Adrian McKinty - The Bloomsday Dead

Scotchy showed us to the liquor cabinet and started making phone calls. By twelve, there must have been forty people there, but only about a quarter of them girls. At least the booze was good. Scotchy had boosted a huge case of single malts from the distributor. Twelve-year-old Bowmore, seventeen-year-old Talisker, and an Islay laid down in the year of my birth.

Just after midnight, Sunshine showed up. A saturnine, balding Steve Buscemi type who was Darkey White’s number two. I’d met him once before, when he’d interviewed me about working for Darkey. Even more than Scotchy’s, it was Sunshine’s call whether I got the job or not, so I made a point of talking to him about movies old and new. Sunshine liked me and introduced me to Big Bob Moran and his brother David. Bob was already drunk and complaining about the Dominicans who were invading his neighborhood in Inwood. He was going to move back out to Long Island, he said. David Moran was a more complicated character, who worked directly for Mr. Duffy, the reputed head of the entire Irish mob in New York City. David and Sunshine had a lot in common: they’d both gone to NYU, were both thinkers. Both white-collar types, unlike me and Scotchy on the bloody coal face.

“Sunshine says you’ll be joining him very shortly,” David Moran said.

“He hasn’t told me yet, at least not formally.”

“Sunshine has heard great things about you; you ran a couple of rackets when you were a teenager in Belfast and you were even in the army for a while. Remember, we’re all one big family here,” he said. He patted me on the cheek.

Scotchy noticed Bob, David, and Sunshine for the first time and came running over. He shook hands and dragged them outside to see his new car.

Andy found me and took me to one side.

“Listen, Michael, let me tell you who’s just arrived,” he said in hushed tones.

“Is it the pope? Madonna?” I said breathlessly.

“Bridget Callaghan,” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“Pat’s wee girl, the youngest. She’s just back from university. She’s dropped out, so don’t say anything about that, it would upset her, ok?”

I nodded. But there was something else. I could read Andy like a book.

“What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“Tell me.”

Andy sighed.

“Darkey’s very fond of her, she’s very beautiful. Darkey treats her like a daughter. He told me specifically he wants me to look after her now she’s back in New York, so she doesn’t get in any trouble. Now, Michael, that means you, too, I don’t want you trying to go off with her, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Promise me,” Andy said.

“Jesus, I promise,” I said.

“Ok, let’s go meet them, she’s got a couple of wee friends with her, I think.”

“And can I ask them out?”

“’Course.”

We met Bridget.

She had dyed blond hair and freckles. It might be that she was beautiful, but I couldn’t get a good look at her under the party lights. She offered her hand. I shook it.

“Michael Forsythe,” I said.

“Andy told me you were here. I’m Bridget. He says you’ll be working for him,” Bridget said in a bubbly New York accent.

“Yeah, right, I’ll be working for Andy,” I said sarcastically.

“Listen, it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not stopping, the last place on earth I’d want to be on a Saturday night is a party at Scotchy’s house.”

“I can see why,” I said.

There was a long awkward pause during which I identified her perfume as something refined from citrus zest.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said and turned to find her friends. I watched her bum sashay through the party. She gave Andy a friendly kiss on the cheek. Much to my surprise, I found that I was jealous. I quickly barged through the crowd and stood beside her.

“You don’t have to go yet,” I said to her.

“I do, I have to find my friends,” she muttered.

“Yeah, Michael won’t keep you,” Andy said.

“Well, Andy won’t keep you, he has to get back to listening to the Carpenters,” I attempted weakly.

“Being a wetback, Michael has to go home early and hide from the INS,” Andy said, giving me the skunk eye.

“At least I don’t have zero bar presence,” I said.

“At least I don’t smoke,” Andy replied.

“At least I’m old enough to smoke.”

“I’m the same age as you,” Andy said.

“Why don’t you two boys just kiss and make up,” Bridget mocked.

Andy and I were put in our place, and we both laughed. Bridget was quick as well as cute, and I was now officially captivated. I tapped Andy on the back five times, which meant that all I wanted was five minutes alone with her. He gave me a suspicious look but went off to refill his drink.

“You’re a student,” I asked her when we were alone “I was a student. I left after two semesters.”

“Where were you at?”

“University of Oregon.”

“Beautiful place, I hear.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Doing?”

“Celtic studies.”

“Interesting stuff?”

“Yes.”

“You enjoyed all those trees?”

“Uh-huh.”

Her one word answers were a clue things weren’t going well. I stopped the patter and looked at her.

“Ok, Bridget, so you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re pissed off because you can’t believe you’re at this party with a bunch of drunken hoods, and that might have appealed to you once but for the last half a year you’ve seen the wider, more cosmopolitan world, and now it’s a bit too Return of the Native and you’re thinking how long do I have to talk to this imbecile before I can get my friends to go the fuck home. Perceptive, huh?”

She smiled.

“Perceptive,” she agreed.

“If it’s not a sore topic, why did you drop out?”

“Well, you were wrong about one thing, I’m not smart. I do hate it here, but I’m not clever enough to get away from here. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get away from here. From all this. Not now. I didn’t drop out, I flunked out,” she said.

“You don’t seem like a dummy to me,” I told her.

“Thank you, Michael,” she said and smiled so sweetly it nearly broke my heart, and things could have gone swimmingly after that had not Scotchy and Andy got into an argument about something and began screaming at each other. Scotchy and Andy? It seemed unlikely, but there it was. Sunshine and Big Bob were holding back Andy; Mikey Price and David Moran were holding on to Scotchy.

I found Fergal.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“Andy’s had a bit too much to drink, he says Scotchy’s been robbing him blind,” Fergal explained. “Scotchy says he’s going to kick his fuck in.”

“Jesus.”

“Sunshine won’t let them come to blows, but the problem is Andy’s right, Scotchy probably has been robbing him blind,” Fergal continued.

“That Scotchy seems like a nasty wee shite,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m going to shoot him in the kneecaps,” Scotchy was yelling.

“Aye, resort to fucking firearms, cowardly fucking shite,” Andy said.

“That’s enough, for God’s sake, you stupid fucks,” Sunshine said, very atypically losing his cool. Andy and Scotchy stared at him, chastened.

Sunshine whispered something to Scotchy. He shook his head and stormed off.

The party continued for about five minutes, but suddenly the music stopped and everyone turned around to look at Scotchy, who was standing on top of his massive stereo speakers.

“Everybody shut up,” Scotchy yelled.

In a second the whole place was as quiet as a funeral parlor.

“Wee Andy and I have had a disagreement about something and he called me a coward. Now, I’ve thought about it and I cannot let it lie. If there’s one thing I can’t stand for, it’s being publicly called a yellow bastard. I’ll take anything else but not fucking that.”