The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  The traffic was stopped again and the sun glared from a windscreen into his eyes. He stood on tiptoe and looked over the cars for the next bus. Nothing. Fucking nothing. To hell with this. He stepped out of the queue. The backs of his legs were tight from all the walking he’d done this morning. His feet seemed to be swelling up even more, pushing at his shoes by his toenails. Maybe he’d nip into a pub, have a quick pint. He put his hand into his pocket, felt the coins. Down there somewhere… The one with the sports bag stepped onto the footpath ahead of him. The handle caught him in the thigh.

  “Watch where you’re bleeding going!”

  “Well, sorry.”

  “So you should be! You fucking iijit.”

  Their eyes met. The other two were looking down at him now. The racquet guy’s brows lowered. He looked him up and down again, sneered and walked on. The bastard could go off and get into his car. A BMW probably, or whatever car these wankers thought was the cool car now. Drive off to the little woman and the 2.3 brats off in Foxrock or somewhere. Sarah. Jonathan. He imagined grabbing the racquet and breaking it across the guy’s face. Let him bleed all over that white shirt and stupid tie: that’d sort the bollicks out. He looked back over his shoulder. The three were all looking at him and grinning.

  “Fuck yiz!” he shouted.

  One of them threw back his head and laughed. He stopped and gave them the finger.

  “Wankers!”

  He didn’t care who was looking at him.

  “Fuck off the lot of you!”

  He walked faster. Why not, he thought, when the idea hit him: Tresses was just around the corner. What was he rushing home for anyway?

  God, he was tired. A twist of dust flew up from a building site into his face. He stopped and rubbed at his eyes. Still rubbing, he went into a shop and bought a Coke. He felt around at the bottom of his pocket for the pill. Nothing. His belly ran cold. He took out all the coins and tried again. This time he found the hole in his pocket. The girl behind the counter was looking at him. He had been cursing out loud, he realized. Christ, only halfway through the day: what else could happen to him?

  He put his back against the wall and felt the rage melt into that sickly, mixed-up feeling he knew so well, that mess of sorrow and comfort and injustice. The first taste of the Coke reminded him of being a kid again, when Dessie and Jer and himself were out on their bikes all day, nicking stuff from Quinn’s shop, setting up wars and forts and ambushes… He filled his mouth with Coke and swallowed it in slow gulps. The fizz stung his gums but it didn’t take away the feeling that something was pulling him down. He couldn’t think straight. He stared across the traffic and caught sight of himself in a shop window opposite. Twenty-three, and he was sliding into nowhere. He thought of the guy with the bag and the racquet: a blade, slicing him right down the side of his face, the blood pouring out of him. See the look on his face then.

  He shifted against the wall and swilled more Coke. The dole, the job training for no jobs, the nixers he’d done hadn’t brought him anywhere in six years. Washing windows. Working off the milk lorries at one o’clock in the morning. Delivering coal. His best chance was to go back to dealing. It’d only be for a temporary thing, of course. He didn’t actually need to. It was only junkies needed to deal so they could use their cut straightaway. He thought about Jer. He hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks. Maybe he’d really gone to London like he said he was going to. All those plans he had, all worked out like he was the top banana. H was thirty per cent on the streets in London, Jer had told him, twice the bang you got here. Foolproof, Jer kept telling him. He swore he could carry enough to pay everything and walk away with five hundred nicker too. As well as a couple of sessions in London, even! The memory of Jer’s laugh came to him. He’d known straightaway that Jer had been high. Jer couldn’t handle it. He, Liam Hickey, could.

  He drained the can and let the fizz tear at the back of his throat. The resentment crept back into his chest. Maybe he wasn’t a goner like Jer, but still he lived at home in a crummy little room with his ma nagging him, with an oul fella who hadn’t brought wages home in ten years. He grasped the Coke can tight and crushed it. There had to be something for him. Mary only worked part-time in this place around the corner.

  What if she wasn’t there now? He elbowed away from the wall and headed down the street toward Tresses.

  Sting, he thought as he pushed the door open. Jases, couldn’t they do better than that? A fat guy with a buzz-cut was sitting in one of the chairs reading a magazine. Two women were getting their hair done. The woman at the counter was trying to fix a bracelet with a nail-file.

  “Howiya there,” she said. “A trim, was it?”

  No sign of Mary. She’d told him not to show up here. She was only in the place a couple of months, part-time.

  “No, thanks. Not today.” Maybe Mary was on a break. “I was, you know, looking for someone who works here.”

  “Oh, who’s that?”

  Screw Sting, he thought. Screw the Amazon rain forest for that matter.

  “Mary, you know?”

  Buzz-cut looked up from the magazine. The receptionist glanced over at him and then back. She was still smiling but her tone had changed.

  “There’s no Mary here.”

  “Mary Mullen? Kind of tall. Always wears a-”

  “Mary doesn’t work here,” said Buzz-cut. Dub accent, he thought, and he had that glazed look in his eyes that was telling him to get the message.

  “Well, she used to, didn’t she. Three weeks ago she was working here.”

  Buzz-cut opened his eyes wide.

  “So?”

  He stared into Buzz-cut’s eyes. Jammy Tierney, the guy who was supposed to be his friend, coming the heavy with him. The tiny hole in his pocket. Going home to be pestered by the Ma again. Knowing he’d be out again after tea looking to score. Mary hadn’t even told him she’d left this kip. Maybe she’d been in a barney with them here.

  “So I came by to talk to her. Can you live with a major crisis like that?”

  Buzz-cut closed the magazine and stood. He looked a damn sight bigger standing.

  “Hit the trail here, brother. She doesn’t work here any more.”

  The wet hair and the shampoo, the hot damp stink of hair being dried became suddenly choking.

  “I was only asking. What’s the big deal? Jesus!”

  Buzz-cut flexed his fingers. He kept his eyes on Buzz-cut’s as he stepped out the door.

  “What’s so strange about asking a question about a friend of mine? All you have to say is, well-Jesus! People these days! Must be the bleeding music turns you into head-cases here.”

  He was out on the footpath before Buzz-cut began to move. Why the hell hadn’t Mary told him? Had it been that long since he’d seen her? He looked at his watch. Was there a phone box around here?

  FOUR

  Don’t have much of an appetite meself either,” said Malone. Bun under his belt, Minogue stirred his coffee and watched his colleague wolf down another sausage roll. The Inspector had picked a table near the door of Bewleys’ restaurant. The late-morning crowd continued to move through the ground-floor section. Many patrons sat slouched, their faces flushed and even slick with the heat. Eyes shone in the clammy gloom. Two men in ponytails and brightly patterned shirts were lining up for coffee. He knew from Peter Flood in the Drug Squad that the taller one was a convicted drug dealer. Both men were elegantly groomed and outfitted. They were enjoying a good laugh. One of them spotted Minogue and his laugh turned to a smile. Minogue saw him elbow his crony and murmur something. The crony began to concentrate on the food he was picking. Some town, thought the Inspector. Bananas we should be growing.

  A waitress began cleaning up the adjoining table. He watched her blow breath up from under her bottom lip at a stray strand of hair over her forehead. Blonde, he saw, and out of a bottle at that. The roots looked black, same as Mary Mullen’s. He sipped more coffee. The image kept soaking in behind his eyes: the killer
astride her, slamming her head on the pavement. Minogue stretched and rubbed hard at his eyes. The image was still with him.

  “Quite the bullock,” Minogue murmured. Malone looked up from his tea.

  “Patricia Fahy’s father, I meant.”

  Minogue stared at the question marks he had scribbled in his notebook. He shifted in his seat and snapped his notebook shut.

  “Well, Fahy won’t get his spake in the next time, Tommy.”

  “Will we try her later on again this afternoon?”

  “Maybe tomorrow instead. People lose it when they get a shock, but still I think that the same Patricia Fahy was being a bit economical with the truth. Not knowing much about where Mary was working or socializing? Doesn’t fit.”

  Malone nodded and squinted at the Inspector.

  “And didn’t know if Mary had a boyfriend? Her own flatmate?”

  “Pull the other one, like,” said Minogue. “It’s got bells on it.”

  “She’s scared, isn’t she?”

  Minogue nodded. Malone finished his tea and looked at his watch.

  “Stop me if I’m being pushy now,” he said. “But aren’t we supposed to be in a rush?”

  Minogue eyed him and sipped at the leftover froth in his coffee.

  “Before the trail goes cold and all that?”

  “I suppose,” said the Inspector. “But we’re moving along well enough. Forensic takes time. We’re getting her father; we’re connecting her to criminal associates. We’ve interviewed the mother. Done a lot of site work, started the secondary search. We’re not working alone, man. The teams are out there already.”

  “Huh,” said Malone. “There must have been someone by that part of the canal the other night.”

  “I hope you’re right. I found a rake of spots along the canal where you’re out of sight of the street. I was able to walk right under the bridge even. The light’s bad.”

  Malone tapped his fingers on the table, bit his lip and nodded several times.

  “Mightn’t even be the site, Tommy. Could’ve brought her there, slipped her out of a car. Even if we find damn-all from the canal, we don’t want to get locked onto assumptions here.”

  Malone rubbed at his nose and glanced at the Inspector. The gesture reminded Minogue of a boxer getting the last word from the trainer as the bell sounded to start the round.

  “What do you reckon yourself? So far, like.”

  Malone began plucking the hairs by his watch-strap.

  “Well, I reckon I don’t want to make an iijit out of myself with guessing, do I.”

  “I’m not trying to get a rise out of you,” said Minogue. “So I’ll tell you what’s been going through my mind. With that bruise in the face, he was probably facing her. I’m going on the assumption for now that he’s not a citeog.”

  “A what?”

  “Left-handed. If he did that, he’s a certain type of person. Strong, of course. More than just a short fuse. I mean, very, very aggressive type of a fella. You go over a distinct barrier as regards behaviour when you hit someone in the face. Especially a woman.”

  Malone rested his cheeks on his fists. “Okay,” he said.

  “You’d be inclined to expect a pattern. A record, if you follow me.”

  Malone’s fists had pushed his cheeks up to his eyelashes. Minogue finished his coffee. He looked into the narrow slits which Malone’s eyes had become.

  “How’d you get into the boxing anyway?”

  “The, er, the brother got me started.” Malone leaned in over the table and frowned up under his eyebrows at Minogue.

  “Listen, on that same matter. Do we have a minute?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Well, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I didn’t know how to sort of bring it up. What she said back in the flat. Patricia Fahy. Thinking she was being set up?”

  Minogue smiled.

  “About your brother? That was a hoot entirely.”

  “Yeah, well. Funny to you, maybe. This has to do with the brother, all right. And the Egans. The brother was mixed up with them.”

  Malone looked down at the fork as though wondering how it had gotten there.

  “They got Terry where he is now,” he muttered. “In the ’Joy, like. He used to do stuff for them.”

  He glanced over at Minogue.

  “Is it going to, you know…?”

  Minogue pushed his cup and saucer toward the middle of the table-top.

  “Why should it?” he said. “You’re here due your own record, not your brother’s.”

  “Another thing. I can take the slagging about being a Dub. The Molly Malone thing and all. Really.”

  Minogue nodded.

  “But I got to tell you I can’t take much stick about the brother.”

  “I’ll, er, pass that on to the appropriate authorities, Tommy.”

  Malone looked down at the cup and saucer which Minogue had marooned on the marble table-top.

  “Terry’s not a bad person. But I’m sick and tired of looking out for him, wondering what he’ll get up to next. He’s just finished eighteen months of a two-year for Break and Enter. He’ll be out any day soon. Terry’s not even much good at it. He did it to get money for drugs. He tells me that’s all over now. Last time I visited, he looks me in the eye: ‘I’m clean.’ Yeah, right, Terry, I say: prove it, man. I can’t afford to believe him. If they find the gene for being a gobshite it’ll have Terry’s name on it.”

  Minogue thought about more coffee.

  “I gave up getting embarrassed about Terry years ago. All I do nowadays is try to stop him dragging anyone down with him. Me younger brother. The Ma.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The Ma? Oh, scrounging money. ‘Just a loan, Ma!’ The Da’s dead three years now. The Da used to give him the bum’s rush. Nearly knocked the head off of him with a piece of pipe one night.”

  Malone picked up a napkin and wiped the corners of his mouth.

  “Didn’t help the Da much, did it? Died of a heart attack on the kitchen floor. I’ve sisters married. They’re doing all right. Then there’s Tony. He’s nineteen. The baby. He’s training for supermarket management. Terry tries, you know, he really does. Then he sees the crowd he used to hang around with…”

  Malone crushed the paper napkin into a ball and rolled it onto the table.

  “Sure what can you tell them and they seeing the likes of the Egans making fortunes out of rackets and drugs and everything? ‘Do the right thing’? ‘Bite the fucking bullet’?”

  He slapped his palm against his forehead.

  “Sorry. The Ma warned me I’d never go anywhere with the mouth on me. The language, it just sort of jumps out.”

  Minogue smiled. Malone sat back and looked around the restaurant.

  “I’ve spent half me life trying to figure out how identical twins ended up like we did. This guff about heredity and environment and everything. I don’t know how Terry lost it and I didn’t. It doesn’t make sense. It fu- Excuse me. It annoys me. We weren’t treated different. We were close. Broke the Da’s heart. I don’t know. I don’t ask meself any more. I just don’t.”

  Malone’s voice had dropped to a murmur.

  “What I mean is that I try not to ask stupid questions any more. The meaning of life and all that crap. You know what I’m saying, like?”

  War’m’sane, thought Minogue. He nodded. The meaning of life? For several moments he was walking along the lane to the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey in his native County Clare, hardly feeling the asphalt under his feet, the hills and sky all about him, his senses flooded with the fragrances of sea and pasture.

  “I sort of came to a funny conclusion a few years back,” he heard Malone saying. He noted Malone’s sardonic smile.

  “Terry’s probably the biggest reason for me being a Guard,” said Malone.

  “So,” said Kilmartin. “A definite factor. Two months.”

  Minogue was still mulling over the news that the autopsy revealed M
ary Mullen had been pregnant. They had almost missed it.

  “Would she have known for sure herself?” asked Kilmartin. “She’d have noticed the visits from the cousin down the country had stopped at least.”

  It took Minogue several moments to sort out the euphemism.

  “Tell me about the flat being done,” said Kilmartin. “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, Jim, and neither do you. Patricia Fahy is missing a bit of money and a ghetto blaster worth a hundred and something quid. But the place was really tossed.”

  “Do we have any idea of what was taken belonging to Mary Mullen?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Kilmartin closed his eyes, groaned and tried to scratch high up on his back.

  “Leave aside the idea that this is burglary number nineteen thousand nine hundred and whatever for Dublin this week,” he said. “What might Mary Mullen have that someone wanted?”

  “Drugs,” said Malone. “Kind of staring us in the face, like.”

  “Attaboy, Molly,” said Kilmartin. “Drugs.” He opened his eyes. “I phoned Mick Hand and had a chat about this Egan mob. They do more than robbing and beating. Hard drugs, soft drugs, protection rackets, fences, car robbery ring. They have certain parts of the city well terrorized. Anything they’re not into, says I. Jail, says he.”

  Kilmartin stopped and gasped: he couldn’t reach a point high up between his shoulder blades.

  “So. Molly. We have to find out what’s behind her, who’s behind her. Mary Mullen. If she was tied into the Egan clan… Ah, bugger, I can’t get at it!”

  Kilmartin grabbed a biro and found the spot.

  “Ahhh… Got caught up in a row with a rival outfit. Maybe she fell foul of the Egans themselves. Ahhh… God, that’s the spot now!”

  “Any sign from the PM yet that she was a user, John?” Minogue asked.