The Bloomsday Dead

2: SIREN (NEW YORK-JUNE 15, 4:00 P. M.)

The inquiries of the Peruvian police would take days. I didn’t have days. My cover was blown. I was screwed if I stayed in this country. I ran them a story that the two characters from Colombia had come into my room with guns and started asking all sorts of questions about the Japanese ambassador, Hector arrived, pushed one out the window and shot the other while taking a mortal wound himself.

The story would work if they wanted it to work. They had uncovered an assassination plot and a local boy was the hero.

I told them I was registered under the United States Witness Protection Program and now I had to fly the coop on the first flight out. They weren’t down with that at all. But they also didn’t want to mess with the FBI.

A signed statement, a videotaped statement, a fake contact address later, and I was all set to go.

It was too late to get a reservation now, but I didn’t need to beg the airlines. I had a perfectly good ticket on the flight to New York. Bridget’s ticket. And from New York I could go anywhere in the world.

It wasn’t exactly the safest thing to do, but it was convenient.

The downside was obvious. Almost certainly she’d find out about the Lima fuckup and she’d quickly organize someone to meet my plane at JFK. They’d have my photo and maybe a threatening look or two but it wouldn’t matter a tuppeny shite because in New York I’d have the good old federales rendezvous with me and I’d disappear once again into the black hole of the WPP. Aye, and this time I’d go the full De Niro. Gain twenty pounds, dye my hair, move to bloody China.

I checked in, boarded the plane, found my seat, relaxed. The movie they were playing was O Brother, Where Art Thou? which I’d already seen, so, there was nothing else for it but to tilt my chair back as far as it would go and try to get in an hour or two of kip. But even in first class that was practically impossible. You don’t come down from a gun battle just like that. I read Peruvian Golfer until it was chow time. A pretty stewardess gave me a dozen options and I picked the eggs and she brought me scrambled ones that tasted almost like eggs. We started chatting and one thing led to another and she gave me her phone number in the Bronx and if it had been Manhattan I might have kept it.

We flew over Panama, the western edge of Cuba, the land of Johnny Reb, and touched down at JFK a few minutes early. As soon as the wheels squealed I called up Dan Connolly in the FBI. He wasn’t at his desk, so I dialed his cell phone and left a message.

“Dan, it’s Michael F., I’m in the shit again. I know it’s a chore but I’m going to need someone to meet me at International Arrivals of the British Airways terminal in JFK. I just touched down. I’ll wait as long as it takes. You can reach me on the cell.”

I hung up, found my U.S. passport, went through immigration, and forgot totally about the coca leaves in my shoulder bag. I panicked that customs was going to pull me over, but it didn’t, and I walked into the arrivals hall. Waited.

Tens of thousands of people. New York City just out through the doors. But there was no way I was leaving the airport without my escort from the feds.

Bridget, if she was smart, would have a couple of guys on me right now. Not that they could do anything in here. She had wasted her chance again. And she nearly had me going there with that cock-and-bull story about the kid. For the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was impossible that Bridget could have an eleven-year-old child. I would have heard, somebody would have told me. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I’d seen her in court when I’d been accusing Darkey’s confederates. She wasn’t in the dock, but I’d spotted her in the public gallery in that black suit of hers, giving me the evil eye. No way she’d just given birth. And besides, Darkey didn’t want kids. He told me and Sunshine that he’d adopt a hardworking Asian boy when he was in his sixties. It was a joke, but I didn’t see Bridget defying him by not taking her birth-control pills.

No way.

I was hungry and bored. I sauntered over to Hudson News and bought the Times, Daily News, and Post, joined the line of carbohy-drate lovers at Au Bon Pain. I ordered a big coffee, cheese Danish, sat down, and enjoyed reading the press in English for a change.

Did the Tuesday crossword and scoped the crowd to see if I could spy out Bridget’s men. But the place was far too hectic. Maybe she’d be on the ball, maybe not, it didn’t matter.

Au Bon Pain was getting crowded and a German couple with a baby annexed the free seats at my table. I got up and looked for another hangout.

At the end of the terminal sat one of those fake pubs which seemed as good a location as any for a long wait. I walked to the City Arms, ordered a Sam Adams. My cell phone rang when I’d drunk my beer and was thinking of popping for another.

“Where are you now, Forsythe?” Dan asked.

“No hello?”

“Where are you?”

“JFK.”

“What are you doing there? You can be acquired at JFK,” Dan said.

“Acquired? Acquired? You wanna watch it, mate. You’re beginning to sound like the FBI manual.”

“Shanghaied, kidnapped, lifted, whatever you want. You were never supposed to come back to New York,” Dan insisted.

I hadn’t been to the city in seven years, not since our days in the FBI field office in Queens.

“I had a ticket, it was first class, seemed a shame not to use it. Besides, I had to get out of Lima. Bridget, God rest her big bum, sent two Colombian assassins to blow my brains out.”

“I read about it on the wire. You handled it in your usual lowkey way, didn’t you? You know the story is on CNN.”

“Is it? Well, it can’t be helped,” I said cheerfully.

Dan muttered some inaudible obscenity that involved my mother.

“Michael, like I say, we have talked about New York. You’re not supposed to come here, ever.”

“As if they are going to acquire me in the middle of the most heavily policed airport in the Western Hemisphere. Get real. This isn’t Al Qaeda, these guys need an exit strategy after a hit. Wouldn’t get twenty feet in here.”

“Well, I’m glad you seem ok about it. I’m not. Where exactly are you?”

“I’m in the City Arms in the BA terminal.”

“Can you hang tight for about half an hour? I’ll have a couple of guys come over there and meet you. I can’t get down there in person at the moment. But I’ll see you later today.”

“Ok, do I know the guys?”

“You don’t. Uhm, let me see, ok. They’ll ask you if you think the Jets have a chance next year, to which you’ll reply-”

“I don’t want to talk about the Jets,” I interrupted. “Ask me a baseball question. I can do baseball.”

“You don’t need to know the sport, Michael, you just have to say what I tell you to say.”

“I don’t want to do a question about the goddamn New York Jets. I want to do a baseball question. I know baseball,” I protested.

“Jesus. It doesn’t matter what the sport is.”

“Of course it does, I’m not going to walk up to someone and say ‘So who do you like in the curling world championships? They say the ice is fast this year.’ Right bloody giveaway that would be.”

Dan laughed and then sighed.

“You know, Michael, sometimes I wish you weren’t so good at staying alive. Sometimes, I wish…”

“Better leave that thought unsaid. Joe Namath, he plays for the Jets, right?”

“Thirty years ago.”

“Ok, forget him. They can ask me what I think about the dodgy Yankees pitching rotation. And I’ll say: ‘I don’t think it stacks up against the Sox,’ how about that?”

“Fine, whatever you like. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks, Dan.”

“All right, hang tight. Sending some people to pull you out of yet another jam.”

“You love me really, I can tell,” I said.

I closed the phone, grinned. What Dan didn’t realize was that if you’ve been fighting for your life a few hours earlier you can afford to be a bit bloody glib.

I got some lunch, a heretical Irish stew that contained peas and sweet corn.

Went to the bog, washed my face, ordered a Bloody Mary, sat with my back to the wall, decided to check out the señoritas. New York was a paradise after four months in Lima. Not that the Peruvian girls weren’t attractive but there it was mere variations on a theme whereas here it was the choral symphony. Coeds, redheads, blondes, business-women, stewardesses, cops, women soldiers, and on the far side of the bar two skanks straight out of a Snoop Dogg video trying to tease a Hasidic man by kissing in front of him. The man, me, and about fifty-two hundred other people trying not to look. Blond hair, long legs, white stilettos, pretty faces. Russian. Touching each other on the ass and toying with each other’s hair. You didn’t get that in Lima either.

“New York City,” I said with appreciation.

Next to the Hasid a goofy-looking character seemed to spot me. He gave a half wave, walked over quickly, and plonked himself down in the seat directly in front of me. It panicked me for a second. Sort of thing I’d do. Have a couple of hookers do a big distraction and send the guy in while my dick was doing the thinking for me.

He didn’t have a scary vibe at all, though, and I relaxed a little as I looked him up and down. He was wearing a grin a decibel or two quieter than his ensemble of Hawaiian shirt, shorts, purple sandals, fanny pack, and bicycle messenger bag. Twenty-five or twenty-six, blond hair, goatee. Reasonably good-looking. He wasn’t carrying a piece and he wasn’t interested in the hussies, which meant he was either a homosexual, or part of their team, or he really wanted to talk to me.

“Hey, you’re in my view,” I said.

“Mr. Forsythe?” he asked in a serious FBI way.

“No.”

“Mr. Forsythe, am I glad to see you. You look a little bit different from the photograph. A little bit older.”

“Aye, well, you’re no picnic yourself. You ever hear the expression sartorially challenged?”

His eyes glazed over.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“What am I talking about? What are you talking about? Aren’t you supposed to ask me about the Yankees? Don’t they teach you anything?”

Before he could answer, a cold feeling went down my spine. This wasn’t Dan’s man. I pushed my chair back from the table and looked him in the eyes.

“You’re not with the feds,” I said.

“No, no, not at all,” he said with a little laugh. “What gave you that idea?”

“Who are you? Are you Bridget’s?”

“Yes. I work for Ms. Callaghan. I was told to meet you off your flight. I was instructed to ask you if you are going to continue on to Dublin.”

“You must be joking. Continue on to Dublin? So Bridget can torture me, with, what was it, arc-welding gear? You must be out of your mind. Nah, I’m just going to sit tight here, wait till my good buddies in the FBI show up, go off with them. Easy. And if you want to try anything here and now with a couple of hundred witnesses around, dozens of plainclothes cops, you go ahead. See how far you bloody get.”

“No. You don’t understand. I am not muscle, Mr. Forsythe, I am an attorney, I work for Ms. Callaghan. Please excuse the way I look, I was on my way to Puerto Rico, actually. But I was told to wait here to talk to you.”

“You’re an attorney? Pull the other one, pal, it has bells on. Keep away from me,” I said.

“I am an attorney, Mr. Forsythe, and I do work for Ms. Callaghan. I have a message to convey to you,” he said.

Still keeping my distance from him and watching his hands, I set down my coffee cup and snapped my fingers.

“Let me see some goddamn ID,” I demanded.

“Certainly.”

He reached in the pocket of his shorts and removed a wallet. He showed me a bar association card, a Columbia law library card, a driver’s license, and a membership in the Princeton Club.

“Ok, sonny, first of all, what exactly did they tell you about me and how did you know what flight I was on?” I demanded.

“They told me that since I was going to JFK, could I meet flight 223 from Lima, Peru, and find a Michael Forsythe. They faxed me your picture. Unfortunately, I had to go the bathroom briefly, and typically that was the moment that you, well… of course that was the precise moment when you came through. I had a sign made with your name on it, do you want to see the sign?”

I gazed daggers. He continued: “Ok, no sign, forget the sign, ok, so anyway I went out into the arrivals hall and I thought I’d lost you, but, you see, I knew you were Irish, so I thought to myself, why don’t I check the pub and anyway I-”

“Yeah, if I’d been black you would have checked the watermelon stand? Enough of your nonsense, what’s the goddamn message?” I asked.

He rummaged in the bicycle messenger bag and brought out a fax sheet. He unfolded it and began reading: “It’s from Mr. Moran, do you know Mr. Moran?” he asked.

“No, I don’t know Mr. Moran, read me the bloody message before I really lose my patience.”

“Ms. Callaghan apologizes for her heavy-handed behavior of this morning. She says that she urgently needs your help and she would like to speak to you again,” he said, producing a cell phone from his bike bag and placing it on the table.

“What’s the deal here? Is it going to blow up as soon as you walk off?” I inquired.

“Uh, no, it’s just a phone. She wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Bridget wants to talk to me? Ok, fine, I got some time. But I’ll call her on my phone. You ever hear of ricin nerve-toxin poison? One touch of it and you’re toast. For all I know you’re wearing some sort of protective lubrication on your hands, that phone is coated in poison, and I’m about to be topped like they did with that Bulgarian.”

The kid looked at me to see if I was taking the piss out of him, which, if truth be told, I half was.

“Why don’t you just give me her number, if you’re legit I’ll call her on the phone,” I said.

He gave me the number without any fuss at all. A Belfast listing. I dialed it.

“Hello, Europa Hotel,” a voice answered.

“Yeah, I need Bridget Callaghan, she says she’s staying there.”

“One moment, please.”

“Hello?” Bridget said.

“Nice try, sister,” I said. “I didn’t bite last time, I won’t bite this time, took care of your delightful emissaries,” I said.

“Yes, Michael, I heard about your exploits. In fact, I saw the results of your shenanigans on BBC World. For God’s sake, they weren’t there to kill you. Don’t you believe me? I need your help.”

“Aye, they weren’t there to kill me, that’s why they pulled out their guns and told me to make my peace with the Lord.”

I looked at the lawyer and put my hand over the receiver.

“Are you getting an earful of all of this? Make yourself scarce for a minute.”

“I’ll sit over there until you need me,” he said, moving to an adjacent table.

“They weren’t supposed to hurt you, Michael,” Bridget insisted.

I laughed out loud.

“Oh, Bridget, the times we had, you make me smile, and I suppose the men in Los Angeles last year wanted to take me to a surprise party in Malibu.”

“No, they were there to kill you. They were there to kill you and cut your fucking head off and bring it to me. But the two men today were there to make sure you flew to Ireland. My daughter has gone missing and I need your help. For God’s sake, I’m a mother and my only child has vanished. I need your help, Michael,” she said, her voice trembling.

I looked at the phone. I found her very affecting. She was good. She nearly had me convinced. All she had to do was squirt a few and I’d be on my way to the Emerald Isle and certain death.

“Honey, look, it’s been great talking to you and it was very clever of you to find me twice in one day. But this time I’m out of your life forever. I’m going to India, wearing a turban, opening a pawnshop in Bombay, so adios, Bridget, my love. And I’ll give you this wee warning, honey: my patience has its limits. This game can go two ways. Try this one more time and if I find you’re still after me, I’m coming for you, understand? Be a lot harder for you to conceal your movements than it will be for me to conceal mine. I’ve had twelve years of practice.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Aye. I am.”

“Michael, first off, you are no position to fucking threaten me. Second off, I’m not trying to con you or scam you. Everything I said was completely true,” she said.

“I am sure it was. Right back to ‘I love you’ and ‘Let’s run away together.’ Bridget, it’s been terrific having this chat. Do keep in touch. Do think about what I’ve said. Hate to have to kill ya some night like I did with your boyfriend back in the day. But I will if you keep on my case. And now I have to go, love, got a couple of federales coming to meet me and give me a lift downtown. So I wouldn’t try anything.”

“Don’t go, Michael, don’t go, listen to me, just listen. Everything I said was true. My daughter, Siobhan, has gone missing in Belfast. We were over here on a trip, we come here every summer. We were in Belfast. On Saturday she went for a walk, she didn’t come back to the hotel. She said she was going to get a milk shake but no one at the milk shake place saw her. Michael, she has completely disappeared. The police are looking for her, you can call up their tip line if you don’t believe me. 01232-PSNI-TIP. Please, Michael, I want you on board. I am losing my mind, I’ve got every single person I know helping me here. The police, everyone. Please, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Wipe the slate clean, if you would just come and help. I know you’re good at being you and you’re better than anyone I know. I’m not trying to flatter you, Michael, but you’re the best I’ve ever met. This is your town, you can find her, I know you can. Please come. Please.”

And now she did start to cry. She cried and cried.

I could feel the tide shifting under my feet. I blinked. And I fought against it, but it didn’t help and now I did believe her.

Shit.

What an eejit I was.

“Don’t cry, Bridget, please don’t cry,” I said.

The sobbing continued for another minute.

“Ok, enough, I’ll come,” I said.

Bridget blew her nose. Sniffled.

“I love her. She’s my whole universe, Michael.”

“I understand. I’m sure she’s fine. Kids run away sometimes. Especially at that age. It’s a mother-daughter thing more than likely. Don’t worry about her. We’ll get her.”

“Thank you, Michael. That man who contacted you will give you fifteen thousand dollars for expenses and a ticket to Dublin. The plane goes in an hour, you better hurry if you’re going to catch it,” Bridget said.

“I’ll be calling that tip line, I need to confirm this. What did you say her legal name was?” I asked.

“Siobhan Callaghan. Eleven, nearly twelve years old. The spit of her ma.”

“Heartbreaker, in other words.”

“She’s my whole life, Michael, I want you to help me.”

“Ok, if it’s kosher, I’ll be on the plane. Bridget, I got to warn you, I don’t respond well to heavy stuff; if you have goons waiting to meet me in Ireland, I’ll kill them and you’ll never hear from me again. And if it’s a trick, I’ll make sure you go down. I’m getting mighty tired of this.”

“Thank you, Michael. It’s not a trick. I hate you. I hate your guts. But I need you. I’m pulling out all the stops.”

“Ok.”

She hung up. I motioned the kid to come over.

“Ok, dickwad, you got some money for me,” I said.

“Mr. Forsythe, I have been instructed to give you this envelope containing fifteen thousand dollars and a confirmation for your Aer Lingus ticket to Dublin on the five-fifteen flight this evening.”

“Take out the money and put a few bills in your mouth.”

“Why my mouth?”

“Didn’t I tell you about the nerve toxin? If they’ve poisoned the money, I want it to kill you first.”

The kid hesitated, as if considering the possibility that someone had indeed spiked the dough. He put the first two bills in his mouth with no ill effect.

“Ok, now, the thirteenth bill and the last five.”

He did those as well, again without keeling over or spitting blood.

“This may seem crazy to you but you never know with Bridget. She’s smart. Now do the same with the airline ticket and then piss off out of my life and go back to your vida loca.”

“Can I get a receipt for the money?” he asked.

“A receipt? Oh, I see. Of course. You’re worried I’ll take the money and just fuck away off with it. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, that’s precisely what I’m going to do,” I said.

“Ms. Callaghan believes you will not do that. However, Mr. Moran has instructed me-”

“He’s instructed you, has he?”

“Yes, he has. I am to ask politely but I am not to coerce you in any way,” he said.

“You think you could coerce me if you really needed to?”

“Um, well, it isn’t really my department,” he said.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

He nodded, stood.

“Good luck, Mr. Forsythe,” he said.

I watched him walk out of the airport and hail a cab. I counted the money. Fifteen large, sure enough. And I could have it for free. But there was that other thing she said. She would “wipe the slate clean” if I helped her.

Wipe the slate clean.

Now that was an attractive proposition. My body ached from the exhaustion of it all. Dodging her and her minions. Twelve years I’d been on the run from the New York Irish mob. Since Christmas Eve 1992. Now Bridget claimed she was willing to forgive it all. Forgive me killing Darkey, forgive me selling Darkey’s boys down the river. Why?

There were really only two possibilities.

One, that this was all a trap, an elaborate hoax to get me to come to Ireland.

Two, she really did have a daughter who had gone missing and like any concerned parent she was at the end of her tether. If I were a betting man, I’d have gone for one.

But you never knew. I sipped the dregs of my beer.

“How do you think the Red Sox rotation will match up against the opposition this year,” a voice said.

I looked up.

A tall, blond storm trooper of a man, in a wide blue business suit. A clone behind him with dark hair.

“Can’t you cocksuckers get anything right?” I said. “Yankees’ rotation and I’m supposed to mention the- Oh, forget it, take a seat, there’s been a slight change of plans…”

When his lads phoned Dan and told him that I was heading for Dublin, Dan said he wouldn’t allow me to go until he spoke to me in the flesh. I told him I’d miss my plane, so Dan told the DHS that he needed a background check of every passenger on the Aer Lingus flight to Dublin.

“That’ll hold the bastards up for an hour or so,” Dan said while he drove in from an “important conference,” which in fact was almost certainly a golf course in Westchester.

He arrived about thirty minutes later in navy slacks, white shirt, and red Kangol beret. I hadn’t seen him in person for a long time. He was a nice guy, going places with the bureau. An administrator, not a field man. He wouldn’t be in witness protection forever. Although twelve years could seem like it. Tall, bald, but good-looking and very affable. I liked him. He sat down at my table and ordered a lime juice for himself and another beer for me. The agents got up and slipped into the background.

Dan had known me since ’93, when the FBI had offered me that first deal to rat out Darkey’s organization. He’d helped me in ’97 when the bureau and MI6 had had me infiltrate an IRA splinter group in Massachusetts and he’d cleaned up that ugly situation last year when Bridget had sent her men to Los Angeles. We’d been through a lot together and we shook hands with genuine affection.

“Michael, first thing I have to say is I’m sorry I didn’t meet you off the plane, I thought we’d have a couple of days and I was right in the middle of, well, to be honest, I was right in the middle of a foursome at the country club.”

“Aye. That’s ok. Makes me happy to see that you’re golfing in the middle of a workday. That’s what our taxpayers’ money goes on.”

“Since when did you ever pay taxes?” he asked.

“Sales tax.”

“Ok, so what’s this I hear about you wanting to fly to Dublin?”

“I talked to Bridget. Her daughter’s gone missing and she wants my help to find her. She’s willing to wipe the slate clean.”

Dan smiled.

“It’s a trap, don’t you see that?” he said without inflection.

“Does she have a daughter?” I asked.

“She does.”

“Is it Darkey’s kid?”

“It is,” he said flatly.

“How come I never knew about this?”

Dan looked embarrassed.

“Why would you need to know? Bridget never took the stand, even as a witness, so it never came out in court. Furthermore, it was information we did not wish to share with you because we didn’t think it was important,” Dan said. It was an answer filled with weasel words.

“You didn’t want me to know she was pregnant when I killed her fiancé and rolled up her fiancé’s gang; you thought it might throw me a bit, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t relevant, Michael, it still isn’t,” Dan insisted.

“It’s relevant. While I was waiting for you, I called up the police in Belfast. Bridget did indeed file a missing persons report three days ago.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. It could still be a setup. The kid could be in the room with her right now,” Dan said.

“I know.”

“Michael, come on, we’ll go to Midtown, get you in a nice hotel, maybe the Plaza. Take it easy for a few days and then we’ll send you somewhere new.”

“Dan, that’s precisely it. I’m tired of this. Tired of running. Tired of moving to new cities. I want to check this out, if there’s any possibility that this could be real I want to investigate.”

“Big mistake,” Dan said, shaking his head.

“I don’t think so.”

Dan sighed. “Let me remind you who we’re talking about here,” he said. “After you helped put the rest of Darkey’s crew behind bars, Bridget was off the scene for a while. She wasn’t a natural successor to Darkey White. There were at least two other candidates Duffy could have put in charge of Upper Manhattan and Riverdale. He wasn’t a sentimentalist. He didn’t owe her a goddamn thing. Bridget made her own way to the top. Murdered her way up. She started with next to nothing. Not even Darkey’s name, remember. She got a few loyal men, she took out the opposition without a second-”

I didn’t want to hear this right now.

“I read the papers,” I interrupted.

“James Hanratty, shot on the way back from his sister’s wedding. Pat Kavanagh, shot in front of his wife and two kids. Miles Nagobaleen, pushed in front of a subway train. This isn’t the girl you used to know, Michael. She’s ruthless. When Duffy died someone ordered the murder of Duffy’s brother the very same night, so he was out of the picture too. We suspect she’s ordered at least three hits in the last year, not counting the ones on you. I mean, come on, Michael. Why do you think the Boston mob stays out of New York? They’re scared of her. And they’re right to be.”

“She’s a killer,” I said, trying to sound blasé.

“No, Michael, more than that. She’s the general behind the killers.”

“She’s also a mother,” I said.

Dan took a sip of my beer, put the bottle back on the table, shook his head. His eyes were sad, he knew he wasn’t going to convince me.

“We can’t look after you outside United States jurisdiction,” he said.

“Dan, I’m not that bad at looking after myself, as you well know.”

“Michael, if you go to Ireland, there’s nothing I can do to protect you.”

“I realize that.”

“If we lose you, it’ll be a black eye for the whole program, a huge setback. It’ll discourage other potential informants. It won’t be good for anyone.”

“Least of all me.”

“Least of all you, exactly.”

Dan looked at me for a long time. He leaned back with a big exaggerated sigh.

“But you’re set on going, aren’t you?” he said finally.

I tapped the passport on the table.

“Don’t worry, Dan, they won’t harm me now I’m an American citizen,” I said.

Dan shook his head, for him this was not an occasion for levity.

“There’s nothing I can say?” he said sadly.

“No.”

Dan motioned for one of the agents to come over. He told him something I couldn’t catch and the agent sloped off.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“I’m going to get some paperwork faxed over. I’ll want you to sign a release ending your relationship with the WPP. If you’re killed by Bridget Callaghan or one of her employees, or meet with any kind of accident while you’re there, I want us off the hook. I’ll want us to be able to say that you did this strictly against my advice and that you were no longer a member of the WPP.”

I nodded. He was right. There was no point kicking up a stink about it. He ordered two more Sam Adams, getting one for himself this time. We clinked the bottles together.

“Ok, so tell me everything you know about the daughter,” I asked.

“Her name is Siobhan, it’s spelled with a b, pronounced Shavawn, but there’s a b in there somewhere.”

“Christ, I’m Irish, I know how to spell Siobhan.”

“Ok, we believe it’s Darkey’s kid. I think she must be about eleven or twelve. She went to private school in Manhattan. A good student. Pretty girl, takes after her mother, not Darkey, thank God. Only child, but she has a lot of cousins… And, uhh, well, I’m afraid that’s about all I know.”

“You think Bridget is the type of person to use her daughter in a ploy to get me?”

“I don’t, frankly, but nothing would surprise me.”

“How often does Bridget go to Belfast?”

“I have no idea. I do have other cases, you know. I heard something about a home in Donegal, wherever that is.”

“It’s in the west. But that would make sense. Ok. That’s fine.”

We talked for a couple of minutes and Dan stood up. One of the goons was coming back with a bunch of forms.

“Here come those faxes. Let me get you dinner at the executive club. Airline food is getting worse and worse,” Dan said “Aer Lingus never hit the culinary high notes to start with,” I said. Dan smiled and put his arm around me and we left for what I’m sure Dan thought was something of a last supper.

The flight was full and overbooked. Aer Lingus offered me two first-class tickets and a thousand dollars to fly tomorrow. But I wanted to go now.

There was a festive air to the check-in crowd and it made me wonder if there was some holiday or event taking place that I didn’t know about. A wealthy-looking, trim, educated crowd, so it wasn’t some drinking binge or the hurling final. It wasn’t the Olympics, but I did know that the Tour de France sometimes went out of country. Perhaps that was it. The Tour de France was having an Irish leg this year.

I got a window seat and they brought me champagne and gave me a copy of Ulysses, which was strange.

“Don’t you do movies anymore, love?” I asked the stewardess.

“Sorry?”

“Like I know Aer Lingus is a bit backward but most of the other airlines have films, and computer games and stuff like that. Giving someone a brick-size book for a six-hour flight is pretty lame,” I said.

“No, that’s just a complimentary copy, we have a dozen films for you to watch, sir,” she said, raised her eyebrows, and walked off to deal with a less obtuse passenger.

The woman next to me had heard the conversation. She obviously had enough dough to be flying first but she looked like a retired English teacher from central casting. Aran sweater, granny glasses, sensible shoes. I supposed she was about sixty.

“I take it, young man, that you’re not flying to Dublin for the festivities,” she said in a patrician accent.

“No, I’m just going home. What festivities?”

“You don’t know what day it is tomorrow?”

“Aye, it’s Wednesday.”

“No, no, no, it’s Bloomsday. June 16, 2004. It’s the hundredth Bloomsday,” she said, doing little to disguise her contempt for my ignorance.

“Flower festival, is it?” I asked.

“What?”

“Bloomsday is some sort of flower festival?”

“Good God, no, not that kind of bloom. Leopold Bloom. You haven’t read Ulysses then?” she asked, holding up her complimentary copy.

“How could I? Only just got it.”

“Previously,” she said with a touch of exasperation.

“No, I haven’t. I heard it was a dirty book,” I said and took a swig of my champagne. The woman’s thin lips thinned even more.

“It is most certainly not. It is the greatest work of literature of the last or perhaps of any other century.”

“Aye, that’s what people say about Moby Dick, too. I wouldn’t read that either, it must be filthy with that title,” I said and smiled at a sudden remembrance of a time, years ago, when I dragged an old pal of mine called Scotchy to visit Melville’s grave in the Bronx. A used-car dealer we knew had refused to pay the increased protection money and we were there in the dead of night breaking the windows and slashing the tires of every third vehicle on his lot. Woodlawn Cemetery was just next door and of course Scotch and I had both read Billy Budd for school. Scotchy cracked up when he saw that the author of Moby Dick had pussy willows growing on his grave.

And of course like every other Mick in the world, I’d tried to read Ulysses a couple of times.

“And tomorrow is when the book was published, is it?” I asked for the entertainment value.

“Tomorrow, June 16, is when Leopold Bloom spent the day walking around Dublin in the book.”

“Leopold Bloom. Something to do with Mel Brooks, right? Hope there’s going to be singing.”

The woman shook her head impatiently.

“It’s really when Joyce met Nora Barnacle. There will be a big parade and lots of festivities,” the woman said, and bored with my ignorance, turned away.

I swallowed a gag about Nora Barnacle and the Little Mermaid and examined the book. Joyce looked chic in eye patch and bow tie. I put it in the seat pocket in front of me. Not really my cup of tea and I only hoped that the festivities wouldn’t impede a successful navigation through Dublin to Connolly Station and the train to Belfast. Still, if this was as big a deal as the old lady was saying, the traffic would be coming south, not north, and I’d have no bother getting to my home city.

And, who knew, maybe Bridget would be waiting there with open arms. Maybe I’d ask around my old haunts and we’d find darling Siobhan together. Maybe all would be forgiven and tonight I could sleep easily for the first time in a dozen years.

I smiled. Sure. Shut-eye, though, was going to be essential whatever happened. I swallowed an Ambien, finished another glass of champagne, turned off the light, and closed the window shade.

The pill took about fifteen minutes to kick in.

The sky darkened, the stars came out, the 777 raced east to greet the dawn.

I pulled the blanket around me and drifted into a chemical sleep.

The Atlantic, heaving silent and black five miles below us; and I dreamed of it, of words and things, of whale boats, barnacles, eye-patched Irish men, Leopold Bloom in and out of Dublin pubs, Star-buck and Scotchy and Siobhan, all of them missing, and Ishmael’s rescuer, the devious cruising Rachel, seeking out her lost children, but only finding another orphan.