Except now it was all fucked up.
O’Hanlon was up and walking around. Cola was no more. And if that wasn’t enough shit to clog up the sewer, Vincent was dripping blood all over his brand-new trousers.
‘Ain’t a show I’d buy a ticket for, bro‚’ he said to himself.
The lighter popped.
Vincent picked it out, pressed it to the tip of his cigarette and took a series of short puffs until the tobacco burst into a bright orange glow.
When the lights changed he jammed his foot to the floor again and looked in the mirror to see if there was any tyre-smoke as he pulled away, but there wasn’t.
‘Car can’t even pull a goddamn wheel-spin‚ man. Cola got something right: this ride is a biscuit tin on wheels.’
Vincent hadn’t travelled much further along the road when he came to a stop in a long queue of traffic waiting to turn right onto McFarlane Bridge. An early Easter rush of commuters heading for Highway Twenty, travelling north out of town. Now that he was on his own he figured he might as well go home and get cleaned up; maybe keep an eye on the news channels to make sure he wasn’t one of the headlines.
He checked he had enough gas for the journey then took another deep drag on the cigarette: the last thing he wanted to do was have to stop at a gas station in the condition he was in.
Suddenly a thought struck him. Shit. He was going to have to stop anyway.
Vincent scanned the street ahead and a few seconds later pulled the Fleetwood over to the kerb and got out of the car. The sidewalk was busy, but despite the fact he was covered in blood, no one seemed to be paying him much attention.
He fumbled in his pocket for some coins and made his way over to a bank of call boxes sitting adjacent to a well-stocked news-stand. Vincent lifted one of the receivers and thumbed in a number.
It was answered straight away.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yo. It’s Vincent.’
‘Vincent who?’
‘Vincent Lee Croll.’
‘Who?’
‘Cola Conrado’s partner.’
‘What you want? You finished already?’
‘Yeah. All taken care of.’
‘Then why the fuck are you ringing here?’
‘Cola asked me to call see where he’s supposed to pick up the money. We’s still in Tuscaloosa, but we could swing by whenever’s convenient.’
There was a silence at the other end of the phone.
‘What d’you mean where’s he pick up the money? We already paid half to the little cokehead, prick. You tell the drugged-up little asshole he’s losing his fucking mind. Put him on.’
‘He’s not with me right now, he asked me to call and check on his behalf,’ said Vincent.
‘Well tell him on my “behalf”, he does any more “shit” he’s gonna change from an Italian into a fuckin Columbian.’
Vincent heard people on the other end of the phone laughing in the background.
‘If he’s holding out on you‚ Vincent: that’s your problem. We paid him three thou, and that’s all he’s getting till we confirm for ourselves the job’s done. He knows the routine. One other thing‚ Vincent.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck off.’
The line went dead.
Vincent slammed the phone back on its lever.
Three thousand?
Six thousand altogether!
Cola had told Vincent two thousand in total.
When he’d asked the lying little asshole why it was such a small amount Cola started spinning Vincent all sorts of shit about the economy and how things were so bad it had even affected the price of whacking: told Vincent it was better to be working than sitting round playing with your dick all day.
‘Half of something’s better than half of nothing,’ he’d said with that big thin-lipped grin that made Vincent want to smack him in the mouth.
‘Yeah, and half of six thousand’s a lot better than half of two, you little fucking dick-squirt,’ said Vincent out loud. A woman pushing a pram past him on the sidewalk gave him a look.
Vincent scowled back at her then hobbled painfully over to the car and clambered back in.
He pulled out into the stream of traffic and joined the queue again for Highway Twenty.
Cola was on his way to the morgue and Vincent had an idea where the little prick kept his cash. The more he mulled the situation over the better it looked. Vincent remembered a conversation he’d had with Cola when the two of them were stoned. Cola said he gave all his cash to his mom. Told Vincent it was perfect cause no one would ever think to look over at his mom’s place, she being so old and frail and all. Said she was the only person on this earth he trusted. The deal was she kept it hidden somewhere even Cola didn’t know: so he wouldn’t go blow it all on drugs. Couple of times he’d flipped out on her when he was high: threatened her with all sorts, but she still wouldn’t let on where the money was kept. That’s why she’d stayed loyal, hadn’t given up on her son, she knew that even in his worst, coke-fuelled rages he’d never lay a hand on her.
But Vincent was different.
He didn’t give a shit about the old bitch: it wasn’t his mom.
He smiled to himself. A plan was beginning to come together in his head. Vincent checked his gun: trying to remember how many shots he’d fired at O’Hanlon in the alleyway. He was using his fingers to count and steering at the same time.
One, two, three . . . so he should have seven left. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to waste any of them on Mrs Conrado but if he had to, seven should be more than enough.
First thing he’d do when he got to her house was get cleaned up – that would save him having to go home. He could borrow some of Cola’s clothes, maybe even lie low there for a few days. Act all dumb about where Cola might be. Make up some story about Cola telling him to wait there for him: make sure he remembered to unplug the television just in case the old bitch watched the news. It’d give him a chance to find out where the money was kept. Might even be a bonus in it for him on account of the extra running round he’d had to do. No point leaving any of it for the old lady. What’d she need money for at her age?
Once he had the cash he’d head back down to Cottondale and finish off the O’Hanlon guy, then go pick up another three thousand from De Garza’s boys. All he had to do was remember where he’d put the piece of paper with O’Hanlon’s address. Then he’d go do the job right. Whack him in his own home, the way it should have been done in the first place. He’d finish off Finn O’Hanlon: keep the money for himself, all six thousand of it. Zippity-fucking-do-dah.
Trouble was if O’Hanlon went on the run – which was the most likely scenario – that part of the plan would be ‘my-oh-my, not such a wonderful day’. Also, if word got back to Hernando De Garza that the job hadn’t been finished properly then Vincent’d be in a whole lot of shit: he’d be better off whacking himself.
‘Pheeew! There’s a lot to consider, man,’ mumbled Vincent as he headed up the ramp onto Highway Twenty.
As the traffic thinned out he started to pick up speed.
Maybe he wouldn’t hang around too long at Cola’s mom’s. Probably best just shoot her straight off, find the money by himself‚ then drive back to Cottondale as quickly as possible before O’Hanlon took off.
Vincent nodded to himself: plan was sounding good. What did he need that sly little fucker Cola for anyway?
He’d have proved to De Garza he was capable of handling jobs on his own. He could tell the greasy Mexican fucker that from now on Vincent Lee Croll would be taking over Cola’s workload. He’d be all set up.
‘Yeah man.’
He reached over to wind the side window down before remembering it was jammed closed. The heat was unbearable and the smell of stale blood and sweat was starting to make him nauseous. He needed to get some air.
Vincent picked the gun off the passenger seat, screwed his eyes tight and pulled the trigger. The passenger window made a dull pop and filled the road
behind him with thousands of tiny fragments of dancing glass.
It didn’t feel any cooler.
Only six bullets now: that should still be enough.
He squeezed the trigger again.
Five bullets.
A hole the size of a cupcake appeared in the windscreen.
The rest of the screen had shattered, but it was still in one piece. The problem now: Vincent couldn’t see a goddamn thing.
He raised his leg and kicked out, but nothing happened.
It took several attempts before the windscreen finally crashed onto the bonnet then slid onto the road and flopped haphazardly into the scrub.
It was noisy with the windscreen gone, but at least there was some airflow now and he could see where he was going again.
The faster he went the cooler the air felt on his clammy skin.
He wouldn’t swear on the Bible, but he was sure he was starting to feel a bit better.
‘Now we getting somewhere.’
Seconds later the Fleetwood veered across all three carriages of the highway and hit the central reservation at over a hundred miles an hour.
Vincent didn’t feel the impact.
He wasn’t aware of the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin, or the tyres bursting, or the car flipping onto its roof. He wasn’t aware that when the car eventually came to a rest several hundred feet along the highway it was struck head-on by another vehicle, and that vehicle was struck by another, and it in turn by yet another.
*
Vincent was upside down; his head at a right angle to the rest of his body and his face caked with blood and dirt.
His eyes opened a slit.
‘Now we getting somewhere,’ he mumbled.
Chapter 6
Belfast, Northern Ireland‚ Holy Tuesday
Chief Inspector Frank Thompson stood beside his desk, staring out of the window at the dank, overcast Belfast sky. Even on the rare occasions when the weather did clear there was no colour in the urban skyscape for the sun to illuminate: the most it could achieve was more shadows.
It had finally stopped raining: how long for was anybody’s guess.
He’d just poured a cup of freshly brewed coffee and was contemplating having another cigarette: his third so far that morning.
Frank had given up smoking.
His dark-brown hair was longer than the regulations permitted, but as everyone on the front line in Northern Ireland knew, anything that marked you out as a member of the security forces marked you out as a target: that included the shine on your shoes, the crease in your trousers as well as the length of your hair and a hundred other nuances that had to be considered every day of your life if you wanted to survive. This attention to detail turned even the simplest of chores into a stressful endeavour.
Frank blew a circle in the thin film of fingerprint dust on top of the battleship-grey filing cabinet to his right, then placed his cup in the centre.
Frank had joined the Met in London as a cadet. He’d worked his way up through the ranks and was considered to be a good cop. He was a grafter: not one of the college boys who appeared on the scene every now and then with a firm grasp of the regulations and a head full of theory, but no common sense. Frank had gained his knowledge on the ground.
He’d made chief inspector before he was forty and was now – at the age of fifty-two – head of the intelligence-gathering unit in Northern Ireland known as Special Branch.
He had been groomed for the job in London and had made several trips to Northern Ireland over the years until one day he got the phone call offering him the post.
There was a lot to take into account before accepting the job. His wife and family were well established in their North London home. He had a good team around him that it had taken years of careful planning and meticulous vetting to put together: none of them would be coming with him. It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end his wife and his team told him to go – it was too good an opportunity to miss.
For the most part Frank enjoyed his job. But he’d had a lot of shitty times over the course of his career, and today was the pointy bit at the top of the steaming pile, as far as he was concerned.
Detective Inspector John Holden pushed through the door: hair matted to his forehead, a dripping wet coat flopped over his arm. Unusually for him, he was in uniform.
‘Why do the big stories always break when it’s pissing it down?’ he said, loosening his tie. ‘We should do press conferences indoors, like civilised people. Those photographers took pictures of everything but my arsehole,’ he continued. ‘When I left this morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I tell you, I’ve been rained on, hailed on, snowed on – it did everything but shit on me out there, it’s unbelievable.’
‘What did you tell them?’ asked Frank, still staring out of the window.
‘I said you’d be making a full statement on the six o’clock news and left it at that. I think it’s pretty obvious we don’t know what the hell is going on. The press are better informed than we are.’
John walked over to Frank’s desk and was about to place a file on it when he stopped.
‘Is this still a crime scene?’
‘No, you’re fine, but don’t touch the filing cabinet, they haven’t finished with it yet,’ answered Frank.
John nodded.
‘Smells like the bastards were smoking in here. Can you smell it? Disgusting.’
‘That was me,’ replied Frank flatly.
‘Thought you’d given up?’
‘That was when I was worried about dying of cancer. Right now . . .’
Frank didn’t finish the sentence.
‘Right,’ said John, not sure where to take it next. He’d never seen Frank in such a foul mood.
He tried to change the subject. ‘Gerry Clarke from Counter Surveillance called up to say the sweep of the office was clear: the bastards didn’t leave any listening devices behind so we’re okay to go about our business. They’ve scanned everywhere except the toilets. I said to him, the IRA is not going to get much information out of there unless their microphones can pick up smells. Which reminds me.’ John waved the file he was holding. ‘The security guard that let the buggers in: this is his statement. If you want a laugh have a read. It stinks to high heaven. He’s already got a claim in. Says he’s too frightened to return to work, so he’s been signed off on full pay. They must have beaten him with a bag of cotton wool; there isn’t one mark on his entire body. The word “collusion” is floating above his head in big, bright dayglo letters. I’ve got Sheena doing a background on him. Supposed to have been vetted before he started working here, but the security for this place is subcontracted out to a private firm. Can you believe that? Nobody even checks their bloody paperwork. Bet you a ten-spot there are some skeletons in his cupboard wearing black balaclavas and carrying Armalites.’
John paused for a second and stared over at Frank’s coffee cup sitting in the circle of dust on the filing cabinet. ‘I’m hoping the filing cabinet’s not the only thing they’ve checked for prints?’
‘Probably the only thing they would have touched,’ replied Frank‚ retrieving his cup. ‘The security guard let them through all the pass doors and into this room. They knew exactly where the list was kept. They weren’t here for anything else.’
‘How did they know it was here? There can’t be that many people who even know it exists, let alone where it’s kept. D’you think someone inside this unit’s tipped them off?’ asked John.
‘It’s got nothing to do with anyone in this unit, John. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” There’s a bigger game in play: we just need someone to give us a peek at the rulebook.’
The phone on Frank’s desk started ringing. He put a cigarette in his mouth, flicked his Zippo and picked up the receiver.
‘Special Branch.’
The voice at the other end sounded calm: self-assured.
‘Frank Thompson?’
‘Speaking,’ replied F
rank as he eased himself into his chair.
‘Robert Clancy, MI5.’
Frank covered the mouthpiece and indicated with a nod of the head for John to leave. ‘I need to take this, John.’
‘I hear those nasty terrorists have broken into your office and made off with a dirty-laundry list,’ continued Clancy.
Frank interrupted him. ‘We don’t know for sure who it was yet . . .’
‘We do know for sure, Frank,’ said Clancy, talking over him. ‘This is a “for your information” call to say, don’t lose too much sleep over the situation. No need to look too closely into this one, and no arrests without calling us first, d’you understand? As far as the press are concerned, you can make as much noise as you like – “official inquiries”, “thorough investigations”, all that sort of nonsense – but keep the detail vague. Button up the sou’wester and ride the choppy seas, Frank, in a few days they’ll be on to the next big story and those newspapers will be used to wipe their sorry Irish arses.’
‘Thanks for the advice, Robert,’ said Frank, making no attempt to hide the irritation in his voice, ‘but it’s more than just a dirty-laundry list. It’s a list of informers we’ve invested a lot of time nurturing and bringing on, to the point where we get reliable and important information from them. When they start showing up with their heads blown off we’ll need to do a lot more than make reassuring noises to the press.’
‘It’s not your problem, Frank. Ride the storm.’
‘Our entire intelligence-gathering operation has just been flushed down the pan, Robert, so why don’t—’
The line went dead.
As he replaced the receiver back in its cradle a piece of ash fell from Frank’s cigarette, glanced off his tie and landed on his lap. It left behind a powdery grey trail just to the left of the razor-sharp crease.
The trousers had been picked up from the cleaners’ that morning.
Frank took a long drag on what was left of the cigarette and sat for a moment in silence. He let the smoke escape slowly from his mouth and picked up a worn leather notebook from his desk, running his finger down the gold-edged pages until he reached the letter ‘C’. Aside from ‘Chrysaor Sa Runlifu’, the only other thing written on the page was a telephone number.
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