Free Secret Isaac by Jerome Charyn Page B

the match.” All the Irish bishops would be at Croke Park. Isaac might get canonized. They’d give him the Rock of Cashel to take home with him to America …
    The First Dep was out of his skull. These men in their painter’s hats wouldn’t have served on any team with him. Isaac gave the lounge to them, the champions from Cork. He decided to walk the Liffey. He didn’t need Ulysses as a primary text. He could have his Dublin without Mr. Joyce. Marshall was the haunted one. Not him. He wasn’t going to court the river goddess, Anna Livia. He’d leave that to the Irish. But the river seemed fiercer today, much less of a pissy stream. The sun burnt down on the water, colored it red, like a king’s beard.
    He’d entered a section of warehouses on the quays. A poorer Dublin again. Dog carts and little grocery stores. Children lunged at his pants. They had dirty faces and torn sleeves. Isaac didn’t know what they expected from him. They were trained beggars from some gypsy camp north of Dublin. He gave them all his Irish pennies. They still lunged at him. An old man had to chase them away with a stick, or they would have followed Isaac inside his pants. He was at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. Lime Street and Misery Hill. A huge black sedan was just behind him, trundling at Isaac’s pace. Isaac stopped and started again. He wasn’t going to give the car an easy time of it. Let the bitches stall on Sir John’s Quay. The dog carts could drive them back to O’Connell Street. The car rumbled up close. A door opened for him. The First Dep was hauled in like a stinking fish out of the Liffey. He was sitting on Timothy Snell’s lap. “Dumb fuck.” There’s only two choices, Isaac figured; they’ll take me to Dermott, or kill me in an alley off the quays. The car moved into a blind, dead street. Moses the apostate had no prayers to mutter. Would they push him down on his knees? Isaac should have stuck to the Shelbourne, like the king.
    He was still a puppet on Timothy’s lap. Couldn’t they give a man a little more room? Old Tim slapped him on the head. “Dermott is offering twenty thousand … he won’t go higher than that. You’re a nuisance, but he can always dig around you.”
    Twenty thousand? What were they talking about? Timothy slapped him again. “Isaac, the lad has made you an offer.”
    Isaac’s head was whistling. He didn’t mind the slaps, but they must have scared the worm. His gut squeezed horribly tight. He could have fallen off Tim’s lap, the way the worm grabbed at him.
    â€œEat your twenty thousand,” Isaac said, swearing his belly would explode and drop his entrails on Timothy’s shoe. “Tell the king my trip was all about Annie.”
    Old Tim pushed him off his lap. Isaac huddled near the door. He realized now that Dermott didn’t care to have him dead. They drove him back to the Shelbourne, and picked him out of the car. The doorman smiled at Tim.
    â€œHe’s a bit soused,” Timothy said. “One jar too many.”
    The doorman helped Isaac into the hotel.

Part
    Three

14
    T IGER John Rathgar became the forgotten man at his club. There were peculiar goings-on inside the Dingle. Irishmen appeared and disappeared without so much as a whisper to the PC. Some of them were lads from the Retired Sergeants Association who had sworn themselves to Chief Inspector McNeill. They wore derbies instead of eight-piece caps. McNeill had swallowed them up. John couldn’t get a word out of the boyos. They wouldn’t sing in his presence. Those wild geese, retired sergeants and Sons of Dingle Bay, had old boarding passes in their vest pockets. They shuttled between Ireland and Ameriky without telling John.
    He was reduced to a ceremonial piece, with his handsome profile and his straw hair. He would arrive at the funeral of a slain cop, hug the widow, give his hellos to the