The Pariot GAme (13 page)

“I think they don’t, actually,” Riordan said. Doherty rested the putter against the desk and motioned toward the red leather two-cushion couch and and two high-backed chairs at the fireplace opposite. There was a coffee table between the couch and the fireplace, and there was a large spray of daisy chrysanthemums in the grate.

“I thought they were making a mistake when they moved away from here,” Riordan said. “Actually, I thought my father was making a mistake when he sold his practice and retired early. I wouldn’t go for spending any part of my life doing what he did, examining squalling brats all day, giving shots, taking phone calls in the middle of the damned night from some hysterical parent whose kid coughed once in his sleep, but he loved it. My mother loved it here too. All their friends’re around here, were then, and most of them still are. Every letter I get from my mother, she tells me how So-and-so’s thinking about moving out there to join them, and as soon as this one gets her husband’s estate settled, she’s coming out. And then there’s Mister Whoever-the-hell-it-is, who’s moving out as soon as his wife’s long illness is finally over. But they never do, I guess.

“Funny, I can’t even remember half of those people,” Riordan said. “Well-to-do insurance men and brokers and their wives who puttered around in real estate and had Tuesday afternoon luncheons on each other’s sunporches, getting silly on a small glass of white wine and eating tomatoes stuffed with chicken salad. They bored me when they came to visit my parents, and their kids bored me when I got dragged along to visit with my parents. But it was their life, and they did love it. I don’t care how much they save on oil in Sun City or Roy Rogers Villa Estates or whatever the
hell they call that damned thing out in Arizona, they are
lonely
.

“That’s what I think, anyway. They play golf every day, and there’s a pool that all the neighbors share, but all the neighbors are old. Everybody in that town is old. My parents aren’t old. Not like that. Not young, certainly, but not old either. That’s why the people’re in that town. They’re old. They spend their nights having one cocktail on each other’s terraces and talking about their pension plans and what’s going to happen with Social Security.

“My mother writes to me every week. I write to them every week, and even though there’s a lot of stuff I can’t tell them—and a lot more I wouldn’t tell them if I could, because they would be packing for the next plane east, come and save their darling boy—that still leaves me with more to write about’n she’s got. The only fun any of them seem to have out there is when somebody comes to visit with grandchildren, and then I gather the poor little kids get no peace at all. God, must be awful, paraded around like prize pigs to every goddamned meeting place in town. ‘And these are our grandchildren. Tom and Edith, meet young David, little Priscilla, and this is the youngest, Orville. Confidentially, Edith, they haven’t said anything to us yet, but we think Orville’s going to have a little brother, Wilbur, around Christmas.’ Jesus.”

Doherty was laughing as they sat down. “Getting a little heat from June about settling down and starting a family, Pete?”

“I have that impression,” Riordan said. “Although if what I’m getting is a
little
heat, God pity the poor stokers in the Pittsburgh steel mills.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Doherty said.

“Ahh,” Riordan said, “that’s my sisters’ department. Joansie and Anne grew up in organdy frocks and spent their summers on the Irish Riviera, wearing little white slacks with strawberries on them and having everybody simper at them.
Doctor Will’s little daughters. Both of them married guys who’re just perfect, talk with their teeth clenched and flail Volvos around the charming lanes of the better areas of New Jersey. ‘Take the eight-forty into the city, you know,’ because being
partners
and all, and doing so well, they don’t have to be at the office at any special hour. ‘Let’s drop the kids off in Arizona with June and Will for our holidays,’ while the couples jet off by themselves for a couple weeks à deux in Honolulu. Really zoomy people.”

“You do that lockjaw pretty well, Pete,” Doherty said.

“I should, goddammit,” Riordan said. “I grew up in this tent cocoon for privileged caterpillars, didn’t I? The fact that I hated getting my suburban credentials doesn’t change the fact that they’re genuine. I can’t hack that stuff, Paul. I wouldn’t be any good at it, and I know it. Every man’s got his own deficiencies, and that’s another one of mine. I hate flying and I’d be a lousy family man.”

Mrs. Herlihy brought the tea in on a tray. “That isn’t so, Peter,” she said. “When you were senior altar boy, growing up, you were always very kind and helpful to the new boys. I heard many people remark on it, what a fine husband and father you were being brought up to be.”

“Oh, nuts, Mrs. Herlihy,” Riordan said, “begging your pardon and all. Brought up to be? Sure. Be any good at it now? Uh-uh. Man does well what he does best. Besides, I waited too long.”

“It’s never too late to start,” she said, serving the tea on the coffee table. She left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“You’re in better shape today,” Doherty said, drinking tea.

“Compared to the shape I was in yesterday,” Riordan said, “sure. Compared to the shape of any respectable citizen of the community: mediocre but showing signs of improvement. One more good night’s sleep and I’ll be nearly fit for human society.”

“What have you got?” Doherty said.

“Not sure,” Riordan said. “You got anything?”

“Nope,” Doherty said. “I was afraid I’d screw everything up if I marched in and started hacking around with this thing without more information. You know your sisters after all these years, and I know my brother just as well, for just about the same reasons. I don’t like my brother as well as I like your sisters. Your sisters may be stuffy, but they’re nice and they haven’t kept you in one dire emergency after another since the three of you got out of school. My brother didn’t exactly get out of school—he was thrown out on his big fat arse, and he’s nothing but a wise guy. I know it, and I most emphatically do not like it, but I know him and I know enough not to mess around in anything that involves him without having every available fact at my disposal.”

“Yeah?” Riordan said. “Well, I know my sisters, and stuffy is far too mild for them. They turned on the afterburners of their life-styles while they were still at Newton College of the Sacred Heart, and they left stuffy far behind. They hit boring ten or fifteen years ago, and they’re still accelerating. Or is it decelerating. Probably. God knows what they’ll be ten years from now. Brain-dead, probably. Still marching around in those goddamned clothes from Talbots but you slap an EEG on their skulls and you’ll get a wave as flat as a shirt cardboard. At least your brother’s alive. He may be a holy terror, and he may drive you nuts, but by God, you have to admit that old Digger’s never dull. I like him much better’n I like that pair.”

“All right then,” Doherty said, “keeping in mind that it’s much easier to like Jerry if your interest is professional and you’re merely trying to put him in jail, instead of your interest being familial and trying to keep him out of jail, or the morgue—which is much harder—what’ve you got?”

“I feel like I’m reciting the answers for Confirmation,” Riordan said.

“Oh, shut up,” Doherty said.

“Saw Ken Walker at the prison after I left you,” Riordan said. “We were right on the peg about Magro. Walker didn’t have enough information. Gave him what I had. Good guy, Walker. Saw the light immediately.”

“Good,” Doherty said. “Magro’s not getting out, then. Means we can relax. Glad I didn’t do anything. Always trust your instincts, Pete, always trust your instincts. Its your guardian angel, giving you a little nudge in the right direction.”

“Always have, Paul,” Riordan said, “always have. Be dead now, I didn’t. Trouble is, guardian angel works a straight forty-hour week. Days, only. No nights, weekends or national holidays, and three full weeks off with pay. Those angels’ve got a union, I think. Doesn’t do a bit of harm, do a little of your own looking out at the same time while you’re waiting for him to give you your messages. Walker can’t stop Magro from getting out. He agrees with me—I didn’t see any need to bring your name into it—but he can’t knock it down all by himself.”

“Well, for the luvva Mike,” Doherty said, “he’s the damned warden, isn’t he? Doesn’t he have last say on who stays in and who gets out?”

“Used to,” Riordan said. “That was before the great enlightenment. Remember all those seminars you gave me, when you still hadn’t given up hope of making me into a civilized human being and maybe even doing a little gentle recruiting for Holy Mother Church? The Great Enlightenment and all? Well, they had a great enlightenment in this Commonwealth a few years back, and some of it seeped into the corrections system. If Walker wants to keep a guy in now, he has to convince a couple of airheads that the fellow is Jack the Ripper, at least. Told me he’s got trouble doing that.”

“So,” Doherty said, “what’s he going to do? Sit back, throw
up his hands, and let him loose to pull the trigger on my brother? I’m a celibate, Peter. I’m a celibate on purpose. I’ve got my flock. It’s diminishing rapidly and it’s getting old before my eyes, but it is my flock and I have to take care of it. I can’t raise my brother’s family for him, after he gets himself plugged.”

“Gee,” Riordan said, “aren’t you the guy that was peddling the joys of family life to me a few minutes ago?”

“Easy, Peter,” Doherty said. “There’s a lot of difference between a man your age, your condition, starting a family, and a man my age, my condition, picking up where Digger Doherty never really tried to begin. I’m not saying his kids are bad, because they’re not. Not yet, anyway. Not too bad. But Patricia’s almost fourteen now, and a beautiful young woman. Even a celibate knows what that means, especially if the celibate’s heard a few confessions.

“The boys’re well into their late adolescence,” Doherty said, “and they never had a great deal of discipline from their father. Hell, he never had much discipline for himself, let alone any left over for them. I’m worried about the middle boy, Andrew. He’s hanging around on the street corners late at night, drinking beer and acting tough with a bunch of punks who drink beer and act tough and dammit, are tough. Andrew thinks his father’s a real hero, because he plays the angles and he did time in prison, and that is not an encouraging sign to me. I’ll do all I can for that family, but a lot of what needs to be done is undoing what Jerry did wrong or didn’t bother to do at all. He’s got a couple of real little roughneck kids coming along there, and quite honestly, I wouldn’t know where to begin shaping them up.”

“How about military school,” Riordan said. “That’s what Doctor Will always threatened me with, when it looked like I might have some ideas about getting off the reservation.”

“Yeah,” Doherty said, “that’s a good one. Will’s idea of you
getting off the reservation was when you did a jackrabbit start as the light turned green. Digger’s idea of his kids getting off the reservation is when they steal something he can’t sell; so far, I guess, they haven’t brought any of their business to him, if they have any to do. Stoning school buses with black kids in them, though—that’s all right. Drinking underage? Boys will be boys. Skipping school? Jerry didn’t like school much himself. It’s okay to get mouthy with the cops, because Jerry knows all the cops’re jerks and there’s no need treating them with any sort of courtesy because that only encourages them to push you around. Little shoplifting here and there? Perfectly okay—hey, what the hell, goddamned merchants’re ripping everybody else off, do them good to get a taste of their own medicine for a change. Oh, Jerry’s bringing those kids up in the right way, Pete. They’ll be street-smart if he’s got anything to say about it. He makes Fagin look like Father Flanagan. You think I want that job? Raising the James Boys from scratch? Far from it. As a senior altar boy of mine once said: ‘I’d rather pour horse liniment in my jockstrap.’ ”

“Sorry I mentioned it,” Riordan said.

“You should be,” Doherty said.

Riordan leaned forward. “Paul,” he said, “mentor of my youth and builder of my character …”

“See?” Doherty said. “That just goes to prove it. You’re blaming me for the disgraceful scoundrel you turned out to be, and you were a fairly promising candidate from a respectable family. Can you imagine how I’d screw up the job of trying to keep those outlaws out of the penitentiary? I mean it, Pete. I don’t want that damned job. I had it for a while when he was in the slammer the last time, and I don’t want it again.”

“Okay, okay,” Riordan said, settling back. “Anyway, Walker’s going to do something that he figures’ll screw up the do-gooders that want to let every contrite assassin loose in the
street, and that should help keep Magro right where he is for a few more years.”

“Let’s hear about it,” Doherty said, “what exactly is he going to do? Just to make me feel better.”

“Paul, Paul,” Riordan said, “you’re asking too much of me now. Do you think if Ken Walker or anybody else asked me what you said to me in private, I would tell? Is that really what you think?”

“Oh oh,” Doherty said, “now I think I’m the one that’s in trouble.”

Riordan sighed. “You certainly are, Paul. I thought we had it all straight, that there’s a seal of the confessional in my line of work too.”

“All right,” Doherty said. “More tea, Agent Riordan?”

“Is there any chance,” Riordan said, “that we could maybe persuade Mrs. Herlihy to let us have a couple beers, if we ask politely? I assume you still stock that Amstel.”

“It isn’t noon yet, Pete,” Doherty said.

“When I want the time, Paul,” Riordan said, “I will ask for the time.”

“Just a minute,” Doherty said. He went over to the desk and pressed the intercom button. He asked Mrs. Herlihy to serve two bottles of Amstel.

“Airs and graces,” Riordan said. “Intercom and all, I see. Go with being a bishop?”

“Goes with having a lame housekeeper,” Doherty said, returning to the couch. “I hate it myself.”