“You mean the one with the baby?”
“Yes. You noticed she’d a baby—what woman wouldn’t? But if someone tidied her up and gave her some clean clothes, would you be able to pick her out in a lineup?”
“Uh … I don’t know, Blade.”
“You probably couldn’t. I know I couldn’t.”
And Blade knew with near-certainty that he’d passed Carol Merrigan many times on the street. He’d been so close to Angel that he could have touched her. He turned to Sweetman.
“Look, can you give me a few minutes alone?” He handed her his keys. “Take the car. I want to have a stroll in the park; clear my head.”
“Sure, Blade.”
He watched her go, dark hair bouncing on her collar, then turned into the gate of St. Stephen’s Green. Time to think.
* * *
He found Sweetman in the office in the company of Lawrence Redfern when he got back to Harcourt Square a little after three-thirty.
“Somebody’s been trying to get in touch with you for ages,” his assistant said. “She rang again an hour ago. Says it’s urgent.” She passed the message to Macken. He read it. The number told him it belonged to a cellular phone.
“Would you excuse me a minute?”
Blade went out into the corridor and made the call.
“It’s Blade.”
“Gosh, at last. You do like to keep a girl waiting, don’t you?”
“Busy times. Sorry. I got a message saying that you need to speak to me urgently.”
“I do, darling,” she replied in a voice that caused a slight distention at the front of Macken’s trousers. “And it can’t wait. Are you free this evening?”
“Ehh, no. Sorry, Elaine; it’s really out of the question. It’ll have to be some other time.”
“Criminals to catch again?”
“Yes.”
“Then what I have to tell you ought to interest you, Blade darling.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Criminals, Blade. If I say the name Don Delahunt, does that get your attention?”
And she told him some of what she knew. About her meeting an hour earlier with the mistress of a country mansion in County Kildare; about her growing suspicions. Elaine had Blade’s attention.
“Look,” he said, “I really want to see you.”
“Then why don’t you?”
The manufacturers of French cigarettes had a lot to answer for, Macken decided. But: “It’s not the best time, Elaine. It really isn’t. Look, can I call you on—”
“I have the goods, Blade. On Delahunt, and more. It won’t wait. Nor will I.”
“Elaine, please try to understand. I’m trying to do a job here.”
“So am I, darling.”
At last Blade understood. He should have cottoned on sooner—he knew that. In other circumstances he might have done so, but …
“You’re a journalist, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me that before?” He was peeved, very.
“Let’s not talk about it over the phone, yeah? Why don’t you come to my place this evening? Forty-six Upper Mount Street. Say about nine?”
Blade’s relative privacy was abruptly disturbed by the appearance of the assistant commissioner. He was accompanied by Gareth Smyth of the Emergency Response Unit.
“In my office, Macken,” Duffy said. “Two minutes.”
Blade nodded, flustered. Then he told Elaine: “I’ll come. But only for half an hour.”
“That’s sounds good enough for me, darling,” she said, and hung up.
* * *
Sweetman and Redfern were also present. The bulletin board in Duffy’s room had a new addition: a large photograph of a woman in her late twenties. Macken was drawn to it.
Angel.
“The lads in Crumlin talked to as many of the neighbors as they could,” Duffy said. “They called her ‘the witch,’ did you know that? Rob McGrath used the descriptions to put that together. It’s probably the nearest we’ll get to the real thing.”
The head was shown three-quarters on, yet McGrath had contrived to have the eyes staring straight into the “camera.” It was eerie; they followed you about the room. Tangled, unbrushed hair framed the face, a face lined like that of an old woman. Blade didn’t know that face any longer.
“Every station in Dublin should have a copy of that picture by now,” Duffy said. “If Pluto is on the move, then we might just spot her. But I’ve given strict orders that she’s on no account to be approached.”
“Very wise,” Blade said.
“There’s one other thing.” Duffy consulted a typed report on the desk. “It’s puzzling. Some of the neighbors insisted there were two people living in that house.”
Macken had a sense of dread. “Two?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t attach too much significance to it, Blade. You know yourself how unreliable witnesses can be. But the fact remains that at least four people claim they saw somebody else come and go. On more than one occasion. They described her as being an elderly woman. White hair. With a pram.”
“May I see that, sir?”
Duffy handed him the report. Blade read it quickly.
“I think it was her, sir. Pluto. It must have been. I think she was using more than one disguise.” He turned back to the picture on the bulletin board. “This is what she normally looks like. A knacker. It’s good; it had me fooled. But we’ve no guarantee that this is the disguise she’s wearing at the moment.”
“Are you trying to tell me that half McGrath’s work was for nothing? Are we going to have to put out a picture of her looking like an old granny as well?”
“No,” Blade said resignedly. “No, don’t bother, sir. I don’t think we’re going to find her, one way or the other. I think she has us beaten on that score. She holds all the cards. When she wants to speak to us, she phones. When she wants to see us, we do it on her terms. Our hands are tied.”
“My God,” Duffy said quietly, “I never thought I’d hear defeatist talk like that from you, Blade.”
Blade want to the “photograph” again. The eyes seemed to mock him.
“No, not defeatist, sir. No way. She’s won a couple of rounds, but the real fight is still to come.”
Thirty-six
The residents of the neighboring apartment blocks called it “Beirut.” Aptly, because the place looked as though it had taken heavy and prolonged shelling. Few of the building’s windows were intact. Fires, whether accidentally or deliberately started, had gutted several of the apartments. The open space in front, at ground level, was every mother’s nightmare: the garbage was a hell of broken glass, discarded car batteries, putrid waste, and hypodermic needles.
There was no sign that anybody was living there, yet Blade knew that the apartment block housed at least one crack house. If you wished to disappear from sight for a while then that address on Sheriff Street was where to do it.
Blade had wanted four men, including himself, for the operation. It had to be fast; he needed men who knew the place, could get in and out in double-quick time. He’d approached the drug unit at Store Street police station, the obvious choice, but they could put only two officers at his disposal.
Lawrence Redfern had volunteered his services.
“Let me come with you, Blade,” he’d said. “I’ve been twiddling my goddamn thumbs for days here. I could use some action. Besides, I like to see how you guys work.”
Blade had agreed. On one condition.
“No guns, Redfern. That’s not the way we do things here. You’ll have to check in your piece, like it or lump it. This isn’t—”
“Grenada. I know.”
Blade had smiled at that. “Actually what I was going to say is: This might not be the best time to mention it, but are you people authorized to carry weapons here?”
It had been Redfern’s turn to smile. He hadn’t replied to Blade’s question. But at least he’d left his hardware behind.
So here they were, Macken at the whe
el of a “company car”—a battered old Ford, used in a robbery and impounded at the Square. The two Drug Squad men sat in back; young detectives whose appearance allowed them to pass unremarked on in these surroundings—shaved heads, earrings, the clothing of the street. John and Joe.
Redfern had swapped his double-breasted suit for a soiled anorak and jeans; a mariner’s cap was perched on his head. Blade was in his Reeboks again.
He parked the car between two similar wrecks at one side of the apartment block and turned to the men in the backseat.
“You have the mug shots. Dominic is the one to look out for—the one with the beard. He’s a dangerous fucker, mad as a March hairball. But don’t underestimate the brother either.”
“Right, sir. Do we all go in together?”
“No, we’ll do it two floors at a time. You lads take the ground floor and Redfern and I’ll take the first, then you the second, and so on.”
“Can you run that past me again, Blade?” Redfern said with a puzzled look. “I thought you wanted to cover two floors at the same time?”
“I do.”
Understanding dawned.
“Damn, I forgot you Americans had it arseways, as usual. Oscar Wilde was right: We’re separated by a common language. Let’s try it again. The lads search the ground floor—that’s the first floor in the States—while you and me search the one above it—second floor to you—at the same time. Then they search the … Jesus, this is giving me a headache!”
One of the men in the backseat patted Macken’s shoulder. “It’s all right, chief,” he said. “We’ve got it. Just for convenience’ sake, we’ll do it the American way. So we’ll take the first floor—the ground floor—and yooze’ll take the second, okay?”
Redfern was sizing up the building. “Is there a back way? If that’s so, then maybe we ought to split up further.”
Joe shook his head.
“You can only come and go from the two sides. There’s stairs up to each floor and balconies along the whole length of the building.”
“No elevators—lifts?”
Joe laughed. “They were out of action a week after the very first tenants moved in and they haven’t worked since.”
“Okay,” Blade said. “You and John take this entrance; we’ll take the one at the far end. And be careful. We’ll maintain radio contact at all times.”
He watched the two move through the debris, past a group of ragged, ill-fed children who were burning something on a small bonfire. Blade was almost sure it was the corpse of a dog.
Redfern and Macken waited until the narcotics men were inside. Then they left the car and crossed to the other entrance, taking their time. The children ignored them.
The doorway was almost blocked by a stinking mattress whose cheap stuffing lay partly exposed. They stepped over it and entered a stairwell. Heaps of flyblown excrement littered the steps. The stench was horrific. Redfern, though, seemed to take it all in his stride.
Macken wondered where the American had been, what he’d experienced in the service of the CIA. Then he remembered reports of the agency’s clandestine work in a number of Latin American countries. The worst of their inner-city slums were probably not very much different from “Beirut,” Sheriff Street. Human degradation looks and smells the same the world over.
* * *
They came upon the first of the crack houses about halfway along the second floor. It had no door; that had most likely been used for firewood a winter or two before. The apartment was gutted of furniture and hangings; all that remained were two more evil-smelling mattresses and a packing case, its top scorched in many places. The concrete floor was littered with shards of glass: the remnants of capsules that had carried the deadly crack cocaine.
Blade found a wallet, mildewed. It contained no cash or credit cards; nothing except a passport photograph of a well-dressed man, and a medical prescription. He tossed it back among the junk and thumbed his walkie-talkie.
“Anything, lads? Over.”
“Not a thing, sir. We’re nearly through down here. Over.”
“Right. Watch your arses now. Over and out.”
Redfern was trying to decipher something scrawled on a wall. He gave it up. “We could be wasting our time, Blade.”
“We could. But my sources are reliable. If the Prices haven’t popped out for a quick pint, they’ll be here right enough. It’s just a matter of finding their rathole.”
“Wait.” Blade stood rock-still and put a finger to his lips. He’d heard something moving on the floor above. Then the radio squawked, as his young colleagues called in, and he learned that the footsteps had been theirs.
The fourth floor was somewhat more habitable than the second, with no sign of a crack house or other indications of recent activity on that level. Nevertheless, Redfern and he made sure to tread as silently as they could, skirting carefully each broken bottle and crushed beer can.
A radio was playing.
In the corner apartment, the last one on the block. It commanded a clear view of the area, right up to Connolly train station. The song was “Every Breath You Take,” an old ’70s number by The Police. Blade heard part of the lyrics—“Every move you make, every step you take, I’ll be watching you”—and thought the words strangely appropriate, given the circumstances.
The apartment still had a door but there was no glass in the windows. Blade ducked low and crept to the nearer one. He raised his head and looked in.
The place was a pigpen. It showed signs of having been used by a succession of vagrants, each of whom had left something behind to add to the filthy accumulation of old clothing, bedding, broken utensils, bottles, food containers, and beer cans. Somebody had taped a poster of Pamela Anderson to the wall years before; others had daubed the image with obscene graffiti and impossible additions to an already impossible bustline.
A man was seated with his back to the window. He was dressed in a dirty, white singlet and brown cords. His hair was red, and when he moved his head slightly to one side, Blade caught a glimpse of a full beard. Dominic Price.
The ghetto blaster announced the range of bargains to be had at Power City: a portable television set for less than one hundred pounds, a washing machine for a similar sum. Macken motioned to Redfern to join him.
“They’re inside,” he whispered. “One of them at least.”
“What’s the procedure here? Do we bust the door down?”
Blade smiled. “It’d probably fall in of its own accord if we leaned too heavily on it. No, we’ll be polite and knock.”
Redfern seemed not too happy with this.
“Umm, it’s your show, Blade, but I hope you know what you’re doing, is all.”
“Trust me.”
“Okay, but shouldn’t we call the boys?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Blade said. His walkie-talkie was in his hand. He was about to give the word when a shadow came between him and the early evening sun.
“Well, well,” a voice said, as Blade squinted, “what have we got here? On your fucking feet, gentlemen!”
A shotgun is an unsettling weapon. Never, ever argue with a shotgun when it’s pointed at close range. The user doesn’t even need to aim a shotgun properly; it will punch a gaping hole right through you, especially when its barrel has been sawed off. And, at close quarters, it’ll take out anybody crouching behind you as well.
It had been several years since Blade had looked down the barrel of a weapon raised in anger. He appreciated now that it was an experience you had to relive from time to time in order to keep your nerve. He rose slowly to his feet, hands above his head, and was conscious of Redfern’s heavy breathing at his back.
They should have checked round the side of the building. Sloppy, very sloppy.
“In the house,” Paddy Price ordered.
The door was open now and his brother made way for the unexpected guests.
“Drop the radio,” he said to Blade.
It bounced and came to rest nex
t to an old pizza box. Dominic picked it up and studied it.
“Well, well. I believe we’ve been honored by a visit from the Guards, Paddy. Isn’t that nice?” To Macken and Redfern he said: “Down on yer knees, boys, and hands behind the heads.”
Paddy passed the gun to his brother. Dominic pulled a rickety chair nearer and sat down facing the captives, the weapon resting in his lap. His pale blue eyes were inscrutable.
“What were yiz looking for?”
“Drugs,” Blade said. “We heard there’s a crack house here.”
“Is that a fact? A shame now—we smoked the last of the crack for breakfast. The most we can offer yiz is a nice cuppa tea.”
“I’ll go and stick the kettle on,” Paddy said. He grinned, and Blade noticed that the teeth on one side of his jaw were missing.
“How many of yiz are there?” Dominic asked.
“A dozen. We’re combing the building.”
“I on’y saw one car, Dommo. I think there’s on’y four of the cunts.”
“We’ve more men round in back,” Redfern said. “The place is surrounded. Best put the gun down; it’ll make things easier.”
Merciful hour, Blade thought, why couldn’t the Yank just keep his bloody trap shut? But the damage had been done. Dominic Price’s eyes narrowed.
“Ah now, what have we here?” He moved the shotgun into an upright position, holding a finger curled around its twin triggers. “Who’s your furry friend? Dick fucking Tracy?”
“Sergeant Larry Redfern of the DEA,” the American said. “That’s the Drug Enforcement Administration to you.”
“I know what it is,” Dominic Price said. “But what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Special assignment,” Redfern answered evenly. “Now put the gun down and there won’t be any trouble.”
Price cackled. “Jayziz, for a guy who’s on his fucking knees you’ve got some fucking neck. Now tell me why I shouldn’t just waste the pair of yiz and have done with it.”
Redfern had no time to reply because Macken’s radio crackled at that moment.
“Sir, we’re done on this floor. No sign of the Prices. Over.”
Shite.
Dominic was on his feet, eyes wild, gun pointed now at Macken. His brother stared at the instrument in his hand.
The Angel Tapes Page 22