Around his feet were three large black refuse bags, two of them crumpled up and empty, the third half full with red and white cartons of West cigarettes.
Kyna went directly up to him and said, in a high Mayfield whine, ‘What’s the craic, boy?’
‘Twenty-five yo-yos for two hundred,’ he told her. ‘Buy four and you can have them for eighty.’
‘So how much are they paying you?’
The boy blinked at her as if he hadn’t understood what she meant. ‘I told you, twenty-five yo-yos the box. How many do you want?’
He held up a carton of two hundred cigarettes. On the side Kyna noticed the warning Rauchen kann tödlich sein. She knew that West were made in Germany, where they cost 54 euros per carton. They weren’t sold in Ireland, but they would have cost 100 euros.
‘I didn’t say I wanted to buy any,’ she told him. ‘I want to know how much you get paid for selling them.’
‘You what?’ the boy retorted. ‘What the feck’s it got to do with you? Do you want any fecking fags or don’t you?’
‘I told you, no, you gom,’ said Kyna, just as aggressively. ‘I’m looking to make some grade for myself and I saw you there and thought, that looks like child’s play. Better than gobbling manky old scummers in the bus station jacks, I’ll tell you.’
The boy glanced left and right. ‘I don’t know, like. I’m not supposed to talk about nothing to nobody, like, do you know what I mean?’
‘Aw, come on,’ said Kyna, leaning against the door frame and batting her eyelashes at him. ‘Don’t tell me they’re not looking for gorgeous-looking girls to flog their fags for them. I bet you I could sell twice as many as you any day. Three times more if I was wearing a really short skirt. Four if I didn’t wear knickers.’
‘Well...’ said the boy. Kyna could read his mind almost as clearly as if his thoughts were running across his forehead as a text message. Bobby Quilty was always looking for young recruits to sell his smuggled cigarettes on the streets, especially if they weren’t already known to the Garda, and Kyna knew from other school-age dealers they had picked up that he would probably drop this boy at least fifty euros for introducing her.
The boy took his mobile phone out of his pocket and tapped in a number. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Ger? It’s Benny. No, no bother, everything’s grand. I reckon another half-hour or so. Listen, there’s a beour here who’s interested in selling fags. Yeah. That’s right, yeah. No. No. She’s well fit, like. Yeah. Okay, then. Right. I will.’
Once he had put his phone down, he said to Kyna, ‘He’s in the Long Valley, sitting at the bar on the left as you walk in. You’ll recognize him easy. He’ll be wearing a white hat with a black band around it and shades and he has a grey ponytail. His name’s Ger.’
‘Okay, thanks a million, Benny,’ said Kyna. She winked at him and lasciviously licked her lips and said, ‘I’ll have to think of some way of repaying you, won’t I?’
The boy’s pimply face flared even redder and he seemed relieved when a young woman came up to them, pushing a buggy with two baby girls in it and a small boy standing precariously on the footrest.
‘Give us two boxes, love, would you?’ she asked him, opening up her purse. ‘No, best make that three.’
Benny rummaged around in his black plastic bag while Kyna walked back to the St Patrick’s Street entrance. The boy who was keeping sketch was still there. He was looking bored and assiduously picking his nose.
‘Digging for gold?’ she asked him.
‘Ah, get away to fuck,’ said the boy, but all the same he took out his finger and flicked his rolled-up gullier across the pavement.
*
Ger was exactly as Benny had described him. When she walked into the Long Valley, the traditional old-style pub at the end of Winthrop Street, she found him perched on one of the barstools like a huge elderly vulture that had dropped directly out of the sky.
He was wearing the white hat that Benny had told her about, although it was grubby and stained. He was also wearing a drooping black jacket with wide shoulders and pockets that were weighed down with loose change and Kyna could only guess what else, as well as raspberry-coloured chinos that were several centimetres too short, so that his bruised white calves were exposed.
Kyna went up to the bar and stood close behind him without saying a word. One of the barmen approached her in his white butcher’s apron and said, ‘Over eighteen, are you, flower?’
Without turning around, Ger said in a deep, whispery voice, ‘You’re all right, Séan, she’s with me.’
‘Oh, no bother at all,’ said the barman. ‘In that case, what’ll it be?’
‘Kopparberg Mixed Fruit, if this gentleman’s treating me,’ said Kyna. She was trying to think what Sheelagh Danehy might consider to be a sophisticated drink to order.
Still without turning around, Ger said, ‘How old are you really?’
‘Nineteen,’ Kyna told him. She doubted that Ger would believe her if she said she was any younger.
*
He shifted around on his stool, so that his chinos made a farting noise on the leather. It was difficult to tell what he looked like facially because of his huge dark glasses, but he had a hooked Fagin nose and deeply lined cheeks and a turned-down mouth, as if he wasn’t prepared to believe anything anyone told him. His chin was covered in sharp white prickles and his breath smelled of stale beer and garlic and something else rancid.
‘What’s your name, then?’ he asked her.
‘Sheelagh. Sheelagh with a “g”.’
‘A “g” like in “slag”, you mean?’
Kyna was hard put to think how the real Sheelagh would have responded to that, but then she decided that the real Sheelagh was probably used to being called names that were a lot worse than ‘slag’ and would have ignored it.
‘My friends call me Sidhe. Or Pixie sometimes.’
‘All right, Sidhe. And why are you so interested in selling fags for us?’
‘It’s only for some spare grade. That’s all I want. I lost my job at Coqbull because they said I wasn’t being respectful to the customers. Like, you know, it’s only a fecking burger bar, what do they expect? Bowing and scraping? I told this one woman that we’d have to charge her for an overnight stay, because if she ate any more we wouldn’t be able to get her out the door. I mean, like, scorpy, or what?’
‘There’s plenty of other work around,’ said Ger.
‘Oh, for sure, especially for a girl who got herself kicked out of school, with no leaving cert? Like washing-up dishes at O’Brien’s, I suppose, or giving the happy-ending massage to stinky old men? I’ve tried both of them, like, and they was both enough to make a maggot gag.’
Ger took a measured sip of his Murphy’s and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You won’t be able to work for us if you don’t learn to keep your bake shut. I’ll tell you that, girl, for nothing.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ said Kyna. ‘I know you’re selling the economy fags. I sold dance biscuits for some feller once and he was so delighted with how quick I sold them and how much profit I made that he wanted me to work for him full-time, and I would have done if he hadn’t gone and got himself killed in a car smash.’
‘What was his name, this feller?’
‘Well, he’s dead now, so I don’t mind telling you, but I would never have done if he was still alive, not until I was dead myself. So I don’t need you telling me to keep my bake shut, thank you very much. His name was Kenny O’Flynn.’
Ger was silent for a moment. Then he patted his left forearm and said, ‘Kenny had a tattoo, right here. Can you remember what it was?’
‘Of course. It was one of them Celtic knots, like, with Níl mícheart dearmad riamh written around it.’ Kyna thought: I certainly should remember. She had interrogated Kenny O’Flynn on three separate occasions after he was arrested for dealing D2PM and Bubble in Cork’s nightclubs and dance venues, and even outside the gates of the Presentation College on the Wester
n Road.
‘So, well, you did know him, then,’ said Ger. ‘In that case, okay, I reckon we might be able to find you a pitch. All we have to do now is see if the Big Feller takes a fancy to you.’
‘Who’s the Big Feller?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough. He’s the one who runs the whole business. So take it from me, you want to stay on his good side, like.’
They spent another twenty minutes in the Long Valley, finishing their drinks. Ger seemed to believe that Kyna was who she claimed to be, but all the same he kept asking her questions about her family, and her home life, and where she had said she was living on Mount Nebo Avenue, and why she had got herself into so much trouble at school. Kyna had been trained in interrogation techniques at Templemore and Katie had always been impressed by her ability to persuade suspects to incriminate themselves. But Kayna had to admit that Ger was adept at setting traps in his questions.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I used to have a regular scoop with some good old pals of mine who lived on Mount Nebo Avenue. We used to go to that boozer on Gurra Avenue, what’s its name?’
‘Top of the Hill Bar,’ said Kyna. ‘I used to go in there when I was only sixteen, hoping they’d serve me a bottle of cider.’
‘Top of the Hill Bar, that’s right,’ said Ger. ‘And what was the name of that baldy barman, the one who always looked at you like he wasn’t looking at you but whoever it was standing next to you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kyna. ‘I don’t remember no baldy barman.’
Ger lifted one finger. ‘You’re right there, girl. My mistake. That was Kevin at The Flying Bottle in Knocka. Swivel, they called him, on account of his eyes. Swivel, that was your man.’
Sixteen
Eventually they left the Long Valley and Ger led Kyna across the road to Pembroke Street, beside the main Post Office, where his mustard-coloured Volvo was parked in a disabled bay. There was no blue disabled card displayed behind his windscreen, but the parking attendant who was checking the cars parked along the street simply turned his back when he saw Ger approaching and slowly walked off in the opposite direction.
‘Get in,’ said Ger, opening up the passenger door. Kyna obediently climbed in and fastened her seat belt. The inside of the Volvo was littered with empty plastic bottles and crumpled copies of the Irish Racing Post, and the ashtray was crammed.
‘We’ll go round and pick up Benny first, then we’ll head off to see the Big Feller,’ Ger told her. ‘I’m presuming you don’t have any other engagements, like.’
‘I need the grade, don’t I?’ said Kyna, turning her head away and staring out of the window with a sulky pout. As they drove up Parnell Place, however, she had to turn her head back and half-shield her face with her hand because Detective Dooley was standing on the corner talking to two gardaí and he would have recognized her immediately. How could she explain why she was driving around the city with one of the biggest scumbags in Cork, dressed like a brasser?
They stopped outside the Savoy Centre and the nose-picking lookout went inside to bring Benny out. Benny dropped his black plastic bags into the Volvo’s boot and then climbed into the back.
‘What’s the story, then, Benny?’ Ger asked him, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it before he drove off.
‘Only two boxes left and they was them Afri Rot fags which nobody wanted.’
‘They’re so fecking thick, some people! You told them that “rot” is Kraut language for “red”?’
‘Well, no, I didn’t. I didn’t know myself, like. I thought it meant they was humming a bit, like, and that was why they was going so cheap.’
‘Jesus, you’d break my melt, you would,’ said Ger. ‘Didn’t I fecking tell you what it meant only this morning when I dropped you off?’
‘Yeah, but I thought you were taking the piss, like, do you know what I mean?’
Ger drove up the steep incline of Summerhill and then east beside the high stone walls of the Middle Glanmire Road. Eventually he turned into cul-de-sac of six large brand new houses. Outside the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, three vehicles were parked – a black Nissan Navara pickup, a shiny red Jaguar XF R and an Audi A3.
Ger parked behind the Jaguar, then climbed out and opened the door for Kyna. ‘Just remember what I said, girl. You need to keep the the Big Feller smiling, all right, so none of your cheek. And if he wants you to do something for him, no matter what, just fecking do it and no getting uppity.’
Kyna gave Ger a contemptuous Gurra look but said nothing. She and Benny followed him between the cars parked in the driveway and up to the mock-Palladian porch. He rang the door chimes and almost immediately the front door was opened by a tall, gaunt woman with her hair pinned up in a messy brown bun. She was wearing a short summer dress that was splashed all over with huge red poppies.
‘Holy Mother of God, Margot,’ said Ger. ‘You look like you got run over by the 208!’
‘Get away, would you?’ the woman snapped back. ‘I bought this down Opera Lane only yesterday, and if you knew what it cost.’
‘Don’t tell me. I’m not in the mood for feeling pity for anybody, not today. Besides, it’ll probably look massive once you’ve washed the blood off.’
The woman took them through the house and into the back garden where Bobby Quilty was pacing up and down on the patio, dressed in a jazzy yellow shirt with palm trees and hula girls on it and a pair of flappy khaki cargo trousers. He was giving somebody a dressing-down on his iPhone, barking at them in his strong Armagh accent. He was wearing red flip-flops and Kyna noticed that his toenails were so long that they curled over the ends of his toes. Perhaps his belly was too big for him to bend over and cut them, she thought, although it was obvious from the size of his house and all the cars parked outside that he could have easily afforded a pedicure.
‘Don’t you be giving me that slabber, wee lad!’ he was shouting. ‘So far as I’m concerned you nuck that money and I want it back in my hand by Monday morning at the latest. You’ll regret it else, so you will, and so will all the family you leave behind you. What do you want it to say on your headstone?’
He wedged his iPhone back into the pocket of his shorts and then looked Kyna up and down and said, ‘’Bout you, Ger? Who’s this? I thought I told you not to fetch any of your slappers back here with you.’ He pronounced ‘with you’ as ‘whichew’, like a hay-fever sneeze.
‘She’s all right, Bobby. Her name’s Sheelagh. She’s looking for a bit of work flogging fags, that’s all.’
Bobby Quilty took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit one with a gold flip-top lighter. He blew out smoke and then he said, ‘You know we don’t pay good money, sweetheart. You sell two hundred fags for twenty-five euros, you get to keep two euros and fifty cents, that’s all. You’re a cracking-looking girl, so you are. There’s plenty of ways you could be making yourself a shiteload more money than that for a whole lot less effort.’
‘I know that, Mister Big Feller,’ said Kyna. ‘I’ve tried them. They gave me the gawks, to be honest with you.’
‘Call me “Bobby” for feck’s sake,’ Bobby Quilty told her. His iPhone beeped and he tugged it out and frowned at it, but when he saw who was calling he stuffed it back into his pocket. Then he looked at Kyna more narrowly, with his cigarette dangling between his lips, one eye closed against the smoke, and it was obvious that he liked what he saw.
‘Ger, Benny,’ he said, ‘why don’t you go and load up some more fags? A pet day like this, the Peace Park’s going to be rammed this dinnertime.’
‘Maybe I should go with them, see how it’s done,’ said Kyna.
‘No, no. You come inside with me, girl. I need to give you a briefing before you go out flogging fags. There’s a whole lot of ins and outs you have to be familiar with, if you follow me.’
Ger made a strange snorting noise as if he were laughing, and shook his head.
‘You all right, there, Ger?’ Bobby Quilty asked him. ‘I’ll see you afte
r, okay?’
‘Okay, Bobby,’ said Ger, laying his hand across Benny’s shoulders and almost pushing him back into the house. Kyna could see them in the hallway talking to Margot and then all three of them disappeared from view.
‘Come on, then, sweetheart, come inside, and I’ll show you the ropes,’ said Bobby Quilty.
‘What’s to learn?’ asked Kyna. ‘All you have to do is sit there and sell fags.’
Bobby Quilty grasped her right elbow like a clamp and steered her in through the patio doors. ‘Oh no, my darling, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. You have to have your regular customers on your phone so that you can tip them the wink when a new shipment of fags has come in, and where and when you’ll be selling them. You’ll get plenty of casual sales of course, but more than half of your stock will be pre-ordered.’
‘But you sell them in shops, too, don’t you?’ said Kyna. ‘Why don’t your regular customers just go to the shops?’
‘Ach, the polls keep busting the fecking shops, that’s the problem. Your shops are an easy target, see, because the polls can fetch in the dogs to sniff out any fags that a shopkeeper might have stashed away in the back or in the ceiling or wherever. Not only that, the shopkeepers are old enough to be hauled up in front of the court. How old did you say you was, sweetheart?’
‘Nineteen,’ said Kyna. ‘Well, nearly nineteen.’
Bobby Quilty propelled her by her elbow along the white-carpeted hallway until they reached the foot of the stairs. There were Jack Vettriano prints hanging all the way up the staircase, couples dancing on a rainy beach, nudes standing in front of mirrors, men in evening wear staring lecherously at women in corsets.
‘Away up with you,’ said Bobby Quilty and gave a thick, phlegmy cough.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, away up the stairs with you.’
‘What for?’
‘Do you want to work for me, or don’t you?’
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