Chapter 44
Father Pearse sat through Scanlon's pitch.
The priest then answered: kindly; with centuries of duplicity at his fingertips, duplicity needed to stay safe in an uncertain world: "Of course I'll let you know, Jimmy."
The priest paused solemnly.
Jimmy: "I'll come back in a few days."
"I'll let you know, Jimmy."
"How will you let me know?"
"I'll find you. Plenty of ways. Quick as I can, Jimmy." Firm eye contact this time; the priest leaned in. Made the sale with God's own eyes.
Father Pearse said: "Slán." Goodbye in Irish; slawn to Yank ears.
Meaning at this point nothing. Yeah: Goodbye. 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 aged and ageless housekeeper who'd soothed Sergeant Scanlon before at the vestry door now led him out again.
She murmured it, too: Slán. With a cleaning cloth wrapped around her right hand. Slán. There was a cleaning cloth wrapped around her dry, transparent right hand first time, too, Jimmy recalled. A uniform she wore. So she'd signaled Jimmy meekly first time, for all eternity: Slán; her standard sentiment, as she wiped Father's spots away.
Wiped meekly. All she could do.
Then Jimmy was out. On the street. Which was a different place. Beyond polished mahogany.
Prey. Pray. Not much difference.
Chapter 45
In another part of Belfast, secure, behind brick walls topped by oiled rolls of new barbed wire, Major Burke had one other small worry about the mousetrap he was building: Do they even do Sunday drives in Northern Ireland, given all the rationing? Maybe that was one detail too cute? It didn't have to be on Sunday!
The real question was: Would his creaky mousetrap work? Another couple of questions: Was Jimmy Scanlon already a dead man and did Burke care? The quick answer was no, not at all. Scanlon was a traitor: killed his own troops.
That was the quick answer. It wasn't the full answer.
And then there was this: How the fuck would Father Pearse contact Jimmy, if the IRA's answer was yes? Jimmy was in a cell, held as incognito as the U.S. Army could devise.
"I'll find you," the priest had promised. "Plenty of ways."
But there were no ways Burke could figure. A priest conspiring with the IRA was resourceful, sure; he wasn't supernatural. In fact, just the opposite: if the priest couldn't find Jimmy, what would that say? So maybe Burke had built himself a mousetrap with no hope of mice.
Burke dropped his big, confident, groomed-for-Claire-much-as-anyone head into his correspondingly big hands, behind secure brick walls and barbed wire; thought: Now what?
He offered a prayer. And please make it simple.
Chapter 46
Scanlon sat in his cell. Same question in his head as Burke's: How would Father Pearse find him here?
Because if he did find Jimmy here, the game was over.
Jimmy shifted. The cell wasn't comfortable.
He was nothing more than meat now. He was stored. His Lord Almighty's instructions were perfectly clear, too: thou shalt not! Which reduced Jimmy, since the IRA's fuck-up, to nothing more than sin in a tin. Failure. He was a failure. He had failed forever. For good. For eternity. Without end, amen.
Now what? Pound his head against filthy bars? Beat the still-breathing creature named Jimmy Scanlon breathless maybe, if he could: if he could take the coward's way out?
Jimmy thought about that a lot.
It wouldn't happen. He hadn't earned that blessed relief. Jimmy had killed his own. G.I.s had trusted him: this figure, Sergeant Jimmy Scanlon. They'd trusted him more than they'd trusted officers, nothing more than college boys. That's what sergeants were for: trust.
Yet some who'd trusted him without a second thought, because of his stripes: they were dead now. Murdered by him. Murdered by politicians he'd never even met, didn't know them, didn't care about them. Murdered by me, in other words.
There were no other words. He'd failed his trusting men. Failed his willing God; his Christian, Roman Catholic faith; those values, those teachings, those expectations.
Had failed anyone Jimmy could think of. And he'd thought hard.
Worst: failed himself. For a very long time.
Forever was a very long time. He saw that now. He was young; he'd nested in his youth. He was capable; he'd nested in that, too. Then he'd betrayed his own. Willingly.
Forever. Forever. Forever.
His unforgiving alarm would not stop ringing.
Jimmy needed his soul back. It didn't have to be his full soul. Not a soul with wings, singing Latin. Really, any small replica soul would do; anything that would let him sleep again, just a few hours.