The good life imm-5

by John Brady

  “Well, I can kind of guess… ”

  “The brother’s trying to break down a friend of Eddsy’s. You know Lolly Lenehan?”

  “Sort of.”

  “‘Sort of? Everybody knows Lolly. They put him in a corner, Tommy and the cops. Lolly’s looking at five years. They want Lolly to help them nail Eddsy and the brothers, see? But Lolly’s not saying anything. Lolly’s bought into these speeches that Eddsy’s always giving: loyalty. But Eddsy has this stupid thing, you know. It’s personal with him now. He wants to hit back. Lolly and him were close, right? So I’m starting to get the idea. The car, the booze, the hits… Eddsy’s got a job for me. See? Guess why I got the big parade and all?”

  He shrugged.

  “Ah, you’re too polite, aren’t you? Hey, Jammy! Polite can be a lot of things, man! Don’t take me for a mug, okay? Polite can mean a sneak. Stoolie. It can mean thick, thick ideas you get because you didn’t listen right! You know what I’m saying now?”

  “Yeah, Terry.”

  “Okay. That’s good. It’s important we got off on the right foot. You don’t want to waste time, you know? Time. Hey, do you know how you do time? How you get through? Loyalty. You don’t rat on anyone. You don’t stool. You stay loyal to the man you were before they took you off the street. You don’t hang around with gobshites. You don’t do favours and you don’t ask favours. You don’t ask stupid questions, you don’t tell lies to your mates. You keep your self-respect. Under all conditions. Fella comes at you with a blade, you have to take him on. Whether you want to or not. Doesn’t matter if you end up taking a rap for it either. You just do what you have to do. You might have to kill a man. That’s how it is. There’s no arguing. People will see that about you and they’ll think, ‘There’s a guy, there’s a guy to stick with.’ You with me here?”

  “Yeah, Terry.”

  “So here I am, man. Eddsy knows what I can do. But there’s a price for everything, isn’t there? All this crap Eddsy talks. Loyalty this and loyalty that. Let me tell you this: Eddsy has no loyalty. Did you hear that? None. Fuck-all. Eddsy, Bobby, Martin even-they’re just fucking maniacs.”

  Malone nodded at the van.

  “Surprise, surprise, huh? That’s the price. Right over there. Eddsy tells me to find this Hickey. He wants me to bring him in. That proves my loyalty, see. See how everything comes around again? Now Eddsy’s got something on me. I’m tied in. I get paid up-maybe even take over Lolly’s job. See? Your fucking mate Hickey was my test. My loyalty test.”

  The suspicion came to him now as dread. Maybe Malone wasn’t drunk after all.

  “You’re a sort of decent stupid, Jammy. A soft touch, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, man-Terry.”

  “Cash to your old mate? Christ. You’d think he’d have used it to get well to hell out of here, wouldn’t you? What a gobshite. What a total gobshite.”

  They know, he thought. Malone’s face creased into a lopsided grin.

  “Oh, he really rooked you, Jammy. Didn’t he?”

  He felt suddenly heavy, like in a dream he’d had over and over again when he was a kid. In some strange place, trying to avoid someone, trying to run before they caught him, but his feet wouldn’t move. His mind couldn’t put the bits together. They’d found Leonardo, or he’d found them.

  “Don’t you get it, Jammy?”

  “I… Well…”

  “Ah, you’re thick, Jammy. Thick! But maybe it’s being thick saves your neck now! Funny, isn’t it? Someday I’ll tell you just how close you came. With Eddsy, I mean. Eddsy… Jesus. Goes just fucking bananas… Totally out of it. He’s a sadist, isn’t he?”

  He nodded.

  “He wanted to hack Hickey’s nuts off with a breadknife. What do you think of that?”

  He took a breath and looked down at the path worn into the dry grass.

  “Okay, I’ll tell him you’re speechless. ‘No comment, Eddsy.’ How does that sound?”

  “Jesus, Terry. Why would Eddsy, you know…?”

  “Weird, huh? But that’s life. Listen to me. Things don’t look good for you, do they?”

  “Jesus, man, I don’t know, you know?”

  “Look. You could walk away from this. Or it’s over for you. It’s your choice. Hickey put on a good show before he pulled that stunt-Christ, that little bastard can run! For a minute, he nearly had me believing him. Maybe he could even have Eddsy believing him.”

  He was rooted to the ground now. Something was working its way up his spine toward his neck.

  “So. You wanted to see Hickey, right? He called you. What for? For more jack?”

  “Well, he didn’t say really.”

  “Oh, come on, don’t give me that shite, Jammy! Come on over here then.”

  Malone took a step away and stopped.

  “Ah, I get it. You think I brought some lads here to get you, do you?”

  He didn’t answer. The smell from the canal was all through his head now.

  “Don’t be an even bigger gobshite than you were already, Jammy. Look at it this way: you came out to talk to a guy who would have pissed you down the fucking drain to save his own skin. I could have taken you myself if that was the job.”

  Malone reached under his denim jacket and opened his fist to show an automatic so small that at first he thought it was a cigarette lighter.

  “Yeah, Jammy. It’s all business tonight. The Boys Are Back in Town, you know? Boom-boom! You should have seen the bastard tearing off down the lane when he saw me!”

  Buildings were sinking down toward him. It was like a hard punch, without the pain.

  “What’s the matter, Jammy? Lost your tongue? Come on, man!”

  His legs began to move. He followed Malone up the path to the footpath.

  “Oh, the other lads are long gone now, Jammy. Didn’t want to hang around.”

  Malone was off his rocker because he’d done something terrible.

  “Job’s done, so they go home,” Malone murmured. He turned and leered. “Have a bit of a wash-up before they sit down to their tea.”

  Malone stopped by the van. Already he had a piece of cloth in his hand. He turned the handle to open one side of the door. He looked up and down the street.

  “Just don’t touch anything. Unless you want to take the twenty-year trip. Ha ha.”

  The door squeaked at first. Something had crept into Malone’s voice now.

  “Hurry up! The van’s robbed, so don’t be worrying. I can do without any crowd.”

  The smell struck him as familiar. It was something that belonged with pressure, pain, fear. He held his breath. Malone tapped him in the arm.

  “Take the torch. Quick.”

  The blood looked purple. He held his breath. It was all over the floor and the panels. They’d tied him up. Made a mess of his face. His hair to one side glistened with blood. His chest was rising and falling still. There was a hiss coming from somewhere by his face.

  “He’s alive. About ten percent though. Do you want to check him up close?”

  He shook his head.

  “He’d be a hell of a lot more alive if he hadn’t pulled that stunt, I tell you. Did you ever chase a jackrabbit like him, a guy scared for his life, with a van? I mean to say, what am I going to do, me on me own? Go back to Bobby and tell him I had him, but I lost him? Hickey knew he was a goner. The half of him is still back on a steel door at the end of that lane.”

  He took a step back. The yellow light from the street lamps made everything look sick, diseased. He turned with the bile rising in his throat and saw a hammer and a piece of pipe. The door slammed and Malone was beside him.

  “Come on, man,” he said. “I want to talk to you. Where’s that bike of yours?”

  He couldn’t think. Malone’s hand was on his arm, steering him across the street.

  “You think he’ll live long enough to talk to Eddsy?”

  He swallowed. He didn’t want to get sick.

  “I wonder what he’d tell
Eddsy. What do you think, huh?”

  Tierney shook his head. His stomach was making these weird tics and he couldn’t stop them. He’d heard that Terry the Bull was vicious in the ring, but this was way over the top.

  “Nothing, huh?”

  He looked up and nodded. They had reached the motorbike.

  “Attaboy. Here, nice bike! What would you do? Bring him over to Eddsy while he’s still with us, maybe? Get him to tell Eddsy what he told me?”

  He looked into Malone’s face.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know either. I mean to say, you have to ask yourself: does it all add up? Hey. You’re so quiet. Don’t you want to know what he told me?”

  “Leonardo could say anything, Terry! I mean, no one could believe him, you know?”

  “Bobby could. What do you think? ‘Hey, Eddsy. Leonardo Hickey told me Jammy Tierney had something to do with what happened that night at the canal.’ ‘Really?’ Eddsy says. ‘That’s right. The cops are sniffing around about him, real sly, like.’ ‘Gee, I always thought that Jammy was straight. Why would I want to believe he was involved in that?’ ‘Well, Eddsy, Mary really screwed herself and she knew how you and the family would take what she’d tried to pull. The only place she could turn was Jammy. Yeah, Jammy’d do anything for her.’ You think Eddsy believes in true love?”

  “I don’t know anything about it, man,” he managed to say. “I swear to God.”

  “Yeah? So what are you here for then?”

  “Leonardo sounded totally crazy on the phone, you know? I thought, well… I don’t know. Terry, this is all so weird, man. You don’t know how he can lie and stuff. Really.”

  “Jases, Jammy, maybe you’re all right. It didn’t really add up, what he was saying, did it. Maybe if he wakes up he’ll make more sense, though. Maybe Eddsy’ll understand.”

  “He lies-Leonardo, I mean. All the time! Eddsy knows that, right? You tell him-”

  “I what?” Malone wagged his finger. “Big mistake there, Jammy. No matter how it happened, you know something. Eddsy’ll find out that you gave Leonardo money to split. Yeah, he told me. So that makes you Leonardo’s buddy, doesn’t it? So if Leonardo did the job up there that night, then he would have told somebody. The only mate he had left was you. Jammy Tierney. Didn’t you go around together when yous were young fellas?”

  Tierney found no words. Terry Malone tapped his forehead.

  “Let’s go. There’s a van-load of trouble I have to decide about. So, how about it? ”

  Tierney fell into step beside him.

  “How about what, Terry?”

  Malone threw an arm around his shoulder. He felt the arm tense. Still had the build, the strength. He must have kept up the training in the nick.

  “Look, man, do I have to spell it out for you? Get this: I don’t care who did what.”

  The arm around his shoulder had crept up to his neck.

  “Get with it here, man! It’s your one and only chance. It’ll never come again. Hickey mightn’t make a showing over at Eddsy’s at all. I mean, a lot of things can happen on the way, can’t they? So, does Eddsy or Martin need to listen to all of what Leonardo’s going to be throwing around? I mean, would one of them get just that little bit suspicious? I don’t know. It’s a gamble, isn’t it?”

  “Wait a minute, wait. Terry…”

  Even with the discoloured eye, the mockery was plain on Terry Malone’s face.

  “Wait for what? Here-I’ll spell it out, Jammy. Real slow. Number one: get the fucking money or whatever it is he took off her. Okay. Did you get that? Number two: give it to me. Tonight. No Eddsy, no Bobby. No Martin. No Leonardo. No problem. Number three: shut up. Now and forever. It’s between you and me. You want to know why? I been inside too long, that’s why. You can’t buy time. There’s no price you can pay. Eddsy Egan thinks I’m stupid. Didn’t want to know me inside, but when I get out, they can use me. The movie-star treatment-yeah! But only so’s I can do their dirty work!”

  Tierney looked back at the van, the lights of the offices further down the banks of the canal. The air was very still. There was a strange smell in the air too.

  “And you know what pissed me off the most? It wasn’t the rotting away in the nick even. And it wasn’t Eddsy slapping me on the back the day I get out. It wasn’t even them trying to use me to get at Tommy. No, what really got to me was them thinking they’d fooled me, that I bought into all this loyalty shite. ‘We didn’t forget about you, Terry. We’ll look after you, man.’ They took me for a gobshite!”

  He spat quickly down on the path and laughed.

  “Stuck for words again, Jammy? You don’t look too good there, man.”

  He laughed again.

  “If Eddsy really thought you had tried to put something over on him, you’d be in the back of that van there with Hickey. Loyalty, huh. Eddsy talks about it because he doesn’t have any. Outside of Martin and Bobby, I mean. He’d turn on anyone. But I done my time. I’m not going to shovel any shit for anyone. I’m going to get my own gig going. So you bring whatever you got. Whatever Leonardo left with you.”

  “Terry-”

  Malone let go of his neck and pushed him away.

  “Shut fucking up, Jammy! I’ve fucking had it here, man! What have I been talking about here the last five minutes? Look, she’s dead. Leonardo’s gonna be brown bread. So who cares? The rest, I don’t want to fucking know!”

  He stepped forward again and grasped Tierney’s jacket.

  “So, decide. Now! One hour, max.”

  Tierney shook his head. His arms came out from his side.

  “Terry,” he began but stopped to swallow.

  “End of fucking story, Jammy! You know what I’m talking about. Pal Leonardo either gets to see Eddsy or he doesn’t make it. Look. I’m going to be up in Phoenix Park with this van in an hour. That’s where he was all the time, sleeping rough, did you know? You know the far end of the Park, that lake with the island in it? The woods? One hour. I’m not going to sit on what’s in the van for one minute longer. One hour.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  What if I were to tell you something?” said Kilmartin. Minogue studied his sandwich. “The Dublin crowd are all right.”

  “Am I hearing you right, Jim?”

  The barman put two pints on the counter in front of them.

  “Thanks, Sean,” said Minogue. Kilmartin’s hand was on his arm.

  “No, no, no! Matt! Your money’s no good now. My twist.”

  Minogue caught the barman’s eye.

  “Get the camera, Sean.”

  Kilmartin looked up from the bills he had in his hand.

  “What was that?”

  “Bag of crisps, please, Sean.”

  Kilmartin was maudlin and Minogue didn’t know why. He looked at his watch again.

  “What’s the matter? Am I keeping you from your job or something?”

  “No. You’re all right. Go on.”

  “I’m serious,” said Kilmartin. “What was I saying? Oh, yeah. The Dublin crowd. They’re all right, you know. I mean to say, there’s the perfect example in Kathleen. Always liked Kathleen. Always. The minute I laid…”

  The Chief Inspector paused to take his change from the barman.

  “You’d better finish that sentence, Jim.”

  “What? Oh, yes. Kathleen. The heart of the road. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “I do, I think.”

  “I’m happy that she’s expecting now, you know?”

  Minogue frowned. Kilmartin’s grin was spreading.

  “Expecting Iseult’s fella to get a job! Ah, ha ha ha! Do you get it? Ah, ha ha ha!”

  He punched Minogue in the arm. The Chief Inspector stopped and stared glassily at Minogue when the phone went. For a moment Minogue forgot where he had put it.

  “Yes?” he said after the second trill. “Yes?”

  He studied Kilmartin’s face while he listened.

  “Okay. Yes.”

  He put it back on stand-by.
Kilmartin kept looking at him.

  “I didn’t know you could speak in Morse code there, pal.”

  “Nothing to concern yourself with there.”

  Kilmartin’s gaze was broken by a sizable belch finding its way up through his oesophagus. He bowed slightly, tapped himself on the chest and barked.

  “Ah, by God,” he sighed. “If it’s not one end, it’s the other. Never been the same since that shagging surgeon got his hands on me.”

  He tapped Minogue with the back of his hand.

  “You know you’re gone fifty when things are either drying up or leaking, hah?”

  The barman saved Minogue the need to feign a laugh.

  “Hah, Sean? Sean knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, Sean? Ha ha hah!”

  Kilmartin’s laugh turned to a cough. Minogue caught the barman’s eye.

  “So,” said Kilmartin finally. “What do you think?”

  “I’m betting on rain.”

  “The bloody case, man! Come tomorrow, I’m going to start a rehash. Right from the start. Fresh.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, yourself. Yes. And I’m going to sort out Keane and all the anti-racketeers we have over in shagging Harcourt Square in short order. Enough is enough: the hard tack and the iron discipline now, let me warn you. They can’t be holding us back any more. They say they can produce for us-‘it’s all grist for the mill’-but when do we actually get to sit down and talk hard to any of the Egans?”

  “They’re alibied, Jim. Did you forget that? The surveillance logs.”

  Kilmartin chopped at the counter-top with the side of his hand.

  “Oh, come on there, will you? I mean getting hold of other Egan cronies, putting them to the wall. Those bloody fellas haven’t stayed out of jail for so long by being stupid now! There must be middlemen there between the Egans and selling stuff on the bloody streets, man. Have we been allowed into those files? We have not. Is that how we close cases? It is not. Is it good for morale? It is not. Will I put up with this much longer than dinner-time tomorrow-”

  “You will not.”

  “Bloody right, I won’t. Now you get the idea.”

  Minogue was staring into the mirror behind the counter. Dusk was on the windows behind him now. The customers in Ryan’s seemed to be moving so slowly. Was the yellow tinge to everything his own tiredness? Even the laughter was muted.