The Death of an Irish Tinker
Page 23
PETER MCGARR
“And didn’t she—the little woman—splash out the ten quid and leave? I could hardly believe it. Extraordinary. I didn’t know what to say.”
Hannigan shook his head; he sighed; he smiled. “I do. I say, ’twas a great day for the both of us.” Hogan’s Own. It was McGarr’s brand all right, and one of the best whiskeys that Dublin had ever produced—aged in old sherry cask to give it flavor and hue. Aged for a decade at least.
“I’ll have me one, I will. Instanter, as we used to say in Synge Street. A large glass with ice, please.”
When the glass arrived, Hannigan added, “I hope you put the forty quid in your pocket. You know, no register, no government, no tax to pay.”
Again the man said nothing. And wouldn’t to the police, him being a tight-arsed publican in every way.
Ah, well, there were those who could look out for themselves and those who couldn’t get out of their own way, Hannigan quipped silently. Like McGarr and Ward. He began chuckling again. Jaysis, he wished he’d been a bluebottle fly on the wall to watch it. He raised the glass.
Sure, he’d miss the monthly stipend from the Toddler. But sooner or later he’d make an arrangement with whoever filled the little bastard’s spats. And he’d again have the few hundred-odd quid tax-free to make life enjoyable. “Will you have one yehrself?” he asked, knowing that too was impossible, given the man.
Who only glanced at him.
“Then I make a toast to meself, I do. To Peter effing McGarr, God bless him, and to me mither’s uncle Bill, God bless him wherever he is. And we suspect the worst!” Hannigan drank off a goodly swallow from the large glass, thinking how good it tasted like that.
Which was free. He’d have a snootful, he would. Get fookin’ locked and laugh his arse off at them two—McGarr and Ward—and all the other gobshites who toddled around like priests with scarcely enough in their pockets for a decent session.
Until Hannigan turned to make use of the toilet, and the room began spinning. Christ, have I had that much? He managed only two steps before he found himself suddenly on the floor looking up, and two people—no, four—no a crowd of faces staring down. He couldn’t talk; he couldn’t move; he couldn’t even blink. Or, now, breathe.
“And there Hannigan had called it Montezuma’s revenge,” Sergeant Tom Lyons said to McGarr over the phone the next day.
“After the bloody Aztec king who conducted all the human sacrifices?”
“Aye, but didn’t Hannigan have the wrong country altogether?”
“Though the right type of man.”
Lyons waited.
“Montezuma being an earlier class of Toddler.”
EPILOGUE
AS THE DAYS of Ward’s recovery passed and he grew stronger, he became accustomed not merely to the rhythm of living in the comfortable digs at the back of Leah Sigal’s antiques and jewelry shop. He found himself enjoying and needing the daily contact with his son. And, disturbingly, Leah herself.
First, there was the ritual of dinner that the mother of his only child, who was an excellent cook, served in the solarium, a glass-enclosed mini-greenhouse that looked out upon the narrow valley of the River Poddle with a fine view of central Dublin. But more, it was how much Lugh, their son, seemed to appreciate these events in his life, having been deprived of their mutual company for his first fourteen years.
Lugh was always on time for dinner, no matter how distant he’d gone for sports or some other activity after school. Often he’d even have his lessons done so that the three of them could watch the telly together or play a board game (at his suggestion) or just sit in the big fan chairs by the windows and look out over the city and talk.
Lugh always turned the conversation to his father, wanting to hear stories from Ward’s youth or about his family or his experiences in sport or with the squad. All the things he had not heard as a child, Ward quickly realized with no little guilt and sympathy for the boy.
Added to that was the way Leah mediated between her “two men,” as Ward overheard her confiding to a friend on the telephone, making sure all was well between them and their every need was met. With that same slight smile Ward had noticed weeks earlier and the sparkle in her blue eyes. There always seemed to be a fire in the hearth and something baking in the oven.
When Ward finally became mobile and decided that he should at least dress in street clothes for part of the day, he called Bresnahan to ask her to bring some of his togs over. But before she could even answer the telephone message he left, Leah had gone out and bought him “a few things,” including a lounging jacket that was about the most expensive and tasteful thing Ward had ever donned.
In all, he felt as comfortable as he ever had in his life, and he found himself falling into long, deep, delicious, and dreamless recuperative sleeps that he woke from as though reborn.
And none so satisfying as when lying on the couch in the sitting room watching the television late at night after Lugh had gone to bed. He’d only close his eyes for a moment during some advert, and—presto—it was morning.
On one such night he awoke somewhat earlier to discover that he was not alone. For Leah was sleeping beside him and tucked so perfectly into his body that she felt like the warmest, softest pillow. She was wearing some pretty silk kimono that Ward had never seen before.
And either she had raised his left arm and placed it over her, or he had reached for her in his sleep. Because the arm was wrapped over her waist and in the palm of that hand was nested her right breast.
Yet she was sleeping deeply, and Ward dared not move lest he wake her. Because then what? In that position? And because it all felt so…right: how their bodies melded together, who she was, how she felt, and the aroma of some fragrant shampoo in her glossy hair that was touching his nose and lips. And also because he was not sure he wanted to leave her, though he knew he should.
It was as if they were glowing or radiant or—Ward didn’t understand it—producing palpable energy there in the darkness, the only light coming through the transom to the hall. It was as if they were on fire, some slow but steady and substantial burn.
Of course, he thought of Bresnahan, as he often still did. But his thoughts of her, when he felt Leah easing in beside him and he did not stop her, were not positive. Seldom had Bresnahan and he watched television like that, on a couch, since she was rather larger than he, and it was difficult to see past her, if he was on the inside. On the outside Ward didn’t feel completely masculine—with her hugging him—and in all fairness to Ruth, they only infrequently snuggled because after all, they slept together every night. Or had, before he’d been shot.
Because for the near month that Ward had been recuperating at Leah’s (or, rather, his son’s house), his “colleague” had only phoned him, albeit daily, having quipped the first day that she was no “home wrecker” and that “the best scenario undoubtedly is for you to fulfill your familial obligations. But if you love me, you’ll get out of there soon.” Recently, however, her calls had become brusque and dispassionate.
And lacking for a week, when—always an early riser—Ward awoke just before dawn to find a cover drawn over them and Leah—could it be?—naked under his hand. And the feel of her! At once full and womanly and ripe, there was no other word for her. She was at once turgid yet soft, warm yet cool, and—when his hand descended—hot. Turning to him, she kissed him so passionately that Ward felt actually dizzy, and without his realizing how it happened, they were suddenly…engaged. Totally. But for a moment only.
Because out in the hall, their son, having to leave early for school and a sports outing that would take him away for several days, was calling for her.
Pulling away from him and leaving the couch in the darkened room, she stared down at him for a moment, before reaching for the kimono. To let him look at her. Knowing that in spite of her thirty-nine years she was still more than simply desirable. She was voluptuous. Some long seconds passed before she fitted the kimono over her sh
oulders, all the while her eyes locked into his. Knowing, feeling, silently rejoicing, that she now had him in her emotional thrall.
And yet more triumphant when over breakfast, Lugh asked her for a lift into school, “since you’re going that way.” Out to UCD to teach a course in decorative art, as she always did on Wednesday.
“I’m canceling.”
“Are you ill?”
“No, I just think I’ll stay home.” And her china blue eyes met Ward’s with a force and a purpose that were undeniable.
“Hughie,” she went on, “why don’t you go into the sitting room and switch on the telly? There’s that show I told you about.”
Instead Ward went directly to Leah’s shade-darkened bedroom, which was scented with the aroma of her expensive perfume that—could it be?—he loved.
When she found him, she again disrobed slowly where he could see her. “Do you want me?” she asked.
Ward did so much he could barely say yes.
“How much?”
Ward debated only a moment, since what was about to happen was inevitable and beyond his ability to choose otherwise. Why else had he come to her bed, which felt so right, like…home? Finally, he knew from his perhaps too extensive tawdry history, things like this were best done when one was at least committed to the experience, he tried to tell himself. “A lot.”
“Enough to fill me up?”
Ward did not answer. He reached for her hip and drew her toward him.
About the Author
BARTHOLOMEW GILL is the author of fifteen acclaimed Peter McGarr mysteries, among them The Death of an Irish Sinner, The Death of an Irish Lover, and The Death of an Irish Tinker. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Mr. Gill writes as Mark McGarrity for the Newark Star-Ledger. He lives in New Jersey when not in Dublin.
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Acclaim for BARTHOLOMEW GILL
“Gill’s novels are quite a bit more than police procedurals…They are distinguished by the quirky integrity that makes McGarr a vivid individual, by Gill’s ability to render the everyday speech of Dublin as music, and by the passions so keenly felt by his characters on both sides of the law.”
Detroit News
“I haven’t had this much fun since—well, since Sherlock Holmes.”
Los Angeles Times
“Gill gives us a sympathetic, warts-and-all glimpse of Ireland…above the more commonplace novels in the genre.”
Publishers Weekly
“It is easy to see why Bartholomew Gill’s creation has been compared to Simenon’s immortal Maigret and Nicholas Freeling’s unstoppable Inspector Van der Valk. McGarr is as pugnacious as they come.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Peter McGarr Mysteries by
Bartholomew Gill
from Avon Books
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH POLITICIAN
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH SEA WOLF
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH LOVER
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH TINKER
THE DEATH OF A JOYCE SCHOLAR
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH CONSUL
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH SINNER
And in Hardcover
DEATH IN DUBLIN
Copyright
THE DEATH OF AN IRISH TINKER. Copyright © 1997 by Mark McGarrity. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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