World's End

By James Conaway

The politics, organized crime, and affluence of the new South come together in World’s End, a parish below New Orleans where the continental United States slides into the Gulf of Mexico. World’s End abounds in oil, racial diversity, and political control as subtle and as absolute as that of a Latin American caudillo. It is bossed by the O’Neills, original Irish settlers in the lower Mississippi Valley. The dynasty is now in the hands of Rory O’Neill, whose patriarchal authority is reminiscent of Willie Stark’s in All the King’s Men, and his son and heir, Bo O’Neill.

As the story opens, Michael Duran, a former assistant district attorney in New Orleans, is summoned by Rory O’Neill and offered a political job raising funds for O’Neill’s candidate for governor, the well-born Strather Ward. O’Neill controls Ward because he knows of the one black mark on his record. O’Neill and the New Orleans district attorney are bitter enemies, but of greater significance is O’Neill’s hatred of the local Mafia, headed by Salvador Cinque, whose cruelly-efficient syndicate competes with the O’Neills.

World’s End (William Morrow) is a contemporary novel but much of the real world it captures was swept away by hurricane Katrina, so it’s nostalgically bitter-sweet as well. Intricately plotted, the novel works on several levels - as a family saga, a political thriller, a kind of generational noir, and a love story - and deals not just with power and the ever-changing South but also with the themes of faith, guilt, and retribution.

Passionate, unrelenting, hedonistic, violent, funny and, like the society it portrays, not devoid of beauty, World’s End is a complete and compelling literary experience and an ideal complement to the author’s other New Orleans novel, The Big Easy.

Novelist Michael Mewshaw wrote in the Washington Star when the novel was first published: “Conaway has written a saga which... leads to the conclusion that at the top - at the bottom? - the country is run by an interlocking directorate of corporate executives, mafiosi, elected officials and regional power brokers... What raises the book above its genre is Conaway’s sure knowledge of the place and its people... he knows, for instance, that racketeers in New Orleans wear elastic white socks as a kind of professional badge. And he can describe a Cajun celebration, a morning coffee at Cafe du Monde, or a ritualistic serving of Sambuca just a skillfully as he handles the action sequences.”

New York Daily News, “If tight melodrama laced with sex, power grabs and corruption is your dish, you’ll devour World’s End with the relish of a hungry mule in a cornfield...a spellbinder.”

Kirkus: “This Louisiana tale, with its Mafia crime barons pitted against corrupt-government barons, expertly lifts numerous Puzo-ian scenes and motifs - tit-for-tat violence, family honor - while adding some strong local colorations and cinematic effects... there’s enough action and avarice down among the bayous to make this a solid, never crass or tasteless, commercial entry.”

The Miami Herald: “There is a good deal more to World’s End than just politics. Conaway’s novel is at once a family chronicle, a thriller, and a brief history of Louisiana. It is filled with authentic detail and atmosphere, told with great skill.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: “The teaser on the jacket flap says that James Conaway’s new novel ‘will remind some readers of ‘All the King’s Men’ and others of ‘The Godfather’... The good news is that it’s an astonishingly successful hybrid.”

New Orleans Times-Picayune: “... fascinating and absorbing... one of those rare you-can’t-put-it-down books.”

Kansas City Star: “World’s End would be a much less successful novel without Conaway’s merging of action and place. So much that is ugly and crude occurs in the midst of so much beauty and graciousness, and Conaway makes us believe equally in both.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Conaway
• Release date: Dec 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311043658

James Conaway

James Conaway is a former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, and the author of thirteen books, including Napa at Last Light and the New York Times bestseller, Napa: The Story of an American Eden. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's, The New Republic, Gourmet, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Traveler. He divides his time between Washington, DC, and California.

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1ST DIGITAL EDITION

World's End

by James Conaway

CONAWAY BOOKS

Copyright © 2014 by James Conaway

SMASHWORDS EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design and digital formatting: Fearless Literary Services

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

PART I:

THE OFFER

ONE

... it’s all so out of control

TWO

... you don’t seem to be a thug

THREE

Hail Mary, full of grace...

FOUR

A small object lesson...

FIVE

A real interesting idea...

SIX

... there was nothing left.

SEVEN

I did some crazy things...

EIGHT

The bastids might’a seen us...

PART II:

THE DREAM

NINE

... they shot yo’ daddy

TEN

These motions are as old as time...

ELEVEN

We’re getting rid of some baskets...

TWELVE

Talk to the candidate...

THIRTEEN

They like your enemies more than they like you...

FOURTEEN

You all right?...

FIFTEEN

Dead easy...

SIXTEEN

We live in a democracy...

SEVENTEEN

So open the door and push...

PART III:

THE PLAY

EIGHTEEN

You’ll have one good time.

NINETEEN

Don't answer it...

TWENTY

I'm looking for a man...

TWENTY-ONE

I'll make him see the light...

TWENTY-TWO

Where will they find you?...

PART IV:

THE RECKONING

TWENTY-THREE

Naturally we'll consider the offer...

TWENTY-FOUR

Why are you doing this?

TWENTY-FIVE

Don't know when, where or how, but I swear to almighty God...

TWENTY-SIX

If you ever need me...

TWENTY-SEVEN

... to witness the redemption of a fabulous, anguished land

For Knox and Kitty

"If you could not accept the past and its burden there was no

future, for without one there cannot be the other."

—Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men

PART I:

THE OFFER

ONE

... it's all so out of control

THE OLD MERCEDES shuddered over the muddy washboard, clinging to the levee's spine. Wind lashed the willows and cottonwoods on both sides, and thunder rolled out over land that spread low and wild and rank toward the Gulf of Mexico. Michael Duran gripped the wheel, braking, staring into the curtain of water. He was oppressed by the closeness of the air that made even breathing a kind of work. Here firm ground seemed an affront to nature, and the enhanced flood of the Mississippi, free at last after a thousand miles of levees, pushed its fingers out through aeons of accumulated silt to join with the sea.

A streak of fire split the sky. Michael could then plainly see the ferry, churning toward the bank, and the commissioner's big gunmetal Lincoln waiting on the landing. It was more than a limousine: a mobile boardroom and legislative parlor, redolent of Havana tobacco, old leather, bourbon, and negotiations beyond the ken of the Commissioner's admirers and detractors. The sight of the tinted windows, beaded like black velvet, and the shortwave antenna trembling with the motor's urgency, could engender pleasure or fear in barge hands and oystermen, citrus farmers and roughnecks, salesmen down to hawk barber supplies or pistols, gamblers who had to be loaded onto the ferry with their thumbs broken, itinerant laborers in locked buses, and law-abiding Christians. They all knew the benefits and the dangers of dipping into the parish of World's End.

Michael parked behind the Lincoln and waited for the storm to pass. A billboard rising on freshly creosoted posts at the end of the road bore the message Strather Straight Ward for Governor and a photograph of the tightly-smiling candidate. Preparations had been under way for a week for Ward's gubernatorial kick-off party, staged by Commissioner O'Neill. Michael had read all about it in the TimesPicayune. A wooden platform had been constructed at Belle Promise for dancing and the cochon du lait, a communal pig roast. Clothes had been ordered from Maison Blanche by the Commissioner's wife and relatives, sent back for alterations, returned. There were to be mounds of oysters, shrimp, crawfish, head rice, and buckets of beer. The sheriff had already sworn in extra deputies. At night trucks loaded with crushed shell had pulled trailers full of hot tar out onto the road, where men set about repairing the worst of the potholes, no doubt staying close to the light of the lanterns. The storm would force many of the guests to leave their Lears and Golden Eagles and Cessnas at the New Orleans airport and come south by car to enjoy the Commissioner's bounty.

Michael had received his invitation that very morning, delivered with a thick delta accent that traveled with difficulty over the wires from World's End, to come on down and do some business. Although the nature of that business was not disclosed — it would not be in the parish, where forthrightness seemed as alien as haste — Michael had put on a clean shirt and tie, and pointed his ailing Mercedes toward the Gulf. He would have taken the bridge, but the voice stipulated the landing. The ferry made it easier to check the guest list, and keep out strangers, the voice said, with a chuckle that lacked pleasantness. Michael did not require too much of that. He was better at prosecuting people than at giving them legal advice, and had worked as assistant district attorney in Orleans Parish for several years, before he was fired. Now he had what was probably the smallest private law practice in New Orleans; he was hungry. So at thirty-five he still had the lean body of a good middleweight boxer, coarse fair hair, and gray eyes that could not cajole.

The ferry was docking. Its iron prow nudged pilings stained like rotten teeth, tugged at by the river. Twin diesels rolled the surface of the water. A deck hand raised muscular black arms, his face lost in the hood of a poncho, and the whistle released a cloud of steam: a distant shriek.

A door of the Lincoln opened, and a skinny, balding figure in gray gabardine stepped out into the storm. He held a folded newspaper above his head in futile protection against the rain, which soon soaked his suit and flooded his Florsheims. He lumbered toward Michael's car, a large black satchel banging against one leg.

He jerked open the door and demanded, Duran?

That's right.

I'm Ferd Hornbeck. The Commissioner asked me to say hello. He ducked inside, flinging away the wet newspaper. Now that's some rain, he added, without rancor, whipping out a bandana to blot his face and neck.

Were you the one who called? Michael asked.

No, sir. That'd be Mr. Gus Tomes. He's the Commissioner's lawyer, you know.

Michael did know, as did anyone well acquainted with politics in Louisiana. But before he could say so, the strange skeletal figure beside him twisted in the seat, and trailed a bony forefinger in the direction of the city. Would you look't!

Michael glanced in the mirror and saw a dozen pairs of headlights moving along the levee.

Why, they're coming from all over, said Ferd Hornbeck. Our good Congressman, two state supreme court justices the old bastards! — a whole bunch of state Democratic executive people, sheriffs clear to Shreveport, party people, money people ... He paused to straighten his stringy bow tie and smooth the strands of black hair hat against his skull.

Michael said, Are they all coming down just to shake Straight Ward's hand?

Hell, no. It ain't just Ward's party — it's the Commissioner's birthday, too.

And what does he want with me on his birthday?

You'll have to ask the Commissioner that, my boy.

The barrier swung up, and the Lincoln crept forward onto the ferry. Reluctantly, Michael followed. He parked close by the limousine, hoping for a glimpse of the Commissioner.

Michael's passenger, stricken with silence, heaved the satchel up onto his lap. He seemed happiest with ambiguity.

What have you got in there, Michael asked, a bowling ball?

"Correspondence.''

That's a lot of correspondence.

There's other things the Commissioner needs — cigars, real Cuban ones, not these sorry-ass paper-wrapper stogies out of Tampa, and cough drops, reading glasses, a little bit of Southern Comfort ...

And a gun.

Ferd Hornbeck bared his gums. They said you was smart.

The rear window of the Lincoln descended, and Michael saw a handsome dark-haired woman, her eyes sultry with concentration. In front of her, his corona of white hair unspoiled by the touch of a comb, a large cigar clamped between two upraised fingers, sat Commissioner Rory O'Neill. Michael recognized the pug Irish face from newspaper photos, the perpetual expression of craft and amazement that was strange to behold in the pages of the Times-Picayune, and even more unsettling in the flesh. He spoke with exaggerated courtliness to the woman and her companion, who was slumped in the shadows of the limousine's pearl-gray cavern. Michael realized that she suffered from O'Neill's cigar. She and Michael stared at one another for a moment, two strangers uncertain of their responses, and then the windows came up again with smooth, machine-driven efficiency.

Who's that?

Ward's wife, said Ferd Hornbeck. That's who.

A curtain of rain swept upstream — an abrupt, tropical transition. Dark sky seemed to touch the earth to the north and west, but to the south white cumulus appeared between the streaks of thunder clouds, touched by a soft, waning brilliance. Even the intimation of sun charged the air, bringing heat and mist.

The ferry turned into the current and shuddered across the river to the west bank. The Lincoln disembarked, Michael following. It pulled onto the shoulder of the road, and the driver stepped out and came around back. A powerful mulatto with burnished hair, he was wearing a black mohair suit, and he looked at Michael's battered Mercedes skeptically. Then he placed a big freckled hand on the sill.

The Commissioner change his mind. He wants you-all to ride down with him.

What about the car? Michael asked.

Leave it.

Here?

Ain't nobody gonna bother this ole foreign job.

Michael locked the car. The driver opened the back door of the limo, and Michael slid in next to the woman with the sultry eyes. She smiled, an affirmation that displayed beautiful teeth, and high cheek bones lightly brushed with makeup that was warm and flattering. Her husband nodded, the smile from the billboard flashing as he raised a politician's hand. He was slight, shorter than he appeared on television. His graying hair curled at the ends, and his blue eyes seemed to swim between daydreams and calculation.

Commissioner O'Neill had been talking about World's End, and he paused to introduce Michael, not bothering to turn around, pretending that they were all intimates. He called Michael Mike, flourishing the regal cigar. It was all part of being the most powerful man in the state — a political survivor from the days of Huey Long, chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, one accustomed to packing bodies into expensive surroundings and then working his will. Michael didn't know what O'Neill wanted from him, but he did recognize the approach.

A brace of motorcycle policemen emerged from a grove of twisted oaks, their yellow rain suits glistening, sirens whooping, and led the procession of cars south. They waved aside oncoming traffic, and flatbed trucks hauling drilling pipe floated to the roadside on wings of water. The big Harleys raced past housing developments, scraped earth pumped just dry enough for the invasion of householders fleeing the city to build their bungalows and splitlevels. The O'Neills coined money in real estate and construction, just as they had in oil, providing fill, oyster shells for roads, bricks and concrete for shopping malls, fast food franchises, and all the other amenities of the new, booming South.

But below all the development, the parish assumed its old, implacable isolation. Michael remembered visiting World's End when his grandfather still owned a plantation there, traveling with his mother over the chenieres — roads that were little more than ridges in a bog — through clouds of mosquitoes. Bayous and canals choked with purple-blooming hyacinth linked cypress swamp and salt marsh and shallow bays in an endless, flowing cycle.

The Lincoln vaulted dark, motionless water, the wooden bridge rumbling beneath the onslaught of wheels. The Commissioner's mulatto drove maniacally. Michael gripped the door handle, aware that Strather Ward was doing the same, while he made the appropriate political noises to O'Neill. The old man sat rigidly in the front seat, ignoring the danger. Michael had heard stories of the Commissioner standing in the back of an open convertible, cane raised, his white mane wild, shouting limericks and bits of Evangeline and obscenities in three languages, while his driver urged the car faster and faster over what passed for roads in World's End.

The Commissioner's voice rasped as he attempted to charm them. He pointed out the ragged fans of banana trees, the white blossoms of the Spanish dagger, wild cane, mallows, sedges, alligator weed.

Erin Ward said, It all seems so out of control.

We have to stay on top of it, Mrs. Ward. Many times I've heard Endsmen cussing the cane and the creepers.

You certainly know a lot about the flora. It must take a lot of study.

It takes living, and your own people to learn from. My family's been looking after things around here for many generations.

You speak of the parish as if you own it.

Her husband shifted uneasily, but kept his face turned toward the farrago of telephone poles.

Of course I don't own the parish. The people own it.

Ward said, Erin's impressed with your organization, Rory.

She's been reading too many eastern newspapers. We don't own anybody. We just offer a better platform and better services than our opponents.

I didn't know you had any opponents in World's End.

Well, naturally there aren't too many. The people have everything they want.

Do they have happiness? She laughed, but without conviction.

Shut up, Erin, said Ward.

The Commissioner fed from his cigar, staring out over the widening salt marsh. More than a hundred pumpers rose and fell in the shadows, huge iron insects drawing oil from the old stripper wells. Steel cylinders of the cracking plants trailed smoke on the prevailing winds blowing up from a shallow sea. The spidery thrusts of derricks plumbing for oil sands appeared on the southern horizon, floating on a morass that was neither land nor water, bleak as satellites.

Happiness cannot be legislated, she said. It's supposed to be part of democracy.

Democracy is a much-abused word. The Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, Mrs. Ward, only the pursuit of happiness. And we help in that pursuit, do everything we can within the law. The people have the lowest tax rate in the country, schools not bothered by strikes, free canals and locks and boat haulage, water purification. There are jobs for everybody who'll work, and no place for those who won't. There's not a bit of crime.

Well, the people don't seem happy.

Erin, for God's sake ...

The Commissioner turned watery blue eyes on her that had acquired a sudden malevolence. His hand came up, and for a moment Michael thought he would hit her. He clapped his driver on the shoulder, and commanded, Blue!

The Lincoln slid to a halt in the middle of a bridge. The car following them rocked dangerously, and the cars behind it telescoped, some pulling aside to avoid collision. The motorcycle cops skidded in the loose shell beyond the bridge, their sirens dying.

He was out of the car, leaning over the railing. He waved to the women and children baiting crab nets on the dock below.

A man in a ragged sweater stood in his pirogue, balancing the frail craft almost by an act of will.

The Commissioner shouted, "Kiskadees?"

The woman and the children all smiled — white slashes in faces dark as Malays'.

"Qu'est-ce que tu dis, 'Mishnair'? called the man. Bon anniversaire!"

"Merci."

They launched into a fierce, guttural patois. Michael heard him say, "Ces vieux Eereesh, non?"

What are they doing? Erin asked the driver.

They talkin'.

I know that. But what are they saying?

They sayin' happy birthday.

What else? But Blue just shrugged.

The Commissioner stood on tiptoe and took two mincing steps to one side. He repeated the motion, swinging his black thorn walking stick like a propeller, jumping stiffly into the air. People began to climb from the cars, to lean on the open doors and watch the absurdly cavorting figure. The family on the water cried out and began to clap. Their irreverent gaiety was contagious. Michael noticed that Blue, the motorcycle cops, and the swarthy, heavyset men who drove the other cars and wore jackets with bulges beneath the left arms were all laughing.

It seems that Commissioner O'Neill is dancing a jig, Erin said.

But Strather Ward was not amused. He just looked at her, and said, You've got to stop.

Flushed with triumph, the Commissioner turned back to the car. He had managed to rebuke Erin Ward, to demonstrate his popularity with his happy constituents, and to enjoy himself — all at the same time.

TWO

... you don't seem to be a thug

AT THE SOUTHERNMOST tip of the levee, yet still within its protection, the land rose slightly, evidence of countless tons of shell, sand, and mud deposited there to provide elevation for Belle Promise. The knoll was surrounded by orchard, and by water oaks with massive black trunks and heavy limbs hung with Spanish moss. White cattle — Brahman and Charolais — grazed behind a metal fence that dipped into the sunken forest. The barbed wire, the landing strip, the hangars of corrugated iron, the radio antenna raised on a rusted pylon, and the cinderblock gatehouse created the atmosphere of a military outpost at odds with the mansion overlooking it all.

Planted squarely atop the knoll, Belle Promise recalled a kinder, more gracious era, with its gingerbread trim and ornate balconies. Michael recognized the style as Steamboat Gothic, a characterization that drew a sigh of appreciation from Erin Ward. He knew that steamboats had rarely come so far south — it was too dangerous, and to little purpose — and now the view included freighters too bulky and unkempt for the ideal panorama. The house looked at once delicate and impervious, contrived and yet solid. In spite of its size, and gleaming whiteness, there was a wistful quality about it: so much artifice poised on the edge of a wilderness.

The Lincoln rattled over the cattle grate and entered the sweep of the drive. Black men in livery stood at the base of the broad front steps, ready to park the cars. More servants moved across the plain of white wicker furniture, serving the guests who had already arrived; all eyes turned toward the procession. Musicians in tuxedos sat on folding chairs inside the outsized gazebo, their jaunty, pasteurized country music drifting across the lawn. Michael could hear the drumming of a hydraulic pump sucking rain water from the terraced landing strip and delivering it into the maw of swamp.

They all clambered out beneath the oaks. Michael crossed the lawn, avoiding the receiving line, where O'Neill had taken up his position by his stouter, more sanguine wife. Maman O'Neill wore a gauzy white gown that cut into the ample flesh of her arms, and contrasted with the black, glossy hair of a much younger woman. She was surrounded by relatives of the western parishes, busty girls with dark Acadian eyes and smooth skin who caused the men arriving from the city to straighten their ties and touch their hair.

Two men controlled access to O'Neill. One was Congressman Lou Guidry, his hearing aid dangling from his spectacles, his capped smile a permanent fixture. The other was a priest who was ordering the local politicians and their wives around as if they were children.

Michael remembered the Rory O'Neill of his childhood — an intense, redheaded figure dominating a platform set up on the levee, in front of the courthouse. Red-white-and-blue bunting draped freshly sawn boards. Makeshift tables sagged beneath the weight of watermelons and tubs of boiled crabs. Big-bellied men wearing suspenders crowded the platform, anxious to agree with the new commissioner. Michael had sensed clear, sanctioned wrong. He no longer remembered the subject of O'Neill's speech, or his grandfather's steady, ironic questioning, but he had not forgotten the feeling of anger. He and his grandfather had stood at the back of the crowd, on the grassy slope, where Jules Duran, a native of World's End, held himself stiff as a poker, his old white linen suit worn thin at knees and elbows, his wide-brimmed straw firm in one hand, and Michael's arm in the other. That hand was tough as horn. He never let go as they headed back to the pickup, the objects of ridicule and some hatred emanating from the supporters of Rory O'Neill.

Michael followed the music. A table set up among the shrubbery was already laden with jars of peppers in vinegar, jugs of homemade orange wine, boxes of pralines tied with green ribbon. A frail, well dressed Negro wearing bifocals was blocked by one of O'Neill's men, who stood with his arms crossed, his jacket bunched about his massive biceps.

The Negro said, I was invited.

Ferd said no freejacks.

That's the most disgusting…

Michael stopped beside them, although he knew he shouldn't. The white man turned to him, expressionless, his eyes set too close together.

Help ya?

No, thanks, Michael said.

He studied Michael, trying to place him. The Negro walked on, unhurried and with dignity. The man's broad hand moved to catch him, then stopped: a thwarted act of petty violence. Michael turned to the bar, in the shadow of the colonnade. He had forgotten this feeling of implacable disapproval, the threat that went beyond appeal or reason. He didn't have to be black to experience that, just on the wrong side of the O'Neills. It came flooding back with the moist heat of the delta sun, the discord of guitars, fiddles, and the inevitable accordion, the smells of French provincial cooking happily corrupted by Spanish, African, Indian, and Deep South influences, the sweetish taste of bourbon over shaved ice.

The music drowned out the rhythm of the pump. Couples began to venture onto the wooden dance platform, most of them members of the family — youthful faces untouched by deprivation or intellectual curiosity. The girls attended LSU or Ole Miss, just as they had when Michael was a student, and were respectfully dated, regardless of their talents. He was drawn by the darker charm of their cousins from the west.

The boys still wore Madras, or cord suits, and they talked football, as if the world had stood still for decades. They seemed so unaware of the origins of their privilege, the clothes and the cars and the invitations. Confidence was part of having an O'Neill or a Boreal fitted into one's signature, assuring respect and a niche somewhere in the family's political and financial empire. It did not, however, assure social standing. Rory O'Neill had been trying to buy his way into the Bayou Club, New Orleans's finest, for thirty years, or so Michael had heard.

A procession of servants in white moved across the lawn from the kitchen wing. They carried platters of steamed rice, jambalaya, red beans, crawfish etouffe, and shrimp creole. Two black men muscled a tub of gumbo onto the serving table, and Maman took up the silver ladle, symbol of authority. On either side of her stretched trays of oysters — Bienville, Holiday, Rockefeller — salty andouille, red and white boudin, and real veal daube glacée. Pistolettes of French bread filled the deep wicker baskets. The sight and smell of the best food in America had a unifying effect upon the guests, and they grabbed plates and dug their hands into the silverware.

The music trailed off as the priest climbed into the gazebo. He stretched his arms like a conjurer, hiking up his cuffs, and smoothed his hair with both hands before launching into the benediction.

Ferd Hornbeck hailed him. Michael followed the willowy figure along the colonnade, where the shade was deep and chill, and into the front hallway. He could smell the Tabasco warring with the filé, garlic with cayenne. The fan-shaped window above the door reflected the view of the river; the ceilings and walls were painted with cherubs and bearded gods, Rubenesque women mistily perceived and demurely covered by yards and yards of unfurling scroll bearing Latin inscriptions. High-backed chairs lined the walls, and in the well of the circular staircase hung a large heraldic crest in a gold frame. Erin Ward stood before it, watching their approach across the parquet floor.

Wait there, Ferd Hornbeck told Michael and left him.

Everyone waits, Erin explained. Especially the women. She sounded angry. Have you seen this wonderful crest? Well, it appears that the Commissioner is descended from Turlough mac Henry O'Neill, half-brother of the Great Hugh. I assume that means royalty.

I guess.

She leaned toward the crest, feet spread, hand on her cocked hip. The empty sleeves of her sweater hung from her bare shoulders, and the smooth material of her dress lay tight against her thighs.

Now let's see. Turlough's grandson left Glasdrummond, County Armagh, in 1652 to join the service of the King of Spain. He became a colonel in the regiment of Tyrone, and a Knight of Calatrava, no less. It's ludicrous, don't you think?

It's not very important.

You're a cynic. Laughing at pretension is better than ignoring it. I hope you don't work for the O'Neills.

Not yet.

Why would such a presentable young man want to work for O'Neill? I mean, you don't seem to be a thug.

A sturdy young man in pinstriped serge passed through the hall, his feet ringing on the floor. Tight black curls were pressed about his head; his full black