Irregulars

by Kevin McCarthy

  The stocky docker is closest to the captive O’Keefe, and he moves forward and throws a telegraphed, windmill right. O’Keefe sees it, his arms still pinned at his sides, and lowers his head into the punch, the fist slamming into his forehead. An explosion of white stars erupts in O’Keefe’s eyes, and he hears bones snap in the man’s hand, but the man brings his fist back to swing again. As he does, Just Albert feints a headshot with the club, and instead swings it low and up into the man’s groin with a sickening thud. The man doubles as if hinged, his punch dying in the air, and vomits in a cascade that splatters O’Keefe’s legs and boots.

  Stars clearing in his eyes now, O’Keefe senses that the man holding him has turned his head to follow Albert’s progress, tracking Ginny’s man as he moves with his club to the black-haired man with the moustache. This man has a knife but Just Albert advances, as if oblivious, with a relentless, practiced aggression.

  As if unconscious, O’Keefe lolls his head forward and then hurls it back with all the force he can bring to bear. The back of his skull connects with the right side of his captor’s face and O’Keefe can feel the the big man’s cheek shatter and collapse. Yellow bolts of pain shoot through O’Keefe’s head and neck and he nearly faints as the man releases him, vertigo claiming him, falling, falling.

  O’Keefe hits the duckboard floor hard on his hands and knees, the hut spinning around him. Holding his face, the big man lifts a leg to swing a kick at O’Keefe, who sees it but cannot move. The boot is halfway to his ribs when Albert’s spit-shined brogues dance past on the floor under O’Keefe’s pain-blurred gaze and there is a resounding crack and the sound of a heavy body dropping.

  From O’Keefe’s vantage point on the floor, Ginny Dolan’s man is a whir of fluid, violent motion, feinting again with the club as the black-haired man swings his knife, allowing Albert inside the arc of the blade to jab his club into the man’s throat, stopping the knifeman’s breath on its way out, a sucking gawp in place of the breath as the assailant drops to his knees. The knife clanks to the floor and the man’s hands scrabble at his neck, face going bright red and then just as quickly, death-pale grey. Just Albert kicks the blade away to a corner of the room and swings the club into the man’s face, obliterating his nose in a mist of blood.

  O’Keefe raises himself to his knees, nausea welling in his own throat. As he rises, his eyes catch movement in the doorway and register the two men from outside entering. He stumbles forward and lifts an upturned chair from the floor. On his knees, he swings the chair, splintering it across the chest and shoulders of the first of the two to enter the hut. Without pause, he brings the remains of the chair to bear on the second man, swinging wildly and catching him in the stomach. He brings it back over his head to swing again when it is taken from his hands from behind. Instinctively, he covers his head, but the blow he is expecting does not come.

  ‘A hand up, Mr O’Keefe?’

  Just Albert stands over him with his hand extended, his face glowing with the healthy flush of moderate exercise, as if he had just returned from a country walk. The club is nowhere to be seen and O’Keefe assumes he has returned it to its place inside his jacket. He takes Albert’s hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet.

  Surveying the scene, O’Keefe sees the man who had held him sitting with his back to the wall of the hut, his hands pressed to his shattered cheek-bone. Three other men lay on the hut’s duckboards, the short, stocky man rolling from side to side, clutching his hands between his legs, a high-pitched moan, like a wounded dog’s, emanating from deep in his throat. The two others lie on the floor unmoving, and O’Keefe says a silent prayer that Ginny Dolan’s man has not killed them. The two men they had encountered outside stand with their palms held out, looking across the room to their boss for guidance. To O’Keefe they appear as if they are pleading for mercy. O’Keefe follows their eyes to where Dominic Mahon has sat down and watches him light one of the needle-thin fags.

  Exhaling, Dominic Mahon tells the two to move the wounded men. ‘They need see the sawbones. Take Jimmy first …’ Mahon prods his unmoving comrade with his boot, ‘… and then come back for the others, but don’t disturb us here. We’ve things to discuss it seems, wha?’ He smiles now at O’Keefe, and indicates the one remaining chair.

  O’Keefe rights the chair and sits down, the pain in his head beginning to throb as adrenaline surges and ebbs in his veins. Just Albert takes up a place behind his chair, standing like a sentinel over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re Dominic Mahon, aren’t you?’ O’Keefe says, suddenly worrying that the man they had come to see might be among the unconscious. And then, the words emerging unbidden: ‘And if you say “who wants to know?” I’ll kick your teeth in.’

  ‘No doubting you were a Peeler, so, and your father’s son,’ Dominic Mahon says.

  O’Keefe leans forward in his chair. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘If you don’t know, then I’m hardly the one to tell you.’

  His fists balling instinctively, O’Keefe repeats his question. ‘Are you Dominic Mahon?’

  ‘Of course I fuckin’ am. Who’d you think I was? You only need ask your gorilla, Albert there. He’s known me for how long, Al?’

  ‘Too long,’ Just Albert says.

  ‘Now, now, no way to speak to an auld buddy who sends every sea captain, every dirty deckhand and ship’s passenger the way of Mrs Dolan’s shop for nothing but kindness’s sake.’

  ‘And ten pound a year at Christmas.’

  ‘One good turn deserves another, me auld flower.’

  O’Keefe cuts in. ‘This needn’t have happened. Look, all we need is to ask you a few questions. Nothing to incriminate you. We’re looking for a boy is all …’

  ‘Sure, Ginny Dolan can find you one of them any time you’ve the fancy …’

  ‘Keep it up, to fuck,’ Just Albert says, ‘and you’ll be sipping your dinner, Dominic.’

  ‘And always so cordial, we were, in the past, Albert.’

  ‘Past is past,’ Just Albert says. ‘We’re looking for Mrs Dolan’s Nicky. You’ve to tell us what we need to know.’ Albert reaches down and drags one of the supine men to the door of the hut by his collar and drops him outside. He does the same with the second, each unconscious body dropping like a sack of spuds onto the hard ground. Then he closes the hut door. ‘Or I will hurt you like you’ve never been hurt, Dominic. So stop taking the piss and listen to what the man says.’

  Dominic Mahon locks eyes with Just Albert for a long moment. He does not appear frightened. Finally, he turns to O’Keefe and smiles. ‘Cigarette, gentlemen?’

  O’Keefe reaches across, accepts one and takes a light. He is not as big as O’Keefe had imagined, Dominic Mahon. Mid-forties, he reckons, with cold blue eyes and red hair oiled back off his freckled forehead. An expensive white shirt and collar with cufflinks in the shape of anchors at his wrists. It has been a long time, O’Keefe thinks, since this man has slung a gaff.

  ‘Now, first off, why didn’t yis tell me yis were working for Ginny Dolan? We needn’t have cracked any heads at all.’ He smiles again. ‘Sure, I’ve known Ginny for years, so yis can save your hard talk, Albert, for your Saturday sweetheart. Any problem of Ginny’s, I’m happy to help with.’

  O’Keefe turns to look at Just Albert, gauging his response. He is relieved when Ginny’s man laughs. ‘You just answer Mr O’Keefe’s questions here and there’ll be no more hard talk.’

  ‘Grand so.’

  ‘Grand,’ Albert says, taking out one of his cigars and lighting it.

  Turning back to Mahon, O’Keefe slips the recent photograph of Nicholas Dolan from his jacket and hands it to the docker. ‘Mrs Dolan’s son,’ he says. ‘You knew him, I take it. He’s missing now. Fifteen years old, looks young for his age. You supplied him with a gun some months ago. I need the name of his contact in the Irregulars.’

  Dominic M
ahon exhales smoke and laughs. ‘You don’t want much, do yeh?’

  ‘It will never come back to you, Mr Mahon. You have my word on that.’

  Mahon shakes his head. ‘I couldn’t give a tinker’s bollix if it does. Them poxy Irregular …’ Mahon says the word with a disdain O’Keefe recognises from his time in the police; the same way some men once called him Peeler, ‘… bastards cut me and the lads loose as quick as did their mates in the Free State army. After all the blasters and barkers we got them in the Tan War. Ungrateful bla’guards. That boy was the end of it for us Mahons on the docks, as far as guns went. I was stupid to use him. I could get hold of nobody and I thought maybe he could tempt his bosses into paying out for a few crates of Webleys and Lee–Enfields we’d liberated from an English boat. The shipment meant for the Free Staters and all, but that lad …’

  O’Keefe senses Just Albert tense behind him, and so does Dominic Mahon, who changes his tone mid-sentence.

  ‘He was a grand youngfella. That’s why I used him. You say he looks young for his age, but he was older than his years in more ways than one.’

  ‘Is,’ Just Albert says.

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘Is older than his years. Not was.’

  Exasperation sharpens his words. The docker king is not used to being so freely contradicted. ‘For fuck sake, Al. I didn’t mean nothing by it. Jesus, since when did you become such a sore prick? You used to be a good auld skin, good for a giggle, Albert.’

  ‘Since Nicky went missing and I found out you had something to do with it.’

  ‘Now, look here. I had nothin’ to do with his going where-in-fuckin’-ever he’s bunked off to. I told you. I shouldn’t have given him the gun, fair enough; shouldn’t have used him as a runner neither, but I gave him the gun and that was the last I seen of him. I’d never want any harm come to him, for jaysus sake. Ginny and I have been pals for years, so we have.’

  O’Keefe attempts to bring Mahon back to his story. He knows how easy it is to accidentally slip into the past tense when speaking of missing persons. He has done it himself. ‘It’s all right, Albert.’ He turns back to Dominic. ‘And did Nicky get the gun to his bosses in the Irregulars then, Mr Mahon? Did you hear from them about the shipment?’

  ‘I did not. Sure, didn’t the youngfella take it into school with him?’

  ‘He did.’

  Mahon smiles ruefully. ‘And he gave my name to the priest, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did. How did you find out?’

  ‘You just told me. But not to worry. There’s no way I would have harmed a hair on that boy’s head, even if I had known. You’d never have time for anything else anyway, if you spent all your time plugging touts in Dublin. They’re thick as fleas in a knacker’s horse blanket these days, young O’Keefe. And he only a boy like any of me own.’ Mahon nods in a sentimental manner.

  ‘Lucky for you, you didn’t,’ Just Albert says.

  ‘Give it a rest, Al. I’m heartscalded with all your threats. I know you’re in a tither about Ginny’s boy, but you know as well as I do you won’t touch a hair of me head …’

  ‘You sure of that?’ Albert says.

  ‘… for fear of what I could do, even from here, to Ginny’s business, so leave out the rough talk, I’m telling you. I’m weary of it. And yes I’m fuckin’ sure of it, so leave it out. Even dead, I’m dangerous to you and Ginny.’

  O’Keefe says, ‘There’s no possibility of any of your people having done something to the boy?’

  ‘Jaysus, do yeh listen or not? I told you I didn’t know for certain he shopped us up to the padre—who no doubt then gave us up to the Free Staters—til you just told me. I did suspect, mind. But I’m a fair man and I’d never have hurt a man—a boy—on the basis of a sniff only. And none of my people would. Sure, they’d be dead men themselves if they done something like that on a mere notion. I’ll say it again: I never hurt nobody on a rumour or a feeling in me gut. Not often, anyway. And no young boy, surely.’

  ‘Why did you suspect that he’d told Father O’Dea?’ O’Keefe asks.

  ‘Look, everybody knows how cozy that padre does be with the Free Staters, and weren’t we raided by Free State intelligence not long after I’d heard about Nicholas bringing the gun to school? Just put two and two together. They chucked us off the docks first and in here shortly after. Sure, the Free State boys think they don’t need the likes of us any more on the docks. Think they’ve gone legitimate all of a sudden, when two year ago there was nothing those pompous gits now sitting in the government wouldn’t buy off us Mahons. They call us criminals when the only difference between ourselves and the gun merchants they do be dealing with now instead of us is volume.’

  ‘Who did you want Nicky to give the gun to, Mr Mahon?’

  Dominic Mahon speaks as if he has stopped caring. He looks old suddenly to O’Keefe. Things, O’Keefe suspects, have not gone the way they were supposed to for Dominic.

  From his father and grandfather Mahon had inherited an empire of easy profit and power that extended far beyond the docks. An empire that had thrived on the bureaucratic labyrinth of port customs and an ancient resentment of a foreign power ruling Ireland. It was a corruption justified by British rule and enforced by thuggery and graft. O’Keefe suspects that Dominic Mahon had not counted on the idealists in either camp, Free State or Irregular, and that he couldn’t imagine anyone doing anything if it wasn’t for personal profit. Idealists were dangerous to Mahon because he could not predict what they might do. His high times on the docks are done, O’Keefe thinks, and he appears to know this.

  Mahon says, ‘O’Hanley. Good auld Felim O’Hanley, the last of the rebel schoolmaster gunmen, thank fuck. The rest are mostly banged up in here or in the Joy. But yis’ll never find him. The Free Staters have been looking for ages and haven’t had a nibble. He might be out of the country for all I know.’

  ‘Not when there’s a war on, surely,’ O’Keefe says. He has heard about O’Hanley. A grainy photograph of the rebel’s face had graced the cork notice-board in O’Keefe’s RIC barracks for most of the Tan War, O’Hanley having been wanted for the killings of several men in the army and police, all the time continuing to teach in various schools around Dublin, including Xavier for a time. A lethal operator, but one apparently cultured and intelligent. Now O’Hanley was gaining a reputation for being even more elusive than Michael Collins, and O’Keefe imagines that this does not sit well with the likes of Free State army intelligence. He cannot imagine a gunman as ideologically motivated, as highly skilled and widely feared as O’Hanley, sitting out the war in Boston or Glasgow.

  ‘Ah, who knows?’ Mahon says. ‘Sure, O’Hanley was already courting the big gunrunners before all this with Nicky anyway. Try asking one of them. There’s a fella works out of Burton’s Hotel, used to work for the British Army Disposal Board selling on the surplus from the war in Europe. He ran some of his guns through us on the docks, but then cut us out as well when Collins and the lads told him to. Now there’s soldiers unloading ships my family’s unloaded for years. I know for a fact that Nicky used to run messages for O’Hanley to that fucker.’

  ‘This man, this gun dealer. He’s in Dublin now?’ O’Keefe says.

  ‘Far as I know. He’s meant to be organising something big for the Irregulars, though fuck knows where O’Hanley’ll get the shekels. But then I’ve heard this fella’s supplying the Free Staters as well, so don’t listen to me. Playing both sides against the middle of his purse. Like something I’d have done meself once.’ Mahon smiles and drops another tiny cigarette end onto the floor.

  ‘And have you a name for him?’ O’Keefe asks.

  ‘Happy to give it. Murphy. No one knows his first name, and everyone thinks it’s gas that this proper English squire is called Murphy, but that’s what he goes by. It might even be his real name, who knows, but?’

  ‘Who knows …’? O�
�Keefe says, standing, feeling suddenly light-headed and weak. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Mahon.’

  ‘Not a bother, young O’Keefe. But I’ll say this and say no more. Them fellas Albert put down with his club? Them fellas aren’t half as forgiving as I am. I’d mind they don’t get released out of here any time soon…’ Dominic Mahon looks at Just Albert now, ‘… and if they do I’d not want to be round town to meet them. No telling what they might do.’ He turns his attention back to O’Keefe. ‘And you, Mr O’Keefe. You’re not as hard a man as your father, so take care where you stick your boot in. Albert’s not your shadow. He mightn’t be around every time you’ve need of him …’

  O’Keefe chooses to ignore Mahon, thinking he is trying to salvage some residual dignity from the sad shambles of his day. A king, his army routed, forced to bow to two spear-throwers.

  ‘Mind we don’t wet ourselves,’ Just Albert says, turning and leaving the hut.

  They make their way in the general direction of the inner camp gate through the maze of huts, O’Keefe’s head throbbing, Albert jingling coins in his pockets and drawing hard stares from the men outside the huts. The doorman seems to enjoy this and smiles, throwing out the odd wink to any man whose face shows particular menace. As if he owns the place, O’Keefe thinks, wondering if such an attitude of invincibility comes from confidence or complete disregard for one’s life and health.

  But O’Keefe does not have the energy to be annoyed with him. He feels hollow and deflated, unlike how he would have felt in his past life as a constable when he received information that might further an investigation. It is another sign, he thinks, of how distant is his life now from that life. Like another man had lived it altogether.

  ‘Thanks, anyway, Albert,’ he says, as much to stop himself thinking as anything. ‘For stepping in, back there. I never saw it coming.’

  ‘I could’ve told you we’d be scrapping all right. Could have told you yesterday.’

  ‘And why didn’t you then?’