by John Brady
“The papers from the raid on the building sites in Cork and Waterford.”
“Right, right. How goes it there?”
“I sent off scans of them to The Hague yesterday. I’m going through the lists of contractors now for more.”
“Good, good. Listen to me, now, and brace yourself, I suppose.”
“Is it going to involve brown trousers, Peter?”
“Ah, no. Okay. I just got off the phone from the Deputy Comm. You were with a Garda Hughes? Kevin Hughes, case lead on the murder?”
“This very day – is he all right?”
“As a matter of fact he’s not. But he will be. He has appendicitis. Apparently he had to go to hospital.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Nice fella, a workhorse entirely, by God.”
Her arms folded, Eilís was standing by the printer now. There was a faraway look in her eyes and her bottom lip was working its way slowly over her upper teeth. No one in the section had yet dared ask her if she was still off the cigarettes.
“Howandever. Now. I’ve been requested to free you up, so you can stand in for Hughes.”
“Requested, Peter.”
“You know the score, now.”
“I have the impression there are a lot of people expecting CSI here, all wrapped up in forth-five minutes before bedtime?”
“Hard to argue with you there,” Igoe agreed. “A lot of publicity, over in Poland and here. Yes.”
Minogue knew Igoe long enough to recognize what his tone meant.
“But the point is,” Igoe said, “this case has moved right up the ramp. So you have the whip hand, as they say. Ask for anything, and it’s yours. You have only to ask.”
Minogue kicked back the slurs forming in his thoughts.
“Up the ramp,” he heard himself say.
“That’s right, Matt. Right to number one.”
This time when he phoned, Malone was somewhere quieter.
“Didn’t we just talk about this?” Malone said. “Alzheimer’s now?”
“Ancient history now, Tommy. The whole thing just got a kick, a big kick from on high. Here’s the short version: I’m on the job, the Polish man’s murder.”
“April Fool’s.”
“I’m not joking. The case lead detective is in hospital.”
“Well whatever you said to him, or did to him…”
“Acute appendicitis. So it’s me now.”
Several moments passed.
“Well best of luck to you,” said Malone. “Let me know how it goes.”
“Full steam ahead, is how it’s going. I was given the keys to the kingdom.”
“Everybody says that. Then they sober up.”
“Seriously, Tommy. I hit a bump in the road, I pick up a phone: it’s fixed.”
Malone had nothing to say.
“So let me get to this Murph, Tommy. If you please.”
“I told you,” said Malone. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”
“Sooner the better, and phone right away? It’d be much appreciated.”
“Are you pushing rank my way?”
“Would that help if I did?”
“Like a hole in the head. I told you I have enough to do. Look, there’s not much I can do until I get hold of this guy.”
“How about I send you an email with lots of smileys? Would that do you?”
“You can shove your smileys. And since when do you use email?”
“Where are you?”
“I am in a car.”
“Where?”
“In the back seat.”
“So you’re operational.”
“I’m trying to be. But everyone’s hiding under their beds.”
“Your clients.”
“Yeah, my ‘clients.’ Forget the global warming stuff. I’m already dealing with an endangered species here.”
“You’re environment is under pressure, it seems.”
“Yeah. We call it the Mulhall effect. Lead poisoning.”
It wasn’t like Tommy Malone to be flip about murders, even when criminals were doing one another in. Minogue wondered if it was a signal that Malone was ready to give up.
“Let me guess where you are: Capel Street area?”
“Not bad. Near enough.”
Over the top of his cubicle, Minogue now saw that rain was landing in streaks on the window beyond Eilís. The sky was bright behind.
“That coffee place up by Smithfield Market,” he said to Malone.
“Beanz,” said Malone. “What about it?”
“Ten minutes.”
“That’s kind of pushy.”
“I’m buying.”
“Do I have to salute when I show up?”
There were few umbrellas showing here on Capel Street. Minogue drove past a half-dozen secondary-school students who stood clumped around the entrance to a kabob restaurant. In the stop-and-go traffic he had landed in since turning off Parnell Street, Minogue’s thoughts had slipped the leash again. He eyed two slight Indian-looking men walking past, flinching from the rain. He wondered what their home streets and towns looked like. Full of people, no doubt, but sunny and hot and colourful.
Some honking started far ahead. A woman crossed through the stopped traffic, her head and shoulders hidden by her umbrella. What did Juraksaitis mean? Minogue imagined her at work listening, noting, drinking tea, walking through rooms. His unease grew. The van ahead of him lurched forward. He got the Peugeot into second gear.
He spotted the parked Octavia with a man behind the wheel just after the junction of Little Mary Street. He slowed, looking for any space at all to pull in. There was someone in the passenger seat, just the tip of his nose showing from the reclining seat. He pulled in behind a delivery lorry not far ahead, and slid his sign down on the dashboard. The Garda radio antenna on the Octavia was the new black one that looked like a claw. A silhouette moved beside the driver as Minogue approached.
Malone stepped out awkwardly. He held the door open and said something to the driver, a balding man in a Nike jacket with a mobile in his lap. The driver shrugged and gave Minogue a nod. Malone, unshaven and looking generally creased, pale, and irritated, closed the door. From the slight shrug he gave as he stepped forward Minogue knew that he was wearing a ballistic vest.
“Thanks,” he said to Malone.
“I haven’t given you anything yet.”
“Am I interrupting anything?”
He held open the door of the restaurant for Malone. The smell of ground coffee that met him livened Minogue considerably.
Malone’s eyes wandered the restaurant. Minogue ordered an au lait, and Malone’s usual black. The man who took the order sounded Spanish. He would bring them over. They were to relax, he said.
A teenager with very black hair, and her boyfriend, were the only others here. They looked far beyond even glum. The girl stared at the street while the boy played with a twisted-up sugar packet. A difficult age.
Minogue settled himself ceremoniously at a table.
“You’ve got that look about you,” said Malone. “On the mooch.”
“You’re a victim of your own success. Legendary.”
“Success,” said Malone and scratched at his stubble. “You think, huh.”
Minogue waited a moment.
“Your film career,” he said. “Any day now?”
Malone wrinkled his nose.
“What’s his name again?”
“Fanning,” said Malone. “But he’s a complete iijit.”
“Not working out for you?”
Malone flicked his head.
“Just what we need,” he said. “Some wannabe like him glamorizing the whole thing.”
“Has he given up phoning you then?”
“I wish,” said Malone, his voice rising. “He keeps on trying to get a foot in.”
“What exactly did he want, again?”
Malone sighed.
“What didn’t he want, you should be asking. I don’t know anymo
re. First, it’s can we talk. I give him the brush-off, but nice enough, right? You know me.”
Minogue almost smiled.
“Maybe he’s deaf, I thought,” Malone continued. “When he gets a ‘no’ for the chat thing, bejases if he doesn’t ask for something more instead! Sit-down interviews, he wanted next, big long Q and A sessions. Listen, says I, write what you like, but stay away from me. Not in so many words, now.”
“Any of the words start with an F?”
Malone ignored the jibe.
“He got bolshie on me then, like, ‘I want to give the Guards the opportunity to tell things from their side,’ says he. Like, make me an offer or I’ll make the Guards look like iijits in this.”
“Ah. He must have known you like a bit of extortion.”
Malone’s glare seemed cool enough, but a slight pursing of his lips told Minogue enough.
“What was your response to that one?” Minogue asked.
“The exact words?”
“The gist, if you please.”
“‘There is only one side. Get on it. But leave me alone.’”
“Loud and clear, I’d have thought, Tommy.”
“Oh. I called him an interfering bollocks. Forgot that.”
“How did he take to that?”
“Got on his high horse. Something about art and life? Gave me a headache thinking about it. Put down the phone on him.”
“End of story, then?”
“Uh-uh. He tries to get to me though one of my… guess who?”
“No idea.”
“Sure you do. Or you will, when you meet him. Murph.”
“Big city, small town, Dublin,” said Minogue.
“Fanning’s decided that Murph, my fella, is the man, and he’s getting toured around by him. You know, sights and sounds of the Dublin crime scene.”
“He’ll wake up in hospital if he’s not careful,” said Minogue.
“Do you see me worrying about it?”
“You coulda been a contenda, Tommy. Movie stah.”
Malone shifted in his seat.
“Yeah yeah yeah. But you know what really got under my skin about this whole thing? There’s this guy, Fanning, and he’s the first one to slag the Guards. Kind of fella with plenty of edumacation and, I don’t know, can tell you lots about all the fine wines of France or somewhere. Never went a day without his cappuccino kind of guy. Now he thinks all the scumbags of Dublin are worth making a film about. Okay, I says to him the first time he phoned, if you can guarantee me that the good guys are the heroes in this thing, maybe we’ll talk.”
“Your fame will have to wait then.”
“Watch me care. There, did you see that? But this guy’s persistent. He gets Murph to annoy me about it some more. Keeps on asking me. ‘Your man’ – Fanning, like – ‘wants to show you a plot, see if you like it.’”
“Be a consultant then. Keep your day job and all.”
Malone gave Minogue a scathing look.
“Don’t go there. Seriously. I made a promise, remember. After Terry…?”
Minogue had underestimated how hot under the collar Malone had become. It was another sign of the stress he was under. The anniversary was around this time of year too. Malone’s twin brother was gone four years now. The post mortem could not reveal if Tommy Malone’s suspicions were true, that his brother had overdosed on heroin that was intentionally spiked.
“Anyway,” said Malone after several moments. “There’s a gang war going on. Some gobshite wants to hang out with me on the job, so he can make a movie out of it. And now you want to poach on my sources.”
“You couldn’t make this stuff up. Right?”
Malone darted a glare his way: the goading was working too well.
“Okay,” Minogue said. “You win.”
“Win? Me bollicks. With you, a fella never wins. A sneaky fecker, is what you are.”
“Am I still invited to the wedding?”
“Don’t start, I’m telling you. That on top of all this? What else could there be?”
“I could pass on Jimmy boy’s musings on Irish life and society, a bit about the funeral there.”
Malone’s face turned sombre.
“You know, I would have gone. Really I would have. After seeing what she did with those kids there in Ronanstown, and the art classes? But I tell you, I’m living in a car the past few days, waiting to see who gets it next. Trying to get a step ahead.”
“And are you?”
Malone’s face now took on the mask of the mordantly skeptical Dubliner.
“Just between you and me,” he muttered. “N. O. www.wedon’tknow whatthehellishappening. ie. Or .com. Whatever. Ever been to that site?”
“Well I won’t tell you how often, will I.”
“Rumours, that’s the best we can do. And that’s from all the millions and millions thrown into the, er War on Drugs, bejases. Rumours. Hearsay. ‘A fella told me that a fella told him that…’”
Malone rolled his eyes, and then rubbed hard at them. He opened his eyes abruptly and eyed Minogue.
“The latest one is that someone brought in people from the outside, some hit men. ‘Pros.’ Paying them for results. ‘A clean sweep’ is the story. ‘Things was getting’ out of hand…’”
“Things are always out of hand, Tommy.”
Malone looked away, testing his vision.
“Yeah, well it doesn’t take much, does it. The rats are all under the bed now. Can’t get any info at all. Phones not answered, stools empty in the pubs, nothing stirring.”
He turned abruptly to Minogue then.
“Jesus, but you’re getting me all depressed now, thinking about it. Sidetracking me there. Get back on track, I say.”
“On the double.”
“Well what’s the story with you here?”
“Let me give you some names of places,” Minogue said. “For starters. North wall. Sherriff Street. Custom House Quay. Do they figure in your line of work?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Castleforbes Road?”
“Plenty going on there too, all right. That’s where they found your man, I take it. The Polish fella?”
Minogue nodded. Behind him, the barista began clearing the filter holder from the espresso machine. Malone tensed.
“Headache, have you?”
“Not yet. That banging your man is at there, it sounded like something else.”
A man entered then, smiled broadly and called out in Spanish to the man making the coffee.
Something had made Malone grin.
“What’s the joke?”
“Nothing,” said Malone. He shook his head, sat back, and chortled softly. Minogue couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him laugh.
“I’d like to try some of that ‘nuttin’ of yours so,” Minogue said.
“Okay. You ready? Has Hughes tried to figure out if there is a Polish Underworld here in Dublin, then?”
“That’s funny, I suppose. Or maybe you’re overdue a holiday.”
Malone sighed and sat up. “Why not,” he said. “Everyone else’s gangsters are here.”
The coffee arrived.
“It is good to be happy,” said the waiter, beaming. “Everyone must be happy, no?”
Minogue looked up at him. “It’s true for you,” he said. He turned to Malone again.
“What goes on in that area at night?”
“What doesn’t. Do you mean a concert at The Point? You get the same people showing up here you get at any event. Push, pedal, pimp. Car thieves, pickpockets, junkies, pushers. Gobshites, gangs, gougers.”
“There was nothing going on that night, at the Point.”
“The Point? When’s the last time you were there?”
“Years.”
Minogue tested his coffee. Promising – but way too hot. He put it back on the saucer.
“Kathleen does be there a bit, the job, she’s in apartments, that class of thing. Rentals and sales. It’s the coming area.�
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Malone nodded, as if that were something he wished to know before. Across from them the boy began talking to the girl, but she remained listless and indifferent. Bright light flooded the street, but the rain had still not stopped. Malone stopped stirring his coffee. Just as Minogue was concluding that he had been transfixed by the spoon, or by his own thumbnail, he looked up.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll check in what I was at here. We’ll head over in your car?”
“I don’t want to take you away from your thing here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, tell you the truth, my fella’s not going to show. It’ll be a while before they’re back on their perches, this crowd. All the goings on has them hiding under their beds.”
The barista and his newly arrived friend were having a great laugh. A middleaged woman with a sun-bed tan came in, smiled at the barista, took a table, and opened her phone. Minogue stole a quick look at her shoes. Malone winked and made a small nod in her direction. Minogue feigned disbelief. A knocking-shop here? Malone nodded again twice, a twitch of amusement playing about his mouth.
The coffee was decent.
Minogue asked Malone about the plans for the honeymoon. Sonya was too excited, Malone related. She couldn’t believe he had agreed to a week in Paris. Malone couldn’t either. Minogue asked him if he had heard of Kilmartin’s remark about a slow boat to China. Sooner China than frigging Mayo, was Malone’s take on that. He asked Minogue for some phrases in French: You’re the waiter, I’m the customer, so stop acting like a snobby bastard or I’ll knock your head off, you poof. Brief was best, Minogue tried to explain, and Con was the word to use, if you wanted a scap. Malone asked about hand signals then. The talk passed on to places to visit in Paris.
The girl was crying as they left. The barista was talking to the tanned woman. The footpaths outside were greasy and shining.
They stopped by the Octavia.
“Leave it, Ger,” Malone said in the window to the driver. “They’re gone to ground for sure.”
The driver looked annoyed, and relieved. Malone turned back to Minogue.
“I’ll do what I can in the matter,” he said.
Minogue was not sure if it was mock formality at all. He saw Malone dip his head, and look up under his eyebrows at him.
“All that’s reasonably possible.”