On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland

by Joseph Éamon Cummins

  ‘We can do it here, me and you; I can do it real good, do everything, I can,’ she said. ‘I want to, I like you. You can keep the ten quid too. Here, take it, keep it, go on.’

  He pushed her aside, made for the boy. The boy squirmed.

  ‘Don’t you touch him. Fucker!’ The girl screamed, sobbing fitfully. ‘I’m warning you, don’t put your hands near him.’

  Tony seized the boy’s left arm, then his right. One bore a few feint blotches, the other nothing.

  ‘Only done it a few times, ages ago,’ he said. ‘Tried to get Siobhan off of it. She won’t get off. Said she wants to but she can’t.’

  Tony looked back at the girl; her face re-signalled her availability. As he turned toward her, his thoughts travelled through her. She was Margo, in Newark, coming on to him in Witchell Heights, trying to get off, turned on, fixed up, trading her body for a high, willing to lie, cheat, go down, do it all, just to feel able to dance with Stewie on Saturdays in the square. Margo, dying to live, living to dance, dancing to escape, until a street knife ripped it all away, an act that somehow had led him here, Tony MacNeill, to this lousy tenement in Dublin, to another Margo, another Stewie, someone else’s best friends.

  He shook out of his distraction, forced the boy against the wall. ‘You love her?’ he shouted. ‘Do you love her?’

  The boy cringed, then nodded.

  ‘Look at me! You love her, yes or no? Yes or no?!’

  The boy’s face broke before any words emerged. ‘I do, I love her. I tell her. Plenty times.’

  Tony let him go, turned to the girl. ‘You love him; I can tell. You willing to fight for him?’

  Her mascara-streaked face affirmed, then more vigorously. As she stared at him a look started to form in her, as though she were sensing something in her questioner.

  He gripped them by their jackets, drew them in until the young worn-down faces were breathing into his.

  ‘Know what it’s like to die? Have any fucking idea? No one to love you or hold you. People like you – and me – die every day, and they don’t need to.’

  The boy’s eyes fell away; the girl’s stayed riveted to him.

  ‘You told her you love her,’ he said to the boy. ‘But you’re going to put her in a hole in the ground. Too bad for her, right? The fuck it’s right! You listening? You love her, you save her; you got that? You do everything you have to do. Everything! She worth keeping alive, is she?’

  ‘I told her, I did, to get off it, always tell her. Hundreds of times, I did.’

  ‘Tell her she’s murdering you. Because she is. Tell her you want to stay alive. You want her to stay alive. She needs to hear you say that! Follow me?’

  The boy’s tears spilled through his fingers. The girl held him.

  ‘You,’ Tony said to the girl. ‘A girl I knew once, like you, loved my best friend the way you say you love this guy. What do you want from him? Want him to die for you? Tell him that! Tell him you don’t care; you only care about yourself, your fix. Tell him he doesn’t matter, go on.’

  ‘I won’t let him die. I don’t want to die.’ She wiped her cuff across her cheeks then threw both arms around the boy, kissing sloppily at his mouth. ‘Nothing bad’s going to happen to us, Larry. I won’t let it, I won’t.’

  ‘Hey, save it!’ Tony pulled them to him. ‘Know the place in Hayde Lane, the clinic, at the back of here?’ Both nodded. ‘I want you to go there, right now. Understand? They’ll help you, no cops, no questions, no money; they’ll get you clean. Deal? Right now? Go on!’

  In a fusion of sniffling and hugging, the teenagers started toward the stairs. Tony’s hands seized them, ordered them silent. From downstairs came the squeal of a door, and now male voices inside the house.

  ‘Any other way out?’ he asked.

  There wasn’t, they said, the back stairs were gone, and it would definitely be Fogo and Skinner, no one else was allowed to come up.

  The pull-out board sounded.

  Tony crept forward, crouched low, peeked down through the missing banister rails. Two men, one in a parka, and one tartan-shirted heavyweight. Skinner and Fogo. Coming up. He ushered the teens toward one of the derelict rooms. The boy responded. The girl froze, then fought against moving. He back-pedalled with the boy into cover, urging the girl to hide. Moments before the men turned on the half-landing she scurried out of sight. Skinner and Fogo reached the top. They stopped, waited. From behind the door, ten feet away, Tony watched, the shaking boy crouching below him.

  Shirt sleeves high on his biceps, Fogo’s big shaven head turned left and right, eyes combing like a hunter’s.

  In a burst of noise the girl bustled out onto the landing, obviously flustered but with an air of matter-of-factness. ‘Hi’ya, waiting here for you,’ she said.

  ‘You!’ Fogo said. ‘Y’doing up here? Come to rip me off, yeah?’ He made for her. She backed away.

  ‘No way. Only waiting for you, that’s all. Just to buy stuff.’

  He sneered. His fingers locked onto her throat. She groaned, tugged at his grip from both sides; then he let go and seized her by her hair.

  ‘Big bone’s what she needs.’ Skinner cooed, air-jerking at his groin. ‘Fuck that skinny prick she hangs around with.’

  The girl fought at the fingers embedded in her stringy brown mane. ‘I’m telling you, we were just waiting – ’

  ‘We?!’ Fogo roared, pulling her closer. ‘We, junkie? We who?’

  ‘Nobody. I mean me, I was, me. I was, I want to – ’

  He bumped his forehead into hers. ‘Fucking warned you never come up them steps.’

  ‘Strung the fuck out,’ Skinner said. ‘Gobble, gobble, cold fucking turkey.’

  ‘Hey, Skin, what about this.’ Fogo groped for the end of the girl’s short skirt. She pulled back, held it down. He groped again, forced his hand further and held her, letting out a string of guffaws. ‘Y’had your go, Skin,’ he said. ‘What’s under here’s mine now.’ His tongue licked across the girl’s face. ‘You’re gonna blow me off till I tell you to stop. All fucking day if I tell you to. Right?! Better be fucking right; let’s go.’

  The girl refused to move, defiance filling her face. Fogo dropped down in front of her, clamped his tattooed arms around her thighs, lifted her straight up so that her head and shoulders wavered above him. He carried her to the fractured banister, leaned her out over the void. ‘Y’ready? Wanna go? Wanna get splattered? Wanna? Wanna?’

  Her blood-filled face craned back, small fists locked to the collar of his tartan shirt. He moved closer to the edge, leaned her farther out.

  ‘Think I wouldn’t? What? Fucking would. Ready to get splattered? One, two, y’ready?’

  Tony tried to stop his body shaking, his judgment on a blade edge. He wanted to pounce. But he knew that could cause her to go over. He fought hard to control what came instinctively, a gut screaming to attack. What he was watching was giving him license to strike, and he would, with no holding back.

  Just then the girl cried out, a cry of fear but also of anguish that seemed older than the danger she was in. Then her flushed face said yes, she would do what Fogo wanted. He turned away from the stairwell, nuzzling at her breasts and howling as he carried her down the passageway. Inside the room, still high in his arms, the girl writhed and pushed, tried to force her front back from him. He dropped her onto a cushionless sofa. She curled up, letting out a long, high-pitched wail.

  Outside, jacket discarded, Tony swept quietly from his lair, his bandaged hands blackened with soot from a fire grate, a ritual of his he’d never understood. He ushered the trembling boy to the stairs, commanded his descent. The boy hesitated, then obeyed.

  Tony stretched his lean muscled arms high above his head, winged his shoulders side to side, pushed his physique into resistance. He could walk away if it weren’t for the girl, he told himself. But maybe not. This was his world after all, the arena of scum and brutality, in which he had triumphed, and knew he could now. Because he was smarter, f
aster, because he had hardened in the pit. Because he could read opponents, could see the twitch before the strike. Because he risked more and had less to lose than all the others, even now. Had he ever left this life, the rush of it? Would it ever leave him? He didn’t even know these kids, he thought. But he did know them. Knew them well. No time now. The girl was inside. He was on. Up. Dressed for war. Once more.

  * * *

  He put his ear to the door, loud music, no voices, pushed it open just enough to see in. A huge, broken-down room. Twenty-five feet or more in the distance Fogo and Skinner, their backs to him, stood over a table. He slipped inside. The girl was closer, hunched on the sofa. He signalled her to stay quiet. She jumped up, rushed toward him. The men wheeled around, stared, then sniggered to each other, and they began slowly advancing.

  ‘The clinic,’ Tony said. ‘Larry’s there. Go!’

  ‘The cops, I’ll get the cops, will I, I’ll get – ’

  ‘No! No cops.’

  ‘Run! Run!’ She tugged at him. ‘Mister, c’mon, will you. C’mon!’

  ‘‘Go now,’ he said, his face alight, as though resigned in a holy mission.

  ‘Mister, will you c’mon!’ She pulled at him. ‘Run!’

  His hand shunted her backwards, pushed her out of the room. He kicked the door shut. Drove home the dead bolt. The men halted.

  Balance low and square, feet anchored, Tony MacNeill held still, almost placid. The soot-blackened hands floated up as if in sacred rite, into combat pose. Inside him, his old battle cry resounded, something he’d learned in history: woe to the defeated. No reins now. No cuffs. No prisoners.

  Fogo’s small eyes glared, his face a sneer, showing not a hint of fear.

  ‘Crackhead fucking bollox,’ Skinner called out, a shiver in his voice. ‘The bollox is back, what Fogo?’ From the hearth he grabbed a long iron poker.

  Tony’s right hand swept around to his back, lodged lightly in his belt.

  ‘What he got, Fogo? What?’ Skinner asked. ‘Got a Glock, what?’

  ‘Whoooeeeee! Fucking lucky day.’ Fogo hissed a jet of air through his teeth. ‘Stone deeeeaaahhdddd, Red. Whoooeeeee!’ He held out an upturned hand, accepted Skinner’s poker. ‘Don’t need it. Do the fucker.’

  Skinner’s stare rose up to his partner but received no acknowledgement. ‘Fucking right. You get the fucker that side; I’ll get this side.’ He shuffled to his right, took a half-step forward, then glanced again at his partner. Fogo hadn’t moved, just stood sneering. Skinner retreated.

  ‘Broke into your flat,’ Fogo said. ‘Y’can kill burglars. Burst the fucker!’

  ‘He got a gun, Fogo, a Glock what? Why’s he looking at us like that, and them karate gloves? Fucking escaped maniac. Should be fucking locked up, what?’

  ‘Do it!’ Fogo commanded.

  Skinner recoiled, white-faced, his hairless head dripping sweat. He slid another half-glance at Fogo. Then his shoulders jinked; he jutted out his chin, bared his teeth. And with a street roar he sprang into attack.

  Tony’s first strike, a long, poking left to the mouth, was meant only to set up his second. It did. In a cloud of soot a right cross thudded into Skinner’s face. Sank him with a crash. Seconds passed before the whining began. Skinner came to, floundered about the floor, struggled up, face bloody, and tumbled out of the room.

  Fogo’s features contorted; he stared.

  Tony waited, ready, his gaze fixed to his foe. In this time-slowed standoff he weighed what might happen. The teens were gone, safe at least from the devastation to come. He was giving away maybe sixty pounds, four stones in the way he once counted weight. That wouldn’t matter, he told himself. The burn in him counted for more; on the street it had always been his edge. The spring was coiled now, irretrievably, set to unleash. Just like Newark all those years ago. And again now, here, because he wanted it. Because that’s who he was, who he had to be one last time: Anto MacNeill, immigrant, Irish, not to be fucked with. After this he’d complete his mission, the new one, the one he’d come back to the city for, Aidan Harper. Cyril, as he now called himself. What he had to do there, he could do, he felt certain, extreme as it was. First, he’d bury this big scumbag psychopath. Like Yablonski, like Rip Wundt, like all the others. He’d fight without pity, be as good as he’d ever been: alert, fast, powerful, merciless. Unbeatable. For the boy and junkie girl. For Margo and Stewie. For Lenny Quin and what he had to do next. That’s why he’d get through this, be okay.

  Then both faces took on colder convictions, like gladiators at the gate readying for inescapable war.

  He’d been watching for a flicker, a tinge, a twist. And now it came. Fogo’s eyebrows narrowed. Then like a man possessed, he attacked, upturning the big wooden table between them. Tony backed away, out of reach of the first sledgehammer blow; he stayed low, moving, gauging his range, figuring the next strike.

  This one he saw even earlier, a wide roundhouse punch ripping through the air. He ducked easily under it, spun left, and an instant before Fogo’s bulk rebalanced, Tony’s boot smacked like a hammer into his opponent’s kneecap. Fogo’s mouth broke open, he let out a chilling yell as his massive shoulders bent forward. But he stayed on his feet.

  ‘Tear your fucking heart out!’ he said, setting for another attack.

  But this time, Tony exploded toward him, kicked for the groin. Missed. A fraction short. Fogo’s fist thudded into him, knocked him across the upturned table, breaking off two of its legs. He found his feet quickly, but another blow pounded into his forehead. He was down again, head spinning, almost out. He compelled his eyes to stay open, his head to stay clear. Now Fogo’s hobnail boot was coming for his face. He spun away. The boot caught his shoulder, though by then had lost most of its power. But he was still on the ground, Fogo grunting and swearing, stumbling forward. He scurried to the side, on his back, kicking up, watching, anticipating, too dazed to stand, become an easy target. Another stomp missed his groin but drove hard into his damaged thigh, sent him into near-delirium.

  Fogo, red-faced and sweating, steadied his limping mass as he closed in from the opposite side. He stopped, yanked upward on his shirt, drawing it over his head. Tony shot across the floor feet first. Like a pliers, his legs trapped Fogo’s ankles, toppled him backwards into the hearth, body and bones cracking against marble and a scuttle full of black coal.

  Tony jiggled his neck and head, tried to rise. Get up, his mind ordered; get off the ground! Blood on the floor caused him to lose his footing, but he was back on his feet, holding on. His hand went to his thigh, bleeding heavily, down past his calf. And now he was down again, face against grimy floorboards, dropped by something he didn’t see or feel. He’d been here before, he reminded himself, down but still functioning, strong, senses okay. He back-pedalled along the ground as a ranting Fogo came for him. His dodging and forearm swipes fended off the stabbing boots. As the attack slackened, he lashed out with his good leg, striking his almost breathless foe repeatedly.

  He could feel the strength in his body again, better coordination, though the ringing in his ears had muffled his hearing. He knew he’d been fighting on instinct, for how long he couldn’t tell, but no question now he was fighting for his life. He needed to believe, needed to keep trusting his gut, get to his feet, see if his leg would bear his weight.

  Just then the long, black poker appeared in his vision, above him, in Fogo’s hands. His body jerked into a roll an instant before the poker smashed into the floor, inches from his head. Then once again it came, as a lance toward his throat. His wrapped hands deflected the weapon and grabbed it. Fogo yanked hard. Tony let go, sent the sweat-drenched man tumbling back.

  On his feet now, he went quickly after his would-be killer. Fogo thudded to a stop against a peeling wall. At that point, Tony was already in the air, powered by one good leg, a flying kick with his weight behind it. His boot cracked against the same knee as earlier. Fogo’s roar reverberated through the tenement as spit spilled from his lips. In that moment he pr
esented an undefended target. Tony’s left fist drove with all that was in his shoulders and hips. It pounded into Fogo’s jaw, mangled his face into distortion and demonic rage.

  ‘Fucking pig; dead fucking pig,’ he lisped. ‘I’ll smash your fucking skull in.’

  Tony backtracked, conserving strength for the move he hoped would end it. Fogo, faltering badly now, fired blow after futile blow at a harder-to-hit target. Then an opening came. Tony flashed forward, hands blazing, one, two, three, four straight jabs to the head. Fogo squirmed but barrelled forward again through the wreckage, bracing against whatever support was closest. Tony veered into clearer space. And stopped. He dropped to his knees. Ready for what he knew would come. And it came. He locked both hands onto Fogo’s face-bound boot, wrung the foot viciously against the ankle joint, made the man squeal, then snapped it again and pushed him backwards. Fogo’s massive body slammed to the floor, smashing the remains of the table.

  Tony’s hand reached again to his bleeding thigh. His jeans were now a bloody mess, blood squelching in his boot. But Fogo was up, somehow, almost on top of him again, swinging blows. Tony evaded each of them, bobbing one side then the other, staying behind long left strikes that snapped Fogo’s head back when they landed. Then he attacked, feinted a left, threw a powerful right cross that missed and crashed him into Fogo, sending them both toward the back wall where they came to a stop, still on their feet. Tony’s head shot forward like a demolition ball, cracked into skull bone, sucked a howl out of Fogo. As if in reflex, Fogo’s head rebounded into Tony’s. Both men sank to the floor, unconscious.

  Sometime later the pain in his ribcage tortured him awake. He glimpsed a figure and a weapon set to strike, tried to shimmy out of its path but found it impossible to move. The shiny black bat cracked the linoleum beside him. Meant to kill, he knew. And knew it would have. But his body was not obeying. Then up again rose the bat in Fogo’s hands. Tony managed a twist, all his pain threshold would allow. The bat followed him, swung down, glanced his left shoulder. Carried aside by his own leverage, Fogo straightened up, headed back toward his prey. Tony was back on his feet, stumbling over the remnants of the table. He tried to find the willpower, tried to move farther away. His legs would do no more. He dropped. Fogo towered over him, raised the bat as though for a beheading, lowered it down between his shoulder blades, and re-set his stance. The bat launched, swept up over his head.