Headwind

FORTY-ONE

The sun was hanging low in the western sky when Jay Reinhart emerged from Seamus Dunham’s building with the others close behind. He forced himself to be aware of the beauty before him: the diffused red hues of the angled sunlight igniting the glow of reddish masonry, firing the reflective street signs, and forcing the hapless westbound drivers to navigate with hands held tenuously before their eyes. The city was shifting from the lethargy of a lazy afternoon to the energy of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, its people charging about to various purposes with an infectious optimism that seemed wholly undampered by the inherent knowledge that not every human circumstance within Dublin’s fair city was positive. There was to be a grand and lengthy fireworks display after dark at the east end of the city where the River Liffey empties into the bay, and the traffic in the heart of Dublin was already building.

Jay loved sunsets, but there was a limit to what one could enjoy when the thunderheads of circumstance loomed large on the horizon. Yet the ruddy resonance of a city at sunset somehow demanded appreciation, even if it was an item of faith to be stored and valued later in the hoped-for absence of challenge and peril.

The President turned down Garrity’s invitation to watch the fireworks, electing to return to the airport hotel to order a sandwich through room service, while a relieved Matt Ward feigned delight in doing the same thing as he continued his vigil over the man.

Seamus Dunham had a wife and child to attend to, which left Sherry and Jay in the effusively resilient hands of Michael Garrity, for whom the word “no” apparently held little meaning.

“Nonsense!” he had replied heartily when Jay tried to beg off what was increasingly sounding like an impending pub crawl. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow, there’s a local law requiring me to show you some of Dublin, and I shan’t be cited for contempt of tourism.”

“Really, Michael, I appreciate it but…”

“I’ll hear no objections,” he roared, “and that goes for you, too, young lady!” he said, nodding to Sherry.

The protests were obviously in vain, so they had reluctantly agreed to a quick swing around the city, with a quick bite at one of Michael’s favorite watering holes.

But that was all, Jay had cautioned. Neither of them was in a celebratory mood.

Michael Garrity’s car proved to be a trial in itself. The car was an expensive model, but too small for Jay to be comfortable in front or back, so he tried to be gallant and take the rear seat. But he ended up sitting sideways, his legs too long to fit in the miniature space behind the front seat, even when Sherry moved the front passenger seat fully forward.

She insisted on switching at their first stop and he agreed, reluctantly. Michael stopped the car and Sherry relocated, catching Jay’s appreciative eyes before he slid into the front seat. Michael accelerated away again with the verve of a Mario Andretti blowing the pace car off the track.

“Do you folks always drive like this?” Jay managed after a close encounter with a passing truck had raised his heart rate.

“Like what, Jay?” Michael asked with complete innocence, prompting Jay to drop the subject.

The Four Courts was a required stop on any tour, though the front doors were closed. “You’ll be seeing enough of it tomorrow,” Michael intoned, as if the prospect was joyous instead of ominous. He catapulted the car into motion again for a high-speed pass at Trinity College, Dublin Castle, and O’Connell Street, “named for the patriot, not our bloody judge,” he said, negotiating another turn at several times the force of gravity, by Jay’s calculation.

“Now, see that bronze statue there?” he asked, wagging an index finger a dangerous distance out of the driver’s window as he whizzed past the oversized figure of a comely mermaid sans clothing, lying blissfully in a cascading fountain.

“Most Dubliners won’t show visitors the touristy sights like this, but I think they’re a part of our culture. That’s supposed to be the goddess of the Liffey, Dublin’s central river, or somesuch nonsense. I can never remember the full story. We just call her the ‘Floozy in the Jacuzzi.’ ”

He reversed course with the subtlety of a fighter pilot pulling 7 G’s and shot south toward the center of the city again, diverting to the right along the south bank of the river and rocketing past a railway station with his arm and index finger once again waving in the breeze.

“That would be more or less a Mecca for us Dubliners,” he said, pointing to the Guinness brewery. “They don’t give tours of the main brewery anymore,” he said sadly, “but they’ll still give you a taste for free at their little store. And you know, it really does taste better right near the gates of the place than anywhere else on earth.”

“I’ve heard that,” Jay managed, holding onto the armrest with a death grip as he looked back to see Sherry doing the same, her eyes one dimension wider than normal.

“Well, it’s true. I’ve had that elixir just about everywhere, and I swear you could navigate back to Dublin by following the trail of the ever-sweeter pints.”

Michael turned for a moment to make sure they’d been listening.

“Is it true, Michael,” Jay asked in response, “that they used to run ads alleging Guinness was as good as a medicine?”

Michael turned to grin at him. “What do you mean ‘alleging,’ my boy? It is good for you. Doctors here in Ireland even prescribe it for lactating mothers.”

“What,” Sherry laughed, “feed your newborn a pint a day?”

“No, no, Sherry. Feed yourself a pint a day and you’ll give better milk.”

“Only in Ireland,” she laughed.

They zoomed into a garage west of the Temple Bar district and Jay unfolded himself from the front and helped Sherry from the back before following Michael to a pub called the Brazer Head, across the Liffey from the Four Courts. Smoky, loud, and small inside, the pub was filled with members of the legal profession. Michael turned before pushing open the door and proclaimed it one of the oldest pubs in Dublin and the alternate “library” for Dublin’s barristers. “This old establishment has been plying its trade since the seventeenth century,” he said.

“Library?”

“Oh, I didn’t mention the Library before, did I? Our office at the Four Courts is really the main law library. I’ll show you tomorrow. It’s very historic. Only barristers are allowed inside, and you can stand outside and look in, watching us trying to keep our wigs on as the solicitors call for us at the front desk.”

They found a small table toward the back, and Michael ordered a round of Guinness Stout, proclaiming it the national drink as the three pints arrived bearing perfect heads of tan foam.

“Now, we’ll have an agreement, we will, if you don’t mind. No talk of tomorrow.”

“Fine with me,” Jay said, letting himself almost relax. His eyes drank in Sherry’s soft smile across the table as she nodded in mutual assent.

“You really love this town, don’t you, Michael?” Sherry said, having to repeat herself over the din in the pub.

“I do indeed, especially since the world has changed so much here. Less than fifteen years ago, we were the same poor little country of fact and fable, stout of heart and empty of pocket until the dot-coms of the world found us. Now… well, look around you. These days we call ourselves the Celtic Tiger. Actually, we say the Celtic Tiger has arrived. Prosperity’s flowing in, and we’re all pinching ourselves and getting used to the idea of an Ireland that’s economically robust. Imagine that! We’ve actually got people immigrating to Ireland if you can believe it!”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” she said.

“Jay, you told me some of your people are Irish,” Michael said. “What do you think of us so far?”

Jay smiled at their host. “I haven’t had a lot of time to evaluate what I think, Michael, but…”

“But… if you weren’t so worried about John Harris, you’d like us a lot, and you’ll like us better if we let your client go, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Fair enough.” He raised his glass of stout. “Slainte!”

Jay and Sherry both echoed the word and the gesture as Jay watched Michael down half the pint in one easy motion.

“I was told you didn’t drink, Michael,” Jay said, watching Michael’s eyebrows flutter up in surprise before he could extricate his mouth from the glass.

“What? Who on earth told you such a scandalous lie?” he asked, smiling skeptically.

“The solicitor in London who recommended you. Geoffrey Wallace.”

“Oh, Wallace! That was the meeting in Edinburgh. I don’t drink much, Jay, but that was just a windup.”

“A joke?”

“Yes. The bloody Brit was going on about how all Irishmen were drunkards, which is scandalously wrong, and so I thought I’d disappoint him. Apparently it worked.”

“Michael!” someone called across the pub, and Michael Garrity raised his hand and waved heartily, then motioned whoever it was to come over.

“This is great,” Michael said, as the individual began weaving through tables to comply. “This fellow’s Byrne McHenry, and probably the best comedian in Ireland, and the best impressionist. He does a Ronald Reagan that would seriously confuse Nancy.”

McHenry arrived at the table and pumped Michael’s hand as he tossed a few insults at the barrister, who introduced him to Jay and Sherry in turn.

“So, are y’all from Texas?” McHenry said in a surprisingly good George Bush imitation.

“How have you been, Byrne?” Michael asked.

They talked on a personal basis for a few minutes before McHenry looked at his watch. “I’ve got a show in an hour, folks, out at Jury’s, so I’d better go. Nice to meet you.”

He was replaced at tableside by two other barristers coming over to greet Garrity, and a waitress bringing sandwiches and another round of stout.

Jay munched on his sandwich and nursed the second pint as he drifted away from the intense conversation Sherry and Michael were having over Celtic art. The details of the old pub’s interior and the stories of its customers were far more interesting, he thought. The woodwork had probably been in place since the mid-nineteenth century, since there were tell-tale characteristics in the way the cornices had been joined and the care with which the crown molding had been mitered.

The bar itself was not as elaborate or ornate as many he’d seen in the eastern U.S. or Britain, but it had a distinctive character about it, a pride of workmanship, that shone through what had to have been over a century and a half of continuous use.

Jay smiled at the memory of seeing an operating harness shop nearby when they entered. In the back, arrayed on a workbench, had been the same tools of the trade and raw leather that once kept the carriages of Dublin powered and the horses harnessed.

Jay realized he might have heard his name spoken above the din.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you still with us, Jay?” Michael asked, laughing.

Jay smiled and nodded as he slowly began pushing back from the table. “Just thinking, Michael, and worrying that we need to get back to the hotel.”

“Ah, you’ll miss the show,” Michael protested. “And the fireworks are truly spectacular. Every year they get more impressive, though the crowd’s a bit of a pain. Really, lad, the evening’s young.”

“But I’m not, anymore,” Jay said with a smile as he got to his feet, appreciative of the fact that Michael was following without further protest. “I have a lot to do, Michael, and I’m still time-zone challenged.”

“Oh! Of course. I should have thought of that. I apologize.” He scooped up the bill and motioned for the waitress as they headed for the door.

Michael dropped Jay and Sherry at the front door of the hotel forty-five minutes later and the two of them stood in amusement watching the rotund barrister careen off into the night.

“He’s a good fellow,” Jay said.

“You done good finding him, counselor,” Sherry confirmed. “What time did he say to meet him in the morning?”

“Half nine, which I think means nine-thirty, at the Four Courts.”

She laughed. “I appreciate, perhaps more than you know, the fact that you refused Michael’s offer to come pick us up in the morning.”

Jay stopped chuckling long enough to pause at the front desk to ask if anything had been left for him.

The clerk handed over a sealed manila envelope.

“What’s that, Jay?” Sherry asked.

“That,” he replied, scrutinizing the address label, “is Stuart Campbell’s dub of the videotape CIA operative Barry Reynolds is supposed to have made.”

“How do we play it?”

“I rented a VCR from the hotel earlier today and had them send it to my room. You… want to see this?” he asked as he punched the elevator call button.

She nodded.

“If you don’t mind being in my room, that is.”

The elevator opened and Sherry walked in and turned with the most provocative over-the-shoulder look she could manage, using a poor excuse for a German accent. “So, you sink we need a chaperone, Herr Reinhart?”

“Ah, no…I mean…”

“Weren’t your intentions honorable after all?” she teased.

“My intentions?”

“Sure. Said the fly to the spider, what, exactly, do you mean, ‘I’d like to have you for dinner’?”

An embarrassed grin suddenly took over Jay’s face, causing him to blush slightly in the time it had taken to catch on.

“Oh. OH! No, I mean…”

She smiled. “It’s okay, Jay, I’m just joking with you. I’m not trying to get frisky.”

He shook his head in confusion, the possibilities belatedly cascading into his head. “This wasn’t a ploy to get you in bed, Sherry.”

“Darn,” she said with a grin, stopping him cold.

“What?” he managed, again thrown off balance.

“Jay, hello? I’m really just joking around here, not that I… I mean, not that I wouldn’t be…” Suddenly Sherry began blushing, too.

“Okay,” he said, instantly angry with himself for being unable to think of anything smarter to say as the elevator doors opened on the third floor and they moved into the corridor.

“We’re quite a pair, huh?” she said with a laugh as they walked toward his door. “I doubt the Army Signal Corps could unsnarl the hurricane of mixed signals we just gave each other.”

“You’re right,” he chuckled, as he unlocked his door and held it open for her.

Instead she turned to him. “Okay. Let’s restart.” She reached out and took his hand and shook it. “Hi there, handsome legal man. I’m Sherry, and I’d like to go into your room and sit at a discreet distance from you and watch this very businesslike videotape, then leave for my own room before anything familiar or amorous gets started, without reference to whether it would… or not.”

Jay looked in her eyes and smiled. “In broader terms, I think you just encapsulated it perfectly.”