook Ireland,” said Róisín, as she undid the top button on her nurse’s uniform. She had other things on her mind.

The King had had it.

Negotiations had been going nowhere. Lloyd George was demanding impossible pre-conditions to truce talks—such as the disarming of the IRA—deliberate non-starters on the Prime Minister’s part. He grew more stubborn with the burning of the Customs House, thinking that maybe the advice he was getting from the military about the diminishing capacity of the IRA was, perhaps, fallacious. De Valera’s military fiasco had been misinterpreted in Downing Street. Weakness had become power. The status quo in Ireland would continue for the remainder of the summer, if not the rest of 1921. Things were hopelessly stalemated.

King George V was scheduled to open the new Northern Ireland parliament in Belfast on June tweny-second. He was tired of the black eye the Black and Tans had been giving Britain in the world press. He had told his prime minister he was not happy with the endless war in Ireland, and that something had to be done. In desperation, the King secretly collaborated with his friend, General Jan Smuts of South Africa, and the Prime Minister on some proposals. Lloyd George presented them anonymously to his cabinet, which reluctantly approved them.

With that endorsement, George V, in his Belfast speech, called on “All Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will.” Two days later, Lloyd George approached de Valera—who had been, in one of the great screw-ups of Anglo-Irish history, bizarrely arrested and then released—as “the chosen leader of the great majority in Southern Ireland,” and a truce was soon in place.

“I never thought,” Collins said, “that the Irish would have to depend on the fookin’ King of England to get this truce business moving.” He also added that he wasn’t so sure about the “forgiving and forgetting part.”

Eoin looked out the window, the summer sun still high in the sky even at eight p.m. From the quay below and nearby O’Connell Bridge, a buzz was rising around the city. A Guinness barge on the Liffey gave a joyful toot of its whistle in celebration of the coming truce. Across the river, he could hear the historic bells of his parents’ church, Saints Michael and John’s, chiming in jubilation.

“Poor Traynor, Maher, and Foley,” he said.

“What?”

“Traynor, Maher, and Foley,” repeated Eoin. “The last three lads hanged in Mountjoy for nothing. Nothing can bring them back.”

“You’re right,” said Róisín. “Nothing can bring them back.” She turned and closed the door, slamming the bolt hard.

At the bang of the bolt, Eoin turned around to see Róisín throwing her nurse’s uniform onto Eoin’s desk chair. “What are you doing?”

“I’m celebrating,” she said, as she dropped her brassiere and slid her bloomers over her hips and onto the floor. “Take that fucker off,” she said, and the Webley and its holster landed on the floor by the window. She undid his belt, and his trousers also dropped to the floor. She yanked his drawers to his knees and pushed him onto the couch. All Eoin was wearing was his shoes, socks, shirt, tie, and waistcoat—and an enormous erection. Róisín leapt on top of him and took him inside her. “My God,” she said, throwing her arms around his shoulders and back and squeezing hard.

“A truce!” proclaimed Eoin.

“Yes,” repeated Róisín, “a fookin’ truce.” She kissed him hard on the lips as she continued to ride him. It was joyous, uninhibited sex. “Fook the lot of them,” repeated Róisín. “And their fookin’ truce, save two—us!”

It had been a long time coming, and for this selfish moment in time, nothing else in Ireland existed except Róisín O’Mahony, Eoin Kavanagh, and their passionate love for each other.

 141

“
T
hat wily old sonofabitch,” said Johnny, laughing.

“What?” asked Diane.

“He’s on his way to New York!”

“Of course he is. What’s the big deal?”

“He’s on his way to New York in 1921—not 1922—on a top-secret mission for Collins.” Johnny was arranging Eoin’s diaries in front of him on the dining room table. They held a big secret—one that Eoin would reveal only after death—but also some disturbing news about the relationship between Róisín and Eoin. “Róisín is going with him.”

“Of course, she is,” seconded Diane.

“Di, my love, this is 1921, not 2006,” said Johnny. “Single women—spinsters as they were called then—and bachelors did not travel together.”

“Spinsters,” huffed Diane indignantly. “Did it stop Róisín?”

“Of course not.”

“Ah, the lovely scandal!”

“Listen to this,” said Johnny. “From Eoin’s diary, dated July 29, 1921:”

Collins called me to the Mansion House, where there were meetings going on. He was brusque and seemed agitated. “You’re going to America,” he told me straight on. I asked him why. He said he wanted me to audit the books for the National Loan in New York. We had found discrepancies, and, as Minister for Finance, he wanted answers. I asked him why he didn’t go to New York himself. “And leave Ireland at this junction of history? Are you daft?”

He told me that John Devoy would be my contact, and I immediately smelt a rat. Devoy hates de Valera, so I knew what was going on. “So I’m to get the goods on Dev?” I said. Mick grunted and said it shouldn’t take me more than a month or so. I said, “What about Róisín?”

“What about Róisín?” he repeated
.

“She wants to go on a long holiday. I guess America would fit that bill.” Mick frowned at me. “Alright, she can go—but keep this to yourself.” I asked who’s paying, and Mick said, “The Minister for Finance.”

“This sounds like quite an adventure for such a young Irish couple,” said Diane.

“It was an adventure,” admitted Johnny. “Imagine coming out of a little town like Dublin and going to the noise and excitement of the Big Apple.” Johnny moved a few pages around before saying, “There are some terrific vignettes of New York City in 1921. Here’s the arrival:”

We’re roastin’! We arrived at the Cunard Line’s Pier 54 at the foot of 14th Street in the Greenwich Village section of the city. It was 97 degrees and I was wearing long johns! I’ve never felt heat like this before, and I don’t know how’ll we’re survive it. “It’s the fookin’ tropics,” was all Róisín could muster. Aside from the heat, it felt like home, as all the dock workers are Irish and have the map of Eire on their faces
.
We disembarked from the
Aquitania
and were met by Devoy, who is terribly old. “I am delighted,” said Mister Devoy, “to meet someone who works for Ireland’s
fighting
Chief.” Róisín looked at me and nodded. Mr. Devoy can’t resist getting a dig in at the president at the first opportunity. In fact, he won’t even refer to Dev by name; he just calls him “The Visitor,” like some at home refer to the British as “The Stranger.”

He took us to a flat on Barrow Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, which he keeps for visitors. I soon discovered that Devoy is as deaf as a haddock—and the squint of his eye told me he didn’t see very well, either. Pretty soon I was shouting at the top of my lungs at him. I told him that Mick had sent us to go over the National Loan books, that Mick wanted an accounting. Devoy told us to come down to his office at the
Gaelic American
newspaper, which he runs
.

He then handed us over to a young IRB man named Rory Holland, who is to be our escort around New York. “What can I show you?” asked Rory, who is from County Mayo
.

“How about the inside of a public house?” shot Róisín, drenched with sweat. Rory laughed. “What’s the joke?” demanded Róisín
.

“Prohibition is the joke.” Rory explained that they had just passed a law that made it illegal to drink
.

“You’re jokin’!” exclaimed Róisín
.

“Remember, they’ve got more fookin’ sour Protestants in this country,” decreed Rory, “than in the whole of fookin’ Belfast.”

“At least the Orangemen like to drink,” said Róisín
.

“American Protestants have a starched Puritan strain,” explained Rory
.

“So we’re dry?” I said
.

“Not at ‘tal,” said Rory. “We
new
Americans think on our feet. There’s a grand new invention—the speakeasy!”

He took us just down the street, to a little courtyard on the corner of Bedford and Barrow Streets, and knocked on the door. A little peephole opened, and then slammed shut. Then the door slowly opened. “Welcome to Chumley’s,” said Rory, and we spent the rest of the afternoon sippin’ cold draught beer in the lovely new, cool American invention called the speakeasy
.

“Remember in the 1970s, when I used to romance you at Chumley’s?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah,” replied Diane, “you didn’t want some of your drinking buddies at the Lion’s Head sniffin’ around me.”

“You were too good for that place. I wanted to keep your knickers pristine!”

“You were jealous.”

“That, too,” said Johnny, with a small chuckle. “Remember we used to double-date?”

“Yes,” said Diane, “with Kevin Griffin—that big handsome Marine—and his Polish girlfriend, the actress.”

“Cindy,” clarified Johnny. “Cindy had a great ass!”

“You big moron!” roared Diane, swinging a damp dishtowel in Johnny’s direction. “What were you looking at Cindy’s ass for?”

“Because that’s what men do!”

“Yeah, that’s what men do—drink beer, watch baseball, and look at women’s buttocks!”

“As American as apple pie.”

“But,” admonished Diane, “you were thinking of cherry pie.”

“By the time I got to you, the cherry was long gone!”

“Incorrigible!” shouted his wife, as she dropped the towel around his neck and swiftly torqued it into a giant hug. “Just like your grandfather,” she added, with a kiss on the top of his head.

“I wonder if they ran into Edna St. Vincent Millay?” Johnny pondered.

“Maybe,” said Diane. “She lived right across Bedford Street during that period and drank at Chumley’s.”

“She would fit right into Róisín’s world,” added Johnny. “The kind of woman who thought like Róisín.”

“So,” said Diane, “how was Eoin’s accounting work going?”

“In the inevitable direction,” said Johnny, reaching for another of Eoin’s notebooks.

We took the Ninth Avenue elevated train down to Devoy’s office at the
Gaelic American
, getting on at the Christopher Street station, right next to St. Veronica’s Church near Greenwich Street. I must admit I
love
the El, as the locals call it. You can look in windows at people and down to the docks and see the big liners coming in. And, as we got closer to the downtown area, we had a great view of the Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world. We got off at the Warren Street station, and Rory left us with Devoy
.

Mr. Devoy gave Róisín and me a desk, and he sat down with us. “Young lady,” he said to Róisín, “do you work for General Collins?”

I thought we were in a real fix, but the question didn’t faze your woman an ounce. “Yes, I do,” she replied. “I am a member of
Cuman na mBan,
and I met Mick in the GPO in 1916. Since that time I’ve been one of his agents, mostly working out of the Mater Hospital. I helped hide Dan Breen!”

The old man’s eyes brightened, and a slight blush came over his pale features, as if he were touched by Róisín’s magic. “You are a true patriot, ma’am.” With talk like that, he reminded me of an octogenarian Vinny Byrne! “So you’ll be helping Eoin with this accounting?”

“On the orders of General Collins himself!” Róisín yelled out, loud and clear so Devoy could hear her, and I felt relieved
.

Devoy brought over a small box, and it was filled with bank books. “This,” he said, “is the National Loan money—in accounts all over the United States.” He explained that they had solicited $10 million and succeeded in collecting $5 million. As far as he knew, there was now less than $4 million in the accounts
.

“Where’s the missing million?”

“The Visitor spent it last year trying to convince the Republicans and Democrats to recognize the new Irish Republic.”

“So we’re short,” I said
.

“We are, indeed,” said a resigned Devoy. “The spending of the money,” he continued, “ought to have been available for military supplies and not in the work of disorganization here.” He paused. “But the Visitor disagreed with me.”

“How about Dev’s expenses while he was here in America?” Devoy went into his office and returned with a folder of papers. He handed them to me, and I saw they were from some of the hotels that the president was so fond of. “Do you have an adding machine?” I added the pile up, and it came to $26,748.26—even more than I ever imagined—which I then announced to Devoy and Róisín
.

“Jesus Christ,” was all the old man could muster. Róisín’s mouth remained open in astonishment. I locked the bank books and the bills in the desk drawer and told Mister Devoy we had other business to do
.

“Won’t you get lost without Rory?”

“We’re Dubliners,” I said proudly. “We can find our way around
any
city!” And, with that, we left Mr. Devoy and headed over to the Woolworth Building to do a wee bit of sightseeing
.

“Twenty-six thousand dollars doesn’t seem like that much,” said Diane.

“In today’s money, it would probably be close to half a million dollars! That’s a lot of dough for hotels over an eighteen-month period. The president was living high on the hog. Remember, a subway ride in 1921 cost a nickel. And that’s why Collins was so upset. He’s sleeping in a different bed every night—as Eoin was—and de Valera is gallivanting around America like it’s
his
money.”