by J. D. Robb
But it was coming back, slowly. The Irish knew all about wars, conflicts, hunger, and poverty. And they dealt with it, sang of it, wrote of it. And drank around it of an evening.
So, there was the Penny Pig. It had been a neighborhood pub when he’d been a boy and most of his neighbors were villains of one sort or the other.
He supposed it wouldn’t be inaccurate to name him one of the villains.
It had been a haunt for him, and those he ran with. A place to go and have a pint and not worry about the cops coming in to roust you. There’d been a girl there he’d loved as much as he was able, and friends he’d valued.
All of them, dead and gone now, he thought as he stood outside the door. All but one. He’d come back to the Penny Pig, and the one friend alive from his boyhood. Maybe he’d find some of the answers.
He stepped inside, to the dark wood, the smokey light, the smell of beer and whiskey and cigarettes, and the sounds of rebel songs played low.
Brian was behind the bar, building a Guinness and holding a conversation with a man who looked to be older than dirt. There were a few at the low tables, drinking or having a sandwich. A miniscreen playing some Brit soap opera sat over the bar with the sound muted.
It was early in the day yet, but never too early to stop by a pub. If you wanted conversation, information, or just a sociable drink, where else would you go?
Roarke stepped up to the bar and waited for Brian to glance over.
And when he did, Brian’s wide face creased in smiles. “Well now, here’s himself come to grace my humble establishment once more. We’d break out the French champagne had we any.”
“A pint of that’ll do well enough.”
“Do you see here, Mister O’Leary, sir, who we have among us today?”
The old man turned his head, and his rheumy eyes stared at Roarke out of a face as flat and thin as a plank. He lifted the pint Brian had just passed him, drank slow and deep.
“It’s Roarke, is it, all grown up and fancy as a prince. Bit rougher around the edges, you were, when you came around to pinch wares from my shop down the street.”
“You chased me out with a broom more than once.”
“Aye, and it’s no doubt your pockets were heavier when you lit out than when you came in.”
“True enough. It’s good to see you again, Mr. O’Leary.”
“Got rich, didn’t you?”
“I did, yes.”
“So he’ll pay for your pint as well as his own,” Brian said and slid a pint down to Roarke.
“Happy to.” Roarke took out a bill large enough to pay for a dozen pints, set it on the bar. “I need to speak with you, Brian, on a private matter.”
Friends or not, the note disappeared into Brian’s pocket. “Come back to the snug then.” As he turned, he pounded a fist on the door behind the bar. “Johnny, get off your lazy arse and mind the bar.”
He walked down to a small room at the end, opened the door for Roarke. “And where’s Lieutenant Darling?”
“She’s home.”
“And well, is she?”
“She’s well, thanks. Busy.”
“Rounding up criminals, no doubt. You give her a kiss for me, and remind her when she’s done with you, I’m waiting to make her mine.”
He sat at one of the spindly chairs at the single table gracing the little room. Then grinned. “I’ll be damned to hell and back, it’s good to see you. Happier circumstances I hope, than the last.”
“I haven’t come to bury another friend.”
“God bless him.” Brian clicked the glass he’d brought with him against Roarke’s. “To Mick then.”
“To Mick, and the rest of them that’s gone.” He drank, then just stared into the foam.
“What’s troubling your mind?”
“Long story.”
“Since when haven’t I had the time and the inclination to hear a long one? And when you’re buying?”
“Do you remember when Meg Roarke left?”
Brian’s eyebrows lowered, his lips pursed. “I remember she was here, then she was gone, and nobody was sorry to see the back of her.”
“Do you have any recollection of . . . of someone else living with him—before she came. Do you remember anyone speaking of a young girl who was with him?”
“Seems to me there were a number of women who came and went. But before Meg? Can’t say. Christ, Roarke, I’d’ve been in nappies, same as you.”
“Your father knew him, and well. Did you never hear the name Siobhan Brody mentioned in your house, or around the neighborhood?”
“I don’t remember, no. What’s this about then?”
“She was my mother, Bri.” It still caught in his throat. “I’ve learned Meg wasn’t, and this young girl from Clare was.” Roarke lifted his eyes. “The bastard killed her, Brian. He murdered her.”
“Sweet singing Jesus. I don’t know of this. I swear to you.”
“I don’t think he could have managed it alone. Not without a bit of help, or not without someone knowing what he’d done.”
“My father ran with him off and on, and did things—all of us did—that weren’t right along the clean side of the law. But murder a girl?” Looking Roarke dead in the eye, Brian shook his head. “My da wouldn’t have had any of that.”
“No. He wasn’t one I thought of for this.”
“But you’re thinking.” Brian nodded, and put his mind to it himself. “It was an ugly time. There were still petty little wars raging. Death was everywhere and cheaper in many ways than living.”
“He had mates. Two I remember especially. Donal Grogin and Jimmy Bennigan. They would have known.”
“Maybe. That may be,” Brian said slowly. “But Bennigan died in a cage sometime back, and would be no help to you.”
“I know.” He’d done his research. “Grogin’s still around, and not far from here come to that.”
“That’s true. He doesn’t come in here much, and hasn’t for the last years. Frequents a place a bit closer to the river, known as Thief’s Haven. Tourists think it’s a colorful name until they step inside. Then most step out again quick.”
“He might be there now, but more likely at home this time of the day.”
“More like.” Brian kept his gaze on Roarke’s face.
“I can do this myself, and there’s no hardship between us if you’d rather not come along with me. But it’d go faster and cleaner with a friend.”
“Now?”
“I’d as soon move fast.”
“Then we’d best be going,” Brian replied.
“Is this why you came without your cop?” Brian asked him as they walked one of the meaner streets.
“One of the reasons.” Absently, Roarke fingered the mini-blaster in his pocket. “We have different methods of interviewing a witness.”
Brian patted his own pocket, and the leather sap inside. “I recall getting my face busted a time or two by the cops.”
“She can bust faces herself, but she tends to let the other throw the first punch. Her way’s effective, believe me, but it takes longer, and I want this done.”
He worried the wedding ring on his finger as he walked along a street his cop would have recognized. She couldn’t have read the graffiti as most of it was in the Gaelic that had come into fashion with street toughs when he’d been a boy. But she’d have understood the meaning where it smeared the pocked sides of buildings, and have understood the faces of the men who loitered in doorways.
Here a child would learn how to pinch a wallet from an unguarded pocket before he learned to read. And that child would be put to bed at night more often with a backhand rather than a kiss.
He knew this street, too. It had spawned him.
“She’s irritated with me,” Roarke said at length. “Hell, she’s right pissed, and I deserve it. But I couldn’t have her with me for this, Bri. I’ll kill him if it comes to it. I couldn’t have her in the middle of that.”
“Well now, how cou
ld you? No place for a wife or a cop, is it?”
It wasn’t. No, it wasn’t. But if he dealt death today, he’d have to tell her of it. And he wasn’t sure what it would do to what they’d become. He wasn’t sure if she would ever look at him the same way again.
They went inside one of the ugly concrete boxes on the hard edge of the district. The stink of urine took him back to his own childhood. The sharp sting of it, the softer stench of vomit. It was the kind of place where rats didn’t wait until dark to come hunting, and where violence was so thick it clogged the corners like greased grime.
Roarke looked toward the stairs. There were twenty units in the building, he knew, twelve of them officially occupied, with squatters in some of the rest. Few who lived in such a place worked by day, so there was likely forty or fifty people at home or within earshot of a shout.
He doubted any would interfere. In such circumstances, people minded their own, unless it was to their advantage to do otherwise.
He had money in his pocket along with the blaster, and would use whichever came most easily into play to convince anyone who needed convincing that he was conducting private business.
“Ground floor for Grogin,” Roarke said. “Easy in and out.”
“You want me to go outside, round to the window in case he gets past you?”
“He won’t get past me.” Roarke knocked, then stepped to the side so Brian was in view of the Judas hole.
“What the fucking hell do you want?”
“A moment of your time, if you will, Mr. Grogin. I have a business opportunity I believe could be mutually profitable for both of us.”
“Is that so?” There was a snorting laugh. “Well then, come right into my office.”
He opened the door, and Roarke stepped through.
The man looked old. Not so old as O’Leary, but much more used. His face hung in sags at the jaw, and his cheeks were an explosion of broken blood vessels. But his reflexes remained sharp. A knife appeared in his hand, a hand that moved as quick and smooth as a magician’s. But even as he started to sneer his eyes widened on Roarke’s face.
“You’re dead. Saw you myself. How’d you climb out of hell, Paddy?”
“Wrong Roarke.” Roarke bared his teeth. And rammed his fist into Grogin’s face.
He had the knife in his own hand now, and crouching, held it to Grogin’s throat before Brian could finish shutting the door.
Not a soul had stirred into the hallway beyond.
“Still as quick as ever you were,” Brian said.
“What’s this about? What the fucking hell is this about?”
“Remember me, Mr. Grogin, sir?” Roarke spoke softly, a voice smooth as satin as he let Grogin feel the point of the blade. “You used to backhand me for sport.”
“Paddy’s boy.” He licked his lips. “Now, come, you’re not holding a grudge all these years, are ya? A boy needs the back of a hand from time to time to help him grow to a man. I never meant you any harm.”
Roarke nicked Grogin, just under the jaw. “Let’s say I don’t mean you any more harm now then you meant me then. I’m going to ask you some questions. If I don’t like your answers, I’m going to slit your throat and leave you for the rats. But I’ll let Brian have a go at you first.”
Smiling cheerfully, Brian took the sap out of his pocket, slapped it on his palm. “You knocked me about plenty as well. I’d like a bit of my own back, so I wouldn’t mind if your answers don’t suit my mate here.”
“I don’t have anything.” Grogin’s eye ticked back and forth, from face to face. “I don’t know anything.”
“Better hope you do.” Roarke hauled him up, heaved him toward a filthy sofa. “You can try it,” he said, kicking a chair around when Grogin’s eyes flicked toward the rear window. “We’ll be on you like jackals, of course. But I’ll just hunt up someone else for the answers I need.”
“What do you want?” he whined. “There’s no need for all this, lad. Why, I’m practically an uncle to you.”
“You’re nothing to me but a bad memory.” Sitting down, Roarke ran the tip of the knife over his thumb, watched the thin line of blood bead. “Keep it honed, I see. That’s fine. I’ll start with your balls, if you’ve still got them. Siobhan Brody.”
Grogin’s gaze stayed locked on the knife. “What?”
“You’d best remember the name, if you want to live so long as another hour. Siobhan Brody. Young and pretty, fresh. Red-haired, green-eyed.”
“Lad, now be reasonable. How many young girls such as that might I have known in my life?”
“I’m only interested in this one.” Stone-faced, Roarke sucked blood from his thumb. “The one who lived with him more than two years. The one he planted a child in, and she gave birth to me. Ah there now.” Roarke nodded as he saw Grogin’s pupils widen. “That’s stirred the juices some.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Before Brian could move in, Roarke simply reached over, and snapped the bone in Grogin’s index finger. “There’s one for Siobhan. I’m told he broke three of hers, so I’ve two more to even that score.”
Grogin went deathly white and let out a long, thin scream.
“I’m feeling superfluous here,” Brian complained and settled himself on the ratty arm of the sofa.
“He beat her,” Roarke said flatly. “Blackened her eyes, broke her bones. She was all of nineteen. He let you have a go at her, Grogin? Or did he keep her to himself?”
“I never laid a hand on her. Not a hand.” Tears leaked from Grogin’s eyes as he cradled his injured hand. “She was Patrick’s woman. Nothing to do with me.”
“You knew he beat her.”
“A man, well, a man’s liable to need to teach his woman a lesson now and then. Paddy, he had a heavy hand, you’ve cause to know yourself. It’s not my doing.”
“She left him for a while, took me and left him.”
“I can’t say.” He jerked when Roarke leaned forward again, and yelping, cupped his hands at his own throat. “For God’s sake, have pity. It wasn’t me! How am I to know what went on behind Patrick’s door? I didn’t live in the man’s pocket, for Christ’s sake.”
“Brian,” Roarke said smoothly. “Have a go here.”
“All right, all right!” Grogin was shouting before Brian so much as shifted his weight. “She might’ve gone off for a bit. Seems I recall him saying something.”
When Roarke’s hand snaked out, took a hold of Grogin’s wrist, the man curled into a ball, weeping as his bladder let go. “Yes! I’ll tell you. She took off with you, and he was mad to get her back. A woman didn’t walk out on a man, take his son that way. Had to be shown her place, you know? Had to be disciplined, so he said. She came back.”
“And was shown her place?”
“I don’t know what happened.” Grogin began to sob now, fat tears, snotty sobs. “Could I have a drink? God’s pity, let me have a drink. My hand’s broken.”
“One bleeding finger, and he’s crying like a lass.” On a huff of disgust, Brian heaved himself up and fetched the bottle of whiskey from a table, poured some into a cloudy glass.
“Here then. Fucking slainte to you.”
Wrapping his good hand around it, Grogin brought the glass to his lips, gulped down the whiskey. “He’s dead now, you know. Paddy’s dead, so what does it matter? It’s him that done it,” he said to Roarke. “You know how he was.”
“Aye. I know just how he was.”
“And this night, well, he was drunk when he called me. Stinking. I heard the boy—heard you wailing away in the background, and him saying I was to come straight away, to cop a car and come. Well, you did what Paddy said you were to do in those days. You did it or you paid dear. So I boosted a car and came straight away. When I got there . . . I had nothing to do with it. I can’t be blamed for it.”
“When you got there?”
“Another drink, then? Just to ease my throat.”
“Tell me the rest,” Roark
e demanded. “Or you won’t have a throat to ease.”
Grogin’s breath wheezed. “She was dead already. Dead when I got there. It was a bloody mess. He’d gone crazy on her, and there was nothing to be done about it. Nothing I could’ve done. I thought he’d killed you, too, as you were quiet. But he’d given you something to put you to sleep, a bit of a tranq, is all. You were on the couch sleeping. He’d called Jimmy, too. Jimmy Bennigan.”
“Give him another drink, Bri.”
“Thanks for that.” Grogin held out his glass. “So you see, you understand, the deed was done when I got there.”
“What did you do with her? You and Jimmy and the one who murdered her.”
“We, ah, we rolled her up in the rug, and carried her out to the car.” He gulped at the whiskey, licked his lips. “As Paddy said. We drove along the river, as far as we could. We weighed the body down with stones, and dumped her in. There was nothing else to be done. She was dead, after all.”
“And then?”
“We went back and cleaned things up, in case, and we put ’round that she’d dumped the boy and taken off. And how if anyone spoke of it, of her, they’d pay. No one lived in the neighborhood that wasn’t scared of Roarke. He got Meg to come back, don’t know how. Paid her I think, promised her more. And called her your mam, so everyone did.”
He swiped his good hand under his dripping nose. “He could’ve killed you as well. Nothing to it. Bashed your brains in, smothered you.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“You had his face, didn’t you?” Grogin continued. “Spitting image. A man wants a legacy, doesn’t he? A man wants a son. If you’d been a girl, he might have tossed you in the river with your mam, but a man wants a son.”
Roarke got to his feet, and whatever was on his face had Grogin cringing back. “His pocket cops went along with it?”
“Wasn’t nothing to them, was it?”
“No, it was nothing to them.” Just a girl, beaten to death and tossed aside. “They came looking for her, her family, some time after. Her brother, I’m told, was set on and laid into. Who’d have done that?”
“Ah . . . Of course, Paddy would’ve wanted to see to that matter himself.”