The Bloomsday Dead Read Online Free PDF

too hectic. Maybe she’d be on the ball, maybe not, it didn’t matter.
    Au Bon Pain was getting crowded and a German couple with a baby annexed the free seats at my table. I got up and looked for another hangout.
    At the end of the terminal sat one of those fake pubs which seemed as good a location as any for a long wait. I walked to the City Arms, ordered a Sam Adams. My cell phone rang when I’d drunk my beer and was thinking of popping for another.
    “Where are you now, Forsythe?” Dan asked.
    “No hello?”
    “Where are you?”
    “JFK.”
    “What are you doing there? You can be acquired at JFK,” Dan said.
    “Acquired? Acquired? You wanna watch it, mate. You’re beginning to sound like the FBI manual.”
    “Shanghaied, kidnapped, lifted, whatever you want. You were never supposed to come back to New York,” Dan insisted.
    I hadn’t been to the city in seven years, not since our days in the FBI field office in Queens.
    “I had a ticket, it was first class, seemed a shame not to use it. Besides, I had to get out of Lima. Bridget, God rest her big bum, sent two Colombian assassins to blow my brains out.”
    “I read about it on the wire. You handled it in your usual lowkey way, didn’t you? You know the story is on CNN.”
    “Is it? Well, it can’t be helped,” I said cheerfully.
    Dan muttered some inaudible obscenity that involved my mother.
    “Michael, like I say, we have talked about New York. You’re not supposed to come here, ever.”
    “As if they are going to acquire me in the middle of the most heavily policed airport in the Western Hemisphere. Get real. This isn’t Al Qaeda, these guys need an exit strategy after a hit. Wouldn’t get twenty feet in here.”
    “Well, I’m glad you seem ok about it. I’m not. Where exactly are you?”
    “I’m in the City Arms in the BA terminal.”
    “Can you hang tight for about half an hour? I’ll have a couple of guys come over there and meet you. I can’t get down there in person at the moment. But I’ll see you later today.”
    “Ok, do I know the guys?”
    “You don’t. Uhm, let me see, ok. They’ll ask you if you think the Jets have a chance next year, to which you’ll reply—”
    “I don’t want to talk about the Jets,” I interrupted. “Ask me a baseball question. I can do baseball.”
    “You don’t need to know the sport, Michael, you just have to say what I tell you to say.”
    “I don’t want to do a question about the goddamn New York Jets. I want to do a baseball question. I know baseball,” I protested.
    “Jesus. It doesn’t matter what the sport is.”
    “Of course it does, I’m not going to walk up to someone and say ‘So who do you like in the curling world championships? They say the ice is fast this year.’ Right bloody giveaway that would be.”
    Dan laughed and then sighed.
    “You know, Michael, sometimes I wish you weren’t so good at staying alive. Sometimes, I wish . . .”
    “Better leave that thought unsaid. Joe Namath, he plays for the Jets, right?”
    “Thirty years ago.”
    “Ok, forget him. They can ask me what I think about the dodgy Yankees pitching rotation. And I’ll say: ‘I don’t think it stacks up against the Sox,’ how about that?”
    “Fine, whatever you like. I’ll take care of it.”
    “Thanks, Dan.”
    “All right, hang tight. Sending some people to pull you out of yet another jam.”
    “You love me really, I can tell,” I said.
    I closed the phone, grinned. What Dan didn’t realize was that if you’ve been fighting for your life a few hours earlier you can afford to be a bit bloody glib.
    I got some lunch, a heretical Irish stew that contained peas and sweet corn.
    Went to the bog, washed my face, ordered a Bloody Mary, sat with my back to the wall, decided to check out the señoritas. New York was a paradise after four months in Lima. Not that the Peruvian girls weren’t attractive but there it was mere variations on a theme whereas here it was the choral symphony.