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“There’s no way,” I tried telling him. “It’s all to do with pressure.”

“Aye, you say that, and when I’m mashed up against the carriages you can tell my ma.”

The train was accelerating and we still had about fifty yards until we got to the steps at the platform.

“We’re not going to make it,” Andy said. Fergal was leading us, but he was so looped on paint thinner he thought he was back in the OC, hare coursing or something, screaming and hooting and generally spooking Andy and me.

“Will you shut it, you big glipe,” I told him, but he was uncontrollable.

The train was bearing down and those buggers in the MTA never stop.

“We’re gonna die now,” Andy said behind me. “We’re not going to die,” I assured him.

But the gap between the line and the security fence was only about a yard wide and for the first time I began to think that Andy might be right. Maybe the bloody thing was going to hit us. It was coming at a fair oul clip, that was for sure.

“If we cut over to the other side of the tracks, there’s more room,” Andy suggested.

“Go and you’ll trip and fall and get bloody electrocuted and then beheaded and I’ll have to explain that to your ma,” I said.

“Well, big Fergal’s going to get it first, the way he’s carrying on.”

“And he deserves it, his idea.”

I looked up the track to see where Fergal was, but everything was absorbed into the train’s headlights. It couldn’t be more than ten feet in front of us. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

It sounded its horn and I found myself screaming.

“Oh my God,” Andy yelled out and then the thing was on top of us.

“It’s sucking me in,” I heard myself shrieking. “Sucking me in, so it is.”

Couple of people staring at us from their seats, lights, clattering wheels, sparks. In a few seconds the train was past. Fergal was giving it the fingers from the side of the track. I was hyperventilating. Deep breaths, I told myself, deep breaths.

Andy put his hand on my back. I shook my head.

“That boy is going to get us killed,” I said, pointing at Fergal. “More than likely,” Andy agreed.

We headed up the line, caught Fergal, grabbed him by the jacket, and trailed the useless ganch after us. We exited the subway station and found the steps down the hill. Sure, it saved us about fifteen blocks by going over the fence and along the tracks, but it had taken years off our lives.

A minute later we walked into the brightly lit bar, more or less in one piece. Fergal looked at his clunky digital watch and told us that it was exactly nine o’clock.

“My shortcut paid off. We’ll be able to get a seat now,” he said, sliding his way among the patrons. Andy gave me a disgusted glance and I validated it with an eyebrow raise.

We walked to the bar, but before we got five paces a bouncer tapped me on the shoulder.

“How old are you boys?” the bouncer asked in a monotone.

“How can you ask me that question?” Andy said. I groaned. Just answer, you bloody big stupid eejit. “Can’t you see that I’m twenty-five?” Andy continued. The bouncer looked at him with skepticism as Andy rummaged for the fakest of fake IDs. Fergal waved his hand in front of the bouncer’s face.

“These are my mates,” he said.

Fergal was five or six years older than Andy and myself, but even so, that wouldn’t matter to the bouncer. I sighed. All this way into the heart of the Bronx and then risking death on a shortcut along the elevated subway tracks. All for some mythical bar that would probably be shite. Moot, anyway, because it looked like we were going to get chucked out after just two seconds inside the establishment.

“I’m twenty-five,” Andy insisted and showed the ID. The bouncer looked at Fergal for a second.

“Wait a minute. Do you work for Sunshine and Darkey White?” the bouncer asked.

Fergal’s eyes narrowed. He drew himself up to his full height. “Aye, I do,” Fergal said.

“And these are your mates?” the bouncer asked him.

“Aye, they’re tagging along. Andy here has been with us about six months, and for young Michael, this is his very first week in America.”

The bouncer looked upset and then afraid.

“Sorry, I had no idea, I had no idea,” he said apologetically. “It’s ok,” Fergal said.

He backed away.

“Sorry for grabbing you on the shoulder, pal. I didn’t know you were working for Darkey White,” he said to me.

“Forget it,” I muttered. “It’s nothing.” Although it wasn’t nothing, and Fergal suddenly gained stature before my eyes.

We walked upstairs to the top bar, our ultimate destination.

Of course, we could have gone drinking anywhere in Riverdale or Manhattan but what was special about this place, allegedly, was that it was full of underage Fordham girls, who, Fergal claimed, were gagging for it all the bloody time. Beer, underage girls, Fergal on paint thinner. Quite the mix.

“My prediction,” I told Andy, “is that it’s going to end in tears.”

“Lucky if it’s only tears.”

We opened the door of the top bar and went in. But for once, Shangri-la wasn’t over the next mountain. It was right bloody here, if your particular utopia was heavily made-up seventeen- year-old Catholic girls, in slut skirts, heels, jewels, and perfume from their ma’s closet.

There were mirrors everywhere and bright interrogation-style lights. MTV was playing on two TV screens, the music so loud that everyone except the bar staff had to shout. The girls had attracted a rough crowd of ne’er-do-wells from Long Island—surly suburban kids, looking for action of any description: girls or fights, either would be acceptable.

Fergal sussed a vacant table near the corner right under one of the TVs. He led the way, his big arms swinging wildly at his sides, terrifying me into thinking that he was about to knock over someone’s pint. He could handle himself, but it was inevitable that Andy and me would be drawn in to any fracas. A couple of silent prayers and mantras kept him safe all the way to the corner. We sat down and took off our jackets.

“My shout,” I said, and asked the boys what they were having. Everyone was on lagers, so that was easy to remember. The barman caught my eye as soon as I pulled out a hundred- dollar bill. Part of the advance Sunshine had sent me to bring me over from Belfast to New York.

I ordered three pints. I paid with the bill, got the change, and put the three pints into a triangle. I weaved my way back through the tables, avoiding obvious booby traps in the shape of extended legs or handbags or the belts of folded-up coats.

“Cheers,” Fergal said, grabbing his pint right out of my hand and drinking half of it in one gulp and then belching. It was tough to be seen with Fergal. He played quite the rube. Eccentric one too. He was dressed in a tweed jacket and trousers and tatty woolen waistcoat. He had a red beard that

looked like a case of scrum pox gone awry. Andy claimed that Fergal was a sophisticated thief back in the OC, but it was hard to credit.

I sat down, looked at Andy, and we both took a sip of beer.

“So what’s the craic?” Andy asked me. “How’s America treating you so far?”

“It’s ok.”

“How’s your place?” he asked. “Fucking shitehole.”

“Be it ever so humble…”

“Ok, boys, listen,” Fergal said, looking serious and conspiratorial. With the getup he was in, the conspiracy could have involved a plot against Queen Victoria, but more likely it was about the girls.

“Listen. I’ve been checking out the table under the clock. Don’t all look round at once, but tell me how old you think the brunette under the R in Rangers is?”

Fergal was checking out a brazen wee hussy with a six-inch- high beehive hairdo, hello-sailor lipstick, and pancake to cover the acne. She was with her older sister, who, after a great deal of pestering, was obviously taking her out on a Saturday-night thrill. Neither sister was going home with anyone tonight.

“Sixteen,” Andy offered. Fergal looked at me.

“Not sixteen, no way,” I said. “I know for a fact how old she is.”

“Seventeen?” Fergal suggested.

I shook my head again, taking a big sip of my pint to keep up the suspense.

“That girl is fourteen years old,” I said at last.

Both of them were suitably impressed, taking unsubtle double takes.

“No way,” Andy said.

“Believe it, kiddo. I’ll go ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

They didn’t believe me. I asked her. She said she was twenty- one and I told her I heard there was going to be a police raid to check IDs. The whole table cleared out five minutes later and once the rumor was out, four other tables after that.

Andy’s round. He went to the bar, but despite being a giant he had some trouble getting served. Fergal, fully recovered now from his paint-thinner experience, was in a reflective mood.

“Yon Andy boy is encumbered not just by imposing stature but also by his astounding lack of bar presence,” Fergal said.

“Explain.”

“Certainly. He’s not ugly, not handsome. And to have presence at the bar you need to have either a very handsome noticeable face or a very ugly noticeable face. Andy is right in the middle,” Fergal said.

“Whereas you, Fergal, are a big lanky bugger with a horrible beard, the dress sense of a street person, and a nose that’s bigger than some of the smaller hills in the Netherlands,” I said, just to see how far I could push Fergal boy. But he wasn’t fazed.

“All very true, and explains why I never have to wait more than thirty seconds at the bar. You get served very quickly because, I conjecture, the barman is thinking that anyone with your evil eyes is liable to do just about anything if he doesn’t get his pint pretty sharpish.”

“I take evil eyes as a compliment,” I said. “As you should.”

Andy came back and asked what we were talking about.

“Just oul shite,” I told him truthfully, and got stuck into beer number three.

Fergal finished his pint and looked around the bar.

“Boys. Sorry I brought you. This place is a bust, let’s get over into the city,” he said with ennui. We all agreed, drank the rest of our bevvies, and grabbed our coats from the backs of the chairs. We had all just stood up when the bar door opened and Scotchy Finn came in.

Scotchy Finn. Finally.

“There he is,” Andy said. “That’s Scotchy, he bloody said he was coming, but you never know with him.”

“That’s Scotchy?” I asked, staring at a dangerously thin, pale- skinned, orange-haired, bucktoothed, sleekit wee freak.

“That’s him,” Andy insisted.

I hadn’t encountered Scotchy yet, but his reputation had preceded him. He was supposed to have met me at the airport, but he hadn’t. He was supposed to have gotten me an apartment in Riverdale, but he’d found me one in Harlem instead. He was supposed to have taken me around the city, but he’d left all that to Andy. To cap it all, the story was that if Sunshine liked me, Scotchy was going to get his own crew, with the three of us under him. Our new boss.

Scotchy saw us and beamed from ear to ear.

“Boys, you weren’t heading out, were you? Rounds on me,” Scotchy said, and threw his jacket into the corner. We all sat down again. Scotchy went to the bar and came back almost immediately with four pints and whiskey chasers.

“Death to death,” Scotchy said, and knocked back his whiskey.

We all followed suit.

“You’re the newie, right?” he asked me. “That’s right,” I said.

“Heard you were in the fucking British army,” he asked aggressively.

“Aye, right again.”

“Well, ya bloody collaborator, I spent my time blowing up the British army, trapping them, killing ’em, sniping them, down in South Armagh,” Scotchy said with a touch of hammy malevolence.

“Aye, I thought I could detect a culchie inbred-hillbilly accent. South Armagh. Surprised you had the time to fight the Brits when you were fucking your sister and the various domestic farm animals that were handy, not that you could probably tell the difference between your sister and the farm animals,” I said, and took a drink of my pint.

I wasn’t sure how he would react to that and I was nervous for about half a second before Scotchy opened his fangy chops, grinned, and broke into a laugh.

“I think I’m going to like you, Michael,” he said.

“Well, I’d love to say the same, but I’m not too sure, Scotchy,” I told him.

“Forsythe, is it? Like Bruce Forsyth, that fucking shite comedian?”

“Aye, like Bruce Forsyth the shite comedian,” I said.

“Ok, from now you’re fucking going to be Bruce,” Scotchy said.

“I don’t think so, mate,” I replied.

Scotchy ignored me and turned his attention to Andy and Fergal.

“Well, boys, how have you been while I’ve been dodging bullets and making us all rich in Washington Heights?”

“Good,” I said, still speaking for the group, my first attempt to assert my dominance over them and, hopefully, one day over Scotchy, too.

Scotchy ignored me again, then went on to tell us what particular mischief he’d been up to all night with Big Bob and Mikey Price and the rest of the crew. Extortion, muscle, threats

—fun stuff. After a couple of bloody anecdotes, Scotchy looked at me and grabbed me by the arm.

“Come on, new boy, get those down your neck and it’s back to my place. Having a party for ya. Just decided. Get youse fixed up yet, even Andy over there, the big scunner.”

We wolfed our pints, barely able to keep up with Scotchy as he got in another and ordered a keg of beer to carry out. Scotchy tried to pull the remaining jailbait, but no one would go with him. He went to the bog while Fergal and I lugged the keg to Scotchy’s Oldsmobile.

“Are you sure you should be driving, Scotchy?” Andy asked him as we got in the back. Scotchy swiped at the top of his head.

“Ok, ok, I was only asking,” Andy muttered.

Scotchy put the car in gear and spun the wheels out of the car park. Scotchy was a terrible driver—even when fully sober he fiddled continually with the washer fluid, the mirror, and the radio; and now he was half tore.

Twice he almost got us into accidents, one of them with a police car.

He flipped the stations and when Karen Carpenter’s warble came on, Andy asked him to leave it.

“I like that song,” Andy said, in vino veritas. “I like it too,” Scotchy concurred.

I rolled my eyes at Fergal, but he also appeared to like the Carpenters, making me think that I alone in the vehicle hadn’t been body-snatched.

We arrived at Scotchy’s pad in Riverdale at 10:30. Nice place, with a balcony and a view across the Hudson. Scotchy had done minimal decorating. A few posters of Who and Jam concerts he’d attended. A sloppy paint job in the kitchen. A proud display of beer bottles from all over the world on his long mantelpiece.

Scotchy showed us to the liquor cabinet and started making phone calls. By twelve, there must have been forty people there, but only about a quarter of them girls. At least the booze was good. Scotchy had boosted a huge case of single malts from the distributor. Twelve-year-old Bowmore, seventeen- year-old Talisker, and an Islay laid down in the year of my birth.

Just after midnight, Sunshine showed up. A saturnine, balding Steve Buscemi type who was Darkey White’s number two. I’d met him once before, when he’d interviewed me about working for Darkey. Even more than Scotchy’s, it was Sunshine’s call whether I got the job or not, so I made a point of talking to him about movies old and new. Sunshine liked me and introduced me to Big Bob Moran and his brother David. Bob was already drunk and complaining about the Dominicans who were invading his neighborhood in Inwood. He was going to move back out to Long Island, he said. David Moran was a more complicated character, who worked directly for Mr. Duffy, the reputed head of the entire Irish mob in New York City. David and Sunshine had a lot in common: they’d both gone to NYU, were both thinkers. Both white- collar types, unlike me and Scotchy on the bloody coal face.

“Sunshine says you’ll be joining him very shortly,” David Moran said.

“He hasn’t told me yet, at least not formally.”

“Sunshine has heard great things about you; you ran a couple of rackets when you were a teenager in Belfast and you were even in the army for a while. Remember, we’re all one big family here,” he said. He patted me on the cheek.

Scotchy noticed Bob, David, and Sunshine for the first time and came running over. He shook hands and dragged them outside to see his new car.

Andy found me and took me to one side.

“Listen, Michael, let me tell you who’s just arrived,” he said in hushed tones.

“Is it the pope? Madonna?” I said breathlessly. “Bridget Callaghan,” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“Pat’s wee girl, the youngest. She’s just back from university. She’s dropped out, so don’t say anything about that, it would upset her, ok?”

I nodded. But there was something else. I could read Andy like a book.

“What?”

“What do you mean what?” “Tell me.”

Andy sighed.

“Darkey’s very fond of her, she’s very beautiful. Darkey treats her like a daughter. He told me specifically he wants me to look after her now she’s back in New York, so she doesn’t get in any trouble. Now, Michael, that means you, too, I don’t want you trying to go off with her, ok?”

“Ok.”

“Promise me,” Andy said. “Jesus, I promise,” I said.

“Ok, let’s go meet them, she’s got a couple of wee friends with her, I think.”

“And can I ask them out?” “’Course.”

We met Bridget.

She had dyed blond hair and freckles. It might be that she was beautiful, but I couldn’t get a good look at her under the party lights. She offered her hand. I shook it.

“Michael Forsythe,” I said.

“Andy told me you were here. I’m Bridget. He says you’ll be working for him,” Bridget said in a bubbly New York accent.

“Yeah, right, I’ll be working for Andy,” I said sarcastically.

“Listen, it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not stopping, the last place on earth I’d want to be on a Saturday night is a party at Scotchy’s house.”

“I can see why,” I said.

There was a long awkward pause during which I identified her perfume as something refined from citrus zest.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said and turned to find her friends. I watched her bum sashay through the party. She gave Andy a friendly kiss on the cheek. Much to my surprise, I found that I was jealous. I quickly barged through the crowd and stood beside her.

“You don’t have to go yet,” I said to her.

“I do, I have to find my friends,” she muttered. “Yeah, Michael won’t keep you,” Andy said.

“Well, Andy won’t keep you, he has to get back to listening to the Carpenters,” I attempted weakly.

“Being a wetback, Michael has to go home early and hide from the INS,” Andy said, giving me the skunk eye.

“At least I don’t have zero bar presence,” I said. “At least I don’t smoke,” Andy replied.

“At least I’m old enough to smoke.”

“I’m the same age as you,” Andy said.

“Why don’t you two boys just kiss and make up,” Bridget mocked.

Andy and I were put in our place, and we both laughed. Bridget was quick as well as cute, and I was now officially captivated. I tapped Andy on the back five times, which meant that all I wanted was five minutes alone with her. He gave me a suspicious look but went off to refill his drink.

“You’re a student,” I asked her when we were alone “I wasa student. I left after two semesters.”

“Where were you at?”

“University of Oregon.” “Beautiful place, I hear.” “Yes,” she said.

“Doing?”

“Celtic studies.”

“Interesting stuff?” “Yes.”

“You enjoyed all those trees?” “Uh-huh.”

Her one word answers were a clue things weren’t going well. I stopped the patter and looked at her.

“Ok, Bridget, so you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re pissed off because you can’t believe you’re at this party with a bunch of drunken hoods, and that might have appealed to you once but for the last half a year you’ve seen the wider, more cosmopolitan world, and now it’s a bit too Return of the Native and you’re thinking how long do I have to talk to this imbecile before I can get my friends to go the fuck home. Perceptive, huh?”

She smiled.

“Perceptive,” she agreed.

“If it’s not a sore topic, why did you drop out?”

“Well, you were wrong about one thing, I’m not smart. I do hate it here, but I’m not clever enough to get away from here. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get away from here. From all this. Not now. I didn’t drop out, I flunked out,” she said.

“You don’t seem like a dummy to me,” I told her.

“Thank you, Michael,” she said and smiled so sweetly it nearly broke my heart, and things could have gone swimmingly after that had not Scotchy and Andy got into an argument about something and began screaming at each other. Scotchy and Andy? It seemed unlikely, but there it was. Sunshine and Big Bob were holding back Andy; Mikey Price and David Moran were holding on to Scotchy.

I found Fergal.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“Andy’s had a bit too much to drink, he says Scotchy’s been robbing him blind,” Fergal explained. “Scotchy says he’s going to kick his fuck in.”

“Jesus.”

“Sunshine won’t let them come to blows, but the problem is Andy’s right, Scotchy probably has been robbing him blind,” Fergal continued.

“That Scotchy seems like a nasty wee shite,” I said. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m going to shoot him in the kneecaps,” Scotchy was yelling.

“Aye, resort to fucking firearms, cowardly fucking shite,” Andy said.

“That’s enough, for God’s sake, you stupid fucks,” Sunshine said, very atypically losing his cool. Andy and Scotchy stared at him, chastened.

Sunshine whispered something to Scotchy. He shook his head and stormed off.

The party continued for about five minutes, but suddenly the music stopped and everyone turned around to look at Scotchy, who was standing on top of his massive stereo speakers.

“Everybody shut up,” Scotchy yelled.

In a second the whole place was as quiet as a funeral parlor.

“Wee Andy and I have had a disagreement about something and he called me a coward. Now, I’ve thought about it and I cannot let it lie. If there’s one thing I can’t stand for, it’s being publicly called a yellow bastard. I’ll take anything else but not fucking that.”

“Get down from there, Scotchy,” Sunshine said from somewhere