The Kite Fixer
modified on 10/22/98
(from the novelization by Kirk Mitchell)
Gaerity patiently bored a tiny hole into each holder of the contact leens case that lay before him on the chart table. One through the L and one through the R. Only while working did he feel close to being at peace. He was inching toward a goal, which seemed to ease his otherwise constant anxiety. He hadn't known he suffered from chronic anxiety until his German psychiatrist brought it to his attention. "You are under enormous stress, Ryan" he had said in that somber Heidelberg office paneled with dark wood. "But it gives me hope that you feel no guilt. That is the most common repsonse. Guilt followed by the lassitude of depression. You alone of all my patients seem to sense that the fault lies outside yourself. With this utterly sick capitalist society. Still, despite your insight, you face many dangers. I believe you will either liberate or destroy yourself. The choice must be obvious to you. Either you must have revolution or you shall implode."
"Quite," Gaerity said fervently to himself, then unscrewed one of the Kerr jars and meticulously sprinkled some powder into both holders of the case. He was snapping them shut when his cellular rang.
He took a moment to remember himself. "Oh yes." Then he answered, "Doctor Stackpole."
"Doctor, this is Sister Beatrice from Saint Sebastian's."
"Oh, how very nice to hear from you again, Sister."
"I have those last three numbers for you."
Gaerity reached for a pencil. "I am prepared to copy." The first two were local. South Boston and Brookline. Too close to town to suit McGivney's mounting paranoia. But the third made him raise his eyebrows. "Very good. Have the O'Braidaighs moved or something?"
"Vacation residence on the cape. That's a Falmouth prefix, I believe."
"Excellent, Sister. I'm sure this will come to nothing and the lab will prove that those two children ate some bad shellfish or whatever. But one can't be too careful. Not when it comes to children."
"I agree wholeheartedly, Doctor. Will we hear from you on this again?"
"Most assuredly. One way or the other. Good day, Sister Beatrice." Hanging up, Gaerity glanced over the table. "Where was I?"
Then he recalled. "Oh yes."
He picked up a single-edged razor blade and skinned the plastic off a length of copper wire, from which he then unraveled a solitary strand. This he slid through one of the holes he had just bored into the two lens holders.
He listened to the sound of his own respiration as he worked. Calm. Rhythmic. As sure of its purpose as the sea.
Gaerity found the cottage thanks to the Jeep Wrangler. It was openly parked beside the weathered little structure. All the footprints in the sand surrounding the place were too small to be McGivney's. So Liam had probably hidden his family here while he himself remained in Boston.
This was confirmed later in the morning when his wife and stepdaughter came out on the deck to breakfast. Gaerity watched them from the crest of a nearby dune. Here, behind an old fence, he'd buried the small suitcase he'd carried with him on the bus from Boston.
After eating, mother and daughter drove off in the Wrangler. This gave him a twinge of alarm until he broke inside by picking the door lock. They'd left their luggage behind, Kate's violin as well.
Yet they hadn't brought much with them to the cape, a bag apiece. Their stay would not be a long one. No wonder. The cottage reminded him of the abandoned mud-wall cabin in County Monaghan he'd been forced to use as a hideout while the Republic of Ireland police, at the bidding of the Brits, scoured the countryside for him. Cramped, stuffy, tawdry.
Waiting for their return, Gaerity strolled along the beach, gooign halfway to Woods Hole before turning around. He wasn't sure what to do next. This place was so out of the way. Not center stage like a bridge or a public square. No one would see, least of all McGivney. and that was the entire point of it, wasn't it?
But if he hesitated, another opportunity might not arise. McGivney and his squad were fully alerted by now. Gaerity had heard nothing about the device going off in Sergeant Franklin's flat. Too long now. Almost thirty-six hours since he'd planted it. Something had gone wrong.
Still, the lonliness of this place made his efforts seem insignificant.
Coming back onto the Falmouth shore, he was accosted by two young boys bearing plastic sacks full of live crabs.
"How much?" he asked.
Ten dollars a bag. A bargain, they insisted, one of them adding, "Everybody who comes here buys crabs."
"Oh very well, then," Gaerity said, "if it's the custom, what choice do I have?"
He hefted the sack over his shoulder, feeling its captives twitching against his back through the plastic, and ambled on toward the cottage. McGivney's family had returned, for the girl, Lizzy, was flying a kite. It was green, white, and orange. An omen, perhaps. The colors of the Irish flag.
He sat behind the fence, peering almost directly up at the kite. The bag of crabs added a touch of plausibility to his being there that had been absent before. He now added to it by shedding his shoes and rolling up his trouser legs to the knee. "There." Like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, a shy fellow in middle age come to the tide's edge to contemplate death and his fear of women. As good a cover as any.
All at once, the kite swooped and started into a tailspin that sent it plummeting. It crashed into a fence a few yards down fromGaerity and hung there, the paper rattling in the breeze. He rose to a squat and went to it, standing erect just as Lizzy approached from the other side.
She stepped back, wide-eyed, but quickly found her tongue. "Who're you?"
"Who do you think I am?"
She had no answer to that.
"I'm the kite fixer. I appear magically all over the world at a moment's notice to save kites in distress." Gaerity took a butterfly knife from his jacket pocket. One more garage sale prize. He flicked it open. "Just minutes ago, I was in China, helping a lad with the most elaborate kite I've ever seen. It had dragon's horns and a tail a city block long. He'd crashed it into a star."
Her eyes riveted to the knife, she failed to smile.
Gaerity reached for the kite.
"Do you have to cut it?" she asked.
"Just the string, darlin'. It's so very much tangled, don't you see?" He paused, staring at her, the knife jutting from his fist. "Do you mind if I ask you a thing or two?"
She shrugged.
He pressed his thumb against the blade. "When flying your kite, do you have a secret wish to see it crash?" The consciousness of a child facinated him. So pure, natural--yet even at this tender age, the handiwork of misguided adults could be discerned. "Well then," he said, pressing the blade harder. "Do you like to blow apart dandelion puffs?"
She smiled.
"I thought so."
"Make little dams in the gutter and then smash them?"
Her eyes darted to his hand. "Ow. Does it hurt?"
He glanced down. His thumb was bleeding.
"Lizzy!"
Kate was running in her bare feet toward them. Gaerity cut away the balled-up mass of string. He retied the line before returning the kite to the girl. Finally, he pocketed the knife.
Kate stopped at a distance. Had she been crying, or was it allergies? "Lizzy, come here."
The girl, probably feeling that some thanks were in order, hesitated.
"Come here!" Shrill now. Frightened to death. Had Kate recognized him from that day at Saint Sebastian's? Gaerity didn't believe so, but she was certainly on full alert.
"Mom," Lizzy said, "this man helped me with my kite. He cut his hand. I got it caught on the fence. And he had this knife."
Kate visibly paled at her mention of that.
Gaerity took a few paces back from Lizzy to reassure the woman. "Just my fishing knife," he said, sounding as accentless as an American broadcaster. McGivney would have no doubt told her to run from anythign that even faintly resembled a brogue. "I didn't mean to scare you, madam. I know how worrisome it must be for parents these days."
Kate nodded, looking no less frightened. Lizzy had come to her side, and the woman wrapped a protective arm around her.
"Wouldn't happen to know where the Lindstroms' place is, would you?"
As last, she seemed to rouse from her fear. "Uhm, let's see, I've seen their sign. Keep on this road, second or third drive on the left."
"Appreciate it. Had a drink with them last night at the Willow Field Tavern and promised them some crabs." Gaerity winked at Lizzy. "I'm the local crab man as well as the kite fixer." He vaulted over the low fence. Smiling, he walked up to them, halted, and dropped the sack of crabs at Kate's feet. Time to see how keen her antennae truly were. "Actually, I don't make much of a living at this. Wind up giving away most of my catch to nice folks like the Lindstroms. Are you here for the summer?"
Kate took a moment. "Yes. My husband and I."
"Well, do enjoy." He sauntered on.
Lizzy quickly cried after him, "Hey, you forgot your bag."
Suddenly, Kate grabbed the girl by the shoulders, dragged her away from the sack.
Gaerity came back, chuckling. "By your face, madam, you'd think I was toting snakes around." He opened the bag, showed her the swarm of claws.
Kate smiled weakly.
"Taste better than they look," he said, moving on. His jaws tightened. He had his answer. At the very least, he woudl have to rig the device here in Falmouth. Kate would be even more on her toes in Boston. McGivney had her trained. No more American innocence. The surviving squad members would now be looking between their own toes for devices. Yet this didn't disturb Gaerity. It only made the challenge more interesting.
He actually went up to the Lindstroms' door and knocked. A fat blond woman answered, and within three minutes he had sold her the crabs for fifteen dollars. His mother had often said that her side of the family had some Tinker blook. Irish gypsies, who coudl sell sand to an Arab.
First darkness was always the most cloaking.
He waited for it before approaching the Wrangler. The windows of the cottage were golden against the dark sea. He slid his suitcase under the chassis, glanced around one last time, then crawled under.
He could hear Kate playing the violin within the cottage.
Dove noticed that the answering machine was blinking. He was tempted to ignore it when he realized that Kate might try to reach him this way if she had any trouble with his cellular reception. He pressed the play button, took a swallow of the warm beer.
The first two messages were from Sister Beatrice of Saint Sebastian's. Dove yawned.
The third call stood him right up out of the chair.
"Franklin was absent today because his brains slithered right out of a hole in his head. But no--it didn't come to that, Liam, did it? Well, don't think I'm angry. The master is never angry when his apprentice does well. I'm proud of you, boy-o. You kept your friend's brains on top of his neck. You recalled my predilection for the two-headed beastie..." Then, laughing, Gaerity broke into a ditty:
"From Carrickmacross to Crossmaglen
There are more traitors than loyal men."
Dove gnashed his teeth at the mention of the border town where Shiofra and the others had died.
"Now, Liam," Gaerity went on, "you're coming close to feeling what I felt that first year in Castle Gleigh. It's the utter helplessness that gets you... wouldn't you say?"
He sang again, another corruption of a traditional child's song:
"Ballybay for dynamite
Monaghan for AN-FO
Carrickmacross for gelignite
'Blarney for fuse and nitro.
"House has been awfully dark, Liam. Nothing sadder than a darkened house. I figure you told her everything--only that would've moved a bave colleen like Kate out. How'd she take it? Did she look at you if you'd turned into a monster before her very eyes? Well, that's the truth of the situation, Liam. You are a monster. Youu can either deny it and go mad, or embrace it, just as I have. I knew you were of the fold the first time I laid eyes on you. Face of an angel but the heart of a demon. Say, how's this for an idea? You get me on the squad. One night I plant and you try to defuse them. The next night, make it the other way around. There's a completeness to that. It appeals to me. You too?"
Dove went to the window behind the chair, parted the curtains. Nothing moved on the street.
"And how about the squad? Have you told them about their wild colonial boy, Liam McGivney? Don't worry. I shan't be the first to tell. I'll leave that up to you. Meanwhile, I must sign off. Never fear, I'll call again. So much to say. All that time in solitary, I suppose. May the road rise to blow up in your face." He laughed once more, then silence.
Dove picked up the machine and hurled it against the wall.
More to come...
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