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like sardines. The pub door was open: obviously Old Jack had yet to spring for AC. Rory remembered how evil hot it could get inside, even in the dead of winter. It had to be sweltering in there right now.
    He casually assessed the knot of people in front of him. Not locals, he could see that right away. Windcheaters, walking shoes, and not one of them with a cig dangling from between their lips. Tourists. Polite, he nodded to them and headed inside.
    No one noticed him at first. Maybe it was because he wasn’t “swanning in,” as his gran said. But then Old Jack clapped eyes on him. One minute the old man was running in ten different directions, filling orders. The next he’d stopped dead, glaring at Rory as if the devil himself had just strolled in for a pint.
    “Jesus H Christ,” Jack bellowed. “If it isn’t the biggest prick in the Western Hemisphere.”
    Tourists turned to look at Rory. Not one appeared to be offended by Jack’s vocabulary; they probably thought it was colorful. Women were indiscreetly checking him out. When Rory ignored them, they went back to chatting with their friends. It was a pity that wasn’t the case with the locals: if hostility could be harnessed as electricity, no one in Ballycraig would have to pay a lighting bill for months.
    He reached the bar. “Hello, Jack.”
    Jack was unsmiling. “You can shove your ‘hello’ up your arse cheeks, Sunny Jim.”
    Nervous laughter rippled around him, but Rory was unruffled.
    “What do you want?” Jack continued, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
    “Pint of Guinness, please.”
    “Not sure I can do that, son. We don’t serve the likes of you here.”
    Jack looked around the pub, hoping everyone saw him as the tough guy he thought he was.
    “I said I’d like a pint of Guinness,” Rory repeated firmly.
    “Yeah? Well I want Angelina Jolie to ride me, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen.”
    Sniggers. Then someone he didn’t recognize addressed him from behind the bar in an American accent.
    “Guinness?”
    “Yeah.”
    The guy nodded curtly and went to pull his beer. It took a second, but then the lightbulb went off above Rory’s head: it was Erin’s cousin, Liam O’Brien. Hanging out at the Wild Hart with the rest of the Blades, he knew all about the O’Brien family on both sides of the Atlantic. This was the son who’d married the McCafferty. Stone-faced, Liam put the pint glass down in front of Rory.
    “Ta. You’re Liam, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah. And you’re Rory, aren’t you? The jerk who blew a hole through my cousin’s life?”
    Rory casually scratched his chin. “That would be me, yeah.”
    “Don’t forget he’s also the one who treated his best buddy like shite,” Teague Daly chimed in.
    Rory couldn’t believe it: Teague Daly, David Shiels, and Fergus Purcell, known as the Holy Trinity, were sitting in exactly the same seats they’d occupied the last time Rory had seen them. As a matter of fact, they were in the same seats where they’d been parking their carcasses since leaving school. It was as if they hadn’t moved in ten years.
    “Oh, yeah, that, too,” said Old Jack disgustedly. “Put the boot in on Jake Fry, one of the best men in town.” His contempt for Rory was now so fervent it was almost comical. “You’re not fit to lick his boots. I can get them Fry brothers on you like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Then where will you be?”
    “I’ll be standing right here, enjoying my pint.”
    “Not if they all came at you at the same time.”
    “Care to make a bet?”
    Old Jack looked like he wanted to reach across the bar and throttle him. The only thing that held him back was theappearance of his wife, Bettina, her perfume announcing her entrance. Rory had forgotten about that: the cloying scent of the Lily of the Valley perfume she doused herself in. She’d packed on quite a bit of weight, too.
    Jack gestured at Rory. “Look who’s here.”
    “Well, you’ve got balls, I’ll say