“Any fizz in the firecracker. Any spin on the googlies. Fuck’s sake, man, don’t make me spell it out for you. D’you do the do?”

“He’s no chicken,” Mart agrees, eyeing Cal with interest, “but then again, he’s a Yank. With all the hormones and chemicals they’d eat, they could have mad super-sperm on them. D’you have super-sperm, Sunny Jim?”

“What difference does it make?” Malachy says. “Once he’s married, he won’t be getting the ride anyway. Enjoy it while you can, man.” He tilts his glass at Cal.

“If he can,” Senan points out. “He hasn’t answered me yet.”

“Fuck all y’all,” Cal says, red and grinning. In spite of everything, he can’t help enjoying this.

“And me just after shouting you a pint,” Mart says reproachfully. “There’s gratitude for you. I oughta drink it myself.”

“Tell us, bucko,” Senan says. “Solve the mystery. What the hell were you thinking, at all? The two of ye looked like ye were getting on great guns. Why would you wanta go wrecking a good thing?”

“I’d say he got religion,” Bobby says. “The Yanks are always getting religion. Then they’re not allowed to do the business unless they’re married.”

“Where would he get any religion round here?” Senan demands. “Everyone’s Catholic. You don’t get that; it’s not the fuckin’ chicken pox. You’re either born with it or you’re not.”

“ ’Twasn’t the religion,” Mart says. “ ’Tis the uncertain times that’s done it. Some people get awful edgy about that class of carry-on, and they go looking for something to make them feel settled. Wait and see: there’ll be an epidemic of weddings around here now. Weddings and babas. So watch yourselves.”

The pints arrive, and the guys toast Cal’s marriage loudly enough to draw a few ragged cheers from the main bar. “Many happy years to you,” Francie tells him, wiping foam off his lip. “And may there be never a cross word between you.” Francie missed out on the woman he loved, decades ago, and is easily moved by romance of any kind.

“While we’re at it,” Mart says, raising his pint again, “here’s to us. You’re stuck with us now, Sunny Jim. I wouldn’t say that occurred to you, before you went down on one knee. Didja go down on one knee?”

“Sure,” Cal says. “When I do a thing, I do it right.”

“Good thinking,” Malachy says. “Get the job done before the aul’ joints give out and she has to help you back up again.”

“Till death do us part,” Mart says, clinking his glass against Cal’s. “You’re going nowhere now.”

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere anyway,” Cal says.

“I know that. But you coulda, if you’d wanted to. You were a free agent. We’re on different terms now, psychologically speaking.”

“We’ve the divorce, these days,” Senan says. “If he has enough of our bolloxology, he can divorce Lena and the lot of us, and ride off into the sunset.”

“Ah, no,” Mart says, smiling, his eyes resting thoughtfully on Cal’s face. “I wouldn’t say Sunny Jim here is the divorcing type. Once he’s given his word, he’d stand by it, come hell or high water.”

“I already got one divorce that disagrees with you,” Cal points out.

“I know you have. I’d bet my life she was the one that ditched you, but, not the other way round. If she hadn’ta kicked you out the door, you’d be there still. Am I right?”

“What are you, my therapist?” Cal demands. He’s aware that tonight isn’t only, or even primarily, about his engagement. Everyone here has stuff to tell him and ask him, and stuff they want to tell each other about him. Not a one of these things will be said in so many words; lack of clarity is this place’s go-to, a kind of all-purpose multi-tool comprising both offensive and defensive weapons as well as broad-spectrum precautionary measures. The only smart thing Cal can do is keep his mouth shut as much as possible and pay attention. The booze won’t help. If Malachy has a bottle of poteen under the table, he’s screwed.

“I’d make a fine therapist,” Mart says, diverted by this intriguing new possibility. “There’d be none of this ‘Tell me about your childhood’ blather that’s only meant to keep you coming back till your bank account runs dry. Practical solutions, that’s what I’d offer.”

“You’d be fuckin’ woeful,” Senan says. “Some poor bastard would come in to you looking for help with the depression, and you’d tell him all he needed was to get a hobby and buy himself a hat with fuckin’—earflaps, or sequins, or some shite. Half the place would kill themselves before the year was out. The hills’d be alive with the sound of shotguns.”

“They would not,” Mart says with dignity. “They’d be alive with the sound of contented men in elegant headgear learning to play the trombone, or reading up on Galileo. You’ll come to me when yourself and Lena hit the rough patches, won’t you, Sunny Jim?”

“Sure,” Cal says. “You can get me a top hat.”

“You’d do better in one of them raccoon ones. With the tail left on.”

“You’ll haveta do the Marriage Mile now,” Malachy tells Cal, settling back on his banquette.

“Yeah?” Cal asks. “What’s that?” He sinks a couple more inches of his pint. Each of the guys is going to buy him one to congratulate him, and then he’ll have to buy a round to show his appreciation; and, while he’s the biggest guy there, the rest have put in a lot more dedicated training. He made himself a hamburger the size of his own head for dinner, as what Mart calls soakage, but he still has a tough evening’s work ahead.

“Have you never seen it done?”

“How would he have seen it done?” Senan asks. “There’s been fuck-all marriages here the last coupla years, and all the lads were from outside the parish. Other townlands wouldn’t do it,” he explains to Cal.

“Ah, no,” Malachy says. “ ’Tis an old Ardnakelty tradition. My granddad said it was old when his granddad was young; you wouldn’t know how far back it’d go. Thousands of years, maybe.”

“What’ve I gotta do?” Cal asks.

“You’ve to get a torch,” Malachy explains, “and you light it from your hearth fire. Have you a fireplace?”

“What’s that matter?” Senan demands. “I lit mine with a fuckin’ Zippo. No one gave a shite.”

“I’ve got a fireplace,” Cal says. “I’d rather not light it in this weather, though.”

“I’ll lend you my Zippo,” Senan says. To Malachy: “Go on there.”

“You run with the torch through the village,” Malachy says, “and then up to your woman’s house and all round it, and then back to yours. To show the place that you’re bringing the two hearth fires together.”

“And you do it in your jocks,” Francie says. “To prove that you’re hale and hearty, and fit to be the head of a family. I heard back in the day the lads ran it naked, but then the priests put the kibosh on that.”

“Huh,” Cal says. “I better buy myself some fancy new boxers.”

“That’s the real reason the lads around here get married young,” Malachy explains to Cal. “While they can still put on a good show. No one wants to see a big aul’ dad bod puffing down the street.”

“I looked like Jason Momoa,” Senan tells him. “Back when he was on Baywatch.”

“You did in your hole,” Francie said. “The pasty fuckin’ legs on you, glowing in the dark all the way—”

“The muscles on me. I was a fuckin’ ride back then.”

“Well, shit,” Cal says, giving his belly a rueful look. “Sounds like I better start working out, too.”

“At least you got engaged in summer,” Francie points out consolingly. “This fella”—Senan—“got engaged on New Year’s Eve, and he froze his bollox so bad he thought he’d have to call off the wedding.”

“Damn,” Cal says. “I’m gonna be a busy man. We got traditions where I come from, too, and I gotta cover all those.”

“Have you to wave a flag?” Mart inquires. “The Yanks’d wave a flag at the drop of a hat. We’re different here; we reckon most people probably already noticed we’re Irish.”

“No flags,” Cal says, “but I’m supposed to bring her daddy an animal I shot myself, to show I’m a good provider. Lena’s daddy’s gone, though, so probably I should bring it to her oldest brother.”

“Mike’d eat a rabbit,” P.J. says helpfully. “He’s a great man for the meat, is Mike.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Cal says. “I don’t know what I’da done if he was a vegetarian.”

“Some of them carrots,” Mart advises him. “They were fierce flavorsome, so they were.”

“I might throw in some of those either way,” Cal agrees. “And I’ve gotta build us a bed, too. Most guys just hire a carpenter to do it, these days, but I’m lucky that way.”

“Jesus, man,” Malachy says, eyebrows up. “You weren’t joking about being busy.”

“Nope,” Cal says, smiling at him. “And somewhere in there, I gotta find time for the ancient tradition of looking a guy in the eye and calling bullshit.”

That gets a roar of laughter, and Malachy takes a couple of arm-punches. “Didn’t I tell you?” Mart says, delighted. “I told you this lad wasn’t some fool of a tourist that’d fall for your guff. I shoulda made you put money on it.”

“Get off me,” Malachy says, grinning. “ ’Twas worth a go. He’da been only gorgeous jogging down the road in his boxers.”

“I’da bought Jason Momoa ones,” Cal says. “In honor of Senan.”

“He had you there with the rabbit,” Mart says, jabbing Malachy gleefully in the shoulder. “Admit it.”

“He did not. I was only—”

“Have you really got to bring Mike a rabbit?” P.J. asks Cal, trying to get matters straight.

“Nah,” Cal says. “Probably I oughta buy him a beer, though, just to get on his good side.”

“My round,” Senan says, reminded by this. “Barty! Same again!”

Cal finishes off his pint to make room for the new one. After all this time, the guys still have the power to impress him by the flawless, impregnable unity with which they come together in a common cause. He passed this test, at least, but he’s under no illusion that it’ll be the last.

Mart is still gloating at Malachy and Senan, who are defending themselves vehemently. “I asked Lena to marry me, one time,” Bobby confides in Cal, under cover of the argument. “I kinda reckoned she’d say no, but I hadta give it a go. I knew she wouldn’t give me shite over it either way, d’you see. There’s some ones around here, if you proposed to them, you’d never hear the end of it.”

“Well,” Cal says, “I gotta admit, I’m glad she turned you down.”

“True enough,” Bobby says, struck by this. “Every cloud has a silver lining, isn’t that what they say? Only now there’s no one left around here that I can ask.” He sighs, down at his glass. “That’s what I liked about all that carry-on with the gold,” he says. “I thought I’d a chance.”

“You just liked having a posh cousin,” Senan tells him.

“No,” Bobby says mournfully. “I liked having a chance. Only I never did. And now he’s gone and got himself murdered, and even if I hadda had a chance, I don’t now.”

The drink is starting to get to Bobby. “I never once expected him to get murdered,” he tells Cal. “That’s not the kinda thing anyone could see coming. And now there’s detectives knocking on doors, disturbing everyone’s dinner. My mammy’s digestion was ruint for the whole night.”

At the mention of detectives, the other conversations fall away. The men’s feet shift under the table, and then are still.

“I didn’t like that fucker,” Francie says. “The detective. Nealon.”

“He’s smooth,” P.J. says, “so he is. Sly. And pretending he’s not.”

“I nearly decked the little prick,” Senan says. “Sitting in my kitchen complimenting my missus’s tea, hearty as Santy, like he’s an old pal of mine, and then outa the blue he said to me, ‘I’m working on a list of everyone that had any problems with Rushborough. Is there anyone else that you can think of?’ I don’t mind him asking questions, it’s his fuckin’ job, but I mind him thinking I’m thick enough to fall for that.”

“He’s a Dub, sure,” Malachy says, the corner of his mouth lifting ironically. “They’d always reckon we’ll fall for their guff.”

“He said to me,” Bobby says, worried, to Cal, “he said, ‘No need to come into the station yet, we’ll chat here for now.’ What did he mean by that? ‘For now’?” He has his glass clutched in both hands.

“If you weren’t fuckin’ wojous at cards,” Senan says, “you’d know a bluff when you hear one. He was trying to shake you up, so’s you’d give something away. That’s how they work. Don’t they?” he shoots at Cal.

“Sometimes,” Cal says. The air in the alcove has tightened. They’re coming closer to the evening’s business.

“I still haven’t met the man,” Mart says, put out. “He called round, but I was away to town. I came home to a pretty wee card through the door, saying he’d try me again. Here’s me only dying to make his acquaintance, and he’s off bothering the likes of ye who don’t appreciate him at all.”

“Tell us, so,” Senan says to Cal. “What does he reckon?”

“What are you asking him for?” Mart demands. “Sure, how would he know?”

“He’s a fuckin’ detective. They talk shop, same as anyone else.”

“He’s not a fuckin’ detective as far as your man’s concerned. He’s a suspect, the same as yourself and myself.”

“Are you?” Senan asks Cal. “A suspect?”

“Nealon wouldn’t tell me if I was,” Cal says. “But yeah, probably, as much as anyone else. I was here. I knew Rushborough. I can’t be ruled out.”

“Ah, you wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Mart tells him. “Not without a good reason. I’ll be sure Detective Nealon knows that.”

“How does it feel?” Malachy inquires, giving Cal a grin that has a slip of malice in it. “Being on the wrong side, for a change?”

“Doesn’t feel like much of anything,” Cal says, shrugging and reaching for his pint. “It’s just where I happened to land.” In truth, it feels deeply, turbulently strange. It has the ominous savagery of a tornado siren: all bets are off.

“Did your man Nealon interrogate you?”

“He wanted to hear about finding the body,” Cal says. “That was pretty much it.”

“My God,” Bobby says, struck by this, “and I never asked you. How was it? Were you awful shook up?”

“He’s a detective,” Senan tells him. “You amadán. He’s seen dead bodies before.”

“I’m OK,” Cal tells Bobby. “Thanks.”

“Was he in a terrible state? Rushborough, like. Not Nealon.”

“The man was dead,” Francie says. “It doesn’t get much worse than that.”

“I heard his guts was spilling out,” Bobby says. His eyes are round. Cal knows that Bobby is capable of being genuinely shaken, and genuinely concerned for his state of mind, and at the same time probing for information that might come in useful.