Free The Pariot GAme by George V. Higgins Page B

a sudden Magro is in the shit up to his earlobes and thinking seriously about dialing nine-eleven and asking for emergency police protection. And that is when the call came through to Magro from down south of the line there, that a fellow who was maybe in a little trouble with his buddies might think about doing a favor for the boss. Show his heart was in the right place, you know? So that’s why Magro knocked off Holby in a hurry and made a mess of it. He had to do it then, or somebody was going to do something to him. Guy was desperate.”
    “Which leaves Harrington,” Walker said. “Who did that?”
    “Ahh,” Riordan said, “we’ll never know. Some volunteer, probably. Goes out to do Digger a favor, come back and brag about it later, be a big man with a bigger man. Probably some tough young kid we never heard of, yet. Looking to make his bones. Then the shit hit the fan, and he was smart enough to keep quiet. Thing of it is, Magro’s in here doing a long bit, and he thinks it’s Digger’s fault. So I think I know what he’s going to do when he gets out, only this time he’ll plan a little better.”
    “What do you care?” Walker said. “Nothing but another thug.”
    “Kenneth,” Riordan said reproachfully, “I am a governmentagent. I am sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Jeremiah Doherty is an American citizen, and he cannot be deprived of his life or property without due process of law. I don’t think Magro’s going to be too keen on due process for the Digger, if he gets out.”
    “What’s the real reason?” Walker said.
    “You ever been in the Bright Red?” Riordan said.
    “Can’t say as I have,” Walker said. “Little outside my regular rounds.”
    “I have,” Riordan said. “I have been in there once. I got made within forty minutes. I was sitting at the bar, having a dog, onions, mustard, Labatt’s ale, some chips, and I was watching the ballgame. And every so often I would sort of glance around and see all these little white fund-raising canisters. The kind you drop quarters in? For Little League and the softball team and poor Flynnie the fireman that fell off the ladder practicing on a three-decker up in Savin Hill? Now Ken, I am used to seeing quarters go into those things. Sometimes two quarters at a time, if Flynnie was a real good guy and him and Frances had about three hundred kids and she can’t work on account of that mastoid thing she’s got. I am used to that. But there are bills, American currency, going into those canisters, and this is not a wealthy crowd. In addition to which, there are no labels on those canisters. Not even any Magic Marker writing. So if you look at them, you don’t know where your hard-earned dollars’re going.”
    “Unless, of course,” Walker said, “you do know where those hard-earned dollars’re going.”
    “That’s what I was thinking,” Riordan said. “That’s what I was thinking when all of a sudden I noticed a mean-looking guy across on the other side of the room and he was looking at me real hard. He said something to the guy who was having refreshments with him, and that guy said something to the next guy, and pretty soon the only voice in the saloon was the announcer on the ballgame. So I decided I was right, and I doknow where those hard-earned dollars are going. I got up and I paid my money and I left.”
    “Gunrunning,” Walker said. “A little noisemaker or two for some people up in Ulster and Connaught who resent the British soldiers in their midst.”
    “That is what I thought,” Riordan said. “And I also think that if I get time enough, sooner or later the Digger will show me where those party favors are. Unless the guys I am running around trying to find all over the damned country because my asshole boss in Washington decided I can catch unicorns if he decides that he wants unicorns, unless those guys come out of the bushes some night and knock me off. Which could