The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “It won’t stop, Andy! It’s bad, it’s really bad! You got to help me, man! It’s all over the place.”

  He had to keep the other guy from getting the knife at least. His fingers closed on it at last. The boot came down. It was his own screams he heard. The boot turned and he felt the skin being torn by the cement. The guy was screaming at him now. He twisted and grasped the guy’s leg with his other hand. The boot came up. He tried to roll away. The kick caught him in the head again. He couldn’t take it. He shouted but it wasn’t words now. Another kick. He felt the money under his face now and he grabbed it and flung it into the lane-way. There was a whistling sound all around now, like wind around the house. He wriggled away, drawing his arms up about his head. No kick came. Footfalls next to his ear, the sound of the bills being picked up quickly.

  “Andy! You’ve got to, man!”

  Footsteps again, in a hurry. Was the guy going away? They stopped.

  He rolled around again. The kick seemed to stop everything. Colours, noise, the stink of his own sweaty clothes. His mother’s face when she’d be asleep in front of the telly. The trees in the Park. He was falling now, and there was nothing he could do.

  “Well, you seem to know what you want,” said Kathleen. He eyed her.

  “We’re having a heat wave, Kathleen. And it’s a celebration.”

  “Any excuse.”

  Minogue nodded to the barman. The Minogues were in Gerry Byrne’s pub in Galloping Green. Minogue liked the place a lot less since the management had banished darts from the bar. With the darts had gone the working-class clientele. Bar and lounge alike now routinely housed clutches of men in golf sweaters.

  “You’re taking it very well,” he observed.

  “What choice do I have? I often thought it’d lead to this. Her and Pat. Their arrangement.”

  He pushed his empty glass with his forefinger.

  “We can’t live in the past, Matt. God is good.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. He had expected fireworks, tears, a call to arms. It was dusk when he had rolled into the driveway. He had hurried her out. For a drive, she had asked? At this time of the evening?

  “She’s never had a real job,” he said. “And Pat looks like he’ll stay a student another while.”

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ll tell you one thing about Pat. His decision to be married in a church stands to him. He must have known, and that’s why he insisted. Whatever else he’s done, he’s gone up in my estimation, I can tell you that.”

  The barman let down a fresh pint.

  “She knows how we think anyway,” Kathleen went on. “She can never say that she didn’t. God knows we’ve had enough rows about this and matters like it this last while. Woman’s right to choose and all the rest of it.”

  Minogue took his change and a mouthful of the lager. Who would sleep the least tonight, he wondered: Iseult, Kathleen or himself? What about Pat? He took another gulp.

  “I want to talk to her tomorrow,” she said. “So make sure you phone her early.”

  “Yes, Kathleen.”

  “Now! I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I won’t get dug into her.”

  “I know you won’t.”

  She frowned as she examined some part of his shirt collar. Her voice fell to a murmur.

  “She could never do wrong by you, could she?”

  He looked down at the stain left by the glass.

  “She couldn’t, Kathleen. She could not.”

  He looked up from the counter and met her eyes. They were hard and tired. She blinked and looked away again. She reached in under her cuffs. No hanky. She slid off the stool and made her way to the toilet.

  “Rain, Matt,” said the barman as he filled another pint. “Can you believe anyone these days-is that yours, that bleeping thing?”

  Minogue switched off the pager, unhitched it from his belt and looked at the message. The Squad number. Kathleen passed him as he picked up the phone.

  “Have you a twenty pence piece for this thing?” he asked her.

  The Guard was a lanky recruit with a recent haircut. He was reading the paper when the Inspector walked in. He stood and dropped the paper on the chair behind him.

  “Howiya,” said Minogue. He studied the face on the pillow. One eye was completely closed. Iodine stains all down the same side of his face. The lips were swollen, held together at their corners by dried blood.

  “Is he sleeping or is he-”

  The eyes flickered but only one opened.

  “Ah.” Minogue walked closer. A bandage had been tied under his arm and then across his other shoulder. The bruise seemed to be spreading away from the bandage as he watched. Broken rib or ribs, Minogue guessed. Collar-bone maybe. The one eye was covered in a film but it followed him as he leaned in over the bed.

  “Well. They really did a number on you. Any idea who?”

  The eye stayed on his face but it remained out of focus. Minogue turned to the Guard. The Guard shook his head. Minogue sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m Matt Minogue. An Inspector down at the Murder Squad. We’ve talked before, Liam.”

  He scrutinized the eye for a reaction.

  “You nearly left it too late there, Liam.”

  The eye slid away but the lips moved a little.

  “Who did that to you? The Egans?”

  The eye travelled across the ceiling, lingered on something and drifted off to the far side of the room. Minogue got up again and motioned to the Guard. They stood by the window.

  “Not a word, huh? Well, can he talk? Is his jaw broken or something?”

  “He was talking to the lads who found him. He told them he was okay and to leave him alone. He’d had a row with mates of his but it was okay.”

  The Guard had halitosis. Minogue held his breath.

  “Then he collapsed again?”

  “Yep. Hasn’t said a word since. No ID, no money. Kind of pissed. It was Mooney who thought he’d seen him somewhere before. Mooney used to work out of Crumlin. He’d arrested him a few years back. He remembered the last name so he sent it in on the way here to the hospital. Your mob had the name tagged. Is it the fella you’re looking for?”

  Minogue had to breathe again. He stepped back and turned to the bed.

  “I think so.”

  He let his eyes linger on the man he believed was Leonardo Hickey. The eye was still open, staring at the ceiling.

  “Liam?”

  He could see the effort the man was using not to look over.

  “Liam. You won’t make it a second time. Don’t throw yourself away, man.”

  The eye began its slow tour of the ceiling again. Minogue took another step back toward the bed.

  “They’ll kill you next time, Liam.”

  The eye found Minogue.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  The lips began to move but they didn’t part. Minogue sat on the bed again.

  “Tell me about Mary in the old days, Liam. Before she got mixed up in the life. Before you lost her.”

  The jaw quivered and the eye closed. A tear erupted from the corner of the eyelid. The hand that came up from under the sheet was heavily bandaged.

  “When you were kids, Liam. Before all this trouble. Before all this mess. Tell me about Mary then. The friends you had, Jammy Tierney and them. The things you liked to do.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Minogue rubbed at his eyes again. They were burning. It was just gone nine o’clock. He’d slept four hours last night. He’d be destroyed by the middle of the day. Kathleen was still rummaging in her handbag. He looked down along by Stephen’s Green at the bank of clouds. No mirage. Did they seem so white just because they were high?

  “Yes, I have it,” said Kathleen. She brandished the money-purse. “I thought for a minute I’d left it at home. The head is gone on me.”

  She turned down the rear-view mirror and examined her eyes. She pouted then and turned her head to one side. He yawned.

&
nbsp; “You look smashing.”

  “Not overdressed now?”

  “No. Just right.”

  “About half-ten then? Will that be time enough?”

  “If I can find her by then, I’ll bring her.”

  She opened the door.

  “I’d go around to her place myself, you know, only she might eat the head off me.”

  He nodded and yawned again. She peered at him.

  “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  “A bit. Enough. Don’t buy any of that stuff, do you hear me?”

  “I’m just looking. It’d be good to have an idea of expense, wouldn’t it?”

  He edged back into the traffic and waved as he passed her. Home from the hospital just after one, couldn’t sleep. Malone hadn’t phoned. To hell with the time, he had decided-he needed to know what was going on. Malone had been out late, trying to find the brother. His mind was made up, he had told Minogue. Terry would be better off inside than on the street. He’d gone to bed wide awake at two o’clock, had read for a while but still couldn’t sleep. The odd thing was that he’d hardly thought about Iseult at all. It was some vague, airy feeling in his chest that had kept him awake. He still had a confused memory of sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out through the trees at the dawn.

  Several times as he traversed the Coombe, he found himself still searching for Liam Hickey’s face on men he saw. He was last in for the briefing. He sat next to Kilmartin. Murtagh began detailing the timetables for Jack Mullen.

  “Voh’ Lay-bah’s left us in the lurch again,” Kilmartin whispered. “You and me are going to sit down and have a chat about this. Before this day is out too, pal.”

  “Later, James.”

  “Said he mightn’t be able to make it in until Monday, if you please.”

  Minogue’s turn came next. He found himself answering a query about Alan Kenny with the reply that he had not ruled out arresting Kenny on drug-trafficking charges. Kilmartin pressed him hard on Kenny’s alibis. Minogue didn’t argue: yes, he agreed with Murtagh, Kenny stunk. No, it wasn’t too much of a risk to leave Kenny stew in the open. The surveillance on Kenny since his interview had shown nothing odd yet.

  Presenting the business of Hickey knowing which tape had been stolen hadn’t won Kilmartin over. It wasn’t bulletproof, was it, was his attitude yet.

  “Well, why the hell does this scut Hickey need all day to rest? Says who?”

  “Says the doctor who examined him. A Doctor Monaghan.”

  “How bad of a hiding did he get?”

  “He was up in a heap. Banged around the head, bruising all over. He was kicked unconscious.”

  “Huh. The poor little shite. I don’t think. You don’t think he was faking it?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  Sheehy started into his lists next. In the laconic delivery, Minogue detected a weariness which told him that all the door-to-door officers were just about fed up. Kilmartin told him to get a second interview out of the barman who had put them on to Kenny. Sheehy nodded. Minogue waited until Murtagh began detailing from the photocopies of the final pathology report before nudging Kilmartin.

  “Jim, I need to get away for a couple of hours. Personal.”

  Kilmartin kept reading.

  “Back by dinner-time,” Minogue added.

  “First we have Molly falling by the wayside,” Kilmartin declared. “Is this contagious or something? Or just because it’s Saturday?”

  For a reason that Minogue couldn’t figure out even later as he sped down the quays, shaking his head with anger and embarrassment, he had told Kilmartin about Iseult. He turned onto Capel Street bridge, still squirming at the recollection of Kilmartin’s wink. And Eilis giving him that look as he hurried out red-faced! Essex Street was chock-a-block. Reluctantly he paid a tenner deposit to the attendant at a new car-park on the site of a recently demolished building.

  Iseult needed ten minutes to finish planing a piece of wood for the installation. Minogue studied it and asked no questions. The horns were generic, he decided. He recognized a hoof further back.

  “So you and Ma were just meeting for a cup of coffee anyway,” said Iseult. Minogue yawned.

  “That’s it. So you’ll join us, will you?”

  “And Ma didn’t throw a fit?”

  “Calm, cool and collected. But she’s hurt that you didn’t tell her first, I think.”

  Iseult stopped planing and glanced over. Minogue looked back. She resumed planing.

  “So will you?” he asked again.

  “No lectures, no guilt trips?”

  “I think your mother would like to hug you and hold you, Iseult.”

  She put down the plane and glared at him. He looked at his watch.

  They turned onto Fleet Street. Bewleys was around the corner. He could smell the roasting beans over the diesel smoke, from the buses.

  “I make the decisions,” she said over the noise of the traffic. She kept rubbing her hands with a rag she had brought from the studio. “No preaching, right?”

  “Honour of God, Iseult, it sounds like the United Nations here or something. It’s your mother and father you’re meeting for a cup of coffee.”

  “Well, cranky, isn’t it with you this morning, is it now!”

  He debated telling her that this cup of coffee could cost him upwards of five quid.

  “I didn’t sleep a whole lot last night.”

  “That’s too bad. I had a great sleep. I think the morning thing might be over. Maybe now that everything’s out in the open… Maybe it was just nerves.”

  “Well, you were never short of them.”

  “What?”

  “You always had a nerve.”

  She flicked the rag at him before stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans. Her pace slowed just after they turned onto Westmoreland Street. Minogue looked over at Iseult and then followed her gaze down through the crowd of pedestrians. Kathleen had been waiting outside the restaurant. She had spotted them. There was something about her broad smile and vigorous wave which made Minogue hesitate. At least she didn’t have shopping bags under her arm, he thought, shopping bags full of baby clothes.

  “What the hell kind of a caper is this?” Kilmartin asked. “Still celebrating, are we? Ah no, man. Have to get back. Come on now.”

  The Chief Inspector belched.

  “I mean, as if things weren’t bad enough now with this…”

  Minogue looked over at him.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong! I didn’t mean the good news, oh, no! Grandfather… Ha ha ha! Oops.”

  Minogue eyed his colleague. Kilmartin patted his stomach in an effort to tease out another belch.

  “We have to move with the times now, Matt. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And Kathleen is reconciled, isn’t she? Sure, that’s great! Great entirely, man, great!”

  Reconciled, thought Minogue. He recalled Iseult and Kathleen embracing, crying both, and Bewleys’ clientele looking shyly on.

  “What I actually meant,” said Kilmartin in a voice laden with sarcasm, “was that bastard above in the hospital, Hickey, doing a bunk on us. Looks bad for us, very bad.”

  Minogue shrugged.

  “My God, man, you don’t sound too worried about this!” said Kilmartin.

  “Ah, he’ll turn up. He’s off the list in my book, Jim. The tape thing was pretty solid.”

  “To hell with that! What did he run for, then? I’m going to tear the head off that bloody Guard-”

  “Jim. I’d rather you let me do that. Really. It’s my own fault, a bit of it.”

  “You don’t know how to give people a proper bollocking! You told me he was in dog-rough shape there last night.”

  “He was, Jim-”

  “Well, by Jesus, he was well able to leg it out of the bloody place at eleven o’clock this morning, wasn’t he? There are no less than five cars looking for him. The bastard! And us like iijits, waiting for the go-ahead from a doctor checking on him every half-hour. ‘Sl
eeping,’ my arse!”

  Minogue waited for Kilmartin to subside.

  “You asked me why he ran. He was scared we’d do him for robbing the stuff out of the car and the Egans would reach him in jail.”

  “Huh. Why don’t you just phone them and tell them that you consider his alibi just grand, thank you very much. They’d appreciate that, I bet.”

  “Maybe the two pints wasn’t enough to soften you up.”

  “Ho ho, cowboy! You won’t get in my way when I have to tear strips off Malone. By Jesus! In our hour of need and all that. We all have to leave our personal lives at home now-well, I mean if it’s bad news now, of course. Not your happy event.”

  Kilmartin suddenly sat forward.

  “Here, turn around, will you! This is Dolphins Barn! Injun country, man! Turn around to hell out of this.”

  “We were in the vicinity, Jim. Why not tour around a bit now that we’re here?”

  “The vicinity? You’re in the vicinity of getting us into a heap of trouble.”

  “When we were small,” Minogue began. He was interrupted by another belch from Kilmartin. He held his breath for several seconds until he was sure the smell had wafted by him. He steered the Citroen by rows of flats, shops shuttered save for their doorways, walls alive with graffiti.

  “You were never small,” said Kilmartin. He turned and looked out the back window.

  “My God, man. Did you see what road this is?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The bloody Egans’ place is down the way here, you gom!”