A PRE-SPECTRUM STORY
BY MARION WOODS
…The
Queen of Paflagonia presented his Majesty with a son and heir; …. It was thought
the fairy, who was asked to be his godmother, would at least have presented him
with an invisible jacket, a flying horse, … or some other valuable token of her
favour; but instead, [she] went up to the cradle …, and said, “My poor child,
the best thing I can send you is a little MISFORTUNE;” and this was all she
would utter, to the disgust of [his] parents, who died very soon after, when
[his] uncle took the throne.
The Rose and the Ring, by William Makepeace Thackeray
Callum
Donaghue had been in New York for about a year before he’d raised the money to
send for his family. He
waited impatiently for them to clear customs at New York airport and smiled with
delight, waving enthusiastically, as he saw Rosaleen emerge from the Arrivals
hall with Ciara and Patrick clinging to her coat as she wheeled the luggage
trolley through.
“Over here, Rosa!”
he called, and hurried to the exit where he crouched to enfold his two wide-eyed
children in his arms. Five year old
Ciara hugged him, but Patrick clung to his mother, wide-eyed and shy. “Come here, son,” Callum encouraged and the dark-haired,
bright-eyed child advanced a little closer.
“I’m your Dadda, don’t you remember me?”
Patrick shook his head and Rosaleen put her hand on his thick,
wavy black hair.
“Give him a while, Cal, and he’ll be okay; he’s tired and he’s
only a baby.”
Callum
buried his disappointment and stood to wrap his wife in his embrace. “I guess so. It’s so good to see you,
Rosa!” He kissed her hungrily, believing her reluctance was merely due to being
in a public place: Rosaleen’s
shyness and seeming reluctance to surrender herself to him was a big part of her
attraction for him. Smiling,
he led them all out to the subway.
As they travelled, Rosaleen looked at the man she’d married. Callum had always been a good-looking,
smart-talking man, with a confident swagger and highfaluting ambitions. As such she’d been dazzled by his
attentions to her – until they were married, that was, and she’d began to
realise he was far more of a braggart than the dynamic go-getter she’d expected.
Her mother had not and still did not like him, and she’d tried to
talk her daughter out of going to America to rejoin him. “Yer better off without
him, Rosa: you and the babies.”
The words came back to haunt her as she looked at him now. His thick, black hair was too long and
unkempt, his clothes creased and none too clean. She saw him stretch out a hand to stop a case from toppling
over, and noticed with distaste that his fingernails were dirty. Fastidious to a fault, that one instance
condemned Callum before he had any chance to win her over.
She looked away and fingered the rosary beads in her pocket. She’d made her marriage vows
willingly enough and she’d stand by them, as it was her duty to do. She’d do it – whatever it cost her
personally – for the sake of her babies.
She smiled at Ciara and at her darling Patrick; they were her reason for living
now and she would devote herself to making their lives better than hers.
When they reached the cheap apartment building and Callum had
lugged the suitcases upstairs, he looked apologetically at his wife as she
surveyed the cramped rooms and dilapidated furniture.
“I didn’t want to waste money on a decent place, until we were
all together. I want us to find the right place
together,” he lied, hating the disillusion in Rosa’s expression.
She gave a brisk nod and replied, “It’s fine, Cal.
We’re all together, that’s what matters. I can clean the place up in a
trice and we’ll look for a better place in a few weeks, when we’ve settled in
properly. Now, the babies are
tired, where can they sleep?”
“There’s a small bedroom through here, they can share it. I bought an inflatable mattress that we can use for now, on
the floor here…”
Rosaleen nodded and took off her coat.
“We’ll manage.”
Callum relaxed. He
should have known that Rosaleen would make the best of everything; as she’d
always done, ever since he’d known her.
However, he’d forgotten her air of perpetual disenchantment with him that had
driven him to try his luck in the New World.
But it was grand to see her again; he’d missed having a woman in his bed of a
night and Rosa was still a very sexy woman.
She set about making drinks for the children and gave them a
biscuit from the supply she’d brought for the journey.
Then as the sun began to set between the high-rise buildings, she washed
them and got them ready for bed.
“I don’t want to go to bed yet,” Ciara said, annoyed at being
treated like her younger brother.
“Today you do,” Rosaleen said.
“It’s much later than you think, and you’ll be having jet lag to cope with.
Look, Pat’s yawning already.”
“He’s just a baby,” Ciara remarked, although she was fond of her
brother and didn’t mind having to share the single bed with him.
Rosaleen dropped her voice and said to her daughter, “Keep him
company then, Ciara, I don’t want him upset.”
“Okay, Mam.”
Once she’d helped them say their prayers and tucked them both in
bed, Rosaleen crooned a lullaby, smiling as Patrick’s eyes fluttered closed and
Ciara snuggled into the bedclothes.
She left them and went back to her husband.
“They’re asleep, or next to it.
It’s been a long day for us all.”
“We can unpack tomorrow and sort things out then,” Callum
suggested. “Let’s enjoy our time together, Rosa; I
have missed you…” He embraced her,
kissing her as his hands fumbled with the buttons at the front of her dress.
“Cal…” she protested, struggling a little.
“We have nowhere to sleep as yet.”
“Oh, sure.” He
dragged the mattress out and set to with a foot pump to inflate it, while she
gathered sheets, pillows and a few blankets from the cupboard.
Once their ‘bed’ was made, Rosaleen busied herself tidying things
away and opened one suitcase to find her nightdress.
“You won’t be needed that, Rosa,” Cal said, with an inviting
smile.
“And what if the children need me in the night?”
“They won’t…”
He started to undo the buttons once more, and buried his face
against the soft skin of her bosom, while his hand lifted the hem of her skirt.
Patrick woke suddenly and whimpered in the darkness.
He didn’t like this strange room and even the presence of the sleeping
Ciara was not enough to make him feel comfortable. He listened for a moment and heard strange noises
coming from the other room. He
slipped from the bed, clutching the worn, blue blanket that was his main
comforter, and padded to the door.
His mamai was lying in a bed on the floor and the strange,
dark-featured man who had said he was his Dadda was on top of her.
He was making deep, moaning noises and mamai’s head was turned away from
him, her eyes closed. Her
nightgown, with the pink roses embroidered around the neckline was lying on the
arm of the chair.
“Mamai,”
Patrick whimpered, and his mother’s eyes flew open as his father swore and
cursed the small boy.
Rosaleen scrambled into her nightgown and led the sobbing child back to the bed, comforting him as best she could without waking her daughter. When she went back into the other room, her husband was glaring at her.
“The boy will have to learn to stay where he’s put of a night,”
he stated angrily.
“He was frightened.
It’s only natural. He’ll settle all right, you’ll see,”
Rosaleen replied, getting back onto the mattress. But when Callum reached for her, she turned onto her side. “Goodnight, Cal; I’m awful tired…”
Cursing again, Callum Donaghue tried to get some sleep, but the
sun was starting to rise before he managed to doze off properly.
Children are amazingly resilient and Ciara and Patrick settled
into their new life with comparative ease; although Rosaleen found it harder.
Homesick and unhappy, she increasingly turned to the church for support and
solace from the hardship of their lives.
It wasn’t long before she realised that Callum wasn’t earning a
decent wage, or even regular money, and that the plane tickets had been paid for
by a loan at an extortionate rate of interest.
She used her meagre savings to pay that off and, with what Callum thought of as
an air of martyrdom, started scrimping and saving to make ends meet.
When Callum lost his labouring job not long after his family
arrived, Rosaleen found herself a cleaning job at a supermarket until her
advancing pregnancy forced her to quit.
They left the small apartment and moved to one across the district. Rosaleen got work at home, stuffing envelopes and
packing boxes for a pittance. The
children helped when they could and Patrick often fell asleep at the table
surrounded by envelopes and merchandise.
Just before she gave birth to her third child, Niamh, they left
the new apartment late one evening and moved to a smaller one, in an even
cheaper area of the district.
This was the pattern of Patrick’s early life.
Callum found what work he could and in between confinements, Rosaleen
worked too. By the time Patrick was
6, and ready to start elementary school, they’d moved countless times and the
family had increased to four children.
“We have to settle now,” Rosaleen said, as she sat and nursed her
new baby, Brendan. “It was bad
enough having to move Ciara from school to school, but I don’t want that for
Pat. The boy’s clever, Cal. He needs to be educated properly.”
“You know we can’t afford a decent place with good schools,”
Callum responded. The years were not treating him kindly,
and his handsome face was starting to coarsen with disappointment and stress.
“We can try. I want
us to get a place and settle there.
There must be help we can get, for the children’s sake.”
“I won’t take any charity,” Callum snapped.
“Besides, we stand a risk of being sent back to Ireland if we bring
ourselves to the attention of the authorities.”
Rosaleen winded Brendan and settled him to her other breast
before she answered. “I won’t risk the children’s futures.
I’d rather go back.”
“You’re saying I can’t look after my own?”
She shook her head, not wanting to anger him; Callum’s temper was
fierce and he had trouble controlling it.
There had been an occasion when he had raised his hand to her, although she had
told him then, that if he ever struck her again she’d leave him and take the
kids back to Ireland. He knew her
well enough to know she’d meant it, but he was free with his fists with the
children and Patrick was usually the one to suffer.
Even in the red haze of anger, Callum hesitated to strike the girls.
“Things haven’t been easy, Cal; I know you’ve done all you can
and hopefully, this new job will last and you’ll make a go of it.
You deserve some luck.”
It was getting harder to find legitimate work if you didn’t have
the necessary documentation and in the confusion of the exodus during the
European Atomic War, Callum Donaghue had neglected to formalise his emigration
and that of his family. Recently
the government had been discussing an amnesty for people who qualified to live
and work here officially, and Rosaleen was hopeful that they’d be able to
regularise their stay soon.
Unknown to her husband, who would not have approved, she’d been
talking to the priest at the local church about their problems with inadequate
accommodation and her hopes for her boys.
He’d listened sympathetically and had spoken of how he might be able to help
them and what options they had.
She kept her voice neutral as she said, “I have heard of an
apartment not that far from here, and I know where I can get a job cleaning
offices downtown. That pays much better than any job I could get
locally. If we’re both in work,
we’d qualify for the immigration amnesty and that’d be worth applying for,
wouldn’t it, Cal? There’s a
school close by that apartment that has a good reputation, it gets special help
from the Church. If we move soon,
we could get Patrick and Ciara enrolled there for the new semester.”
“Where’d you hear all this?” he asked suspiciously.
His resentment at Rosaleen’s close involvement with the church fuelled
his feeling of inadequacy.
“Someone at the baby clinic mentioned it.”
Callum bit his thumb as he considered her words.
He was a proud man and he didn’t want to admit he couldn’t cope alone,
but he hated the feeling of helplessness their lack of money created in him. He didn’t like the idea of his
wife having to work so soon after she’d had a baby either, but without money you
couldn’t get anywhere in this life.
“I don’t know about the amnesty, it might be more trouble than
it’s worth,” he said, although he’d no doubt he’d end up doing what Rosa wanted
– as usual. He continued, “I suppose you might as well see what it’d cost.” Rosaleen beamed encouragement at
him. “How much do we owe here?” he muttered.
“Just two weeks’ rent and we can pay that easy enough.”
He glanced at her, amazed she’d managed their finances so well. Rosaleen kept her expression blank and
tried to forget the handout Father Dempsey had given her when she’d explained
that they were probably going to be thrown out of their digs again.
“Well, no one can say we don’t pay our way,” Callum said, with a
glimmer of pride. “If you want that
new apartment, my love, and it isn’t too much, then we’ll take it. Be sure it isn’t going to cost too much though, I’m already
doing two jobs.”
“I sure will, Cal. I
know we won’t regret it; it’ll be a fresh start for us all.”
Rosaleen smiled in contentment: the rent of the Church-owned apartment
was subsidised and it had more rooms than this one, as well as qualifying for a
place at the Church-aided school.
It had to be better than this hand-to-mouth existence.
She glanced across to the table where Patrick was busy drawing
and Ciara was listlessly turning the pages of an old magazine. It would be the first step on Patrick’s ladder to success –
she was sure of it.
The elementary school was an old fashioned building, but even
here there were metal detectors at the entrance to the building, because of the
reputation of the neighbourhood.
Yet inside the classrooms and walls of the long corridors were brightly painted
and decorated with examples of the children’s art work and crafts.
Patrick
excelled at figures and found maths no problem, although he was not a fluent
reader, but the teachers encouraged and supported all the children who wanted to
learn, and he was soon in the top stream and doing well.
Rosaleen’s pride in his progress was all-pervading: she delighted in talking
about ‘my Patrick’s intelligence’ to her neighbours and unintentionally
disparaged the other children’s achievements accordingly.
While she was not as academically gifted as her brother, Ciara
was a bright and clever child; but she struggled to motivate herself when she
saw that whatever she did never matched Pat’s achievements in her mother’s eyes. She preferred to hang out with her
friends and skipped classes when she could.
When she was ready to move to Middle School, she failed to get a place at
the better of the two local schools, but Patrick made the grade and moved on to
a more academic school some distance from home, where he flourished. By the end of his first year, he was in
the top stream and holding his own amongst the best scholars.
He was a friendly child, free from any personal pride and with a
wicked sense of fun, so he had no problem keeping his friends amongst the rowdy
neighbourhood boys, as well as the new ones he made at school. Then a minor brush with the law during one long summer
vacation scared his mother into clamping down on his freedom to roam the streets
with the local gangs.
She drew Patrick and the younger children into the social life of the church,
determined to protect them from the crime and ill-discipline she saw around her
on the streets.
Callum, who was working every hour he could to feed his family,
had more or less washed his hands of his eldest son; he felt embarrassed by his
own lack of education in the face of Patrick’s knowledge and so, apart from an
occasional cuff to let the boys know who was boss, he left the raising of the
kids to his wife.
Rosaleen’s dark hair was liberally scattered with grey now, and
she had lost the slender figure of her youth through repeated pregnancies. How she managed to keep her seven children under control was
a mystery, but out of them all the only real tearaway was Ciara. Patrick was a good role model for his
younger brothers, Brendan, Jack and Thomas, and was adored by his younger
sisters, Niamh and baby Kayleigh.
Ciara had developed into an attractive teenager.
She had the luxuriant black hair inherited from her father and, although
she was not overly tall, her buxom figure was in perfect proportion and she
managed to dress to emphasise her figure.
She had a roving eye and saucy way with her that brought her into
frequent conflict with her strait-laced mother. Patrick often acted as a buffer between them, but although
Rosaleen idolised her eldest son, she would not be deterred from criticising her
eldest daughter.
Ciara left school as soon as she could and got herself a job in a
downtown hairdressing salon.
Hopeful that her problem child was going to be settling down, Rosaleen breathed
a sigh of relief, but couldn’t stop using Ciara as an example of failure to her
other children.
“You need to work hard at school, Pat,” she insisted. “I don’t
want you leaving before you’ve got a good education, like Ciara did.”
Pat looked up from the table, where he was doing his homework on
the second-hand personal computer he’d bought with wages from his weekend job
and reconditioned for himself. “I’d
sure like to go to college, if I could,” he admitted.
“But I know that’d be too much for you and Dad to manage. There are the others
to consider.”
Rosaleen sat beside him for a moment, and thought about the
problem. “You deserve the chance, Pat; I’ve yet
to see the others do as well. I’ll
pray over it, and ask Father Murphy if he has any ideas how to arrange it – if
you do well enough,” she promised, patting his arm.
“The good Lord will provide, Patrick, you’ll see.”
“It’s always seemed to me that the good Lord helps those who help themselves, but don’t let that stop your God-bothering on my behalf,” he muttered under his breath, as he watched his mother walk away to stop a squabble between Thomas and Kayleigh becoming a fight.
“You worthless trollop!” Callum raged over the figure of his
weeping daughter. “Do you blame
your mother and me for raising you to go and do such a thing?
How could you shame us so, Ciara?”
“I didn’t mean to… it was an accident…”
“Who is this boy?” Rosaleen asked.
Calmer than her husband, she was nevertheless looking shocked and there was no
sympathy in her voice, even as she fingered the beads of her rosary.
“He’s a guy I met at work.”
“I thought they
were all shirt-lifters at your work,” Callum retorted scathingly.
“No, he was a
customer,” Ciara admitted. “He’s a
rich man, he always asked for me to do his hair and he’s a good tipper…”
“He sure tipped you well,” Callum roared, as Ciara began to cry again.
“Well, we must
make the best of it, I suppose. At
least you say he has the money to support you.
He’ll have to marry you; have you told him yet?” Rosaleen asked.
Ciara’s sobs grew
louder as she hiccoughed the words:
“He can’t marry me; he’s already married,
Mamai!”
“Holy Mary,
Mother of God,” Rosaleen moaned.
Callum’s arm
swung round towards Ciara, who cowered back in expectation of the blow, but
Patrick stepped between them and grabbed his father’s arm.
“Leave her be,
can’t you? She knows better than you that what’s
happened is wrong.”
“Keep out of
this, Patrick. Your sister is
nothing but a dirty, little whore and
she deserves a damn good thrashing!
If we’d done it before now, she’d have known better than to bring such shame on
us!”
“We should be
asking her what we can do to help,” Pat exclaimed angrily.
“We’ve always looked out for each other; we can’t turn our backs on one
of our own now!” He looked at his
mother. “’Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone’: isn’t that what
it says? Ciara needs our help.”
“I’m so sorry,
Mamai, I’m sorry, Dad; I never meant it to happen. I was a fool and I listened
to his lies. I’m so sorry – forgive me,” Ciara pleaded.
Rosaleen looked
at her daughter for a long time, but Patrick couldn’t see any softening of the
anger and disapproval in her face.
She looked away and dropped her eyes to her beads.
“She’s not
staying in my house,” Callum snapped, as if his wife had given him a signal to
speak. He backed away from his son as he
said so; Patrick was nearly as tall as him and although he was lanky, he was
already strong – his grasp on his arm had proved that.
“I’m having no bastards under my roof.”
Ciara wailed
again and turned to look beseechingly at Rosaleen.
“Mamai…”
“Your father has
spoken,” Rosaleen said, her voice devoid of any sympathy. “I will help you pack your things and I will telephone to
Father Murphy; he’ll be sure to know of some place you can go to have the… the
child.”
“Mam,” Pat said,
“you don’t mean that?” He knew
Callum’s judgment would change if Rosaleen insisted otherwise.
“Please, say that you don’t mean it!
You’re talking about Ciara but you’re behaving like you don’t care about
her!”
Rosaleen looked
at her son. She was proud of
him; proud of his healthy, good looks, proud of his mental abilities and now
proud of his compassion, but he would have to learn that there were times when
the offender did not deserve kindness.
Ciara had been headstrong for years; wilful and disobedient, she had utterly
failed to live up to her mother’s ideals.
And if that were not sin enough in itself, she’d brought shame on the family by
her wantonness while her mother had had to endure the attentions of a husband
she no longer loved, or even respected, because it was her duty to do so.
That her daughter
had chosen not follow her strict moral code was, in Rosaleen’s eyes,
unforgivable. She had taught them all that loyalty to
the family was essential; but they had to realise that condoning such sinful
excesses was not. And Patrick
needed the lesson as much as the other children. Besides, she didn’t dare take
the risk of her younger daughters following in Ciara’s footsteps, and believed
it imperative that her eldest child must be sacrificed for the family’s good.
She gave the
merest shake of her head, indicating that she would not reconsider.
“I ‘m not going
to go to some appalling home for unmarried mothers,” Ciara said, finding some
strength in her brother’s support.
“I admit I’ve been careless, but it’s nothing more than many women do these
days. You’re living in the past, Mamai. If you throw me out, I will go back to…
him. He’s said he’ll look after me,
if I… if I get rid of the baby.”
Rosaleen crossed
herself. “If you do that, I shall never see you
again, Ciara,” she warned.
“And when will
you see me if I have the baby?” Ciara asked her mother.
“On your deathbed, maybe?”
“What choice are
you giving her?” Patrick demanded.
“She has made her
bed – in every way – now she must lie in it,” Rosaleen said.
Ciara shook her
head and spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. “Then, I’ll have to do as
he asks,” she said.
“May God forgive
you, Ciara, for I never shall.” Rosaleen rose from her seat and walked to the
bedrooms, where they heard her dragging a suitcase from under the bed and
opening the wardrobe.
Pat carried the
bulging suitcase down the stairs for Ciara and along the street to the entrance
to the subway.
“What will you
do?” he asked her, as she rifled in her bag for ticket money.
“As I said, I’ll
go back and tell him I will get rid of the baby.
Then I’ll start again as best I can.”
“Ciara… I wish I
could help.”
“You did, Pat.” She hugged him fondly. “Don’t worry about me; you work at
getting to college. You’re the best
hope that family has of ever leaving this cesspit town.”
“Let me know
where you go and how you are,” he pleaded, scribbling an email address on a
scrap of paper from his pocket.
“You can reach me here – any time.
I’ll do whatever I can, if you need any help.”
“Oh, I’ll be all
right. I’m no saint, Pat, and there are always
opportunities for people who aren’t too choosy about where the next dollar comes
from.”
“Ciara!”
She grinned. “No, I don’t mean it like that. Whatever Dad thinks, I’m not a whore and
I never will be. I promise you
that.”
“Look after
yourself,” he said, and hugged her again.
“You too. Goodbye, Pat.”
She picked up her
suitcase and went down into the station to catch the train. He watched her until he could no longer see her and the
train pulled out across the tracks.
Then he turned and slowly made his way back to the family apartment, as a wisp
of resentment at the conspicuous lack of charity in his mother’s dogmatic
attitudes settled in his heart.
Miss Anita
Haymes, battle-scarred and cynical after 25 years’ service in local schools,
still struggled to get some rudimentary knowledge into the kids that had no
choice but to attend her classes.
She was an optimist and believed that every child she encountered had the
potential to be a genius, but she had finally moved to the Church school in an
attempt to find the one child who exhibited those characteristics. She quickly spotted Patrick’s first-class mind and
targeted him for special tuition.
Finding him a willing pupil, she devoted herself to getting him properly
educated.
“You see, Mrs
Donaghue, I can give Patrick the extra tuition so that he can take the
scholarship exams. I have spoken to Father Murphy and he
will pay most of the fees, but not all of them.
Even that is more than he should do, but he recognises Patrick’s
abilities too.”
Rosaleen nodded
slowly and pushed the plate of cookies across towards Miss Haymes, who gladly
took one – Mrs Donaghue’s cookies were legendary at the school.
In the sweltering
heat of the summer, the apartment was uncomfortably hot, but Rosaleen had still
baked: it was Monday and that’s what she did on a Monday. The Donaghue children were all outside, or at work, and
Callum was sleeping in the main bedroom as he was working the night shift. Miss Haymes’s visit was unexpected, but
she noted that despite the number of people living in the apartment, it was neat
and spotlessly clean.
“I am glad to
hear that Patrick’s working hard, Miss Haymes,” Rosaleen said. “He’s been… less communicative recently.”
“Patrick works very hard, Mrs Donaghue,” Miss Haymes
reassured her. She knew that he had
been disturbed by his elder sister’s departure from the family home, although
Pat had not told her the full story.
“I think he’s ready to move on,” she said, recalling the vehemence with which
the youngster had condemned his parents’ narrow-mindedness.
“We’d have
trouble paying anything for extra tuition,” Rosaleen said, although it hurt her
pride to admit it. “But if
you really feel it will be of use to Patrick, we will do what we can, of
course.”
“I assure you,
the charges will be the very minimum possible.”
Anita nibbled the cookie and then said, “I’ve been in teaching for a long time,
Mrs Donaghue, I’ve seen thousands of children, some bright and some not so
bright; but I tell you plainly, Patrick is probably the brightest child I have
ever had the pleasure of teaching.
I’d like him to apply for an Ivy League scholarship, because I feel sure he’d do
well. They take more into account than
just the family’s background, their economic well-being. They look at the
extra-curriculum activities of the applicants.”
“How do you
mean?”
“I know Patrick
was closely involved with the church – until recently – and I wondered what he
does instead now.”
Rosaleen drew in
a sharp breath and sat upright. “He
had a falling out with the priest… over a family misfortune.
You know how passionate young men can get about things they don’t really
understand, Miss Haymes? Patrick
has a kind heart and he’s too soft on the mortal sins of others. I’m sorry to say that I can’t get him to
go to church now, although I pray every day that he’ll come to his senses soon.
He spends his time down at the library or working his job in the drug store.
He’s also been helping at the elementary school he used to go to,
teaching the youngsters about computers and such things in an after school
session. He’s always had a knack
with machines and such.”
Miss Haymes
nodded. “That’ll go down well with the selection
boards. I really think we can get
him into a first rate university, Mrs Donaghue.
Do I have your permission to try?”
Rosaleen nodded.
“Patrick’s a good boy, Miss Haymes, and I’ve always known he’d be a clever one. I want what’s best for my son.”
“Good.” Anita Haymes stood and extended her
hand. “Thank you for your time, Mrs
Donaghue; I will be in touch as soon as I have any news.”
Pat worked hard
to get ready for the examinations and Miss Haymes coached him in interview
techniques, although she was wise enough not to overdo it so that the youth’s
natural charm wasn’t buried under responses learned by rote.
His mother almost burst with pride when they heard that he’d been offered
a place at
Patrick chose to
travel to
He was excited,
but a little nervous of what the future held.
He knew he could hold his own academically, but he fretted about how he’d get on
with the other students, many of them bound to be from wealthy backgrounds.
It was for that reason that he didn’t want his parents to accompany him. The fact that he was ashamed of them cast a pall over his
excitement.
He enrolled along
with a noisy crowd and was shown to his room in the extensive quadrangle of the Old Campus.
Even in the small room with its worn furniture he felt a surge of
amazement and happiness: this was
his room – he didn’t have to share it with anyone, there were no noisy
youngsters racing about, or pestering him for help with their schoolwork. He sat on the bed and gazed out of the
window at the venerable buildings and found it hard not to squeal and drum his
heels on the floor with delight.
It took him a
week or two to settle in and find his way about, but he set about making friends
with determination, and as a good-looking, personable young man, he was of
interest to the female students.
His self-confidence soared once more as the lectures and tutorials started in
earnest and he found himself well-able to keep up and rated amongst the top
students on his course.
Delighted to
realise that his views were valued by his companions, he started attending some
of the political meetings on the campus, although he quickly discovered that he
was too radical for most of the established parties.
Outspoken and increasingly opinionated, he managed to draw attention to
himself by his eloquence and found himself welcomed by the older and more
politically radical students who ran an organisation known as ‘Group 22’. They took their name from a group of 22
dissidents in the right-wing military dictatorship of Bereznik who had been
imprisoned for their opposition to the regime.
An idealist, for
all that he had grown up on the hard streets of
He practised his
oratory at the regular meetings and was encouraged by the reactions from the
others, flattered by the consequence given to his pronouncements, until he began
to see himself as a popular demagogue standing up for the rights of the masses
against the tyranny of big business and the oppressive bureaucracies that still
existed around the world beyond the reach of the World Government. What he failed to realise was that for
many of the members, radicalism was as much a fashion statement as a cause, and
the number of genuine die-hard believers was small.
The decision of
the American government to invite the Bereznian Head of State to
The members of
Yale’s Group 22 joined the thousands of other protestors in
The Bereznian
officials made a formal protest about the approaching demonstrators, threatening
to withdraw from the talks. Because
the negotiations were at a delicate stage and the World Government was keen for
them to be a success, the inexperienced, popularist mayor sent in the police and
state troopers to disperse the marchers.
“Look at that,”
one of Pat’s fellow marchers said.
“The cowards have sent in the troops to prevent our legal protest! We’ve got
them on the run!”
“Forward, to
protect our freedoms!” someone behind them yelled and Pat yelled too, adrenalin
surging through him as the mass of marchers speeded up, pushing him towards the
line of police in riot gear.
Things quickly
started to get out of hand and he realised he was in danger of being crushed
between the surging crowd behind him and the immobile line of police in front. There was no way he could duck out
and avoid the clash, so at the last moment he struck out with the banner he was
carrying to try and force a gap.
Something dark
whirred down towards him, a shattering pain radiated through his body and his
knees gave way….
Everything went
black.
Patrick came to
in the back of a police van, tried to rise onto his hands and knees and was
violently sick. More people were
thrown in with him until a dozen of them – some nursing bloodied heads or black
eyes – were driven away to state holding cells.
They were documented, photographed and charged with various offences
under the public order acts and civil disobedience. One by one they were called out into the interview rooms to
meet their appointed attorneys.
Pat’s lawyer was
a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He glanced up as Pat came in and pointed to a chair across
the plain wooden table he sat at.
“Patrick
Donaghue,” he read from the documents in front of him.
“You’re a student at Yale?”
Pat nodded, wincing at the pain in his head.
“Then you should know better.
What’re you doing here?” He
flicked through his paperwork and answered his own question. “Ah, you’re in
Group 22?”
Pat nodded again.
“They’re well
known as troublemakers; there won’t be much sympathy for you in court.”
“We were making a
peaceful protest on behalf of the Bereznian dissidents,” Pat retorted.
“You were
embarrassing the mayor and costing the policing budget a fortune,” the lawyer
corrected. “Keep your mouth closed in court, unless
you’re asked a direct question – then keep your answers short and as neutral as
possible – and you may just walk away with a fine.”
“I want justice,”
Pat exclaimed. “I was attacked by a
state trooper.”
“Look, Patrick,
this whole affair has played badly locally and in
“I will not be
silenced!”
The lawyer
sighed. “Have it your own way, but I wash my
hands of you the first time you step out of line.
They can throw the book at you if they like, and believe me, they will.”
The courtroom was
small and stuffy and Pat faced the judge with a belligerent feeling of injustice
already bubbling beneath his pale face.
The main witness for the prosecution was a policeman, and Pat listened as he
gave a highly-charged and impossible account of the activities that had led to
the arrest. Pat knew that he’d done
nothing – he must’ve been just about one of the first protestors to be knocked
down – and his sense of anger and injustice grew, as no one questioned the
veracity of the events as the officer related them.
The judge looked
at the defence attorney, who was about to concede the case when Pat sprang to
his feet.
“Your honour,” he
began, “I protest – the officer’s evidence was a tissue of lies! He must’ve mixed me up with someone
else, because all I remember is being knocked out cold by one of the troopers as
we marched. I woke up in the police
van. I can’t have done the things
he says I did.”
The judge banged
his gavel. “Sit down,” he ordered.
Pat ignored him
and the hand of his lawyer on his arm.
“We were protesting peacefully – as is the right of every free-born American –
against the presence in our country of the iniquitous leader of a totalitarian
state…”
“Mr Acheson,
control your client,” the judge demanded, banging his gavel again.
The lawyer got to
his feet and tried to make Pat sit down, but the youngster was too fired up now
and believing that he was not getting a fair trial, he was determined to have
his say. He made, what was for him,
a brief political speech, denouncing state intervention in the rights of the
individual. Carried away with his
own oratory, he called the hearing a political show trial and a travesty of
American justice.
The judge
continued to bang his gavel, demand silence and finally gave Pat 90 days for
contempt of court.
“Cocky young
devil,” Acheson remarked to the prosecuting attorney as the shell-shocked Pat
was taken below to start his sentence.
“Agreed,” his
colleague said. “But he might still have escaped so long in prison if he hadn’t
impugned the chastity of the judge’s mother…”
Acheson nodded in
agreement and, sighing, picked up the details of his next client.
Pat was shackled
and shoved into a security van with half a dozen other men, all destined for
prisons around the city. He watched the
guards disembark the men at various locations until there were just the three of
them left. The door slammed on them
and the engine started again with a wheezing roar.
The eldest of the
three of them, a solidly-built, grizzled-haired, black man, spat. Pat tried not to shrink as the phlegm
landed close to his foot.
“Fuck it – you
know where we’re going, doncha?” he muttered.
Pat shook his
head and glanced at the third man; a skinny young man, with pale skin and lank
fair hair. There was a film of sweat on his face as
he too shook his head.
“Blackwell’s.”
Patrick shivered. The old island prison was notorious. It had recently been reopened many
decades after being closed because of the dilapidated state of its buildings. Given the urgent need for more prison
housing, the Governor had decided it was cheaper to reopen Blackwell than build
any new wings elsewhere; but given the inadequate facilities, there were
frequent riots and lock-downs, which even the state government couldn’t keep
secret. It was generally thought
that the prison was run by a brutal regime of prison gangs.
Beside him the
fair-haired man whimpered.
“What’re you in
for?” Pat asked him, feeling a need to make some sort of human contact. “I got 90 days for public order
violations. I was arrested after the anti-Bereznik march.”
“Listen,” the
older man advised him, “I’m givin’ you free advice.
Don’t ask that, you never know what the answer’ll be and you might not like it.”
“Sorry,” Pat
said.
The man gave a
dismissive snort. “You still wet
behind the ears, boy; if you lucky you get out in 90 days with your ass and your
spirit intact; but don’t bet the farm on it.”
He leered at Patrick, but then glanced across at the third man. “Now him – he don’t stand no chance.”
Horrified, Pat
glanced at the man. He was already
frightened and at these words he shivered and shrank back.
“What’s yer
name?” the prison expert asked.
“Patrick
Donaghue.”
“Irish? Huh!” he spat again. “My name’s Darnell – Darnell Shaw – and
just so you know, Irish, I’m a pimp. Who’re you?” he demanded of the other
prisoner.
“C-Cody Brown.”
“You gonna suffer, Cody.
Ain’t no two ways about it.”
“I only got
busted for possession – just a reefer…”
Shaw laughed. “Makes no odds. They’ll be after you, lady-boy.”
The young man’s
face crumpled and he began to cry and Pat swallowed his fear as best he could. Shaw shrugged and turned to Pat.
“What you do at
the march to get yerself arrested?”
“They say I hit a
cop with a banner…” Pat began to explain, but Shaw burst out laughing.
“Yes-sah, that’d make ‘em send you to a tough hole like Blackwell’s,
sure enough; they don’ like cop-beaters.
Still, you should come out safe, Irish. Keep your head down and you’ll do
okay – if your luck holds. I’ll let
‘em know what you in for.”
Pat smiled
gratefully, even though the idea of being beholden to this man was not something
he looked forward to.
The police wagon
stopped and then juddered forward to stop again.
The door was opened and the three men ushered across a gloomy quadrangle
into a tall, brick building. There
were three guards waiting for them and they signed the receipt for their charges
and the ‘delivery men’ left.
The older of the
guards looked the prisoners up and down and read out their names. They mumbled acknowledgements and he gabbled through a list
of instructions.
To his
consternation Patrick was forced to strip and shower in a grubby communal
shower. The soap was hard, green carbolic and
the small towel threadbare and none too clean.
As he finished drying himself he was handed the ubiquitous orange
boiler-suit of the prison uniform.
Then he was given a list of his belongings which he had to sign over to the
prison guards before receiving the few small luxuries he was allowed to keep,
along with some thin bed linen.
“You’ll spend
tonight in the holding cells and move to your main cells tomorrow,” the guard
snapped. “Move!”
They were taken
to a bleak corridor of cells and ushered into one each.
Patrick surveyed his temporary quarters with dismay: it contained a
narrow, solid metal bed, bolted to the floor, a metal toilet against a wall and
a small metal sink. Thrown on the bed were a thin, stained mattress and two
threadbare blankets.
It stank.
He was ordered to
make his bed, and stay in the cell until further orders.
He did what he could to make the bed look remotely inviting, and sat on
the edge of it just to confirm that it was as uncomfortable as it looked. Despite his determination to take his
punishment ‘like a man’, he couldn’t stop the lump rising in his throat and the
burning sensation in his eyes, that watered as he blinked.
The memory of his
comfortable room at Yale, and even the utilitarian comfort of home made this
place seem even worse. He shivered
and had difficulty stopping his lip from trembling.
In the distance he could hear the clanking of doors and the shouts of
men. He recognised the smell of
boiled cabbage and assumed it must be meal time.
He hadn’t given it a thought and on reflection decided he wasn’t really
hungry.
A bell jangled
loudly, making him jump. The guard
shouted his name and he wandered to the door to see what was required.
“Come on – to the
canteen – now!”
Cody and Darnell
came out and lined up with him, then they shuffled forward through a metal grill
and along a corridor to a garishly bright hall.
At one end were serving hatches, and long trestle tables ran along the length of
the room. The place was heaving
with men, waiting in line for their food, or already seated. Pat was given a pre-formed plastic tray
and as he was hustled along the line by the men behind him, various scoops of
largely unidentifiable food was thrown onto the tray.
The noise was
deafening as all around him the prisoners queued for their food and bickered and
fought.
The
newcomers sat at a special table together, and he although he tried to eat the
bland, soggy food, he had no appetite and the food was not tempting enough to
make him hungry. He felt hot
tears prick his eyes as he recalled the wholesome food his mother had always
tried to give them, and his own lack of appreciation for her efforts.
Darnell nudged
him in the ribs. “If you ain’t
gonna eat that, Irish, send it over here.
We don’t get nuthin’ else till morning.”
Pat took another
mouthful almost retching as he tried to swallow, and then pushed his tray
across. Darnell pushed his empty tray away and
started on Pat’s food.
Cody was having
similar trouble, although he was making better inroads into his food than Pat
had been able to. When a shrill
bell jangled, all the men stood and moved with their trays to the counter hatch,
before marching out into the ‘leisure hall’ for their ‘free association’ time.
Darnell
disappeared into the crowd, eager, no doubt, to establish himself with the
leaders of the prison factions, so Pat drifted into a grubby lounge, where an
old television, its sound ruined by blaring out full blast everyday, was showing
sit-com reruns. Cody followed
him, looking more and more nervous as they walked past the other prisoners. Pat quickly became aware that the
other men around him were showing more interest in him and Cody than the
maniacal antics of the rubber-faced comedian on TV.
It was most unnerving and when he got the courage to move from his seat, he
wandered over to look for something to read from a shelf of dilapidated books by
the small, barred window.
Trying to appear
unconcerned, he began to look at the books: heart-broken to see the limited
variety and poor quality of the selection, he took what looked to be the best of
the bunch and went back to his seat.
Most of the men were watching TV now, and it kept their interest allowing him –
and Cody – to sit in silent fear.
The night bell
jarred at
As they reached
the door one voice called out:
Tomorrow you’re mine, sonny boy.
Pat walked into
the bleak cell and was still facing the wall as the door slammed behind him. He started, spinning round to see
the metal door blocking the exit to the cell.
He stood there listening with mounting terror to the rasp of metal bolts sliding
home. No sound he’d ever heard was
like this: nothing in the world had ever been so frightening, so final and so
depressing as the clang of that prison cell door as it was shut.
He was numb with
terror; unable to even construct a meaningful thought in his head, and aware
only of the thumping of his heartbeat and the burning in his throat and eyes.
When he regained
control of his limbs, he went and sat on the hard bed and muttered to himself:
“It’s only for 90
days, and I am a political prisoner, they won’t put me with the hard cases… they
can’t… I haven’t done anything. But
then – why am I here in a top security prison?
Oh, mamai… oh, Holy Mary, please don’t let anything happen to me…”
He bit his bottom
lip but the tears came and he smothered his sobs in the rough blanket until he
had regained his calm. Then
he washed his face in the cold water from the one tap and dried it on a
threadbare towel.
He put the few
private possessions he had been allowed to keep onto the one metal shelf and
settled down as best he could to read the book he’d chosen from the ‘library’ in
the TV room.
He stared at the
page for long minutes before he realised he had the book upside down.
“Get a grip,
Donaghue,” he chided himself, and gradually found himself able to blot out his
surroundings and lose himself in the story.
He turned to the next chapter just as the lights went out.
“What?” He glanced at the luminous hands on the
dial of his small clock:
It was the
longest night he’d ever experienced.
The harsh jangle
of the morning bell jerked Pat from his troubled doze and he stretched, stiff
and drowsy and dragged himself out of bed.
After relieving his bladder and having a wash that his mother would have called
‘no more than a lick and a promise’,
he tidied his hair by running his fingers through it and waited by the door to
be let out for breakfast. His
stomach was rumbling from hunger and he felt sure there’d be something he could
eat this time – after all what could anyone do to ruin breakfast?
He discovered
that breakfast consisted of porridge and plain wholemeal bread. The porridge had the consistency of lumpy wallpaper paste and
tasted like it as well, but he wolfed it down and chewed on the heavy bread
after wiping it around the bowl – as everyone else was doing.
He noticed that
Cody had not eaten much before a burly man sitting across the trestle from him
reached out and took the bowl from him.
Pat glanced around waiting for someone to remonstrate, but the guards, who must
have seen it, said nothing and Cody merely looked down.
He nibbled at his bread, until that was taken from him by another man.
Pat wondered why
he hadn’t had his food taken too, but he was grateful enough to have been
allowed to eat his in peace.
After breakfast
the men dispersed to their allotted workplaces and Darnell, Cody and Pat were
marched to the office of the Assistant Governor to be assigned tasks.
Henry Lancer
looked at the three men lined up before him and gave a shrug.
“You back again,
Shaw? I thought you were going to go straight
this time?” he said. There was an
overtone of disappointment in his voice and a complete lack of surprise on his
face.
“I tried, sah,
but I gotta eat and there’s no work,” Darnell said.
Lancer shook his
head. “I’ve heard it before, Shaw. You can go and work in the prison
allotment – for now. There’s
digging to be done.”
“Yes, sah,”
Darnell gave a grin. He’d be
outside for the day, which was always a plus.
Lancer looked at
Cody. “What’re you good at, Brown?”
“I don’t know,
sir. I’m studying art.”
“We don’t have
any decorating going on at the moment.
You’d better report to the kitchen and see if you can peel potatoes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Patrick met
Lancer’s eyes with a confidence he really didn’t feel.
Lancer glanced at the documents in front of him.
“Ninety days for
shooting your mouth off about the government, Donaghue?
You must’ve said some terrible things.” Lancer raised an eyebrow. Pat gave a slight shrug. “Says here you’re studying at Yale…”
“Yes, sir.”
“You a
communist?”
“No, sir!”
“Good. What’re you studying?”
“Physics,
electrical engineering and technology, sir.”
There was a knock
on the door and frowning Lancer called: “Come in.”
A matronly black
woman, dressed in a plain bottle-green dress and comfortable shoes, poked her
head around the door.
“Sorry, Mr
Lancer, but the computer’s gone haywire again and that urgent report you wanted
isn’t going to get done, so I thought I’d better let you know as soon as
possible.”
“What?
Tarnation
– that has to go out today, Mrs Moore!”
She came in a bit
further and shrugged. “I called the
engineers and they say it’ll be this afternoon – or probably tomorrow – before
they can come. Our maintenance
policy doesn’t give us priority repair status,” she reminded him with an
‘I-told-you-so’ expression on her face.
Patrick glanced
at her and she gave him a distracted, but friendly enough smile.
“Have you tried
running an anti-virus and a diagnostic checkdisk, before rebooting and running a
restore disk program?” he suggested helpfully, without thinking.
“How would I do
that?”
“Do you know what
you’re talking about, Donaghue?” Lancer asked, frowning intently at the young
man.
“Yes, sir; I’ve
rebuilt and upgraded my own computer dozens of times.
I even taught IT skills at the local elementary school before I went to
college.”
Lancer glanced at
his secretary who gave a supportive shrug. Pat looked from him to Mrs Moore with
a rueful expression. “I was only
trying to help, sir,” he said.
“Go fix it, and –
if you do, Donaghue, you can work here in admin… we could do with someone who
understands the technology – the damned stuff is always going wrong.”
“That’s because
it all came out of the
Mr Lancer blushed
slightly. “Well, get on with it,
Donaghue!” he growled.
“Yes, sir.”
Mrs Moore was a
friendly soul, and she sat and watched with interest as Patrick tapped away at
the keyboards and the computer lurched into reluctant, but submissive compliance
with his instructions.
As the screen
flickered and the monitor scrollbar worked through the disk’s programming she
made coffee and shared her choc-chip cookies with Pat.
“What did you do
to end up here?” she asked him.
“I went on a
protest march which got a bit out of hand.”
“What were you
protesting about?”
“The repression
in Bereznik and the government’s refusal to help the political dissidents,” he
explained.
“I read about
that.” She dropped her voice slightly. “The Governor got a bit heavy-handed, it
seemed to me. But we don’t mention
that here, Patrick.”
“No, Mrs Moore, I
guess not.”
He concentrated
on the computer, and eventually he managed to solve the problem and then he
stood and, smiling, presented the completed job to his new friend.
“It should work
now, Mrs Moore.”
She took her seat
and opened the document files. The
machine pulled up an emergency saved version and she opened it with a sigh of
relief.
“I haven’t lost
much work. You’re a genius, Pat.”
“Hardly,” he said
modestly. “But I do know my way
round a computer.”
She went and
reported to Mr Lancer and when she came back she smiled at him.
“He says you can work here with me.
You can start with some filing, in fact, you can start with those.”
“Sure…” He picked
up the bundle of court documents and began to sort them into alphabetical order.
It kept him
occupied until the lunch bell sounded.
By the end of the
day, Mrs Moore had secured him access to the second computer in the office and
let him check and enter invoice records onto the prison database.
When the bell
went, he was collected by a guard who led him to a different corridor and a new
cell in a corridor where the trustees stayed – those prisoners allowed greater
privileges and wider access around the facility.
The conditions were not much better, but the bed was softer than the one
in the holding cell, and Pat wondered if it were the same everywhere or if he
had a superior mattress on his moulded-metal framed bed.
Exhausted by his
poor night’s sleep and with a feeling of relief, he slept well.
The next morning
he breakfasted and went back to Mrs Moore, where he spent the day data-entering
and filing. Mr Lancer nodded
acknowledgment of his presence as he came and went and Mrs Moore, kindness
itself, had brought him some candy from outside and shared her cookies with him
again. There was some urgent work to do,
so he stayed over his lunchtime, and while Mr Lancer was away and Mrs Moore was
out of the office, he went online and surfed the net, checking his emails and
the forums he used to frequent.
It was the end of the week
before he saw Cody again, and then he didn’t recognise him at first.
He was delivering some files to the hospital when he noticed the figure in a
bed, hooked to a drip, black and blue with bruises and with a crust of dried
blood around his mouth.
“What happened?”
he asked the orderly in horror.
“He’s a pretty
boy – or he was,” the man said, with a shrug.
“And some men here ain’t seen a woman in a mighty long time.” He looked him up and down and gave him a
friendly wink. “Count yourself
lucky the Assistant Governor decided to keep you out of the main cell blocks.”
Pat stared at
Cody and realised what must have happened to the young man and what could have
happened to him. He felt
himself start to shake with a terror that almost paralysed him.
As the acrid taste of bile rose into his throat, he sprinted from the
ward to the nearest latrine and vomited his terror into the bowl.
He rested his
face against the cool partition wall of the stall and tried to control his fear. He’d not given much thought to the
brutal realities of prison life, preferring to turn a blind eye to the instances
of bullying and the abuse he’d witnessed, so this was a rude awakening. He realised he owed his continued
safety to Mrs Moore’s patronage and determined to do everything he could to make
himself indispensable to her.
Sunday was
visiting day. Patrick hoped his parents might come,
but as the afternoon wore on, he concluded that they weren’t going to make it. Disappointed, he had already sat
down to write them a letter, when his name was called.
“Donaghue, you
got a visitor. Cubicle 28.”
He hurried to the
visiting room and found the small booth that gave some illusion of privacy. He opened the door and went inside. To his surprise he saw Miss Haymes
sitting across the table.
She picked up the
phone as he sat down and he picked the receiver at his side of the Perspex
partition.
“Miss Haymes; how
nice to see you,” he began with genuine pleasure.
“I wish I could
say the same, Patrick. I never
thought I’d see you in here – a good many of my pupils do end up in prison, but
I hoped for better from you.”
“I was a fool,
Miss Haymes. I’ve learnt my
lesson.”
“So I should
hope. However, I’m not here for
recriminations. I’ve spoken to the
authorities at Yale and obtained their agreement for you to continue your
studies while you’re… away from the college.
I’ve brought you some of the necessary books and the next series of
assignments you have to work on.
The college has spoken to the Governor here and he’s agreed to let you have them
and continue your studies, providing you remain a good prisoner. I had to hand everything over to the
wardens, but you should get it all once they’ve checked them. I suppose they have to make sure I
haven’t hidden a file in them, so you could make a break for it.”
Patrick was
speechless. Then as she waited he stammered, “Miss
Haymes, I… I don’t know how to thank you-”
“By getting the
very best degree you can, Patrick,” she replied briskly.
“I was so angry that you’d been assigned to this prison, just for being a
rude and foolish hothead, but they justified it by saying you were a subversive.
I told them they were being almost as foolish as you’d been, but they were
unforgiving. Once I realised you were stuck in here,
I determined to get you the chance to continue your education.
Don’t
disappoint me, Patrick.”
“No, ma’am; I
won’t,” he promised fervently.
She relented
enough to give him a dry smile. “It
won’t be for long, Pat; and I hope you will have learned your lesson.”
He nodded. “Miss Haymes… have you… have you seen my
parents, by any chance?”
She shook her
head. “I did see Thomas the other day. He said
your mother was… saddened by what had happened and your father… well, he was
angry. I expect they’ll come round,
Pat.
Don’t worry.”
Patrick nodded. “Yeah, sure they will. I know I’ve let everyone down, Miss
Haymes.”
“You were silly,
but you were doing what you thought was right and it was in a good cause, Pat,
even if you chose the wrong way to support it.”
The bell for the
end of the visit shrilled.
“I’ll come again
in a week or so, if you’d like?” Miss Haymes asked.
Not trusting his voice, Pat nodded.
“Good; just let me know if you need more paper or any more books…”
“Thank you, Miss
Haymes – I… I… thank you.”
“Take care, Pat,”
she said gently, and left him.
The Governor was
as good as his word. Patrick found
that he was allowed a bedside light to work in the evening when locked in his
cell, and permitted to submit his college work to his tutors, after careful
checking by the Assistant Governor.
He tried to spend
every minute of his free time buried in his books.
When he was forced to associate with the other prisoners he found them
contemptuous of him, but although they bullied and mocked him ceaselessly, he
was not assaulted or victimised in the way many of the younger men were. He grew to welcome the soulless clang of
locking up time, as a respite from the stresses of the day.
Word had got
round amongst the prisoners that Patrick Donaghue
was a computer buff, and one evening as he was queuing for his meal, a hulking
man, his face scarred and his brawny arms plastered with tattoos, came to stand
beside him and ‘invited’ him to meet ‘The Boss’.
Pat knew enough by now to realise that such an invitation was in effect a
command; the man in question was part of a wide-ranging and powerful crime
syndicate and effectively, he ran the prison.
Rumour had it that the man was so powerful he’d done a deal with the
District Attorney’s office to spend a couple of years in jail on a minor charge,
for tax purposes.
Pat thought that
was going a little too far; there were easier ways to avoid paying tax – if you
knew how to work the system – and he had made a thorough study of the subject.
When the bell
rang for the end of the mealtime, instead of returning to his cell or the
library, Pat followed the man through the crowded hallway to ‘The Boss’s’ cell. It was far more comfortable than any of
the others, and had a view over the walls to the distant skyline of the city
across the river. Men hung
around the door and landing, waiting to do whatever they were ordered, and they
stared at him with antagonism as he was ushered through their ranks to the head
of the queue.
Dante Gubitosi
was in his forties; a fairly non-descript man, not overly tall or broad,
dark-haired and swarthy-skinned, with small, black eyes, beneath strong,
straight brows and a thin-lipped, wide mouth that seemed to be set in a
permanent frown of annoyance.
“Donaghue,” he
said in a friendly-enough manner, as Pat stopped across the carpet from his desk
and chair. “I want you to do me a
little favour.”
“Me?” Pat asked. “Why me?”
“Because a little
bird tells me you’re something of an adept with computers and – even more useful
– you have access to an internet link.
Is this so?”
Pat nodded. “I
work in the Assistant Governor’s office and I have permission to use the Net for
my university work.”
“And you can use
it for more than that?”
“Not officially.”
“But for a friend
you would do this? And am I not
your friend, Donaghue?”
“I… I hope so, Mr
Gubitosi.”
“I am, Patrick –
may I call you, Patrick? No one has
made your life difficult or interfered with you, have they?”
Pat shook his head. “And why
do you suppose that is? I shall
tell you, Patrick. Because I told
them not to. Leave the kid alone, I
told them, and they listen to me, because I am a good-hearted man and they all
like me.”
“Sure, Mr
Gubitosi – and thank you,” Pat remembered to add.
“My pleasure,
Patrick. Now, you will do just a little thing for
me in return, won’t you?”
Pat nodded; he
remembered Cody in the hospital and asked himself what choice he had.
“You’re a wise
man, Patrick. Now, what I want you
to do is bring me the results of certain sporting events, before the news of
these results becomes common knowledge.
You understand me?”
Pat nodded.
“It is nothing
you need to worry about, Patrick, just the issue of some small wagers I might
have with my friends. Nothing more. Now, one of my associates will deliver
you a list of the sporting events I am most interested about and you will then
report back – before free association time.
Sometimes, I might ask for the results to be delivered as soon as they
are known… can you do this, Patrick?”
“I can get them
online for you, certainly; but I don’t know how easy it would be for me to
deliver the details. If I keep
leaving the office, Mrs Moore might get suspicious.”
“You will not
need to leave the office; I don’t want you to leave the office.
I will send someone to you and he will give you a slip of paper
authorising you to give him the results.”
“Sure, Mr.
Gubitosi.”
“Good, then we
have a contract, Patrick. You
supply me with what I want, and I extend my patronage over you and you can sit
out your remaining days in safety.”
Pat nodded and
was ushered from the cell by one of the lackeys.
As he was left at the foot of the staircase, the man handed him a copy of the
Prison Newsletter inside of which was a list of the information he was required
to provide.
The next morning
he was busy entering data when Mrs Moore went into speak to Mr Lancer.
It was well
within his capabilities to make a few little programming changes to the –
supposedly access-controlled –
computer
and he
was able to circumvent the prison firewall and log onto the gaming website
specified by Mr. Gubitosi. He
copied down the details of the races and games results as requested and when the
trustee who acted as the prison post messenger came round with a pile of files
for Mrs Moore, he handed Patrick a slip of paper in exchange for the list.
Thereafter he
spent a nervous afternoon waiting to be denounced and sent back to the main
prison cells, but nothing happened.
At that evening in the refectory, one of ‘The Boss’s’ known henchmen came over
to where he sat, picking at his plate of stew, and handed him a small bar of
chocolate candy.
“The Boss is
pleased with what you did,” he said, looking the youngster up and down. “Inside the wrapper is a list for tomorrow. Keep doing it.”
Patrick exhaled
as the man walked away, feeling as if he’d been holding his breath all day.
That was the
pattern of the days and weeks that followed: he copied the results for whatever
he found written on the inside of candy wrappers and handed them over in the
pages of papers or magazines he was given to distribute and later he’d get
another candy bar with new questions. Apart from that, Patrick tried to keep
himself to himself, and worked hard on the college work Miss Haymes delivered
for him.
Pat was slowly
filing a large pile of police reports about new inmates one afternoon, while Mrs
Moore chatted on about the forthcoming wedding of her son to the daughter of one
of the guards here, when he heard the sirens begin to wail.
Mr Lancer came
out of his office looking flushed and angry.
He caught sight of Pat and snapped, “Get back to your cell, Donaghue. This will be a lock down.”
“What’s going
on?” Mrs Moore asked before the Assistant Governor could leave.
“Open warfare’s
broken out between Gubitosi and Stockman.
It seems Gubitosi has been running a sting on Stockman for some weeks. Now Stockman wants his revenge.”
“You stay here
with me, Patrick, I don’t want to be here alone if there’s a fight going on out
there,” Mrs Moore ordered as Pat made to leave. “Don’t worry about Mr Lancer;
I’ll deal with him if he makes any fuss about it.”
“What does he
mean: a sting?” Pat asked, sitting back down.
Mrs Moore poured them
both a coffee and settled back to chat.
“Well, from what I can work out, Stockman is the prison bookie – oh, I know
they’re not supposed to gamble, but they do and the wardens know about it, but
reckon it doesn’t do too much harm. They probably take a cut of the proceeds, if
they think no one’ll notice.” She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “They do say corruption breeds
corruption and this is no place for decent folks to work,” she said, apparently
oblivious to the irony of her situation.
She sipped her
coffee and continued, “Well, it is common knowledge amongst the guards that over
the last few weeks Stockman’s been losing heavily on bets made by members of
Gubitosi’s gang. Maybe they were
just on a lucky streak, but you can’t trust these cons.
Anyway, now it seems as if the Stockman gang is out for blood.”
Pat choked on his
coffee.
“Don’t you worry,
Pat; they won’t get this far. Mr
Lancer will lock down the wing before there’s any trouble.”
“I sure hope so.”
With good behaviour Patrick was released on
Instead, Miss Haymes was there to meet him, and had brought his
sister Niamh with her, which was a pleasant surprise.
Niamh hugged him and clung to his arm as they walked back to Miss
Haymes’s car.
“Mamai and Dad send their love,” she lied glibly.
“They’re sorry they couldn’t come and meet you. They’re both at work.”
“Sure, it’s no problem,” he said, accepting the statement at face
value as he was unwilling to make Niamh suffer for his disappointment.
“You’ll be going straight back to Yale, won’t you?” his sister
asked.
Patrick looked at her and felt his heart sink.
He had hoped to at least be received back home for a bit of cosseting
from his mother, but he saw the anxiety in Niamh’s eyes and realised that, just
as she had done with her eldest daughter, Rosaleen had disowned her favourite
son.
He nodded. “I have a
lot to do there to catch up. I
worked while I was inside, but there’ll be other stuff…”
“You can come with us, if you like?
I’m going to drive Patrick back,” Miss Haymes offered, but Niamh shook her head.
“Better not,” she replied.
“I didn’t want Pat to come out of prison without someone from the family to meet
him – and give him a big hug-” She suited her actions to her words. “But I’m expected home after school and I cut lessons to come
here. I can easily get back to
school before I get into trouble; if you’ll drop me at the subway?”
Miss Haymes nodded and opened the doors to her battered car. She drove to a convenient subway station
and let Niamh out.
“Take care, Pat. See
you soon, I hope,” Niamh called, as she got out and shut the door.
Miss Haymes pulled out into the traffic and Pat watched his
sister waving goodbye on the sidewalk until they turned the corner and she
vanished from his sight.
It was a very quiet ride back to
For the remainder of his time at Yale, Patrick worked hard. He avoided the company of his former friends
in Group 22, and kept his opinions to himself. He wrote to his parents to say he was back at college
and received nothing more than a polite acknowledgement in return. Thereafter, he distanced himself
from his family as well; angry at their refusal to forgive him for what had been
rash, but youthful, folly.
The following year he became romantically involved with a young
woman who came from a well-to-do
“Hey, Pat, we can all make mistakes.
No one with any true understanding can approve of a totalitarian state that
persecutes its own people. My
parents won’t care about that – and I don’t care either.
I think you’re sweet to worry about it.”
She leaned over and kissed him.
Pat was delighted; he had come to care for Lauren and thought her
the most attractive girl he’d met.
Their affair was conducted with some secrecy to begin with, but gradually they
relaxed and took no pains to hide their involvement.
Because he had nowhere to go out of term time, in the summer of
2054 he was invited for a holiday with the family in
On Independence Day, they were guests of the fabulously wealthy
Svenson family at a swanky barbecue held at their impressive family home. He quickly discovered that even money
did not prevent family feuds; he heard the whispered asides that ‘we all know why Adam isn’t here, don’t we?’
and learned that the eldest son and his father were at loggerheads. When he was introduced to the
formidable John Svenson and his vivacious wife, Pat vowed to himself that one
day, God willing, he’d have luxury like this at his command.
To that end, he devoted himself to working hard at getting good
degrees, and was rewarded with excellent results in physics, electrical engineering
and technology when he graduated in 2055.
His relationship with Lauren ended amicably at the same time, as
she prepared to travel to
He now had to support himself and with Miss Haymes’ help, and a
character reference from Mr Hasket, he secured himself a position as a
programmer in a large insurance company based in
Miss Haymes was his rock through these months, and she encouraged
him to consider a reunion with his family.
“I know you’re mad at them, Pat,” she said, as he ate the Sunday
lunch she’d prepared for them both.
“But, see it from their point of view:
they felt they had to keep the family out of something so political. Your father came to this country without
all the proper paperwork and they worried what happened to you might’ve
jeopardised their position. I
know,” she interjected as he began to protest.
“I explained it doesn’t work like that, but… well, I don’t think they believed
me. Now you’ve graduated so well and have a
good job and a place of your own, I’m sure they’d like to see you. I know your brothers and sisters would.”
“Miss Haymes, have you heard anything about Ciara?” he asked
suddenly.
Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
“No, dear, I haven’t. She doesn’t
seem to have been in touch with any of the family.”
“I’ve been thinking about her a lot recently and I want to find
her,” Patrick said. “At the very
least, the black sheep of the Donaghues should stick together.”
“She may not want to be found, Pat.”
“She’ll want me to find
her.”
“Good luck with it then,” Miss Haymes said softly, adding, “Only,
please, Patrick, don’t be disappointed if she’s not on the pedestal you’ve built
for her.”
He grinned suddenly, vividly reminding her of the boy he had
been.
“Hey, Miss H, you’re talking to a jail bird here.
Whatever Ciara’s done, can’t be worse than that.”
Privately, Miss Haymes hoped he was right.
Patrick found
life numbingly mundane over the next few months: he dedicated himself to the
reputable – if boring – downtown company.
The pattern of his life appeared to be cast in stone and to stretch into a grey
future; although part of his rebellious nature still wondered if there wasn’t
something better than this.
It was strange to be back on the familiar streets of
Then, in the fall of 2058, Miss Haymes got sick and was admitted
to hospital. She asked if she could put him down as
her nearest contact number.
“My sister lives so far away, it isn’t possible for her to come
visiting or dealing with my affairs.
I shall need someone to keep an eye on my house and bring me my mail,” she
explained anxiously.
“Hey, anything you need, you only have to ask,” he told her. “You’ve done so much for me over the
years, this is peanuts for payback.”
He smiled to see the concern evaporate from her expression.
“Good, it means I will still get to see you.”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
He visited her regularly, alarmed to see how frail she was
growing. Sometimes she was too tired to talk, or
was sleeping, and he would sit beside her bed until the bell went to leave and
go without her knowing he’d been there.
The nurses always assured him that they’d tell her he had come by when
she woke, and he would thank them and leave the small gifts he’d brought for her
with them.
One Wednesday afternoon, he made his way back to the hospital. It was December and the streets and
shops were bright with decorations.
On an impulse he paused to buy some expensive, long-stemmed, red rosebuds at a
florist shop: they were her favourite flowers and he thought it might cheer her
up. Outside the hospital there was a
Christmas tree, with a Santa collecting for hospital funds. He dropped his remaining change into the bucket and hurried
into the warmth of the building, and along to the wing where Miss Haymes was.
As he walked down the corridor towards her small room, one of the
nurses approached him.
“Oh, Mr Donaghue, thank goodness you’ve come,” she began. “We’ve been trying to get hold of you.”
“I had the afternoon off to do some Christmas shopping,” he
explained. “Didn’t you ring my cell phone?”
“It’s unobtainable,” she replied.
He drew it out of his pocket to see the battery was flat, even
though he had charged it overnight.
Sighing, he asked, “What’s wrong?
If there’s something she needs I can go and fetch it now, there’s still time-”
The nurse shook her head.
“She’s taken a turn for the worse, Mr Donaghue.”
She laid a hand on the sleeve of his coat.
“I’m afraid the doctors don’t hold out much hope.”
He stood stock still as the image of the young woman’s kindly and
earnest face, the smell of the disinfectant and the glare of the over-bright
fluorescent lights imprinted themselves on his memory.
“You mean she’s dying?”
She nodded. “It
won’t be long now.”
She accompanied him to the room and followed him in.
Miss Haymes was wired up to monitors and drips and lay on a bank
of pillows, her eyes were closed and the skin of her face so shrunken it already
looked like a death mask.
Pat laid the flowers on the bedside cabinet and drew up a chair.
The nurse took them and came back with them in a plain ceramic vase, placing
them where Miss Haymes would be able to see them.
He’d been
sitting there for an hour or more before she opened her eyes and saw him.
“Patrick,” she whispered, pleasure at seeing him drawing her lips
into a faint smile.
“Hello, Miss Haymes,” he said.
She saw the roses and her dull eyes brightened momentarily. “Did you buy them for me?”
He nodded, too emotional to speak.
“Oh, they’re beautiful, Patrick.
Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like them,” he muttered.
“I…I… Oh, hell!” He wiped a
tear away brusquely with the back of his hand.
“Never fret, Patrick.
We all have to go in God’s good time.”
He shook his head. “You’re a good
man, Patrick Donaghue; I count myself lucky to have known you.”
“No, I’m lucky to have known you,” he said earnestly, and took
her frail hand in his. “I
wouldn’t’ve amounted to a hill of beans without you, Miss Haymes.”
Her smile widened slightly.
“I think the time has come for you to call me Anita, don’t you, Pat?”
“I’d be honoured to,” he said.
She closed her eyes again and he had to lean forward to hear her
whispered response. “Will you stay
with me until the end, Pat?”
“Yes, Anita. I’ll be
here.”
The funeral was held on the Friday before Christmas. Pat took the day off work and went along. He was surprised to see how many people
were there: kids he’d known at school and their parents, teachers and standing
by the Priest, an elderly woman who looked like Miss Haymes and she was
introduced to him as Miss Cynthia Haymes.
He saw his parents and brothers and sisters come in, and he knew
they saw him where he was sitting towards the front of the church as one of the
main mourners. At the
graveside he supported Cynthia Haymes and then led her back to the car.
There was a polite wake at Miss Haymes’ house, but he made no
attempt to speak to his parents, although his brothers and sisters came to speak
to him. When everyone had gone the lawyer
read out the will. Anita Haymes had
divided her property equally between her one remaining relative, her sister,
Cynthia, and her ‘best pupil and dear young friend’, Patrick Donaghue.
Miss Haymes’s money gave Patrick a feeling of independence. He resisted the temptation to spend it
all and invested part of it in shares, playing the stock market with some
success. He moved to a better
apartment, bought himself a few luxuries and was able to affect a kind of
reconciliation with his parents, who seemed to be appeased by the notion that he
was a man of means now. However, he
felt like an outsider in a way that he’d not expected and he rarely made the
trip home unless there was a good reason to.
There wasn’t enough money to allow him to quit his job though and
he persevered at the insurance company, growing increasingly disillusioned with
a future that stretched ahead of him in a grey miasma of mediocrity, but he
dedicated himself to the job nevertheless, determined to be above reproach and
worthy of his old teacher’s generosity.
He was spending
some of his hard-earned salary one Saturday night, having ditched his friends
earlier and gone on the prowl for a willing girl, when he literally bumped into
his past.
“Oof! Sorry, mister.”
He apologised
before he realised who he’d bumped into: Dante Gubitosi. The head of one of the biggest New York Syndicates –
and the man he’d run the numbers for in prison
“Little Pat
Donaghue,” drawled the well-known and justifiably feared voice.
“How’re you doing, Pat?
Working hard? We don’t see you
around the place and I think that’s a shame. There’s a brotherhood amongst the
souls who have suffered incarceration, you know?
And it means that it isn’t nice to lose track of your friends.”
Patrick gave a
shaky smile, unsure of how to take the comments.
“Good to see you too, Mr Gubitosi,” he stammered, unnerved by the coterie
of big, bulky bodyguards glaring at him for his effrontery in impeding their
boss’s progress.
In contrast
Gubitosi seemed unconcerned and almost friendly.
He turned to address the others.
“Listen to the
man, you bums; Mr Gubitosi – he’s a well-brought-up guy.
You could learn from him – if you was even capable of learning anything!”
He threw an arm around Pat’s shoulder and continued in a confidential
bellow that was meant to be heard, “You would not believe how much money these
dumb asses have cost me today, Pat.
Oh, I can hire all the brawn I want, but what I
need
is brains. Now, you could be just
the kind of guy I’m looking for – a clever man – and one I know I can trust. What are you doing now, Pat? Because, I can better whatever
you’re getting.”
“I’m a computer programmer for
a downtown insurance company.”
“S’that so? You intrigue me, I’d have thought a man
with your talents would have started your own company and been riding high in
the community by now. Come along
wi’ me, Patrick; I’m going for a little bite of supper and I think I could put
some business your way that might get you out of that rut, and into the way of
making yourself some serious cash. There’s a little job I think you could do for
me – it’d be right up your street.
What do you say? Come along and talk with me, Pat.”
Patrick drew a
deep breath and looked at the people surrounding Gubitosi.
Amongst the bodyguards was a girl: the prettiest he’d seen in a long
time. His eyes widened as she gave
him a shy smile. Gubitosi
noticed where his interest lay.
“Hey, Irene, be
nice to the man, ask him to come along.”
She didn’t speak,
but turned her large, baby-blue eyes on him and smiled.
His libido took over and he found himself saying ‘sure, why not?’
Over a
first-class meal and excellent wine, Gubitosi made small talk, while Irene
flirted and teased Patrick into submission.
As the waiter brought them coffee, the Boss waved his guards away and told Irene
to ‘go powder her nose’.
Then he turned to
Patrick.
“Will you work
with me, Patrick?”
He hesitated and
then confessed, “I’ve sworn that I’m never going back to prison, Mr Gubitosi;
and I don’t want to take any risks…”
“I don’t think
there’s much risk of that, Pat. But
I need a man I can trust, a clever man with a working knowledge of computers to
work with me on this. Now, it won’t
surprise you to know that there are times when I have to work with some men who
are definitely not legit. And,
because of that, some of my business is – shall we say – borderline with regard
to the legal niceties. This causes
me much heartache. I also prefer to
keep out of prison myself. So I can
do without the cops nosing about.
You’ll be working directly with me, and together we’d make sure we keep close to
the right side of those legal niceties, Patrick.”
Patrick sucked on
his lower lip thoughtfully.
“What do you say,
Pat? You wanna stay with the insurance
company, you can go now, and this meeting never happened. Next time we meet; don’t expect no favours, though.”
“I’m flattered by
the invitation, Mr Gubitosi; and tempted.”
Gubitosi made no
reply, but sank back against the leather chair he was in and waited. He was
fairly sure of his companion.
Patrick never
discovered if it had been a genuine coincidence that he’d met Gubitosi that
evening, or if ‘The Boss’ had been watching him for a while, but before the
night was over, he’d agreed to do the ‘little job’ Gubitosi had in mind, and
taken the step from the right side of the law, to the wrong one.
But, as he later
congratulated himself, Irene was worth it.
Gubitosi provided
Patrick with a small downtown office, equipped with all the technological
machinery he needed. Pat would do a
day’s work and then go into the other office and spend another two to four hours
working there. At the weekend he’d
spend the best part of Saturday there as well, setting up programs to monitor
the accounts Gubitosi was interested in and cream off funds from them without it
being too obvious. He was able to
salve his conscience by reminding himself that the money was from the accounts
of other Syndicate bosses, and had probably been acquired by them through
equally illegal means.
In a matter of
months his conscience had adjusted so perfectly to his new lifestyle, that it
accepted the expansion of his commission into siphoning money from legitimate
businesses with barely a qualm.
The reputation of
the New York Syndicate 5 continued to rise amongst the criminal community and
Gubitosi was more than satisfied with Pat’s work.
In fact, the young man found his advice being sought more frequently and he
enjoyed the influence he had with The Boss.
Behind his
legitimate business of clubs, bistros and restaurants, Gubitosi’s illegal
network of gambling dens and bordellos prospered. When the national IRS and the
World Government’s International Tax Office ran audits on the books, Pat took
particular pride in the fact that they not only didn’t find any irregularities,
but did find that the business was entitled to a substantial refund. For a business that only paid tax on a small part of its
turnover, this was quite a coup.
When Gubitosi
made Pat responsible for a largely autonomous operation based in
It also left Pat
with time to branch out on his own.
To cover his new found affluence, he started a small firm offering improved
protection against corporate hackers.
When his product was accepted by any company, Pat personally went in and boosted
their cyber-defences, incidentally including an undetectable sub-routine that
allowed him to divert money into dummy accounts and off-shore banks that then
invested the money in legitimate ventures and loans.
Some companies
were better targets than others; he would go in and hit the bigger firms with
one substantial money grab, the sub-routine was self-deleting in these cases and
whoever went in to investigate would never find anything wrong with Pat’s
firewall. Smaller firms were bled for less over a
longer period, never enough to ruin them, and so he escaped largely unnoticed
there as well.
Pleased with his
protégé, Gubitosi assigned him three minders from his own bodyguard, and Patrick
grew used to being driven in a bullet-proof limo through the streets of
As he rose
through the Syndicate, Patrick quickly learned what to do to get ahead, and how
to handle the dangerous and disreputable individuals he encountered. The established members of Gubitosi’s
Syndicate, as well as the bosses of the other New York gangs, soon discovered
that the genial Irishman was not the kind of man you double-crossed; he knew
ways of siphoning off money and re-routing goods that made their old ways look
amateurish, and anyone who crossed him or his boss found themselves considerably
worse off in no time.
Gubitosi agreed
to ‘lend’ Pat to other Syndicates across the country.
He knew that there would be a time when such favours might need to be
called in and that influence was a valuable commodity. Under one such arrangement, Pat moved to
the West Coast for the best part of a year, and then to Las Vegas, where he
assisted in an inter-gang quarrel and – while he was at it – feathered his own
and Gubitosi’s nests substantially.
When he moved
back to
Gubitosi was an
efficient boss of his organisation, but he was notoriously insular and disliked
the risks of ‘foreign entanglements’.
Yet Pat knew that the risks were no greater than those in America – especially
given the shaky position of the Chicagoan Syndicate – and, if you took the right
precautions, there was an entire new world just waiting to be exploited. For the first time, Pat felt ready to
take a major step on his own and he accepted a partnership, with the job of
recruiting American interest in the scheme.
As Christmas
approached, Pat began to look forward to his most extravagant season yet. He had plenty of spending money and
decided to buy presents for all of his siblings, even if his parents didn’t want
to see him. He bought gifts for
‘his’ team and lavished presents on the young woman who had replaced Irene in
his affections. He sent an
anonymous donation to the Church school and another to a city charity for
disadvantaged kids, but there remained something missing in his life and he was
unseasonably morose.
Gubitosi called
him in for a meeting one late December afternoon, and they went over the latest
figures and the projected cash flow from their various scams. Then the older man leant back in his leather chair and said:
“You don’t look
too happy, Patrick, and this worries me.
You’ve done a great job, so far.
But since you got back from Vegas, you’ve been less… forthcoming.”
Pat gave a shrug
and brushed that insight away with some contempt.
Gubitosi wasn’t fooled.
He continued, “I don’t want you should think of moving on, or quitting my
syndicate, Patrick. We’re in this
together, remember?”
“I’m not thinking
along those lines, Mr Gubitosi.
It’s just that I’ve been thinking about my family lately.
They – well, my parents – they didn’t want to see me after I got out of
jail and I don’t think they’d be too pleased to know what I’m doing for a living
now. I don’t know if my brothers and sisters feel the same, but I’d hope not. My
mam’s a seriously devout woman, with a strict moral code, and if you transgress,
you’re never forgiven, but I hope the others are more pragmatic.”
Gubitosi nodded. “Sure, don’t I know it? Some mommas are like that, Pat, but a
man’s gotta do what’s best for him and think of himself before he worries about
what his mama thinks.”
“I know.” Patrick sipped the fine bourbon and gave
a rueful smile. “Besides, I’m a
hedonist: I like my comforts too much to back out now.”
“You’re a good
man, Patrick Donaghue; a man I can trust.”
Gubitosi paused thoughtfully. “I
think the time has come. I have
someone I’d like you to meet.”
They travelled in
Gubitosi’s limousine to the private club he ran in the entertainment district. This was the flagship of his empire, and
accounted for most of his income; at least, the part he paid taxes on, although
Patrick knew that was the tip of the iceberg.
It was a cabaret club with dancing and entertainment open to the general
public as well as members, but for those discerning customers who became
Down a plush
corridor was a second club, more intimate that the public one, where the
entertainment was more risqué, the ‘girls’ friendlier and willing to provide
such ‘personal services’ as any of their clientele might require, and there were
enough roulette wheels, blackjack and craps tables to amuse even the most determined of gamblers.
Patrick had never
been to the place, although he knew about it; Irene had always shown a marked
reluctance to dine there, which he’d put down to her having worked there at some
point in the past. The club
was managed by a woman called Maxine Portinari, a close associate of Gubitosi’s
and a shrewd businesswoman from the reports Patrick had seen. He wondered if it was ‘Miss Maxie’ they were going to
meet.
Gubitosi walked
through the club and along to the private rooms, where the small stage was
occupied by several athletic pole dancers.
Pat slowed to watch their performance, stuffing a handful of bills into their
skimpy costumes before strolling after his boss, who was waiting by the open
door to an office.
Smiling
apologetically, Pat followed him into the room and closed the door.
He turned towards
the desk and stared in surprised disbelief.
The woman at the desk rose to her feet and smiled at him. She was average height, shapely and with
large, dark-brown eyes that suggested her blonde hair was not entirely natural.
She was oddly familiar.
“Hello, Patrick,”
she said.
“Ciara!”
She came round
the desk towards him, ignoring Gubitosi, who stood aside, like a magician
watching his trick play out.
“Hello, Pat,” she
said, and held out her hands to him.
“It is you,” Pat
gasped. “After all these years…”
Suddenly he
hugged her, smiling fit to burst.
Gubitosi broke up their reunion with flutes of champagne.
“A toast, to
family!” he exclaimed.
“Family,” they
both chorused.
Ciara settled on
a couch and patted the space beside her for Pat to sit too.
“It’s good to see
you again,” she said, studying her brother’s face intently.
“I searched for
you,” he replied, “when I’d finished at Yale.”
“I didn’t want to
be found, then.”
“No, I can see
that now. You changed your name and got a job
here?” He looked across at his
boss, who was now sitting at the desk, refilling his champagne glass.
She glanced at
Gubitosi and explained:
“After I had the
baby, I needed a job. Mr Gubitosi
offered me work here and – to be honest – I found my vocation.”
“You kept the
baby?” Pat asked.
Ciara glanced
away. “He was adopted by one of his
father’s family.”
“Do you see him? What’s his name?”
She shook her
head. “I don’t see him often and he doesn’t
know who I am – we all agreed it was better for him that way. But, I know he’s healthy and happy and
has everything a child could wish for.
He will do well.”
“Does Mamai know? That you kept the baby, I mean.”
“No. I haven’t seen her, or any of the family, since that day. And I don’t want to. I did hear about you; the march and your
spell in prison. I worried about
you but then I heard how well you did at Yale.
But when Mr Gubitosi told me you were working for him, I wasn’t sure I
wanted to see you; I have left that part of my life behind, Pat. You understand, don’t you?”
Pat looked at
Gubitosi. “Sure I do; we all have to move on,
Ciara. But what’s changed, why am I
here now?” He knew better than to
ascribe Gubitosi’s motives to sentiment.
He was right. Gubitosi’s genial expression faded and
he was instantly the hard man of business.
“There is a job coming up – a big one – and I want you two to work
together on it. You’re the best I
have at what you do.”
“What job?” Pat
asked, helping himself to some more champagne, although his glass wasn’t empty
and he didn’t drink any of it.
“
Pat waited a
moment and then replied, “City by a lake: cold, wet and windy.”
“You’re a funny
man, Patrick, I’ve always said so.
Listen: the syndicate in
“When that
happens there is usually a way to remove the cop,” Pat pointed out. “What’s different with this one?”
Gubitosi’s
self-satisfied smirk broadened to his usual wolfish smile.
“This time the cop’s gonna crack the syndicate wide open. There’s gonna be a great deal of regret
and disquiet amongst the other members of the Syndicate Council, and while
they’re battening down the storm cellars and hiding from Detective Fraser, we
are gonna be moving in, friendly-like, offering shelter and gainful employment
to the unfortunate Chicagoans who are not incarcerated but have no means of
making their living.”
“You want
“No, I don’t want
Pat nodded.
“I don’t think we
can stop it now,” Gubitosi continued.
“Fraser is good and too smart for those dumb-ass
“So it does,” Pat
agreed. “I suppose you’re planning to move in
and take over.”
“I figure the
boys in
“Us?”
“I thought I’d
send you – you and Miss Maxie – to open a new club there, just to test the
water. You can put out feelers, do all those
little courtesies that make you so popular, Patrick.
Prepare the way, so to speak.”
Patrick took a
sip of his champagne and cocked his head a little, as if in doubt. “
Gubitosi looked angry, but he
managed to keep a civil tone as he asked with false jocularity, “You scared this
Fraser might outsmart you, Patrick?”
Pat smirked. “Hell, no.”
“Then we have a
deal,” Gubitosi concluded.
“Maybe.”
“What?” The older man’s
brows knit together in a ferocious frown.
Sitting next to
Patrick, Ciara laid a warning hand on his arm.
“You heard: I
said maybe. It may be that what needs to be done can be done from here. Maybe I just don’t want to go, and –
certainly – you’re no longer in a position to make me.”
“Donaghue, don’t
cross me,” Gubitosi growled.
“We’ll think
about it, shall we? I’ll look into
the situation, as you suggest, and let you have my decision.”
Slowly, Gubitosi
got to his feet. He stared at the
younger couple on the couch, seeing anxiety in Ciara’s eyes, and indifference in
Patrick’s. Anger flared in his
mind, but he was experienced enough to know that his current position with the
Syndicate Council wasn’t secure enough for him to ‘remove’ Patrick at that time.
The young man had made himself useful to the other bosses – and he was
undoubtedly good at what he did – so, he’d have to wait to move against him.
He managed a dry smile.
“You think about
it, Pat,” he growled, “and then you come and tell me when you’ll be ready to
move to
“Maybe,” Pat
replied calmly.
“You know me,
Donaghue: I don’t allow no one to disobey me.
That’s why I am the top man here.
And why the Council listens to what I have to say.
You will do as I tell you.”
Pat gave a
thoughtful shrug. “And I say that
maybe I will, but I’m not going to agree to something as important as this
without due consideration. You
wouldn’t really expect me to, Mr Gubitosi, because you know me as well as I know
you. I wonder if you’ve given this enough
thought yourself?”
“You questioning
me?” Gubitosi’s eyes flashed with anger.
“I don’t take kindly to it, Pat – even from you.”
Despite his
reservations about Gubitosi’s business sense, Pat did feel some loyalty to the
man who had started him off in the business and he made one last attempt to
influence Gubitosi.
“I’ve worked with
several Council members recently – you sent me to them. I don’t think they’re going to share your pleasure at the
thought of
“Tcha!” Gubitosi spat the word out with an ugly frown on his face.
“Those bums in
“And the
Canadians?”
“Don’t make me
laugh. They’re small fry.”
Pat said nothing;
he had first hand knowledge of the ambitions of the French-Canadians and the
quietly efficient way their Anglophone companions had developed a formidable
criminal infrastructure. He doubted
that the expanse of
He sniffed. “Maybe,” he said again.
Gubitosi snorted,
and as he left, he said, “Remember, Patrick, I am the man you work for and I
give the orders.”
As the door
closed behind him, Ciara let out a deep sigh, as if she’d been holding her
breath.
“You’re a fool to
antagonise him,” she said. Her brother poured himself another drink and without
asking, the same for her. She took
it from him and drank it down. “Be
careful,” she advised him. “Dante
Gubitosi is a dangerous man.”
Pat sat back
beside her and sipped his drink.
When he spoke his voice was gentle, without any hint of recrimination. “Was he the man?
The father?”
Ciara looked up
at him, half-shocked, half-amused.
“No. Dante had a brother. Cesare was a charmer but, alas, also a much-married man. His wife was the daughter of a
Pat said nothing
but his dark eyebrows rose at this; all too many of the people who opposed the
syndicate’s rules died due to faulty brakes in their cars.
Ciara continued,
“After the funeral, his wife went back to Daddy, with her kids and when my baby
arrived, Dante and his wife adopted him.
They had no kids of their own, and Dante said that his brother’s kid was half
Gubitosi and that was better than no Gubitosi blood at all. It was his way of
being revenged on his sister-in-law and her family, I think, but he’s been a
good father, nevertheless.
He’s taken care of me too, in a sort of way.
Gave me this job and taught me how to manage a club. I owe him, Pat.”
“So do I,” Pat
admitted. “He made my spell in jail as tolerable
as it was ever going to be, I guess.
But,” he continued, “I hate to say it, Ciara, he’s losing the plot, if he hasn’t
already lost it altogether.”
“He’ll crush
you.”
He leant back on
the couch and gave a self-confident smile.
“No, he won’t. He can’t – or he’d
have done it this evening. I made
sure I was safe, before I refused to obey him.”
“How?” Ciara
asked, just a little too quickly.
“That, my dear
sister, is my secret. But you can
tell Gubitosi that unless he wants his syndicate to fall even before Fraser
cracks
“Pat, you don’t
think that I would-”
“Ciara, I’m not
stupid. Why else would Gubitosi bring me here,
today?” he patted her arm. “But
it’s okay, sis. One thing I’ve
learned – the hard way – is never trust anyone: family, first and foremost.”
For whatever
reason, Gubitosi backed down within a few days, probably because the
much-anticipated crash of the
Sensing that Gubitosi no
longer trusted him as implicitly as he had done, Pat began to make arrangements
for his own security, while remaining on decidedly strained terms of cordial
politeness with his boss.
The money he had
sequestered for his own use now amounted to a small fortune and, through careful
legitimate short-term investments and astute overnight loans, Pat doubled it
within a matter of weeks. The
longer term loans made on his own behalf were primarily to other syndicates
across the country and once, through the auspices of Jean Lebrun,
his French-Canadian connection, to a well-known and respected – at least
by his Canadian business friends – Frenchman, Pierre Capet.
It was at the
grateful invitation of Capet that Pat travelled to
The European
business looked so promising that Pat felt it was well worth his while to attend
meetings with the French bosses. He
made a few suggestions to improve the security aspects of the business and the
Frenchmen were grateful enough to offer him a personal slice of the profits, if
he wanted it. Pat declined, feeling
that it was not the safest time to be
diverging from the mainstream American syndicates.
The collapse of
On his return to
Gubitosi greeted
him with a veneer of bonhomie, but Pat recognised the hostility in the older
man’s dark eyes and wasn’t fooled.
He nodded acknowledgment to the two bodyguards that stood by the small window of
the office, noting that these two were amongst the elite squad who were always
armed and extremely dangerous. He
also noted that they were not asked to leave before the meeting began.
“You have a good
holiday, Pat?” Gubitosi asked, pouring them both drinks.
“I did, thank
you.” He spent some time extolling the delights of Paris, before adding, “It
wasn’t all pleasure though; I have identified several business opportunities
that might interest you – if you’re thinking of going global, that is.”
“You know I don’t
rate
Pat gave no sign
of alarm; he’d suspected his summons was linked to Gubitosi having heard about
his private business dealings in
“I’m not so
sure,” he replied evenly. “A small
businessman might find opportunities to get in on the ground floor of what
should become pretty substantial operations.”
“And did you?”
Gubitosi growled. “I don’t like it,
Pat, when my friends try to double-cross me.
Nor do I like it when they try to bail out.”
Pat put his glass
down with exaggerated care.
“Listen, Dante,” he said, using the man’s Christian name for the first time in a
conversation, “I think it is time we were honest with each other, don’t you?”
“I thought you were honest with me,” Gubitosi snapped.
“I have always trusted you.”
“And I have
repaid that trust many times over,” Pat declared.
“Now I want to move on. I’m ambitious, you know that, and I take my chances. This is one of them, Dante. You’ve had a good run for your money –
and mine – so, I think you’d better look forward to a long and peaceful
retirement.”
“Retirement? Who the hell d’you think you are?” Gubitosi’s face suffused with anger. “I don’t take no orders from nobody –
especially not the likes of you – a two-bit Irish hoodlum whose ass I saved from
getting buggered in the slammer!”
Pat merely
contemplated the whisky in his glass, swirled it around and drained it in a
gulp. His heart was pounding with nerves,
although no one would ever have guessed from looking at his calm exterior.
“You have two
choices,” he explained carefully.
“Go now, go peacefully, and you will enjoy a happy retirement-”
“Or?” roared
Gubitosi. His explosive temper was justifiably
well-feared amongst his operatives and although Pat had witnessed it many times
he had never been on the receiving end before.
He swallowed and
continued as if nothing had interrupted him, “Or I will make you go.”
“You? Hell, Pat,
you can’t make me do anything.
You’d need the combined weight of the Council behind you and I don’t think
you’ve got it. I got friends on the Council, I know the
way the wind’s blowing.”
“You’re out of
date, Gubitosi. I can make you go
and I will.”
“Don’t try to
bluff me, Donaghue. I’ve destroyed
better man than you without breaking into a sweat.
I ain’t ready to retire.
You’ve played a losing hand, Pat.
You won’t be welcome anywhere in the Syndicate once I’ve told them about your
treachery.” He turned to the
henchmen, now standing menacingly by his desk.
“Throw him out, fellas!” He
turned back to Pat with an air of smugness.
“One day I might accept your apology, Donaghue, and find you a job
somewhere in the organisation, but your ‘good run’s’ at an end, as of now! You ain’t welcome here!”
Gubitosi gestured
towards his bodyguards. “I’ve done
with him – throw him out!” The men remained motionless and Gubitosi growled,
“D’you hear me, you dumb-asses?
Throw him out!”
The men glanced
at Patrick, obviously seeking orders from him.
Gubitosi drew a deep breath, staring at Pat’s face, where an apologetic
smirk spoke volumes. The
truth of his situation became blindingly obvious and he was momentarily
bewildered.
“You dirty
whore’s son,” he growled. “You
won’t get away with this.”
“I’m afraid
you’re wrong there, Dante; I have already ‘got away’ with it.
The Syndicate Council has appointed me as the new boss of New York
Syndicate Five, with immediate effect.
If you don’t believe me you can call any – or all – of them. Now, I suggest you go quietly and that
way you should enjoy a long retirement.”
“To hell with
you! You’re a dead man, Donaghue!”
Pat got to his
feet and faced his old mentor across the room.
When he spoke his voice was less conciliatory.
He knew he had to exert his authority in the face of Gubitosi’s explosive
anger. “I have the backing of
the majority of the Council. They
support my leadership of the NYS5.
It’s a done deal, Gubitosi; you’ve been ‘retired’, whether you like
it or not.”
“You’re a fucking
slime ball – a traitor!”
“No – I’m doing
you a favour! You go now, and I
take over, and you get to live and enjoy the rest of your life. You wait, or you fight
me for the syndicate, and you’re the dead man, Dante. Believe me, you’ve been on borrowed time
for a while now; since before
“I don’t believe
you.”
“Listen – and
listen good – some of the Council members got the notion that you’d been casting
eyes on
Gubitosi
spluttered in anger and more than a little anxiety.
Pat continued,
“Oh, I don’t say it was down to you, but the Council – well, they’re not the
most imaginative of men. Follow me? They see a syndicate busted apart, so
they look for insiders.”
“You set me up –
you son of a two-bit whore!”
Pat assumed an
expression of startled innocence.
“Me? No, if I heard talk when I was working with other syndicates, I always said
you were a sound man. Always.”
“You expect me to
believe that? You wormed your way in-”
“Working with
maggots there’s little choice!”
“I’m gonna kill
ya and throw your corpse at the Council’s feet.
No one betrays Dante Gubitosi and walks free.”
Gubitosi had
moved to his desk and from the top drawer he drew a gun.
The two henchmen, who until this time had made no move at all, both drew
their weapons, but Pat sensed they were both unsure as to which side they were
on.
“I’m unarmed,” he
stated, ignoring the presence of his own weapon in his shoulder holster. He knew he wasn’t fast enough to draw it
and defend himself and the slightest suggestion that he intended to try would
undoubtedly prove fatal anyway.
Gubitosi wouldn’t give him a chance.
“I came here in good faith to deliver the Council’s decision, Gubitosi. They’ve made you a fair offer – if you
refuse it you’re putting your life at risk!
Killing me won’t save you – it will only bring the wrath of the Council
down on NYS5 and everyone in it.
They’ll take it as proof that you sold
“Says you – you
always were such a plausible liar, Patrick!”
Gubitosi crowed. He glanced
at the armed men between him and his quarry.
One of the men, a youngster with a deserved reputation as a sadist,
cocked his gun and waved it between
Gubitosi and Pat, while the elder of the two waited without expression to see
what would happen next.
“What’s wrong with you guys?”
Gubitosi growled. “Can’t you
spot a loser when you see one?”
As Gubitosi aimed
his gun at him, Patrick was careful to show no anxiety or fear, even though he
could feel his innards turning cartwheels with dread.
He heard Gubitosi cock his pistol and there was a deafening sound of
gunshots as bullets ricocheted around the room. The air reeked of sulphur.
Pat stared into
the smoke. Gubitosi’s face was frozen in an
expression of surprise. His pistol
slipped from his grasp as blood seeped through his white shirt and spread across
his chest. A thin trickle of red
ran down his chin. Suddenly his
cheeks bulged and he vomited a shower of blood across the room. His mouth remained open, his teeth stained red as, in slow
motion, he sagged at the knees and sank to the floor. One hand stretched out towards Pat and scrabbled at the
carpet for a moment before his body convulsed, breath rattling in his throat
just before he collapsed completely and lay still.
It was over.
After the initial
shock dissipated, Pat had been careful to show no emotion. In the split seconds after the first shots, he had realised
he was unhurt and stood rigid and silent as the scene played out before him and
his henchmen. He was sickened
by the sight of the bleeding corpse of the man he admitted he owed so much, but
weakness now could still be fatal.
He turned away with a carefully assumed air of dispassionate authority.
“Get rid of it. You’d better tell his wife where you’ve
taken the body, but no cops.”
“Yes, Mr
Donaghue.”
He walked towards
the door adding, “Then get this room gutted, cleaned and refurbished by next
weekend.”
“Yes, Mr
Donaghue.”
Pausing with his
hand on the handle, he continued, “There will be changes around here; things
will be done my way. Anyone who
doesn’t like the idea has a chance to leave now with no recriminations. After that, I expect you to ensure I
receive the unquestioning obedience I demand.
If you can’t guarantee me that, I will find you alternative work.”
“Whatever you
say, Mr Donaghue, is fine by us.”
“Good. Get on with it.”
There was already
a small crowd of interested people gathering in the casino beyond the office
when Pat stepped out, closing the door behind him.
He saw Ciara by
the bar, already in an evening dress and make-up in readiness for the evening’s
trade. Even so, her face was
unnaturally pale in the blue-haze of the lights.
Without
hesitating, he moved forward displaying total confidence.
He saw several of the club’s bouncers amongst the bystanders and hoped he
wouldn’t have to use his gun – he had no doubt every one of them was armed.
“Where’s
Bersani?” he demanded of no one in particular.
The crowd looked
around and parted to allow the largest of Gubitosi’s bodyguards to face Patrick.
“Tony and Frank
will be clearing up in there for some time; there has been… an unfortunate
accident. See that they’re not
disturbed and give them all the help they ask for; the punters can’t be allowed
to see anything. It might be best
to post guards front and back as well… can’t be too sure that some well meaning
public-spirited citizen hasn’t reported the… disturbance.”
There was a
shuffle of unease amongst the crowd as Bersani said nothing but looked towards
the office door. The smell of the gunfire had permeated
into the casino and no one had any doubt what must’ve happened. The older man looked Patrick over
without speaking.
Pat waited a
moment and then said briskly, “I want my car here in five minutes. I have a meeting downtown with Mr Francisco to report to the
Syndicate Council. When I get back
I want this place open and earning as usual.”
Tension increased
until – after what had seemed like an age, but was mere seconds – Bersani said,
“Yes, Mr Donaghue.” He waved a hand
at one of the waiters who slipped out to order the car.
Pat continued,
“There will be changes; but no one need worry.
Mr Gubitosi’s unfortunate accident won’t affect the club or its employees.”
Bersani nodded
and addressed the lingering witnesses.
“Get on with your work, will ya!”
As the crowd
dispersed, Ciara walked over to her brother and asked, with a quiet irony,
“Accidental death?”
Pat met her gaze
with composure. “Yes, he accidentally
failed to take the opportunity the Council offered him to retire. He drew his gun and took his own life.”
“In a hail of
bullets?”
He looked at her
with astonishment. “Yes; drawing a weapon against the head of the New York
Syndicate Five in the presence of two armed bodyguards is – in my opinion –
committing suicide. Wouldn’t you
agree, Miss Maxie?”
Ciara swallowed
and drew a deep breath. “I guess it
is at that.”
He stepped
towards the door and she followed him, adding, “What about me, Pat?”
“That’s your
choice, Ciara. You have the same
rights as anyone to leave, if you want.
You probably felt you owed Gubitosi something-”
“No, I don’t. I
never wanted to get involved in this racket, but once I was I was trapped. Now, I don’t think I could handle any
other sort of life.”
“Fine; I’m more
than pleased for you to stay, Ciara.
But, remember, if you stay, you’re with me. I will not tolerate any divided
loyalties – even if you are my sister.”
“Sure, Pat.”
He studied her
face for a moment, nodded and walked out of the club with his head held high. She watched him go, marvelling that her
little brother – the open and cheerful child she’d known – had grown into such a
ruthless man.
The car was a
black limousine with smoked-glass windows.
Bersani opened the door for him and Pat stepped into the back, giving the driver
his destination.
“You want me to
come with you, Mr Donaghue?” Bersani asked, before he closed the door.
“No; I want you
to do what you do best – run that club.”
“Sure thing.”
As he drove away,
Pat closed the communication window to the front and let out a deep sigh of
relief as he sank back into the plush leather.
He knew just how
lucky he was to still be alive.
From now on he’d have to watch every ambitious youngster out to make a name for
himself, every employee who felt he had some right to feel slighted, and each
and every Syndicate Boss with a mind to expand his empire into
It’s going to be quite a challenge,
he thought. Bring it on!
The change of
command at the top of the NYS5 caused barely a ripple on the Syndicate Council
proving, to anyone who had doubted it, that Donaghue was their preferred man. Although an effective manager of an
existing organisation, Gubitosi had lacked imagination and vision which, given
the recent failure of a major syndicate, meant that they feared the operation
was in danger of atrophy. The loss
of the Chicagoan revenues meant the American Council members were anxious to
find new revenue sources and Pat’s approach offered an inexhaustible stream of
new capital through white-collar ‘cyber’ crime.
His convoluted scams and impenetrable audit trails made detection
unlikely and everyone was keen to benefit from the change.
Although he was
the new boy on the ruling council, Patrick Donaghue was quickly accepted and, in
less than no time, widely respected by his peers.
Gubitosi’s deputy, a man with less pride and more imagination than his
erstwhile boss, apparently accepted the new situation without any rancour, for
few months at least. Then he asked
for a meeting and made it clear that he wanted out. Pat was more than willing to pension him off; try as he
might he could not warm to the man who had seen his friend murdered and watched
a younger man take his place – even if that younger man was himself – without
considering extracting retribution.
If he had learned nothing else from what had happened to Gubitosi, Pat
had learned that a successful leader needed men around him who were committed to
protecting him from the predators that circled a Syndicate boss; men who owed
their own prosperity and security to him and were ready to defend it – and him –
to the death.
Therefore, he was
liberal with his rewards, punctilious in paying his dues to the other Council
members, and ruthless in exacting the dues owed to him.
Slowly he weeded out the old guard and placed his own men in key
positions. Only then did he start
to relax enough to sleep the night through.
The only member
of the old regime who survived this civilised cull was Miss Maxie. Ciara Donaghue watched her brother’s
back for him and he accepted her allegiance without hesitation. It was a load off his mind to know that
she was running the bread-and-butter operations: the casinos, numbers rackets
and hookers who kept the cash flow healthy, while he was occupied organising –
generally hostile – ‘take overs’ of the smaller businesses that Gubitosi had
been unable to prevent from springing up while he’d been in charge.
Within a
twelvemonth of Gubitosi’s death it was being said in the
Pat remained
careful not to flaunt his ever-increasing wealth.
He had opened a legitimate investment consultancy, which he called ‘Pat-broke’,
and devoted enough of his time to making a success of that in order to provide
cover for his executive lifestyle.
He was scrupulously honest and paid all his taxes on that income. The rest he salted away in overseas and
off-shore accounts, invested in other syndicate projects or laundered through
the legitimate banks and brokerage houses of Wall Street. When he found himself wined and dined by
the ‘Fat Cats’ of Wall Street, anxious to accommodate his investment needs, he
found it hard not to smirk as they diligently laundered his illicit profits
through their strait-laced establishments.
The
He’d felt a
slight twinge of guilt, recalling the lavish hospitality of that long-ago
Independence Day party. The young
man who had stood open-mouthed at the luxury of a lifestyle he could only dream
about seemed like a different person from the sophisticated Patrick Donaghue of
the New York Syndicate. In
his naivety at the time he’d vowed that one day he would share that lifestyle,
but never in his wildest imaginings had he truly believed it was possible.
With his
reputation secured by his success, Pat had felt able to turn his attention to
other matters. He began to advise other
Syndicates on maximising their profits and streamlining their ‘business systems’
and sided with the ultimately victorious underdog in an internecine war that
broke out in LA over control of the drugs racket.
He established effective ‘business’ links with the Canadians and their
French associates, and dabbled on the London Stock Exchange in order to exploit
weaknesses in the World Government bond market.
He was careful
not to repeat his major successes too often and while the amounts he filched
from SvenCorp and the other big finance houses became more modest, they also
grew more frequent. He changed his approach every time,
keeping one step ahead of the companies’ cyber patrols, pilfering and fraud
detection systems. When
SvenCorp grew suspicious, he moved on to other firms and their subsidiaries
where the scrutiny was less assured.
It became a thrilling game of living off his wits, with him and his syndicate
opposing the over-mighty and often cumbersome titans of Wall Street.
It was an
exhilarating existence. He bought a
large apartment in a desirable location, a sports car for himself and a limo for
the ‘business’, a wardrobe of clothes from the best design houses, and part
shares in a promising racehorse. He
was seen on the arms of starlets and models at fashionable clubs and venues,
dined at the best restaurants, drank the best wines.
After Irene there
had been a succession of blonde, shapely and biddable young women in his bed. Although he had a dream of finding the
perfect woman, he couldn’t get emotionally involved with any of them and each
successive relationship left him feeling more disconcerted and longing to meet a
woman who was his equal.
For intellectual
companionship he increasingly turned to Ciara.
With her he felt there was no need for him to maintain his façade of cool
detachment and the pair of them grew as close as they had ever been as children. Neither of them made any attempt
to contact their family; although they both kept an eye on what was going on
through mutual friends and contacts, they both admitted that they’d considered
themselves as orphans for years.
When his younger brother Jack lost his job, Patrick found him legitimate work
out of the state and he gave Niamh the money to buy a decent apartment when she
married her childhood sweetheart.
One Sunday
afternoon Pat turned up at Ciara’s apartment at a loose end.
He was rather surprised to see Bersani sitting in front of the TV screen
watching a major league game, but after raising an eyebrow at his sister he
merely acknowledged the man and took his glass of wine out onto the balcony,
where Ciara followed him.
He turned and
smiled at her. “How are things?”
“Fine,” she
replied. “I sent you my weekly returns as usual.”
“Yes, I saw them
this morning,” he replied, omitting that it was at about
“I’m good.”
“And Bersani?”
“Danny and I… are
friends. You wanna make something of it?”
“No, but he’s a
vicious killer, Ciara.”
“And you’re not?”
“I’ve never
killed anybody.”
“Pat, the man who
orders the killers is just as culpable as the men with the guns.”
“If there is an
alternative solution, I find it,” he retorted sharply.
Ciara laid a hand
on his arm. “Hey, I’m sorry, Pat;
forgive me? I know you do your
damnedest to avoid killing.”
“You should get
out of this business,” he said to her seriously.
“This isn’t the life for a decent woman like you.”
“This is my life and I’m
resigned to it. Danny may not be a knight in shining armour, but I’m not sure
I’d know what to do with one of those even if I found one. Besides, he knows me for what I am and
he... he cares for me in a way that I know doesn’t rely only on my being the
boss’s sister. I need to have a man
I can trust to act as my bodyguard.”
“What makes you
say that? There’s nobody going to take NYS5 from
me, I have made damn sure of that,
and while I’m around you’re perfectly safe.”
“Oh sure, no one
can take it from you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t give it away, one day.”
Pat shook his head, snorting
with quiet laughter. “If you think you’re in too deep, what
makes you think I’m not? I know
more about the rest of the Syndicates and their bosses than you can imagine. It gives me some protection, true, but
it also makes me a dangerous man to anyone with a guilty secret or lofty
ambitions.”
“Sure; but this
isn’t the life you want, Pat, is it?
You’re restless. I don’t pretend to
understand why, or what it is you think the world beyond the Syndicates has to
offer you, but I recognise the signs.”
“I like a
challenge, Ciara.” He turned and rested his elbows on the balcony rail, looking
across the park opposite and added thoughtfully, “I don’t know what there might
be out there, either. But there has
to be something more than this.”
“You’ve made this
the most successful and important syndicate in the state – maybe the country –
isn’t that enough?”
He shook his
head. “I don’t think so.”
“You are worried, Pat, aren’t you?
Is it the police campaign? Is Fraser after you?”
He laughed. “Bring him on! I’m not scared of some Chicagoan tough.”
“Pat,” she
exclaimed with concern at this statement of bravado, “you better watch it! You might overreach yourself –
even you can’t take on the World Police Corps.”
“No; and I don’t
intend to. Besides, however good he
may be, Fraser’ll go for the obvious; he’ll be after the LA syndicates or
“How?”
“Slowly. Listen, Ciara, I’ve been setting up
companies, hiving off assets – paying for them, of course, so as not to attract
attention. In a few more months
I’ll be ready for the next ‘out-sourcing’ operation, and for that I’ll need your
help. The clubs, the legitimate ones, will be transferred to a holding company,
which will pay a fee to the Syndicate to manage them.”
“How’s that going
to work? Won’t the takings be less?”
He shook his
head. “The profits will be split between the
holding company and the Syndicate, but as far as the Council knows, both of
those belong to me.”
“And do they?”
“At the moment,
yes. But that’s where you come in. I want you to take over the holding
company, you and Bersani, if you want it that way.
You’ll no longer be a part of the Syndicate, but a legitimate
businesswoman. It will still be the
murky world of nightclubs and gambling, sis, but it will be the legal one.”
“They’d come
after us if we left the Syndicate.”
Pat shook his
head briskly. “I have a deal coming
to fruition – a real estate scam.
Part of it involves transferring the clubs’ assets to the independent holding
company in exchange for more profitable sites – office buildings, retail stores,
warehouses – you know the type.
It’ll make millions for them, so they won’t take too much notice of what happens
to the clubs. And you and Bersani
will be out of the game; I doubt they’ll come after you for what they’ll see as
old fashioned revenue earners.”
“And what about
you?”
“I have my own
resources and the day they offer me ‘early retirement’ I will be ready and
willing to go. I know I can make my
way in the world without them far more successfully than they can make theirs
without me, but by then, it’ll be too late for them to retrace their steps. Patrick Donaghue will be whiter than
white and no one – not even Fraser – will have anything they can pin on me.”
His sister looked
at him thoughtfully and sipped her drink to gain some time. Then with a nervous glance inside at Bersani, she said, “I
started working in this world when I was barely more than a kid, and I ‘m not
sure I could live any other way now; I’m in so deep. But you’ve never really been happy living this way, have
you?”
Pat drew a deep
breath and went back to staring out into the street below.
Ciara moved to stand beside him, her arm resting against his in wordless
empathy.
“It isn’t what I
wanted, or expected,” Pat admitted speaking quietly and slowly as if he was
trying to formulate the right words in his mind.
“I hated the mundane world of a 9-5 job,” he admitted, “but I hoped the
excitement would come in some… legal way.
If I could have got into investment banking or finance – that sort of
thing – but one look at my resume and I was out without a hearing.”
“It wasn’t fair…”
she murmured in agreement, “you didn’t really commit a crime…”
“I had the
misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and to be too naïve to
realise. I was – and always will be –
grateful to Gubitosi for saving my ass in jail – literally, in some ways – and I
have to admit there used to be a frisson of excitement whenever I pulled off a
big sting against those ‘oh-so-self-righteous’ bankers. But, now even that’s becoming commonplace. I need a challenge, Ciara, a new
challenge, to prevent myself becoming a stale, old hoodlum who thinks every
problem can be solved with a gun.”
“They won’t let
you go, Pat. They wouldn’t have let
Gubitosi either; for all that you
meant the offer of retirement. The
Syndicates have long memories and nothing is ever forgotten or forgiven.”
“That’s true –
but they’ve never come up against Patrick Donaghue before.” He grinned.
“I’ll outwit them, never fear.”
Ciara grinned at
him: it had been some time since she’d seen the spark of enthusiasm in his dark
eyes. She hugged his arm.
“I’m sure you
will, Pat.”
“Now, do you want
to run the clubs after they’re hived off?” he asked, getting back to important
matters.
“Sure. I may not know much, but I can do that, and do it well. I promise you, whatever happens I’ll be
there for you, Pat.”
“And Bersani?”
Ciara glanced
back at her lover. “Not yet. Maybe, in time; but only when I’m good
and ready.”
“Good girl,” he
said approvingly. “Donaghues don’t
need no one to lean on.”
“I’ll drink to
that,” Ciara said.
Reaching for the wine bottle
she filled their glasses and they pledged allegiance to each other with a chink
of crystal against crystal.
One morning, in
the spring of 2066, Patrick Donaghue woke earlier than usual and glanced across
at his companion. He’d met her last
night at a cocktail party and knew her to be an aspiring young actress. She’d been honest enough to explain that
she was looking for a wealthy backer and as much publicity as she could get.
Her face – even
in sleep – had the unexceptional beauty of her ilk, although the arched eyebrows
gave her a look of perpetual astonishment and her plump lips were just a little
too wide for her face. Her
cheekbones were high and her chin narrow, while her nose was pinched, as if the
skin was stretched too tight.
In a few decades she might well look gaunt and much older than she was.
Her complexion was fashionably pale and her golden hair was long and
tousled.
“It’s a good job,” he thought,
“I believed she was a real blonde until we got down to that lacy underwear… I just wish I could remember her name.”
The encounter had
been one of mutual satisfaction – or she was a better actress than he gave her
credit for. He slipped from
the bed, leaving her sleeping, and went to the kitchen, via the bathroom.
The kitchen was
probably his favourite room in the apartment, especially in the morning when the
sun shone through the glass walls and gilded everything with its brightness. The coffee machine was humming quietly
and the freshly-squeezed orange juice inside the fridge door proved that Mrs
Gomez had already started work.
He chose coffee
and took his cup to the breakfast bar where the newspapers lay neatly arranged
for his perusal.
Mrs Gomez, his
housekeeper, knew his habits and was paid enough to keep her opinions about his
choice of lifestyle to herself. She
would be out shopping, or collecting his laundry, or any one of the hundred
tasks she did that made his life flow smoothly.
He knew he could rely on her to ‘clear up’ after him.
The Daily USA’s
banner headline screamed: WORLD GOVERNMENT DECLARES WAR ON TERRORISM!
“What? Again?” he muttered, as he picked it up
and read with cynicism how the World Government in Futura was about to launch a
new campaign against the forces opposed to their enlightened rule.
He flicked to the
financial pages and checked a few stock and shares, using his personal
notepad-sized PC to make a few calculations and email some instructions to his
brokers. He glanced at the 62 emails
waiting to be read and replied to a few.
The rest could wait.
Then he read the
sports pages. Grimacing at
the results, he threw the paper down and finished his toast and coffee.
By the time he
had showered and shaved, the woman was awake.
“Hi, honey,” she
purred, as he emerged from the bathroom to dress.
“Hi there; do you
want coffee or juice?”
She pouted and
patted the bed beside her. “Come
here, honey.”
“I don’t have
time,” he replied, trying to look suitably regretful.
“I have an early meeting downtown.”
She sat up,
pulling the sheet modestly over her breasts.
“That’s a shame.” She watched him
dress.
“Please help
yourself to breakfast,” he continued.
“Mrs Gomez will be back soon; she’ll lend you a hand if you need anything.” He walked across and bent to kiss her,
slipping a wad of notes into her hand.
“Take a cab home and buy yourself a pretty new dress.”
“When will I see
you again?” she asked anxiously. He
gave her credit for not immediately counting the notes.
“I’ll call you,”
Pat promised, adding to himself, ‘when I can remember your name.’
“I’ll leave my
number,” she assured him.
“Sure thing.”
Pat heard the
front door opening and thanked God for his deliverance.
“Mrs Gomez,” he called, “send for my car, please.”
He kissed the
young woman again and put on his jacket, strapping a gold watch to his wrist as
he made for the door.
“Bye, honey,” he
said.
“Bye, Patrick,”
she answered mournfully.
Mrs Gomez opened
the front door, handing him his briefcase and the newspaper as he approached.
“I’ll be home for
dinner tonight,” he told her, “alone.”
She nodded and
closed the door after him before taking off her coat and moving towards the
bedroom to deal with the ‘debris’ of yesterday’s evening out.
At the offices of
‘Pat Broke’, he occupied the morning doing deals and dispensing advice. The brokerage had a small staff, all
legitimate, and because he paid well, they worked hard and ignored the rumours
that their boss was involved in the seamier side of the business. He usually devoted his evenings to the
Syndicate’s business preferring to keep his two lives distinct.
At about
The Syndicates
had a fall-back method of contacting each other, should the need arise, and Pat
made a point of checking every day to make sure there was nothing going on that
he needed to be aware of amongst the other branches of the organisation. The messages were inserted into a
personal small ad section of the World Government’s newspaper, ‘The Daily USA’,
because it was one of the few papers that covered the entire country.
He turned to the
relevant page and started to read down the list.
One ad caught his
eye.
Donaghue,
Patrick, son of Callum and Rosaleen, last known of in New York. Will Patrick Donaghue please contact Mr
Snow at the Dewar Elf building in New York, where he will learn something to his
advantage.
There followed a
telephone number and a date.
Pat was
intrigued. This wasn’t the usual format of the
Syndicate’s messages and Dewar Elf was not one of their fronts. The company was a reputable law firm,
which had branched out into other work for the World Government, and they were
squeaky clean. It was
rumoured that they did nothing but work for the WG, especially when the
authorities didn’t want their name directly associated with whatever scheme it
was.
Pat chewed his
sandwich and pondered on the likelihood that this was some sort of trap. It was not inconceivable that someone in
the Syndicate was trying to set him up as a traitor by making it appear he’d
sold out to the authorities, although at the moment everything was remarkably
amicable amongst all of the bosses.
He felt the
familiar surge of excitement at the unknown provenance of the message. Even if this was a ploy by an ambitious rival, or even the
World Police Corps, he knew he’d have to investigate it to satisfy his own
curiosity.
On an impulse
he threw the sandwich down on the plate and slurped a mouthful of coffee before
reaching for his jacket. He wrote
the phone number on his wrist, where it was covered by his cuffs, and closed the
newspaper, leaving it on his desk, just as he always did:
nothing must indicate that he’d acted in any way out of the ordinary
because of the ad.
“I’m going
out,” he told Miss Maloney, as he walked past her desk.
“It’s too nice a day to spend it all cooped up in here. I may take the afternoon off, or I may
be back later. Not sure, as yet.” He smiled at her and she smiled back.
“Okay, Mr
Donaghue. I’ll take any messages and email
anything important to you, as usual, shall I?”
“Yeah, if
anyone phones, I’ll get back to them.”
She watched him
leave and noted the time in her desk diary, before carrying on writing the
latest report on investment opportunities in the retail sector.
Pat took the
subway and doubled back around the city watching to see that he wasn’t being
followed. He wandered into a gadget
retailer’s premises and browsed the shelves before taking his selected purchases
up to the till. He paid cash.
It was a
pleasant afternoon, so it was no hardship to stroll into the park and buy a
coffee from a vendor’s stall, before finding an isolated bench that offered a
good view in all directions of the approaches.
There’s no point in taking chances, he reminded himself, as he
opened his carrier bag and drew out the reconditioned pay-as-you-go cell phone
he’d bought.
He dialled the
number he’d written on his wrist and listened to the slow ‘brrrurp’ of the call
tone. He smiled when his heart skipped a beat
as he heard the call being accepted.
“Snow speaking.
How may I help?”
“That’s for you
to tell me, Mr Snow,” Pat replied.
“Something to my advantage, that’s what you said.”
“Mr Donaghue?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thank you for calling. In the mail tomorrow you will
receive a small, padded envelope.
It will contain a key to a left luggage locker at Grand Central Station. Inside the locker will be a small briefcase containing
details of the offer I have been instructed to make to you.”
“Who instructed
you?”
“Should you wish to accept the offer,
you will find instructions of where to go and when.”
“Who’re you
working for?”
“I am aware of the nature of your
business ventures and of the need for caution and trust between potential
associates. My security is as important as
yours, so I am not going to discuss this over a phone.
If, when you’ve read the documents, you have no further interest in doing
business, you will not hear from me again. Nor will you be able to trace me, so don’t waste your time
trying.”
“Why should I
trust you if I don’t know who you are?”
“Why should I trust you when I am
perfectly well aware of who you are?
The choice is yours, Mr Donaghue.
Thank you for expressing an interest; I hope we can do business.
Goodbye.”
“Wait!”
Pat glared at
the cell phone as the connection was closed.
“Damn-and-blast!”
He drew the sim
card out and tossed the handset into a trash can as he walked out of the park. He continued walking until he found a
coffee shop and slipped inside for a drink and a slice of cake.
‘Snow’ was
obviously an alias for someone acting on behalf of someone, or something, else. The only clue he had was that the advert
had mentioned ‘Dewar Elf’, but he was sure that even if he hacked into their
personnel files, he wouldn’t find the name there.
There was
nothing for it but to wait for the mail delivery tomorrow and fetch the
documents from the rail terminus.
For the first
time in months, he felt he was alive – and kicking.
Ciara Donaghue
was busy in the office of the headquarters of her small, but profitable, chain
of nightclubs and casinos. She was
checking over the accounts and doing a stock inventory before re-ordering
essentials, but her mind was only half on her task.
There was a knock
on the door and Danny Bersani walked in.
“Any news?” she
asked him.
He shook his
head. “No one’s seen him for the best part of
six days, Maxie.”
“I’m worried. It isn’t like Pat to disappear without
warning. Have you contacted the
other Syndicates?”
“Yeah; they ain’t
seen him and there’s no Council meeting scheduled.
His phone’s on voicemail, his e-mail’s got an ‘out of office’ and his
bed’s not been slept in – not even by a whore.”
Ciara frowned. “What’s going on, Danny?”
“I dunno; but you
shouldn’t worry. The other bosses,
they need Pat right now. They’re
edgy about the World Police – rumour has it that something’s going down… maybe
in
“Sure, but if he
disappears, they’ll mark him as an absconder and there’ll be a price on his
head,” Ciara said fearfully.
“I wish he’d call me.”
“He’ll be okay,
I’m thinking. There’s no flies on
Pat Donaghue. Look, maybe he’s
working a scam? He’s done that
before now.”
“Not without backup.”
Bersani shrugged. “Don’t worry. He has enough on every boss to bring them down.”
“That’s exactly
what does worry me,” she said sharply.
The evening was
at its busiest when Ciara was called to the phone.
She went to her office, and removed one of her trademark diamond earrings to put
the receiver to her ear.
“This is Miss
Maxie,” she said. “What can I do
for you?”
“Ciara, it’s me – Pat.”
“Patrick! Where the hell are you?”
“
“What? What the hell are you doing in
“Ah, you wouldn’t be believing me if I were telling you.”
Ciara relaxed
slightly, Pat only talked ‘Oirish’ when he was in a good mood.
He continued,
“Listen, I have some things I
need you to do.”
“I can hardly
hear you,” she confessed, with a slight emphasis on the pronoun to remind him
that the phone might well be bugged.
“I’ll email. Follow the
instructions to the letter.
Understand?”
“Sure, Pat. I always do.”
“I know, but these instructions might seem weird; however, my
life depends on this, Ciara. Don’t
let me down.”
She reassured him
and asked, “When’re you coming back?”
“My flight’s tomorrow.”
“Safe journey,
Patrick.”
“Bye, honey.”
The line went
dead and she went back out into the club to alert the security men to the fact
that she would be off the floor for a while.
Then she went back to the office and fired up her personal PC.
Patrick had given
her this one, loaded with security routines and firewalls of his own devising,
for private emails between them.
She went through the layers of security with the complex passwords and opened
the email account. True to his
word, Pat had sent instructions.
She read them
through, concern furrowing her brow and making her bite her bottom lip.
There were
instructions to sell shares, money to be moved to off-shore accounts and loans
to be called in. Even to her it smacked of liquidating
his assets, and that spelt trouble.
Nevertheless, she did as he asked.
By the time Pat
arrived back in
He went straight
to the club.
“What’s going
on?” Ciara demanded, as soon as he’d closed the office door behind him.
“I may have to
cut and run – and quickly,” he explained.
“I heard news in
“Where will you
go?”
“I can’t tell
you; the less you know the better, but eventually I’ll be in Porto Guava.”
“
“So it is, but a
‘mosquito-ridden backwater’ without an extradition treaty with the World
Government.”
“I see. This is serious then? Are you going to warn the Council?”
“If I do that
the police will be here quicker than a twister.
I wanted to make sure you’re okay.
That’s the main reason why I came back.
I’ve transferred the sole rights to the clubs to you, from
Ciara put her
head in her hands.
Anxious to say
everything he felt he needed to, Pat continued, “Keep running them, Ciara,
whatever the police or the Council says.
They’ll install a new Syndicate boss in time, but you have the law on your side,
so don’t take any crap from him.”
“Who will it
be?” she asked, looking up at him.
He shrugged. “My guess is Frank Falconi; he’s capable
but not exciting. You’ll be okay
with Frank – he owes me plenty and he won’t rock the boat.”
“Pat…”
She looked so
worried, he hugged her.
“Listen to me: we may never see each other again, but I
will be in touch and you will always be able to reach me. I promise.”
She hugged him
tightly. “I believe you. It seems like I’ve always underestimated you, Patrick.”
He smiled. “Everyone does, that’s my good fortune. Lull people into a false sense of
security and you’ll always have the advantage, that’s my motto, Sis.” She gave a weak smile and he added,
reassuringly, “I’m gonna be okay.”
She looked at
him through eyes that were suspiciously moist.
“But I’ll never see you again,” she whispered.
Patrick’s face
grew sombre; having lost meaningful contact with the rest of their family, they
only had each other and they’d grown close.
Accepting the sacrifice of losing Ciara from his life was a price he was
prepared to pay in order to move on, but he felt guilty that he hadn’t
considered it as a price she’d have to pay as well.
He found it
impossible, in the face of her misery, to be totally honest with her. “Not for a while, at least – but
I… I mean, I won’t to lose touch.
Not ever. And it is quite possible that I’ll be back… around… sometime. You mustn’t worry… whatever you hear
about me. Promise? I’ll be okay, and I’ll be doing what I want, and making a
difference – at last!”
She looked
confused and he realised that there was no way he could explain to her what he
was about to do. He accepted that
to do so would be to put her in jeopardy and he would never do that. He hugged her once more.
“Now… let’s get
this show on the road - for the last time.”
Two days later
Bersani was watching the TV news when he called Ciara across.
The broadcaster
said:
Sources close to the World Police say
that raids in
Ciara turned it
off. She looked at Bersani and put her arm
through his.
“They’ll never
catch him. Pat’s too clever for
them.” Despite the underlying sadness and concern on her face, there was an
unmistakable pride in her voice.
He nodded. “I’m gonna miss him, you know. He was a good boss, played fair and did
right by his people. We’ll be lucky
if the next one is as good.”
“Yeah, but Pat
thought about that too and we’re out of the loop now, Danny.
We have a chance to go straight.
Whoever would’ve thought it?”
Bersani shifted
slightly. He had more to worry about than Ciara –
his past was full of ghosts. “Yeah;
we’ll make it.”
She smiled at
him and he saw a ruthless gleam in her eye.
For the first time he was conscious of the similarity between her and her
brother and a shadow of doubt fell across his mind, shaking his confidence.
“You and me,
together, eh, Babe?” he said with false confidence.
Ciara’s smile
broadened to a grin.
Bersani’s
confidence took another plummet as he recognised a previously unsuspected iron
fist in the elegant velvet glove of her personality.
“It’ll be
okay,” she murmured, “I’ve learned from the best.”
Take care, little brother…
Three days
later, Assistant Police Commissioner Richard Fraser was assassinated in
The council of
the American Syndicates breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Pat Donaghue for
his foresight and timely warning. There was no proof that Donaghue was behind
the assassination - he was too smart for that - but they all knew that they
hadn’t done it, so who was left?
It was a shame he wouldn’t be here to enjoy the freedom a weakened Police Corps
would afford.
They agreed to
reply to the email from Donavan Plunkett, saying that they appreciated his offer
of handling their offshore financial transactions, and agreed to his terms.
On the airborne
headquarters of Spectrum, the World Government’s latest anti-terrorism force,
hovering 40,000 feet above the
Author’s Notes
This story started as part of a
series of vignettes set around significant birthdays in the lives of the
Spectrum Captains. It sort of grew
into a back-story for Captain Magenta over time, and I was very conscious that I
was following in the footsteps of the marvellous stories by Sue Stanhope, which
chronicled the life of Patrick Donaghue in such exciting detail.
My story eschews such excitement
and concentrates on the essentially nice chap who becomes Captain Magenta. I have to admit, I never liked the
character much, but on reading the biographies about him, I have to say that I
grew more and more certain he couldn’t be the accident-prone, over-enthusiastic
clown he seems on the show. I hope
this story goes some way to redress the balance.
My thanks are due to my
magnificent beta-reader, Hazel Köhler.
She is ever-tolerant of my eccentric spelling and wayward punctuation. It goes without saying really, that any
mistakes still in the text are mine and mine alone.
My thanks also go to Chris
Bishop, for the continuing delight of her website and its associated forum.
Patrick Donaghue, Captain
Magenta of Spectrum, is one of the main characters in the TV show, Captain
Scarlet and the Mysterons™, which is owned by Carlton International and possibly
other people too numerous to mention.
I know for certain that the show was the brainchild of Gerry and Sylvia
Anderson, one in the line of fantastic shows they produced in the 1960s. I have taken great delight in the
show and the characters ever since and I thank them for that tremendous gift.
It isn’t as easy for me to write
now as it used to be, due to changes in my personal circumstances, and I was
beginning to think I might never finish another story!
Therefore, I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed
writing it.
Marion Woods
May 2010
Other stories from Marion
Woods
Any comments? Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM HEADQUARTERS site