In time, though, a paradox sets in—the more heads crowd the room, the less I am seen.
This suits me.
While Ruairí works the perimeter, shaking hands with men who pretend they have not already spoken to him three times tonight, I practice becoming negative space.
I move from table to table, exchanging small talk with the wives and consorts.
They look at me with a mixture of sympathy and clinical interest, as if I am a specimen they will never need to be.
The room's temperature rises with every pour of wine.
By ten, most of the men are deep into the logic of the evening—alliances cemented over shared trauma, or else the performance of it.
I watch Ruairí field a toast from a minor councilman, his smile fractionally larger than regulation.
He has perfected the art of making everyone believe that this—tonight, this alliance—was their idea all along.
The band plays a set of old standards in the corner, but the music is dampened by the thick drapes and the low ceiling.
I excuse myself, feigning fatigue, and drift toward the coatroom with a glass of wine in hand.
The hall outside is empty but for two men posted near the fire exit, their uniforms black and branded with a discreet badge of the Crowley crest.
They nod to me, stone-faced, and return to their orbit.
Either they have been told to watch me without interfering or they simply cannot imagine me as a threat.
After entering the coatroom, I wander the racks, counting the coats.
Most are black, some with velvet collars, a handful with flashier linings meant to impress only themselves.
I pause at a bench set against the wall, the surface cluttered with gloves and the discarded paper sleeves of cigarette packs.
Next to a heavy overcoat I recognize as Ruairí's, a phone rests atop a folded pair of driving gloves.
The screen is dark.
My first instinct is to walk away, but something in the precise way it is aligned—parallel to the bench edge, screen up, as if left for a purpose—makes me reconsider.
I scan the hallway, then slip the phone into my palm.
It is not locked.
Either he trusts his men or he assumes no one here would dare.
I press the button and the home screen pulses awake, the wallpaper a scan of the Ringsend docks at sunset, all red brick and steel. No messages, no missed calls.
I swipe right.
A folder markedDublin Logisticssits on the front page, bolded in gray.
I hesitate, then open it.
Inside—maps of the city, color-coded and annotated in a system I recognize from years of watching my father run his own empire.
Crowley blue.
O'Duinn green.
