“Am I late?”
“A little. Or no, since you’re the boss, I guess you get to decide when you come in. But Seamus McAllister has been calling.”
“Oh yeah? And what does he want?”
“He wouldn’t say; he just asked if you’d call him back. Even when I asked him what it was in regards to, he wouldn’t tell me. So you should probably call him back.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do that now.”
I went into my office and called Seamus. This was probably about that Ghanizadeh coming back into town or some shit.
“Ian,” Seamus said, picking up after the second ring. “Thanks for returning my call. I’d like to meet with you. What is your schedule looking like? Why don’t you meet me for an early lunch.”
“Hi, Seamus,” I said. “Early lunch? I haven’t even had breakfast yet. What’s is that you wanted to talk about?”
“I’ll let you know when I see you. That’s the whole reason why I’d like to get together.”
I could tell by his tone there was no way he was going to tell me over the phone and save me the trip, and I also knew that if I didn’t agree to meet with him, he’d keep calling until I did. So I told him my schedule was relatively open today, and we could meet up since he clearly had something of the utmost importance to discuss with me. I hung up the phone, trying to not feel too agitated.
“Everything okay?” Daisy asked.
“Just fine,” I said. “I’ve got to leave in a little bit to meet up with Seamus. Apparently, he doesn’t want to tell me over the phone what it is, either.”
What the fuck did Seamus McAllister want to talk about? He rarely ever wanted to talk in person—I couldn’t actually remember the last time that we’d had a face-to-face meeting. That’s what Billy was for—Seamus just called the shots and then did who knows what with the rest of his time.
Seamus had me meet him in Chinatown, at the restaurant that fronted for his underground poker club. By the time I got there, I had it figured out: Word had gotten out about the shit that went down with Martin, and Seamus wanted to can us. Even though nothing like that had ever happened before, and would not happen again. I would make sure of that. The air smelled greasy, and there were people sitting at the bar, hunched over bowls of noodles. Seamus was sitting at a table by the window, with a plate of egg rolls in front of him.
“Ian.” He gestured to the empty seat across from him. “Have a seat.”
I sat, then rested my hands on my knees. “Hi, Seamus,” I said. It had been so long since I’d last seen Seamus that I’d almost forgotten what he looked like, though really, he looked like a slightly older, wiser version of Billy. Billy, though, exuded this attitude of merriment, while Seamus, undoubtedly, could send off some very heavy don’t-fuck-with-me vibes. “Look, Seamus,” I said. “I know why you wanted to meet with me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You do?”
“Yeah. Which is why I’d like to start the conversation off by saying that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and though I’m not trying to make excuses, there’s no direct evidence that it was from our end. There just isn’t. And ultimately, everything worked out, so it’s not like—”
Seamus waved me off. “That’s not what this is about,” he said. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. It sounds like there was a fuck up. Was there a fuck up? Here, have an egg roll.” He pushed the plate toward me.
“No thanks, I’m good. It’s still a little early for egg rolls.” I looked at him closely. “Wait—if this isn’t about the thing with Martin, what is this about?”
It was then I realized that this whole time, Seamus had been looking rather chagrined. As though this were a conversation that he didn’t actually want to be having.
“You know me, Ian,” he said. “And you know that I’m not generally interested in getting involved with . . . most things. I like the simple life. I like life to uncomplicated. That might be hard to believe considering some of my endeavors; I realize this. Most of which I’m involved in because my father was. So it’s like a legacy. But you probably don’t care to hear about any of that sort of thing. I only bring it up for context.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, completely not following what it was he was trying to say.
“And my son, Billy, though he certainly has his faults—as any man does—has done a surprisingly good job thus far at managing the things that I’ve asked him to, at handling the aspects of my various enterprises that I’d rather not deal with. Because I like the simple life.”
“Right,” I said. “You said that already.”
Seamus nodded. “Indulge me a moment. When things are working, I can rest easy, which, at this point in my life, is exactly what I want to do. Things have been in a bit of a disarray though. Nothing major, which is good. But lately, I have noticed that whenever I see Billy, something seems wrong. At first, I dismissed it, figuring he’d had a bad day, or maybe Mercury was in retrograde, or some other voodoo nonsense like that. But it lingered, which uncommon for Billy. He has a buoyant spirit. That’s how his mother always described him as a child. You remember Imogen?”
“Yes,” I said, vaguely recalling a tall, chestnut-haired woman with a kind smile.
“I always thought of him more as one of those children’s toys that are weighted at the bottom, so no matter what you do to it, it always springs back up. Anyway, after this morose attitude continued for several more days, it finally came out: Billy had found a girl he was interested in.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, suddenly understanding exactly where this conversation was headed.
“And it would seem that at first she showed some interest. But you’re interfering with that.”