Chapter 35
35
brAIDEN
F airfax enters the front door of the house, juggling four bowls and matching spoons. He’s laughing to himself as he carries everything to the kitchen.
I call out from the recliner in the living room, where I’m finishing the newspapers I didn’t get to this morning. “Those men get paid to guard the house, you know. You don’t have to feed them too.”
“Just some peach cobbler, to tide them over for the night.”
I wonder if I can deduct the cost from the massive sum I’m handing over to Sawyer Best every month.
Fairfax pauses on his way into the kitchen. “You know, I made this with real Irish butter.”
“Or so you think,” I say, because he’s been nagging about this for at least two weeks. Fairfax has looked the other way when I’ve extorted city officials. When I’ve traded cigarettes without their legal stamps. When I’ve boosted cars and run guns and sold kilos of cocaine.
But he draws the line at feckin’ butter.
At my command, Seamus has finally followed through on his Irish butter scam. He’s sourced counterfeit labels and bought up American butter, selling the so-called Irish stuff to a network of small grocery stores in the state.
The operation has been brilliant. Not the sixteen-billion-dollars-a-year brilliance the Mafia is seeing with its olive oil scam, but a cool three mill cleared after all our costs, which isn’t bad for a trial run.
I’ve told Seamus to expand—more stores in Pennsylvania, then New Jersey and Delaware. Other captains are paying attention—Lynch in Baltimore is already making noises about my staying out of Maryland. Even Bowen, all the way out in San Francisco, has asked Seamus about printers for labels.
Fairfax is having none of it. He told me that he can taste the difference between Irish butter and the sorry American stuff, and he wouldn’t use the latter to bake dog biscuits.
I’ve told him not to worry. If I’m running the scam, he’ll always know who has the true Irish goods.
He said he’ll pray for my soul.
Now, Fairfax moves into the kitchen, and I hear him filling the dishwasher. He runs water in the sink for a moment, and then he materializes in the living room doorway with another bowl.
“Here,” he says, apparently deciding to declare a truce for the night. “You weren’t forgotten.”
“I don’t need more.” Aiofe and I already had cobbler with dinner.
“Maybe it’ll sweeten your disposition.”
I fold The Irish Times over the arm of my chair. “I’m sure you won’t leave until you’ve told me the rest of what’s on your mind.”
“It’s been a month.”
I won’t give him the satisfaction of asking a month since what. Instead, I keep my voice mild. “If you think I’ll spot you a raise because you manage to keep a calendar…”
“Aiofe misses her.”
“So she’s told me. Multiple times now.”
“I miss her.”
“I’m not sure why. She must have been a holy pain in the arse, with her leaving early and coming home late, upsetting all your carefully scheduled meals. And now you’ve only half the clothes to take to the dry cleaners.”
“You miss her too.”
I want to tell him he’s wrong. The light summer duvet doesn’t migrate from my half of the bed, now that I’m sleeping alone. The dining room doesn’t stink of coffee first thing in the morning. My right hand is stronger than it’s been since I was a teen-age boy.
Instead, I say, “There’s no coming back from some things.”
“Said every man who ever spoke too much in anger.”
“She said things too.”
“When Aiofe comes to me with cross words like that, she’s sent to her room for an hour.”
“Does that teach her a lesson?” I ask, honestly curious.
“No. But she usually gets bored and takes a nap, which puts her in a better mood when she comes back to the kitchen.” He waits a moment. When I don’t resume the conversation he says, “Call her.”
I don’t bother pretending we’re still talking about Aiofe. “Not this time.”
“You’ve worked things out before.”
“Which is why both of us knew the best way to blow things up this time. For good.”
He sets the bowl of cobbler on the table by my chair. “Not for good,” he says. “For ill. And if you knew how to blow things up, then you know how to put them back together. Spend your time doing something productive, instead of plotting your next attack on the East Falls Crew.”
He heads back into the kitchen while I’m still putting together my response to his utterly banjaxed theory—starting with the fact that it’s pure productive, my going after Russo.
I eat the cobbler. And I finish The Times . And I take out my phone and watch the bright red drawing pin, anchoring a corner of Delaware that might as well be a million miles away.