Everybody Dies

Andy took the Grand Concourse to the Cross-Bronx, then drove straight west. We crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey and picked up the Palisades Parkway. Mick had been silent until then, and I thought he might have nodded off back there, but now he said, "I've been thinking. This is a grand idea of yours, Andy."

"Well, I had time on my hands, and no dartboard handy to take my mind off of things."

"You're a strategist," Mick said. "You're another Michael Collins."

"Oh, come on now."

"You are indeed."

"I'm his Russian cousin," Andy said. "Vodka Collins."

"We'll lure 'em into a trap," Mick said, "and draw the ends tight, and there they'll be. Ah, I'll want to see the look on his face when he knows I've done for him. He's a Bronx boy, Andy. Did you know that?"

"No."

"He's the long-lost bastard son of Paddy Farrelly, and I'm going to send him to the same place I sent his dirty bastard father. Yes, he's a Bronx boy, though he moved away years ago. Where was it he moved to, Matt? Upstate, was it?"

"He was ten or eleven when he moved from Valentine Avenue," I said, "but I don't know exactly when that was."

"He lived on Valentine Avenue? That's like two blocks over from Bainbridge."

"He was in the eleven hundred block," I said, "so it's not like he was living next door to you. They moved when he was eleven, and he was living in Rochester when he committed the crime he went to prison for, but I don't know what interim moves his mother might have made."

"'Twas in the Bronx he spent his formative years," Mick said, rolling the phrase on his tongue. "His formative years. So we may safely call him a Bronx boy. Well, set a Bronx boy to catch a Bronx boy, eh? While we drove around I found myself thinking what a splendid borough the Bronx is. It became a joke for a while there, didn't it? But there's beautiful parts to it."

"I was thinking that myself."

"Matt lived in the Bronx himself. Or am I misremembering?"

"There's nothing wrong with your memory. But we only lived there for a short time."

"So we can't call you a Bronx boy."

"I don't think so."

"Your father had a store," Mick said. "He sold children's shoes."

"Jesus, how did you remember that?"

"I don't know," he said. "How do we remember some things and forget others? It's certainly not a matter of what's useful to remember and what's not. There's no end of useful things I can't recall to save myself, and yet I remember your father's shoe store."

A little later he said, "Is your mother well, Andy?"

"She is, Mick. Thanks be to God."

"Thanks be to God," he echoed. "When you went to talk to her just now I suppose you found her in the kitchen."

"Matter of fact, she was parked in front of the TV."

"Watching a program, was she?"

"And looking at the paper at the same time. Why, Mick?"

"Ah, just wondering. Looking at the paper. The Irish Echo, was it?"

"I didn't even notice. It could have been the Echo."

"Do you ever read it yourself, Andy?"

"More for the older people, isn't it? Or the green-horns fresh off the boat."

"Off the plane, these days. Well, your people are a great old family, you know. The Buckleys, I'm talking about. Some were what you'd call Castle Irish. Do you know the term? It means they were in with the lot at Dublin Castle, the British crown's representatives in Ireland. But there were other Buckleys that were very republican. Which were yours, I wonder?"

Andy laughed. "I get people asking if I'm related to that guy, you know who I mean, uses all the big words on television? But you're the first person ever asked me what side my people were on back in the old country."

"Has your mother ever gone back?"

"No, she was just a girl when she came over. She's got no interest in going back. It's hard enough to get her to visit her brother in Massachusetts."

"Your uncle Co

"Right."

"And how about yourself? Have you ever been over to the old country?"

"Are you kidding? I've never been anywhere, Mick."

"Ah, you should go. There's nothing like travel for broadening a man. Though I've done little enough of it myself. Ireland, of course, and France. Matt's been to France. And to Italy as well, have you not?"

"Just briefly," I said.

"I've not been there myself. But then the last time I was in Ireland I went over to England as well, just to see if they were the devils I learned them to be at my mother's knee."

"And were they?"

"Not at all," he said. "They couldn't have been nicer. I was treated decently everywhere I went. For all the problems they've had with the Irish, they always made me feel welcome."

"Maybe they didn't know you were Irish," Andy suggested.

"You're entirely right," Mick said. "Most likely they took me for a Chinaman."

As we turned onto 209 he said, "It's a good scheme, Andy. I've been thinking about it these last few miles. The only hard part will be getting the word to them so they don't suspect the source of it. It would help if we knew who's been helping them all along. Have you any ideas yourself, lad?"

Andy considered, shook his head. "There's a lot of guys hang out at Grogan's," he said.

"Not now there's not."

"Well, used to be. People who'd run an errand for you, or lend a hand on the big jobs. I had to guess, I'd say somebody took one of them aside and got a few drinks into him, got him talking."

"You think that's it, do you?"

"Be my guess."

"There's a great Irish tradition of hating the informer," Mick said. "There's that movie, and I can remember about your father's shoe store, Matt, so why can I not recall the name of that actor? I can see his face but can't summon up his name."

"Victor McLaglen," I supplied.

"The very man. Oh, the most hated man in Ireland was the man who bore tales. 'The Patriot's Mother.' Do you know that song?"

Neither of us did. In a surprisingly soft voice he sang:

Alana, alana, the shadow of shame

Has never yet fallen on one of your name

And oh, may the food from my bosom you drew

In your veins turn to poison ere you turn untrue

"It's the mother singing," he explained, "and she's urging her boy to die on the gallows rather than inform on his fellows.

Alana machree, oh, alana machree

Sure, a stag and a traitor you never shall be

"Ah, 'tis a terrible old song, but it gives you an idea how our people felt on the subject. A great tradition of hating the informer. And of course you know what that means."

"What?"

"A great tradition of informing," he said. "For how could you have the one without the other?"

The caprice didn't offer as smooth a ride as the Cadillac. It wasn't as whisper-quiet, either, with more road noise audible and a rattle somewhere in the rear end. But it was comfortable all the same, with Andy and me in front and Mick stretched out in the back and the headlights cutting the darkness in front of us. I half wished we could ride on like that forever.

We'd turned onto the u

"I remember," Andy said. "I almost hit him."

"You did not. You stopped in plenty of time."

"A good thing, too. He was a big one. If I'd thought, I'd have counted the points."

"The points?"

"On his antlers, Mick. That's how the hunters rate the bucks, by the number of points on their antlers. He was a big one, but don't ask me how many points he ran to, because I wasn't paying attention."

"Hunters. O'Gara posts the property, keeps the hunters off of it. I don't want the trespassing, you know. And I don't want deer shot on my land. They're terrible predators, you can't keep them out of the orchard, but I won't have men shooting them. I wonder why that is."