Of wee sweetie mice and men

by Colin Bateman

  'So what did you think of it?'

  'Of what?' he asked, dragging it out deliberately. 'My column.'

  'It was okay. For what it was.'

  'Thanks. What did you do for a living?'

  'Nothing. Nothing much. I was at Queens.'

  'Studying what?'

  'Politics.'

  I snorted. Not a pretty sound, but I'm not a pretty person. 'And you still joined Noraid? Did you miss all of your tutorials?'

  'Starkey, we're all entitled to our views, okay?'

  'No, we're not. You shoot people who don't agree with yours.'

  'We don't. We're a political pressure...'

  'Shite.'

  Sissy caught my eyes in the mirror. 'Are you two having fun back there?'

  'Bags,' said McLiam.

  'We nearly there? If we don't get there soon Marcus may lay claim to articles two and three in my suitcase.'

  Her brows bunched up. 'I don't follow.'

  'Americans,' I said.

  'Americans,' said McLiam, laughing. He put his hand out. I handed him the Diet Coke. He rolled down his window and threw it out.

  After due consideration, I said: 'What the fuck did you do that for?'

  'That was an act of sheer bloody nastiness,' he said.

  'Was it meant to prove a point?'

  'No.'

  'It was meant to show that the Irish Republicans take anything they want, and destroy it, wasn't it?'

  'No, it was meant to show that you've been cradling that bloody carton for two hundred miles and it was starting to annoy me. I did you a favour.'

  'Aye.'

  'Aye.'

  As we hit the first traffic jam of the morning I closed my eyes and thought for a moment of Patricia. Imagined that I was travelling in a car to try and free her, not Mary. 'She's a strong girl, isn't she?' I asked.

  'You think so?'

  'She gives that impression. Feisty is a word that comes to mind.'

  McLiam shrugged. 'I don't know. Maybe she is. It's difficult to tell in a family situation, brothers and brothers, brothers and sisters, they're always battling it out ... they can be so different with other people.'

  'These people that have her, that you think have her, would they harm her? Would they harm her even though she was your sister?'

  McLiam nodded his head slowly. 'They wouldn't give it a second thought.'

  'And do you still support what they do?'

  'Passionately.'

  39

  'Hi, Mal,' I said, a foot in the door as soon as it opened, 'thought you'd be out with the troops.'

  Malachy Doherty didn't know me from Eve, but he knew Marcus McLiam all right. His jaw moved, but nothing came out. His eyes blinked helplessly. His sudden metamorphosis from a sun-shy sickly white to bright-pink burny was more suited to a chameleon in a strawberry blancmange than a born-again Irish patriot in a Manhattan brownstone. He stood in the doorway, a blue towelling dressing gown tied loosely about his waist; it did little to hide the bulging breasts that dominated his scraggy-haired chest. He was round. He was fat. His bulk suggested not so much a taste for the good things in life as a taste for the big things in life. Given better circumstances he might have given Sissy an admiring glance as she pushed past him, but he was too shocked to admire anything.

  He stood to one side as McLiam and I entered behind Sissy. She had her gun drawn. It was a revolver of some description and it had once been Stanley Matchitt's. Big. Nothing dainty like you'd find on a Southern belle or a riverboat gambler, but something that could blow a fist-sized hole through your heart. She checked each room while I stood admiring the decor and McLiam stared at his colleague.

  'But Marcus. ..' Doherty began, his voice a rare mix of fear and hangover, his brow heavy under a sudden sweat.

  Before he could finish McLiam raised a hand to silence him. 'Mal, don't start off a conversation with a "but", you know an excuse is bound to follow.'

  'But. . .'

  'You're not listening to me, Mal. There are no excuses.'

  I looked at my watch. 'Parade's about to kick off,' I said to McLiam. He nodded. We'd already skirted the parade route at speed, already been annoyed by the shrill of fife and cat-strangling me-me men.

  Sissy returned to the lounge. 'No sign of her, 'less she's a heavy smoker, room in there's turned gold with the nicotine.'

  McLiam shook his head. 'She doesn't smoke.'

  Sissy poked the gun into Doherty's chest. 'You should listen to the Surgeon General. Smoking can seriously damage your health.

  So can this, and it's cheaper. Now where's the girl?' Doherty raised his hands.

  McLiam snorted. 'No need for that, Mal, I doubt you're carrying a concealed weapon and I've seen more threatening pieces of cheese.'

  Doherty shook his head and dropped his arms. Sissy removed the gun muzzle from his chest; a little red impression showed through his wiry hair. 'I'm sorry, Marcus,' he spluttered quickly and rubbed his hand across his damp scalp. 'It wasn't my idea.'

  'Where is she?' McLiam snapped. 'It's more than my life's worth, Marcus.'

  'Cliche,' I said.

  'Just give us the address,' said McLiam, and poked him in the chest.

  'I'm a dead man if I do,' moaned Doherty.

  'Cliche,' I said.

  'Honestly, Marcus, they'll have my guts for garters.'

  Now that was a line I could relate to. McLiam appreciated it too. He grabbed Doherty's cheeks and began to twist them. Up. Down. Across. At home it was a method of torture known for obscure reasons as the L-pan and practised widely by small boys denied access by virtue of age and poverty to more sophisticated means of inducing pain, terriers who could only dream of one day being rich enough to afford a Black & Decker for the instant removal of kneecaps. L-pans, though, were just as effective. In half a minute Doherty was on his knees groaning. McLiam gave another twist for good measure. 'C'mon, Mal, save yourself some pain. Where is she?'

  Doherty finally raised a hand. 'Okay! Okay I' he squealed, and McLiam let him go. He fell forward onto his elbows, then slowly righted himself and raised two hands to his cheeks and began to massage them. 'Jesus,' he said, 'Jesus Christ Almighty.'

  McLiam stood over him. 'I work with you, day in, day out, for the greater goodness of Ireland. I buy you drinks, you fuckin' old soak, keep your arse out of trouble and then you do this to me.'

  'I'm sorry, Marcus. They made me.'

  'The big boys made me do it,' McLiam chided. 'I swear to Christ.'

  'Sure, Mal. My sister, Mal.'

  'I know, Marcus, I'm sorry. They swore nothing would happen to her. Nothing has happened to her. She's okay, she's just. ..'

  'Being held hostage. Lovely. So give me the address. Tell me who has her. Tell me the plan.. .'

  'I don't know any plan, Marcus. Look at me for Christ sake, do I look like someone they'd explain their plans to?'

  I nudged McLiam's elbow. 'Never trust a man with a low opinion of himself.'

  McLiam gave me a little smile. 'That has all the hallmarks of a brand new cliche.'

  I shrugged. I tapped my watch again. 'We'd better move.' McLiam put his hand out to Sissy. She gave him the gun. He handled it gingerly.

  'Know what you're doing, son?' I asked. He nodded. 'I watch a lot of films.'

  'Aye.'

  'And I meet a lot of shady characters.'

  'Aye.'

  He placed the gun against the back of Doherty's head. 'I'm a pacifist by nature, Mal, you should know that. But family's family, so speak now or Starkey here'll be for ever holding your tongue.' Doherty swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on me, big bulgy eyes like someone had once tried to strangle him, then lost interest, but the eyes had stayed out in shock. 'Those guys arrived a few weeks ago...' he spat out. McLiam pushed the gun further into his head. 'Jesus, Marcus, I'm tellin' ya ... those guys, the three of them, they arrived from Derry ... you met them, everyone was running around after them ... you met them, Mar-'

  'The councillors, the Sinn Fein counc
illors?'

  'Aye, call them what you want... I thought maybe they were out trying to buy guns ... it happens from time to time...'

  'They were here to lobby...'

  'Aye, so they said. Someone told them about your sister...'

  'Someone?'

  'I was drunk ... I was just talking ... I didn't think...'

  'You never do. . .'

  'I didn't mean anything by...'

  'You never do. You just sold me down the river in an orange crate.'

  'I was just chatting. Just slabbering. You know how it is. Then they got nasty. Started slapping me about. Wanted to know everything I knew about her ... I mean, what did I know? I talked to you some, you told me some more ... they took it from there. I didn't know what they were going to do. But Jesus, Mal, I was scared. I couldn't warn you. They said they'd..

  'So where is she?'

  'I don't know. I wasn't part of it.'

  'Well, where are they? It amounts to pretty much the same.'

  'They wouldn't keep her where they were staying.'

  'Says who?'

  'Jesus, Marcus, they wouldn't be that stupid.'

  'Of course they would. We're Irish, we're supposed to be stupid. Now where the fuck are they?'

  'As far as I know they're still in their hotel, but I don't know anything for sure, I locked myself in here as soon as the whole thing started. I wanted nothing to do with it. I'm just sorry I couldn't tell you, but it was more than my...'

  'Which fucking hotel?'

  'The Mirage, it's...'

  'I know where it is,' I said quickly. I still had a couple of their towels stuffed in my rucksack. 'We all stayed there first time round in New York.'

  'If they have her in the same hotel, they have a nerve,' said Sissy.

  'It's not likely, is it? McLiam asked. 'The same hotel?'

  'Likely?' I said. 'Likely doesn't come into it. Nothing likely has happened since I arrived in this stupid country. But is it possible?'

  'It's possible,' said Sissy.

  'To keep someone hostage in one of New York's most prestigious hotels for ... what, over a week?' McLiam asked. 'Honey, for the right money, you' could keep an elephant hostage in one of New York's most prestigious hotels.'

  'Or a whale,' I said.

  McLiam pulled the gun away from Doherty's head. 'Okay. All we can do is find out. What about Sad Sam here?'

  Doherty's head swivelled back towards McLiam, eyes pleading.

  'Go and get her back, Marcus. I won't say a word.'

  'Won't and can't are quite different things, Mal.'

  'I swear.'

  'That carries a lot of weight, though not as much as you. Mal, you have fucked me over something shocking, and I'm telling you now that if I ever see you again I'll kill you. Do you understand?' Doherty nodded. His dressing gown was soaked with sweat. 'Okay,' said McLiam, handing Sissy her gun back, 'we're off.'

  He wagged a warning finger at Doherty. 'If you warn them, we'll know, and we'll come looking for you. You understand?'

  'Of course. I won't say a word. I swear to God.'

  'Swear to whoever the fuck you want, but do it quietly. They hear anything at all, you're a dead man.'

  'I swear to Christ.'

  'Okay,' said McLiam, 'let's go.'

  'Good luck,' said Doherty, still on his knees, as we headed for the door.

  'Aye,' said McLiam.

  Outside, the party had started, the celebration of everything Irish carried out with such tack and misplaced nationalism that it made me proud to be British, though only just.

  Winter might have been heaving its last bad breath along the streets of the city, but the city was fighting back with an early spring of its own creation. Everything that could sprout green did. Doors were painted. Bunting hung. Shamrocks, deprived of their natural environment, sprouted instead from ten thousand lapels, a heaving mass unconsciously celebrating the holy trinity and slowly dying at the same time. On a comer we passed one of New York's finest mounted on a green horse. Green beer sloshed already in the gutter. Old men pondered on when to get teary-eyed for maximum effect. German barmen sharpened their Irish accents. In side streets a thousand kilties squeezed, their bagpipes. Noraid rubbed its hands and prepared to count the cash. It was, as Oscar Wilde had said, although it was one of his less widely quoted epigrams, a lot of shite.

  And we were stuck in the middle of it. We could only get the car so far. Too many streets were sealed off for the parade, a parade which would be led by Bobby McMaster. The ex-Loyalist thug from Crossmaheart would force a smile and wave at ten thousand born-again Republicans and then spit out through gritted teeth a speech to inspire more terror in the country of his birth. Then he would fight the most dangerous man on earth for a cheap belt for his waist and the life of his wife, or, more likely, face humiliating defeat in the ring, and the murder of his beloved.

  If we hadn't known better we might have thought that the police were deliberately blocking off every street we chose to drive along, always just staying a block ahead of us. Finally Sissy could take the car no further. She pulled up behind a line of cars. Twenty yards up, a police crash barrier blocked the road. Before she could reverse half a dozen vehicles crammed in behind us. She blared her horn and screamed out of the window, but to no avail.

  McLiam and I got out of the back. Sissy slapped the wheel, cursed, then clambered out.

  'Are you not going to stay with it?' I said.

  'You stay with it if you want to.'

  'But...'

  'It's not my car. Poodle Clay can afford a thousand more.'

  'Okay.' McLiam had already broken into a trot. 'Hey!' I shouted. 'Hold on!'

  He turned back and waved me on. I shrugged at Sissy. 'We'll have to run.'

  'What're you implying?'

  'I'm not implying anything. I just said we'll have to run.'

  'I can run with the best of them.'

  'I'm not doubting that you can, Sissy.'

  'Will you fuckin' hurry up!' McLiam screamed. He was already a hundred yards down the road.

  I started running. 'Find McMaster, Sissy,' I shouted back, 'stick with him.'

  She shouted something back, but it was lost in a blast of car horn.

  Within a couple of blocks I had caught McLiam. He may have had the enthusiasm of a do-gooding pacifist but he also had the stitch of a couch potato. I eased up beside him.

  'You don't get enough exercise,' I said. His face was puffed red and he'd already broken into a thick sweat.

  'Thanks for the tip,' he said between gasps, but they were determined gasps, he kept his rhythm, kept his pace.

  We reached 42nd Street. The neon hadn't dulled any in respect for St Patrick. We pushed through the crowds, already ten deep, onto Broadway, then ducked under the crowd control barriers and started running again. A cop shouted at us. We ignored him. He lifted his radio but then dropped it as someone else ducked under the barriers and attempted to cross the road.

  Up ahead, the Mirage.

  'What's the plan then?' I asked between puffs.

  McLiam shook his head. 'This is all new territory to me. You done stuff like this before?'

  I laughed. 'Sure.'

  'What do you recommend then?'

  'We just run right up to reception and ask for the Hostage Suite.'

  'As simple as that?'

  'Of course.'

  'And you remembered to get the gun off Sissy?'

  'Shite,' I said. There was always something.

  Finding their suite was a cinch, for American hotel staff are nothing if not helpful. Gaining access to it was another matter entirely.

  For a start, they had posted a guard outside it. We weren't too put out by that, as it kind of indicated that there might be something inside worth guarding, like a damsel in distress. Luckily he was stationed two-thirds of the way up a very long corridor and gave no indication of noticing us as we hesitated and then passed by its mouth.

  We stopped about twenty yards further up
. I leant against the wall; McLiam stood in the centre of the corridor, fingers bunched into fists at his sides.

  'Recognize him?' I asked softly. Everything else was quiet and my voice fell into step with it. It was a time for some contemplation after running ourselves ragged and then wheezing through the lobby. When we had first arrived in New York, the Mirage had seemed so bright and welcoming, but those had been largely carefree days, before the Sons, before the kidnap, and now the corridors seemed darker, shrunken almost.

  McLiam shook his head. 'Too far away. Doesn't look familiar though.'

  I shrugged. 'Doesn't matter much. He's still in the way. What'll we do?'

  'Besides calling the police?'

  I nodded. 'I've never been one for brave or selfless acts. But I think this one's down to us.'

  McLiam nodded too. 'Aye. But I'd feel a lot better about a brave or selfless act if I had a gun. We're completely weaponless, aren't we?'

  'I've a blue biro. And a rapier-like wit.'

  McLiam sniggered. His fists relaxed for a moment. 'Aye, and I have my lethal left foot.' He swung it out, arching it mock professionally. 'We could challenge them to a game of football, I'll score the goals, you write a damning report.' He dropped his foot again, shook his head slightly. 'God, this is stupid. She's in there and we're out here doing nothing.'

  'We're not doing nothing and it's not stupid. We're the only two doing anything. We're not the bloody SAS, Marcus, we haven't always got to have a master plan.'

  'I know. I'm sorry, it's just...'

  'There's always the old dependable.' He looked up, hopefully. 'Room service. Just go right up and bluff our way in. I'm sure we could liberate some uniforms from somewhere.'

  'Aye.' Disdainful. 'You've been watching too many old movies.'

  'If I'd watched too many movies, I would have extricated myself from this one before the first reel was up. Okay, room service wouldn't work. Just a thought.'

  'We could just walk right up. I'll tell them it's my sister they're holding, and we'll take it from there.'

  'You mean negotiate for her release?' McLiam nodded. 'Talking never hurt anyone.'

  'Rubbish. You can't talk to terrorists. They give you peace with one hand, then change their names and punch you with the other.

  Violence is the only thing these people understand.'