Father Pearse sat through Scanlon's pitch. Then the priest answered; kindly, with swelling compassion for deaths on both sides; with com-pletely sincere truth, yet necessary centuries of duplicity: "I'll let you know of course, Jimmy." The priest paused solemnly. This was big. "Quick as I can, Jimmy." Firm eye contact. "Slán." Goodbye in Irish; slawn to Yank ears.
Meaning at this point, yeah: Goodbye; and get the fuck from my sight, as if you never existed.
That special Slán. That Jimmy-just-became-a-problem-in-Belfast Slán. The same ageless housekeeper who'd soothed Sergeant Scanlon at the vestry door before and out again; she'd murmured it, too: Slán. Had a cleaning cloth wrapped around her right hand. Slán. A cleaning cloth wrapped around her dry, transparent right hand last time, too; Jimmy re-called. Like a uniform she wore.
Slán, she told Jimmy meekly as he left. Her standard sentiment. Wiping spots away meekly. All she could do. Then he was on the street.
In another part of Belfast, secure, behind gleaming untested rolls of barbed wire, Major Burke had a new worry about his mousetrap: Do they even do Sunday drives in Northern Ireland, given all the rationing? Would this work? Was Jimmy already a dead man? And did Burke care about that part of the plan? The quick answer was no; not at all. That was the quick answer.