The Murk Beneath

by L. D. Cunningham

  “You know what this is, Mickey?”

  “Drink.”

  “Huh?”

  “Get me a fucking drink. Whiskey … just get me a fucking bottle.”

  I couldn’t have cared less about whatever the piece of crap in the forceps was. I’d doused my mental pain with drink before, so maybe it would take away my physical pain.

  “No, Mickey. I’ll have to give you some painkillers. Can’t mix those with drink.”

  The doc dropped the black thing into his palm and picked at it with a finger nail.

  “Tarmac,” he said.

  “What?” I said, some of the pain finally subsiding.

  “A piece of fucking road.”

  “What in the name of God do mean a piece of road?”

  I took a hard look at it. Maybe the doc was right.

  “Bullet missed you, hit the road, sent a piece of it into your leg. Lucky.”

  Rage mixed with the pain until the pressure built inside my head. Lucky? Mogs was half-dead on the road, maybe all-the-way dead by now, and I’d crawled halfway across Cork to get to the doc’s door, and I was lucky?

  Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.

  O’Reilly fetched some pills and I, without question, swallowed four of them with the help of a glass of water.

  “Get some rest, Mickey.”

  I grabbed the doc’s jumper.

  “No Guards. I’m not here. No Guards come in without a warrant.”

  O’Reilly’s face didn’t flinch. He was an old-timer, had seen pretty much everything. I didn’t expect anything less of him.

  “Thanks, Doc. I’ll make this up to you.”

  Then the painkillers started getting to work on me. Less than a minute later and I was asleep or just plain passed-out, this time without the usual images to haunt my dreams. And without the picture of Mogs sitting there pleading with me, his blood gushing, an image that would, without doubt, be tormenting my sleep in the days and years to come. If I lived that long.

  I woke to the smell of frying rashers. I was ravenous. I’d not eaten since … well, since the fan had been peppered with shite the evening before. I’d never gotten to Phelan’s for that battered sausage. I felt like cutting my tongue out for even thinking about my stomach after what had happened.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Doc O’Reilly said holding a sizzling frying pan.

  He went back to the alcove where the kitchenette was. I watched him slice a tomato and put the two halves into the pan.

  “I thought you might want a bit of comfort food, after … you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I put on some black pudding and all.”

  I didn’t reply. Cutting down on the black pudding didn’t seem important to me, or him, then.

  Doc pointed to the other side of the living area. “There's a couple of bits of clothing on the armchair. You know it’s funny, Mickey. Your father came to me one night much like you have. I was a young fella then, no older than thirty. I didn’t ask questions back then either.”

  I looked at the doc. I didn’t know what to say to him.

  “Nothing to do with being shot, or anything,” he continued. “He took a pretty bad beating. I had to reset his nose, patch him up, make sure he didn’t have a concussion.” O’Reilly scooped the contents of the pan onto two plates. “You wouldn't have remembered. You were probably still in nappies.”

  I pulled myself off the settee and got a sudden reminder about what part of my body was injured as pain tore up my leg. I removed the trousers that Doc had cut to ribbons on the left leg. I went to the armchair and changed into the jog pants and sweat shirt Doc had put there.

  “Careful there, Mickey. You’ll need to watch the stitching on the wound. I’ll talk to you after breakfast about changing the dressing.”

  I limped to the kitchenette where O’Reilly had put the plates on the breakfast counter.

  “Get your chops around that,” he said.

  Whatever about my leg, there was nothing wrong with my appetite. I dispensed with the use of a knife and fork and snapped a sausage in half with my two hands. I didn’t bother swallowing before moving onto the rashers and crumbly pieces of black pudding.

  “Easy, Mickey. You’ll give yourself indigestion.”

  I waved him off. Where was the sense in maintaining my humanity after what I’d seen? I thought about Mogs. I'd just left him there, skulked off and left him to die. Then I thought about Grace.

  Dinner at eight. Tonight. Disaster. It's all falling apart!

  “I heard the news this morning on the radio,” O’Reilly said. “About a guy being shot up Blarney Street. The Guards were asking for information about a man leaving the scene. Kind of matched your description.”

  I didn’t respond. The less I involved the doc in things the better. Plausible deniability. A way for the doc to only tell white lies instead of dirty great big black ones should he be questioned by the Guards.

  “I called the hospital this morning. The guy is stable by all accounts, should pull through.”

  I couldn't hide my relief. He'd at least nine lives, the fecker. He'd survived TB, cancer, and a car crash. Now it looked like he could add another badge of honour to his collection.

  O’Reilly went to the fridge for some orange juice and put the kettle on.

  “Did you find out who beat up my father?”

  “No.” He paused for a moment, got a couple of mugs from a cupboard. “But I had an inkling.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, at that time there was one guy you didn’t want to mess with. A guy you didn’t want to be asking too many questions about, like your father would have.”

  The kettle boiled. He took two teabags from an airtight container, put them in the mugs, and poured the water.

  “Can you guess who that might have been?” he asked.

  “Jordan.” The answer came like a reflex.

  “In one. Back at that time he was just a thug who pissed on every street corner to mark his territory. I always imagined the guy would burn brightly for a while before some other nut put a bullet in him. Now look at him.”

  I grunted. I took a mug of tea and sipped. It could have been watered down mud right then and I would still have been refreshed by it. It triggered something in my brain, because I thought about the note that had fallen out of the Billy Budd novel. The one that had Starman written on it. It was a long shot, but I decided to test the doc with it.

  “Does the word Starman mean anything to you? My father would have known what it meant.”

  “Starman?” he said. “I remember a film, was it? With Beau … no Jeff Bridges. But in relation to your father … no, I can’t say it rings a bell.”

  I thought I would never figure out who or what this Starman was. But I wouldn’t stop trying.

  I looked out the window and could see people busily go about their business. The Guards would no doubt be out canvassing the area, might get a tip-off from some Samaritan who'd seen a dodgy-looking bloke with a limp. I might even have left a blood trail behind me.

  “I'm not going to be able to hang around for long more, Doc.”

  “You need to rest that leg. We need to keep an eye on it in case infection sets in.”

  “I'll be grand. Just give me a box of painkillers and some antibiotics and I'll look after myself.”

  Doc sighed and looked at me, probably gauging my lucidity and strength. “OK, Mickey. But you never got the fecking stuff from me. That clear? I don't want to end up suspended from practising. I have it up to my tits with mortgage repayments, so I need the income.”

  I nodded. Doc went and got two cartons of pills. Pain shot up from my leg despite the painkillers I had taken the night before, but I suppressed the grimace. I'd pop some more pills as soon as I got out the door.

  I shook Doc's hand and told him I'd see him in three months for our scheduled follow-up. It's easy to make promises when you don't believe you'll be around to fulfil them. I made my way gingerly down the sta
irs.

  It wasn't far to my house, but I knew there was every chance someone was there waiting. Could be just a Guard with a few questions, or could be someone waiting behind the shower curtain with a garotte. Parking wasn't possible down the narrow side lane off Farren Street where my house was, so I had parked a good bit away. I hoped no one would be watching the car.

  I got to the top of Great William O'Brien Street and looked up to where my car was parked on Gerald Griffin Street. I could see nothing of note. That wasn't to say there wasn't someone lurking in the shadow of a doorway. But with the state my leg was in, I needed wheels.

  I walked as upright as I could and passed Farren Street. I glanced to the side and could see a Garda car parked near my home. I quickened my step until I was out of view. Still I could see no one near the car.

  I got to the car and got in. Because of the way I was parked, perpendicular to the kerb and between two other cars, I half expected a car – Garda or otherwise – to pull a box manoeuvre and stop me in my tracks, but none did. I simply turned the key, pulled out of my parking spot, and drove away.

  As I drove, I thought about what I'd been through over the past week: I'd been beaten, practically kidnapped, and then shot at. I didn't have the time or the energy to feel sorry for myself, though. But there was no question in my mind about it: I needed a gun. And I knew just the guy to get one for me.

  7

  Damn and be Damned

  The Eel was a legend. Jimmy the Eel. The Fixer from Farranree. If you needed a piece, a whore, a quick score, he was your only man. He was well known to the Guards, but so slippery he'd squirm through their grasp every time they had heat on him. At least, that was the legend. The truth is that he had so many dirty cops on his payroll and snitched so much grade-A skinny to clean cops to fund that payroll that all the other Guards just kept well shot of him.

  The last time I'd checked, when investigating the murder of an underage Lithuanian prostitute more than five years ago, the Eel hung out in The Steamship pub on Albert Quay. A popular haunt in the seventies, the Steamship became a graveyard for young men in the mid to late eighties when, after the closures of the Dunlop and Ford factories, they spent their redundancies on drink. Some were still there now, somehow with the aid of medical science, their livers seemingly impervious to the gallons of alcohol they consumed each week. Add to that the influx of East European and West African sailors, and the place was never more than a sneeze away from an all-out brawl.

  It was almost lunchtime. There'd be no hot food served in the Steamship, though. The only lunches were of the liquid variety. I parked in a disabled slot and put my dead Granddad's wheelchair sticker on the windscreen. The parking wardens rarely looked closely enough to see it had expired. Sure, with the wound in my leg I was disabled.

  I shuffled into the pub as naturally as I could. It was busy, even for a Tuesday lunchtime. It seemed alcohol was recession-proof. People had their priorities, I supposed. I looked around for the Eel. No sign of him. I went to the bar and ordered a Jameson. I'd have ordered beer if they had some decent continental stuff, but all they served was the usual weak-tasting piss water – the stuff that goes down the neck the fastest, mere delivery systems for alcohol. Not like the quality stuff, such as Howling Gale, that you had to sip and savour.

  “You seen Jimmy today?” I asked of the barman.

  There was a noticeable scar on the bridge of the guy's nose, another on the hand he used to pour the whiskey. Collateral damage, no doubt, from stepping in to break up a glass fight.

  “There's a lot of Jimmys in this world, boy. A lot that come in here. How the feck would I know what Jimmy you're talking about?”

  Several missing teeth gave his voice a heavy lisp.

  “Well, there's the Jimmy that likes to migrate to the Sargasso Sea, if you catch my drift.”

  The barman gave me a gormless look. Obviously, the meaning had drifted right on by his jug ears. Too much to expect, I suppose, that this Muppet might actually watch the Discovery Channel.

  “The fecking Eel!” I said.

  There was a mixture of revelation and recognition on the barman's ugly mug. He wiped it off his face as fast as he wiped the bar with his filthy rag. “What the fuck are you on, boy, with yer fecking Eel?” He shook his head and moved on to serve another customer.

  I waited for the customer to move away before re-engaging. My old Garda credentials would have been all the leverage I needed in a place that had so many health and safety violations it made a building site look like a playground. But all I had now was the gift of my gab and the threat of my fists. The thing was, I wanted to upgrade those fists to a gun.

  “I just want to talk to him.” I took out a twenty and slapped it on the counter. “I know we're not in New York,” I said, “but here's a tip for your exemplary service and your warm hospitality.”

  The barman went for the note. I grabbed him by the wrist and squeezed hard.

  “The fucking Eel. Where is he?”

  A muscled guy at the end of the counter, West African probably, looked up from his pint, then just as quickly looked back down at it. The barman winced, but kept his gob tightly shut. I gave his wrist another squeeze.

  “He's … oh God … he's …”

  “Over here.” A voice off to the right from behind a bead curtain. Then someone came through the beads like an eel through seaweed. It was Jimmy the fixer. I relinquished my grip. The barman shamelessly took the twenty and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “I wasn't gonna blab, Jimmy. I swear to God.”

  Jimmy said nothing to the barman. His stature said enough. You didn't fuck around with the Eel.

  “Mickey the Mangler,” he said, looking to me. “What an honour this is. Why don't you come into my ...” He gave the barman a throat-slitting look. "Private card room.”

  For a man of about sixty-five, Jimmy had aged well since I last saw him despite the addition of a purple scar on his left cheek. It only made him more distinguished-looking when added to the now entirely grey head of hair. He was wearing a dark brown shirt with white vertical pin stripes. He wore the shirt out over stonewashed black jeans. On his feet were what looked like green snakeskin boat shoes complete with tassels.

  I grabbed my whiskey and followed him into the card room, which was surprisingly plush with a felt-topped table and several leather-bound chairs. It had an executive look that was entirely at odds with the ramshackle nature of the outer bar. A picture of dogs playing poker hung on the back wall. Pictures of Steve McQueen and James Dean adorned the walls also. But there was no doubt in my mind that there was more than just poker being played out in this room. Some pretty uncomfortable stuff, I imagined.

  I sat on the nearest chair when Jimmy beckoned me to. There was a bloodstain on the felt. Jimmy caught me looking at it.

  “This guy thinks he can sneak an ace up his sleeve,” he said, his eyes fixed on the stain. “I'm very black and white when it comes to justice. People in this country think we're civilized, law-abiding. That's a load of shite. You rob a guy with a hammer, they let you out after two weeks so you can go back and rob him with a gun. Now, Saudi Arabia … that's a civilized country. Steal a loaf, you lose a hand. No more stealing. I take a more moderate approach. You steal from me, you lose a finger.”

  He laughed from the corner of his mouth and sat opposite me. He took a pack of John Player Blue from his shirt pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. He offered me one, but I refused. He inhaled deeply and suppressed a cough.

  “You wanna hear a good one, Mickey?” he squeezed out of his throat.

  I shrugged my shoulders, said nothing.

  “What's the definition of a compulsive gambler?”

  I was in no mood for jokes, but played along. “Tell me, Jimmy … what's the definition of a compulsive gambler?”

  A boyish grin lit up his face. “The guy who turns up here with two fingers missing.” He took another long drag, let out a combined cough-laugh. “I shit you not, boy.” He
jabbed the cigarette back and forth towards the bloodstain. “Three fingers missing now. Can you believe that?”

  I'm not sure I did, but it sounded like a good story. A good deterrent. I gave nothing in reply. I'd seen it before. From Jimmy, from many's the street thug and chancer. It was best to let them ramble, to run out of steam. Only when they'd shed themselves of so much bullshit could you get down to the serious business. And there was nothing more serious than my urgent need of a gun.

  Jimmy was still in full flow. “But you wouldn't be impressed by all that now, would you?”

  Another pull on the cigarette. I sipped my whiskey. Jimmy kept talking.

  “You're a fucking superstar amongst us scum. Did you know that? A fucking legend. If there's one thing we hate more than the filth, it's kiddie rapists. And the way you did it, boy … genius. Was it like this?”

  He put his hands into a choke position, writhed them around, throttling thin air, grimacing maniacally.

  This wasn't what I had signed up for. I was there as a customer, not as a circus freak for Jimmy's sick entertainment.

  “Come on, Mickey … show me how you did it. What's the best way to snuff out a nonce? Did you grab a hold of him like this?”

  He widened his fingers so that his hands were spread out like spider crabs, stood up, and this time moved his arms and shoulders up and down vigorously until his entire body was shaking. After a few seconds he sat down again, wheezing, his cigarette broken and extinguished from his exertion. He was grinning like a loon. He breathed deeply. A chance for me to finally get down to brass tacks.

  “I'm in the market for something that offers protection.”

  Jimmy chuckled. “I could offer you a rubber johnny if it's one of those skanks round the corner you're looking for. I could even get you a special discount. Fuck it, for you, for a legend like yourself, I can get you the first hour for free. They love you long time, boy!”

  He opened his mouth wide and lolled his tongue quickly from side to side. It was a hideous sight.

  As good a reason as any to nickname you the Eel.