MARTIN AND FRANCIS had called a truce. Martin was too tired and Francis had announced that his bladder was full to bursting—though he had offered to continue their conversation so long as Martin didn’t mind him unbuttoning his trousers and having a slash right there on the carpet. Martin put his head back on the sofa and pressed his palms to his eyelids. The hangover was gaining steam, and arguing with his brother wasn’t any help. This was not the way he had pictured their reunion, although if he had been honest with himself, he would have admitted that, yes, this was exactly how things were likely to go.
As Francis pissed loudly into the toilet, he tried to tally how many cups of coffee he had bolted down before striking out for Martin’s apartment—three? Four? He didn’t even like coffee; he was hoping only for a stronger jolt than the thin-boned American tea could provide. They had been in America for two days and the quality of the tea had been one of the few disappointments. He could have gone straightaway to find Martin, but he figured it best to give himself a couple of days to get settled and for Michael to continue on the path to better health. The sea air had been good for him and city life had been even better. When they had set out from Cobh, Michael was a shell of himself. He could hardly walk ten feet without help from Francis. But two days of room service and plush beds—cheers to the FC Plan, once again—put some flesh on his bones and even a bit of the old sparkle in his eyes.
As for Martin, he was an odd duck when it came to questions of family loyalty, and Francis had been unsure how he would respond to the train of illegality that Francis was dragging behind him. So far Martin had taken it all in stride, or as much in stride as Francis could have hoped for. But how would Martin have responded if Francis had told him the truth? That when Francis had been ordered to move the car, he had not only had words with one of the bomb makers, but had scuffled with him? And that when the first man had tried to settle the fight with a punch to Francis’s midsection, Francis had sent the man reeling inside, and slammed that iron-ribbed door, and somehow the whole works blew up? Francis had already spent the intervening weeks asking himself if things could have gone differently if only he had been more careful. He didn’t need Martin asking the same questions and coming up with his own answers. And whether or not he told Martin all there was to know about the event, the essential truth remained the same: Ireland had dealt the Dempsey family one more kick in the balls, but this time—through Francis’s quick thinking and selfless devotion to his brother—he had made it the occasion of their triumphal flight from their cruel, capricious homeland.
If it all sounded like something out of a true-crime novel—another staple of the prison library—then there you had it: life imitating art. Or maybe this was what life did best, drop you in the middle of a story that you’d have a hard time believing if you saw it between the covers of a book. Even Francis himself had trouble keeping it all straight: mystery men from his father’s past, hand-drawn maps, stolen cars, an IRA bomb factory, a trunk full of banknotes, American heiresses, fancy ocean liners.
But now that Francis had finally brought all the Dempsey brothers together again, he was ready to enjoy himself. There was a barbershop off the lobby, and that would be the place for a shave. Hot towels and lather, the straight razor against his neck. He hadn’t had a chance to treat himself since they arrived. Sure, last night’s dinner had been steak and a bottle of Bordeaux, but it had been room service, a pale shadow of what he imagined the full restaurant experience would be. He wanted waiters, busboys, a ma?tre d’ to consult about the merits of the Pomerol versus the Haut-Médoc. He had a necktie he’d been saving for the right occasion, one he’d picked up on the ship during the Atlantic crossing—who knew there would be a tailor on board, exclusively for the first-class passengers?—and this first Saturday in New York was just the time for it. The Dempsey brothers were reunited and that was cause for celebration. They would start with a fine dinner, where they would fill themselves with porterhouse steaks and martinis, and then Martin could take them to a real nightclub. He was a musician and must know a thing or two about how to have a good time—or at least where a fellow could go to have one. Francis wanted to hear jazz music and he wanted to drink a Manhattan with a cherry as big as his fist. He wanted to see girls dancing in nothing but feathers and glitter, their eyes rimmed in black. He wanted bright lights and brighter music, gin and cigarettes, lipstick and smiles. He wanted a night that bled into the next day, a party that never stopped.
There was a depression on, here as back home, but not for a man with money in his pockets. In the Ireland he knew, the sense of squalor, of dinginess, of glamourlessness, was omnipresent. There were greater and lesser degrees of it—he had run with a posh crowd in Dublin before his arrest—though you could never entirely escape its damp touch. But here? It had taken Francis only a day in the States to see that when so many were poor, his money and his title gave him a special glow and granted him access to a world that others could only dream of. A depression didn’t mean the extinction of comfort and luxury. They still existed in abundance, but it was a bounty available to a select few. He thought of that Walter fellow on board the Britannic, going on about how the crash had acted like a sieve, culling the ranks of the truly rich. Francis had nodded in sage agreement, even backed it up with a sly wink, but underneath, other ideas roiled: You fat filthy bastard, he had thought. Give me half a chance—I’ll show you how to thin the herd.
Now here he was. The seventh floor of the Plaza Hotel. His face was framed by a gilt-edged mirror, like a portrait of some distant, wealthy relative. Charming bloke, my great-uncle. Fought with Wellington at Waterloo. Quite, quite. Francis withdrew a diamond pin from his jacket pocket and slid it into his lapel. He had lifted it from Walter the night after their dinner, when he found him legless-drunk on the casino deck. Walter got off easy, Francis told himself. Could have pitched him overboard. He smiled at the memory of it and pointed his finger gunlike at his reflection. Your money or your life. Your money and your wife.
He readied himself for more questions, but on reemerging from the bathroom he found Martin fast asleep, his chin on his chest and his legs forming a bridge to the marble-topped coffee table. His breathing came slow and regular, bracketed by a ragged snore on the inhale. Michael had returned to the sofa; he was perched on one arm, examining his brother’s profile. He looked better than he had in ages. Like his old self again.
“Let’s take a walk,” Francis said.
Michael didn’t answer—not that Francis had expected he would. His younger brother stared intently at Martin, a look that Francis took to be happiness. He had brought Michael here and now he had given him this gift of his oldest brother. If Michael could speak, Francis was certain he would say something like Thank you, Francis, for bringing us back together. It almost made Francis mist up just thinking about it.
He boxed Michael on the shoulder to break whatever spell Martin had over him. “Come along, brother,” Francis said. “Let’s take Manhattan.”
FORDHAM HEIGHTS