The Salesman

by Joseph O'Connor

  The day Liam insisted on giving me back some money I had loaned him for his daughter’s wedding, I handed Quinn two hundred quid when I got home.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said, staring at it.

  ‘It’s toilet paper,’ I went. ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘I don’t want yer money, Marge.’

  ‘Take it and don’t be annoying me,’ I told him. ‘I’m not having you working here for nothing.’

  I made him go down to the village and get himself some clothes, warning him not to be conspicuous, and not to talk to anybody unless it was absolutely necessary. He landed back two hours later with a fluoresent yellow shell suit, a pair of doc martens, a bag of underwear, a T-shirt featuring the words ‘Mad for it’ and two green budgies in a small cage. He opened up the aviary gate and put in the budgies.

  ‘For aul’ time’s sake, Marge,’ he smirked. He seemed to think this was amusing.

  And then, one Saturday morning, the toilet broke again. I was in the kitchen looking for the toolbox in the cupboard under the sink when I noticed something strange. The shotgun was not there, where I had hidden it away some weeks earlier. I went down on my knees and took everything out, the polythene bags, the mousetraps, the plastic bottles of disinfectant, but the gun was gone. I searched around in the other cupboards and then the drawers but there was no sign. I sat at the table for a while and wondered what exactly to do. In the end, I just went into the living-room and asked him straight out about it.

  He told me it was definitely under the sink, he had seen it only a week ago, wrapped up tightly in a refuse sack. I told him it was not there now, I was certain. He looked worried then, and that worried me. ‘Billy, man, I never went near it.’

  I think it was the first time that he had ever used my name.

  ‘Well, it’s gone,’ I said.

  He scratched his head and frowned. He followed me back into the kitchen and looked in the cupboard himself. He too took out the pile of plastic bags and rummaged around. He spent an hour taking things methodically out of the kitchen cupboards and searching hard but it was nowhere to be seen. He glanced up at me.

  ‘I never went near it, man,’ he said. ‘Honest.’

  We spent the whole day looking around the house. We practically took the place to pieces. We searched the living-room, the small room, the bathroom, everywhere. I even unlocked your bedroom and had a good long look in there. Then we did the garden, the stable, the heavy undergrowth on either side of the drive. No policeman could have searched more carefully than me. But the gun was gone. I did not sleep very well that night, I can tell you.

  All that Sunday I stayed in here, mentally trawling around the house for the gun. Every location I could think of, we had searched already. I found myself wondering if there was any way it could have got up to the attic, or even over the back wall. While he was making himself something to eat downstairs I slipped out and throughly checked the stable again. There was no sign. After a while I became absolutely convinced that he was lying to me about it. It was so obvious. He had simply taken it and hidden it, I don’t know why I did not want to believe it. He was cunning enough to do it, it should not have surprised me. All that innocent act the evening before and again that morning, that’s all it had been, another act, just as I had seen him do before. I started to see the situation more clearly. Maybe, I told myself, that explained all this strange, irrational business of his fixing up the house and working like a demon in the garden. It was all part of a clever preparation; it was a leading somewhere. He was trying to soften me up before retrieving the gun and coming in one night when I was not expecting him. He was going to rob me blind, I figured, before disappearing off to England. Or perhaps he was going to kill me after all.

  I felt terror then. I could see that the time for secrecy was over; I would have to talk to somebody about it. Late on the Sunday afternoon I barricaded myself into the bedroom and made up my mind: that night, after he had gone to bed, I would sneak out and go tell Seánie. Just tell him the truth. Or at least, part of the truth. It was the only thing to do now. I would say that I had been secretly drinking when the whole insane plan had first occurred to me, that I had gone out and tracked him down, that I must have had a blackout and gone crazy in some way, and that when I had woken up again he was here in the house. Stranger things have happened, Seánie knows that, I mean, they’ve happened to me. Once when I was in the horrors of drink I started thinking I was actually Don Vito Corleone, the old Mafia leader in The Godfather. I was absolutely convinced of this and warned the ambulance men that if they attempted to take me away they would sleep with the fishes. I was told later that I even had an Italian accent.

  My love, I prayed for him to go to bed that night. I thought he never would. When he finally did come up the stairs it was well after midnight. I heard the radio go on in his room, waited another half an hour, threw some clothes on over my pyjamas and slipped down the stairs. It was cold outside. A light rain had started to fall. I was shaking, I half-expected him to appear behind me at any moment and call out my name – if I even got that much warning before the gun blast. Gently I opened the car door and let the handbrake off. Tender splashing sounds seemed to come from the dark trees. I pushed the car down the drive so that he would not hear me starting it up.

  Outside the gate, the wind was whipping down the avenue. Drizzle speckled the windscreen. I climbed in and started the engine. The sky was thick with turbid, blackish clouds. I turned the heat up full blast, I was freezing, I heard my teeth chatter. The intensity of the rain suddenly increased, it seemed to surge down horizontally in sheets. A dustbin overturned, spilling its contents with a loud crash. I was about half-way down towards the village when a man stepped quickly out of the darkness at the side of the road and held up his hand for me to stop. I rolled down the window. Splashes of rain hit my face and hands. He walked over.

  ‘Remember me, pal?’

  It was the milkman, Nap, his pock-marked face pink and shiny. He was wearing a camouflage jacket and black jeans, a dirty-looking woolly hat which the rain was rapidly reducing to a wet rag.

  ‘You look fierce warm in there, Billyboy. Can I hop in there with you for a minute?’

  ‘I’m in a hurry,’ I told him.

  ‘You must be,’ he said, ‘if you’re headin’ out this late.’

  He knows where I live, is what I was thinking, as he walked around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. He slid in beside me, wiped his wet face with the back of his sleeve and rubbed his knuckles together. He smelled of paraffin and feet. Shuddering, he reached out one finger and pushed in the cigarette lighter. I asked him what he wanted.

  ‘I’ve an awful problem on me hands,’ he said. ‘I’m a bit financially embarrassed.’

  He took a damp cigarette from behind his ear, wiped his face again and then peered at his hand. A smear of condensation began to mist across the windscreen.

  ‘I need money,’ he said, ‘I thought y’might like to give me a dig-out. A bit of a loan.’

  ‘A loan?’

  ‘Well, a permanent loan, yeah.’

  ‘I couldn’t really do that, no. I’m sorry for your trouble but there’s nothing I can do.’

  The lighter clicked in the dashboard. He took it out and peered at its glowing tip for a few seconds. Two men in wellington boots and thick yellow oilskins strode urgently past the car in the direction of the village. The rain drummed on the roof. He lit his cigarette.

  ‘No, see, yeh don’t follow me, Mr Sweeney,’ he said. ‘The thing is, if y’cant see any way clear to giving me a dig-out there might be a problem for me. And if there’s a problem for me, I’ll be makin’ fuckin’ sure there’s a problem for a few other people too.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meanin’ that chap Quinn now. That poor fucker you got the job done on. I talked to yer friend Sheehan about it, Mr Sweeney.’ He shook his wet head and frowned ‘Only I’m not sure he’s yer friend any more. Said he’d never see
n the like. Told me yeh flipped out, went spare altogether. Anyways, there’s a lot of talk about the same Quinn around town at the minute. All sorts of funny rumours, Mr Sweeney. His ma’s tellin’ everyone he’s after goin’ to England. Only he’s not in England, is he, Mr Sweeney?’

  ‘How would I know where he is?’

  He grinned. ‘There’s talk around the place of some very fuckin’ dangerous people lookin’ to have a little word with him. I’d hate if it was me had to let them know where to look.’

  More smoke, a hacking cough, a leery smile.

  ‘Have you been in my house?’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Christ, Mr Sweeney, that’s an awful thing to say.’

  His fingertips traced parallel lines through the condensation on the windscreen.

  ‘You’re a businessman,’ he said. ‘I won’t insult yeh.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, it means a grand,’ he said. ‘To start.’

  ‘I don’t have that kind of dough.’

  He nodded. Suddenly he seemed to notice a white plastic supermarket bag twisted into a ball at his feet. He snatched it up and began smoothing it out across his knees. ‘Yer bank opens at ten in the morning. Yer bank down in Dalkey. Yer well in with the manager, McDermott’s his name. I’ll be down at the tower in Sandycove at half-past. Y’can bring it then. And try and be on time, Mr Sweeney. I’d hate to have to drop in on y’at home. Disturb your privacy.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said.

  He laughed and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ he said. ‘I promise, nobody’s gonna get hurt here, Mr Sweeney, if y’do what I say. I mean it now. Y’can trust me. I’m yer friend. Now I’ll see y’in the mornin’.’

  Shivering, he wrapped the plastic bag around his head like a scarf, leapt out of the car, stared up maliciously at the sky and began to trot off quickly down the avenue. A thunderclap boomed. I turned around and drove back up to the house with my heart hammering. When I came in, Quinn was sitting at the kitchen table, with screwdrivers and parts from the old iron spread out in front of him. He gaped across at me.

  ‘Marge,’ he said. ‘I thought you were up in the scratcher.’

  ‘I went out for a drive.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Y’look like shit.’

  After I had told him, he was quiet for a long time. His face took on a strange kind of almost religious seriousness. I could hear the high wind whistling through the garden. He asked me if I was tired now. I told him no, I wasn’t.

  ‘Could we go out for a drive together?’ he said. ‘I need to try and think straight.’

  We went out to the car and got in. He asked me to drive him into town. I got to the river in less than twenty minutes; he smoked all the way, and refused to speak. I parked on the south quays and got out of the car, leaving him still smoking inside. The rain had stopped but the river was still swirling and eddying. It was about three in the morning. I leaned on the Liffey wall and looked across at this new fashionable nightclub on the Northside bank for a while. The building was white and bathed in a wash of floodlights. I could see a gang of photographers outside the door, clearly waiting for some famous person to come out. There was a violently purple laser beam on the roof, pointing up at the clouds. It would divide into two, ripple, dance, wriggle, quadruple. I do not know how long I must have watched it, but eventually the photographers began to drift away in twos and threes. A blood-red sun began to rise over the dome of the Customs House, trailing wispy crimson tentacles beneath it. Below me, a few catty gulls skimmed the surface of the river. The people in the nightclub switched off the laser and the whole city seemed suddenly to go quiet.

  Quinn opened the car door and stepped out. ‘I have an idea, Marge,’ he said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nap was in the lane when we arrived at half-past ten, leaning against a lamp post with his arms folded, and staring hard out at the sea as though watching for something specific. The morning was dull; there were no swimmers. The martello tower looked wet and black. I parked, left the motor running and let Quinn out. He told me to stay where I was and not to turn off the engine. If he was not back in five minutes I was to come over, make some excuse and get him.

  ‘What kind of excuse?,’ I asked.

  ‘Use your bleedin’ imagination, Marge. Say I’m after winnin’ the Lottery or somethin’.’

  He closed the door, walked quickly over to Nap and they shook hands. They talked for a minute or two. Then they climbed over the low wall and sauntered down the beach together. Quinn took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered Nap one. He took it. They both lit up. Quinn went down on his hunkers and started skimming flat stones across the grey water. The other stood looking down at him, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his boots disconsolately toeing the sand.

  After a few minutes they came back up into the lane. Nap glanced around himself a few times, sidestepped quickly over to the black railings of a front garden, reached into a thick hedge and pulled out a black plastic rubbish bag which he handed over to Quinn. They shook hands again. He looked over at me for a second or two. He waved in my direction, beamed optimistically and made a thumbs-up sign, then he turned on his heels and walked away towards Sandycove village, beginning to jog before he had gone from my view.

  Quinn strolled lazily over and got into the car. He offered me a cigarette. I took it. Then he handed me the plastic sack.

  ‘Well, there’s your heater back anyway,’ he said.

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him y’were me uncle. And y’wanted to teach me a lesson.’ He stretched his arms and yawned. ‘Jesus, I’m fuckin’ jaded, are you?’

  ‘Your uncle?’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah. I told him we were an awful close family.’

  ‘And was that him? In the house the other night?’

  He nodded. ‘Who else? But I said I hoped he’d be reasonable and not be a fuckin’ grass. ‘Cos if he wasn’t reasonable I’d have Charlie Collins on to him by the end of the day. That seemed to do the trick, all right.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Collins? He’s a crim, Marge. A big boss around town. Anyways, I told yer man he was a good friend of the brother’s. Kieran. The brother who got shot by the RA. Told him Charlie Collins let the mother know at the funeral if he could ever do her a favour he would.’

  ‘And what about him? This Collins?’

  ‘Well see, he crucified this youngfella once. One of his own gang. Seriously. Fuckin’ took him for a drive up to a house in the mountains with one of them things for hammerin’ Hilti bolts into stone walls. A power hammer. Thought he was after rattin’ on him to the coppers. Tied him up and asked him if the rumours was true. Poor cunt says no. Collins and his mate get him down and nail him to the floor with this thing. Bang. One bolt through each of his mitts, bang, bang, another two right through the feet and into the floorboards. Poor fucker ends up pinned to the deck.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. Just like Jesus. See, if there’s one thing Collins doesn’t like it’s a rat. He’ll put up with nearly anything, but not a squeeler, he’s known for that. And then, anyways, yer man’s there stuck like a pig and he screechin’ out of him and bawlin’. And then after a while it turns out Collins’s convinced he’s tellin’ the truth after all. So what he does, he unties him, pulls out the bolts, turfs him into the back of his motor and lurries him down to the hospital. And then, as your man’s gettin’ out of the car, blood drippin’ out of him, Collins goes to him, I’d say you’ve a good case for a claim, pal. A criminal compensation claim, y’know, against the State. If you need a good solicitor let me know. And he helps him into casualty and shags off home for his breakfast.’

  ‘You’ve some lovely friends,’ I said.

  He nodded and looked out at the sea. ‘Y’don’t know the half of it, Marge.’

  ‘And that’s the kind of person your brother was hang
ing around with?’

  He smiled. ‘Not at all, Marge, don’t be dense.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Sure Kieran never met Charlie fuckin’ Collins in his life. No more than I did. Are you jokin’ me? Kieran was low rent. And as for me, I wouldn’t know Collins if he shaped up here and gave me a foot in the arse. No, I only came out with all that to scare the shite out of our friend. Worked too. Thought he was gonna piss himself.’ He chuckled. ‘Look at the mug on yeh.’

  ‘So how did you know all that stuff?’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘About the crucifixion and everything. Don’t tell me you made that up too.’

  ‘Ah no,’ he said. ‘I didn’t make that up. I read that it in a book.’

  He punched my shoulder. ‘Aren’t y’glad y’met me now, Marge?’

  ‘You never really killed anyone in the Lebanon either, did you?’

  He seemed to think about this for a second. ‘Well, I was the unit cook,’ he said. ‘So probably I did, yeah.’

  I pulled away slowly down the lane. ‘You’d think you’d know how to boil an egg,’ I told him.

  ‘Don’t fuckin’ start, Marge. I’m knackered. Take me home.’

  By last month the weather had changed for the worse. The morning I turned the calendar page over to October, I came out of the house to find a light dusting of frost on the grass and the tops of the bushes. The water in the bird table was covered with a thin crust of ice. Far in the distance I could see swathes of bluish snow on the peaks of the hills.

  I remember work being absolutely insane that day. O’Keeffe was acting like a maniac as he stormed around the office barking and running his fingers through his perm. There was talk of a transport strike in England that would cause us big problems with distribution; the phones didn’t stop ringing all afternoon. To make matters worse the new secretary had arrived. Dawn by name, a bad-tempered young one who’d eat the face off you soon as look at you. ‘Zulu Dawn,’ Hopper called her. When I got home I was completely exhausted. I told Quinn we would have to remove the budgies from the aviary or the cold would kill them. He rooted around the stable and found the cage, put them into it, then brought them up to the kitchen. He fed them warm water, mashed-up bread and milk. He laughed as they chirruped and hopped and flapped their wings against the bars. He seemed to get a great kick out of the budgies.