Free Hours of Gladness by Thomas Fleming Page B

propaganda machine would serve the speaker up, macerated and broiled on TV for breakfast the following morning.
    All of which meant that if Black Dick had to forgo the pleasures of celebrity, he was determined to console himself with another pleasure, which was unquestionably available in Babylon on the Hudson. The great metropolis blinked its millions of inviting eyes at them through the bar’s twilit front window. But they might as well already be incarcerated in Paradise Beach, as far as responding to these enchanting signals was concerned. There had to be a way to lose these two millstones and give him and Billy at least a single night of pleasure.

    â€œI think it’s time we discussed our plans,” McBride said. “McGinty and his fine friends have kept me more or less in the dark. He said the final orders had to come from you.”
    â€œOh, it’s very simple,” O’Gorman said. “The Cubans are bringing a million and half dollars’ worth of cocaine with them. We’re going to sell the dope to your brother-in-law O’Toole’s Italian friends and run the money out to the Cubans and get the weapons. It’ll all be said and done in twenty-four hours.”
    â€œCocaine?” McBride said. “I’ve never heard a word about cocaine before. If something went wrong—if the Coast Guard—we could all go to jail for twenty years.”
    â€œIt’s a goodly stretch you’ll get if they find you with the weapons,” O’Gorman said. “You agreed to bring them ashore. The cocaine is just a detail.”
    â€œI thought you were bringing the money,” McBride said. “Didn’t you say that?” he asked McGinty.
    â€œI said I hoped he would,” McGinty said.
    â€œWe don’t have a tenth that much cash in the whole command. This is a big shipment of weapons. The biggest yet.”
    â€œDoes Bill O’Toole know about the cocaine?” McBride asked.
    â€œI should say he does,” McGinty said. “He handled the whole thing with the Italians. He’s lined up one of their high rollers from Atlantic City. The fellow owns half the boardwalk, Bill says.”
    â€œI don’t want to hear any more about the cocaine,” McBride said. “You can use my boat, but I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
    In Ireland, McBride had promised them his boat and himself as captain and navigator. Was the deal about to fall apart? McGinty let O’Gorman take charge.
    â€œWell and good, well and good,” O’Gorman said. “We can understand how you feel, Des. We’re still grateful and then some, right, Billy?”
    â€œYah,” Billy said, his nose in his drink. Even his pea
brain could see it was too early to put pressure on this papier-mache hero.
    â€œHow’s Nora?” O’Gorman asked McGinty.
    â€œJust fine. We’ve got two lovely kids.”
    â€œGood news.”
    Sweet little Nora, the rose of Kilwickie. In 1975, she owned the softest rump, the juiciest knockers, in the Six Counties. O’Gorman had passed her on to McGinty somewhat the worse for wear. That was part of the reason for the anguish in Hughie’s voice.
    O’Gorman liked the whine of supplication that only he could hear. It meant McGinty knew that if things went awry, Dick O’Gorman could arrange to have a killing machine like Billy Kilroy on a plane to America in twenty-four hours. That was always implied in their original arrangement to let McGinty walk in good health, unkneecapped, with both eyes still in his head.
    You wouldn’t kill a man with two lovely kids, would you, Dick? That was what McGinty was saying. He knew it was a waste of breath, but he said it anyway. Irish.
    â€œIf we get going, we can be in Paradise Beach for dinner,” McBride said. “It’s only two hours from New York. We get quite a lot of New Yorkers in the summer.”
    In the winter, O’Gorman