Chapter Six #3
He watches a lone blackbird hop amid the sparse grass, searching for food.
“And now, Sunny Jim,” he says, “now Eugene’s got big and bold enough for the torch to be passed, only here he is in this place’s bad books.
Tommy can’t afford to wait for that to blow over.
If Rachel had reasons that weren’t Eugene’s fault, Tommy’ll want to wave them under our noses.
On the other hand, if Rachel had any reason that might come out at the wrong moment and look bad against Eugene, he needs to know. ”
Mart nudges a scattering of straw into better alignment with the toe of his boot.
“I’d say he’s wondering was Rachel up the duff,” he says.
“That’d scupper Eugene good and proper, if it got out.
Breaking it off with a young one, or even doing the dirt on her, that’s one thing; that could happen to a bishop.
But getting her up the pole and then leaving her high and dry: that wouldn’t go down well at all, at all, even with the forelock-tuggers.
Or,” he adds, struck by an idea, “he might wanta know did Eugene give her a disease of the unmentionables.”
“Jeez, Mart,” Cal says.
“Tommy’ll be hoping ’twas the other way round, o’ course,” Mart says, disregarding that.
“That Rachel was the one playing offside on Eugene, and her conscience got to her. That’d clear the decks, all right.
The Moynihans wouldn’t be getting run outa Seán’s then.
And it’d be great for Eugene’s prospects.
People’d have to give the poor betrayed cratur the vote. ”
It has a strange feel, listening to Mart turn over the possibilities for inspection, the same way Cal would have listened to his partner bounce around a case back on the job.
It layers in with the strange feel of the landscape, and the strange, dislocated feel of this last week or two.
“You don’t even know he’s running,” Cal points out. “You pulled that outa your ass.”
“I’m exploring the possibilities, is all, Sunny Jim,” Mart says. “Just exploring. Staying one step ahead.”
“Eugene always acts like he’s too good for this one-horse place,” Cal says. “You think he’s gonna give up his cushy job in Dublin to hang around here listening to people bitch about potholes?”
“Eugene’ll run for what he’s told to run for, bucko.
Tommy’s the law in that house.” Mart smiles at Cal.
“And, sure, what’s there to complain about?
A good salary and a big expense account and a fat pension, and everyone around here treating you like you’re Tom Cruise and Richard Branson rolled into one, and all you’ve to do for it is throw a few shapes now and again about the drink-driving laws or the EU regulations.
’Tis a great gig altogether. Sure, I’d do it myself, only I couldn’t stick listening to all them Dublin accents. Eugene’ll be on the pig’s back.”
“That’s if he gets in,” Cal says. “You gonna vote for him?”
“I will in me hole. I’d enough of that lot with the Boss. If you think Tommy’s a nasty piece of work, bucko, you shoulda seen his daddy.”
“I’ve seen enough Moynihans to last me a while,” Cal says. “Thanks anyway.”
“You’re safe enough. The man’s dead thirty year or more; the second heart attack did the job.”
Mart is looking out over the landscape again, eyes narrowed, like there’s something there to see besides empty pastures. The fields have the utter stillness of animals that could be sleeping or watching.
“There was a woman in it, back when I was a wee lad,” he says, “and the Boss Moynihan was forcing her. Everyone knew it, and no one did a thing. Not even her husband. No one woulda approved of them making a fuss, d’you see, after all the Boss did for this place; ’twoulda been ungrateful.
Uppity, like. ‘I own this town,’ that’s what the Boss usedta say. And he did, bucko.”
“Well,” Cal says. “Ain’t this place just full of surprises.”
He had it brought home to him a long time ago that Ardnakelty has plenty of dark things buried under the sweet soft greens, but this one hits different.
Cal knows why. When that story began, he was thousands of miles away and probably still in diapers, but now he’s part of it.
He got woven in, not when he told Tommy Moynihan to take a hike, but at some unremarked moment along the way when that decision became inevitable.
He’s starting to understand what Mart meant about crossroadses.
“I wonder if he’d get away with that now,” Mart says.
The blackbird, alarmed by something, has taken off; his eyes track its curves across the grass, till it vanishes into the treeline.
“On the one hand, Sunny Jim, hashtag metoo; but on the other hand, it takes more than a few years and a hashtag to change a place. In this country we’re fierce proud of how modern we are; we’d bulldoze every bitta history in the place for data centers, if it’d get us a pat on the head off the big corporations.
But some of the old ways don’t bulldoze easy. ”
“Looks like Tommy thinks things have changed,” Cal points out. “If he’s worried that something about Rachel could get in Eugene’s way.”
“Ah, well,” Mart says, “the aul’ elections are a tricky thing to manage, Sunny Jim, from Tommy’s perspective.
You can boss a man into promising you his vote, but once he gets into the polling station, he’s his own man again.
Sure, isn’t that the beauty of democracy?
If this place takes against Eugene, they mightn’t say it, but they’ll do it. ”
He leans over, with an effort, to gather a handful of straw and scatter it on a patch that Cal missed. “If there’s interesting information floating about,” he says meditatively, “I wouldn’t mind having a look at it myself.”
“What for?”
“I won’t know till I see it, sure. Isn’t that my point? One step ahead, boyo: that’s my favorite place to be.”
“If you go poking around,” Cal says, straightening up, “Tommy’s gonna find out. Then he’ll go poking around to figure out why you’re poking around, and you’ll chase each other in circles all over the townland. And everyone’ll just end up worse upset than they already are.”
Mart cocks his head and gazes at Cal like he just did something unprecedented and refreshing. “Do you know, Sunny Jim,” he says, “I think that’s the first piece of advice you ever gave me. Amn’t I right?”
“I told you how to fix that faucet,” Cal says.
“Arrah, that doesn’t count; you got it off YouTube. This was advice.” He smiles at Cal. “That’s what the crossroadses do: they change things. Didn’t I tell you?”
“All the times you’ve given me advice,” Cal says, “I figure it’s my turn.”
“Fair enough,” Mart concedes. “There’s a difference, but. I’d always think my advice through, before I go handing it out willy-nilly. Would you say you’ve done the same?”
“Sure feels like it to me,” Cal says. He goes back to his straw. He’s having to spread it thinner than he’d like, but he can’t ask Skippy for more. Mart would give him some, but Cal doesn’t like owing Mart.
Mart whacks his crook sharply on the vegetable bed, to get Cal’s attention.
“Listen to me there, bucko. What you’re missing is that Tommy won’t just go away if the likes of yourself and myself ignore him.
If he’s trying to put you on the payroll, that means he can’t afford to wait around hoping the answers fall into his lap.
He’s going to keep looking. If he doesn’t get the ones he wants, or if he gets ones he doesn’t want, that’s when he’ll turn interesting.
I don’t mind that myself, once it doesn’t get outa hand, but we both know you don’t like things interesting. ”
Cal looks at Mart, and Mart looks back at him. “This time you want something,” Cal says.
“I’m no different from Tommy,” Mart says, “or from yourself. I’d only love a few answers. If I’m not to go looking for them, then maybe someone that’s better fitted for the job should do it.”
“Huh,” Cal says. “Seems like everyone around here’s looking to get themselves a personal PI.”
Mart gives him an odd look, from under his hat brim. “I’m not talking about any PI, Sunny Jim,” he says gently. “I’m only saying: Tommy’s up to something, and a bitta clarity here could prevent a loada hassle. All round, like.”
Cal says, “You reckon I should be expecting hassle from Tommy?” This has been at the back of his mind.
Mart smiles at him, his wrinkles deepening till Cal can’t see his eyes.
“Ah, God, no. In the ordinary run of things, you’d get some nonsense offa him, all right.
But these days Tommy’s got too much on his plate to waste time annoying some fella just for having the nerve to say no.
” He taps Cal’s boot with the point of his crook.
“If I’m wrong, but, you know to tell me. Isn’t that right?”
“I can handle Tommy,” Cal says. “I just like being prepared.”
“You handled him yesterday, no problem to you,” Mart agrees.
“But here we are having this conversation all the same. And you’re right to have it.
” He fluffs up the straw that his crook flattened.
“ ’Tisn’t about handling anyone, Jean-Claude, or not yet.
’Tis all about communication. You communicate with me, and I’ll communicate with you, and we’ll all be good and prepared if things get interesting. ”
He nods to Cal and trudges off, his crook sticking in the muddy ground. Kojak lifts his head and starts laboriously picking himself up. The hazy air slowly fades them both to gray, statues moving deeper into the stone fields.