by Lex Lander
‘Jack feckin’ Henley, so it is,’ he said, talking past the half-smoked cigarette that was a fixture of the corner of his mouth. He was a scrawny, scruffy individual with rat-like features and uncombed hair – what survived of it. His head lunged forward past me like a turtle’s emerging from its shell, to check out the street, left and right. Satisfied that I was not accompanied by members of the Northern Ireland Police Service, he backed up and beckoned me inside, into a narrow hallway with a small table where a telephone reposed. Underfoot, a strip of garish carpet that looked as if it served as a doormat from the state of it.
‘Now, what the feck are you doin’ here?’
‘You under surveillance, Gerry?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Not yet. Any day now though. Some cunt’s been shootin’ off to the peelers. Feckin’ protestant gob-shites.’
Best not to enquire further. Northern Irish politics were a minefield, and involvement to be avoided. I explained what I wanted in as few words as possible.
‘You’re in luck,’ he cackled. ‘I’ve a nice little Glock, just come in. They found it on a feckin’ grass they kneecapped last week.’
I grimaced. That the practice of kneecapping was still going on wasn’t news, but hearing it from one of the protagonists, here in Belfast, was different somehow. It brought home to me that this was a place where violence in the name of politics remained endemic.
A TV was blaring somewhere in the house; football match to judge from the commentary. He didn’t invite me beyond the hallway when he went off for my merchandise. I stayed put. You didn’t go wandering around the house of a former Provo without inviting reprisals. They were suspicious of their own family, and rightly so. Turncoats were everywhere in Belfast.
The gun was indeed “nice” and only little in the sense that it was the smallest in the extensive Glock range of automatics. It was a G42 slimline hammerless model, .380 cal. – six inches long and less than an inch wide. Single stack magazine, hence a capacity of only six rounds. That didn’t matter. I didn’t expect to use them all.
It felt light, owing to the extensive use of polymer in its manufacture.
‘Loaded?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
I released the magazine into the palm of my hand. Six rounds were visible through the witness holes. I replaced the magazine, racked the slide to pump a round into the chamber, and set the safety. The gun was good to go. If I were using it for a hit, my tests would have included firing live ammunition.
Lowry had placed a spare magazine on the table, also loaded. I pocketed it.
‘I only need it for a few hours,’ I told him. ‘How about I give you five big ones, and you rebate me three when I bring it back.’
He chewed the inside of his lower lip. ‘The price is six hundred and fifty.’
‘Let’s not quibble over small change, Gerry. I’ll give you six-fifty, and you rebate me four-fifty. You’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘You’re right.’ He nodded decisively. ‘Gimme the crinkle and feck off before the peelers come lookin’ for one of us.’
From the fat roll of fifties I had acquired the previous day from a branch of my UK bank, I peeled off thirteen.
‘You want a VAT receipt?’ he cackled.
The spare magazine and ammo were included in the price, giving me twelve shots in all. I shoved the gun down the back waistband of my pants.
‘Just one more thing. Call me a taxi, will you?’
He made a growling noise in his throat. ‘Jaysus, you’ll be asking me to wipe your arse next. I ought to kick you down the feckin’ steps.’
‘Thanks, Gerry. You’re a real gentleman.’
The taxi dropped me at the premises of Brookmount Building Supplies, Brookmount Road, Lisburn. This was a stratagem to conceal my true destination. Freddie’s farm was less than a half mile away, say ten minutes’ walk, if I took a shortcut across the railway line. He lived alone, that much I knew. If he hadn’t, my stunt wouldn’t have worked.
My tip to the driver erred on the side of profligacy.
‘Meet me back here at 7.30pm. If I’m not here, wait. I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘Right y’are, sorr,’ he said, grinning.
The sky was darkening, earlier than I was used to lately. I let the taxi disappear from sight around a bend, then set off in its wake, past some meadowland. No human activity, just a couple of horses munching the emerald green grass. At the bend, I left the road and slithered down the side of a cutting, across the twin tracks of the Belfast to Newry line, up the other side to turn right on to the Ballinderry Road. A few spots of rain landed on my raincoat.
Only one vehicle passed me during my short walk to Freddie’s pad. A horse box with scrollwork on the side – Equinox Ponies. As soon as I heard its engine, I concealed myself in the hedgerow that ran alongside the road. Minutes later I was walking up the dirt track to the farmhouse, an L-shaped building of beige stone construction that Freddie kept well-maintained. So he ought, the money he was making from his production line of false documentation.
He let me in with a grudging air. Fair enough, he couldn’t see the point in it. But I was about to hand him €7000, and a little kow-towing wouldn’t have gone amiss.
His centre of operations was in a windowless basement. It contained few frills: a curved computer desk, a swivel chair with a high back, a single client chair, and a couple of steel file cabinets and some shelving, also steel. The floor was tiled. Heating came from a free-standing convector.
The computer was a Dell All-in-One, the type where the screen and the tower are combined. It was on stand-by, the screen displaying palm trees and a beach. Maybe Freddie liked to dream of being there. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it.
‘The drives are there,’ he said, pointing to a quantity of black plastic squares about the size of my thumb nail beside the computer keyboard, ‘including the new one.’
‘Six, right?’
‘Right.’
It peeved him still more when I asked him to run them through the computer. He didn’t comment though, just grunted and went through the motions. My six false identities checked out fine. As he ejected each flash drive, I collected them in my hand. When we were through, I shoved them all in my raincoat pocket.
He frowned. ‘Are you takin’ those with you?’
‘Yes.’ I tossed him a white envelope containing seventy 100-euro notes. ‘That’s your seven grand. Now sit down, I want to ask you some questions.’
He didn’t move. ‘Why do you want those drives?’
‘You’ll find out in due course.’ To set an example I sat in the client chair, gestured at the swivel chair. After a momentary hesitation, he subsided into it.
‘What’s goin’ on, Mr Jones?’ There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, perhaps even of fear. It all depended on whether or not he had a guilty conscience. The guilty are always fearful.
‘Do you know a man called Carl Heider? About my height, brown hair going grey, receding, goatee beard, glasses.’
It chimed with him, the shifting of his eyes from me to anywhere but me, told me that.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t get our roles confused, Freddie. I’m asking, you’re answering.’ I rested a foot on the edge of his desk. He didn’t object. Well, it wasn’t much of a desk.
‘Now, let me ask you again: do you know a Carl Heider, and or possibly his nephew, Richard Heider? And I warn you – don’t bullshit me.’
The question earned me a blank look.
‘Never heard of ’em.’
The Heiders would have been leery of using their real names, so maybe he wasn’t out-and-out lying. I threw in a description of Richard to revive his memory.
Just as well for him, he decided to quit fencing.
‘All right, yes, I remember the young one, right enough, with the funny eye.’
‘Remember him how?’
‘He was the one contacted me about a couple of months back. Needed some
visas, he said. That wasn’t the name he used though.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Feck, I shouldn’t be tellin’ you this.’
‘No need to give away any confidences. Did he come here?’
‘No, never. We met in the city. Then ...’ He faltered, pulled a pack of Players cigarettes from his pants pocket. ‘We were talkin’, just talkin’, then out of the blue he asked me if I had ever done a passport for a fella called Mason.’
‘And you said ...’
‘For the love o’ Christ, I didn’t say nothin’. Then he said he was lookin’ for somebody to do a contract, and this Mason had been recommended.’ He spread his hands, palms up. ‘Look, Mr J., you know me. I don’t give away information about my clients, it’d be more than my life’s worth.’
About that he was dead right.
‘Let me guess. Instead of saying, no, you didn’t know any Mason, you said your work was confidential or some such. Am I right?’
He nibbled at a nail, spat, placed a cigarette between his lips.
‘I gave him as little as I could get away with.’
‘I guess you probably did at that. But in our line of business even a little is too much. Was Richard Heider, or whatever he called himself, satisfied with your stalling?’
‘I thought so at the time. Then he came back a few days later – with an older fella. Wearin’ glasses, the older one, with a goatee beard like you said. We met in McHugh’s Bar.’
‘Why did he come back?’
Freddie lit up from a book of matches. ‘To ask me some more questions.’
‘Come on, Freddie, don’t make me drag it out of you.’
‘All right, all right! The older fella did most of the talkin’ this time. Asked me point blank if I had ever done a passport for somebody called Mason. I gave him the same spiel as I gave the youngster.’ He exhaled smoke into the already murky atmosphere. ‘He was very polite. Said he’d make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’ A nervous snigger. ‘You know, like in those Godfather films.’
‘I know. What was the offer you couldn’t refuse?’
‘My feckin’ life, that’s what.’ His cigarette hand was shaking as he raised it to his lips. ‘For starters he said he’d make it worth my while. I said – just playin’ him along, you know – how much. He said, calm as you please, my life. If I told him what he wanted to know he’d let me live.’
‘So you confirmed that you’d done a passport in the name of Mason.’
‘Yeah, I did so. I’m sorry, but I was shit scared of those two creeps.’ He shook his head. He cut a pathetic figure, puffing away at his Player, eyes moist.
‘What else did you give them?’
‘Nothin’, I swear. They told me to drive ’em to the house, so they could check out my records. I couldn’t allow that. I’d be finished in this game, so I would. So ... I gave ’em the slip.’
This didn’t sound very likely.
‘How?’
‘It was as we were leaving. I was pretendin’ to cooperate. Then as we went out the door, two women were comin’ in. I got past ’em and pushed ’em into the Heiders. It was hilarious, like somethin’ out of Laurel and Hardy. They all went down in a heap. I was out of the place in a jiff, round the corner into Sweeney’s yard and hid up there to let the dust settle.’
It was so implausible I believed it.
‘Then what?’
‘Then nothin’, honest. I gave ’em the slip, came home, packed my bags and went abroad for a month, so I did.’
I pondered his story. It was full of holes, but I wasn’t inclined to plug them.
‘Freddie, I want all the copies of my flash drives, past and present, including the extra copies you’ve made of these six.’ I patted my pocket.
‘There’s no more copies. I don’t make copies.’
‘Is that a fact?’
A small bathroom led off the basement. I walked over to it, found a grubby hand towel hanging from a hook, and brought it back into Freddie’s office.
‘Freddie,’ I said, standing over him. ‘I’m giving you one final chance to come clean. Go and fetch the copies. All of them.’
‘So help me, there’s no copies, Mr J.’
‘Put your left hand flat on the desk, palm down.’
He refused. When I produced the Glock, he reared back, and refused more vehemently.
‘Okay, Freddie. Go and fetch the copies.’
Baubles of sweat popped out on his forehead.
‘I tell you, there’s no copies!’
‘It’s your hand or your kneecap. What’s your preference?’
He jumped up and ran for the stairs. Overtaking him was easy; overpowering him easier still. He was not built for running and fighting. I hauled him back to his chair.
‘Hand on desk,’ I said patiently. ‘I’ll count to three. Either your hand’s on the desk by then or I’ll turn your kneecap into a jigsaw puzzle.’
His nerve, such as it was, finally cracked.
‘All feckin’ right! I’ll get the feckin’ copies.’
Off he went to the cabinets. He used a key on a chain to open the left-hand one, rummaged around inside, and came back with a handful of flash drives, identical to the six I already had. I cast an eye over the tiny labels, and shoved them in my other raincoat pocket.
‘What about all the old ones? You put some on CDs in the past.’
‘Destroyed,’ he said sullenly.
It was probably the truth. They were no use once they had been in circulation. Keeping them would be a security risk for him as much as for the subject.
The convector heater made a clicking sound and a fan started up.
‘Now put your left hand on the desk, will you?’
‘What the feck for? You’ve got your copies, you bastard!’
‘Hand or knee. You decide.’
In the end he did as he was told and splayed his hand on the desk. Probably figured I was just bluffing.
I pressed the gun muzzle against his hand, between the metacarpal bones of the index and middle fingers.
‘The other copies,’ I said.
‘Jaysus, I told ye already ...’
The gun blast was tremendous in that low-ceilinged space. The bullet went through his hand leaving a clean circular hole. Blood sprayed from the wound onto the gun and my hand. The ringing in my ears muffled Freddie’s howls. I tossed him the towel, and he wrapped it around the wound, groaning and weeping, eventually shoving his hand under his right armpit and keeping it there.
‘Feck,’ he moaned, ‘Oh, feck ...’
‘I think we have an understanding now, don’t you? So let me ask you again. Where are the other copies.’ I wagged the gun under his sobbing face. ‘Lie, and your right hand gets the same treatment.’
‘There’s no more copies,’ he whined, and finally I believed him. Now that he knew I would follow through my threat, he wasn’t going to hide a few CDs that were as good as worthless.
‘Good. You’re learning.’ I tapped the top of the computer with the barrel of the Glock. ‘What’s in the computer memory?’
He looked at me, sweating and snotty, blood already seeping through the makeshift bandage. I hoped what he read in my expression convinced him not to give me more of the runaround.
‘I’ll delete them,’ he said weakly, and proceeded to fire up the computer.
I went to stand behind him and watched while he entered a complicated password, then called up the folder on JONES. It contained more than twenty files at a guess, with back-ups. They were identified with the prefix J1 followed by a slash then a three-digit number, beginning zero. So the little prick had saved all of my fake passports to the hard disc, and presumably all the ancillary documents that had gone with them.
‘You’re a bad boy, Freddie.’
He didn’t respond. He was swaying slightly in his seat, his colour completely gone. If he passed out, I was going to be stuck here until he came round.
‘Delete the lot,’ I said.
He was too shattered,
too spineless, to dispute the point. One by one he wiped the files. I was computer-smart enough to be sure that he had done it, though I had heard that even deleted files can be recovered from a hard disk if you have the right equipment.
With this in mind, when Freddie had finished I pushed him aside in his wheeled chair. Screening my face, I stood well back, and blasted the hell out of his computer, unleashing all six shots into the screen. Glass and plastic shrapnel sprayed everywhere, some shards ricocheting off my coat. My ears rang anew and with interest.
The computer was wrecked beyond repair. I exchanged the empty mag for a full one.
‘Just be grateful I don’t burn you,’ I said.
A sob escaped his lips. The blood was leaking onto the cuff of his blue shirt, turning purple as it spread over the material.
‘Now don’t be a baby, Freddie. Slap a Band-Aid over it, and you’ll be good as new in a couple of days.’
‘Feck off!’
‘I’m going, don’t worry. But if I hear you’ve been talking about me, I’ll be back. Just like the Terminator.’
I found my own way out. According to the dictates of security, security, security, I should have terminated him. He knew too much about me, and now I was his enemy to boot. But I had never yet taken a life cheaply. The object had been to frighten him so much he would be convinced that I would come gunning for him if he betrayed me. It was as good a compromise as I could manage.
An unpleasant episode. I was glad to put it behind me. Now to begin the task of hunting myself down, and bumping myself off. If only I knew how.
FIVE
The terms of the contract were nothing out of the ordinary. Track down and eliminate the person who killed Jeff Heider. The tracing part was a bit irregular, but detective work was occasionally part of my remit. That aside, no tracing was required in this case, because the person who killed Jeff Heider was me. It was not therefore a contract I could honour in the conventional sense, short of committing suicide. Even at my most depressed, a death wish had never been part of my make-up.
The question was, how to play it for real, how to make it convincing. For the present I could do little more than go through the motions, convince Carl Heider I was hard at it hunting down the killer. Buy time. The contract stipulated weekly progress reports. For appearances’ sake, to create substance for the reports, enquiries would have to be made in the right quarters. Real enquiries, not imaginary. The natural geographical starting point would be the finishing point of the Jeff Heider contract – Las Vegas. The place where I had put down that piece of shit. People could be interviewed, notably Jeff Heider’s wife. What was her name? Maura, née Beck. Terrific looking broad, questioning her might even be a pleasure. Not that she would be able to shed any light on the killing. The only person alive who knew the story from A to Z was me, and my lips were sealed tighter than a pressure cooker’s lid. No use kidding myself. What I was entering into was a big fat charade.