“It’s such a sad old feeling

the fields are soft and green.

it’s memories that I’m stealing,

But you’re innocent when you dream.”

— TOM WAITS

Galway, Ireland

IT WAS TEN DAYS since the “heist.” I’d been lying low, watching the news, wondering if I was about to be arrested. The smart thing would have been to stay put, let the heat fade. But I was antsy, anxious to move. When you’re sitting on more money than you could ever even count, you’re not too laid back. That my oldest friend died in the robbery was a burden I couldn’t shake, refused to dwell on it.

Siobhan, my girl for a long time, came out of the kitchen, asked,

“Can we switch to Sex and The City, it’s the final series.”

I was glad to move, three beers hadn’t mellowed me. I’d some Vicodin, the ultimate painkiller, but was saving them for the flight, said,

“Sure.”

Siobhan was so Irish, she might have come from central casting, red hair, snub nose, fine body, and that white skin the Americans call “Irish Colour.”

They know about colour.

I grabbed another beer and she asked,

“Will you watch with me?”

I could have but was finding it difficult to be still, said,

“It’s always about shoes.”

She laughed, the way women do when men “don’t get it.”

Which is most of the time.

One line did make me laugh. Carrie had a boy toy and said, “I don’t know if I should blow him or burp him.”

A bottle of Black Bushmills on the sink. We’d been keeping it for a special occasion. I guess this would have to be it. I put the beer down, broke the seal, got some heavy tumblers from the press, poured freely, she said,

“Put lemonade in mine.”

Christ, what a travesty. But it hardly seemed the time to mention that. I poured the lemonade, made a mental note to call it “pop,” get into American mode. Every day, I adjusted my vocabulary, getting in gear.

The robbery flashed across my mind, Tommy’s ruined face, the bullet hole where his nose had been, and gripped the counter, muttered,

“Motherfucker.”

Siobhan turned, asked,

“What?”

“Nothing, caught my finger on the cap, no big thing.”

I meant Stapleton, the coldest man I ever met. Our third member of the gang, he was the iceman, with eyes like the dead, according to rumour, and a long time with paramilitaries. He’d supplied the weapons, most of the strategy.

He also shot Tommy.

In bed, Siobhan asked me if I loved her, I said I did.

Kept it casual, I loved her more than mere words could express, she was the beat of my heart.

She worked for an investment bank, was helping me off load, legitimise the mountain of cash. I already had American Express, Mastercard, Visa . . . Gold.

And a healthy wedge of dollars. Siobhan had a banker’s attitude toward money, not concerned where it came from but very anxious where it was going, I’d asked,

“Are you sure you won’t get caught, this is a serious amount of cash you’re channelling?”

Got the look, she said,

“The day a bank refuses money is the end of democracy as we know it.”

It was in my interest to agree. I’d been worried about CAB, the Criminal Assets Bureau, who were highly effective in shutting down John Gilligan and a legion of others. She explained,

“They’ve been bringing down dopers, now they’re after politicians.”

Pause.

She held my face, staring intently, asked,

“You’re not political are you Steve?”

Like most Irish men I could talk it, give me a few pints, I might even mean it. I just rarely bothered to vote.

Our plan was to meet up in Tucson, picked the eighth day in the month as it was, she said, her lucky number. I’d given Siobhan a gold Miraculous Medal, with a long chain, seemed in keeping with our rendezvous, lucky numbers and religion, how could we lose?

Before I left the next morning, she’d suddenly taken it off, hung it round my neck, a serious expression clouding her face. I’d asked,

“Why?”

“I have a terrible feeling you’re going to need it.”

She was right.

It was Siobhan who’d chosen Tucson and naturally I asked why. First she said,

“That dry heat, every day being warm.”

It may seem to other nationalities that we’re more than a little obsessed with the rain. We are.

If you spend a childhood getting drenched, soaked to the skin, wet to your very core, you’d be happy never to see a drop of it again. When we get, say, five, yeah, count ‘em, five days of sunshine for a summer, we’re near orgasmic. We must be one of the few nations who hope global warming is true if it means dry weather. Then she said,

“And you’ll want to see where that gunfight took place.”

Jesus, I hadn’t the heart to tell her she’d got the wrong town. Loving someone does mean not correcting them. Shortly before I left, she discovered her error, asked me why I’d said nothing, and I did the one thing she respected most of all, I told the truth, said,

“I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

Her expression, of wonder, awe, then she said,

“So it’s true, there are men who really love women.”

To change the subject I asked,

“Are we going to Tombstone then?”

She shuddered, blessed herself then,

“Good god no . . . we couldn’t live in a place named after a graveyard.”

The awful irony is that we may as well have chosen it: Graves were going to be the legacy of the whole enterprise in the fallout.